The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  Basil and I were asked to dinner. Poppy wanted to talk over her plans with us, and there was no one else. Poppy was radiant. We drank to the pony at Tintagel, and to the key at Guildford, and to the new play and the new paintings. The thing was a great success until half way through the dinner, when suddenly Poppy said:

  "By the way, Viv, the income tax man was here today."

  I felt, for some reason, as I had felt when the key went down my back.

  Viv smiled, and went to his doom.

  "Just imagine, Basil," he said. "The sweet young person across the table made more than I did last year! Four thousand pounds!"

  "I'm too commercially successful to think I have any real genius," said Pop>y, complacently.

  "And some small sum the same sweet young per son will have to pay over to the tax man," Basil observed.

  Poppy raised her violet eyes.

  "I don't intend to pay it," she said.

  Vivian put down his glass.

  "That's what Madge would call a 'bluff,'" he said, with his eyes on her. "You'll be obliged to pay it, dearest. You know that."

  "'Taxation without representation' is what it amounts to." Poppy's face was dangerously agree able. "The American colonies seceded, didn't they, for something like that? I paid it last year, but I made up my mind then I'd never do it again."

  Basil was looking very uncomfortable.

  "I gave you the privilege of your convictions," said Viv, stiffly. "Of course, if that's your intention, there is nothing more to be said."

  Poppy looked puzzled.

  "But it is wrong, isn't it?" she demanded. "Surely that's the a.b.c. of the reason for the discontent of Englishwomen."

  "The principle may not be entirely equitable. Few laws work equally well for all." Vivian now, a little white about the lips. "But, such as it is, it's the law of your country."

  "I didn't choose my country, or make it's laws," Poppy said coldly. "I have a right to protest; I'll not pay it."

  Now, as I have said before, motives are seldom unmixed. I think what Poppy meant to do was simply to register a protest, refuse to pay, make a lot of fuss about it. If they sent her to jail, being the prominent person she was she was the Honour able Poppy, I think I forgot to say that before it would make a lot of feeling. She did not mind jail very much. She'd been there twice. Then, having asserted her principles, she could get sick or go on a hunger strike, and Vivian would pay the tax and get her out.

  Basil laughed with assumed cheerfulness.

  "Then Viv is stuck for the tax," he said.

  Vivian looked across the table and met Poppy's eyes.

  "That's hardly what you are getting at, is it?" he asked. "Your protest is against the imposition of the tax, isn't it? It's a matter of principle, isn't it? My paying it wouldn't help."

  "I have not asked you to pay it."

  "As a matter of fact, I haven't the slightest intention of paying it, Poppy. You put me in an absurd position, that's all."

  We had finished dinner, and the men went up to the drawing room with us. A funny thought struck Basil on the way up. He chuckled.

  "Of course, Viv," he said, "if Poppy sticks to that, you'll have to do something. There's the Hus band's Liability Act. You're liable, you know."

  Basil is a barrister.

  Well, we talked of other things and pretended not to notice Vivian's strained eyes and Poppy's high color. She took me off after a time to see the new studio, and it did not take me long to tell her what I thought.

  "It's absurd," I said. "Do you expect to break down iron bars by banging a head against them?"

  "It's my head," she said sulkily.

  "Not at all. It's Vivian's. They will jail him."

  "I didn't make the law."

  "Like the man with the Ten Commandments at Guildford!" I retorted. "He didn't make them, but you know where he said he'd go if he broke them. By the way, Poppy, I've always meant to ask you, did you ever get a retort ready in case the T. C. came up again?"

  But the men came in just then, and I did not learn. It was rather a ghastly evening. We were all most polite and formal and Basil took me home. I told him about my house at home in the United States, and the way Pd been treated, and having nothing at the end of a year but plumber's bills and tax receipts.

  "I'm glad you haven't any particular income," he said at last. "That's one element of discord removed."

  "I don't understand."

