They say that jealousy is caused by fear, or a lack of self-confidence, or a feeling of insecurity; but I am under the impression that I felt supremely confident in so far as Lorna was concerned. Nevertheless, I felt the pangs of jealousy most acutely.
In the six days that followed, I visited Lorna on two other occasions, and each time I acted with circumspection, well knowing that to attempt to hasten matters would result in showing me to be the false friend that, in fact, I was. But on each occasion, I contrived to let fall some further hint, some little indication that Beatrice, in her own way, loved Bartels; that for Lorna to encourage a divorce without being romantically in love with Bartels would merely cause him, in the end, to feel the same sense of frustration as he felt at the moment.
In this, I think that I was correct, though I did not act out of a sense of what was right, but simply because I desired the woman for myself. I would have done the same even had I thought I was wrong.
The jealousy which I felt naturally attacked me most fiercely on those evenings when I knew, by one means or another, that Bartels was with her.
It wasn’t any use telling myself that I was a better man than Bartels, and that in the end I would win. I knew it. But it did not prevent pictures forming in my mind. Pictures of Bartels with his arm round Lorna, on the settee in her comfortable drawing room; of Bartels spending long hours with Lorna’s head upon his shoulder, his hand on hers, while the fat roly-poly corgi dozed in front of the fire.
Worst, of course, was the almost unbearable thought of Bartels kissing her, and her lips responding, of Bartels taking her in his arms and telling her how much he loved her.
It came to the point that, when I met Bartels, the sight of his wide mouth, which had formerly only amused me, now filled me with disgust. A dull, painful anger burned in my stomach at the thought that those colourless, thin lips should ever be allowed to press upon Lorna’s mouth.
On such evenings, when I knew they were together, I would find myself compelled to go out, to a theatre, or a cinema; anywhere, rather than remain at home and imagine what was going on at Thatchley. Sometimes, out of a morbid sense of twisted humour, I would call on Beatrice.
Beatrice suspected nothing.
She was accustomed to him going away for two or three nights a week on a provincial tour selling his wines. She trusted him completely, and she was convinced that, whatever her emotional failings, he needed her and his well-being depended upon her; that without her, without her organizing ability, her strength of mind, he would be miserable and lost. There was no doubt in her mind on that score whatever. She made this clear to me many times in casual little remarks.
“I don’t know where he’d be if he hadn’t me to organize him a bit,” she would say affectionately. Then she would sigh a little and smile. Right up to the end, to the time when he went to Manchester and bought the altrapeine with which to poison her, and even later, Beatrice Bartels thought that her husband needed her.
So much for women’s intuition. I never believed much in it. I believe even less now.
On Friday afternoon, 23 February, I decided to drive down to Bartels’ cottage. I knew that Bartels would be with Lorna all that afternoon and early evening, and the thought of it, as usual, filled me with a restless resentment.
I lunched at my club, but my mood was such that the food was repulsive to me, and I left a great deal of it untouched. After lunch I strolled into the smoking room, and ordered coffee and a brandy. I tried to read some papers and periodicals, but found nothing in them to interest me.
Such people as I talked to bored me, and I have no doubt that I bored them, too.
I felt so restless that I got up and went into the billiards room, and played a game with the marker. I played abominably. My imagination was at work, my mind was elsewhere. I was thinking that at any moment Bartels would be arriving. I could see him drawing up at the front door in his old twelve-horse-power car, and Lorna Dickson greeting him on the threshold.
I could see them going into the drawing room together, and sitting together. I could see Bartels fondling her, and the sight of it so disturbed me that in the middle of the game I suddenly walked to the end of the room and returned my cue to the stand.
The marker looked at me curiously. I made some excuse about an appointment, but it was clear that he thought I was suffering from pique at my lack of skill-not that it mattered a damn to me what he was thinking.
The theatre and cinema guide showed nothing which appealed to me. So on the spur of the moment, I decided to drive down to Bartels’ weekend cottage, near Balcombe. I would take advantage of the open invitation which was extended to me, and spend the night with them. Beatrice, I knew, would be there, and possibly I would take her to a local hotel, in the early evening, where we could usually find one or two people we knew.
At the back of my mind was the thought that I would know exactly when he had returned from visiting Lorna: directly I was certain he was no longer with her, my peace of mind would return.
I drove back to my flat, packed a few things in a suitcase, and set off. I wish a thousand times, now, that I had not gone.
But I could not have foreseen what I would find there, or the quandary in which I would be placed.
