Because she didn’t know what their first names were, she called them Edwin and Angelina. She made up a story about them. She told it to me one day; and when I ridiculed it, she was quite short with me. This, as far as I can remember, is how it went: They had fallen in love with one another years before— perhaps twenty years—when Angelina, a young girl then, had the fresh grace of her teens and Edwin was a brave youth setting out joyously on the journey of life. And since the gods, who are said to look upon young love with kindliness, nevertheless do not bother their heads with practical matters, neither Edwin nor Angelina had a penny. It was impossible for them to marry, but they had courage, hope and confidence. Edwin made up his mind to go out to South America or Malaya or where you like, make his fortune and return to marry the girl who had patiently waited for him. It couldn’t take more than two or three years, five at the utmost; and what is that, when you’re twenty and the whole of life is before you? Meanwhile of course Angelina would live with her widowed mother.
But things didn’t pan out according to schedule. Edwin found it more difficult than he had expected to make a fortune; in fact, he found it hard to earn enough money to keep body and soul together, and only Angelina’s love and her tender letters gave him the heart to continue the struggle. At the end of five years he was not much better off than when he started. Angelina would willingly have joined him and shared his poverty, but it was impossible for her to leave her mother, bed-ridden as she was, poor thing, and there was nothing for them to do but have patience. And so the years passed slowly, and Edwin’s hair grew grey, and Angelina became grim and haggard. Hers was the harder lot, for she could do nothing but wait. The cruel glass showed such charms as she had possessed slipping away from her one by one; and at last she discovered that youth, with a mocking laugh and a pirouette, had left her for good. Her sweetness turned sour from long tending of a querulous invalid; her mind was narrowed by the society of the small town in which she lived. Her friends married and had children, hut she remained a prisoner to duty.
She wondered if Edwin still loved her. She wondered if he would ever come back. She often despaired. Ten years went by, and fifteen, and twenty. Then Edwin wrote to say that his affairs were settled, and he had made enough money for them to live upon in comfort, and if she were still willing to marry him, he would return at once. By a merciful interposition of providence, Angelina’s mother chose that very moment to abandon a world in which she had made herself a thorough nuisance. But when after so long a separation they met, Angelina saw with dismay that Edwin was as young as ever. It’s true his hair was grey, but it infinitely became him. He had always been good-looking, but now he was a very handsome man in the flower ox his age. She felt as old as the hills. She was conscious of her narrowness, her terrible provincialism, compared with the breadth he had acquired by his long sojourn in foreign countries. He was gay and breezy as of old, but her spirit was crushed. The bitterness of life had warped her soul. It seemed monstrous to bind that alert and active man to her by a promise twenty years old, and she offered him his release. He went deathly pale.
“Don’t you care for me any more?” he cried brokenly.
And she realised on a sudden—oh, the rapture, oh, the relief! —that to him she was just the same as she had ever been. He had thought of her always as she was; her portrait had been, as it were, stamped on his heart, so that now, when the real woman stood before him, she was, to him, still eighteen.
So they were married.
“I don’t believe a word of it,” I said when Miss Gray had brought her story to its happy ending.
“I insist on your believing it,” she said. “I’m convinced it’s true, and I haven’t the smallest doubt that they’ll live happily together to a ripe old age.” Then she made a remark that I thought rather shrewd. “Their love is founded on an illusion, perhaps; but since it has to them all the appearance of reality, what does it matter?”
While I have told you this idyllic story of Miss Gray’s invention, the three of us, our hostess, Landon and myself, waited for the Craigs to come.
“Have you ever noticed that if people live next door to you, they’re invariably late?” Miss Gray asked the judge.
“No, I haven’t,” he answered acidly. “I’m always punctual myself, and I expect other people to be punctual.”
“I suppose it’s no good offering you a cocktail?”
“None whatever, madam.”
“But I have some sherry that they tell me isn’t bad.”
The judge took the bottle out of her hands and looked at the label. A faint smile broke on his thin lips.
“This is a civilised drink. Miss Gray. With your permission I will help myself. I never knew a woman vet who knew how to pour out a glass of wine. One should hold a woman by the waist, but a bottle by the neck.”
While he was sipping the old sherry with every sign of satisfaction, Miss Gray glanced out of the window.
“Oh, that’s why the Craigs are late. They were waiting for the baby to come back.”
I followed her eyes and saw that the nurse had just pushed the pram past Miss Gray’s house on her way home. Craig took the baby out of the pram and lifted it high in the air. The baby, trying to tug at his moustache, crowed gleefully. Mrs. Craig stood by, watching, and the smile on her face made her harsh features almost pleasant. The window was open, and we heard her speak.
“Come along, darling,” she said, “we’re late.”
He put the baby back in the pram, and they came up to the door of Miss Gray’s house and rang the bell. The maid showed them in. They shook hands with Miss Gray, and because I was standing near, she introduced me to them. Then she turned to the judge.
“And this is Sir Edward Landon—Mr. and Mrs. Craig.”
One would have expected the judge to move forward with an outstretched hand, but he remained stock-still. He put his eyeglass up to his eye, that eyeglass that I had on more than one occasion seen him use with devastating effect in court, and stared at the newcomers.
