by E. F. Benson
He walked slowly westward through a blur of unrecognised faces, his mind turning aimlessly through what had happened, like a squirrel in a cage, without getting anywhere. He ought to have said nothing at all, he told himself, or, having said something, he should at least have had the temporary satisfaction of insulting Silly Billy. Yet that would not have done; he still saw the force of that reasoning. In fact, nothing would have done. The blame of the whole terribly irritating affair was to be laid on Marie. She had behaved in some foolish manner, and had got talked about. He remembered now that weeks ago he had warned her of this. That made it the more annoying.
At the corner of Devonshire House his step, more than half automatically, turned northwards. The season and the summer were both at their midmost, and from this side of the street to that the tide of carriages flowed full. Full, too, were the pavements, human life jostled in a race from wall to wall of the gray houses, and just outside the curbstones, like the scum and flotsam in some cross-movement of tides, moved rows of sandwichmen bearing a various burden of advertisement, from strictly private massage establishments to ballets, the more public the better. But Berkeley Street and the Square following were a back-water of the flooded river-way, and he went with his own volition, not with the dictation of the tides, through into Grosvenor Square. Still without purpose other than that born of habit, he rang the bell of that house he frequented on so many days, and at so many and different hours, and was admitted.
Mildred was not in the room when he entered, and he walked up and down with a step of caged violence. It was a room, one would have said, which was lived in by a woman of some individuality. The usual signed photographs, bearing royal and distinguished names, were there; but these, instead of being prominently displayed, were obscurely penned, thick as sheep, on a Louis Seize table in a very dark corner, while on the writing-table which was set in the window were only two — those of Jack and his wife — a highly daring and successful arrangement. Otherwise the room was ordered, one felt, in a certain manner, not that it might be like a hundred other rooms, but because the owner wished it so, and no other way. A huge engagement book lay open on the table, with some names written fully out, but here and there an initial only; half a dozen good prints hung on the walls, but there was no attempt to drape anything, nor were there any books, the literature being limited to a heap of periodicals and a hardly lesser heap of letters. Two Dresden ormolu-mounted birds stood on the chimney-piece, two Tanagra figures in daring contrast, an Empire clock, and a programme of a forthcoming race-meeting.
He had not long been in the room when the door of her bedroom, which communicated with it, was opened, and she entered. At a glance she took in his mood, and guessed, too, with absolute certainty of its cause. The things that would make Jack look like that, she knew, could be numbered on the fingers, and of these none but one could have happened. Thus there was one only left, and for the moment she was afraid of what she had done. Outwardly she showed no sign.
“What is it?” she asked.
Jack did not at once answer, but paused in front of the writing-table where the two photographs stood. Then he took up that of Marie, threw it into the fireplace, and beat it to pieces with the poker.
“Four pounds for the frame,” remarked Mildred. “Those Dresden parrots are at least a hundred. It is only right you should know. Be violent, by all means, if it gives you any satisfaction. I want some new things. But would it not be better to explain first and smash afterwards?”
She had never seen Jack like this — she had never even dreamed he was capable of it — but she found it, though alarming, rather attractive.
“It is always said of women that they like brutality,” she thought to herself; “and perhaps it is true.”
Jack rose from the fireplace a little flushed.
“They are talking about Marie at the clubs,” he said. “The Snowflake has melted, apparently. Jim Spencer is the melter.”
“Do you mean you heard that said?” asked Mildred.
“Yes, by Silly Billy.”
“Which hospital is he at?” asked she.
Jack sat down.
“Give me a whisky-and-soda,” he said; “I’m as dry as dust. May I ring? Thanks. You mean I should have stamped on him? I did not. I talked about it quite quietly with him. He pointed out that I, as a defendant in an action for assault, would not be amused at cross-examination. He adduced reasons.”
Mildred looked at him for a moment with a sort of quiet wonder.
“Do you mean he adduced me as a reason?” she asked.
“Not by name.”
“How very forbearing of him! You let that pass, too?”
“Yes.”
She reflected.
“You did right,” she said at length. “I was at first so much surprised at your having behaved like that, that I could hardly believe it. But you did right. It was, however, quite unnecessary to smash Marie’s photograph — or is that a dramatic climax to show your inalienable fidelity to me?”
She laughed.
“There, drink your whisky,” she said. “How extraordinary men are! Whenever they have had some powerful and exhausting emotion, a little alcohol always puts them square again. One ought to measure everything by that. A wife talked about — large whisky-and-soda; a friend talked about — small whisky-and-soda; one’s self talked about — well, that is a stimulus in itself: say a Lithia Varalette, something lowering, by way of adjustment.”
Jack, angry as he was, answered to her voice, as a fretful horse answers to a hand it knows, perhaps from habit, perhaps from the sense of a master astride it.
“You take it like this?” he said. “You can have no idea what it means to me.”
Mildred stood silent a moment, then laughed.
