“Oh no, no… I don’t want BOOKS.”
And there was just the hint of a barb in that. It was as if she had chosen
books as a symbol of HIS world, just as flowers were to be of HERS. The
books, too, were increasing all the time; some of them came as review copies
addressed to the Guardian by publishers who did not realize how small and
unimportant the paper was; many he bought, a few were sent him as chairman of
this or that municipal committee. He had no collecting spirit, no special
desire to make a show of what he had read. Yet as the books filled up the
room, and new shelves had to be rigged till they covered most of the wall
space, he could not help a little pride in them to match Livia’s pride (and
his own too) in the transformed dumping- ground below. And his pride grew
definite from the moment that Councillor Whaley, visiting him once while
Livia was out, exclaimed: “George, I reckon this must be just about the best
library in Browdley—in anyone’s house, I mean. What does your wife
think about it?”
“LIVIA?… Why… why do you ask that?”
“Only because she once worked in a library herself—I thought maybe
books were in her line too.”
“No,” George answered. “She likes gardening better.” And he took Tom to
the window and pointed down to the rectangle of cleared ground. “She says
she’ll plant roses.”
“Why, that’ll be fine.” And then as an afterthought: “Nobody’ll see it,
though—except you. Maybe that’s the idea—to give you something to
look at.”
George smiled. “I don’t know, Tom. But MY idea is that it gives her an
interest in life. She needs it—since losing the boy.”
“Naturally. But I’ll tell you what, George, if you don’t mind plain
speaking from an old bachelor.” He whispered something in George’s ear about
Livia’s youth and having more children. “Aye,” George replied heavily, and
changed the subject.
Martin’s death seemed to bring him into immediate
friendship with Father
Wendover. Neither ever referred to the curious ‘coincidence’ that both must
often have recollected; nor did the priest talk much from the standpoint of
his profession. He showed, however, considerable interest in George’s family
background, and once he said: “You’d have made a fine upstanding atheist,
George, if only your father had lived a bit longer.”
“Maybe,” George answered, “but Uncle Joe didn’t continue the training, and
the result is I’m no more an atheist today than you are… Not that he was
AGAINST religion, mind you. He even sent me to Sunday school.”
“Why?”
“To be frank, I think it was because he thought Sunday schools were a good
way of giving kids something to do when they were too dressed-up to do
anything else.”
“An appalling idea.”
“Oh, I don’t know. He was all right.” George mused for a moment. “It’s odd
we should be discussing him, because I dreamed about him the night Martin
died… Aye, he was all right. And he liked his Sundays too—in his own
way. To my father they were days of gloom and mystery and foreboding, and
that was the way he wanted ‘em, but to my uncle they were nice comfortable
days when you had a late breakfast and took a walk along the canal-bank while
dinner was cooking and then had a snooze in the afternoon and high tea at
five o’clock—and that was the way HE wanted ‘em.”
“Did he ever go to church?”
“Aye, when he felt like it. It’s true he felt like it less and less as he
grew older, but he still counted church as part of a proper Sunday programme.
He used to say he’d attend regularly if only Aunt Flo were a bit better on
her feet, and he’d have liked to put more in the collection plate if only he
hadn’t lost so much in cotton investments, and he’d have been proud as Punch
if I’d had a voice to sing in the choir—but I hadn’t… Altogether what
he’d have liked to do was so well-meaning you could hardly call him
irreligious, while what he actually did was so little that he interfered with
nobody—not even me.”
Wendover, having watched George’s face during all this with a growing
conviction that its look of guilelessness was sincere, now slowly smiled. “Is
that your portrait of a good man, George?”
“Well, he was good to me,” George answered, simply.
Trade remained sluggish in the town, but the Guardian,
owing mainly to
Livia’s reorganization, began to show a small profit. George was then able to
give her more money, but she seemed to care as little about it as about
anything else over which he had any control. Yet she did not mope, brood, or
look particularly unhappy. Nor did she nag, upbraid, or quarrel. It was
merely that she seemed in some peculiar way to have withdrawn into a world of
her own, where George was not invited nor could have followed her if he had
been.
