Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  The golden fortnight drew to its close, and with the end of the Torquay holiday, it suddenly seemed to Elsie as though the end of the world must come.

  “What are we to do, Leslie?” she gasped.

  “I don’t know, darling,” he said miserably.

  “You’re going to be in town for a bit?”

  “For a little while. They’re sending me off again, pretty soon — abroad this time.”

  “I can’t live without seeing you sometimes. Oh, Les, how can I go back to the old life with Horace after this?” “Elsie,” said Morrison very low, “would he divorce you if?”

  “Not a hope. It costs money, and he’s too mean. Besides, he’d never do it if he thought I wanted it. He’s cruel, is Horace.”

  “Not to you?” -

  “He doesn’t knock me about, if that’s what you mean — he knows I wouldn’t stand it — but of course he doesn’t care for me, or for anybody but himself. I was told he gave his first a rotten time — anyway, I know she used to look wretched enough. You know there was a first Mrs. Williams?”

  “No, I didn’t. Of course, I saw he was much older than you. Oh, Elsie, whatever made you marry him?” “Oh, I was a fool and I thought I’d like to be married, and get away from home. I didn’t know what it was going to be like, that’s certain. Oh, Les, fancy if I was still Elsie Palmer, and you and me could get married!” She gave a sob.

  “Don’t, sweetheart! I’d have asked for your promise, fast enough, if you’d been free, but I couldn’t marry any girl till I’m earning a bit more.”

  “Don’t you get a good screw, Leslie?”

  “Rotten. But I’m jolly lucky to be in a job at all these days, I suppose.”

  “Lucky!” Elsie echoed the word drearily. “You and I aren’t amongst the lucky ones, boy. I don’t see how things are ever going to come right for us, without a miracle happens.”

  “He — Williams — may ... he may die.”

  “Not he!” said Elsie bitterly. “There’s nothing the matter with him. All this talk about indigestion is stuff and nonsense — just fads he’s got into his head. There’s nothing wrong with Horace. And it’s always the ones who aren’t wanted that live on and on. But how am I going to bear it, after this wonderful time we’ve been having?” She began to cry.

  “Elsie, don’t, darling! I’ll think of a way. There must be some way out.’’

  Leslie took her in his arms and she forgot everything else.

  On the last evening they all went to the theatre together, and it was there, for the first time seeming awake to the situation, that Horace Williams, sitting at the end of the row of stalls, suddenly leaned across Geraldine and looked long and balefully at his wife.

  She felt herself changing colour.

  Morrison, however, observed nothing. He talked only to Elsie, looked only at her during the interval, and whilst the play was in progress and the lights in the theatre lowered, his hand sought and held hers.

  “Elsie, we can’t part like this. How can I see you alone?”

  “We can’t — not here. But Horace starts at the office again on Wednesday, and he’s there all day. Come to the house.”

  “It means an age without seeing you. Elsie, can I write to you?”

  “Yes ... no ...” She was startled. “Oh, Les, darling, I’d love your letters! ... But he’d see them. Wait a minute.”

  She thought rapidly.

  “Address them to the post-office — I’ll call there. He doesn’t know or care what I do all day, so long as I’m always there in the evenings when he gets back.”

  But Elsie was to find herself mistaken. Her husband, after their return to the suburban villa, displayed a very unmistakable interest in her movements during the hours of his absence at work.

  He obliged her to give him an account of her day, and took to ringing her up on the telephone for no acknowledged reason, and always at a different hour.

  At first, Elsie cared little. She and Leslie Morrison met daily, and on one occasion spent the afternoon in the country together. Elsie recklessly telephoned to her own house at seven o’clock that evening, and said that she was with Irene Tidmarsh, and should not come home that night.

  “You must,” said the hollow voice at the other end of the line.

  “I can’t. Her father’s awfully ill, and she’s afraid of being left.”

  “When shall you be home?”

  “To-morrow.”

  “I’ll come and fetch you.”

  “All right,” said Elsie boldly. “ What time?”

