Anne Severn and the Fieldings - May Sinclair
At the same time he was sorry for Maisie. He didn't want her to suffer,
and if she was not to suffer she must not know, and if she was not to
know they must go on as they had begun. He was haunted by the fear of
Maisie's knowing and suffering. The pity he felt for her was poignant
and accusing, as if somehow she did know and suffer. She must at least
be aware that something was wanting. He would have to make up to her
somehow for what she had missed; he would have to give her all the other
things she wanted for that one thing. Maisie's coldness might have made
it easy for him. Nothing could move Jerrold from his conviction that
Maisie was cold, that she was incapable of caring for him as Anne cared.
His peace of mind and the freedom of his conscience depended on this
belief. But, in spite of her coldness, Maisie wanted children. He knew
that.
According to Jerrold's code Maisie's children would be an injury to
Anne, a perpetual insult. But Anne would forgive him; she would
understand; she wouldn't want to hurt Maisie.
So he went through with it.
And now he made out that mercifully, incredibly, he was being let off.
He wouldn't have to go on.
He stood by Maisie's bed looking down at her as she lay there. She had
grasped his hands by the wrists, as if to hold back their possible
caress. And her little breathless voice went on, catching itself up and
tripping.
"You won't mind--if I don't let you--come to me?"
"I'm sorry, Maisie. I didn't know you felt like that about it."
"I don't. It isn't because I don't love you. It's just my silly nerves.
I get frightened."
"I know. I know. It'll be all right. I won't bother you."
"Mother said I oughtn't to ask you. She said you wouldn't understand and
it would be too hard for you. _Will_ it?"
"No, of course it won't. I understand perfectly."
He tried to sound like one affectionately resigned, decently renouncing,
not as though he felt this blessedness of relief, absolved from dread,
mercifully and incredibly let off.
But Maisie's sweetness hated to refuse and frustrate; it couldn't bear
to hurt him. She held him tighter. "Jerrold--if it _is_--if you can't
stand it, you mustn't mind about me. You must forget I ever said
anything. It's nothing but nerves."
"I shall be all right. Don't worry."
"You _are_ a darling."
Her grasp slackened. "Please--please go. At once. Quick."
As he went she put her hand to her heart. She could feel the pain
coming. It filled her with an indescribable dread. Every time it came
she thought she should die of it. If only she didn't get so excited;
excitement always brought it on. She held her breath tight to keep it
back.
Ah, it had come. Splinters of glass, sharp splinters of glass, first
pricking, then piercing, then tearing her heart. Her heart closed down
on the splinters of glass, cutting itself at every beat.
She looked under the pillow for the little silver box that held her
pearls of nitrate of amyl. She always had it with her, ready. She
crushed a pearl in her pocket handkerchief and held it to her nostrils.
The pain left her. She lay still.
iii
And every Sunday at six in the evening, or nine (he varied the hour to
escape suspicion), Jerrold came to Anne.
In the weeks before Maisie's coming and after, Anne's happiness was
perfect, intense and secret like the bliss of a saint in ecstasy, of
genius contemplating its finished work. In giving herself to Jerrold she
had found reality. She gave herself without shame and without remorse,
or any fear of the dangerous risks they ran. Their passion was too clean
for fear or remorse or shame. She thought love was a finer thing going
free and in danger than sheltered and safe and bound. The game of love
should be played with a high, defiant courage; you were not fit to play
it if you fretted and cowered. Both she and Jerrold came to it with an
extreme simplicity, taking it for granted. They never vowed or protested
or swore not to go back on it or on each other. It was inconceivable
that they should go back on it. And as Anne saw no beginning to it, she
saw no end. All her past was in her love for Jerrold; there never had
been a time when she had ceased to love him. This moment when they
embraced was only the meeting point between what had been and what would
be. Nothing could have disturbed Anne's conscience but the sense that
Jerrold didn't belong to her, that he had no right to love her; and she
had never had that sense. They had belonged to each other, always, from
the time when they were children playing together. Maisie was the
intruder, who had no right, who had taken what didn't belong to her. And
Anne could have forgiven even that if Maisie had had the excuse of a
great passion; but Maisie didn't care.
So Anne, unlike Jerrold, was not troubled by thinking about Maisie. She
had never seen Jerrold's wife; she didn't want to see her. So long as
she didn't see her it was as if Maisie were not there.
