by A. A. Milne
George had not thought of that. He had thought of nothing but the catastrophe as it affected him, never as it affected her. He saw dimly now that it was her catastrophe, too. Yet to whom does a good woman go in time of trouble?
‘I should have thought your husband——’
‘Yes, but we don’t know where Jacko is,’ said Olivia.
‘I was not referring to Telworthy,’ he stuttered.
‘Well, then?’ Her hands and eyes finished the question. To whom?
He struggled on. Naturally his advice, his assistance was—that is, she wasn’t to think that—he meant that even if he wasn’t legally her husband—that is to say—and then, head in arms again, ‘Oh, this is horrible!’
It was so that Aunt Julia found him. She looked at him in astonishment. Could a man so well-aired, so well-exercised as George break down like this? It seemed impossible. And certainly impossible as a result of Dinah’s foolishness only. Anger, yes, at that foolishness; scorn, if you like; but not despair. What had happened?
Brian wondered, too. But when you are twenty-four, and have just found that the biggest darling in the world loves you, the troubles of a man in the forties do not seem to amount to much. Anyway, Brian had despaired of George a long time ago, so that there were plenty of reasons why George should now despair of himself. Still, something had evidently happened.
Olivia took charge.
‘George and I have had some rather bad news, Aunt Julia,’ she said, as she got up. ‘He wanted your advice. Where will you sit?’
‘Thank you, Olivia, I can sit down by myself.’
No fussing for Aunt Julia, no pampering. She sat down by herself, removing a degenerate cushion first. Dinah hurried to Olivia’s side. Brian leant against the back of the sofa, within reach of Dinah. They waited eagerly.
‘Well,’ said Aunt Julia, after a long silence, ‘what is it?’ And then, as there was no answer, ‘Money, I suppose. Nobody’s safe nowadays.’
It was for George to say, but he was obviously incapable. He began, once, twice, and then signalled to Olivia. She told them quite simply; it was not the sort of news which you could break.
‘We’ve just heard that my first husband is still alive.’
They exclaimed in their different fashions. ‘Good Lord!’ said Brian, and looked from one to the other of them. Lady Marden looked at her nephew only. ‘George!’ she cried, horrified that he could have let this happen. ‘Telworthy!’ said Dinah, in awe, adding excitedly, ‘And only this morning I was saying that nothing ever happened in this house.’ But she did not wait for Olivia’s reproachful look. She had her arm round the beloved one in a moment, murmuring ‘Darling, I don’t mean that! Darling one!’ and was forgiven.
‘What does this mean, George?’ asked his Aunt Julia sternly. ‘I leave you for ten minutes, barely ten minutes, to go and look at the pigs, and when I come back you tell me that Olivia is a bigamist.’
That ugly word ‘bigamist’ stabbed Brian. And there was that in Lady Marden’s voice which made it clear that there was to be no sympathy with Olivia in George’s family. He shot up to protest, but Olivia put out a hand and held him back. He pressed the hand, assuring her in his boyish way that if there was a row, he was on her side. Her eyes thanked him.
‘Well, George?’ said his aunt.
The unhappy man roused himself.
‘I’m afraid it is true, Aunt Julia,’ he admitted wearily. ‘We heard the news just before lunch, just before you came. We’ve only this moment had an opportunity of talking about it, of wondering what to do.’
‘What was his name? Tel—something.’
‘Jacob Telworthy.’
‘So he’s alive still?’
‘Apparently. There seems to be no doubt about it.’
Lady Marden, if we may use the word, grunted. Then she turned to the prisoner in the dock, and said:
‘Didn’t you see him die? I should always want to see my husband die before I married again. Not that I approve of second marriages, anyhow.’ Then back to her nephew, ‘I told you so at the time, George.’
‘And me, Aunt Julia,’ put in Olivia quietly.
But Lady Marden was not at all abashed.
‘Did I? Well, I generally say what I think.’
George remembered that the prisoner in the dock was his wife. Well, no, not his wife, but at least a woman, and that he was an English gentleman.
‘I ought to tell you, Aunt Julia,’ he said, ‘that no blame attaches to Olivia over this. Of that I am perfectly satisfied. It’s nobody’s fault.’
