The Fortunes of Richard Mahony

by Henry Handel Richardson

  “Does fortune smile?” asked Mahony of Henry Ocock as he passed the card-players: he had cut Urquhart short with a nod. “So his Excellency didn’t turn up, after all?”

  “Sent a telegraphic communication at the last moment. No, I haven’t seen her. But stay, there’s Matilda wanting to speak to you, I believe.”

  Tilly was making all manner of signs to attract his attention.

  “Good evening, doctor. Yes, I’ve a message. You’ll find ’er in the cloakroom. She’s been in there for the last half-’our or so. I think she’s got the headache or something of that sort, and is waiting for you to take ’er home.”

  “Oh, thank goodness, there you are, Richard!” cried Mary as he opened the door of the cloakroom; and she rose from the bench on which she had been sitting with her shawl wrapped round her. “I thought you’d never come.” She was pale, and looked distressed.

  “Why, what’s wrong, my dear?. . . .feeling faint?” asked Mahony incredulously. “If so, you had better wait for the buggy. It won’t be long now; you ordered it for two o’clock.”

  “No, no, I’m not ill, I’d rather walk,” said Mary breathlessly. “Only please let us get away. And without making a fuss.”

  “But what’s the matter?”

  “I’ll tell you as we go. No, these boots won’t hurt. And I can walk in them quite well. Fetch your own things, Richard.” Her one wish was to get her husband out of the building.

  They stepped into the street; it was a hot night and very dark. In her thin satin dancing-boots, Mary leaned heavily on Richard’s arm, as they turned off the street-pavements into the unpaved roads.

  Mahony let the lights of the main street go past; then said: “And now, Madam Wife, you’ll perhaps be good enough to enlighten me as to what all this means?”

  “Yes, dear, I will,” answered Mary obediently. But her voice trembled; and Mahony was sharp of hearing.

  “Why, Polly sweetheart. . . .surely nothing serious?”

  “Yes, it is. I’ve had a very unpleasant experience this evening, Richard—very unpleasant indeed. I hardly know how to tell you. I feel so upset.”

  “Come—out with it!”

  In a low voice, with downcast eyes, Mary told her story. All had gone well till about twelve o’clock: she had danced with this partner and that, and thoroughly enjoyed herself. Then came Purdy’s turn. She was with Mrs. Long when he claimed her, and she at once suggested that they should sit out the dance on one of the settees placed round the hall, where they could amuse themselves by watching the dancers. But Purdy took no notice—“He was strange in his manner from the very beginning”—and led her into one of the little rooms that opened off the main body of the hall.

  “And I didn’t like to object. We were conspicuous enough as it was, his foot made such a bumping noise; it was worse than ever to-night, I thought.”

  For the same reason, though she had felt uncomfortable at being hidden away in there, she had not cared to refuse to stay: it seemed to make too much of the thing. Besides, she hoped some other couple would join them. But——

  “But, Mary . . .!” broke from Mahony; he was blank and bewildered.

  Purdy, however, had got up after a moment or two and shut the door. And then—“Oh, it’s no use, Richard, I can’t tell you!” said poor Mary. “I don’t know how to get the words over my lips. I think I’ve never felt so ashamed in all my life.” And, worn out by the worry and excitement she had gone through, and afraid, in advance, of what she had still to face, Mary began to cry.

  Mahony stood still; let her arm drop. “Do you mean me to understand,” he demanded, as if unable to believe his ears: “to understand that Purdy. . . .dared to. . . .that he dared to behave to you in any but a—” And since Mary was using her pocket-handkerchief and could not reply: “Good God! Has the fellow taken leave of his senses? Is he mad? Was he drunk? Answer me! What does it all mean?” And Mary still continuing silent, he threw off the hand she had replaced on his arm. “Then you must walk home alone. I’m going back to get at the truth of this.”

  But Mary clung to him. “No, no, you must hear the whole story first.” Anything rather than let him return to the hall. Yes, at first she thought he really had gone mad. “I can’t tell you what I felt, Richard. . . .knowing it was Purdy—just Purdy. To see him like that—looking so horrible—and to have to listen to the dreadful things he said! Yes, I’m sure he had had too much to drink. His breath smelt so.” She had tried to pull away her hands; but he had held her, had put his arms round her.

