"I"m broken up! I"m sorry; you can despise me, if you like," he cried.
"I can"t afford to lose you, Babs: I love you too much."
The tears were standing in his eyes, and the sight steadied her.
Pillowing his head on her breast, she ran her fingers through his hair, caressing and soothing him like a child.
"_I"ve_ done this. . . . You must forgive me, Eric," she whispered. "I didn"t see what I was doing; until quite lately I didn"t see that you cared for me at all--not to matter, I mean--you were always sweet to me, of course. If I"d known how I was hurting you . . . Won"t you wait, Eric? I must let you go now, if you insist; I"m nerved up to it. . . .
But is it worth it?"
Eric thought over the change that had come upon them since Christmas.
"No. I can"t afford it," he answered wearily.
She bent down and kissed his forehead. Was the kiss rather mechanical?
Eric lay with his eyes shut, trying to a.n.a.lyze the double change. Was a nervous break-down always like this? Barbara was stroking his head gently; she had kissed him compa.s.sionately, lovingly, but he had fancied a change in her, as though she, too, realized the completeness of his subjugation.
"See if you can"t sleep, Eric," she whispered, as he opened twitching lids to take stock of her.
Pity, or some kind of maternal love, then, survived his defeat. . . .
"_Average man is a match for average woman, eighteen chances to eighteen, but zero always turns up in woman"s favour. Man, being a philosopher and far less interested in woman (who is an incident) than woman is interested in him (who is her life), would cheerfully go on playing with the odds always slightly against him, if he had a clear idea of the value and significance of zero. But zero is woman inexplicable--something fantastically loyal or shiveringly perfidious, savagely cruel or quixotically self-sacrificing, something that is primitive, non-moral and resolved to win at all costs. In the s.e.x-gamble, zero is more than a thirty-six to one chance; it is Poushkin"s DAME DE PIQUE and turns up thirty-six times to one. And man shews his indifference or his greatness of soul by continuing to play, by rising imperturbably triumphant over zero. . . .
Or perhaps he shews that he is an eternal s.e.x-amateur._ . . ."--From the Diary of Eric Lane.
CHAPTER SEVEN
EDUCATION FOR THOSE OF RIPER YEARS
"Verily when an author can approve his wife she was deserving of a better fate."
LEONARD MERRICK: "WHEN LOVE FLIES OUT O" THE WINDOW."
1
"After diagnosis," said Dr. Gaisford, "the prudent physician bases treatment on self-interest. You"re not fit to travel by yourself yet, Eric; when I"ve patched you up, I shall send you away. If you don"t go, you"ll never do any decent work again."
Having persuaded his patient to stay in bed for a week, the doctor looked in nightly "for five minutes" and stayed sixty-five, smoking three disreputable pipes instead of one and generalizing on life and health.
"It gives me a headache even to think of work," said Eric, his brain half-paralyzed with bromide.
Perhaps it was the bromide, perhaps it was his nervous and bodily exhaustion; the most frightening part of this latest illness was the attendant utter incapacity to make up his mind. When Barbara left him for Crawleigh Abbey, he had resigned from his department and withdrawn the resignation, accepted an invitation to lecture in America--and cancelled the acceptance; every night he led Gaisford through the same argumentative maze; complete rest, partial rest in London or the country, flight from England and all a.s.sociation with Barbara, full work--as soon as he could resume it--to keep him from brooding about her; he could not decide. And from time to time a mocking refrain told him that as an undergraduate and again in the first flush of fame he had aspired to be the new young Byron, dominating London. . . .
"Poisoned rat in a hole," he whispered to himself. . . .
Gaisford would sit with his arms crossed over the back of a chair and his feet twisted round its legs, puffing thoughtfully at his pipe and frowning at his boots. In a long experience of practice among rich and self-conscious patients who would always rather be "interesting" than normal, it was not the first time that he had watched the bloom being rubbed off love; nine broken engagements and balked romances were born of doltish delay; but a ma.s.s of sensibility like Eric Lane had not the stamina to wait nor the placidity to go away and forget.
"You told me you had a novel on the stocks," said Gaisford. "I suppose you wouldn"t let me see it?"
The first draft of the book was already in type, and, though Eric hated his work to be seen before he had set the last polish on it, the new indecision and weakness of will allowed him to be overpersuaded.