‘Except Telworthy’s,’ said Lady Marden, heavily sarcastic. ‘He seems to have been rather careless. Well, what are you going to do about it?’
‘That’s just it. It’s a terrible situation. There’s bound to be so much publicity.’
Lady Marden shuddered.
‘Not only all this,’ he went on, ‘but—but Telworthy’s past and everything.’
‘His past?’ said his aunt, frowning her amazement. ‘I should have said that it was his present which was the trouble. Had he a past as well?’
George looked miserably at Olivia.
‘He was a fraudulent company-promoter,’ explained Olivia calmly. ‘He went to prison a good deal.’
There was a moment of consternation, while the three of them who were hearing the news for the first time tried to realize what it meant. Brian’s imagination lit up for him, in a flash, the whole of Olivia’s life. Once again he wondered at women; their capability of suffering, their courage, their power of coming through. And to come through so untouched! He looked at Olivia reverently. Was Dinah equally a woman, he wondered. Was she bringing him an equal courage, an equal steadfastness? His heart glowed with pride. Impossible to doubt it.
And Dinah put her arms round Olivia. What did it matter whom Olivia had married that first time? Why shouldn’t her husband be a fraudulent what-d’you-call-it and go to prison? She was Olivia just the same. Let who dared say anything against her!
But Lady Marden had no eyes for the prisoner in the dock. There had never been any hope for Olivia. But that George should so offend!
‘George,’ she said grimly, ‘you never told me this.’
George stuttered. He had deceived himself for so long that he was still uncertain whether he had really known about Jacob Telworthy at the time of his engagement to Olivia. But even if he hadn’t known, his Aunt Julia would say that he ought to have known; and if he had known, he ought to have told her; so that in any case——
Indignantly Dinah broke in.
‘What’s it got to do with Olivia, anyhow?’ she demanded fiercely. It’s not her fault.’
‘Oh no,’ said Aunt Julia, sarcastic again, ‘I dare say it’s mine.’
Olivia shuddered. They were wrangling. How horrible! She tried to get them back.
‘George,’ she said gently, ‘you wanted to ask Aunt Julia what was the best thing to do.’
This was too much for Brian. He jumped up, breathing amazement, scorn, anger. ‘Good heavens he cried. ‘What is there to do except the one and only thing?’ Then, conscious suddenly that he was taking the floor, realizing that in any case he had no footing in a family discussion, with a horrible feeling that he was going to be melodramatic directly, he ended up lamely, ‘I beg your pardon. You don’t want me to—er——’
‘I do, Brian,’ said Olivia gently.
‘Well, go on, Mr. Strange,’ said Lady Marden, with a shrug. ‘What would you do in George’s position?’
‘Do?’ said Brian, thrusting his head forward. ‘Say to the woman I love, “You’re mine! And let this other damned fellow come and take you from me if he can! “And he couldn’t—how could he?’ his boyish voice rang out triumphantly. ‘Not if the woman chose me!’
A little sigh escaped Olivia. At last she had heard the words for whi
ch she had been waiting. ‘You’re mine—and let this other damned fellow come and take you from me if he can.’ Ah, why did George not say them? Was it too much to expect? Were they very difficult words to say? But George had not said them. He had had to wait for Brian, the boy whom he despised, to tell him what to say. Thank you, Brian. Now you have told him. Was I so very unreasonable?
But Dinah had never heard that ring in Brian’s voice before. She knew him so well to talk to, to laugh with; all the surface Brian, the Brian which the world saw, she knew and loved, but the other Brian, the underneath Brian, was a stranger. Just for a moment he had peeped out, that stammering moment, when a voice she did not know said for the first time, ‘I love you,’ but after that first fierce kiss he had withdrawn once more into his fastness. And now he was out again; and he and all the other Brians were hers!
‘Oh, Brian,’ she whispered, looking at him adoringly. She clung to his arm. And then, just for the joy of hearing him say it, yet to be quite certain also, she added, ‘It is me, isn’t it, and not Olivia?’ And he came back from the imaginary Dinah, whom he was defending from a hundred imaginary foes, to the real Dinah who was looking so wistfully at him, and said tenderly, ‘You baby! Of course!’ She nodded to herself, happily. Yes, it was she.
