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diff --git a/37479.txt b/37479.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2a4808a --- /dev/null +++ b/37479.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7455 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Debit Account, by Oliver Onions + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Debit Account + + +Author: Oliver Onions + + + +Release Date: September 19, 2011 [eBook #37479] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEBIT ACCOUNT*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Martin Pettit, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images +generously made available by Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries +(http://www.archive.org/details/toronto) + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See + http://www.archive.org/details/debitaccount00oniouoft + + + + + +THE DEBIT ACCOUNT + +by + +OLIVER ONIONS + +Author of "In Accordance With the Evidence," +"The Exception," etc. + + + + + + + +George H. Doran Company +New York + +Publishers in America for Hodder & Stoughton + +Copyright, 1913 +By George H. Doran Company + + + + +TO +PHILIP CONNARD + + + + +CONTENTS + + PART ONE PAGE + THE COBDEN CORNER 7 + + PART TWO + VERANDAH COTTAGE 69 + + PART THREE + WELL WALK 149 + + PART FOUR + IDDESLEIGH GATE 239 + + ENVOI 289 + + + + +PART I + +THE COBDEN CORNER + + +THE DEBIT ACCOUNT + +I + +One day in the early June of the year 1900 I was taking a walk on +Hampstead Heath and found myself in the neighbourhood of the Vale of +Health. About that time my eyes were very much open for such things as +house-agents' notice-boards and placards in windows that announced that +houses or portions of houses were to let. I was going to be married, and +wanted a place in which to live. + +My salary was one hundred and fifty pounds a year. I figured on the +wages-book of the Freight and Ballast Company as "Jeffries, J. H., Int. +Ex. Con.," which meant that I was an intermediate clerk of the +Confidential Exchange Department, and to this description of myself I +affixed each week my signature across a penny stamp in formal receipt of +my three pounds. I could have been paid in gold had I wished, but I had +preferred a weekly cheque, and I took care never to cash this cheque at +our own offices in Waterloo Place. I did not wish it to be known that I +had no banking account. As a matter of fact, I now had one, though I +should not have liked to disclose it to the Income Tax Commissioners. +The reason for this reticence lay in the smallness, not in the +largeness, of my balance. I had learned that in certain circumstances it +pays you to appear better off than you are. + +It was a Sunday, a Whit-Sunday, on which I took my walk, and on my way +up from Camden Town across the Lower Heath I had passed among the canvas +and tent-pegs and staked-out "pitches" that were the preparation for the +Bank Holiday on the morrow. Tall _chevaux de frises_ of swings were +locked back with long bars; about the caravans picked out with red and +green, the proprietors of cocoanut-shies and roundabouts smoked their +pipes; and up the East Heath Road there rumbled from time to time, +shaking the ground, a traction-engine with its string of waggons and +gaudy tumbrils. + +I was alone. Both my _fiancee_ and the aunt with whom she lived in a +boarding-house in Woburn Place had gone down to Guildford to attend the +funeral of a friend of the family--a Mrs Merridew; and as I had known +the deceased lady by name only, my own attendance had not been +considered necessary. So until lunch-time, when I had an engagement, I +was taking my stroll, with a particular eye to the smaller of the houses +I passed, and many conjectures about the rent of them. + +You will remember, if you happen to know that north-western part of +London, that away across the Heath, on the Highgate side, there stands +up among the trees a lordly turreted place, the abode (I believe it then +was) of some merchant prince or other. My eyes had wandered frequently +to this great house, but I had lost it again as I had descended to the +pond with the swans upon it, and approached the tea-garden that, with +its swings and automatic machines, makes a sort of miniature standing +Bank Holiday all the year round. During the whole of a youth and early +manhood of extraordinary hardship (I was now nearing thirty-five) I had +been consumed with a violent but ineffectual ambition, of which those +distant turrets now reminded me.... I had been hideously poor, but, +heaven be thanked, I had managed to get my head above water at last. +Those horrible days were over, or nearly so. I had now, for example, a +banking account; and though I seldom risked drawing a cheque for more +than two pounds without first performing quite an intricate little sum, +the data for which were furnished by my cheque, pass and paying-in books +respectively, still--I had a banking account. I had also good boots, two +fairish suits of clothes (though no evening clothes), an umbrella, a +watch, and other possessions that, three or four years before, had +seemed beyond dreams unattainable. + +And when I say that I had for long been ragingly ambitious, I do not +merely mean that I had constantly thought how fine it would be could I +wake up one morning and find myself rich and