by A. A. Milne
She stole a glance at him, and smiled. They were coming from generalities to particularities. Poor George! What a shock it would be for him.
‘Of course,’ he said, speaking his thoughts aloud, ‘whether or not you go back to—er—Telworthy is another matter altogether. That would naturally be for you to decide.’
Olivia nodded.
‘For me and Jacko to decide,’ she said cheerfully.
He turned a blank face towards her.
‘Jacko?’
She gave him a bright little smile.
‘Yes. I used to call my first husband—I mean, of course, my only husband—Jacko. I didn’t like the name of Jacob, and Jacko seemed to suit him somehow—he had very long arms. She laughed happily, reminiscently, an intimate laugh which excluded George from any share in the joke. ‘Dear Jacko!’
‘You don’t seem to realize that this is not a joke,’ he said stiffly.
‘It may not be a joke, but it is funny, isn’t it?’
‘I am bound to say that I do not see anything funny in a tragedy which has wrecked two lives.’
She flashed a glance at him. Ah, he was coming to it at last. But she pretended to misunderstand him.
‘Two lives? Oh, but Jacko’s life isn’t wrecked.’ She laughed. ‘It has just been miraculously restored to him. And a wife, too. Oh, there’s nothing tragic for Jacko in it.’
‘I was referring to our two lives,’ said George very coldly. ‘Yours and mine.’
She could not keep the bitterness of it out of her voice as she answered: ‘Yours, George? Your life isn’t wrecked. The court will absolve you of all blame; your friends will sympathize with you, and tell you that I was a designing woman who deliberately took you in; your Aunt Julia——’
‘Stop it!’
The cry burst from him, and she stopped on the word, so that there was a moment of utter silence, before he went on, grumbling, arguing with himself rather than with her: ‘What do you mean? Have you no heart? Do you think I want to lose you, Olivia? Do you think I want my home broken up like this?’ And then pathetically: ‘Haven’t you been happy with me these last five years?’
‘Very happy,’ she breathed softly.
‘Well, then! How can you talk like that?’
‘But you want to send me away,’ she murmured.
‘There you go again!’ He flung out a complaining hand at her. ‘I don’t want to. I have hardly had time to realize yet what it will mean to me when you go. The fact is, I simply daren’t realize it. I daren’t think about it.’
And that was just the truth, that was just the trouble. Very slowly, very earnestly, she said:
‘Try thinking about it, George.’
‘And you talk as if I wanted to send you away,’ he grumbled.
‘Try thinking about it, George,’ she said again.
But he went on with his grievance. ‘You don’t seem to understand that I’m not sending you away. You simply aren’t mine to keep.’
‘Whose am I?’ she asked, surprised.
‘Your husband’s—Telworthy’s.’
She shook her head with a little smile.
‘If I belong to anybody but myself, I think I belong to you, George.’
But he would not have her.
‘Not in the eyes of the Law,’ he said. ‘Not in the eyes of the Church. Not even in the eyes of—er——’
‘The County?’ she prompted.
He answered her with some dignity that he had been about to say ‘Heaven.’ Olivia gave a little shrug. After all, there was not much difference.
‘Oh, that this should happen to us!’ he burst out again, shaking his clenched fists at the Providence which had allowed it. To us! He meant ‘to us Mardens.’ That was the amazing thing. What was coming to the world?
Olivia followed him with her eyes as he walked up and down the room. He had failed her; whatever happened now, she could never quite forget that. Let the Law and the Church, Heaven or the County rule him as it will, there was something which he ought to have said to her first. Whatever was right, whatever was wrong, there was something which he ought to have said to her. However bad it was for him, it was worse for her, and she should have come first into his mind. ‘Olivia, I can’t let you go!’ But he had not said it.
Was there still time to make him see where he was going? She would try again. She shook out the curtains, looked at them with her head on one side, and said, ‘I do hope Jacko will like these.’