And yet she _was_ there. Next to Jerrold she was more there for Anne
than the people she saw every day. Maisie's presence made itself felt in
all the risks they ran. She was the hindrance, not to perfect bliss, but
to a continuous happiness. She was the reason why they could only meet
at intervals for one difficult and dangerous hour. Because of Maisie,
Jerrold, instead of behaving like himself with a reckless disregard of
consequences, had to think out the least revolting ways by which they
might evade them. He had to set up some sort of screen for his Sunday
visits to the Manor Farm. Thus he made a habit of long walks after dark
on week-days and of unpunctuality at meals. To avoid being seen by the
cottagers he approached the house from behind, by the bridge over the
mill-water and through the orchard to the back door. Luckily the estate
provided him with an irreproachable and permanent pretext for seeing
Anne.
For Jerrold, going about with Anne over the Manor Farm, had conceived a
profound passion for his seven hundred acres. At last he had come into
his inheritance; and if it was Anne Severn who showed him how to use it,
so that he could never separate his love of it from his love of her, the
land had an interest of its own that soon excited and absorbed him. He
determined to take up farming seriously and look after his estate
himself when Anne had Sutton's farm. Anne would teach him all she knew,
and he could finish up with a year or two at the Agricultural College in
Cirencester. He had found the work he most wanted to do, the work he
believed he could do best. All the better if it brought him every day
this irreproachable companionship with Anne. His conscience was appeased
by Maisie's coldness, and Jerrold told himself that the life he led now
was the best possible life for a sane man. His mind was clear and keen;
his body was splendidly fit; his love for Anne was perfect, his
companionship with her was perfect, their understanding of each other
was perfect. They would never be tired of each other and never bored. He
rode with her over the hills and tramped with her through the furrows in
all weathers.
At times he would approach her through some sense, sharper than sight or
touch, that gave him her inmost immaterial essence. She would be sitting
quietly in a room or standing in a field when suddenly he would be thus
aware of her. These moments had a reality and certainty more poignant
even than the moment of his passion.
At last they ceased to think about their danger. They felt, ironically,
that they were protected by the legend that made Anne and Colin lovers.
In the eyes of the Kimbers and Nanny Sutton and the vicar's wife, and
the Corbetts and Hawtreys and Markhams, Jerrold was the stern guardian
of his brother's morals. They were saying now that Captain Fielding had
put a stop to the whole disgraceful affair; he had forced Colin to leave
the Manor Farm house; and he had taken over the estate in order to keep
an eye on his brother and Anne Severn.
Anne was not concerned with what they said. She felt that Jerrold and
she were safe so long as she didn't know Maisie. It never struck her
that Maisie would want to know _her_, since nobody else did.
iv
But Maisie did want to know Anne and for that reason. One day she came
to Jerrold with the visiting cards.
"The Corbetts and Hawtreys have called. Shall I like them?"
"I don't know. _I_ won't have anything to do with them."
"Why not?"
"Because of the beastly way they've behaved to Anne Severn."
"What have they done?"
"Done? They've been perfect swine. They've cut her for five years
because she looked after Colin. They've said the filthiest things about
her."
"What sort of things?"
"Why, that Colin was her lover."
"Oh Jerrold, how abominable. Just because she was a saint."
"Anne wouldn't care what anybody said about her. My mother left her all
by herself here to take care of him and she wouldn't leave him. She
thought of nothing but him."
"She must be a perfect angel."
"She is."
"But about these horrible people--what do you want me to do?"
"Do what you like."
"_I_ don't want to know them. I'm thinking what would be best for Anne."
"You needn't worry about Anne. It isn't as if she was _your_ friend."
"But she _is_ if she's yours and Colin's. I mean I want her to be.... I
think I'd better call on these Corbett and Hawtrey people and just show
them how we care about her. Then cut them dead afterwards if they aren't
decent to her. It'll be far more telling than if I began by being
rude.... Only, Jerrold, how absurd--I don't know Anne. _She_ hasn't
called yet."
"She probably thinks you wouldn't want to know her."
"Do you mean because of what they've said? That's the very reason. Why,
she's the only person here I do want to know. I think I fell in love
with the sound of her when you first told me about her and how she took
care of Colin. We must do everything we can to make up. We must have her
here a lot and give her a jolly time."
He looked at her.
"Maisie, you really _are_ rather a darling."
"I'm not. But I think Anne Severn must be.... Shall I go and see her or
will you bring her?"
"I think--perhaps--I'd better bring her, first."
He spoke slowly, considering it.
Tomorrow was Sunday. He would bring her to tea, and in the evening he
would walk back with her.
