Delphi Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (Illustrated)

by William Somerset Maugham

  I have to be in town on Friday to see my lawyer. May I come to tea at five?

  Julia.

  His answer did not arrive for twenty-four hours, and then it was addressed from Homburg.

  Regret immensely, but shall be away.

  Richard Lomas.

  Julia stamped her tiny foot with indignation and laughed with amusement at her own anger. It was monstrous that while she was leading the dullest existence imaginable, he should be enjoying the gaieties of a fashionable watering-place. She telegraphed once more.

  Thanks very much. Shall expect to see you on Friday.

  Julia.

  She travelled up to town on the appointed day and went to her house in Norfolk Street to see that the journey had left no traces on her appearance. Mayfair seemed quite deserted, and half the windows were covered with newspapers to keep out the dust. It was very hot, and the sun beat down from a cloudless sky. The pavements were white and dazzling. Julia realised with pleasure that she was the only cool person in London, and the lassitude she saw in the passers-by added to her own self-satisfaction. The month at the seaside had given an added freshness to her perfection, and her charming gown had a breezy lightness that must be very grateful to a gentleman of forty lately returned from foreign parts. As she looked at herself in the glass, Mrs. Crowley reflected that she did not know anyone who had a figure half so good as hers.

  When she drove up to Dick’s house, she noticed that there were fresh flowers in the window boxes, and when she was shown into his drawing-room, the first thing that struck her was the scent of red roses which were in masses everywhere. The blinds were down, and after the baking street the dark coolness of the room was very pleasant. The tea was on a little table, waiting to be poured out. Dick of course was there to receive her. As she shook hands with him, she smothered a little titter of wild excitement.

  ‘So you’ve come back,’ she said.

  ‘I was just passing through town,’ he answered, with an airy wave of the hand.

  ‘From where to where?’

  ‘From Homburg to the Italian Lakes.’

  ‘Rather out of your way, isn’t it?’ she smiled.

  ‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘If I were going from Manchester to Liverpool, I should break the journey in London. That’s one of my hobbies.’

  Julia laughed gaily, and as they both made a capital tea, they talked of all manner of trivial things. They were absurdly glad to see one another again, and each was ready to be amused at everything the other said. But the conversation would have been unintelligible to a listener, since they mostly talked together, and every now and then made a little scene when one insisted that the other should listen to what he was saying.

  Suddenly Mrs. Crowley threw up her hands with a gesture of dismay.

  ‘Oh, how stupid of me!’ she cried. ‘I quite forgot to tell you why I telegraphed to you the other day.’

  ‘I know,’ he retorted.

  ‘Do you? Why?’

  ‘Because you’re the most disgraceful flirt I ever saw in my life,’ he answered promptly.

  She opened her eyes wide with a very good imitation of complete amazement.

  ‘My dear Mr. Lomas, have you never contemplated yourself in a looking-glass?’

  ‘You’re not a bit repentant of the havoc you have wrought,’ he cried dramatically.

  She did not answer, but looked at him with a smile so entirely delightful that he cried out irritably:

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t look like that.’

  ‘How am I looking?’ she smiled.

  ‘To my innocent and inexperienced gaze very much as if you wanted to be kissed.’

  ‘You brute!’ she cried. ‘I’ll never speak to you again.’

  ‘Why do you make such rash statements? You know you couldn’t hold you tongue for two minutes together.’

  ‘What a libel! I never can get a word in edgeways when I’m with you,’ she returned. ‘You’re such a chatterbox.’

  ‘I don’t know why you put on that aggrieved air. You seem to forget that it’s I who ought to be furious.’

  ‘On the contrary, you behaved very unkindly to me a month ago, and I’m only here to-day because I have a Christian disposition.’

  ‘You forget that for the last four weeks I’ve been laboriously piecing together the fragments of a broken heart,’ he answered.

  ‘It was entirely your fault,’ she laughed. ‘If you hadn’t been so certain I was going to accept you, I should never have refused. I couldn’t resist the temptation of saying no, just to see how you took it.’

  ‘I flatter myself I took it very well.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ she answered. ‘You showed an entire lack of humour. You might have known that a nice woman doesn’t accept a man the first time he asks her. It was very silly of you to go to Homburg as if you didn’t care. How was I to know that you meant to wait a month before asking me again?’

  He looked at her for a moment calmly.

  ‘I haven’t the least intention of asking you again.’

  But it required much more than this to put Julia Crowley out of countenance.

  ‘Then why on earth did you invite me to tea?’

  ‘May I respectfully remind you that you invited yourself?’ he protested.

  ‘That’s just like a man. He will go into irrelevant details,’ she answered.

  ‘Now, don’t be cross,’ he smiled.

  ‘I shall be cross if I want to,’ she exclaimed, with a little stamp of her foot. ‘You’re not being at all nice to me.’

  He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, and his eyes twinkled.

  ‘Do you know what I’d do if I were you?’