He wheeled round on her in amazement. Hands stretched towards her he cried, ‘Olivia, Olivia, have you no heart?’
He to ask her that!
She answered flippantly: ‘Ought you to talk like that to another man’s wife?’
‘Confound it,’ he said, really annoyed now, ‘is this just a joke to you?’
‘You must forgive me, George. I am a little overexcited. At the thought of returning to Jacko, no doubt. ’
‘Do you want to return to him?’ he asked jealously. Yes, jealousy, at last! With what gladness she heard and registered that note.
‘One wants to do what is right,’ she said meekly, ‘in the eyes of—er—Heaven.’
‘Seeing what sort of man he is, I have no doubt that you could get a separation, supposing that he didn’t—er—divorce you.’ He shook his head in a dazed way over the problems in front of them. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know.’
And then suddenly a gleam of sunshine pierced the black clouds which enveloped him. His eyes brightened. All was not yet lost.
‘I must consult my solicitor,’ he said, relief in his voice.
‘Wouldn’t you like to consult your Aunt Julia, too?’ suggested Olivia. ‘She could tell you what the County—I mean, what Heaven really thought about it.’
‘Yes, you’re quite right. Aunt Julia has plenty of common sense. Her advice——’
‘Do I still call her Aunt Julia?’ Olivia wondered.
He stared at her. ‘Why ever not?’
She looked at him with a smile. He was still refusing to ‘think about it.’ He was to do the right thing in the eyes of his gods; the home was to be broken up, she was to go back to Telworthy; but somehow she was still pouring out his coffee for him in the morning. In some curious way Lady Marden was still Mrs. Telworthy’s aunt. ‘Try thinking about it, George!’
Under her smile he stammered that of course—er—yes, that was so, but—well, they needn’t bother about that. The main point was that Aunt Julia’s advice would be invaluable. She must certainly be told; now.
‘And Mr. Pim, George? He will have to know.’
‘I don’t see the necessity.’
‘Not even for me? When a woman suddenly hears that her long-lost husband is restored to her, don’t you think that she wants to ask questions?’
‘Questions?’
Of course!’ She rattled off the questions gaily. ‘How is he looking, and where is he living, and when is he——’
‘I suppose if you are interested in these things——’
‘Don’t be so silly, George! How can I help being? Naturally I must know what Jacko——’
An ejaculation of some sort escaped him, and she stopped, waiting for it to become more articulate.
‘Yes?’ she helped him.
‘I wish you wouldn’t call him by that ridiculous name,’ he growled.
She looked away from him. ‘My husband, then,’ she amended quietly.
He winced at the word. ‘Well?’
‘Well, we must know my husband’s plans—where we can communicate with him, and so on.’
‘I have no wish to communicate with him,’ he said with dignity.
‘I’m afraid you will have to, dear.’
Once more he replied that he didn’t see the necessity.
She bent down more closely over her curt
ains to hide a smile.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘you will want to—to apologize to him for living with his wife for so long.’ She stole a glance at him, and went on. ‘And since I belong to him, he ought to be told where he can call for me.’
Nobody had a better sense of humour than George; he had often said so. But this was not the time for humour. His dignified answer that there was some truth in what she said was sufficient reproof. Yes, undoubtedly Telworthy would have to be seen. Or perhaps—happy thought—his solicitors could do it all.
‘But oh!’ he groaned, ‘the horrible publicity of it.’
And Olivia felt for him, even though he was hurting her so much. Publicity! She knew all about that. Her first husband, her only husband, could have told George something of the disadvantage of publicity. He had fled from it to Australia; even when there it would not leave him alone. Yes, there had been enough ‘Telworthy’ in the papers for Jacob, enough for Olivia. Now she was to have it again. Yet how trivial it was all compared with the one fact which mattered, that George was sending her away. How trivial to her—but how terrifying to George.
She got up and went over to him.