On Sunday afternoon he went down to the Manor Farm. He found Anne
upstairs in the big sitting-room.
"Oh Jerrold, darling, I didn't think you'd come so soon."
"Maisie sent me."
"Maisie?"
For the first time in his knowledge of her Anne looked frightened.
"Yes. She wants to know you. I'm to bring you to tea."
"But--it's impossible. I can't know her. I don't want to. Can't you see
how impossible it is?"
"No, I can't. It's perfectly natural. She's heard a lot about you."
"I've no doubt she has. Jerrold--do you think she guesses?"
"About you and me? Never. It's the last thing she'd think of. She's
absolutely guileless."
"That makes it worse."
"You don't know," he said, "how she feels about you. She's furious with
these brutes here because they've cut you. She says she'll cut _them_ if
they won't be decent to you."
"Oh, worse and worse!"
"You're afraid of her?"
"I didn't know I was. But I am. Horribly afraid."
"Really, Anne dear, there's nothing to be afraid of. She's not a bit
dangerous."
"Don't you see that that makes her dangerous, her not being? You've told
me a hundred times how sweet she is. Well--I don't want to see how sweet
she is."
"Her sweetness doesn't matter."
"It matters to me. If I once see her, Jerrold, nothing'll ever be the
same again."
"Darling, really it's the only thing you can do. Think. If you don't,
can't you see how it'll give the show away? She'd wonder what on earth
you meant by it. We've got to behave as if nothing had happened. This
isn't behaving as if nothing had happened, is it?"
"No. You see, it has happened. Oh Jerrold, I wouldn't mind if only we
could be straight about it. But it'll mean lying and lying, and I can't
bear it. I'd rather go out and tell everybody and face the music."
"So would I. But we can't.... Look here, Anne. We don't care a damn what
people think. You wouldn't care if we were found out to-morrow----"
"I wouldn't. It would be the best thing that could happen to us."
"To us, yes. If Maisie divorced me. Then we could marry. It would be all
right for us. Not for Maisie. You do care about hurting Maisie, don't
you?"
"Yes. I couldn't bear her to be hurt. If only I needn't see her."
"Darling, you must see her. You can't not. I want you to."
"Well, if you want it so awfully, I will. But I tell you it won't be the
same thing, afterwards, ever."
"I shall be the same, Anne. And you."
"Me? I wonder."
He rose, smiling down at her.
"Come," he said. "Don't let's be late."
She went.
v
In the garden with Maisie, the long innocent conversation coming back
and back; Maisie's sweetness haunting her, known now and remembered.
Maisie walking in the garden among the wall flowers and tulips, between
the clipped walls of yew, showing Anne her flowers. She stooped to lift
their faces, to caress them with her little thin white fingers.
"I don't know why I'm showing you round," she said; "you know it all
much better than I do."
"Oh, well, I used to come here a lot when I was little. I sort of lived
here."
Maisie's eyes listened, utterly attentive.
"You knew Jerrold, then, when he was little, too?"
"Yes. He was eight when I was five."
"Do you remember what he was like?"
"Yes."
Maisie waited to see whether Anne were going on or not, but as Anne
stopped dead she went on herself.
"I wish _I_'d known Jerry all the time like that. I wish I remembered
running about and playing with him.... You were Jerrold's friend,
weren't you?"
"And Elliot's and Colin's."
The lying had begun. Falsehood by implication. And to this creature of
palpable truth.
"Somehow, I've always thought of you as Jerrold's most. That's what
makes me feel as if you were mine, as if I'd known you quite a long
time. You see, he's told me things about you."
"Has he?"
Anne's voice was as dull and flat as she could make it. If only Maisie
would leave off talking about Jerrold, making her lie.
"I've wanted to know you more than anybody I've ever heard of. There are
heaps of things I want to say to you." She stooped to pick the last
tulip of the bunch she was gathering for Anne. "I think it was perfectly
splendid of you the way you looked after Colin. And the way you've
looked after Jerry's land for him."
"That was nothing. I was very glad to do it for Jerrold, but it was my
job, anyway."
"Well, you've saved Colin. And you've saved the land. What's more, I
believe you've saved Jerrold."
"How do you mean, 'saved' him? I didn't know he wanted saving."
"He did, rather. I mean you've made him care about the estate. He didn't
care a rap about it till he came down here this last time. You've found
his job for him."
"He'd have found it himself all right without me."
"I'm not so sure. We were awfully worried about him after the war. He
was all at a loose end without anything to do. And dreadfully restless.