There was an angry flush on George’s cheek. He writhed under the unfairness of putting up this boy to say the fine, the romantic thing against him. Damnably unfair! It was so easy to be fine, to make a gesture of chivalry and to let your duty go. Of course he, George, wanted to say, ‘You’re mine!’ to Olivia; anybody in his place would, anybody who loved Olivia as much as he loved her; and if he had cared nothing for his duty, nothing for morality, he would have said it. Yes; taken her in his arms and said it; it was easy enough. And that damned boy, barely out of school, thinks he can come along and tell him, George Marden, how to love a woman! Perhaps he would find out himself some day, if he ever grew up, that life was not so easy as that. ‘You’re mine’—that was just it, she wasn’t his, not if the laws of God and man meant anything. And Dinah was to marry a fellow like that!
Lady Marden, wondering where young men like Mr. Strange came from, but realizing that in these days there were all sorts of curious people in the world, let him down gently with, ‘I am afraid, young man, that your morals are as peculiar as your views on art.’
‘This is not a question of morals, or of art,’ said Brian hotly. ‘It’s a question of love.’
‘Hear, hear!’ agreed Dinah.
Lady Marden turned in surprise to her nephew.
‘Isn’t it that girl’s bedtime?’ she asked.
Olivia, with a tender reproving smile at the girl, said that they would let her sit up a little longer if she were good.
‘I will be good, Olivia,’ she protested. ‘But I thought anybody, however important a debate was, was allowed to say “Hear, hear!”’
George, still glowering at Brian, said coldly that if they were going to discuss the matter seriously, Mr. Strange had better take Dinah outside.
‘Strange, if you—er——’
‘Tell them what you have settled first,’ said Olivia quietly.
‘Settled?’ quoth Lady Marden. ‘What is there to settle? It settles itself.’
George, shame-faced, miserable, acknowledged his agreement. That was just it. The laws of God and Man, Duty, Right, Conscience, all had settled it.
‘The marriage must be annulled,’ went on Lady Marden, interpreting Right to the uninitiated. ‘Annulled, I think that is the word, George?’
George presumed it was.
‘One’s solicitor will know all about that, of course.’
There was just a flicker of brightness on George’s face at the word ‘solicitor’. Helpful fellows, solicitors. He nodded, ‘Yes.’
‘And then?’ asked Brian challengingly.
‘Presumably,’ said Aunt Julia, ‘Olivia will return to her lawful husband.’
Brian’s scornful laugh rang out. ‘And that’s morality!’ he cried. And with his boyish undisciplined contempt for all that these people stood for, he added, ‘As expounded by Bishop Landseer!’
The contempt in his voice was too much for George. He strode over to Brian and looked him up and down.
‘I don’t know what you mean by Bishop Landseer,’ he said angrily, ‘but I can tell you this. Morality means acting in accordance with the laws of the land and the laws of the Church. I am quite prepared to believe that your creed embraces neither marriage nor monogamy, but my creed is different.’
‘My creed includes both marriage and monogamy,’ answered Brian in a high, excited voice, ‘and monogamy means sticking to the woman you love as long as she wants you.’
George turned away with a contemptuous snort. But Lady Marden said calmly, ‘Apparently, Mr. Strange, you suggest that George and Olivia should go on living together, although they have never been legally married, and wait for this man Telworthy to divorce her. Why, bless the man! What do you think the County would say?’
A scornful laugh was all that Brian had for the County.
‘Well, if you really want to know,’ answered Dinah unexpectedly, ‘the men would say, “Gad! she’s a fine woman, I don’t wonder he sticks to her,” and the women would say, “I can’t think what he sees in her to stick to her like that,” and they’d all say, “Well, after all, he may be a damn fool, but you can’t deny he’s a sportsman.”’ Breathlessly she rattled it off, and ended with a triumphant ‘That’s what the County would say.’
The ‘damn fool’ was too much for George Marden.
