Mortal Coils | Page 9

anyone love you as much as I do, Teddy Bear?" The question came faintly from distant worlds of love.
"I think I know somebody who does," Mr. Hutton replied. The submarine laughter was swelling, rising, ready to break the surface of silence and resound.
"Who? Tell me. What do you mean?" The voice had come very close; charged with suspicion, anguish, indignation, it belonged to this immediate world.
"A ah'!"
"Who?"
"You'll never guess." Mr. Hutton kept up the joke until it began to grow tedious, and then pronounced the name "Janet Spence."
Doris was incredulous. "Miss Spence of the Manor? That old woman?" It was too ridiculous. Mr. Hutton laughed too.
"But it's quite true," he said. "She adores me." Oh, the vast joke. He would go and see her as soon as he returned see and conquer. "I believe she wants to marry me!" he added.
"But you wouldn't... you don't intend..."
The air was fairly crepitating with humour. Mr. Hutton laughed aloud. "I intend to marry you," he said. It seemed to him the best joke he had ever made in his life.
When Mr. Hutton left Southend he was once more a married man. It was agreed that, for the time being, the fact should be kept secret. In the autumn they would go abroad together, and the world should be informed. Meanwhile he was to go back to his own house and Doris to hers.
The day after his return he walked over in the afternoon to see Miss Spence. She received him with the old Gioconda.
"I was expecting you to come."
"I couldn't keep away," Mr. Hutton gallantly replied.
They sat in the summer-house. It was a pleasant place a little old stucco temple bowered among dense bushes of evergreen. Miss Spence had left her mark on it by hanging up over the seat a blue-and-white Delia Robbia plaque.
"I am thinking of going to Italy this autumn," said Mr. Hutton. He felt like a ginger-beer bottle, ready to pop with bubbling humorous excitement.
"Italy..." Miss Spence closed her eyes ecstatically. "I feel drawn there too."
"Why not let yourself be drawn?"
"I don't know. One somehow hasn't the energy and initiative to set out alone."
"Alone...." Ah, sound of guitars and throaty singing! "Yes, travelling alone isn't much fun."
Miss Spence lay back in her chair without speaking. Her eyes were still closed. Mr. Hutton stroked his moustache. The silence prolonged itself for what seemed a very long time.
Pressed to stay to dinner, Mr. Hutton did not refuse. The fun had hardly started. The table was laid in the loggia. Through its arches they looked out on to the sloping garden, to the valley below and the farther hills. Light ebbed away; the heat and silence were oppressive. A huge cloud was mounting up the sky, and there were distant breathings of thunder. The thunder drew nearer, a wind began to blow, and the first drops of rain fell. The table was cleared. Miss Spence and Mr. Hutton sat on in the growing darkness.
Miss Spence broke a long silence by saying meditatively :
"I think everyone has a right to a certain amount of happiness, don't you?"
"Most certainly." But what was she leading up to? Nobody makes generalisations about life unless they mean to talk about themselves. Happiness: he looked back on his own life, and saw a cheerful, placid existence disturbed by no great griefs or discomforts or alarms. He had always had money and freedom; he had been able to do very much as he wanted. Yes, he supposed he had been happy happier than most men. And now he was not merely happy; he had discovered in irresponsibility the secret of gaiety. He was about to say something about his happiness when Miss Spence went on speaking.
"People like you and me have a right to be happy some time in our lives/'
"Me?" said Mr. Hutton surprised.
"Poor Henry! Fate hasn't treated either of us very well."
"Oh, well, it might have treated me worse."
"You're being cheerful. That's brave of you. But don't think I can't see behind the mask."
Miss Spence spoke louder and louder as the rain came down more and more heavily. Periodically the thunder cut across her utterances. She talked on, shouting against the noise. m
"I have understood you so well and for so long."
A flash revealed her, aimed and intent, leaning towards him. Her eyes were two profound and menacing gun-barrels. The darkness re-engulfed her.
"You were a lonely soul seeking a companion soul. I could sympathise with you in your solitude. Your marriage..."
The thunder cut short the sentence. Miss Spence's voice became audible once more with the words :
"... could offer no companionship to a man of your stamp. You needed a soul mate."
A soul mate he! a soul mate. It was incredibly fantastic. "Georgette Leblanc, the ex-soul mate of Maurice Maeterlinck." He had seen that in the paper