powerful and respected. +Had that been the whole of it, I don't think I should have differed +greatly from the costers and showmen who dotted the Heath that +Whit-Sunday morning. No; the point rather was, that I saw in the main +how I was going to get what I wanted. I, or rather my coadjutor "Judy" +Pepper and I between us, had ideas that we intended to "play" as one +plays a hand at cards. Therefore, as I walked, I dare say I thought as +much about that distant castellated house as I did about the far humbler +abode I intended to take the moment I could find a suitable one. + +I wandered among the alleys and windings of the Vale of Health, noting +the villas with peeling plaster and the weather-boarded and +half-dilapidated cottages that make the place peculiar; and I was +ascending a steep hillock with willows at the foot of it and the level +ridge of the Spaniards Road running like a railway embankment past the +pines at the top, when, chancing to turn my head, I saw what appeared to +be the very place for me. + +It could not have been very long empty, for I had passed its door, an +ivy-green one with lace curtains behind its upper panels of glass, +without noticing the usual signs of uninhabitation. Then I remembered +the approaching Quarter Day and smiled. The chances were that somebody +had done a "moonlight flit" and had left the lace curtains up in order +that his going might not be observed. There was no doubt, as I could +see from where I stood, about the place being untenanted now, nor that +it would not remain so for very long. I stood for a moment examining it +from half-way up the hillock. + +There was not much of it to examine. It was very small, fronted with +stucco, and had a little square verandah built out on wooden posts over +its tiny garden. More than that I could hardly see of it, but it +adjoined a much larger house, and to this I turned my eyes. This larger +house was a low, French-windowed dwelling, with a pleasantly eaved and +flat-pitched roof, very refreshing to think of in these days of Garden +City roofs and diminutive dormers; and its garden was well kept, and gay +with virginia stock borders and delphinium and Canterbury bells in the +beds behind. It seemed likely that formerly the two houses had been one. + +I was descending the hillock for a closer view when I remembered that I +could hardly expect to be shown round that day. I looked at my watch. It +was half-past twelve, and my appointment, which was with Pepper, was not +for another hour. There would be plenty of time for me to walk round by +my turreted place and back by Hampstead Lane. I left the Vale of Health, +crossed the Viaduct, and continued my saunter. + +But I walked slowly, and in a deepening abstraction. The sight of that +little house had set my thoughts running on my _fiancee_ again. And as +I presently took that little house, and married my _fiancee_ not long +afterwards, and as, moreover, my meditation of that morning has a good +deal to do with my tale, I had better state at the beginning what the +trouble was, and have done with it. + +I had known Evie Soames for close on five years; and though I had loved +her ever since the days when, with her skirt neither short nor long, and +her hair neither loose nor yet properly revealing the shape of her +slender and birch-like nape, she and I had attended the same Business +College in Holborn, it had been only during the last six months that we +had become engaged. On either of our parts a former engagement had ended +abruptly; and this, for her sake at least, was the reason why I would +gladly have had her anywhere but at Guildford that Sunday morning. + +For it had been to the late Mrs Merridew's son that she had been +engaged, and the affair had terminated with tragical suddenness indeed. +You cannot but call it tragical when a young man is discovered, on his +wedding morning, hanging by the neck from a hook in his bedroom door, +with a letter in his pocket that only partly sets forth his reason for +taking his life, leaving the rest for the medical evidence to +determine--and then to be kept for very pity from his womenfolk. Yet +this had happened four years before; and it was because I dreaded to +revive the memory of it, and especially to revive the memories of those +subsequent days when Evie must have tormented herself with vain and +fruitless guessings at what a coroner and a jury-panel and a doctor in +Store Street had smothered up among themselves, that I walked brooding +and with downhung head. + +And about women generally I had better confess myself at once as, past +praying for, a Philistine. I subscribe to nothing whatever that this New +Man so strangely risen in our midst nowadays appears to hold about the +ancient and changeless feminine. And I take it that most men not +profligates or fools will understand me when I say that I think there +are some things that it is worse than useless that women should know, +and that this sordid four-year-old business was one of them. To those +born to knowledge, knowledge will come; the others will never know, no +matter what the facts of their experience may be. Oh, I had seen these +weak and vainglorious vessels go to Life's Niagara before, thinking to +fill themselves at it--and had seen the flinders into which they had +been dashed. Therefore I had deliberately resolved to