by Jean Stubbs
‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ said Laura indulgently. ‘It is much more important than that. And almost as difficult and delicate.’
‘Indeed? You intrigue me. Pray avail yourself of my services.’
‘Shall you take a glass of Madeira? I will pour it myself.’
‘It will taste a thousand times as sweet.’
She handed him the glass, saying composedly, ‘I believe that Theodore has a mistress. I wish you to tax him with the knowledge, and then tell me.’
As quick and composed as herself, he replied, ‘On what grounds do you base this accusation?’
‘I think I shall drink Madeira, too,’ she said aloud, hearing Harriet’s knock. And watched her mend the fire, and sipped.
‘He has a mistress,’ she repeated, when the door closed, and told him of that afternoon’s visitor.
‘My dear Laura,’ said Titus, sitting opposite, crossing his legs, ‘what purpose would a confrontation serve?’
‘I must know. It is my right to know.’
‘To quieten a guilty conscience, perhaps?’
She flushed. Then raised her glass steadily, and sipped steadily. Head on one side, Titus admired her.
‘My dear Laura, even if this were true, what can you expect from your husband but a gentlemanly apology? Surely you are not imagining that this knowledge will give you some moral hold over him?’
‘I know my position very well,’ she said vehemently. ‘I have no father or brother to speak for me, and no other home to which I can go. But I must know the truth. I will not let him treat me so. I will not.’
‘You are naturally distracted,’ Titus said idly, ‘and unable to weigh the situation with any degree of objectivity. Let me play the devil’s advocate, Laura. If Theodore is amusing himself elsewhere – though I trust you not to betray my partiality for the lady’s side of the argument – you may seek amusement on your own account. Providing you are discreet, and that should not be difficult. It is all in the family.’
‘I have asked a favour of you. I beg you to grant it. That is all I have to say. Except, that if you have no other engagement this evening I should welcome your company at dinner.’
He shrugged, finished his wine, kissed her hand and sought his brother’s presence, while she stared into the fire as though it held some counsel, if only she could fathom it.
‘I have had a most extraordinary interview with Laura,’ Theodore burst out, before Titus could inquire after his health. ‘I really think I must speak to Padgett about her. Perhaps she is run down and needs a month of sea air. Still, at this time of the year, she would get no benefit from it. I do not understand her.’
‘Nevertheless, you seem remarkably improved, brother.’
‘I have learned to bear my cross,’ said Theodore sententiously. ‘I promised to cherish Laura in sickness. What troubles me is the constancy of her complaints, and then their diversity. First her head, then her digestion, then sleeplessness, nerves, hysteria. What ails her?’
‘She appears to believe that a lady of dubious morals has returned your love-letters,’ said Titus, hands in pockets, and he sat on the end of the bed.
‘Head full of romantic nonsense,’ Theodore grumbled. ‘Laura’s behaviour passes all comprehension at times. If you had seen her this afternoon you would have been astonished. She was – possessed.’
‘You do astonish me. And is there not a word of truth in this rumour? Was the dubious lady with the package a figment of Kate’s imagination?’
‘Come, brother, a man is not obliged to confess everything. A wife with any proper feeling would affect not to notice. Laura is too fond of her own way.’
‘Are not all the ladies? At any rate, this one returned your letters, I take it?’
Theodore hesitated.
‘You amaze me,’ said Titus, grinning. ‘Such a pillar of rectitude, such a staunch supporter of God, Queen and Country! I had thought you were incorruptible. But you must set yourself right with Laura, if you will allow me to advise you. She is highly strung and inclined to be impulsive. Not devoid of one male relative – though at the moment she bewails the fact that her father is dead, and cannot use a horsewhip on her faithless husband. It would be a confounded nuisance if an enraged uncle made inquiries. Laura’s portion is not inconsiderable, and invested in the firm.’
‘She would not so risk herself and me.’
‘Do not be too sure. Laura is capable of more than perhaps you reckon.’
