Aaron's Rod, D. H. Lawrence [book recommendations for young adults .TXT] 📗

through the next scene, Julia puzzled herself, as to whether she should go down to the country and live with Scott. She had carried on a nervous kind of amour with him, based on soul sympathy and emotional excitement. But whether to go and live with him? She didn’t know if she wanted to or not: and she couldn’t for her life find out. She was in that nervous state when desire seems to evaporate the moment fulfilment is offered.

When the curtain dropped she turned.

“You see,” she said, screwing up her eyes, “I have to think of Robert.” She cut the word in two, with an odd little hitch in her voice—“ROB-ert.”

“My dear Julia, can’t you believe that I’m tired of being thought of,” cried Robert, flushing.

Julia screwed up her eyes in a slow smile, oddly cogitating.

“Well, who AM I to think of?” she asked.

“Yourself,” said Lilly.

“Oh, yes! Why, yes! I never thought of that!” She gave a hurried little laugh. “But then it’s no FUN to think about oneself,” she cried flatly. “I think about ROB-ert, and SCOTT.” She screwed up her eyes and peered oddly at the company.

“Which of them will find you the greatest treat,” said Lilly sarcastically.

“Anyhow,” interjected Robert nervously, “it will be something new for Scott.”

“Stale buns for you, old boy,” said Jim drily.

“I don’t say so. But—” exclaimed the flushed, full-blooded Robert, who was nothing if not courteous to women.

“How long ha’ you been married? Eh?” asked Jim.

“Six years!” sang Julia sweetly.

“Good God!”

“You see,” said Robert, “Julia can’t decide anything for herself. She waits for someone else to decide, then she puts her spoke in.”

“Put it plainly—” began Struthers.

“But don’t you know, it’s no USE putting it plainly,” cried Julia.

“But DO you want to be with Scott, out and out, or DON’T you?” said Lilly.

“Exactly!” chimed Robert. “That’s the question for you to answer Julia.”

“I WON’T answer it,” she cried. “Why should I?” And she looked away into the restless hive of the theatre. She spoke so wildly that she attracted attention. But it half pleased her. She stared abstractedly down at the pit.

The men looked at one another in some comic consternation.

“Oh, damn it all!” said the long Jim, rising and stretching himself. “She’s dead nuts on Scott. She’s all over him. She’d have eloped with him weeks ago if it hadn’t been so easy. She can’t stand it that Robert offers to hand her into the taxi.”

He gave his malevolent grin round the company, then went out. He did not reappear for the next scene.

“Of course, if she loves Scott—” began Struthers.

Julia suddenly turned with wild desperation, and cried:

“I like him tremendously—tre-men-dous-ly! He DOES understand.”

“Which we don’t,” said Robert.

Julia smiled her long, odd smile in their faces: one might almost say she smiled in their teeth.

“What do YOU think, Josephine?” asked Lilly.

Josephine was leaning froward. She started. Her tongue went rapidly over her lips. “Who—? I—?” she exclaimed.

“Yes.”

“I think Julia should go with Scott,” said Josephine. “She’ll bother with the idea till she’s done it. She loves him, really.”

“Of course she does,” cried Robert.

Julia, with her chin resting on her arms, in a position which irritated the neighbouring Lady Cochrane sincerely, was gazing with unseeing eyes down upon the stalls.

“Well then—” began Struthers. But the music struck up softly. They were all rather bored. Struthers kept on making small, half audible remarks—which was bad form, and displeased Josephine, the hostess of the evening.

When the curtain came down for the end of the act, the men got up. Lilly’s wife, Tanny, suddenly appeared. She had come on after a dinner engagement.

“Would you like tea or anything?” Lilly asked.

The women refused. The men filtered out on to the crimson and white, curving corridor. Julia, Josephine and Tanny remained in the box. Tanny was soon hitched on to the conversation in hand.

“Of course,” she replied, “one can’t decide such a thing like drinking a cup of tea.”

“Of course, one can’t, dear Tanny,” said Julia.

“After all, one doesn’t leave one’s husband every day, to go and live with another man. Even if one looks on it as an experiment—.”

“It’s difficult!” cried Julia. “It’s difficult! I feel they all want to FORCE me to decide. It’s cruel.”

“Oh, men with their beastly logic, their either-this-or-that stunt, they are an awful bore.—But of course, Robert can’t love you REALLY, or he’d want to keep you. I can see Lilly discussing such a thing for ME. But then you don’t love Robert either,” said Tanny.

“I do! Oh, I do, Tanny! I DO love him, I love him dearly. I think he’s beautiful. Robert’s beautiful. And he NEEDS me. And I need him too. I need his support. Yes, I do love him.”

“But you like Scott better,” said Tanny.

“Only because he—he’s different,” sang Julia, in long tones. “You see Scott has his art. His art matters. And ROB-ert—Robert is a dilettante, don’t you think—he’s dilettante—” She screwed up her eyes at Tanny. Tanny cogitated.

“Of course I don’t think that matters,” she replied.

“But it does, it matters tremendously, dear Tanny, tremendously.”

“Of course,” Tanny sheered off. “I can see Scott has great attractions—a great warmth somewhere—”

“Exactly!” cried Julia. “He UNDERSTANDS”

“And I believe he’s a real artist. You might even work together. You might write his librettos.”

“Yes!—Yes!—” Julia spoke with a long, pondering hiss.