stand between Evie +Soames and many things. I ever thought of her as a flower, a flower of +dewy flesh, joining its fragrance to that of the morning of her mind; +and though I knew that that too lovely stage must quickly pass, perhaps +into something better, I could never think of that passing unmoved. I +was prepared to fight for a last--and perhaps impossible--protection of +it. There was much knowledge that I would take on myself for the pair of +us; a few more of life's weals and scars would make no difference to +me.... And if you tell me that this was merely a foredoomed attempt to +keep from her the knowledge of the world into which she had been born, +very well: I accept the responsibility of that. At any rate, she might +find what fantastic explanations she would of the mystery that I and the +jury and a doctor in Store Street could have explained. I would open no +door to admit her to horrors which would haunt her for ever though I +closed it again in a flash. + +I hope you see why I cursed that funeral, for bringing even the fringe +of that old shadow back over us again. + +So absorbed was I in my meditation, that I passed my turreted house +without noticing it. It was as I was approaching Waterlow Park that a +clock striking one woke me out of my reverie. I shook off the weight of +my thoughts. If this shadow had claimed Evie again, I must put something +in its place when I met her and her aunt at Victoria that evening, that +was all. I had now my coming interview with Pepper to think of. + +I faced about and began to descend Hampstead Lane, suddenly occupied +with business, to the exclusion even of Evie. + +"Judy" (now Sir Julius) Pepper and I have been partners for ten years +now; and while he is sometimes a little inclined to overrate what he +calls my "imaginative qualities," I on the other hand have never been +able sufficiently to admire his own hard, gay, polished efficiency. I +still think of him, as I thought of him then, as of a diamond, that +could encounter steel and come off with never an angle blunted nor a +facet scratched; and if he in turn likens me to the handle in which that +graver is set, and even to some extent to the guiding power, I pass +that, thinking it as graceful to accept a compliment as to pay one. +Exactly how our combination works is nobody else's concern; the +important thing is, that between us we undoubtedly have made our mark +since those days when he kept up appearances in Alfred Place, W., and I +poked about the Vale of Health in search of a house that should come +within the limits of my three pounds a week. + + +II + +I was leaving the road at the Spaniards and striking across the West +Heath when I came upon him. He also appeared to have been early, and to +have been taking a walk to put away the time. + +"Hallo!" I called, and he turned. + +He was a short, rosy man of thirty-eight, with an inclination to +plumpness that he only defeated by assiduous exercise; and his silk hat, +"frocker" and grey cashmere trousers might have served some high tailor +for an advertisement plate of perfect clothes. Perhaps they did, for I +don't think that at that time he paid for them otherwise. His shirts and +undergarments, of which he spoke with interest and readiness, were also +perfect; and he not only made me feel in this respect like some rough +bear of a Balzac, always in a dressing-gown, but even gave me, though +quite without offensiveness, that and similar names. He gave me, in +fact, this one now. + +"Well, my dear Balzac!" he said, his rosy face breaking as suddenly into +a smile as if a hundred invisible gravers had magically altered its +whole clean modelling. "Out seeking an appetite?" + +I laughed. "You're walking last night's supper off, I suppose?" + +"N-o," he said, as if impartially looking back on whatever the excellent +meal had been. "No--I'm scaling fairly low just now--just over the +eleven stone. What are you, by the way?" + +"Sixteen and a half--but then look at my size!" + +He had the neatest and smallest and most resolute mouth, from which came +speech so finished that I never heard a slurred word fall from it. He +made it a little bud now, and whistled. + +"Sixteen and a----! I say, you'd better sign on at one of those shows I +saw over there!" + +"Well, with you as showman I dare say we should make it pay," I +answered, falling in with this conception of our respective roles. + +His smile vanished as magically as it had come. + +"Well, that's what we're going to talk about," he said; "but after lunch +will do.... What sort of a tree do you call that, now?" + +That was one of Judy's little affectations. He knew as well as I did +that the tree at which he pointed was a birch, and I had thought, the +first time I had exposed this dissimulation in him, that he would not +try it on again. Fond hope! Though you knew that Pepper was laughing in +his sleeve at you, and let him see you knew it, his face remained +translucent and impenetrable as adamant.... So he took it as a piece of +new and interesting information that the tree was a birch, and we walked +on.... + +I had first met Pepper, or rather he had first spotted me, at the +F.B.C., and we were both still at the offices in Waterloo Place. But +while Pepper still moved his little wooden blocks (representing trains +and ships) about vast box-enclosed maps with glass