Giant’s Bread · Book II · V · Chapter 2 5 2

II

They woke from a happy dream. “Oh! Vernon, I believe we’ve been here ages!”

Conscience-stricken they hurried to the trapdoor. On the landing below, Vernon surveyed Nell anxiously.

“I’m afraid you’ve been sitting on an awful lot of smuts, Nell.”

“Oh, have I? How awful.”

“It’s my fault, darling. But, oh, Nell! it was worth it, wasn’t it?”

She smiled up at him, gently, happily.

“It was worth it,” she said softly.

As they went down the stairs she said with a little laugh:

“What about all the things you wanted to say? Lots and lots of them.”

They both laughed in perfect understanding. They reentered the dancing room rather sheepishly. They had missed six dances.

A lovely evening. Nell had gone to sleep and dreamed of more kisses.

And then, this morning, Saturday morning, Vernon had rung up.

“I want to talk to you. Can I come round?”

“Oh! Vernon, dear, you can’t. I’m going out now to meet people. I can’t get out of it.”

“Why not?”

“I mean I wouldn’t know what to say to Mother.”

“You haven’t told her anything?”

“Oh, no!”

The vehemence of that “Oh, no!” had checked Vernon. He thought: “Poor little darling. Of course she hasn’t.” He said: “Hadn’t I better do that? I’ll come round now.”

“Oh! no, Vernon, not until we’ve talked.”

“Well, when can we talk?”

“I don’t know. I’m lunching with people and going to a matinée and to the theatre again tonight. If you’d only told me you were going to be up this weekend I’d have arranged something.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“Well, there’s church⁠—”

“That’ll do! Don’t go to church. Say you’ve got a headache or something. I’ll come round. We can talk then, and when your mother comes back from church I can have it out with her.”

“Oh! Vernon, I don’t think I can⁠—”

“Yes, you can. I’m going to ring off now before you can make any more excuses. At eleven tomorrow.”

He rang off. He hadn’t even told Nell where he was staying. She admired him for this masculine decision even while it caused her anxiety. She was afraid he was going to spoil everything.

And now, here they were, in the middle of a heated discussion. Nell had begged him to say nothing to her mother.

“It will spoil everything. We shan’t be allowed to.”

“Shan’t be allowed to what?”

“See each other or anything.”

“But Nell darling, I want to marry you. And you want to marry me, don’t you? I want to marry you awfully soon.”

She had her first feeling of exasperation then. Couldn’t he see things as they were? He was talking like a mere boy.

“But, Vernon, we haven’t any money.”

“I know. But I’m going to work awfully hard. You won’t mind being poor, will you, Nell?”

She said no since it was expected of her, but she was conscious that she did not say it wholeheartedly. It was dreadful being poor. Vernon didn’t know how dreadful it was. She suddenly felt years and years older and more experienced than he. He was talking like a romantic boy⁠—he didn’t know what things were really like.

“Oh, Vernon, can’t we just go on as we are? We’re so happy now.”

“Of course we’re happy⁠—but we could be happier still. I want to be really engaged to you⁠—I want everyone to know that you belong to me.”

“I don’t see that that makes any difference.”

“I suppose it doesn’t. But I want to have a right to see you, instead of being miserable about you going round with chaps like that ass, Dacre.”

“Oh! Vernon, you’re not jealous?”

“I know I oughtn’t to be. But you don’t really know how lovely you are, Nell! Everyone must be in love with you. I believe even that solemn old American fellow is.”

Nell changed colour slightly.

“Well, I think you’ll spoil everything,” she murmured.

“You think your mother will be horrid to you about it? I’m awfully sorry. I’ll tell her it’s all my fault. And after all, she’s got to know. I expect she’ll be disappointed because she probably wanted you to marry someone rich. That’s quite natural. But it doesn’t really make you happy being rich, does it?”

Nell said suddenly in a hard, desperate little voice:

“You talk like that, but what do you know about being poor?”

Vernon was astonished.

“But I am poor.”

“No, you’re not. You’ve been to schools and universities and in the holidays you’ve lived with your mother who’s rich. You don’t know anything at all about it. You don’t know⁠—”

She stopped in despair. She wasn’t clever with words. How could she paint the picture she knew so well? The shifts, the struggles, the evasions, the desperate fight to keep up appearances. The ease with which friends dropped you if you “couldn’t keep up with things,” the slights, the snubs⁠—worse, the galling patronage! In Captain Vereker’s lifetime, and since his death, it had always been the same. You could, of course, live in a cottage in the country and never see anyone, never go to dances like other girls, never have pretty clothes, live within your income and rot away slowly! Either way was pretty beastly. It was so unfair⁠—one ought to have money. And always marriage lay ahead of you clearly designated as the way of escape. No more striving and snubs and subterfuges.

You didn’t think of it as marrying for money. Nell, with the boundless optimism of youth, had always pictured herself falling in love with a nice, rich man. And now she had fallen in love with Vernon Deyre. Her thoughts hadn’t gone as far as marriage. She was just happy⁠—wonderfully happy.

She almost hated Vernon for dragging her down from the clouds. And she resented his easy taking for granted of her readiness to face poverty for his sake. If he’d put it differently. If he’d said: “I oughtn’t to ask you⁠—but do you think you could for my sake?” Something like that.

So that she could feel that her sacrifice was being appreciated. For after all, it was a sacrifice! She didn’t want to be poor⁠—she hated the idea of being poor. She was afraid of it. Vernon’s contemptuous unworldly attitude infuriated her. It was so easy not to care about money when you’d never felt the lack of it. And Vernon hadn’t⁠—he wasn’t aware of the fact but, there it was. He’d lived softly and comfortably and well.

He said now in an astonished kind of way: “Oh! Nell, surely you wouldn’t mind being poor?”

“I’ve been poor, I tell you. I know what it’s like.”

She felt years and years older than Vernon. He was a child⁠—a baby! What did he know of the difficulties of getting credit? Of the money that she and her mother already owed? She felt suddenly terribly lonely and miserable. What was the good of men? They said wonderful things to you, they loved you, but did they ever try to understand? Vernon wasn’t trying now. He was just saying condemnatory things, showing her how she had fallen in his estimation.

“If you say that you can’t love me.”

She replied helplessly: “You don’t understand.”

They gazed at each other hopelessly. What had happened? Why were things like this between them?

“You don’t love me,” repeated Vernon angrily.

“Oh, Vernon, I do, I do.⁠ ⁠…”

Suddenly, like an enchantment, their love swept over them again. They clung together, kissing. They felt that age-long lovers’ delusion that everything must come right because they loved. It was Vernon’s victory. He still insisted on telling Mrs. Vereker. Nell opposed him no longer. His arms round her, his lips on hers⁠ ⁠… She couldn’t go on arguing. Better to give oneself up to the joy of being loved, to say: “Yes⁠—yes darling, if you like⁠ ⁠… anything you like.”

Yet, almost unknown to herself, under her love was a faint resentment.