Theodore said tetchily, ‘Well, what would you have me do? No one is so close to both of us as you, Titus. Indeed,’ and he laid his hand on his brother’s shoulder, ‘I have always been able to say more to you than to anyone else, the last few years. It has been a lonely road, Titus, and often a dark one.’
‘Ah! One cannot speak to real ladies – charming as they are – as one can speak to a man. It is a pity that good women are so dull, and bad women so infernally cunning. One is caught between a yawn and a risk. A man does not know which way to turn at such times. Come, brother, you can confide in me, and I will make all well again. Have you paid for the letters, or did the lady return them out of sheer goodwill?’
He watched the struggle on his brother’s face, with amusement and some compassion.
‘You keep such a devilish tight rein on yourself, Theo,’ he observed kindly. ‘For God’s sake, man, get yourself out of this entanglement and find a ballet dancer. I know the alleys of London as well as any tom-cat. If you need eyes to guide you, use mine. For though you have acted the father to me, and I do not forget that, in some ways you seem younger than I.’
‘You do not know me as well as you imagine,’ said Theodore, pondering. He had made up his mind. ‘I confess I have been
– unwise.’
‘Damned foolish,’ said Titus gaily. ‘Never put anything on paper, brother. Give them jewels, suppers, pay their bills or their rent, pay court, but never write it down. How much did she want?’
‘A sizeable sum, but not an impossible one. She has brought some half dozen letters, and retained the others, to persuade me. They are set on a scandal if I do not pay. I cannot afford a scandal. The difficulty is that I am bedfast for the time being.’
Titus’s expression was unreadable.
‘There is more than one person involved, then?’
‘A – protector.’
‘Good God,’ said Titus, horrified. ‘What a scrape!’
‘This woman’s visit was an indication that they meant to make it a bad business. If a female of her sort dares to knock at a respectable man’s own front door …’
‘You may use me as an intermediary.’
‘I thank you. But this affair I must, and shall, deal with myself.’
‘I see!’ He smote the bedpost, thinking. ‘I should advise you, even more strongly, to set yourself right with Laura. We cannot fight on all sides at once. If she should write to her uncle …’
Theodore lifted his shoulders and let them drop, defeated.
‘Tell Laura, then,’ he said with difficulty, and his face was as stern as if she were present, ‘that the lapse was single, and of small significance. That I was tempted and I fell. Such things do happen. Tell her, I was more sinned against than sinning.’
‘Eve proffered an apple,’ Titus suggested genially. ‘They do, you know!’
‘Put it as you will. You say these things so much better than I.’
‘I should say something else, as well, with your permission.’
‘And what is that?’
‘Ask her forgiveness,’ said Titus.
The silence between them was shattered by the sound of the dinner gong.
‘I do not expect to hear any more of this matter from Laura,’ Theodore commanded. ‘Everything must be as it was between us, henceforth.’
‘And how was that?’ Titus asked, rising.
‘A fair and honourable arrangement.’
‘One tires, of course, of any woman in time,’ said Titus, puzzled. ‘At least, I d
o. Or I have done so far. But Laura has always seemed to me – judging her purely as my brother’s wife – to be all that most men would desire.’
‘People do compliment me upon her,’ Theodore replied, ‘and she is charming in company. But the spectator’s view is a faulty one. I say this to you, when I would say it to no one else. I know Laura very well, and her temperament mars anything in her which I might have found attractive.’
‘You surprise me. I have always admired her spirit.’
‘A rebellious and a foolish one. It is a wife’s duty to be submissive to her husband.’
‘I should have thought,’ said Titus, musing, ‘that a man of some persuasiveness could make Laura biddable enough.’
‘She is intractable.’
Titus looked at him curiously.
‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘but what was the lady like who wrung those highly dangerous love-letters from you?’
‘Ah, that!’ Theodore replied heavily. ‘That was a very different affair. A very different affair. Let us not speak of it again.’
*
‘Man errs,’ said Titus lightly, drinking his wine, ‘and woman forgives him ever.’
‘I do not forgive him. I do not and shall not.’