lids that shut down +and locked, solving for the Company intricate problems of transport and +the distribution of produce and manufactured stuff, he had already +crossed the line that divides the Mercantile from the Political, or at +least from the Administrative. Already that highly tempered +cutting-point of manner had made a way for him into circles where I have +never been at my ease; and dining once a month or oftener with the +President and a Permanent Official of the Board of Trade, he was a +valuable channel of information in such matters as Arbitration and the +settlement of Trade Disputes. And he had been quicker than I to see the +Achilles' heel of our complicated mercantile economy. Hitherto this +vulnerable spot had been conceived to lie in Production, as in the last +resort it certainly does; but short of that and actual industrial war, +there was the equally effective and less perilous paralysis, the secret +of which lay in Distribution. Shipping lines, railways and the postal +organisation were the real nervous system; and Judy Pepper, +strike-preventer rather than strike-breaker, was getting the ju-jitsu of +it at his finger ends long before Syndicalism became aware of one of its +most potent weapons. + +You will see the manifold bearings of this on a Democratic Age. + +And it was no less bold a move than our secession together from the +F.B.C. and setting up on our own account that we were to discuss at +lunch at the Bull and Bush that day. + +We walked along a short street with cottages on one side and a high wall +on the other, passed under the fairy-lamps of the Bull and Bush arch, +and sought one of the little trellised bowers at the edge of the lawn. + +Waiters always bestirred themselves to attend to Pepper, and the two who +approached us at once neglected earlier comers to do so. Pepper gave his +order, and we went through the Sunday "ordinary." Then he ordered coffee +and liqueurs, bidding the waiter leave the bottle of _creme de menthe_ +on the table and not disturb us again. He lighted a cigar; I, not yet a +practised smoker, fumbled with a cigarette, at the pasteboard packet of +which I saw my ally's glance; and then, spreading a number of papers +before him, he plunged into business. + +It was highly technical, and I will not trouble you with more of it than +bore on our immediate secession from the F.B.C.--a step to which I was +strongly averse. + +"You see," Pepper urged presently, "this Campbell Line award +precipitates matters rather." (I shook my head, but he went on.) "As a +precedent it's going to make an enormous difference. I'll show you the +Trinity Master's statement presently.... No, no, wait till I've +finished.... It means among other things a revision of the whole +Campbell scale, and the other lines will have to follow. Then that'll +make trouble with Labour, and Robson and the Board of Trade come in. +Here's Robson's letter; better make a note of it. You don't write +shorthand, do you?" + +"N-o." + +"Hm! You hardly seem quite sure whether you do or not!... Well, I'll get +Miss Levey to make an abstract for you. Here's what he says...." + +And he began to read from the letter. + +As he did so I was wondering what on earth had made me tell him I didn't +write shorthand. I do write shorthand. I keep, as a matter of fact, much +of my private journal in shorthand, and I had not the slightest +objection to Pepper or anybody else knowing of my accomplishment.... And +yet, as if Pepper had somehow taken me off my guard, that doubtful "N-o" +had come out. I bit my lip. + +"Well," he concluded, folding the letter again, "there you have it. Of +course I see what you mean about our using the F.B.C. for the present, +merely as a going machine; but this seems to me to outweigh that.... You +still don't think so?" + +I still did not. Laboriously, for I never could make a speech in my +life, I set my reasons before him. He nodded from time to time, opening +and shutting his slender silver pencil. + +"So you still think wait?" he mused by-and-by. It was evident that I had +not spoken in vain. + +"You can be going ahead with all you want to do as we are, and for the +rest I'd wait and see what happened." + +"Of course there's this war----" he admitted reluctantly. + +"It's not the war. It's what'll happen after the war." + +"Well," he said, with a shrug, "you know you're my heaven-sent find, and +that I'm going to keep you to myself.... So we wait? That's decided?" + +"Wait," I repeated doggedly. + +Then, as if he had sufficiently tested my belief in myself, that smile +broke over his agate of a face again. He leaned back to look at me. + +"You're an extraordinary chap!" he positively sparkled fondness at me. +"What are you getting now at the F.B.C.--three pounds?" + +"Still I say wait," I said, nodding once or twice. + +"And getting married on it!" he marvelled. + +"Almost immediately." + +Then Pepper laughed outright. "Well, I won't say you're like the chap +who asked for a rise to get married on. 'You get married--you'll get the +rise then!' his boss told him." Then, the smile going out again, he +added, "And suppose we're forestalled on this new scale of rates?" + +I spoke with strongly suppressed energy. "They can't forestall you and +me. Don't you see? Don't you see we're _hors concours_--in a class by +ourselves? We are what they can only make a bluff at being--ever! 