You reached the cottage by one of two ways. You could either follow the road round, and turn in at the front gate and arrive at the front door, or you could turn off down a narrower road, leave the car, pass through a small gate at the bottom of the garden, and walk up through the vegetable gardens, via the tree-fringed lawn, and enter the house by the French windows, in summer, or else by way of the kitchen door. This was a shorter route.
The cottage lay in a hollow, and although you had to slow up a little to take the turning into the narrower road, you could, with a certain amount of luck and dash, coast down the last three or four hundred yards with the engine switched off. If you slowed up in the slightest degree before reaching the corner, perhaps to pass a cyclist, you lost just enough momentum to necessitate switching the engine on again.
But nothing got in my way that day, and I coasted down to the back gate, feeling the usual childish pleasure which one experiences after minor triumphs of this kind.
It was a beautiful evening, cold but cloudless, and the day was just fading when I arrived. The sun had set, but there was a red blaze still in the sky beyond the wood by the side of the cottage.
I sat for a moment relaxing, for I had driven fast, and the speed and the control of the car had done me good, and for a while I had even forgotten Bartels and Lorna. I sucked in the clean, cold air, and wondered why the devil I lived in London.
A horse neighed in the distance, and some rooks were still cawing their belated way home. I could see the warm glow of a fire shining through the windows of the drawing room, and guessed that Beatrice, good housewife and efficient as ever, would have tea ready for anybody who might call in. Ready, even, for Barty, I thought bitterly.
It was all wonderfully peaceful and, with the vision it conjured up of muffins and toast, essentially English. The scene was not one in which to anticipate a shock of any kind, but the shock was awaiting me. Not a shock evoked by violence, by murder, or physical wounding, but a pretty big shock all the same.
I climbed out of the car, and as I did so a little wind sprang up and shook the trees at the bottom of the garden. The door by the driving seat had sunk a trifle on its hinges, so that instead of slamming it I had to lift it slightly and push it shut.
I wish now that I had had that hinge repaired when I had first intended, days before, but I had postponed doing so. It might have saved me a good deal of heartache, and-I suppose-remorse.
I passed through the vegetable garden, walking along the side, on the grass path, and so came to the little lawn, with the trellis-work and ramblers which partly screened off the vegetable garden.
There were a few apple and pear trees on each side of the lawn, and I followed the grass path through them, and came to a gravel path, which ran round the back of the house. It was an old path, still damp from the morning’s rain, and very mossy in places.
I thought of going round to the kitchen door, but instead crossed the path and went up to the French windows, thinking that Beatrice could let me in.
The blazing fire lit up the room, but otherwise there was no lighting. I could see the deep armchairs near the fire, and the writing table in the window with its silver ink-pots, and two little carved ivory elephants; and the glass-fronted bookcase against one wall, and the corner cupboard where they kept the drinks.
I could also see, at an angle to the window, the big settee, and Beatrice upon it, her arms round the neck of a man whose lips were pressed upon hers. He was bending over her, and because the top of his head was towards me, and the light was dim, I did not recognize John O’Brien until, after some seconds, and for some reason unknown, he looked up and saw me.
I heard him murmur something to Beatrice, and saw him stand up and automatically straighten his tie and smooth his dark hair with his hands. I saw Beatrice sit bolt upright, suddenly and quickly, and she, too, put her hands to her hair.
It was difficult to know what to do. I had a quick tempting thought that it might be better to walk away, back to the car, as though I had seen nothing; and greet them some other day as though the incident had never happened.
I might have done so, except that even while I hesitated, the first dim realization of what this involved for me was beginning to emerge.
I decided to compromise, to walk round to the kitchen door, slowly, giving them time to recover, and then allow John or Beatrice to make the running. If they said nothing, I would be content to say nothing, at any rate for the time being.
I moved away from the window, but I had not gone more than two or three paces when the French window was opened, and John’s voice called:
“Hey, Pete!”
I looked round, and tried to put a surprised tone into my voice.
“Why, hullo, John! I was just descending upon Beatrice and Barty for a breath of fresh air.”
“The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold,” said John, with a bitter little laugh. “Well, come in this way.”
“Thanks,” I said and retraced my steps, and entered the drawing room by the French window which he was holding open for me.
Beatrice was standing by the fire.
“Hullo, Beatrice,” I said. “Got a bed for a poor London sparrow with soot in his lungs?”
“Of course I have, Pete. You know that, or you wouldn’t be here.”
In the incredibly quick way in which women can do these things, she had managed to straighten her hair and clothes, and even plump up the cushions on the settee, all within the few seconds which had elapsed since I had turned away from the French windows.