  "Yes, you do," he said calmly. "You know exactly what I mean, and what I hope and what I feel. I don't dare to say it, because if I start I'll Madge, I shall not propose to you until my Uncle Egbert dies. I don't want you until I can support you comfortably that's a lie. I want you damnably, all the time."

  I do not remember that we said anything more until we reached Daphne's. Then, as he helped me out, I said:

  "How old is Uncle Egbert?"

  "Eighty-six," he replied grimly, and went away without shaking hands.

  Well, to go back to Poppy, for of course it is her story I am telling, not mine. Mother came over soon after that and I went with her to Mentone for two months. Then she went back to" America from Genoa, and I went back to London. Mother is the sweetest person in the world, and I adore her, but she represents the old-fashioned woman, and of course I stand for the advanced. For instance, she was much more interested in Basil Ward than in the Cause, and she absolutely disapproved of Poppy's stand about the income tax.

  "I don't care to discuss the Cause," she said to me. "We have trouble enough now with only the men voting. Why should we double our anxieties?"

  "That's silly, mother," I retorted. "Because one baby is a trouble and naughty sometimes, should one have only one child?"

  Basil met me at Charing Cross, and I knew there was something up by the very way his stick hung to his arm.

  "How's everything?" I asked, when he had called a cab and settled me in it. "How nice and sooty it is, after the Riviera!"

  "Filthy hole!" said Basil grumpily. "Haven't had a decent day since you left."

  (This was remarkable, because the papers had all said the weather in London was wonderful for that time of year.)

  "And Poppy?'

  "Poppy's a fool," Basil broke out. "I'm glad you're back, Madge. Maybe you can do something with her."

  But he refused to tell me anything further. He asked if I would mind going directly to Lancaster Gate, and sat back in a corner eyeing me most of the way.

  "You make me nervous," I said at last. "If you can't look at me pleasantly, why look at all?"

  "I can't help looking at you, and I'm blessed if I can look pleasant. Madge, just how much is your heart and soul in the er Cause?"

  Well, I was pretty tired of being questioned all the time. I said:

  "There isn't any sacrifice I wouldn't make for it."

  "If you were married..."

  "I wouldn't marry a man who didn't think as I do."

  He seemed to drop back further into his corner.

  The whole thing puzzled me. For Basil said nothing, but looked dejected and beaten, somehow. And yet he had always believed that women should vote.

  We found Poppy in her studio, but Viv's work room below was empty and the door into the passage stood open. His desk was orderly and his pens in a row. It looked queer. Poppy was painting, standing before a huge canvas and looking very smeary; she gave me a cheek to kiss, and she was thin! Posi tively thin!

  "You're looking very fit, Maggie," she said, with out a smile. "We've missed her, haven't we, Basil?"

  Basil grunted something. Suddenly it occurred to me that he and Poppy hardly glanced at one an other, and that he was still holding his hat and gloves. Their constraint, and Viv not around and everything I was very uncomfortable. Of course, if Basil cared for Poppy and I used to think he did, and if Vivian had found it out...

  "No, 'thanks, Poppy," said Basil, "I'll--I'll drop in again."

  "Crumpets for tea!" said Poppy. They'd engaged the cook for her crumpets.

&n
bsp; "Thanks awfully," Basil muttered and having said something about seeing me again very soon, he got out. I stared after him. Could this be Basil the arrogant^ Basil the abject? This brooding individual who did nothing but stare at me as if he were trying to work something out!

  Poppy came over to me, with her fists in the pockets of her painting apron, and looked down at me.

  "Frightened, like all the rest!" she said. "They say I'm responsible for hundreds of broken engage ments! They made the law themselves, and now, when they see it in operation, they squeal."

  It came over me then; Poppy's strained eyes, and her painting without a cigarette, and Basil looking so queer.

  "Then Viv--"

  "Viv is in jail, my dear," she said. "Men made the law, of course, but I wish you'd hear them! The Husband's Liability Act, child. A married woman's husband is responsible for her debts. I refused to pay my income tax as taxation without representation. Viv got stubborn, and said he wouldn't. Result, the entire male population screaming for help, engaged men breaking with Suffragist fiancees, the population prospects of the country poor, and Viv in jail!"