One evening early in 1921 he came home after a long day out of the town on
municipal business, having left in the morning before she was awake. But now,
hearing him enter, she came scampering down the stairs, and at the instant of
recognition he gasped with the sensation of pain suddenly switched off inside
him. Then, as always when he saw her afresh after even a few hours’ absence,
recognition dissolved into a curious feeling of never having seen her before,
but of experiencing some primitive thrill that the few years of their
marriage had neither enhanced nor made stale. Whatever that was to him, it
had been from their first moment of meeting and would be till their last; it
was something simple that only became complex when he sought to analyse it.
Just now he was glad to hold her in a brief hug of welcome and feel that
everything was miraculously all right, even if it wasn’t, and that nothing
needed explaining, even if it did.
He said he was sorry he was late, and she answered brightly: “Oh, that’s
all right—the dinner won’t spoil. Lamb stew—can’t you smell
it?”
He sniffed hard and joyfully; lamb stew was one of his favourite dishes,
and he would relish it all the more from thinking that perhaps she had
prepared it to please him.
“Ah,” he gasped.
“And we’ll have it in the kitchen to save time,” she said, evidently
reaching an impromptu decision. “Annie—did you hear? We’ll all eat in
the kitchen, so hurry up.”
That was like her; the knack of taking short cuts to get what she wanted
—the quick plan, or change of plan, generally based on something so
elemental that only a child could have avoided the mistake of reading into it
more than was there. This eating in the kitchen, for instance, had nothing to
do with any feeling on Livia’s part that Annie was an equal (only George
could, and did, sometimes think of such a thing); really, it was just that
Livia was hungry and, as with all her desires, could not bear to be kept
waiting. George was generally amused by this, and often quoted the occasion
when, having attended a Council meeting at which he presided, she had left
exclaiming: “Oh, George, I’ll NEVER go to one of those affairs again! They
drive me silly—all that proposing and seconding and moving the
nominations closed and appointing a sub-committee to report to the next
meeting… No wonder nothing ever gets done!” But something DOES get done,
had been George’s slightly hurt rejoinder—unspoken, however, because he
knew she would then argue that what he called SOMETHING was not much more
than what she called next to nothing…
But now, walking after her into the kitchen, his spirits rose, crowning
the physical ease that came over him as he entered the warm small room and
sat at the scrubbed table between the gas-stove and the meat-safe. A curious
half-painful happiness clutched at him as he watched her across the
table-top; she was, he had to admit, as sheerly fascinating to him as ever,
with those dark, almost violet-blue eyes that glowed rather than sparkled and
gave her whole face a rapt, almost mystic expression; the hair so straw- pale
that it could look white against mere gold, the mouth too big for the nose,
but the nose so small and perfect that he had sometimes thought that if he
were a sculptor he would model it and stick it on a model of someone else’s
face—yet he had never found that more matching face, and doubtless
never would.
She was talking—most unusually for her—about events of the
day, conditions in Europe, and how interesting it must be to visit foreign
countries now that the basic comforts of peace-time travel had begun to
return.
“Aye,” he agreed. “I’ll bet it’s interesting. I’ve got a book about
post-war Europe if you’d like to—”
“Oh, I don’t mean BOOKS, George. It isn’t here where you can understand
things always”—and she touched her head—“it’s more like
THIS—” and he expected her to touch her heart, but instead she put up
her small fist and shook it in his face, laughing meanwhile. “Oh, George
—you and your books and meetings and speeches…”
He did not mind the mockery he was accustomed to, especially as she seemed
so happy over it. She went on chattering till the meal was ended; then, as
they left the kitchen for Annie to wash up, he said—and it was the
truth: “Livia, that’s the best lamb stew I ever tasted. How about a cup of
tea with me in the study before I get down to some work?”
“You’ve got work to do tonight?”
“Aye—just a bit to finish up. The Education Committee meets tomorrow
and I’ve got to hammer at them again for that new school.”