  There was no answer. Williams had rung oh.

  Elsie knew, beyond the possibility of mistake, that her husband suspected her; but in the intense excitement that possessed her she was conscious of nothing so much as of relief that a crisis should be at hand.

  She spent the night with Leslie Morrison at a tiny hotel in Essex.

  Early next morning they travelled back to London, parting at Liverpool Street station.

  “Let me know what happens directly you can, darling,” urged the man.

  “I’ll telephone. Anyway, come round as soon as you can get away. He won’t be in before seven.”

  “Good-bye, Elsie darling. I’ll never, never forget...” He left her, joining a hurrying throng of other young men wearing soft hats and carrying little brown bags, nearly all of them hastening towards the City.

  Elsie proceeded by train and tram to the house of Irene’s father.

  Her friend opened the door to her. “ Hullo! I thought I should see you. That hubby of yours is on the warpath.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Oh, nothing, thanks to me! Come in, Elsie. Have you had breakfast?”

  “I’ve had some tea; I don’t want anything else. Tell me about Horace,”

  “Well, Horace, as you call him, saw fit to come round here at eleven o’clock p.m. last night, and got me out of my virtuous downy by ringing at the front door bell till I thought the house was on fire. He said he’d ‘ come for ‘ his wife, if you please!”

  “I know. I told him I was going to spend the night at your place,’’ said Elsie calmly. “I suppose you didn’t happen to tumble to it, Ireen?”

  “I’ve not known you all these years for nothing, old girl,” said Irene, grinning. “ What do you take me for? I told him you were in bed and asleep, and had been for hours.”

  “You’re a real sport, Ireen! How did he take it?” Irene pursed up her lips and shook her head. “ He asked me to tell you to ring him up first thing this morning. If you ask me, you’re in for trouble. And p’r’aps now you’ll be so kind as to tell me what it all means, and why on earth you couldn’t have given me fair warning before saying you were here. It’s lucky for you I didn’t give the whole show away on the spot.”

  Elsie, habitually ready to discuss any of her love-affairs with Irene, had told her nothing about Leslie Morrison. But she saw now that a degree of frankness was inevitable.

  Irene listened, sitting on the kitchen table, her shrewd, cynical gaze fixed upon Elsie. “ You’re for it, all right,” she observed dryly. “I thought directly I saw you after you’d got back from Torquay that there was something up. But I somehow didn’t think you’d go off the deep end like that, Elsie. Why, you’re dotty about him!”

  “Yes,” said Elsie, “I am.”

  “And what do you suppose is going to happen?”

  Elsie groaned. “I wish to the Lord that Horace would do the decent thing, or go West — and let me have a chance of happiness.”

  “He won’t,” said Irene. “ Well, whatever you do, don’t make a fool of yourself and run off with this fellow. It simply isn’t worth it, when he hasn’t got a penny, and not very often when he has.”

  “If I thought Horace would divorce me it’d be different,” Elsie said. She was not listening to Irene at all. “Though even then, I don’t know what we would live on. Leslie hasn’t anything except his salary, and that’s tiny, and I’m sure I couldn’t earn a penny if I tried.
Mother wouldn’t help me, either, if I did a thing like that.”

  “No more would anybody else. And surely to goodness, Elsie, you’d never be such a fool. Think what it would mean to be disgraced, and have a scandal.”

  “I wouldn’t mind that with him.”

  Irene groaned. “You are far gone! Well, the worse it is while it lasts, the sooner it’s over. You’ll see sense again one of these days, I suppose. Meanwhile, you’d better ‘phone that husband of yours.”

  Elsie’s conversation with Williams over the telephone was brief. She agreed to come home at midday, and neither made any reference to the visit of Williams at eleven o’clock on the previous night.

  Elsie anticipated a scene with her husband, and felt indifferent to the prospect. She had not enough imagination to work herself up in advance, and, moreover, her faculties were entirely occupied with the blissful expectation of seeing Morrison again that afternoon.

  He came some hours after she had arrived home.