“Gosh, what a dirty customer,” I said to myself.
He let the glass drop from his eye.
“How do you do,” he said. “Am I mistaken in thinking that we’ve met before?”
The question turned my eyes to the Craigs. They stood side by side close to one another, as though they had drawn together for mutual protection. They did not speak. Mrs. Craig looked terrified. Craig’s red face was darkened by a purple flush, and his eyes appeared almost to start out of his head. But that only lasted a second.
“I don’t think so,” he said in a rich, deep voice. “Of course I’ve heard of you, Sir Edward.”
“More people know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows,” said he.
Miss Gray meanwhile had been giving the cocktail-shaker a shake, and now she handed cocktails to her two guests. She had noticed nothing. I didn’t know what it all meant; in fact, I wasn’t sure it meant anything. The incident, if incident there was, passed so quickly that I was half inclined to think that I had read into the strangers’ momentary embarrassment on being introduced to a celebrated man something for which there was no foundation. I set about making myself pleasant. I asked them how they liked the Riviera and if they were comfortable in their house. Miss Gray joined in, and we chatted, as one does with strangers, of commonplace things. They talked easily and pleasantly. Mrs. Craig said how much they enjoyed the bathing and complained of the difficulty of getting fish at the seaside. I was aware that the judge did not join in the conversation, but looked down at his feet as though he were unconscious of the company.
Lunch was announced. We went into the dining-room. We were only five, and it was a small round table, so the conversation could not be anything but general. I must confess that it was carried on chiefly by Miss Gray and myself. The judge was silent, but he often was, for he was a moody creature, and I paid no attention. I noticed that he ate the omelette with good appetite, and when it was passed round again look a second helping. The Craigs struck m
e as a little shy, but that didn’t surprise me, and as the second course was produced they began to talk more freely. It didn’t strike me that they were very amusing people; they didn’t seem interested in very much besides their baby, the vagaries of the two Italian maids they had, and an occasional flutter at Monte Carlo; and I couldn’t help thinking that Miss Gray had erred in making their acquaintance. Then suddenly something happened: Craig rose abruptly from his chair and fell headlong to the floor. We jumped up. Mrs. Craig threw herself down, over her husband, and took his head in her hands.
“It’s all right, George,” she cried in an agonised tone. “It’s all right!”
“Put his head down,” I said. “He’s only fainted.”
I felt his pulse and could feel nothing. I said he had fainted, but I wasn’t sure it wasn’t a stroke. He was the sort of heavy, plethoric man who might easily have one. Miss Gray dipped her napkin into water and dabbed his forehead. Mrs. Craig seemed distraught. Then I noticed that Landon had remained quietly sitting in his chair.
“If he’s fainted, you’re not helping him to recover by crowding round him,” he said acidly.
Mrs. Craig turned her head and gave him a look of bitter hatred.
“I’ll ring up the doctor,” said Miss Gray.
“No, I don’t think that’s necessary,” I said. “He’s coming to.” I could feel his pulse growing stronger, and in a minute or two he opened his eyes. He gasped when he realised what had happened, and tried to struggle to his feet.
“Don’t move,” I said. “Lie still a little longer.”
I got him to drink a glass of brandy, and the colour came back to his face.
“I feel all right now,” he said.
“We’ll get you into the next room, and you can lie on the sofa for a bit.”
“No, I’d sooner go home. It’s only a step.”
He got up from the floor.
“Yes, let’s go back,” said Mrs. Craig. She turned to Miss Gray. “I’m so sorry; he’s never done anything like this before.” They were determined to go, and I thought myself it was the best thing for them to do.
“Put him to bed and keep him there, and he’ll be as right as rain to-morrow.”
Mrs. Craig took one of his arms and I took the other; Miss Gray opened the door, and though still a bit shaky, he was able to walk. When we arrived at the Craig’s home, I offered to go in and help undress him; but they would neither of them hear of it. I went back to Miss Gray’s and found them at dessert.
“I wonder why he fainted,” Miss Gray was saying. “All the windows are open, and it’s not particularly hot to-day.”
“I wonder,” said the judge.
I noticed that his thin pale face bore an expression of some complacency. We had our coffee; and then, since the judge and I were going to play golf, we got into the car and drove up the hill to my house.
“How did Miss Gray get to know those people?” Landon asked me. “They struck me as rather second-rate. I shouldn’t have thought they were very much her mark.”
“You know women. She likes her privacy, and when they settled in next door, she was quite decidcd that she wouldn’t have anything to do with them; but when she discovered that they didn’t want to have anything to do with her, she couldn’t rest till she’d made their acquaintance.”
I told him the story she had invented about her neighbours. He listened with an expressionless face.
“I’m afraid your friend Miss Gray is a sentimental donkey, my dear fellow,” he said when I had come to an end. “I tell you, women ought to marry. She’d soon have had all that nonsense knocked out of her if she’d had half a dozen brats.”
“What do you know about the Craigs?” I asked.
He gave me a frigid glance.
“I? Why should I know anything about them? I thought they were very ordinary people.”
