Nightfall | Page 4

have I told you not to paw me about? I wish you'd do as you're told. What do you call him Lawrence for?"
"I always did. But I'll call him Captain Hyde if you like--"
"'Mr.,' you mean: he's probably dropped the 'Captain.' He was only a 'temporary.'"
"For all that, he has stuck to his prefix," said Laura smiling. "Lucian chaffed him about it. But Lawrence was always rather a baby in some ways: clocked socks to match his ties, and astonishing adventures in jewellery, and so on. Oh yes, I knew him very well indeed when I was a girl. Mr. and Mrs. Hyde were among the last of the old set who kept up with us after father was turned out of his clubs. I've stayed at Farringay."
"You never told me that!"
"I never thought of telling you. Lawrence hasn't been near us since we came to Wanhope and I don't recollect your ever mentioning his name. You see I tell you now."
"How old were you when you stayed at Farringay?"
"Twenty-two. Lawrence and I are the same age."
"And you knew him well, did you?"
"We were great friends," said Mrs. Clowes, tossing a lump of sugar out of the window to a lame jackdaw. She had many such pensioners, alike in a community of misfortune. "And, yes, Berns, you're right, we flirted a little--only a little: wasn't it natural? It was only for fun, because we were both young and it was such heavenly weather--it was the Easter before war broke out. No, he didn't ask me to marry him! Nothing was farther from his mind."
"Did he kiss you?"
Laura slowly and smilingly shook her head. "Am I, Yvonne?"
"But you liked the fellow?"
"Oh yes, he was charming. A little too much one of a class, perhaps: there's a strong family likeness, isn't there, between Cambridge undergraduates? But he was more cultivated than a good many of his class. We used to go up the river together and read --what did one read in the spring of 1914? Masefield, I suppose, or was it Maeterlinck? Rupert Brooks came with the war. Imagine reading 'Pelleas et Melisande' in a Canadian canoe! It makes one want to be twenty-two again, so young and so delightfully serious." It was hard to run on while the glow faded out of Bernard's face and a cold gloom again came over it, but sad experience had taught Laura that at all costs, under whatever temptation, it was wiser to be frank. It would have been easier for the moment to paint the boy and girl friendship in neutral tints, but if its details came out later, trivial and innocent as they were, the economy of today would cost her dear tomorrow, Her own impression was that Clowes had never been jealous of her in his life. But the pretence of jealousy was one of his few diversions.
"I dare say you do wish you were twenty-two again," he said, delicately setting down his tea cup on the tray--all his movements, so far as he could control them, were delicate and fastidious. "I dare say you would like a chance to play your cards differently. Can't be done, my, girl, but what a good fellow I am to ask Lawrence to Wanhope, ain't I? No one can say I'm not an obliging husband. Lawrence isn't a jumping doll. He's six and thirty and as strong as a horse. You'll have no end of a good time knitting up your severed friendship .. 'Pon my word, I've a good mind to put him off. . I shouldn't care to fall foul of the King's Proctor."
"Will you have another cup of tea before I ring"
"No, thanks . . . Do I lead you the deuce of a life, Lally?"
"You do now and then," said his wife, smiling with pale lips.
"It isn't that I'm sensitive for myself, because I know you don't mean a word of it, but I rather hate it for your own sake. It isn't worthy of you, old boy. It's so--so ungentlemanly."
"So it is. But I do it because I'm bored. I am bored, you know. Desperately!" He stretched out his hand to her with such haggard, hunted eyes that Laura, reckless, threw herself down by him and kissed the heavy eyelids. Clowes put his arm round her neck, fondling her hair, and for a little while peace, the peace of perfect mutual tenderness, fell on this hard-driven pair. But soon, a great sigh bursting from his breast, Clowes pushed her away, his features settling back into their old harsh lines of savage pain and scorn.
"Get away! get up! do you want Parker to see you through the window? If there's a thing on earth I hate it's a dishevelled crying woman. Write to Lawrence. Say I shall be delighted to