  Elsie had done some shopping in the morning. With her husband’s money she had bought a gold-nibbed fountain-pen for Leslie, and had paid for copies of a photograph of herself.

  She had scarcely ever in her life before given anyone a present, and Leslie Morrison’s ardent thanks, and rapture over the photograph, caused her the most acute pleasure.

  “Darling, it’s lovely, and it’s just you! I shall always carry it about with me, done up with your dear letters.”

  “Don’t keep my letters, Leslie,” said Elsie suddenly.

  “Why ever not?”

  A sudden recollection had come to her ... “Beware of the written word....”

  The medium to whom Irene had once taken her had said that. She had also said other things; had told Elsie that love would come to her... Perhaps she really knew ...

  “I’d rather you didn’t, really,” she said feebly, “Suppose — suppose Horace ever got hold of them—”

  “How could he? Besides, Elsie darling, he’s got to know about us some time. I wish you’d let me tell him now. I can’t go on like this; it’s a low-down game coming to a man’s house without his knowledge and — and making love to his wife.”

  “His wife!” said Elsie angrily. “ Don’t call me that. I may be his wife in law, but it’s you that I really belong to.”

  “Well, let me have it out with him then,” said Morrison earnestly. “We don’t know, after all. He may be ready to do the decent thing, and set you free.”

  “I don’t care if you do. I’m pretty sure he guesses... Horace has always been jealous, though he’s never had any cause before.”

  “He didn’t say anything at Torquay?”

  “No, it’s since we got back. He asked me once if you were engaged to Geraldine, and I said no. And he asked if you meant to come and see us here, and I told him most likely you would. He didn’t say anything much, but he hates a man coming near the place, really.”

  “I’d far rather have it out with him,” young Morrison repeated. His face was resolute, and he stood his ground when Elsie, starting violently, exclaimed:

  “I believe that’s Horace now! I can hear his key in the door. He’s never in at this hour as a rule — the skunk, he’s come to spy on me!”

  “Darling, it’s all right!” said Morrison.

  He put the photograph away in his breast-pocket with hands that trembled slightly. Both fixed their eyes on the door as it opened upon the figure of the little elderly solicitor. His face wore a no more sardonic expression than v/as habitual with him, and Elsie could not deduce from it whether or not he was surprised to see Leslie Morrison.

  Neither man made any movement towards shaking hands, but they greeted one another conventionally, and talked a little, as though indifferently, of the holiday at Torquay.

  Leslie asked whether Mr. Williams was any better in health, and the solicitor replied coldly:

  “No, I am no better. I daresay my case would be a very interesting one, from the point of view of a doctor. But I am not one to give up, and I have no doubt that a great many people do not realise there is anything the matter with me.”

  He turned his eyes upon Elsie for a moment as he spoke. At the same instant, the inevitable thought that had flashed through her mind at his words caused Elsie to cast a lightning glance towards Leslie Morrison.

  It was that glance that her husband intercepted.

  V

  They had another evening together before the storm broke.

  Morrison took Elsie to a dance.

  He issued his invitation boldly, in the presence of Williams, and to Elsie’s secret astonishment, her husband made no objection to her acceptance.

  She wanted terribly to buy a new dress for the dance, but dared not risk a reminder to her husband, for fear he should suddenly forbid her to go. Finally she decided to wear a black dress, covered with black net, and with black net shoulder-straps. It was not new, but she had seldom had any occasion for wearing it, and she had enough money in hand for the housekeeping to enable her to buy a pair of black artificial silk stockings and slim black satin shoes with high heels.

  Round her thick, light hair she tied a black velvet band with a spray of forget-me-nots worked in blue silk across it, but instinct told her to leave her full, beautiful throat unadorned by any of the few cheap ornaments that she possessed. Her smooth skin showed a sort of golden glow that merged imperceptibly into the warm pallor of her round arms and the dimpled base of her neck.