  At the anger she felt racing through her husband she tightened her grip, stringing meanwhile phrase to phrase with the sole idea of getting him safely indoors. Not till they were shut in the bedroom did she give the most humiliating detail of any: how, while she was still struggling to free herself from Purdy’s embrace, the door had opened and Mr. Grindle looked in. “He drew back at once, of course. But it was awful, Richard! I turned cold. It seemed to give me more strength, though. I pulled myself away and got out of the room, I don’t know how. My wreath was falling off. My dress was crumpled. Nothing would have made me go back to the ballroom. I couldn’t have faced Amelia’s husband—I think I shall never be able to face him again,” and Mary’s tears flowed anew.

  Richard was stamping about the room, aimlessly moving things from their places. “God Almighty! he shall answer to me for this. I’ll go back and take a horsewhip with me.”

  “For my sake, don’t have a scene with him. It would only make matters worse,” she pleaded.

  But Richard strode up and down, treading heedlessly on the flouncings of her dress. “What?—and let him believe such behaviour can go unpunished? That whenever it pleases him, he can insult my wife—insult my wife? Make her the talk of the place? Brand her before the whole town as a light woman?”

  “Oh, not the whole town, Richard. I shall have to explain to Amelia. . . .and Tilly. . . .and Agnes—that’s all,” sobbed Mary in parenthesis.

  “Yes, and I ask if it’s a dignified or decent thing for you to have to do?—to go running round assuring your friends of your virtue!” cried Richard furiously. “Let me tell you this, my dear: at whatever door you knock, you’ll be met by disbelief. Fate played you a shabby trick when it allowed just that low cad to put his head in. What do you think would be left of any woman’s reputation after Grindle Esquire had pawed it over? No, Mary, you’ve been rendered impossible; and you’ll be made to feel it for the rest of your days. People will point to you as the wife who takes advantage of her husband’s absence to throw herself into another man’s arms; and to me as the convenient husband who provides the opportunity”—and Mahony groaned. In an impetuous flight of fancy he saw his good name smirched, his practice laid waste.

  Mary lifted her head at this, and wiped her eyes. “Oh, you always paint everything so black. People know me—know I would never, never do such a thing.”

  “Unfortunately we live among human beings, my dear, not in a community of saints! But what does a good woman know of how a slander of this kind clings?”

  “But if I have a perfectly clear conscience?” Mary’s tone was incredulous, even a trifle aggrieved.

  “It spells ruin all the same in a hole like this, if it once gets about.”

  “But it shan’t. I’ll put my pride in my pocket and go to Amelia the first thing in the morning. I’ll make it right somehow.—But I must say, Richard, in the whole affair I don’t think you feel a bit sorry for me. Or at least only for me as your wife. The horridest part of what happened was mine, not yours—and I think you might show a little sympathy.”

  “I’m too furious to feel sorry,” replied Richard with gaunt truthfulness, still marching up and down.

  “Well, I do,” said Mary with a spice of defiance. “In spite of everything, I feel sorry that any one could so far forget himself as Purdy did to-night.”

/>   “You’ll be telling me next you have warmer feelings still for him!” burst out Mahony. “Sorry for the crazy lunatic who, after all these years, after all I’ve done for him and the trust I’ve put in him, suddenly falls to making love to the woman who bears my name? Why, a madhouse is the only place he’s fit for.”

  “There you’re unjust. And wrong, too. It. . . .it wasn’t as sudden as you think. Purdy has been queer in his behaviour for quite a long time now.”

  “What in Heaven’s name do you mean by that?”

  “I mean what I say,” said Mary staunchly, though she turned a still deeper red. “Oh, you might just as well be angry with yourself for being so blind and stupid.”

  “Do you mean to tell me you were aware of something?” Mahony stopped short in his perambulations and fixed her, open-mouthed.

  “I couldn’t help it.—Not that there was much to know, Richard. And I thought of coming to you about it—indeed I did. I tried to, more than once. But you were always so busy; I hadn’t the heart to worry you. For I knew very well how upset you would be.”

  “So it comes to this, does it?” said Mahony with biting emphasis. “My wife consents to another man paying her illicit attentions behind her husband’s back!”

