Rendell said nothing. Marsden’s manner irritated him even more than his remarks. He was convinced that Marsden had told the truth when they had dined together—and that now he regretted it. Why this should be so Rendell could not imagine, but it was very clear that the necessity for this conversation—whatever that necessity might be—was a whip to Marsden’s vanity.
“Why are you telling me all this, Marsden? What does it matter to you what I think about your relations with Trent?”
Marsden started a sentence, then abandoned it. He began another—and broke off. After which he fidgeted with his tie till Rendell’s patience exploded.
“Oh, for God’s sake say what you’ve got to say—or let’s cut the whole thing out!”
He almost shouted the words.
Marsden stared at him in astonishment, but there was a respectful note in his voice when he said:
“I say! You’ve altered. You used to be a collected person. What
Rendell put his pipe down, then got up and took a cigarette from a box on the mantelpiece.
“I don’t want you to tell me anything, Marsden. But, if
“It does matter,” Marsden replied emphatically. Then, after a pause, he exclaimed angrily: “Do you think I want all that nonsense I told you repeated to Vera?”
“Oh, so that’s it?”
“Yes—
“You can count on me not to say anything to her.”
“Then you’ve not told her what I said that Sunday?” Marsden asked eagerly.
“Not a word of it.”
“Good! That’s all right. And you don’t think she’ll want to discuss Trent with me?”
“But you said she didn’t.”
“I know, but I mean in the future. Supposing we married, I don’t want to be cross-examined about Trent.”
“I’m sure she won’t want to be either. You can put the whole subject out of your head.”
Marsden settled himself more comfortably.
“Good! I shall wait till she’s a bit better and then I’ll ask her to marry me. But I tell you again—there’s something odd about her. I was at her place the other night and—when the postman came—she went as white as a sheet. I’m damned if I know what’s wrong.”
This was the first of several conversations, none of which enhanced Rendell’s opinion of Marsden. What did interest him, however, was the news concerning Vera, for Rendell could not imagine what could have produced this new frenzy of fear. She had seemed satisfied that her secret was safe when he had left her that night at her flat. What had happened since? Did she regret her confession to him? Possibly. Anyway she was avoiding him. That was certain.
But, apart from Vera and Marsden, there was Denis Wrayburn—a deeper problem than either and one which touched Rendell’s conscience.
He had only seen Wrayburn two or three times during the last month and, on each occasion, Rendell had made the meeting a brief one. It was easy to explain this neglect by enumerating the demands made by Rosalie, but this explanation would have been more convincing if Rendell had felt that he wanted to see Wrayburn now he was free. But he did not. He saw little of him, despite a deepening premonition that he was necessary to Wrayburn, in some mysterious way.
In the first place, the house in Waldegrave Road depressed him. There it stood, the gloomiest in the gloomy row, in a narrow badly-lit street which seemed eternally shrouded in mist. The high wall opposite the dreary houses made oppression more oppressive. To walk down Waldegrave Road was to experience the monstrous sensation that one was the only mourner at one’s own funeral.
Wrayburn’s room, too, began to affect Rendell unpleasantly. The mathematical precision dominating every detail created a non-human atmosphere. Rendell felt that the room was inhabited by a brain, not a man. And although he attempted to dismiss this new sensibility as an effect of Rosalie’s influence, he became more and more subject to it. Soon, every visit to Waldegrave Road represented a definite act of his will. And every visit created a deeper dislike of the road, the house, and Wrayburn’s room.
But the chief fact was that Wrayburn himself interested him less and less. This discovery shocked Rendell, for their first conversations had been stimulating. Subsequent ones, however, lacked substance. To sit listening to theories, criticism, and abstract ideas made Rendell feel he was suspended in a void haunted by a voice. Every thing familiar disappeared. Wrayburn was the eternal onlooker. He stood, remote and removed from the arena-watching, assessing, defining. He was not alive, he was a commentary on life. He haunted the human scene, notebook in hand. He saw everything—and felt nothing.