  ‘No, what?’

  ‘Well, I can’t suffer the humiliation of another refusal. Why don’t you propose to me?’

  ‘What cheek!’ she cried.

  Their eyes met, and she smiled.

  ‘What will you say if I do?’

  ‘That entirely depends on how you do it.’

  ‘I don’t know how,’ she murmured plaintively.

  ‘Yes, you do,’ he insisted. ‘You gave me an admirable lesson. First you go on your bended knees, and then you say you’re quite unworthy of me.’

  ‘You are the most spiteful creature I’ve ever known,’ she laughed. ‘You’re just the sort of man who’d beat his wife.’

  ‘Every Saturday night regularly,’ he agreed.

  She hesitated, looking at him.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  ‘I shan’t,’ she answered.

  ‘Then I shall continue to be a brother to you.’

  She got up and curtsied.

  ‘Mr. Lomas, I am a widow, twenty-nine years of age, and extremely eligible. My maid is a treasure, and my dressmaker is charming. I’m clever enough to laugh at your jokes and not so learned as to know where they come from.’

  ‘Really you’re very long winded. I said it all in four words.’

  ‘You evidently put it too briefly, since you were refused,’ she smiled.

  She stretched out her hands, and he took them.

  ‘I think I’ll do it by post,’ she said. ‘It’ll sound so much more becoming.’

  ‘You’d better get it over now.’

  ‘You know, I don’t really want to marry you a bit. I’m only doing it to please you.’

  ‘I admire your unselfishness.’

  ‘You will say yes if I ask you?’

  ‘I refuse to commit myself.’

  ‘Obstinate beast,’ she cried.

  She curtsied once more, as well as she could since he was firmly holding her hands.

  ‘Sir, I have the honour to demand your hand in marriage.’

  He bowed elaborately.

  ‘Madam, I have much pleasure in acceding to your request.’

  Then he drew her towards him and put his arms around her.

  ‘I never saw anyone make such a fuss about so insignificant a detail as marriage,’ she murmured.

  ‘You have t
he softest lips I ever kissed,’ he said.

  ‘I wish to goodness you’d be serious,’ she laughed. ‘I’ve got something very important to say to you.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell me the story of your past life,’ he cried.

  ‘No, I was thinking of my engagement ring. I make a point of having a cabochon emerald: I collect them.’

  ‘No sooner said than done,’ he cried.

  He took a ring from his pocket and slipped it on her finger. She looked from it to him.

  ‘You see, I know that you made a specialty of emeralds.’

  ‘Then you meant to ask me all the time?’

  ‘I confess it to my shame: I did,’ he laughed.

  ‘Oh, I wish I’d known that before.’

  ‘What would you have done?’

  ‘I’d have refused you again, you silly.’

  Dick Lomas and Mrs. Crowley said nothing about their engagement to anyone, since it seemed to both that the marriage of a middle-aged gentleman and a widow of uncertain years could concern no one but themselves. The ceremony was duly performed in a deserted church on a warm September day, when there was not a soul in London. Mrs. Crowley was given away by her solicitor, and the verger signed the book. The happy pair went to Court Leys for a fortnight’s honeymoon and at the beginning of October returned to London; they made up their minds that they would go to America later in the autumn.

  ‘I want to show you off to all my friends in New York,’ said Julia, gaily.

  ‘Do you think they’ll like me?’ asked Dick.

  ‘Not at all. They’ll say: That silly little fool Julia Crowley has married another beastly Britisher.’

  ‘That is more alliterative than polite,’ he retorted.

  ‘On the other hand my friends and relations are already saying: What on earth has poor Dick Lomas married an American for? We always thought he was very well-to-do.’

  They went into roars of laughter, for they were in that state of happiness when the whole world seemed the best of jokes, and they spent their days in laughing at one another and at things in general. Life was a pleasant thing, and they could not imagine why others should not take it as easily as themselves.

  They had engaged rooms at the Carlton while they were furnishing a new house. Each had one already, but neither would live in the other’s, and so it had seemed necessary to look out for a third. Julia vowed that there was an air of bachelordom about Dick’s house which made it impossible for a married woman to inhabit; and Dick, on his side, refused to move into Julia’s establishment in Norfolk Street, since it gave him the sensation of being a fortune-hunter living on his wife’s income. Besides, a new house gave an opportunity for extravagance which delighted both of them since they realised perfectly that the only advantage of having plenty of money was to spend it in unnecessary ways. They were a pair of light-hearted children, who refused firmly to consider the fact that they were more than twenty-five.

  Lady Kelsey and Lucy had gone from the River to Spa, for the elder woman’s health, and on their return Julia went to see them in order to receive their congratulations and display her extreme happiness. She came back thoughtfully. When she sat down to luncheon with Dick in their sitting-room at the hotel, he saw that she was disturbed. He asked her what was the matter.

  ‘Lucy has broken off her engagement with Robert Boulger,’ she said.

