An Autobiography Read online

  When the six months were up I received a telegram. ‘Cannot stand this indecision any longer. Will you marry me, yes or no.’ I was in bed with a slight feverish attack at the time. My mother brought me the telegram. I looked at it and at the reply-paid form. I took a pencil and wrote the word No. Immediately I felt an enormous relief: I had decided something. I should not have to go through any more of this uncomfortable up-and-down feeling.

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked mother.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I turned over on my pillow and went immediately to sleep. So that was the end of that.

  Life was rather gloomy during the next four or five months. For the first time everything I did bored me, and I began to feel that I had made a great mistake. Then Wilfred Pirie came back into my life.

  I have mentioned Martin and Lilian Pirie, my father’s great friends, whom we met again abroad, in Dinard. We had continued to meet, though I had not again seen the boys. Harold had been at Eton and Wilfred had been a midshipman in the Navy. Now Wilfred was a fully-fledged sub-lieutenant R.N. He was in a submarine, I think, at that time, and often came in with that portion of the Fleet which visited Torquay. He became an immense friend at once, one of the people in my life I have been fondest of. Within a couple of months we were unofficially engaged.

  Wilfred was such a relief after Charles. With him there was no excitement, no doubt, no misery. Here was just a dear friend, somebody I knew well. We read books, discussed them, we had always something to talk about. I was completely at home with him. The fact that I was treating him and considering him exactly like a brother, did not occur to me. My mother was delighted, and Mrs Pirie too. Martin Pirie had died some years ago. It seemed a perfect marriage from everyone’s point of view. Wilfred had a good career ahead of him in the Navy; our fathers had been the closest friends, and our mothers liked each other; mother liked Wilfred, Mrs Pirie liked me. I still feel I was a monster of ingratitude not to have married him.

  My life was now settled for me. In a year or two, when it was suitable (young subalterns and young sub-lieutenants were not encouraged to marry too soon) we would be married. I liked the idea of marrying a sailor. I should live in lodgings at Southsea, Plymouth, or somewhere like that, and when Wilfred was away on foreign stations I could come home to Ashfield and spend my time with mother. Really, nothing in the world could have been so right.

  I suppose there is a horrible kink in one’s disposition that tends always to kick against anything that is too right or too perfect. I wouldn’t admit it for a long time, but the prospect of marrying Wilfred induced in me a depressing feeling of boredom. I liked him, I would have been happy living in the same house with him, but somehow there wasn’t any excitement about it; no excitement at all!

  One of the first things that happens when you are attracted to a man and he is to you is that extraordinary illusion that you think exactly alike about everything, that you each say the things the other had been thinking. How wonderful it is that you like the same books, and the same music. The fact that one of you hardly ever goes to a concert or listens to music doesn’t at that moment matter. He always really liked music, but he didn’t know he did! In the same way, the books he likes you have never actually wished to read, but now you feel that really you do want to read them. There it is; one of Nature’s great illusions. We both like dogs and hate cats. How wonderful! We both like cats and hate dogs, also wonderful.

  So life went placidly on. Every two or three weeks Wilfred came for the weekend. He had a car and used to drive me around. He had a dog, and we both loved the dog. He became interested in spiritualism, therefore I became interested in spiritualism. So far all was well. But now Wilfred began to produce books that he was eager for me to read and pronounce on. They were very large books–theosophical mostly. The illusion that you enjoyed whatever your man enjoyed didn’t work; naturally it didn’t work–I wasn’t really in love with him. I found the books on theosophy tedious; not only tedious, I thought they were completely false; worse still, I thought a great many of them were nonsense! I also got rather tired of Wilfred’s descriptions of the mediums he knew. There were two girls in Portsmouth, and the things those girls saw you wouldn’t believe. They could hardly ever go into a house without gasping, stretching, clutching their hearts and being upset because there was a terrible spirit standing behind one of the company. ‘The other day,’ said Wilfred, ‘Mary–she’s the elder of the two–she went into a house and up to the bathroom to wash her hands, and do you know she couldn’t walk over the threshold? No, she absolutely couldn’t. There were two figures there–one was holding a razor to the throat of the other. Would you believe it?’

  I nearly said, ‘No, I wouldn’t,’ but controlled myself in time. ‘That’s very interesting,’ I said. ‘Had anyone ever held a razor to the throat of somebody there?’

  ‘They must have,’ said Wilfred. ‘The house had been let to several people before, so an incident of that kind must have occurred. Don’t you think so? Well, you can see it for yourself, can’t you?’

  But I didn’t see it for myself. I was always of an agreeable nature however, and so I said cheerfully, of course, it certainly must have been so.

  Then one day Wilfred rang up from Portsmouth and said a wonderful chance had come his way. There was a party being assembled to look for treasure trove in South America. Some leave was due to him and he would be able to go off on this expedition. Would I think it terrible of him if he went? It was the sort of exciting chance that might never happen again. The mediums, I gathered, had expressed approval. They had said that undoubtedly he would come back having discovered a city that had not been known since the time of the Incas. Of course, one couldn’t take that as proof or anything, but it was very extraordinary, wasn’t it? Did I think it awful of him, when he could have spent a good part of his leave with me?