She stood with her hands behind her back, her fine hazel eyes meeting mine without flinching. She was smiling, in friendly and hospitable fashion. Only her chin was a little higher than usual. There followed a short conversation which, in the circumstances, was the most futile I have ever taken part in. We were all trying so desperately hard to appear normal. The only real normal living creature in the room was the dog, Brutus. Sleepy with age, he lay with his big, square, white-and-brown bulk stretched out before the fire.
“God, what a lovely evening,” I said.
“Isn’t it absolutely heavenly?” said Beatrice.
“Should be fine tomorrow, too, judging by the sunset,” said John.
“I don’t know why I live in London.”
“Nor me,” said John. “Why not make the break, like I did?”
“Maybe I will, one day.”
“Have you had tea?” asked Beatrice.
“Not yet.”
“I’ll put the kettle on.”
“Don’t make it specially for me.”
“We haven’t had any yet, either.”
“I could do with a cup,” said John, and I thought: That doesn’t surprise me, either, brother.
“Or even two,” said John facetiously. Or even, I thought, a bloody great whisky and soda, but that’s just what you can’t have, because it’s too early.
“And some toast,” John plunged on bravely. “Lashings of toast. Eh, Beatrice?”
Maybe it was a case of telepathy, because he paused for a moment, and then said: “Or would you prefer a whisky and soda, to warm you up after the drive? I expect Beatrice could provide it.”
I suppose he would have made some pretext to join me in one, to judge by the hopeful way he was looking at me.
“I think I’d just as soon have a cup of tea, thanks,” I said.
There was a pause. Beatrice moved to the door.
“I’ll take my bag up to my room,” I said at last.
I went upstairs. Beatrice went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. After a few moments, I heard John join her, and they talked in low tones. I began to unpack, very slowly, for I wanted to give them time to sort things out. After about a quarter of an hour I went down to the drawing room, and found tea laid out on a gate-legged table before the fire.
Beatrice and John were sitting side by side on the settee, eating crumpets. I sat down in one of the deep armchairs, and helped myself to a crumpet from the dish which John passed to me. Beatrice poured me out a cup of tea.
Nobody spoke for about two minutes, and I thought: They’re going to have the matter out with me. If they weren’t, they would have started to talk trivialities. They are going to get down to business. I waited patiently for one or other of them to make a move.
John spoke first. He wiped some butter from his lips with his pocket handkerchief, and drained his teacup, and replaced it on the table, and turned his rather heavy red face towards me and said:
“Well, now you now, don’t you?”
“Know what?”
“Now you know how things stand between Beatrice and me.”
I hesitated. “Yes,” I said, “yes, I do.”
He nodded. Beatrice was looking down at her fingernails, hands in her lap.
“At least,” I added, “I know how things appear to stand. But appearances can be deceptive. I saw you kissing her, if that’s what you mean.”
“That is exactly what I mean.”
“Yes, well, it’s no business of mine,” I went on. “I’m not married to Beatrice. It’s no concern of mine to cause trouble. Beatrice is not the first girl to have a bit of a flirtation in her husband’s absence.”
Neither of them said anything.
“As far as I’m concerned,” I finished, “I’ve seen nothing. The firelight can play strange tricks. It’s not for me to pass on stories which could be based on a figment of the imagination.”
In my opinion it was a pretty fair offer. I had not yet become fully involved personally in the implications of what I had seen.
Beatrice wouldn’t have it that way. Beatrice, the courageous, the clear thinker, the woman who faced every issue fairly and squarely, declined the easy escape.
“It is not a flirtation,” she said, flatly. “I’m in love with John. And he says he’s in love with me. That is the position.”
The lamplight fell on her red hair, and in the same light her skin looked creamy white and rose. She looked beautiful and very seductive. There was no trace of shame in her demeanour. There was no tremor in her voice. Yet to call her shameless would be unfair; she was more a fearless woman who recognized that a certain situation had arisen and was prepared to cope with the consequences.
“That’s the position,” she said again, when I remained quiet.
“I suppose you’re quite sure?” I asked.
“Quite sure,” replied John firmly, and loudly.
“Absolutely,” said Beatrice.
“Divorce?” I said, looking directly at Beatrice. I saw John place his hand over hers on the settee, and surmised that the subject had been pretty thoroughly discussed.
She shook her head. “No, no divorce.”
“Not-ever?” I said.
“No, not ever. I made a bargain with Barty, and I’ll keep it. If I thought he didn’t need me so much, I think-well, I think I would. But I’m all he’s got to hang on to, you know. His job is a bit of a failure.”
She reached forward to toss a log on to the fire. Then:
“I’m still very fond of him, you know. And I can’t stand the thought of what he might do if I left him.”
“Do you mean he might commit suicide?”
“Not so much that.”
“What, then?”