  “Oh, no, no, no! But I knew how fond you were of Purdy. And I always hoped it would blow over without. . . .without coming to anything.”

  “God forgive me!” cried Mahony passionately. “It takes a woman’s brain to house such a preposterous idea.”

  “Oh, I’m not quite the fool you make me out to be, Richard. I’ve got some sense in me. But it’s always the same. I think of you, and you think of no one but yourself. I only wanted to spare you. And this is the thanks I get for it.” And sitting down on the side of the bed she wept bitterly.

  “Will you assure me, madam, that till to-night nothing I could have objected to has ever passed between you?”

  “No, Richard, I won’t! I won’t tell you anything else. You get so angry you don’t know what you’re saying. And if you can’t trust me better than that—Purdy said to-night you didn’t understand me. . . .and never had.”

  “Oh, he did, did he? There we have it! Now I’ll know every word the scoundrel has ever said to you—and if I have to drag it from you by force.”

  But Mary set her lips, with an obstinacy that was something quite new in her. It first amazed Mahony, then made him doubly angry. One word gave another; for the first time in their married lives they quarrelled—quarrelled hotly. And, as always at such times, many a covert criticism, a secret disapproval which neither had ever meant to breathe to the other, slipped out and added fuel to the fire. It was appalling to both to find on how many points they stood at variance.

  Some half hour later, leaving Mary still on the edge of the bed, still crying, Mahony stalked grimly into the surgery, and taking pen and paper scrawled, without even sitting down to do it:

  You damned scoundrel! If ever you show your face here again, I’ll thrash you to within an inch of your life.

  Then he stepped on to the verandah and crossed the lawn, carrying the letter in his hand.

  But already his mood was on the turn: it seemed as if, in the physical effort of putting the words to paper, his rage had spent itself. He was conscious now of a certain limpness, both of mind and body; his fit of passion over, he felt dulled, almost indifferent to what had happened. Now, too, another feeling was taking possession of him, opening up vistas of a desert emptiness that he hardly dared to face.

  But stay!. . . .was that not a movement in the patch of blackness under the fig-tree? Had not something stirred there? He stopped, and strained his eyes. No, it was only a bough that swayed in the night air. He went out of the garden to the corner of the road and came back empty handed. But at the same spot he hesitated, and peered. “Who’s there?” he asked sharply. And again: “Is there any one there?” But the silence remained unbroken; and once more he saw that the shifting of a branch had misled him.

  Mary was moving about the bedroom. He ought to go to her and ask pardon for his violence. But he was not yet come to a stage when he felt equal to a reconciliation; he would rest for a while, let his troubled balance right itself. And so he lay down on the surgery sofa, and drew a rug over him.

  He closed his eyes, but could not sleep. His thoughts raced and flew; his brain hunted clues and connections. He found himself trying to piece things together; to fit them in, to recollect. And every now and then some sound outside would make him start up and listen. . . .and listen. Was that not a footstep?. . . .the step of one who might come feeling his way. . . .dim-eyed with regret? There were such things in life as momentary lapses, as ungovernable impulses—as fiery contrition. . . .the anguish of remorse. And yet, once more, he sat up and listened till his ears rang.

  Then, not the ghostly footsteps of a delusive hope, but a hard, human crunching that made the boards of the verandah shake. Tossing off the opossum-rug, which had grown unbearably heavy, he sprang to his feet; was wide awake and at the window, staring sleep-charged into the dawn, before a human hand had found the night-bell and a distracted voice cried:

  “Does a doctor live here? A doctor, I say. . . .?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The hot airless night had become the hot airless day: in the garden the leaves on trees and shrubs drooped as under an invisible weight. All the stale smells of the day before persisted—that of the medicaments on the shelves, of the unwetted dust on the roads, the sickly odour of malt from a neighbouring brewery. The blowflies buzzed about the ceiling; on the table under the lamp a dozen or more moths lay singed and dead. Now it was nearing six o’clock; clad in his thinnest driving-coat, Mahony sat and watched the man who had come to fetch him beat his horse to a lather.

  “Mercy!. . . .have a little mercy on the poor brute,” he said more than once.