  I found myself having not the slightest hesitation. I behaved with splendid unselfishness. I said to him I thought it a wonderful opportunity, that of course he must go, and that I hoped with all my heart that he would find the Incas’ treasures. Wilfred said I was wonderful; absolutely wonderful; not a girl in a thousand would behave like that. He rang off, sent me a loving letter, and departed.

  But I was not a girl in a thousand; I was just a girl who had found out the truth about herself and was rather ashamed about it. I woke up the day after he had actually sailed with the feeling that an enormous load had slipped off my mind. I was delighted for Wilfred to go treasure-hunting, because I loved him like a brother and I wanted him to do what he wanted to do. I thought the treasure-hunting idea was rather silly, and almost certain to be bogus. That again was because I was not in love with him. If I had been, I would have been able to see it through his eyes. Thirdly, oh joy, oh joy! I would not have to read any more theosophy.

  ‘What are you looking so cheerful about?’ mother asked suspiciously. ‘Listen, mother,’ I said. ‘I know it’s awful, but I am really cheerful because Wilfred has gone away.’

  The poor darling. Her face fell. I have never felt so mean, so ungrateful as I did then. She had been so happy about Wilfred and me coming together. For one misguided moment I almost felt that I must go through with it, just for the sake of making her happy. Fortunately, I was not quite so sunk in sentimentality as that.

  I didn’t write and tell Wilfred what I had decided, because I thought it might have a bad effect on him in the middle of hunting for Inca treasure in steamy jungles. He might have a fever, or some unpleasant animal might leap on him while his mind was distracted–and anyway it would spoil his enjoyment. But I had a letter waiting for him when he came back. I told him how sorry I was, how fond of him I was, but I didn’t think that there was really the proper kind of feeling between us to engage each other for life. He didn’t agree with me, of course, but he took the decision seriously. He said he didn’t think he could bear to see me often, but that we would always remain friendly towards each other. I wonder now if he was relieved as well. I don’t t
hink so, but on the other hand I do not think it cut him to the heart. I think he was lucky. He would have made me a good husband, and would always have been fond of me, and I think I should have made him quite happy in a quiet way, but he could do better for himself–and about three months later he did. He fell violently in love with another girl, and she fell as violently in love with him. They were married in due course, and had six children. Nothing could have been more satisfactory.

  As for Charles, about three years later he married a beautiful girl of eighteen.

  Really, what a benefactress I was to those two men.

  The next thing that happened was that Reggie Lucy came back on leave from Hongkong. Though I had known the Lucys for so many years, I had never met their eldest brother, Reggie. He was a major in the Gunners, and had done his service mostly abroad. He was a shy and retiring person who seldom went out. He liked playing golf, but he had never cared for dances or parties. He was not fair-haired and blue-eyed like the others; he had dark hair and brown eyes. They were a closely-knit family, and enjoyed each other’s society. We went out to Dartmoor together in the usual Lucy-ish fashion–missing trams, looking-up trains which didn’t exist, missing them anyway, changing at Newton Abbot and missing the connection, deciding we’d go to a different part of the Moor, and so on.

  Then Reggie offered to improve my golf. My golf at this stage might be said to have been practically non-existent. Various young men had done their best for me, but much to my own regret, I was not good at games. The irritating thing was that I was always a promising beginner. At archery, at billiards, at golf, at tennis, and at croquet I promised very well; but the promise was never fulfilled: another source of humiliation. The truth is, I suppose, that if you haven’t got a good eye for balls you haven’t. I played in croquet tournaments with Madge where I had the advantage of the utmost number of bisques that was allowed.

  ‘With all your bisques,’ said Madge, who played well, ‘we ought to win easily.’

  My bisques helped, but we didn’t win. I was good at the theory of the game, but I invariably missed ridiculously easy shots. At tennis I developed a good forehand drive which sometimes impressed my partners, but my backhand was hopeless. You cannot play tennis with a forehand drive alone. At golf I had wild drives, terrible iron shots, beautiful approach shots, and completely unreliable putts.

  Reggie, however, was extremely patient, and he was the kind of teacher who did not mind in the least whether you improved or not. We meandered gently round the links; we stopped whenever we felt like it. The serious golfers went by train to Churston golf course. The Torquay course was also the race-course three times a year, and was not much patronised or well kept-up. Reggie and I would amble round it, then we would go back to tea with the Lucys and have a sing-song, having made fresh toast because the old toast was now cold. And so on. It was a happy lazy life. Nobody ever hurried, and time didn’t matter. Never any worry, never any fuss. I may be entirely wrong, but I feel certain that none of the Lucys ever had duodenal ulcers, coronary thromboses, or high blood pressure.

  One day Reggie and I had played four holes of golf, and then, since the day was extremely hot, he suggested that really it would be much more agreeable to sit down under the hedge He got out his pipe, smoked companionably, and we talked in our usual way, which was never continuously, but a word or two on a subject or a person, then restful pauses. It is the way I most like holding a conversation. I never felt slow or stupid, or at a loss for things to say, when I was with Reggie.