We thought he'd never settle to anything again. And I was afraid he'd
want to live in London."
"I don't think he'd ever do that."
"He won't now. But, you see, he used to be afraid of this place."
"I know. After his father's death."
"And he simply loves it now. I think it's because he's seen what you've
done with it. I know he hadn't the smallest idea of farming it before.
It's what he ought to have been doing all his life. And when you think
how seedy he was when he came down here, and how fit he is now."
"I think," Anne said, "I'd better be going."
Maisie's innocence was more than she could bear.
"Jerry'll see you home. And you'll come again, won't you? Soon.... Will
you take them? I gathered them for you."
"Thanks. Thanks awfully." Anne's voice came with a jerk. Her breath
choked her.
Jerrold was coming down the garden walk, looking for her. She said
good-bye to Maisie and turned to go with him home.
"Well," he said, "how did you and Maisie get on?"
"It was exactly what I thought it would be, only worse."
He laughed. "Worse?"
"I mean she was sweeter.... Jerrold, she makes me feel such a brute.
Such an awful brute. And if she ever knows--"
"She won't know."
When he had left her Anne flung herself down on the couch and cried.
All evening Maisie's tulips stood up in the blue-and-white Chinese bowl
on the table. They had childlike, innocent faces that reproached her.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
XV
ANNE, JERROLD, AND MAISIE
i
It was a Sunday in the middle of April.
Jerrold had motored up to London on the Friday and had brought Eliot
back with him for the week-end. Anne had come over as she always did on
a Sunday afternoon. She and Maisie were sitting out on the terrace when
Eliot came to them, walking with the tired limp that Anne found piteous
and adorable. Very soon Maisie murmured some gentle, unintelligible
excuse, and left them.
There was a moment of silence in which everything they had ever said to
each other was present to them, making all other speech unnecessary, as
if they held a long intimate conversation. Eliot sat very still, not
looking at her, yet attentive as if he listened to the passing of those
unuttered words. Then Anne spoke and her voice broke up his mood.
"What are you doing now? Bacteriology?"
"Yes. We've found the thing we were looking for, the germ of trench
fever."
"You mean _you_ have."
"Well, somebody would have spotted it if I hadn't. A lot of us were out
for it."
"Oh Eliot, I am so glad. That means you'll stamp out the disease,
doesn't it?"
"Probably. In time."
"I knew you'd do it. I knew you'd do something big before you'd
finished."
"My dear, I've only just begun. But there's nothing big about it but the
research, and we were all in that. All looking for the same thing.
Happening to spot it is just heaven's own luck."
"But aren't you glad it was you?"
"It doesn't matter who it is. But I suppose I'm glad. It's the sort of
thing I wanted to do and it's rather more important than most things one
does."
He said no more. Years ago, when he had done nothing, he had talked
excitedly and arrogantly about his work; now that he had done what he
had set out to do he was reserved, impassive and very humble.
"Do Jerrold and Colin know?" she said.
"Not yet. You're the first."
"Dear Eliot, you _did_ know I'd be glad."
"It's nice of you to care."
Of course she cared. She was glad to think that he had that supreme
satisfaction to make up for the cruelty of her refusal to care more.
Perhaps, she thought, he wouldn't have had it if he had had her. He
would have been torn in two; he would have had to give himself twice
over. She felt that he didn't love her more than he loved his science,
and science exacted an uninterrupted and undivided service. One life
hadn't room enough for two such loves, and he might not have done so
much if she had been there, calling back his thoughts, drawing his
passion to herself.
"What are you going to do next?" she said.
"Next I'm going off for a month's holiday. To Sicily--Taormina. I've
been overworking and I'm a bit run down. How about Colin?"
"He's better. Heaps better. He soon got over that relapse he had when I
was away in February."
"You mean he got over it when you came back."
"Well, yes, it was when I came back. That's just what I don't like about
him, Eliot. He's getting dependent on me, and it's bad for him. I wish
he could go away somewhere for a change. A long change. Away from me,
away from the farm, away from Wyck, somewhere where he hasn't been
before. It might cure him, mightn't it?"
"Yes," he said. "Yes. It would be worth trying."
He didn't look at her. He knew what she was going to say. She said it.
"Eliot--do you think you could take him with you? Could you stand the
strain?"
"If you could stand it for four years I ought to be able to stand it for
a month."
"If he gets better it won't be a strain. He isn't a bit of trouble when
he's well. He's adorable. Only--perhaps--if you're run down you oughtn't
to."