  I could hardly speak for a minute.

  "That--that's what is wrong with Basil?"

  "Of course--I'm sorry, Maggie. You see, you have an income of your own and at any moment, by refusing to pay the tax on it, you can send Basil to jail."

  "If he were any sort of a husband," I said furiously, "he could pay the tax and save all the trouble."

  "Not at all. The men have banded together. They call it the Husband's Defence! They take turns at visiting Viv, and sending him books and things. It's it's maddening."

  Poppy asked me to stay with her. She was really in a bad way. She wasn't eating or sleeping, and that very night a crowd of men gathered in front of the house, and hissed and called her things. One of them made a speech. We listened from behind the curtains. He said his wife was holding out her taxes on him and he expected to "go up" the next day. Poppy went out on the balcony and tried to tell them why she had done it, and that it was a matter of principle, and all that. But they would not listen, and only jeered. She came back into the drawing room quite beaten, and covered her face with her hands.

  It was the next evening that Basil told us that Vivian, feeling as he did that he represented the married men of the Kingdom and that he stood for principle also, had gone on a hunger strike!

  After all, it was Daphne, who came to the rescue. She came over to luncheon the day after and found Poppy in bed with cold cloths on her head, and her wedding ring off. Daphne sniffed.

  "You and Viv are two children," she said. "You're a silly for thinking you can beat the government at its own game, which is taxation, and Viv's a fool for letting you be one."

  Poppy is not placid of disposition, and she flung the cold cloths at Daphne and ordered her out. But Daphne only wrung out the cloths and hung them up, and raised the shades.

  "You haven't got a headache; you have a pain in your disposition," she said. "Put this on again."

  And Poppy put on her wedding ring.

  "Now," said Daphne. "You won't pay this money as a matter of principle, and Viv won't, for the same reason. I won't because I haven't got it; Madge probably ditto. But it must be paid. Have you got it in the house?"

  Poppy nodded.

  "In notes?'

  "Yes."

  "Where?"

  "In my jewel case."

  "Very well. Now," said Daphne, "Madge and I are going to fix this thing up. You are not to know anything about it. You can swear to that later on, if the question comes up. Is there any place in your studio where you keep money?"

  "In the table drawer."

  "Very well. Tonight before you go to bed put that money there. Early tomorrow morning send a maid to the drawer. If, by any chance, it is not there, send for the police."

  Poppy was sitting up in bed, her eyes narrowed.

  "The door of that wing is always locked. Viv has one key; I have the other."

  "Never mind about the keys," said Daphne, loftily. "Now lie back and take a nap. Madge and I are going to look at the new picture. And I'm taking Madge home to dinner. I want her to go with me to the Edgware Road meeting tonight."

  We did not look at the picture very long. Daphne's lips were shut tight, and I was feeling very queer. I knew what Daphne meant to do to have the exact amount of Poppy's tax stolen from the table, and reported to the police. And later on in the day to have it sent to the tax office in Poppy's name. Poppy could swear she had not done it and point to the robbery. But by that time it would be credited to her name, and Viv would be free.

  "It's a knot," said Daphne, running her fingers through her hair. "It's past un-tying. We have to cut it."

  I know it sounds silly now and father has advised me never to tell mother, but it seemed the only thing at the time. Here were Viv and Poppy at an impasse, as one may say, and things getting worse every day Viv on a hunger strike, and Poppy's work waking, and the vote, which was our natural solution, as far off as ever.

  "I'll unlock a window in Viv's study," said Daphne, "and you can come back after midnight and crawl in. I'd do it, but I'm too fat. Once in, you've only to go up the little staircase to the studio, and get the money. The key's always in the side door. You can let yourself out."

  "But I don't like it, Daphne."

  "A broken window," said Daphne, "would look a lot better. More natural, you know. Here, hold a pillow."

