Chapter XX: There’s Rosemary

Ralph went round to see April on the next morning, shortly after eleven o’clock. She had just been out for a long walk by herself and, on her return, had taken up a novel with which to while away the two hours remaining to lunch time. She had left school eighteen months earlier, and time often hung heavily on her. She did little things about the house: she tidied her own room, mended her own clothes, did some occasional cooking, but she had many hours of idleness. She wished sometimes that she had trained for some definite work. Women were no longer regarded as household ornaments. Many careers were open to her. But it had not seemed worth while during the last year at school to specialize in any one subject. What was the good of taking up a career that she would have to abandon so soon? The first year in any profession was uninteresting, and by the time she had reached a position where she would be entrusted with responsibilities her marriage day would be approaching. And so, instead of looking for any settled work, she had decided to stay at home and help her mother as much as possible. It was lonely at times, especially when Roland was away; she was, in consequence, much given to daydreams. Her book, on this September morning, had slipped on to her lap, and her thoughts had refused to concentrate on the printed page, and fixed themselves on the time when she and Roland would be married. He had not been to see her at all the day before. But the memory of his last kiss was very actual to her. He had loved her then. She had had her bad moments, when she had wondered whether, after all, he really cared for her, but she was reassured by such a memory. And soon they would be married. She would make him happy. She would be a good wife.

A knock on the front door roused her from her reverie, and, turning her head, she saw Ralph Richmond standing in the doorway. She rose quickly, her hand stretched out in friendly welcome.

“How nice of you to come, Ralph; you’re quite a stranger. Come and sit down.” And as soon as he was seated she began to talk with fresh enthusiasm about their friends and acquaintances. “I saw Mrs. Evans yesterday and she told me that Edward had failed again for his exam. She was awfully disappointed, though she oughtn’t really to have expected anything else. Arthur’s form master told him once that he couldn’t imagine any examination being invented that Edward would be able to pass.”

Ralph sat in silence, watching her, wondering what expression those bright features would assume when she had heard what he had to tell her. He dreaded the moment, not for his sake, but for hers. He hardly thought of himself. He loved her and he would have to give her pain. In the end he stumbled awkwardly across her conversation.

“April, I have got some bad news for you.”

“Oh, Ralph, what is it? Nothing about your people, is it?”

“No, it’s nothing to do with me. It’s about Roland.”

Although she made no movement, and though the expression of her face did not appear to alter, it seemed to him that, at the mention of Roland’s name, her vitality was stilled suddenly.

“Yes?” she said, and waited for his reply.

“He’s not hurt, or anything. You needn’t be frightened. But he wanted you to know that he has become engaged to Muriel Marston.”

She said nothing for a moment, then in a dazed voice:

“Oh, no, you must be mistaken, it can’t be true, it can’t possibly!”

“But it is, April, really. I’m awfully sorry, but it is.”

She rose from her chair, swayed, steadied herself with her left hand, took a half pace to the window and stood still.

“But what am I to do?” she said. She could not bear to contemplate her life without Roland in it. What would her life become? What else had it been, indeed, for the last four years but Roland the whole time? Whenever she had bought a new frock or a new hat she had wondered how Roland would like her in it. When she had heard an amusing story her first thought had been, “Roland will be amused by that.” When she had opened the paper in the morning she had turned always to the sports’ page first. “Roland will be reading these very words at this very moment.” Roland was the measure of her happiness. It was a good day or a bad day in accordance with Roland’s humor. She would mark in the calendar the days in red and green and yellow--yellow for the unhappy days, when Roland had not seen her, or when he had been unsympathetic; the green days were ordinary days, when she had seen him, but had not been alone with him; her red days were the happy days, when there had been a letter from him in the morning, or when they had been alone together and he had been nice and kissed her and made love prettily to her. Her whole life was Roland. Whenever she was depressed she would comfort herself with the knowledge that in a year or so she would be married and with Roland for always. She could not picture to herself what her life would become now without him. She raised her hand to her head, in dazed perplexity.

“What am I to do?” she repeated. “What am I to do?” Then she pulled herself together. There were several questions that she would wish to have answered. She returned to her seat. “Now tell me, when did this happen, Ralph?”

“He told me last night.”

“I don’t mean that; when did he propose to Miss Marston?”

“During the week-end--on Saturday evening, I think.”

“Saturday evening!” she repeated it--“Saturday evening!” Then he had been engaged to this other girl on Monday night when he had kissed her. He had loved her then, he had meant that kiss; she was certain of it. And to April, as earlier to Mrs. Whately, this treachery seemed capable of explanation only by a marriage for money. It was unworthy of Roland. She could hardly imagine him doing it. But he might be in debt. People did funny things when they were in debt.

