The Man Who Understood Women and Other Stories/The Man Who Understood Women
THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN
"Our bitterest remorse is not for our sins, but for our stupidities."—Excerpt from Wendover's new novel.
Nothing had delighted Wendover so much when his first book appeared as some reviewer's reference to "the author's knowledge of women." He was then six or seven and twenty, and the compliment uplifted him the more because he had long regretted violently that he knew even less of women than do most young men. The thought of women fascinated him. He yearned to captivate them, to pass lightly from one love-affair to another, to have the right to call himself "blasé." Alas! a few dances in the small provincial town that he had left when he was eighteen comprised nearly all his sentimental experiences; during his years of struggle in London he had been so abominably hard up that lodging-house keepers and barmaids were almost the only women he addressed, and as his beverage was "a glass of bitter," the barmaids had been strictly commercial.
To be told that he understood women enraptured him. "Instinct!" he said to himself. "Now and then a man is born who knows the feminine mind intuitively." And in his next book there was an abundance of his fanciful psychology. Denied companionship with women, he revelled in writing about them, and drew from the pages in which he posed as their delineator something of the exultation that he would have derived from being their lover. There were even pages after which he felt sated with conquest. At these times nothing accorded with his mood so well as to parade the Park and pretend to himself that the sight of the most attractive of the women bored him.
But as loneliness really cried within him pathetically, he had an adventure, culminating in marriage, with a shop assistant who glanced at him one evening in Oxford Street. After marriage they found as little of an agreeable nature to say to each other as might have been expected, so a couple of years later they separated, and the ex-shop hand went to reside with a widowed sister, who "made up ladies' own materials" at Crouch End.
Gradually he came to be accepted at his own valuation, to be pronounced one of the few gifted men from whom the feminine soul held no secrets. Then when he was close on forty, a novel that he produced hit the popular taste, and he began to make a very respectable income.
Now, for the first time, he had opportunities for meeting the class of women that he had been writing about, and he found, to his consternation, that they failed to recognise him as an affinity after all. They were very amiable, but, like the farmer with the claret, he "never got any forrader." He perceived that his profundities were thought tedious, and that his attentions were thought raw. It was a sickening admission for an authority on women to have to make, but when he tried to flirt he felt shy.
At last he decided that all the women whom he knew were too frivolous to appeal to a man of intellect, and that their company wearied him unutterably.
But, though he had reached middle-age, he had never as yet been really in love.
In the autumn of his forty-second year—few people judged him to be so much—he removed to Paris. Some months afterwards, in the interests of a novel that he had begun, he deserted his hotel in the rue d'Antin for a pension de famille on the left bank. This establishment, which was supported chiefly by English and American girls studying art, supplied the "colour" that he needed for his earlier chapters; and it was here that he made the acquaintance of Miss Searle.
Miss Searle was about six-and-twenty, bohemian and ambitious beyond her talents. Such pensions de famille abound in girls who are more or less bohemian, and ambitious beyond their talents, but Rhoda Searle was noteworthy—her face stirred the imagination, she had realised that she would never paint, and the free-and-easy intercourse of the Latin quarter had wholly unfitted her for the prim provincialism to which she must return in England.
"My father was a parson," she told Wendover once, as they smoked cigarettes together after dinner. "I had hard work to convince him that English art schools weren't the apex, but he gave in at last and let me come here. It was Paradise! My home was in Beckenhampton. Do you know it? It's one of the dreariest holes in the kingdom. I used to go over to stay with him twice a year. I was very fond of my father, but I can't tell you how terrible those visits became to me, how I had to suppress myself, and how the drab women and stupid young men used to stare at me—as if I were a strange animal, or something improper; in places like Beckenhampton they say 'Paris' in the same kind of voice that they say 'Hell.' I suppose I'm a bohemian by instinct, for even now that I know I should never make an artist, my horror isn't so much the loss of my hopes as the loss of my freedom, my—my identity; I am never to be natural any more. After I leave here I am to go on suppressing myself till the day I die! Sometimes I shall be able to shut myself up and howl—that's all I've got to look forward to."
"What are you going to do?" asked Wendover, looking sympathetic, and thinking pleasurably that he had found a good character to put into his book.
"I am going back," she said, "a shining example of the folly of being discontented with district-visiting and Church bazaars! I go back a failure for Beckenhampton to moralise over. My old schoolmistress has asked me to stay with her while I 'look round'—you see, I've spent all my money, and I must find a situation. If the Beckenhampton parents don't regard me as too immoral, it is just possible she may employ me in the school to 'teach drawing'—unless I try to teach it. Then I suppose I shall be called a 'revolutionary' and be dismissed." She contemplated the shabby little salon thoughtfully, and lit another cigarette. "From the Boul' Mich' to a boarding school! It'll be a change. I wonder if it will be safe to smoke there if I keep my bedroom window open wide?"