“Surely the English must have made a corner in hypocrisy,” she said. “For sheer, genuine hypocrisy give me the frank English gentleman like — well, like you, Jack. You are annoyed that Marie has been, as you say, talked about; you are convinced that it is the chief, if not the only, duty of a wife not to be talked about. Now, what is the reason of that, may I ask you? Is it because you demand virtue of her, fidelity to you? Not a bit of it, and you know it. You do not care in the least what she does, provided only nothing is said about her. But, seriously, is it worth while keeping that sort of thing up with me? Cæsar’s wife must be beyond suspicion! Oh, me, what ranting twaddle! But, oh, my poor Cæsar!”
Jack had not been very comfortable when he came in; he was not more comfortable now. The bogieman, who was capable of popping out as on a nervous old lady on a dark night, and frightening Cabinet Ministers with his horrible turnip-ghost of accurate figures and reliable statistics, was more terrified than terrifying here.
“You are getting quite like Marie,” he observed.
“Am I? It would be a singularly awkward position for you if I was, do you not think?”
Jack had no pertinent reply for a moment; then, “I do not know that the censorious attitude suits you very well,” he said.
“Ah, the whole question turns on what one is censorious of. I am censorious of your hypocrisy, reasonably I think, because I have no weakness that way. But you as censor of Marie’s morals! Oh, does it not make you laugh, simply for fear you should cry? Have more whisky, Jack; you really are not yourself yet. Tell me this, now — what did you come here for? You have said nothing yet which would not have been better left unsaid.”
Jack got up.
“You appear to wish to quarrel with me,” he said. “I think you had better do it alone.”
Mildred made up her mind in a moment; the thing she had long been debating solved itself at this.
“If you go like a sulky child,” she said, “it will be you who quarrel with me. Now, can you afford to quarrel with both me and Marie? Just consider that, and reckon up to yourself exactly what will be left of you if you do. You may do so if you choose, and you can say you have grounds, for it was I who put into Silly Billy’s head the idea that m
ade him say what he did about Marie. Dresden birds, a hundred pounds, and please don’t touch the Tanagras,” she added.
The caution was apparently unnecessary, for Jack did not show the slightest inclination to smash anything. He sat down as good as gold.
“You are a remarkably interesting woman,” he said; “and as I never thought you a fool, I should really like to know why you did that.”
“The immediate cause was a bad one,” she said, “for it was that I was angry with Marie, and wanted to hurt her.”
“Then, can you afford to quarrel with Marie — and me?” he asked.
Lady Brereton began to think that she was almost wasting her time. She was aware, however, that her answer was critical, and gave it intense, though rapid, consideration.
“Easily,” she said. “Why not?”
Jack raised his eyes to her face; she saw their frightened appeal, and knew that she had won.
“Ah, you are tired of it all,” he said.
“You can make me wish I had never seen you if you behave obtusely,” she said.
“What have I done?”
“You have been on the point of quarrelling with me as well as Marie. Surely that is obtuse enough. Quarrel with us one at a time, if you wish. To continue, she interfered unwarrantably in a thing that concerns me alone — I mean Maud’s marriage.”
Jack smiled faintly.
“I see what you mean,” he said apologetically.
“It is sufficiently clear. She interfered, and has seriously embarrassed me. The marriage will not take place as soon as I wished; in anger, I struck at her blindly.”
“Without considering me,” said he.
“Of course, without considering you. You did not occur to me, and even if you had I should not have considered you, for we settled just now that your attitude on that point was not — well, considerable. But I am glad now — I speak quite calmly — that I have done it. I do not like humbug; we have had a good deal of it. I shall before very long let Marie know what I have heard.”
“Said,” interrupted Jack.
“Heard. That will make a coolness between us, for she will be silently scornful of me. Oh, the truth is this, Jack — I am glad, yes, glad, that I am not going to pretend to be friends with Marie much longer. There are many good women who apparently do not mind hypocrisy, but there are many women who have no pretension whatever to be good who do not like being hypocrites. I am one. I shall not go to heaven when I die in any case, but I assure you that if I could by promising to talk about Sunday-schools to the saints I would refuse it. Now go away and have your row with Marie.”
“You advise that?”
“I insist on it, else I should have wasted all my anger. Dear me, we are a sweet couple, you and I!”
There was a ring of sudden bitter sincerity in her tone, and he looked up surprised.
“What is the matter, Mildred?” he asked.
“Anything, everything, nothing. Perhaps your absurd conduct, Jack; perhaps the thunderstorm which is certainly coming; perhaps reaction from my anger. Perhaps that I have got my way: I have started a scandal about Marie — got it successfully launched. I have the sickness of success. Oh, decidedly the only way to be happy is to want things, not to get them.”
“Want, then; it is easy enough.”
“I am beginning to wonder whether it is,” said she. “I rather think that the faculty of wanting is a faculty which belongs to youth. Dear me! I am getting philosophical, and I beg your pardon. Tell me the news. When is the dissolution?”
“Who knows? Not even the family, I believe, and I have not the honour of belonging to them. But, I imagine, not later than the end of July.”
“Then the election will interfere with the grouse-shooting, will it not?”
Jack laughed.
“Yes, but apparently it is decided that Imperial affairs are to rank above grouse-shooting for once in a way!”
Mildred looked at the clock.