‘Was it for this sort of thing,’ he said furiously to Olivia, ‘that you insisted on having Dinah and Mr. Strange in here? To insult me in my own house?’
Aunt Julia said she couldn’t think what young people were coming to in these days. Possibly lack of healthy exercise accounted for it in Mr. Strange’s case, but the girl had been properly brought up ‘Just at the moment,’ explained her nephew, ‘she thinks she is in love with Mr. Strange. I give no countenance whatever to the idea——’
‘Naturally.’
How horrible this family wrangle was! Olivia, wincing at it, pressed Dinah’s hand and said that she and Brian had better go. Dinah stood up.
‘We will go, Olivia.’ She went up to her uncle. ‘But I’m just going to say one thing, Uncle George. Brian and I are going to marry each other, and when we are married, we’ll stick to each other—how ever many of our dead husbands and wives turn up!’
And with this all-embracing statement of her faith, she called, ‘Come on, Brian,’ to her lover, and strode from the room.
II
A nullity suit! It was the only way. But the horrible publicity of it! Photographs of Olivia, of himself, of Telworthy, in every paper. Telworthy’s past history raked up. Strident paper-boys shouting, ‘Marden Case, Latest,’ in the London streets. People opening their papers in the tube and trains and trams as they went home; commenting on it to each other, ‘Rum thing, this Marden Case.’ His neighbours’ tactful sympathy in front of him, their busy gossip behind his back. Their servants, his own servants, full of it, but showing impassive faces to him. . . . And this morning he had been happy!
‘I don’t remember anything of the sort in the Marden family before,’ said Aunt Julia. ‘Ever!’ She looked gloomily at Olivia, who had done it, and repeated, ‘Ever!’
In some queer way George felt suddenly that this was unfair to Olivia; he resented it. He was as tender of the Marden name as Aunt Julia, but there was that one blot on it, and in fairness to Olivia he could not let it be forgotten now. He glanced across at his aunt and murmured:
‘Lady Fanny.’
It seemed to him odd that he should have been looking at her portrait, and thinking about her, only that morning. It was not odd really, because he saw her every day at breakfast and, since most of his thoughts were as much a matter o
f routine as his actions, thought about her in consequence every day. She had run away with young Buckhurst, had been happy with him from all accounts, in spite of her wickedness. But from that day the Mardens had had no word for her; or but one word only, more suited to her time then to George’s. Yet George liked looking at her, she was so beautiful—almost as beautiful as Olivia.
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ acknowledged Lady Marden hastily. ‘But that was two hundred years ago. And, of course,’ she comforted herself, ‘the standards were different then. Besides, it wasn’t quite the same.’
‘No,’ agreed George absently, ‘it wasn’t the same.’
Not the same. No Marden had been so cruelly treated as he.
He looked across at Olivia. There she sat, waiting. There was nothing which she could do now, nor say. It was for him to fight it out for himself. And looking at her, so dear, so beautiful, he began for the first time to ‘think about it.’ He was sending her away! And when she was gone——
He tried to imagine her gone. Absurdly he saw her suddenly in relation to Lumsden; Lumsden down at the farm, talking business to him, but ever including Olivia in an affectionate, ‘You see, madam,’ as if it were her approval which he was really seeking to win. There she stood, by his side, her skirt rippling gently in the wind, one arm raised to her hat, and that friendliness in her eyes which none could resist. They went to the dairy, the stables, they spoke to a gamekeeper or a gardener; it was always the same; she was their lady. How easy yesterday to do all this business alone, as so often he had done it alone; how hard to-morrow to do it alone, knowing that she would never come with him again, as so often she had come? Oh, Olivia, Olivia! What was he to do?
‘If there were any other way!’ he groaned. ‘Olivia, what can I do?’ He went up to her, pleading, apologizing, justifying himself. ‘It is the only way, isn’t it? All that that fellow said—of course, it sounds very well, but as things are——’ He gave a despairing shrug. ‘Is there anything in marriage, or isn’t there? You believe that there is, don’t you? You aren’t one of these Socialists? Well, then, can we go on living together when you’re another man’s wife? It isn’t only what other people will say, but it is wrong, isn’t it?’
