Джеймс Хилтон - Morning Journey

“AM I?” She was moved almost to tears, and he did not tell her that his long speech had been a repetition, personalized and slightly adapted, of a paragraph in an article on acting which he had submitted to various magazines so far without success.

She added: “Paul, since you say that, is there—do you think —any chance for me?”

“As an actress?” Trying to assemble his judgment, he was excited by her emotion; it was intoxicating to think that she must assume his eloquence to have been improvised.

“I know it’s the most awful time to ask,” she went on, noticing his hesitation. “But I HAVE asked, so won’t you answer? Is there the merest outside chance? You’re leaving so soon and you can help me either way. If you say no, I’ll give up the whole idea, because I don’t want to waste my time. But if you say yes, then…”

His judgment still balked, and he could only remember what he had realized from the first—that she possessed the genuine histrionic personality plus a quality of her own that the stage might either destroy or magnify, depending of course on how she was trained and directed. What was it? Talent? Some half-physical attribute? He answered: “Yes, I think you might have a chance.” His words had the kind of delayed sincerity that made him feel, a few seconds after speaking them, that he hadn’t been insincere at all. (For presumably she did have a chance, at the Abbey, of being properly directed.) He went on, gathering confidence: “Why, sure—of course you have.”

“You REALLY think so?”

“I do… I do…”

The answer made the thing seem like some sort of ceremony involving them in vows and pledges; I do, I do, his mind kept echoing, incredulously.

“Oh, bless you, Paul—even if you don’t mean it… no, don’t argue —not another word—I know you have to go—”

Actually he didn’t want to go now at all; he wanted to explore a relationship that had begun to fascinate.

“But Carey—”

“Dear, no, I’ve talked too long already—I’ll bet my aunt and uncle are wondering who that man is. Thank you, Paul—you’ve helped me so much—in so many ways—”

“Will you do something for me, then? As soon as I’ve gone, go to bed and try to sleep.”

“Yes, yes, I promise that. I promise.”

In her changed mood she was almost shooing him out of the house.

“And I’ll write to you from Rome—”

“Yes, if you have time—but you’ll be so busy—”

“I’ll find time, Carey… because I…”

“Goodbye, Paul—goodbye.” They shook hands in the lobby as she opened the door. All the way back to Venton League he wondered why he had not kissed her. It did not seem important till he himself was in bed and trying to sleep. Then, with the mail-boat to catch in a few hours, he felt hemmed in by timings and mistimings.

Paul wrote to her from the Holyhead boat the next day—a constrained letter, oddly aloof, because there was a battle going on in his own mind. He was fated, it seemed, to fight too late, when the issue could not be affected and the victory of second thoughts could only bring regrets and remorse. This time it was the fact that he had left Carey in such trouble, deserting her when she might most need him. Actually he doubted whether he could have helped her more than he already had by his advice and encouragement; but this prompt physical departure from the scene had an air of callousness which shocked him when now he contemplated it. Surely it would seem to her that he could cancel anything except business, and for anyone except her. If she mattered to him, he ought to have stayed in Dublin for at least a few days, even if he had left Venton League and taken a room at a hotel. But perhaps, he reflected, the fact that he was now on his way elsewhere proved that she DIDN’T matter to him. It was an argument that made him uneasy, as if, in his bones, he WISHED her to matter to him and would suffer if it were proved otherwise.

He wrote to her again from London, but there was no time for her to reply before he was off to Rome; he gave her an address there. If she didn’t reply, it might mean that she too had sized up the situation as one calling for caution, or at least for a meditative pause. During his first week in Rome he glanced many times across the hotel desk to the pigeon-hole where his mail was put when he had any; he was curious, but not too anxious yet. No letter came from her; and then, as if to make that a bad start in retrospect, other things began to go wrong too. Mussolini was neither in Rome nor willing to see him, and from a succession of urgent cables it was clear how confidently and absurdly Merryweather had been counting on a repetition of the Lloyd George fluke. Paul almost wished he could share the editor’s concern; as it was, he felt only increasing distaste for the kind of fraud he was beginning to think he was. Perhaps the sooner he failed as a journalist the better, but it must be quick and catastrophic, before he could rescue himself by another fluke. Because he so nearly HAD pulled off that interview with Mussolini, and the reason for missing at the last moment had been nothing but his own caprice, if one could let it go at that; he had neglected to exploit one of Rowden’s letters of introduction to an Italian of wealth and influence. The man had evidently liked Paul on sight and been ready to pull some final string, but Paul, after one short meeting, had fought shy of him from a personal squeamishness as hard to admit as to ignore.

So having fluffed, he left Italy and travelled to Paris to await further word from Merryweather; if none came he could take it that there were no more assignments for the time being. He certainly did not feel he could return to Dublin to face Rowden’s curiosity, whetted by some likely communication from the Italian friend. The one thing that tempted was the chance to see Carey again, but even this did not preponderate till after a certain evening in Paris. He had gone alone to a performance of the Magic Flute; he did not as a rule care for operas, because he found their dramatic foolishness hard to take, but this was a superlative blend of music and spectacle that made everything else forgettable and therefore tolerable; he sat entranced, and later, strolling along a boulevard, suddenly realized that not to see Carey again, not to follow up their relationship, would be like avoiding Mozart because one had once been bored by Bizet. At a sidewalk café he stopped for a drink, the goggle-eyed American in Paris to all misleading appearance; for in truth he was lost in abstractions that soon became self-incredulous—how UNLIKELY that a seventeen-year-old Irish girl whom he had talked to for no more than a few hours could not only have occupied his mind since then, but could now reach out to touch the troubled parts of it! It occurred to him also, and as an afterthought, that no one before had so attracted him by sheerly feminine qualities—the lilt of her voice from the first word of that first encounter, her lips twisting when she smiled, even the piquantly all-wrong quality she had given to a small stage part (the director’s fault, not hers). But most of all, and never an afterthought, was the mystery she shared with all (and how few they were) who had it in them to make a finger-point of contact with life through art —a feminine, creative mystery, the secret nerve that could break down every withholding in himself, whether from man or woman.

He wrote again that night, telling her whimsically that Mussolini had refused to have anything to do with him, so he would soon have to return to America, his travel fellowship year being almost over; but he would like to see her again before that. He didn’t think he would revisit Dublin, but if by any chance she could travel part of the way—to Holyhead, perhaps, or Liverpool… of course he could well imagine there might be circumstances to prevent that, and he would fully understand, but still, if it were at all possible to arrange a rendezvous…