  Presently, after various puffs at his pipe, he said thoughtfully: ‘You’ve got a lot of scalps, Agatha, haven’t you? Well, you can put mine with them any time you like.’

  I looked at him rather doubtfully, not quite sure of his meaning.

  ‘I don’t know whether you know I want to marry you,’ he said, ‘you probably do. But I may as well say it. Mind you, I’m not pushing myself forward in any way; I mean there’s no hurry’–the famous Lucy phrase came easily from Reggie’s lips–‘You are very young still, and it would be all wrong on my part to tie you down now.’

  I said sharply that I was not so very young.

  ‘Oh yes you are, Aggie, compared with me.’ Though Reggie had been urged not to call me Aggie, he frequently forgot, because it was so natural for the Lucys to call each other names like Margie, Noonie, Eddie, and Aggie. ‘Well, you think about it,’ went on Reggie. ‘Just bear me in mind, and if nobody else turns up–there I am, you know.’

  I said immediately that I didn’t need to think about it; I would like to marry him.

  ‘I don’t think you can have thought properly, Aggie.’

  ‘Of course I’ve thought properly. I can think in a moment about a thing like that.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s no good rushing into it, is it? You see, a girl like you–well, she could marry anybody.’

  ‘I don’t think I want to marry anybody. I think I’d rather marry you.’

  ‘Yes, but you’ve got to be practical, you know. You’ve got to be practical in this world. You want to marry a man with a good lot of money, a nice chap, one you like, who can give you a good time and look after you properly, give you all the things you ought to have.’

  ‘I only want to marry the person I want to marry; I don’t mind about a lot of things.’

  ‘Yes, but they are important, old girl. They are important in this world. It is no good being young and romantic.’ He went on, ‘My leave’s up in another ten days. I thought I’d better speak before I went. Before that I thought I wouldn’t…I thought that I’d wait. But I think you–well, I think I’d like you just to know that I’m here. When I come back in two years’ time, if there isn’t anybody–’

  ‘There won’t be anyone,’ I said. I was quite positive.

  And so Reggie and I became engaged. It was not called an engagement: it was on the ‘understanding’ system. Our families knew we were engaged, but it would not be announced or put in the paper, and we would not tell our friends about it, though I think most of them knew.

  ‘I can’t think,’ I said to Reggie, ‘why we can’t be married. Why didn’t you tell me sooner, then we would have had time to make preparations.’

  ‘Yes, of course, you’ve got to have bridesmaids and a slap-up wedding and all the rest of it. But anyway, I shouldn’t dream of letting you get married to me now. You must have your chance.’

  I used to get angry over this, and we would almost quarrel. I said I didn’t think it was flattering for him to be so ready to turn down my offer to marry him at once. But Reggie had fixed ideas as to what was due to the person he loved, and he had got it into his long, narrow head that the right thing for me to do was to marry a man with a place, money, and all the rest of it. In spite of our disputes, though, we were very happy. The Lucys all seemed pleased, saying, ‘We’ve thought Reggie had his eye on you, Aggie, for some time. He doesn’t usually look at any of our girl friends. Still, there’s no hurry. Better give yourself plenty of time.’

  There were one or two moments when what I had enjoyed so much with the Lucys–their insistence on there being plenty of time for anything–roused a certain antagonism in me. Romantically, I would have liked Reggie to say that he couldn’t possibly wait two years, that we must get married now. Unfortunately, it was the last thing Reggie would have dreamed of saying. He was a very unselfish man, and diffident about himself and his prospects.

  My mother was, I think, happy about our engagement. She said, ‘I have always been fond of him. I think he is one of the nicest people I have ever met. He will make you happy. He is gentle and kind, and he will never hurry you, or bother you. You won’t be very well off, but you will have enough now that he has reached the rank of major–you’ll manage all right. You’re not the sort of person who cares very much about money, and who wants parties and a gay life. No, I think this will be a happy marriage.’

  Then she said, after a slight pause, ‘I wish he’d told you a little earlier, so that you could have married
straight away.’

  So she, too, felt as I did. Ten days later, Reggie left to go back to his Regiment and I settled down to wait for him.

  Let me add here a kind of postscript to my account of my courtship days.

  I have described my suitors–but, rather unfairly, have not commented on the fact that I, too, lost my heart. First to a very tall young soldier, whom I met when staying in Yorkshire. If he had asked me to marry him, I should probably have said yes before the words were out of his mouth! Very wisely from his point of view, he didn’t. He was a penniless subaltern, and about to go to India with his regiment. I think he was more or less in love with me, though. He had that sheep-like look. I had to make do with that. He went off to India, and I yearned after him for at least six months.

  Then, a year or so later, I lost my heart again, when acting in a musical play got up by friends in Torquay–a version of Bluebeard, with topical words, written by themselves. I was Sister Anne, and the object of my affections later became an Air Vice-Marshal. He was young then–at the beginning of his career. I had the revolting habit of singing to a teddy bear in a coy fashion the song of the moment:

  I wish I had a Teddy Bear

  To sit upon my knee

  I’d take it with me everywhere