‘He has admitted his fault handsomely. He humbles himself before you. What more do you want, Laura?’
The food untouched upon her plate, she said, ‘Retribution.’
‘You combine the best qualities of both good and bad women. I love you for all of them.’
She sat stricken, and pushed aside her dinner.
‘Tell me,’ Titus continued easily, ‘did you ever love him?’
‘At first I did. I thought him everything.’ She clasped her hands together upon the table before her, remembering. ‘I thought him wise and strong and handsome. I listened to him. Tried to please him. And then nothing. Coldness and misery.’
‘Still, you are jealous of this sordid little affaire. There must be some feeling left.’
‘Jealous?’ she cried. ‘I am not jealous. I am envious.’
He stared at her, astonished.
‘You may smoke a cigar over your coffee, if you wish,’ said Laura, rising and ringing the bell. ‘I do not find them in the least objectionable. I am expected to do so, I know, but I do not.’
He offered his arm, and they sauntered to the drawing-room, while Harriet cleared the plates and glanced after them.
‘Envious?’ Titus repeated, interested.
‘Why should he have a freedom that I am denied?’ she asked forcibly. ‘Why should he keep a mistress, discard her, say he is sorry – and all is well? How dare he send me a message, ordering everything to be as it has been between us, henceforth?’
‘That is the way of the world, Laura.’
‘It is unfair,’ she said to herself. ‘It is so unfair.’
‘I have offered you an alternative. One that you did not find unpleasant?’
‘I do not wish a temporary and dishonourable arrangement,’ she cried, turning on him. ‘Besides, how can you? You are his brother and he loves you. And you, in your fashion, love him. How can you use him so?’
Regarding the tip of his cigar he replied, ‘How can you?’ And tapped the ash into a silver tray.
She was quiet again, her anger ebbing.
‘He wrote her love-letters,’ she said softly. ‘What must she have meant to him? He never wrote so to me. And Kate said she stank of cheap scent and was not a lady. What did he write, I wonder? Did he speak of her duty and submissiveness?’
‘I should think not, on the whole,’ said Titus, ironic. ‘He seems to have made a perfect fool of himself for once. The love-letters amaze me.’
‘You have read them?’ she asked quickly.
‘No. Nor do I need to. The usual maundering.’
‘Like the one you wrote to me?’
His face changed.
Carefully, he replied, ‘The aberration of a moment. Did you destroy it?’
‘Of course. I tore it to pieces.’
‘Very small ones, I trust?’
‘I do not recollect. I expect so. It did not matter. I remember every word. Does that please you?’
Quietly, he replied, ‘Very much.’
‘Then cherish the thought of it,’ she said hopelessly, ‘as I do.’
‘Did I maunder nicely?’ he asked, at last.
‘Almost as nicely as Mr Browning.’ She smiled suddenly, and said, ‘I wish we could be again as we were in the beginning, Titus. You were a boy with me, then, and we basked in Theodore’s protection and were each other’s confidantes.’
‘The days of sweet and twenty. Did you love me then, Laura?’
‘Very much, even when you got into such scrapes. Especially when you got into scrapes, I daresay, for you came to me first. But not as I do now.’
‘And when did we put away childish things?’
They were at one, somewhere in the past, looking for a signpost they had not noticed, or had ignored.
‘When Blanche was born,’ Laura said, seeming to speak at random, ‘Theodore had waited all day in his study. He did not come to see me, or her, though she was pretty even as a newly born baby. Afterwards, I discovered why. She was a daughter, another expense to him. He loves his sons only. He told me that he regarded my duty as done, and no doubt thought I should be relieved to hear it. As I was.’
‘A cold brute,’ said Titus reflectively. ‘This business of the letters puzzles me. He sought his pleasures secretively. I wonder why he troubled to marry if the gutters served him so much better?’
Laura laughed, genuinely amused.