  She raised one of Viv's windows a little we were in his study and she put her arm outside, with a paper weight in her hand. A smart tap, and a pane fell in on my pillow. We listened but no servants had come running and the house next door was closed and shuttered.

  Daphne is very clever. She unlocked the window, drew the shade as it had been before, and put the glass in a little heap on the floor. The area was outside, about five feet below.

  "I could never do it," I protested. "I--I haven't your courage, Daffie. Be a dear and do it yourself."

  "Have to be at Edgware Road," said Daphne. "After all, Poppy's your friend. You made the match, didn't you?"

  "But if I'm arrested--"

  "You won't be. Jane Willoughby is going with me tonight. I'll lend her some of your clothes and a veil. She can make a speech in your name. There's an alibi for you!"

  Now it sounded all right at the time, but looking back, it seems queer. For of what use is an alibi if the police have you? But one thing I would not do. I would not climb in the window. Daphne finally put me behind one of Poppy's canvases in the studio on a chair.

  "They'll think you broke in, which answers as well," she said. "And you can get the money and let yourself out the side door without any trouble."

  "I sha'n't have any dinner," I reminded her. But she said she'd have something ready for me at home after I'd committed my crime, and went down the .staircase whistling.

  I shall never forget that awful night. I was most uncomfortable. There was a chance that the servants, locking up, would go into Viv's study and find the glass, although it was behind the curtain. But I'd seen Peters lock up before. He stood in a doorway and looked at each window, and if the curtains did not blow the house was safe. Luckily there was no wind that evening!

  But I hated the whole thing. It got darker and darker and things scrambled in the walls. Poppy brought the money and put it in a drawer but of course I did not speak to her. She had to be able to swear she knew nothing. She kissed Viv's picture which she had painted, and trotted out again, sighing. Peters did not discover the broken window in the den below, because he never even went to look. And I felt very dreary, with no one really caring for me, and so far from America, and men like Basil, for instance acting so strange and uneasy.

  Of course I could have taken the money and gone, as soon as it was dark. But a policeman took up a position outside the area door, and waited for some body. He and Peters had a few words about Poppy's maid, and the policeman said he would see her if he had to stay there all night. He stayed for
hours.

  I got the money and put it in my handbag, and because I did not wish to get it mixed with my own, I put it by itself in one of the pockets. Then I think I dozed for two or three hours, for when waking the street was quiet and the policeman had gone away. I was stiff, tired, and out of humor, and I started down the little staircase past Viv's study to the area door. As I reached the bottom, somebody tried the lock outside. I nearly fainted. I turned and ran up in the dark, and the door below opened. A man came in stealthily and went directly to Vivian's den. And just then a church clock struck two.

  I was frightened. It seemed to me that as soon as he ransacked the room below, he'd come up to the studio. Perhaps he knew about the money. Burglars seem to be able to smell money. And the idea of being caught in the studio, as in a cul-de-sac, made me panicky. I clutched my bag, and slipped down the staircase, past Vivian's door. The burglar was there, going through Viv's desk, with a light turned on and a cap down over his eyes.

  I forgot to be cautious then. I bolted for the door, flung it open it was a patent lock, with a knob inside and stepped out into the night air and the policeman's arms.

  "Easy a bit, hold girl!" he said. "Hi'm 'ere and you're 'ere. What's the 'urry?" He held me off and looked at me. Luckily I'd never seen him before. "Quick with your 'ands, ain't you! In you goes and in five minutes out you pops!"

  "If you think I'm a burglar," I said haughtily,

  "I'm nothing of the sort. I'm " It came over me, all at once, that I'd better not say I was a friend of Poppy's. You see she was being watched very closely. If I was searched, and the exact amount of her income tax in my pocket, it would look very queer, and the whole thing would be out, of course. "The burglar you followed is still in the house," I said. "He's in Mr. in the study, just beyond that door."

  "None of that, young woman," he said, sternly. "You'll just come along with me! 'Ouse-breaking it is; I watched you in and I watched you hout."