‘Dear, don’t think that I don’t sympathize with you,’ she said, and if there was the least little hint of irony in her words he did not notice it. ‘I understand so exactly how you’re feeling about it. The publicity! Yes, it is terrible.’
He took her hand and looked at her earnestly.
‘I want to do what is right, Olivia,’ he said. ‘You believe that?’
‘Of course I do.’
He thanked her with his eyes, gravely, and let her go. She gave a rueful little smile, and added, ‘It is only that we don’t quite agree as to what is right and what is wrong.’
‘It isn’t a question of agreeing,’ he reproved her. ‘Right is right and wrong is wrong all the world over.’
‘But more particularly in Buckinghamshire, I think,’ she said with a sigh.
He did not hear her. He went on, arguing the matter out to himself. ‘If I only considered myself, I should say “Let us pack this man Telworthy back to Australia. He will make no claim; he will accept money to go away and say nothing about it.” If I only consulted my own happiness, that is what I would say, Olivia.’
Oh, why had he not spoken like that at first! Eagerly she leant towards him, her hands clasped, entreating him with her eyes, with every line of her body, to be true to the love which she had given him; to take her in his arms now, and say defiantly——
But no. That was not George. George went on heavily, ‘But when I consult my conscience——’
His happiness! His conscience! Never hers.
‘When I consult my conscience, then I can’t do it. It’s wrong!’
He said it nobly, finely, the good man obeying his conscience and therefore sure of himself. And yet, what is a man’s conscience after all? That inner voice which whispers to us ‘No, you mustn’t do it; it’s wrong’; that voice which, if disobeyed, reproaches us, leaves us with an uneasy sense of guilt, is it always an inspired voice? Is it the voice of the God within us? Or is it only the voice of those who taught us in our childhood; not the voice of truth, but of what others thought true? Sometimes no more than that.
His conscience! That ended the argument. It told Olivia that he would not ‘try thinking about it’ himself, but would accept what had been thought about it by others.
Chapter Ten
A Family Council
I
LADY MARDEN was what Brian called ‘good at pigs.’ She had the manner. Brian was quite frankly ‘no good at pigs.’ He was a poor eighteen, and Lady Marden was plus four, and Dinah, he estimated, was about six, having begun young, but never having kept it up properly.
To be bad at anything does not mean that you are bored by it. Brian was as interested in the pigs as he was in everything which made up this wonderful life. He liked watching them with Dinah, and encouraging the younger members of the family, and scratching their backs, and discovering likenesses in their innocent faces to various eminent authors, politicians or painters. It was a fleeting resemblance to a prominent statesman which had first endeared Arnold, the little black-and-white one, to him and Dinah. They had christened him Arnold before the likeness had struck them; otherwise his name would have been—but that doesn’t matter.
They accompanied Aunt Julia to the farm, these two children, in the absurdest spirits, one on each side of her. Now and then Brian’s left hand would stray behind Aunt Julia’s back, as if he intended to embrace her, but it was Dinah’s right hand which stole out to meet it, the while they looked straight in front of them, as though discerning some unusual object on the horizon, or answered some question of the grown-up’s in an unnecessarily eager voice. Then they would catch each other’s eyes, and Dinah would laugh her wonderful laugh, much to Aunt Julia’s amazement, and Brian’s giggle would fade into a bronchial irritation under a sudden head-turn and a stare of cold surprise.
‘So you paint, Mr.—what’s your name?’ said Lady Marden.
‘Mr. Strange, Aunt Julia,’ said Dinah kindly. ‘Brian Strange, the well-known painter. You must have heard of him.’
Brian pulled at his tie with the idea of improving himself into somebody of whom everybody had heard.
‘H’m! Can’t say I have. What do you paint?’
‘Oh, well——’
‘He sold a picture last March for fifty pounds,’ put in the faithful Dinah, determined to make this quite clear.
‘What was it called?’