“It might be AWFULLY nice,” said Tanny rapturously.

“Yes!—It might!—It might—!” pondered Julia. Suddenly she gave herself a shake. Then she laughed hurriedly, as if breaking from her line of thought.

“And wouldn’t Robert be an AWFULLY nice lover for Josephine! Oh, wouldn’t that be splendid!” she cried, with her high laugh.

Josephine, who had been gazing down into the orchestra, turned now, flushing darkly.

“But I don’t want a lover, Julia,” she said, hurt.

“Josephine dear! Dear old Josephine! Don’t you really! Oh, yes, you do.—I want one so BADLY,” cried Julia, with her shaking laugh. “Robert’s awfully good to me. But we’ve been married six years. And it does make a difference, doesn’t it, Tanny dear?”

“A great difference,” said Tanny.

“Yes, it makes a difference, it makes a difference,” mused Julia. “Dear old Rob-ert—I wouldn’t hurt him for worlds. I wouldn’t. Do you think it would hurt Robert?”

She screwed up her eyes, looking at Tanny.

“Perhaps it would do Robert good to be hurt a little,” said Tanny. “He’s so well-nourished.”

“Yes!—Yes!—I see what you mean, Tanny!—Poor old ROB-ert! Oh, poor old Rob-ert, he’s so young!”

“He DOES seem young,” said Tanny. “One doesn’t forgive it.”

“He is young,” said Julia. “I’m five years older than he. “He’s only twenty-seven. Poor Old Robert.”

“Robert is young, and inexperienced,” said Josephine, suddenly turning with anger. “But I don’t know why you talk about him.”

“Is he inexperienced, Josephine dear? IS he?” sang Julia. Josephine flushed darkly, and turned away.

“Ah, he’s not so innocent as all that,” said Tanny roughly. “Those young young men, who seem so fresh, they’re deep enough, really. They’re far less innocent really than men who are experienced.”

“They are, aren’t they, Tanny,” repeated Julia softly. “They’re old— older than the Old Man of the Seas, sometimes, aren’t they? Incredibly old, like little boys who know too much—aren’t they? Yes!” She spoke quietly, seriously, as if it had struck her.

Below, the orchestra was coming in. Josephine was watching closely. Julia became aware of this.

“Do you see anybody we know, Josephine?” she asked.

Josephine started.

“No,” she said, looking at her friends quickly and furtively.

“Dear old Josephine, she knows all sorts of people,” sang Julia.

At that moment the men returned.

“Have you actually come back!” exclaimed Tanny to them. They sat down without answering. Jim spread himself as far as he could, in the narrow space. He stared upwards, wrinkling his ugly, queer face. It was evident he was in one of his moods.

“If only somebody loved me!” he complained. “If only somebody loved me I should be all right. I’m going to pieces.” He sat up and peered into the faces of the women.

“But we ALL love you,” said Josephine, laughing uneasily. “Why aren’t you satisfied?”

“I’m not satisfied. I’m not satisfied,” murmured Jim.

“Would you like to be wrapped in swaddling bands and laid at the breast?” asked Lilly, disagreeably.

Jim opened his mouth in a grin, and gazed long and malevolently at his questioner.

“Yes,” he said. Then he sprawled his long six foot of limb and body across the box again.

“You should try loving somebody, for a change,” said Tanny. “You’ve been loved too often. Why not try and love somebody?”

Jim eyed her narrowly.

“I couldn’t love YOU,” he said, in vicious tones.

“A la bonne heure!” said Tanny.

But Jim sank his chin on his chest, and repeated obstinately:

“I want to be loved.”

“How many times have you been loved?” Robert asked him. “It would be rather interesting to know.”

Jim looked at Robert long and slow, but did not answer.

“Did you ever keep count?” Tanny persisted.

Jim looked up at her, malevolent.

“I believe I did,” he replied.

“Forty is the age when a man should begin to reckon up,” said Lilly.

Jim suddenly sprang to his feet, and brandished his fists.

“I’ll pitch the lot of you over the bloody rail,” he said.

He glared at them, from under his bald, wrinkled forehead. Josephine glanced round. She had become a dusky white colour. She was afraid of him, and she disliked him intensely nowadays.

“Do you recognise anyone in the orchestra?” she asked.

The party in the box had become dead silent. They looked down. The conductor was at his stand. The music began. They all remained silent and motionless during the next scene, each thinking his own thoughts. Jim was uncomfortable. He wanted to make good. He sat with his elbows on his knees, grinning slightly, looking down. At the next interval he stood up suddenly.

“It IS the chap—What?” he exclaimed excitedly, looking round at his friends.

“Who?” said Tanny.

“It IS he?” said Josephine quietly, meeting Jim’s eye.

“Sure!” he barked.

He was leaning forward over the ledge, rattling a programme in his hand, as if trying to attract attention. Then he made signals.

“There you are!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “That’s the chap.”

“Who? Who?” they cried.

But neither Jim nor Josephine would vouchsafe an answer.

The next was the long interval. Jim and Josephine gazed down at the orchestra. The musicians were laying aside their instruments and rising. The ugly fire-curtain began slowly to descend. Jim suddenly bolted out.

“Is it that man Aaron Sisson?” asked Robert.

“Where? Where?” cried Julia. “It can’t be.”

But Josephine’s face was closed and silent. She did not answer.

The whole party moved out on to the crimson-carpeted gangway. Groups of people stood about chatting, men