Yes, it would be as great a change as was conceivable, and Rhoda Searle was the most interesting figure in the house to Wendover. She was going to England in a month's time—there was no reason why she should not go at once, save that she had enough money to postpone the evil day—and during this valedictory month, she and he talked of their "friendship." In the tortuous streets off the boulevard, she introduced him to humble restaurants, where the dinners were sometimes amazingly good at ridiculously low prices. Together they made little excursions, and pretended to scribble or sketch in the woods—looking at each other, however, most of the time; and then at evening there was an inn to be sought, and the moon would rise sooner than the "friends"; and in the moonlight, when they returned to Paris and the pension de famille, sentiment would constrain their tones.
It was all quite innocent, but to the last degree unwise. The ex-shop assistant still throve decorously at Crouch End on his allowance, and Wendover should have seen that he was acting unfairly towards Miss Searle. To do him justice, he didn't see it—he had confided the story of his marriage to her, and it did not enter into his thoughts that she might care for him seriously notwithstanding; his experiences had given him no cause to esteem himself dangerous, and the lover who has never received favours is, in practice, always modest, though in aspirations he may be Juanesque. The suitor of quick perceptions has been made by other women, as everybody but the least sophisticated of débutantes knows.
But if he did not dream that he might trouble the peace of Miss Searle, he was perpetually conscious that Miss Searle had disturbed his own. A month's daily companionship with a temperament, plus a fascinating face, would be dangerous to any man—to Wendover it was fatal. His thoughts turned no longer to liaisons with duchesses; his work, itself, was secondary to Rhoda Searle. Silly fellow as he appears, the emotions wakened in him were no less genuine than if he had combined all the noble qualities with which he invested the heroes of his books. Besides, most people would appear silly in a description which dealt only with their weaknesses. Wendover loved, and he cursed the tie that prevented his asking the girl to be his wife. How happy he might have been!
He had feared that the last evening would be a melancholy one. But it was gay—the greater part of it was gay, at any rate. As soon as the door slammed behind them he saw that she had resolved to keep the thought of the morrow's journey in the background, to help him to turn the farewell into a fête. Her laughing caution was unnecessary; her voice, her eyes had given him the cue—her journey was to be undertaken in the distant future, life was delicious, and they were out to enjoy themselves! He had proposed dining at Armenonville—it wasn't the Paris that she had known, but champagne and fashion seemed the right thing to-night; and no fiacre had ever before sped so blithely, never had the Bois been so enchanting, and never had another girl been such joyous company. After dinner, the Ambassadeurs! The programme? They didn't listen to much of it, they were chattering all the time. It was only when the lamps died out that he heard a sigh; it was only when the lamps died out that the morning train, and the parting, and the blank beginning of the afterwards, seemed to him so horribly near.
The little salon was half dark when they reached the pension de famille, everybody else had gone to bed. Wendover turned up the light, and, though she said it was too late to sit down, they stood talking by the mantelpiece. "You've given me a heavenly memory for the end," she told him; "thanks so much! I shall be thinking of it at this time to-morrow."
"So shall I," said Wendover.
She took off her hat, and pulled her hair right before the mirror. "Shall you?"
"Will you write to me?"
"Yes, if you'd like me to."
"I'd more than like it—I shall look forward to your letters tremendously."
"There won't be much to say in them."
"They'll be from you. … I wish you weren't going."
She raised her eyes to him. "Why?" she asked. Wendover kept silent a moment—it was the hardest thing that he had done in his life. If he answered, "Because I love you," he felt that he would be a cad. Besides, she must know very well that he loved her—what good would it do to tell her so?—doubtless she had repented her question in the moment of putting it! Yes, he would be a cad to confess to her—she would think less of him for it. He would choose the beau rôle—and she would always remember that, when he might have spoilt their last scene together and pained her, he had been strong, heroic!
"We've been such pals," he said. That she mightn't underrate the heroism, he turned aside, as the noble fellow in books does when he is struggling.
After a pause, she murmured blankly, "It's time I said 'good-night.’"
She went to him and gave him her hand. Her clasp was fervent—it was encouraging to feel that she was grateful! Her gaze held him, and her eyes were wide, dark, troubled; he was sure that she was sorry for him.
"Good-night, my dear," said Wendover, still as brave as the fellow in the books. And when he had watched her go up the stairs—when she had turned again, with that look in her eyes, and turned away—he went back to the salon and was wretched beyond words to tell, for a fool may love as deeply as the wisest.
This was really their "good-bye"—in the morning the claims on her were many, and he was not the only one who drove to the station with her.
When she had been gone between two and three weeks, he received the promised letter. It told him little but that she was "the new drawing mistress"; of her thoughts, her attitude towards her new life, it said nothing. He replied promptly, questioning her; but she wrote no more, and not the least of his regrets was the thought that she had dismissed him from her mind so easily.
He did not remain much longer in the boarding-house, its associations hurt him too much. A sandy-haired girl, with no eyelashes and red ears, occupied the seat that had been Rhoda's at the table, and the newcomer's unconcerned possession of it stabbed him at every meal. Having taken precautions against letters for him going astray, he returned to the hotel, and there month after month he plodded at his book, and tried to forget.