“I must go,” she said. “I’ve got a hair-dresser and a dressmaker and a manicurist all waiting, and, for aught I know, a palmist and a dentist, and I’m dining at the Hungarian Embassy, an affair which demands, if not prayer, at any rate fasting. I never get used to that sort of corvée.”
“Why do you do it, then?”
“Because it is only by doing that sort of thing with religious regularity that you get to the stage when you need no longer do it unless you choose. Besides, I purpose to say a word for you in an august ear. He is taking an interest, I am told, in the army. He also takes an interest in me. I amuse him. Come to lunch to-morrow, and tell me what has happened.”
The thunderstorm predicted by Lady Brereton was already beginning to grumble in the west as Jack left the house, and before he got to Park Lane a few large, warm drops were splashing on the pavements. He asked the man who opened the door whether his wife was at home, and, learning that she was in, went up to her sitting-room. Marie was there, sitting in the balcony overlooking the park, her back turned to the room, so that she did not see Jack as he entered. By her was sitting another figure, whom he recognised. Jack strolled out to join them, lighting a cigarette.
“Good-evening, Spencer,” he said. “Pray don’t move. There’s a storm coming up.”
But Jim Spencer rose.
“I was just going,” he said. “I shall just get home before it begins.”
He shook hands with them both, and went through the sitting-room and down-stairs. On the sound of the front-door banging behind him Jack spoke.
“Do you remember my warning you that people would talk if you were intimate with that man?” he said.
“Perfectly.”
“You have chosen to disregard my warning. The consequence is that people have begun to talk.”
Marie got up.
“Who, and where?” she said, facing him.
“It does not matter who. Where? In the clubs. ‘So the Snowflake has melted. I saw her driving with the melter.’ I heard that said this afternoon.”
The rain began to fall heavily, and a blue scribble of light rent the sky. Marie did not reply, but went inside, followed by her husband. The room was very dark, and each could see no more than the form of the other. In the gloom her answer came — very cool and crisp, an extraordinary contrast to the hot, thick darkness.
“And you tell this to me,” she asked— “to me?”
“It concerns you, does it not?”
“As much as that which the gutter press says of the King concerns the King. And you knew it, Jack.”
Jack sat down in a chair, his back to what light there was. To her he was almost invisible except for the glowing spark of his cigarette, which, as he drew breath, faintly illuminated his mouth.
“For a woman of the world,” he said, “you are more ignorant than I should have thought possible. Who are the women who are talked about at the clubs? Half a dozen names occur to you, as they do to me. Do you like being the seventh?”
Again there was silence, broken first by a sullen roar of thunder, then by Marie’s voice.
“I want to ask you one question, Jack,” she said. “Do you not know — you yourself — that to couple my name with that of any man except you, is to utter a foul and baseless calumny?”
“That is not the point,” said he. “The point is that your name has so been coupled.”
“Do you not know it?” she repeated.
Again there was silence. The devil, probably, would have betted on Jack’s saying “No.” If so, he would have lost his money.
“Yes, I know it,” he replied; and his tattered flag of honour waved again.
“Then, how dare you repeat such a thing to me?” said Marie, still in the same unnaturally even voice. “For you seem to forget one thing, Jack, and that is that I am your wife!”
“It is exactly that which I remember,” he said.
“Then you are beyond me, and I cannot understand you at all. You seem to think — God knows what you think! Anyhow, the standard of hon
our which is yours is utterly incomprehensible to me. You approach me with a sort of calm gusto to tell me a canard you have picked out of the clubs or out of the gutter, and you seem to think I shall care! What I care about is something quite different, and that is that you should have told me. I suppose your object was to wound me, to punish me — so you put it to yourself, for my having disregarded your warning. It is true that you have wounded me, but not in the way you think. Not long ago you thought good to cast doubts on the way in which I told you I had spent my evening. This is one step worse. And I warn you that another step may take you too far! That is all I have to say.”
She turned round and, with a quick movement of her finger, turned on the electric light and stood in all her splendid beauty before him. Her bosom heaved with her intense suppressed emotion, her eye was kindled, and her mouth, slightly parted with her quickened breath, just showed the white line of her teeth. And sudden amazement at her loveliness seized the man. He looked long, then got up and advanced to her.
“Marie, Marie!” he said with entreaty, and laid his hand on her arm.
“Ah, don’t touch me!” she cried.
CHAPTER XI
Marie was sitting alone under the striped awning which covered the end of the terrace behind their country house in Surrey. The flap at the end was open, and from the bushes beyond came the hot, languid scent of the lilacs, the hot, languid murmur of the bees as they shouldered themselves into the clubs and clusters of the blossoms, the busy chirrup of sparrows intent on some infinitesimal occupation demanding a great deal of discussion. Unseen on the lawn below, a mowing-machine was making its clicking journeys up and down the grass, but no other sound marked the passage of the hot afternoon; no breeze stirred in the level fans of the cedar nor ruffled the lake, where the unwavering reflections of the trees were spread as sharp-cut and immobile as if they had been painted on a silver shield. On Marie’s lap lay an unopened book, and she was as motionless as the mirroring lake.