“Is she pretty, this Miss Marston?”

That was her next question, and Ralph replied that he thought she was.

“But you’ve never seen her?”

“No.”

“Roland told you she was pretty. Did he say anything else about her?”

“No, hardly anything.”

There was another pause. Then:

“I can’t think,” she said, “why he didn’t come and tell me this himself.”

She said nothing more. Ralph saw no reason why he should remain any longer. He rose awkwardly to his feet. As he looked down at her, beaten and dejected, his love for her flamed up in him fiercely, and, with a sudden tenderness, he began to speak to her.

“April,” he said, “it’s been awful for me having to tell you this. I’ve hated hurting you--really I have. I know you don’t care for me, but if you would look on me as a friend, a real friend; if there’s anything I can do for you just now.... I can’t explain myself, but if you want anything I’ll do it. You’ll come to me, won’t you?”

She smiled at him, a tired, pathetic smile.

“All right, Ralph, I’ll remember.”

But the moment he had left the room all thought of him passed from her, and she was confronted with the gray, interminable prospect of a future without Roland. She could not believe that he was lost to her irretrievably. He would return to her. He must love her still. It was only two days since he had kissed her. He was marrying this girl for her money; that was why he had been ashamed to tell her of it himself. He would not have been ashamed if he had really loved this Muriel. Well, if it was money she would win him back. She was not afraid of poverty if Roland was with her; she would fight against it. She would earn money in little ways; she would do without a servant. His debts would be soon paid off. She would tell him this and he would return to her.

That evening she walked towards the Town Hall at the hour when he would be returning from the office. She had often gone to meet him without her mother’s knowledge, and they had walked together down the High Street in the winter darkness, his arm through hers. Bus after bus came up, emptied, and he was not there. She watched the people climbing down the stairs. She had decided that as soon as she saw Roland she would walk quietly down the street, as though she had not come purposely to meet him. She would thus take him off his guard. But, somehow, she missed the bus that he was on; perhaps a passing van had obscured her sight of it. And she did not realize that he was there till she saw him suddenly on the other side of the pavement. Their eyes met, Roland smiled, raised his hat and seemed about to come across to her; then he seemed to remember something, for he hurried quickly on and was lost almost at once in the dense, black-coated crowd of men returning from their office. The smile, the raising of the hat, had been an involuntary action. He had not remembered till he had taken that step forward that he had now no part in her life. He felt she would not want to speak to him now. And this action naturally confirmed April in her belief that Roland was marrying Muriel for her money.

“It is me that he loves really,” she told herself, and she felt that if she were a clever woman she would be able to win him back to her.

“But I am not a clever woman,” she said. “I was not made for intrigues and diplomacy.” She remembered how, four years earlier, she had learned from a similar experience that she was not destined for a life of action. “All my life,” she had told herself, “I shall have to wait, and Romance may come to me, or it may pass me by. But I shall be unable to go in search of it.” And it seemed to her that this fate had already been accomplished. Roland still loved her; that she could not doubt. But she had no means by which she might recall him to her. “If I had,” she said, “I should be a different woman, and, as likely as not, he would not love me.”

On her return home she went straight upstairs to her bedroom and, without waiting to take off her hat, opened the little drawer in her desk in which were stored the letters and the gifts that she had at various times received from Roland. There was the copper ring there that he had slipped on to her finger at the party, the tawdry copper ring that she had kept so bright; there was the score card of a cricket match, the blue and yellow rosette he had worn at the school sports when he had been a steward, a photograph of him in Eton collars. She held them in her hand and her first instinct was to throw them into the fireplace. But she thought better of it. After all he loved her still. Why should she not keep them? Instead, she sat down in the chair and laid the little collection in her lap and, opening the letters, she began to read them through, one by one; by the time she had finished the room had darkened. She would have to put on another dress for the evening and do her hair. Already she could hear her father’s voice in the hall, but she felt lazy, incapable of action; her hands dropped into her lap, and her fingers closed round the letters and cards and snapshots. Her thoughts traveled into the past and were lost in vague, wistful recollection. Her mother’s voice sounding in the passage woke her from a reverie. It was quite dark; she must light the gas, and she would have to hurry with her dressing. It was getting late. She rose to her feet, walked over to the bureau and put the letters back into the little drawer. Her fingers remained on the handle after she had closed it. And again she asked herself the question to which she could find no answer: “What is going to happen to me now?”