  He had stood out for some time against obeying the summons, which meant, at lowest, a ten-mile drive. Not if he were offered a hundred pounds down, was his first impetuous refusal; for he had not seen the inside of a bed that night. But at this he trapped an odd look in the other’s eyes, and suddenly became aware that he was still dressed as for the ball. Besides, an equally impetuous answer was flung back at him: he promised no hundred pounds, said the man—hadn’t got it to offer. He appealed solely to the doctor’s humanity: it was a question of saving a life—that of his only son. So here they were.

  “We doctors have no business with troubles of our own,” thought Mahony, as he listened to the detailed account of an ugly accident. On the roof of a shed the boy had missed his foot, slipped and fallen some twenty feet, landing astride a piece of quartering. Picking himself up, he had managed to crawl home, and at first they thought he would be able to get through the night without medical aid. But towards two o’clock his sufferings had grown unbearable. God only knew if, by this time, he had not succumbed to them.

  “My good man, one does not die of pain alone.”

  They followed a flat, treeless road, the grass on either side of which was burnt to hay. Buggy and harness—the latter eked out with bits of string and an old bootlace—were coated with the dust of months; and the gaunt, long-backed horse shuffled through a reddish flour, which accompanied them as a choking cloud. A swarm of small black flies kept pace with the vehicle, settling on nose, eyes, neck and hands of its occupants, crawling over the horse’s belly and in and out of its nostrils. The animal made no effort to shake itself free, seemed indifferent to the pests: they were only to be disturbed by the hail of blows which the driver occasionally stood up to deliver. At such moments Mahony, too, started out of the light doze he was continually dropping into.

  Arrived at their destination—a miserable wooden shanty on a sheep-run at the foot of the ranges—he found his patient tossing on a dirty bed, with a small pulse of 120, while the right thigh was darkly bruised and swollen. The symptom
s pointed to serious internal injuries. He performed the necessary operation.

  There was evidently no woman about the place; the coffee the father brought him was thick as mud. On leaving, he promised to return next day and to bring some one with him to attend to the lad.

  For the home-journey, he got a mount on a young and fidgety mare, whom he suspected of not long having worn the saddle. In the beginning he had his hands full with her. Then, however, she ceased her antics and consented to advance at an easy trot.

  How tired he felt! He would have liked to go to bed and sleep for a week on end. As it was, he could not reckon on even an hour’s rest. By the time he reached home the usual string of patients would await him; and these disposed of, and a bite of breakfast snatched, out he must set anew on his morning round. He did not feel well either: the coffee seemed to have disagreed with him. He had a slight sense of nausea and was giddy; the road swam before his eyes. Possibly the weather had something to do with it; though a dull, sunless morning it was hot as he had never known it. He took out a stud, letting the ends of his collar fly.

  Poor little Mary, he thought inconsequently: he had hurt and frightened her by his violence. He felt ashamed of himself now. By daylight he could see her point of view. Mary was so tactful and resourceful that she might safely be trusted to hush up the affair, to explain away the equivocal position in which she had been found. After all, both of them were known to be decent, God-fearing people. And one had only to look at Mary to see that here was no light woman. Nobody in his senses—not even Grindle—could think evil of that broad, transparent brow, of those straight, kind, merry eyes.

  No, this morning his hurt was a purely personal one. That it should just be Purdy who did him this wrong! Purdy, playmate and henchman, ally in how many a boyish enterprise, in the hardships and adventures of later life. “Mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread!” Never had he turned a deaf ear to Purdy’s needs; he had fed him and clothed him, caring for him as for a well-loved brother. Surely few things were harder to bear than a blow in the dark from one who stood thus deeply in your debt, on whose gratitude you would have staked your head. It was, of course, conceivable that he had been swept off his feet by Mary’s vivid young beauty, by over-indulgence, by the glamour of the moment. But if a man could not restrain his impulses where the wife of his most intimate friend was concerned. . . .Another thing: as long as Mary had remained an immature slip of a girl, Purdy had not given her a thought. When, however, under her husband’s wing she had blossomed out into a lovely womanhood, of which any man might be proud, then she had found favour in his eyes. And the slight this put on Mary’s sterling moral qualities, on all but her physical charms, left the worst taste of any in the mouth.