§ 10

He now no longer denied that in one sense he had made a mistake in marrying Vera. He still found her brilliant and beautiful, a charming if sometimes a too sophisticated companion. But she was not the wife of his heart and imagination. Her personality stood queerly detached from the rest of his life—apart from his ideas of home and family. He felt coldly angry with her for the ways in which she refused or failed to fulfil his yearnings, and he could never, he felt, quite forgive her for having demanded Stella as a sacrifice. His denial of his love for Stella, which he had made in the interests of peace, now pierced his memory like a thorn—partly he reproached himself, and partly he reproached Vera. And there was a reproach for Stella too.

But he still told himself that he was glad he had married Vera. After all, he had got what he wanted. All he no longer had was the illusion that had fed him for a year after marriage, the illusion that in taking Vera he had done the best thing for himself as a man as well as an Alard. He could no longer tell himself that Vera was a better wife and a sweeter woman than he would have found Stella—that even without family considerations he had still made the happiest choice. That dream had played its part, and now might well die, and yet leave him with the thought that he had chosen well.

He need not look upon his marriage as mercenary because it was practical rather than romantic, nor himself as a fool because he had been heated and dizzied into taking a step he could never have taken in cold blood. He had always planned to marry money for the sake of Alard and Starvecrow, and he could never have done so without the illusion of love. Nature had merely helped him carry out what he had unnaturally planned.... And Starvecrow was safe, established—and under his careful stewardship the huge, staggering Conster estate would one day recover steadiness. The interest on the mortgages was always punctually paid, and he had hopes of being able in a year or two to pay off some of the mortgages themselves. By the time he became Sir Peter Alard he might be in a fair way of clearing the property.... So why regret the romance he had never chosen?

He told himself he would regret nothing if he was sure that Stella would not marry Gervase—that having very properly shut romance out of his own house, he should not have to see it come next door. In his clearer moments he realised that this attitude was unreasonable, or that, if reasonable, it pointed to an unhealthy state of affairs, but he could never quite bully or persuade himself out of it. He had to confess that it would be intolerable to have to welcome as a sister the woman he had denied himself as a wife. Anything, even total estrangement, would be better than that—better than having to watch her making his brother’s home the free and happy place she might have made his own, throwing her sweetness and her courage into the risks of his brother’s life, bearing his brother’s children, made after all the mother of Alards ... perhaps the mother of Alard’s heir. This last thought tormented him most. He saw a preposterous genealogical table:

JOHN ALARD

|

+----------------+----------------+

| |

Peter Alard = Vera Asher Gervase Alard = Stella Mount

(died without male issue) |

+-----+-------+---------+

| | | |

John Peter George Gervase

From the family’s decaying trunk he saw a new healthy branch springing through the grafting in of Stella’s life—healthy but alien, for the children Stella gave Gervase would not be Alards in the true sense of the children she might have given Peter. They would be soaked in their father’s disloyal ideas. His bad sense, his bad form. John, Peter, George and Gervase would probably smash up what was left of the tradition and the estate.... Peter saw them selling Starvecrow, selling Conster, opening shops and works, marrying indiscriminately.... He hated these insurgent nephews his mind had begotten.

Now and then he told himself that his fears were ill-founded. If Stella was going to marry Gervase surely something definite would be known about it by this time. She was not so young that she could afford to wait indefinitely. But against this he knew that Gervase was scarcely twenty-one, and that neither of them had a penny. A long, public engagement would be difficult for many reasons. There might be some secret understanding. His brother still spent most of his Sundays at Vinehall... better not deceive himself with the idea that he went merely for devotional reasons, to gratify this newly-formed taste which to Peter smacked as unseemly as an appetite. No, he went to see Stella, sit with her, talk with her ... kiss her, hold her on his knee, feel the softness of her hair between his fingers ... oh damn!—if only he knew definitely one way or the other, he could choke down his imagination.... His imagination was making a hopeless fool of him with its strokings and its kisses—with its John, Peter, George and Gervase....

His uneasiness finally drove him to take what a little earlier would have seemed an impossible way out of his difficulties. One day, at the end of the brooding of a lonely walk, he met Stella unexpectedly in Icklesham street, and after the inevitable platitudes of greeting followed the first wild plunges of his mind.

“I say, Stella—forgive my asking you—but am I to congratulate you and Gervase?”

The colour rushed over her face, and he had an uneasy moment, wondering whether he had guessed right or merely been impertinent.

“No—you’ll never have to do that,” she answered firmly the next minute.

“I—I beg your pardon.”

He was flushing too, partly with relief, partly with apprehension at the rejoiced, violent beating of his heart.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter a bit. Other members of your family have been half-asking—hinting ... so I’d rather you asked outright. Of course, seeing that I’m seven years older than Gervase, one would have thought ... but I suppose people must have something to talk about.”

He assented weakly—and it suddenly struck him that she was wondering why he had asked her instead of Gervase.

“As a matter of fact,” she continued, “I don’t see so much of him as people think. He comes over to us on Sundays, but that’s partly for Father Luce. He serves the Parish Mass, and they both have lunch with us afterwards—and in the afternoon he helps with the children.”

Peter felt inexpressibly relieved that there was no truth in his picture of Gervase and Stella in the afternoon—no kisses, no strokings of her hair, which was like fine silk between your fingers ... like a child’s hair.... Fresh and bright and living as ever, it curled up under the brim of her hat ... he wondered if she saw how he was staring at it—yes, she must, for she put up her hand rather nervously and pushed a curl under the straw.

“Please contradict anything you hear said about him and me,” she said.

“Yes, I promise I will. It was Vera put it into my head. She said she was quite sure Gervase was in love with you.”

“Well, please contradict it—it will be annoying for Gervase as well as for me.”

A sudden fear seized Peter—a new fear—much more unreasonable and selfish than the old one. It expressed itself with the same suddenness as it came, and before he could check himself he had said—

“Stella ... there isn’t ... there isn’t anyone else?”

He knew that moment that he had given himself away, and he could not find comfort in any thought of her not having noticed. For a few seconds she stared at him silently with her bright perplexed eyes. Then she said—

“No, there isn’t.... But, Peter, why shouldn’t there be?”

He murmured something silly and surly—he was annoyed with her for not tactfully turning the conversation and covering his blunder.

“I’m nearly twenty-eight,” she continued—“and if I can manage to fall in love, I shall marry.”

“Oh, don’t wait for that,” he said, still angry—“you can marry perfectly well without it. I have, and it’s been most successful.”

He knew that he had hurt her in the soft places of her heart; and with his knowledge a fire kindled, setting strange hot cruelties ablaze.

“Besides, it’s easy enough to fall in love, you know—I’ve done it lots of times, and so have you, I expect—easy enough to fall in love and just as easy to fall out.”

She answered him sweetly.

“Oh, I can do both—I’ve done both—but it’s not been easy, not a bit.”

“Well, I’ll wish you luck.”

He took off his hat and passed on. For a quarter of a mile he hated her. He hated her because he had wounded her, and because she would not be proud enough to hide the wound—because from outside his life she still troubled it—because he had lied to her—because he had treated her badly—because he had once loved her and because he had denied it—because he loved her still and could not deny it any more.