Beatrice made a vague little gesture with her hand. “Oh, I don’t know. Drink, perhaps. And his clothes would all go to pot. And he might get the sack. Or get caught on the rebound by some untidy little slut who would drag him down.”
“What do you think, John?” I looked at him.
I had always liked old John, with his Irish lightheartedness, even though I had thought he was rather self-indulgent in matters of food and wine. I thought he might oppose her.
“Beatrice knows him best,” said John softly. “She honestly thinks that Barty would go to pieces without her. She may be right. The poor chap hasn’t had much fun out of life.”
I felt my heart beginning to beat faster. In a few words I could set their consciences at rest, make them two of the happiest people in England, and settle Barty’s problem for him, too.
“I’m so terribly sorry for him,” said Beatrice suddenly. “I remember not long ago he returned late one night, very cold and tired. I had written him a little note to cheer him up, and left it with a mince pie. I heard him read the note as I lay in bed, half asleep. Then he got into his bed, and I put out my hand to him, and in the end he went to sleep. He was so cold and tired, you know. I was glad he didn’t have to come back to an empty flat. That’s what would happen if I went away with John.”
“He works too hard,” said John, and got up to put another log on the fire. “And it doesn’t get him anywhere. That’s the trouble. He’ll never make a really good salesman.”
“Too modest,” said Beatrice. “Too modest and gentle. I think I could do it, if he was a real success, if he was making lots of money.”
“As it is, you can’t,” said John. “That’s ironic, really. He’s a failure at his job, and because he is a failure he’s a success with the one person in the world who matters. Queer, isn’t it?”
Beatrice caught the bitterness in his voice.
She reached out and gripped his hand and held it tight, and looked up at him.
I thought: Bartels was right. There is indeed one man in the world with whom she can be in love, and now she has found him.
But by now, ruthless as ever in the pursuit of that which I desired, I had made up my mind what to do. Just as I had planted and watered a seed of doubt in Lorna’s mind, so now I crushed all generous thoughts about revealing the true position to Beatrice and John O’Brien. For if Philip Bartels obtained his freedom from Beatrice, I should lose Lorna.
I had no intention of losing Lorna.
Doubtless Bartels, that over-kind man, would have acted differently. But Bartels was a failure in life. I was not. So I did not hesitate for long.
I spoke quietly and a little sadly, in the tone of voice of one who has deliberated deeply, and has come to the conclusion that however unpleasant his decision it must nevertheless be announced: the old family friend doing his stuff, the trusted adviser, impartial and benevolent, throwing his opinion into the scales. What hypocrisy it was!
“Would you like my views?” I asked mildly. And before they could reply I continued: “I think-I’m afraid Beatrice is right.”
She turned quickly and looked at me, and then looked away. It was only a glance, yet I thought I caught a flash of pain behind her eyes as though she had hoped, in spite of all she had said, that I would counter her arguments with some of my own.
I thought I saw, too, a tinge of despair. As if all hope were now indeed lost. I regretted it, but it did not deter me.
“I think he would be pretty lost without Beatrice,” I said. “I think he would certainly try to kill the pain in some fashion, quite possibly with drink. And I think that he might well end up by losing his job. He’s hardly indispensable in the firm, is he?”
Beatrice said: “Thank you for being frank.”
John said nothing for a moment. Then he said:
“Don’t you think he might marry again? Some nice woman or other? Don’t you think he might?”
I heard the note of urgency in his voice, and recognized it as a kind of last desperate appeal. One half of my mind was sorry for the poor chap. The other half, the part that looked after my own interests, was completely unmoved.
“No, I don’t,” I said flatly. And to ram the point well home I added: “I don’t think he would ever fall in love again. And don’t forget-I’ve known him since childhood.”
I got up and walked over to the window and stood looking out into the darkness. The wind had risen, and the trees were tossing against the night sky. I thought that in three hours, perhaps less, Bartels would be no longer with Lorna. Kissing her and fondling her. Pawing her. Mouthing phrases like a lovesick youth. Kissing her…kissing her…kissing her again. The wave of jealousy mounted higher and higher inside me.
I clenched my fists in my trouser pockets, and swung round again to Beatrice and John.
“I don’t think there is the slightest chance that he would marry again,” I said loudly and harshly. They thought, no doubt, that I sounded stern because I was concerned about Bartels’ well-being. Poor simpletons!
He came back about 9.30 that evening: Philip Bartels, my friend. Beatrice was very nice to him, and he was very nice to her.
He was glad to see me, too. He said so.
I didn’t know that in an inside pocket of his overcoat was a bottle marked ASPIRINS, that it had been there for some days, or that the contents bore not the slightest resemblance to aspirins.