The Forsyte Saga, Volume 3(204)

With hearty congratulations and best wishes,

I am, sincerely yours,

COMPSON GRICE.



This letter, in his elegant and upright hand, he addressed to Cork Street and sent at once by the club messenger. The remains of his recess he spent sounding in his rather whispering voice the praises of his French Canadian product, and then took a taxi back to Covent Garden. A clerk met him in the lobby.

‘Mr Desert is waiting up in your room, sir.’

‘Good!’ said Compson Grice, subduing a tremor and thinking: ‘Quick work!’

Wilfrid was standing at a window which commanded a slanting view of Covent Garden market; and Grice was shocked when he turned round – the face was so dark and wasted and had such a bitter look: the hand, too, had an unpleasant dry heat in the feel of it.

‘So you got my letter?’ he said.

‘Thanks. Here’s the address of my bank. Better pay all cheques into it and take their receipt.’

‘You don’t look too fearfully well. Are you off again?’

‘Probably. Well, good-bye, Grice. Thanks for all you’ve done.’

Compson Grice said, with real feeling: ‘I’m terribly sorry it’s hit you so hard.’

Wilfrid shrugged and turned to the door.

When he was gone his publisher stood, twisting the bank’s address, in his hands. Suddenly he said out loud: ‘I don’t like his looks; I absolutely don’t!’ And he went to the telephone….

Wilfrid walked north; he had another visit to pay. He reached the museum just as Adrian was having his cup of ‘Dover’ tea and bun.

‘Good!’ said Adrian, rising. ‘I’m glad to see you. There’s a spare cup. Do sit down.’

He had experienced the same shock as Grice at the look on Desert’s face and the feel of his hand.

Wilfrid took a sip of tea. ‘May I smoke?’ He lighted a cigarette, and sat, hunched in his chair. Adrian waited for him to speak.

‘Sorry to butt in on you like this,’ said Wilfrid, at last, ‘but I’m going back into the blue. I wanted to know which would hurt Dinny least – just to clear out or to write.’

Adrian lived through a wretched and bleak minute.

‘You mean that if you see her you can’t trust yourself.’ Desert gave a shivering shrug.

‘It’s not that exactly. It sounds brutal, but I’m so fed up that I don’t feel anything. If I saw her – I might wound her. She’s been an angel. I don’t suppose you can understand what’s happened in me. I can’t myself. I only know that I want to get away from everything and everybody.’

Adrian nodded.

‘I was told you’d been ill – you don’t think that accounts for your present feeling? For God’s sake don’t make a mistake in your feelings now!’

Wilfrid smiled.

‘I’m used to malaria. It’s not that. You’ll laugh, but I feel like bleeding to death inside. I want to get to where nothing and nobody remind me. And Dinny reminds me more than anyone.’

‘I see,’ said Adrian gravely. And he was silent, passing his hand over his bearded chin. Then he got up and began to walk about.

‘Do you think it’s fair to Dinny or yourself not to try what seeing her might do?’

Wilfrid answered, almost with violence: ‘I tell you, I should hurt her.’

‘You’ll hurt her any way; her eggs are all in one basket. And look here, Desert! You published that poem deliberately. I always understood you did so as a form of expiation, even though you had asked Dinny to marry you. I’m not such a fool as to want you to go on with Dinny if your feelings have really changed; but are you sure they have?’

‘My feelings haven’t changed. I simply have none. Being a pariah dog has killed them.’

‘Do you realize what you’re saying?’

‘Perfectly! I knew I was a pariah from the moment I recanted, and that whether people knew it or not didn’t matter. All the same – it has mattered.’

‘I see,’ said Adrian again, and came to a standstill. ‘I suppose that’s natural.’

‘Whether it is to others, I don’t know; it is to me. I am out of the herd, and I’ll stay there. I don’t complain. I side against myself.’ He spoke with desperate energy.

Adrian said, very gently: ‘Then you just want to know how to hurt Dinny least? I can’t tell you: I wish I could. I gave you the wrong advice when you came before. Advice is no good, anyway. We have to wrestle things out for ourselves.’

Wilfrid stood up. ‘Ironical, isn’t it! I was driven to Dinny by my loneliness. I’m driven away from her by it. Well, good-bye, sir; I don’t suppose I shall ever see you again. And thanks for trying to help me.’