"I'm not so bad as all that. The only thing is, you say he ought to get
away from you, and I wanted you to come too."
"Me?"
"You and Maisie and Jerrold."
"I can't. It's impossible. I can't leave the farm."
"My dear girl, you mustn't be tied to it like that. Don't you ever get
away?"
"Not unless Jerrold or Colin are here. We can't all three be away at
once. But it's awfully nice of you to think of it."
"I didn't. It was Maisie."
Maisie? Would she never get away from Maisie, and Maisie's sweetness and
kindness, breaking her down?
"She'll be awfully disappointed if you don't go."
"Why should she be?"
"Because she wants you to."
"Maisie?"
"Yes. Surely you know she likes you?"
"I was afraid she was beginning to--"
"Why? Don't you want her to like you? Don't you like _her_?"
"Yes. And I don't want to like her. If I once begin I shall end by
loving her."
"My dear, it would be the best thing you could do."
"No, Eliot, it wouldn't. You don't know.... Here she is."
Maisie came to them along the terrace. She moved with an unresisting
grace, a delicate bowing of her head and swaying of her body, and
breathless as if she went against a wind. Eliot gave up his chair and
limped away from them.
"Has he told you about Taormina?" she said.
"Yes. It's sweet of you to ask me to go with you----"
"You're coming, aren't you?"
"I'm afraid I can't."
"Why ever not?"
"I can't leave the land for one thing. Not if Jerrold and Colin aren't
here."
"Oh, bother the old land! You _must_ leave it. It can get on without you
for a month or two. Nothing much can happen in that time."
"Oh, can't it! Things can happen in a day if you aren't there to see
that they don't."
"Well, Jerrold won't mind much if they do. But he'll mind awfully if you
don't come. So shall I. Besides, it's all settled. He's to come back
with Eliot in time for the hay harvest, and you and I and Colin are to
go on to the Italian Lakes. My father and mother are joining us at Como
in June. We shall be there a month and come home through Switzerland."
"It would be heavenly, but I can't do it. I can't, really, Maisie." She
was thinking: He'll be back for the hay harvest.
"But you must. You can't go and spoil all our pleasure like that.
Jerrold's and Eliot's and Colin's. _And_ mine. I never dreamed of your
not coming."
"Do you mean you really want me?"
"Of course I want you. So does Jerrold. It won't be the same thing at
all without you. I want to see you enjoying yourself for once. You'd do
it so well. I believe I want to see that more than Taormina and the
Italian Lakes. Do say you'll come."
"Maisie--why are you such an angel to me?"
"I'm not. I want you to come because--oh _because_ I want you. Because I
like you. I'm happy when you're there. So's Jerrold. Don't go and say
you care more for the land than Jerrold and me."
"I don't. I--It isn't the land altogether. It's Colin. I want him to get
away from me for a time and do without me. It's frightfully important
that he should get away."
"We could send Colin to another part of the island with Eliot. Only that
wouldn't be very kind to Eliot."
"No. It won't do, Maisie. I'll go off somewhere when you've come back."
"But that's no good to _us_. Jerrold will be here for the haying, if
you're thinking of that."
"I'm not thinking of that. I'm thinking of Colin."
As she said it she knew that she was lying. Lying to Maisie. Lying for
the first time. That came of knowing Maisie; it came of Maisie's
sweetness. She would have to lie and lie. She was not thinking of Colin
now; she was thinking that if Jerrold came back for the hay harvest and
Maisie went on with Colin to the Italian Lakes, she would have her lover
to herself; they would be alone together all June. She would lie in his
arms, not for their short, reckless hour of Sunday, but night after
night, from long before midnight till the dawn.
For last year, when the warm weather came, Anne and Colin had slept out
of doors in wooden shelters set up in the Manor fields, away from the
noises of the farm. A low stone wall separated Anne's field from
Colin's. This year, when Jerrold came home, Colin's shelter had been
moved up from the field to the Manor garden. In the summer Anne would
sleep again in her shelter. The path to her field from the Manor garden
lay through three pastures and two strips of fir plantation with a green
drive between.
Jerrold would come to her there. He would have his bed in Colin's
shelter in the garden, and when the night was quiet he would get up and
go down the Manor fields and through the fir plantation to her shelter
at the bottom. They would lie there in each other's arms, utterly safe,
hidden from passing feet and listening ears, and eyes that watched
behind window panes.
And as she thought of his coming to her, and heard her own voice lying
to Maisie, the blood mounted to her face, flooding it to the roots of
her hair.