She accompanied him to the study and presently Annie brought in tea. He
was so happy, sitting there with her, in his own room with the books in it,
and with her own garden below the window outside. And suddenly, as if to
signalize the height of his content, the vagrant thought came to him that
this was the moment, if a man were a smoker, to light up a pipe, or a cigar,
or a cigarette. He laughed to himself at the notion, and then had to tell her
what he had been laughing at.
“Well, why don’t you?” she asked. “I’ve got some cigarettes.”
“Nay… I was only joking, Livia.”
“But George, if you WANT to—”
“I don’t want to—it was just that now would be the time if I ever
did want to.”
And then he saw her face cloud over as if something in his words had sent
her into a new mood. She went to the window, stared out over the dark garden
for a moment, then turned round and said very quietly: “Now’s the time for me
too. George, I want to leave you.”
“WHAT?” The happiness—so passing, so brief—drained away from
mind and body, so that he felt older by years within seconds. “Livia… WHAT?
WHAT’S THAT?”
“I—I MUST leave you, George.”
“But, Livia—WHY—what on earth—” He was on his feet and
crossing the room towards her.
“No, George—don’t—don’t… Or you can if you like— I
don’t mind. It isn’t that I’ve changed in how I feel toward you. And there’s
nobody else… but I’m not happy, George, since Martin died.”
“Livia—my little Livia—neither am I—you know that
—but after all—” And then he could only add:
“I thought you DID look happy tonight.”
“That’s because I’d made up my mind.”
“To do what?”
“To leave you, George.”
Then she went into further details. It seemed that years before (and he
had never known this) she had been to some school in Geneva and had made
friends with local people there; she had lately been in correspondence with
them and they had asked her to visit them and stay as long as she liked. So
she had accepted.
“But…” And even amidst his unhappiness the germ of optimism began to
sprout. “But, Livia—that’s another matter altogether! You have friends
in Geneva, so you want to spend a holiday with them! Well—why not, for
heaven’s sake?” And he began to laugh. “My little Livia’— what a
dramatic way of putting it—that you’re going to LEAVE me! Of course you
are—for as long as you like—I daresay you DO need a
holiday—I’d come with you if I could spare the time—but as you
know, I can’t. I don’t mind you going at all—or rather, I don’t mind so
much, because although I’ll miss you I’ll be happy knowing you’re having such
a good time.”
“I may not have a good time, George.”
“Of course you will, and when you’ve had enough of it you’ll come back to
smoky old Browdley like a new woman. I’ll take care of things here while
you’re away—I’ll look after Becky—”
“Oh no, I’ll take Becky with me.”
“You will?… All right, if you want. Anything you want… You’re run
down, Livia—a holiday’s just what you need—I’m sure a doctor
would say so. And don’t worry about money—I’ll go to the bank tomorrow
and see if there’s a bit extra I can find for you…”
“Thank you, George, but I have enough… And now I know you want to
work.”
“I did want to, but I don’t know as I’ll do much after this. When—
when are you going to go?”
“Tomorrow. I have all the tickets and things and I’m pretty nearly
packed.”
“Oh, Livia, LIVIA…” And for a moment the battle was on again between
despair and optimism, the latter winning by a hairline in the end. “All
right, Livia—all right.”
“Good night, George. Please do your work. Please.” And she ran out of the
room.
A little later, when he went up to bed, she was asleep. He smiled gently
and with relief as he saw her thus, for he had already schooled and drilled
his optimism, and that she could sleep so soon, as calmly as a child, was
reassurance to all his hopes; while into his bones, as he watched her quiet
breathing through slightly parted lips, there came an ache of pity for her
—as if in sleep she told the plain wordless truth, that it was not in
his power to make her happy enough. She was so small, so mysterious, and to
him a part of something so incurable that he wondered, watching her in the
light that came in from a street lamp, what would have happened had he been a
shade less eloquent at that Council meeting three years earlier—if, for
instance, the voting had been seventeen to fifteen AGAINST the motion instead
of FOR it? Why, then, so far as he could see, he would never have met Livia
at all. And he would have taken that second examination according to plan and
have obtained his university degree. And possibly also he would have won the
by-election that would have sent him to Parliament as member for Browdley.
And also he would not have known such happiness, or such unhappiness
either…