‘He married because marriage is expected of a good citizen. Theodore cares very much what the world thinks of him. I was considered a catch on the marriage market. Eighteen years old with five hundred a year of my own, born of a prosperous merchant family in Bristol, and regarded as something of a beauty. He, too, was highly marketable.’
She was bitter, remembering.
‘I thought him very handsome. Grave and clever. Eminently capable of caring for me and protecting me. He kept a part of the bargain. He set me up in an elegant establishment within reach of London. He gave me financial security and a position that might occasion envy in most women. He gave me nothing else.’
‘The fire is low,’ said Titus. ‘Shall I ring for more coals?’
‘No. Let it die. It is almost ten o’clock. You must go soon.’ She continued, ‘Yes, it was after Blanche was born. I can guess what he must have said to Dr Padgett. “I am aware that I have a daughter, and that my wife and she are doing well. I do not wish to see the child. If anyone should need me I am in my study.” My pride was hurt. I had not wanted him, but I did not like to think that he no longer wanted me at all.’
Titus smiled and she smiled back at him in pure friendship, as they shared her little flash of vanity.
‘Oh yes,’ she went on, though he had said nothing. ‘Vanity and pride are two vices we have in common, you and I. Then, gradually, I found I was free. Free from him, free from the terror of child-bearing. I began to look about me, to read poetry and novels again, to take an interest in world affairs. You helped me in this! I was only twenty-five and I could breathe a little.’
He lit another cigar, watching and listening. Older, harder, infinitely more attractive than the pretty boy to whom she had played mother in the early years of her marriage.
‘That was when I began to put away childish things,’ said Laura. ‘I read the poems of Robert Browning, of Elizabeth Barratt. I thought them somehow shameless and yet pure. I knew, though I was not supposed to know, something of your own wild life. Once I asked Theodore. He told me there were two kinds of love, the sacred and the profane. Then he commanded the subject to be closed, henceforth, as this latest subject must be closed. I knew the sacred to be a dead and wretched thing. I knew nothing of the profane. I knew also that, in some way, the Brownings had combined them.’
‘It was unwise,’ said Titus, kindly
enough, ‘to turn from one brother to the other, in search of further knowledge.’
‘Do you think I did not comprehend that? I say more. I should never have turned to you on my own account. Yours was the first step. Was it not?’
‘A long and arduous one. I have never taken so much time over anyone else. My indisposition served me in the end. You were a loving nurse.’
She mused over the dying fire, indifferent now either to teasing or to cruelty.
‘No, it happened before then,’ she said. ‘These things happen in the mind, randomly, suddenly and take root. It was in the hall,’ she realized. ‘You had come very late, in some usual difficulty, and Theodore went down to let you in. Even though he was so angry he still loved you, and he said – to cover up this dubious weakness – “Titus, you are a confounded nuisance!”’
‘And I said, “Then throw me out. I deserve nothing better!’”
‘I was standing at the top of the stairs and you looked up, seeking support. And I could not help laughing. And Theodore smiled at you, and at me, as he so rarely smiles. We were happy, for once, the three of us. You had snow on your cape‚’
‘You wore a white wrapper, edged with lace.’
‘Yes. That was when.’
Titus extinguished his cigar. Humbly he went over to her and raised her hands to his lips.
‘“Let’s contend no more, Love, strive nor weep,”’ he said into her palms. ‘“All be as before, Love – only sleep.”’
She did not answer, reclining in her chair, two long years away. So he touched her cold cheek lightly, bade her goodnight and let himself out.
7
Home is the girl’s prison
and the woman’s workhouse.
Man and Superman –
George Bernard Shaw
THEODORE exploited the furthest limits of his illness, and clutched upon post-influenzal depression with all the talent of a professional hypochondriac. His return to business was accompanied by martyrdom, and his homecomings by outbursts of bad temper. Even Titus’s good nature was strained to capacity, though his gift for ignoring life’s annoyances served him nobly.
February came in, cold, frosty, foggy, mirroring the present relationship between the Croziers. Together they agreed, without saying so, to let a little sunshine play upon them in the form of Titus, who was always ready to entertain.