  ‘That young woman seems to make a speciality of breaking her engagements,’ he answered drily.

  ‘I’m afraid she’s still in love with Alec MacKenzie.’

  ‘Then why on earth did she accept Bobbie?’

  ‘My dear boy, she only took him in a fit of temper. When that had cooled down she very wisely thought better of it.’

  ‘I can never sufficiently admire the reasonableness of your sex,’ said Dick, ironically.

  Julia shrugged her pretty shoulders.

  ‘Half the women I know merely married their husbands to spite somebody else. I assure you it’s one of the commonest causes of matrimony.’

  ‘Then heaven save me from matrimony,’ cried Dick.

  ‘It hasn’t,’ she laughed.

  But immediately she grew serious once more.

  ‘Mr. MacKenzie was in Brussels while they were in Spa.’

  ‘I had a letter from him this morning.’

  ‘Lady Kelsey says that according to the papers he’s going to Africa again. I think it’s that which has upset Lucy. They made a great fuss about him in Brussels.’

  ‘Yes, he tells me that everything is fixed up, and he proposes to start quite shortly. He’s going to do some work in the Congo Free State. They want to find a new waterway, and the King of the Belgians has given him a free hand.’

  ‘I suppose the King of the Belgians looks upon one atrocity more or less with equanimity,’ said Julia.

  They were silent for a minute or two, while each was occupied with his own thoughts.

  ‘You saw him after Lucy broke off the engagement,’ said Julia, presently. ‘Was he very wretched?’

  ‘He never said a word. I wanted to comfort him, but he never gave me a chance. He never even mentioned Lucy’s name.’

  ‘Did he seem unhappy?’

  ‘No. He was just the same as ever, impassive and collected.’

  ‘Really, he’s inhuman,’ exclaimed Julia impatiently.

  ‘He’s an anomaly in this juvenile century,’ Dick agreed. ‘He’s an ancient Roman who buys his clothes in Savile Row.’

  ‘Then he’s very much in the way in England, and it’s much better that he should go back to Africa.’

  ‘I suppose it is. Here he reminds one of an eagle caged with a colony of canaries.’

  Julia looked at her husband reflectively.

  ‘I think you’re the only friend who has stuck to him,’ she said.

  ‘I wouldn’t put it in that way. After all, I’m the only friend he ever had. It was not unnatural that a number of acquaintances should drop him when he got into hot water.’

  ‘It must have been a great help to find someone who believed in him notwithstanding everything.’

  ‘I’m afraid it sounds very immoral, but whatever his crimes were, I should never like Alec less. You see, he’s been so awfully good and kind to me, I can look on with fortitude while he plays football with the Ten Commandments.’

  Julia’s emotions were always sudden, and the tears came to her eyes as she answered.

  ‘I’m really beginning to think you a perfect angel, Dick.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ he retorted quickly. ‘It makes me feel so middle-aged. I’d much sooner be a young sinner than an elderly cherub.’

  Smiling, she stretched out her hand, and he held it for a moment.

  ‘You know, though I can’t help liking you, I don’t in the least approve of you.’

  ‘Good heavens, why not?’ he cried.

  ‘Well, I was brought up to believe that a man should work, and you’re disgracefully idle.’

  ‘Good heavens, to marry an American wife is the most arduous profession in the world,’ he cried. ‘One has to combine the energy of the Universal Provider with the patience of an ambassador at the Sublime Porte.’

  ‘You foolish creature,’ she laughed.

  But her thoughts immediately reverted to Lucy. Her pallid, melancholy face still lingered in Julia’s memory, and her heart was touched by the hopeless woe that dwelt in her beautiful eyes.

  ‘I suppose there’s no doubt that those stories about Alec MacKenzie were true?’ she said, thoughtfully.

  Dick gave her a quick glance. He wondered what was in her mind.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ he said. ‘Anyone who knows Alec as well as I do must be convinced that he did nothing from motives that were mean and paltry. To accuse him of cowardice is absurd — he’s the bravest man I’ve ever known — and it’s equally absurd to accuse him of weakness. But what I do think is this: Alec is not the man to stick at half measures, and he’s taken desperately to heart the max
im which says that he who desires an end desires the means also. I think he might be very ruthless, and on occasion he might be stern to the verge of brutality. Reading between the lines of those letters that Macinnery sent to the Daily Mail, I have wondered if Alec, finding that someone must be sacrificed, didn’t deliberately choose George Allerton because he was the least useful to him and could be best spared. Even in small undertakings like that there must be some men who are only food for powder. If Alec had found George worthless to him, no consideration for Lucy would have prevented him from sacrificing him.’

  ‘If that were so why didn’t he say it outright?’

  ‘Do you think it would have made things any better? The British public is sentimental; they will not understand that in warfare it is necessary sometimes to be inhuman. And how would it have served him with Lucy if he had confessed that he had used George callously as a pawn in his game that must be sacrificed to win some greater advantage?’