Nearly a year had gone by when he stood again on the deck of a Channel boat. He had not spared himself, and the novel was finished, and he was satisfied with it; but he was as much in love as he had been on the morning when he watched a train steam from the gare St. Lazare. As he paced the deck he thought of Rhoda all the time; it excited him that he was going to England, he might chance to see her—he might even run down to Beckenhampton for a day or two? It would make the situation harder to bear afterwards, of course, but
He looked up "Beckenhampton" in the Railway Guide often during the next few days. The distance between them was marvellously short—the knowledge that an hour and a half's journey could yield her face to him again had a touch of the magical in it. An hour and a half from Hades to Olympus! The longing fevered him. He threw some things into a bag pellmell one morning, and caught the 10.15.
"The George Hotel!"—and from the hotel he directed the driver to the school. The little town was grey and drear; he pitied her acutely as he gazed about him from the fly. He understood how her spirit must beat itself against the bars, he realised what her arrival must have meant to her; behind one of the windows of this prison she had sat looking back upon her yesterday! How the year must have changed her! he wondered if she still smiled. The fly jolted into the narrow High Street—and he saw her coming out of the post-office.
Yes, she still smiled—the smile that irradiated her face and made him forget everything else! They stood outside the post-office together, clasping hands once more.
"You! what are you doing here?" she cried.
"I was just going to see you, I've just come from the station. How are you? You look very well."
"I'm all right. Are you back for good?"
"Yes, I left Paris a few days ago."
"Did you stay on at the pension?"
"Oh no, I gave that up soon after you went."
"You've finished your book, eh?"
"How did you know?"
"I saw something about it in a paper. And how's Paris? I dream I'm back sometimes."
"Paris is just the same."
"I suppose you never saw anything of the others afterwards—Kitty Owen, or the MacAllister girl?"
"No, I never came across any of them—I was working very hard. Well? Tell me things; what's the news? You're still at the school then?"
"No."
"No? Aren't you? I was on my way there. What are you doing?"
"I'm married."
The blood sank from his cheeks. "Married?"
"I've been married four months."
A woman came between them to post a letter, and he was grateful for the interruption. "Let me congratulate you."
"Thanks. My husband's a solicitor here. … You'll come and see us?"
"I'm afraid … I should have been delighted, of course, but I have to be in town again this evening."
"We'd better move—we're in everybody's way," she said. "Will you walk on with me? When does the book come out?"
"In a few weeks' time—I'll send a copy to you."
"Really? It would be very good of you. I've often looked at the book columns to see if it was published."
"Have you? I was afraid you'd forgotten all about me. … You—you might have written again; you promised to write!"
"I know."
"Why didn't you?"
"What was the good?"
"It would have made me happier. I missed you frightfully. I—I think that was why I left the pension, I couldn't stand it when you'd gone. … Well, are you happy?"
"Oh, I suppose so."
"I'm glad."
"So you won't come and see us?"
"It's impossible, I'm sorry to say. … As a matter of fact, I didn't mean to see you again at all."
"That's a pretty compliment!"
"Ah, you know what I mean—it seemed better that I shouldn't. But … I think I'm glad I did; I don't know! I've wondered sometimes whether you understood. … We shan't meet any more, and I should like you to know"
"Don't," she exclaimed thickly. "For heaven's sake!"
"I must," said Wendover—"I loved you dearly!"
They had walked some yards before she answered; her voice was a whisper; "What's the use of saying that to me now?" The bitterness of suffering was in the words—they flared the truth on him, the annihilating truth.
"My God!" he faltered, "would it have been any use then?"
Her face was colourless. She didn't speak.
"Rhoda, did you care? If—if I had asked you to stay with me, would you have stayed?"
"I don't know."
"Tell me."
"Yes, then, I would have stayed!" she said hoarsely. "Whom should I have hurt? I was alone, I had no one to study but myself. I wanted you to ask me. Stayed? I'd have thanked God if you had spoken! You were blind, you wouldn't see. And now, when it's too late, you come and say it!"
"I wanted to be straight to you," he groaned. "I sacrificed my happiness to be straight to you—it was damnably hard to do."
"I know. But I didn't want sacrifices—I wanted love. … Oh, it's no good our talking about it!" She stopped, and sighed. "We shall both get over it, I suppose."
"Is it too late?" pleaded Wendover brokenly.
"Quite. Things aren't the same; last year I was free to do as I liked. I have no conventions, but I have a conscience—there's my husband to consider now, and—and more, too. I shouldn't be contented like that to-day—I should have injured others. You and I let our chance slide, and we shall never get it back. … Smile, and say something about nothing—there are people who know me coming along."
And he did not sleep at the George after all; in the next train that left for Euston, a grey-faced man sat with wide eyes, cursing his own obtuseness. And he has not met her since. There is, of course, a brighter side to the history—although Rhoda is unhappy, she is happier than she would have remained with Wendover when the gilt was off the gingerbread; and though Wendover will never forget her, he cherishes her memory with more tenderness than he would have continued to cherish the girl.
But neither she nor he recognises this, and in Wendover's latest work, one may see the line that has been quoted: "Our bitterest remorse is not for our sins, but for our stupidities."
The reception of the novel was most flattering, and as usual the author's "insight into the mind of Woman" has been pronounced "remarkable."