‘The World’s End: Saturday Night,’ said Brian, glad to explain it so easily. No artist but hates talking of his work to those who neither understand nor take any interest, and it is fortunate for us all that the inquirer is so completely satisfied with the mere title of the great work. When once you have told the visitor that the new comedy is called ‘Collusion’ or ‘Agatha’ or any other name you like to invent for the occasion, the danger is over, and you can pass on to the wickedness of the poorer classes.
But, of course, if you deliberately choose a challenging title, you must expect them to comment on it.
‘I see. A religious picture. And so the world’s going to end on a Saturday night, Mr. Strange? Well, I dare say you’re right, but I don’t know who told you.’
Brian explained that ‘The World’s End’ was the name of a public-house near his studio.
Lady Marden nodded unabashed.
‘My acquaintance with public-houses is small. You must forgive me, Mr. Strange, for not having heard of yours.’
‘Not at all,’ said Brian politely.
‘And do you paint yours from the inside or the outside?’
Brian signalled to Dinah the impossibility of carrying on this kind of conversation, and resigned his share in it to her.
‘It isn’t just the public-house, Aunt Julia,’ she explained enthusiastically. ‘It’s where the buses stop, and Brian’s picture is an impression of the street on a wet Saturday night, with hawkers shouting at their barrows, and the lights flaring and dropping in great splashes on the puddles, and—oh, it’s wonderful!’
The author of it looked supremely uncomfortable, and frowned at his press-agent, begging her not to waste all this on the Philistines. But Aunt Julia had only heard one word of it.
‘Whose picture?’ she asked sternly.
‘Brian’s,’ repeated Dinah calmly.
‘Ah!’ said Aunt Julia. She looked from one to the other of them, read their secret, and strode grimly on towards the pigs.
But for once her inspection of them was undistinguished. She might have been the merest novice; all that good meat was wasted on her, whose mind was busy with another stock. The Mardens. Here was Dinah, with the taint of the poet already in her, suggesting that she should be crossed with an artist! True, the result would not be called Marden, but it wou
ld be in the family. What on earth was George about?
She did not say it aloud; perhaps she did not think it in those very words, but that was the sense of her thoughts as she leant over the sty and inhaled the little pigs. Dinah, of all the Marden girls that ever stepped, needed careful marrying. Only an honest, patriotic, well-tubbed, sport-loving, beef-and-beer Englishman could save her. Lady Marden decided that she must have a few words alone with George on this subject before she left. Perhaps a few words of warning to Mr. Strange first would not be out of place.
II
Olivia, the curtains on her lap and in her hands, her eyes looking into nothingness; George at his desk, head bowed on arms; as soon as she came into the morning-room Dinah saw that something more than an investment had gone wrong with these.
‘Hallo!’ she said.
George looked at her stupidly for a moment.
‘Where’s Aunt Julia?’ asked Olivia, coming back with a little shake to her curtains.
‘Talking to Brian. I was sent on, because it wasn’t considered proper for me to listen. I expect she’s asking him to paint her portrait. As Diana. Surprised bathing.’
‘Can you find her, dear, and bring her here? And Brian, too. We have something we want to talk about with you all.’
This was too much for George.
‘Olivia!’ he protested.
‘Right-o!’ said Dinah. And then, as she went out, ‘What fun!’ For things were indeed occurring now at Marden House—at Marden House, where, as she had told Mr. Pim only that morning, ‘nothing ever happened.’ What fun when they did happen!
But it was still too much for George.
‘Olivia,’ he protested again, ‘you don’t seriously suggest that we should discuss these things with a child like Dinah, and a young man like Strange, a mere acquaintance?’
‘Dinah will have to know, my dear,’ she said, shaking her head with a little smile at him; a sad little smile for the way he went on refusing to think about it. ‘I am very fond of Dinah, you know. You can’t send me away without telling Dinah. And Brian is my friend. You have your solicitor and your aunt and your conscience to consult—mayn’t I even have Brian?’