  Elsie looked for a long while at herself in the glass, rubbed lip-salve into her already scarlet mouth, and, despite the “Japanesey “effect of lids that seemed half-closed, wondered at the brilliant light in her own hazel-grey eyes.

  Leslie Morrison came for her, and they left the house together before Williams arrived from the office.

  To both of them it was an unforgettable evening.

  Elsie, like all women of her type, was a born dancer. Nevertheless, before the evening was half over, they had left the crowded hall for a screened alcove in an upper gallery, where the reiterated refrain of syncopated airs, and the wistful rhythm of valse-times, reached them through the haze of ascending cigarette-smoke.

  It was three o’clock when they exchanged a last close, passionate embrace and Elsie, pale, exhausted, with indescribably shining eyes, crept upstairs to her room, undressed, and lay down noiselessly by the side of her husband to relive the evening that she had spent with her lover.

  Williams left the house next morning without waking her, but it was that evening that the inevitable crisis came.

  The solicitor returned home nearly two hours before his usual time, and found Leslie Morrison just preparing to enter the house.

  The two men went in together.

  Elsie started violently at the sight of her husband, and then laughed artificially. “ Hullo! It’s a case of Oh, what a surprise, isn’t it? You’re back early, Horace.”

  “Yes,” said her husband.

  “I hope you’re not too tired after last night,” Morrison began.

  “Oh no, thanks! It was fine. Horace, I haven’t told you about the dance yet. It’s a shame you weren’t there.”

  The moment she said the words, Elsie knew that she had made a mistake.

  “Yes,” Williams remarked quietly, “you’d have liked me to be there, wouldn’t you? Well, let me inform you that you aren’t going to any more dances for the present.”

  “Whatever do you mean, Horace?”

  “Morrison knows what I mean all right, and so do you, you little—” His low, snarling tone gave the effect of spitting the ugly word at her.

  Leslie Morrison sprang to his feet. “Look here, sir”

  The solicitor held up his hand. “That’ll do. It’s not for you to adopt that tone in speaking to me, you know. Please to remember that I’m Elsie’s husband.”

  “Look here,” Morrison began again, “I’m perfectly ready to make a clean breast of it. I do love Elsie. Her and me were just pals at first, and then I suppose I didn�
��t exactly realise where I was drifting. But I’m free to confess that I lost my head one — one evening a little while ago — and I told her I loved her.” He glanced at Elsie, as though for a further cue.

  “And of course she told you that she was a pure woman, and a loving wife, and you must never speak like that again?” sneered Horace Williams.

  “Elsie, don’t let him speak like that... Tell him!” urged Morrison.

  “I don’t need any telling,” Williams retorted smoothly. “She thinks she’s in love with you, of course.”

  “I am in love with Leslie,” said Elsie suddenly. “And if you did the decent thing, Horace, you’d set me free to marry him. You and me have never been happy together. I didn’t ever ought to have married you, but I was a young fool.”

  “Understand this, the pair of you,” said the little solicitor clearly and deliberately. “I shall never set you free, as you call it. You’ve married me, and you’ve got to stay with me. As for you,” he turned to Leslie Morrison, “you can leave my house. And understand clearly that I won’t have you inside it again. And if I catch you speaking to my wife again, or meeting her, or having anything whatsoever to do with her, it’ll be the worse for you.” Morrison took a sudden step forward, his hands clenched, and Elsie screamed, but Horace Williams stood his ground.

  “I’m well within my rights, and you know it,” he declared. “I could horsewhip you, in fact, and if you were fool enough to bring a case for assault it’d go against you. Clear out! That’s my last word to you.”

  “Will you let Elsie have a divorce?”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “Will you let her have a legal separation, then? You’ve her own word for it that she’s not happy with you. I’m not thinking of myself, but you can’t have the cruelty to keep her tied to you when she’s miserable. Let her have her freedom,”

  For all answer, Williams pointed to the door. The expression of his face had not altered by a hair’s-breadth.

  Morrison turned to Elsie, white and tense. “Elsie, you hear what he says. What d’you want me to do?”