Gaisford brought back the ma.n.u.script at the end of three days and talked of neurotic impressionism and the methods of literary jerry-builders.
"I hope you"re not writing yourself out," he added.
Eric was frightened for the first time since the "Divorce" placed him beyond the reach of want. So many men seemed capable of one play or novel--and then no more.
"One can"t always be at concert-pitch," he sighed.
"Then you mustn"t go on to the platform till you are."
"It"s easy to see you"ve never been a journalist! The agony, the violence to soul, when you _have_ to come up to scratch, when your copy _has_ to be delivered by a certain hour! Writing without time to revise or even to read what you"ve already written--the compositors setting up the beginning of an article while you"re still writing the middle. . . .
And the public pays its twopence and expects us to be always at our best!"
"Well, the public pays me its two guineas and expects _me_ to be always at _my_ best," grunted the doctor. "If I"m off colour, I take things quietly. Otherwise I should defraud the public and ruin my practice at the same time. You must take things quietly until you"re fit to work again."
After he had gone, Eric tried to make up his mind what to do. His thoughts ran uncontrolled to painters whose sight had become impaired and composers who had lost their hearing. If _he_ had done violence to the indefinable blend of gift and acquisition which separated the man who could write from those who could not . . . This was a thing to be tested. The scenario of "The Singing-Bird" was ready; he had only been waiting because there was no hurry for another play. There was now every hurry to establish whether he could write a play. If Manders turned up his nose, it would be time indeed for a holiday.
For three months Eric buried himself in his flat, only emerging at the week-end. Lashmar Mill-House gave him proximity to Agnes Waring; and every week he made an excuse to walk over to Red Roofs and ask for tidings of Jack. The news that he was alive seemed better than the suspense of no news; but the tyranny of love was strange when a man could pray for the death of a friend. The Warings" atmosphere of dignified expectancy rebuked him; they made no more pother than if a single letter had gone astray. The colonel motored daily into Winchester and sat on his tribunal; Mrs. Waring presided over her bandaging cla.s.ses, and Agnes looked after the house. There was no fretting at Red Roofs; the errant letter would come to hand--or it would not; the Warings were a military family. Sharing their suspense for the first time, Eric marvelled at their composure. His own heart quickened its beat whenever he asked with false solicitude whether Agnes had tried to get news through the American or Spanish Emba.s.sy, the Prisoners-of-War Clearing-House in Copenhagen or the Vatican. Peace of mind returned a step nearer each time that she shook her head and murmured, "Yes, we tried that. It was no good, though." Then his growing security was checked by a gripe of conscience; he felt like a murderer who stole furtively into the woods by night to see whether prowling animal or pursuing man had disturbed the grave. Well, at least another week had pa.s.sed. . . . But in a week"s time he must undergo the suspense again.
Agnes might come to him, radiant as on that night when she dined with him, crying "Eric! You remember that cheque? Well, we heard to-day. . . ."
Extravagant tension and violent relief destroyed the serenity required for good work; but Eric was not dissatisfied with the progress of his play. Ease and command had grown rea.s.suringly; his psychology was surer, perhaps because his own psychological experience had been so much enriched; and his dialogue, losing nothing of its neatness and economy, had taken on an added verisimilitude. It was too early to judge dispa.s.sionately; but, as Eric made his last corrections and sent a copy of the script to Manders, he felt a warmer glow of confidence than either of his first plays had inspired.
It was the end of October before he had finished. The strain of work had buoyed him up, but it was succeeded by a debilitating reaction, which impelled him with guilty reluctance to Wimpole Street.
"I"m glad you don"t even pretend that you"ve been following my advice,"
said the doctor with a hint of impatience, as he brought his examination to an end.
"You know, Gaisford, it"s not the least use telling me to do nothing,"
Eric answered jauntily. "I"m not built that way."
"So I"ve heard before--from others as well. And the others have found themselves packed off to nursing-homes, which, my dear Eric, are very tedious inst.i.tutions. Are you going abroad now?"
"Not at the moment."
"What _are_ you going to do?"
"I"m going back to my office, if I"m still wanted."
Gaisford shrugged his shoulders ruefully.
"You know, Eric, it"s a waste of my time and of your money for you to come to me for advice. You"ve definitely gone back since I saw you in the summer."
"I"ve been working very hard; but I"m rather pleased with the results."
"I hope it"s nothing like that novel you shewed me," said the doctor gloomily.