I wish I knew how to describe the strong impression he gave me, both by the glacial austerity of his look and by the rasping finality of his tone, that he was not prepared to say anything more. We finished the drive in silence.
Landon was well on in his sixties, and he was the kind of golfer who never hits a long ball but is never off the straight, and he was a deadly putter, so, though he gave me strokes, he beat me handsomely. After dinner I took him in to Monte Carlo, where he finished the evening by winning a couple of thousand francs at the roulette table. These successive events put him into a remarkably good humour.
“A very pleasant day,” he said when we parted for the night. “I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.”
I spent the next morning at work, and we did not meet till lunch. We were just finishing when I was called to the telephone.
When I came back, my guest was drinking a second cup of coffee.
“That was Miss Gray,” I said.
“Oh? What had she to say?”
“The Craigs have done a bolt. They disappeared last night. The maids live in the village; and when they came this morning, they found the house empty. They’d skipped—the Craigs, the nurse and the baby—and taken their luggage with them. They left money on the table for the maids’ wages, the rent to the end of their tenancy and the tradesmen’s bills.”
The judge said nothing. He took a cigar from the box, examined it carefully and then lit it with deliberation.
“What have you got to say about that?” I asked.
“My dear fellow, are you obliged to use these American phrases? Isn’t English good enough for you?”
“Is that an American phrase? It expresses exactly what I moan. You can’t imagine I’m such a fool as not to have noticed that you and the Craigs had met before; and if they’ve vanished into thin air like figments of the imagination, it’s a fairly reasonable conclusion that the circumstances under which you met were not altogether pleasant.”
The judge gave a little chuckle, and there was a twinkle in his cold blue eyes.
“That was a very good brandy you gave me last night,” he said. “It’s against my principles to drink liqueurs after lunch, but it’s a very dull man who allows his principles to enslave him, and for once I think I should enjoy one.”
I sent for the brandy and watched the judge while he poured himself out a generous measure. He took a sip with obvious satisfaction.
“Do you remember the Wingford murder?” he asked me. “No.”
“Perhaps you weren’t in England at the time. Pity—you might have come to the trial. You’d have enjoyed it. It caused a lot of excitement; the papers were full of it.
“Miss Wingford was a rich spinster of mature age who lived in the country with a companion. She was a healthy woman for her age; and when she died rather suddenly, her friends were surprised. Her physician, a fellow called Brandon, signed the certificate and she was duly buried. The will was read, and it appeared that she had left everything she had, something between sixty and seventy thousand pounds, to her companion. The relations were very sore, but there was nothing they could do about it. The will had been drawn up by her lawyer and witnessed by his clerk and Dr. Brandon.
“But Miss Wingford had a maid who had been with her for thirty years and had always understood that she would be remembered in the will; she claimed that Miss Wingford had promised to leave her well provided for, and when she found that she wasn’t even mentioned, she flew into a passion. She told the nephew and the two nieces who had come down for the funeral that she was sure Miss Wingford had been poisoned, and she said that if they didn’t go to the police, she’d go herself. Well, they didn’t do that, but they went to see Dr. Brandon. He laughed. He said that Miss Wingford had had a weak heart and he’d been treating her for years. She died just as he had always expected her to die, peacefully in her sleep; and he advised them not to pay any attention to what the maid said. She had always hated the companion, a Miss Starling, and been jealous of her. Dr. Brandon was highly respected; he had been Miss Wingford’s doctor for a long time, and the two nieces, who’d stayed with her often, knew him well. He was n
ot profiting by the will, and there seemed no reason to doubt his word, so the family thought there was nothing to do but make the best of a bad job and went back to London.
“But the maid went on talking; she talked so much that at last the police, much against their will, I must admit, were obliged to take notice, and an order to exhume the body was made. There was an inquest, and it was found that Miss Wingford had died from an overdose of veronal. The coroner’s jury found that it had been administered by Miss Starling, and she was arrested. A detective was sent down from Scotland Yard, and he got together some unexpected evidence. It appeared that there’d been a good deal of gossip about Miss Starling and Dr. Brandon. They’d been seen a lot together in places in which there was no reason for them to be except that they wanted to be together, and the general impression in the village was that they were only waiting for Miss Wingford to die to get married. That put a very different complexion on the case. To make a long story short, the police got enough evidence in their opinion to justify them in arresting the doctor and charging him and Miss Starling with the murder of the old lady.”
The judge took another sip of brandy.
“The case came up for trial before me. The case for the prosecution was that the accused were madly in love with one another and had done the poor old lady to death so that they could carry on the fortune Miss Starling had wheedled her employer into leaving her. Miss Wingford always had a cup of cocoa when she went to bed, which Miss Starling prepared for her; and the counsel for the prosecution claimed that it was in this that Miss Starling had dissolved the tablets that caused Miss Wingford’s death. The accused elected to give evidence on their own behalf, and they made a miserable showing in the witness-box. They lied their heads off. Though witnesses testified they had seen them walking together at night with their arms round one another’s waists, though Brandon’s maid testified she had seen them kissing one another in the doctor’s house, they swore they were no more than friends. And oddly enough, medical evidence proved that Miss Starling was virgo intacta.
The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham - II - The World Over Page 45