'There +is a tide'--but it hasn't got to be taken before the flood!" + +He took the whole of me in in one shining look, as a camera might have +seen me. He was openly admiring me. + +"By Jove," he burst out, "but you don't lack confidence!... Of course +you see the joke?" + +"You mean--'Jeffries, J. H., Int. Ex. Con., L3'--two-ten for his +suits--eighteenpence for his dinners--getting married--and still hanging +back from this because it's going to pay fifty times better twelve +months from now?" That, I took it, was the joke. + +"And you're quite--quite--sure?" he dared me for the last time, his face +radiant. + +I brought my hand softly down on the table. "Yes!" I cried. "I'm talking +what I _know_--you're only talking what you _think_!" + +His small manicured hand flew out to my great one. + +"Oh--bravo!" he cried. "Wait it is, then. By Jove, when it does come, +you'll have deserved it!... Here, shove your glass over--I believe +you're entirely right--but if it was only for your consummate cheek we +should have to drink to it!" + +And he filled up the two glasses with the vivid green liqueur again, +touching his against mine. + +I left him shortly after, or rather he left me in order to keep one of +his urgent and mysterious appointments; and I wandered slowly down +towards my own abode. + +This was a large upper room near the Cobden Statue--a proximity that for +some reason or other always afforded my partner-to-be private mirth. I +had taken it because its size fitted it both for living purposes and for +the storing of the things I had got against my marriage as well. It was +the fourth of the five floors of a new, terra-cotta-fronted, retail +drapery establishment (experience had taught me that the biggest rooms +are always over shops); and from its plate-glass windows below to its +sham gables held up like pieces of stage scenery by iron braces above, +it was a mass of ridiculous ornament--coats of arms, swags of fruit and +flowers, and feeble grotesques with horns and tails and grins, the whole +looking as if it had been squeezed on from some gigantic pink icing-tube +such as they use for the modelling of wedding-cakes. But I lived inside +it, not outside, and I had made the place exceedingly comfortable. I +had no fewer than four large windows, two looking over the High Street, +one diagonally from a rounded corner, and the fourth over the little +railing-enclosed garden of a neighbouring crescent. As I was high enough +up to dispense with blinds and curtains, these four windows admitted a +flood of admirable light on an interior that, large as it was, was +over-furnished; and there was no frippery to prevent my throwing up my +sashes and looking down among the terra-cotta gargoyles on the walking +hats below. + +Evie and I had done much of our six months' courting in second-hand +dealers' shops. Resolving that our engagement should be a short one, and +knowing that those who have little either of money or time have, in +furnishing as in everything else, to pay through the nose for their +purchases, we had started at once. What had remained of a sum of money +Evie's aunt had long had in trust for her against her one day setting up +housekeeping on her own account had enabled us to do this. At first the +sum had been one hundred and fifty pounds; a former purchase of +clothing, of which only the black garments had ever been worn, had +reduced it by more than a third; and of what had become of more than +half the balance my light, lofty room now bore witness. + +It improved my spirits to be among our joint belongings, and by the time +I had made tea for myself, much of my despondency of earlier in the day +had gone. I looked round, and began to tell myself over again the story +of our acquisitions. There was not a piece that did not contribute its +chapter. That bow-fronted chest of drawers with the old mirror on it we +had first seen on a pavement in Upper Street, Islington; and we had had +a long debate in Miss Angela Soames' sitting-room in Woburn Place before +deciding to buy it--a debate much interrupted by less practical matters, +with Miss Angela's pink-shaded lamp turned economically low, and Miss +Angela herself intelligently off to bed. I had only to look at our odd +assortment of chairs in order to see Evie again as she had stood in the +dim back parts of this shop or that--to see again the whites of her +eyes, brilliant as if her skin had been a Moor's, her hair dark as a +black sweet-pea, the round neck with the little pulse in it, and the +slender, just-grown lines of bosom or back or hips as she stooped or +straightened. Over one extravagance her voice had broken out in shocked +and delicious reproach; over another happy find she had had to turn away +lest the dealer should see her eagerness and increase the price; and +there had been laughs and bickerings and confusions and byplays without +number.... I have become something of a connoisseur since then; but +nothing I have acquired at Spink's or Christie's means to me what those +coppery old Sheffield cream-jugs and caddies and those now-valuable +sketches of Billy Izzard's meant.... + +Then, at seven o'clock, I washed, put on my hat, and went out. Evie and +her aunt were due to arrive at Victoria at a quarter to eight. + +I picked them out by their attire far down the platform, and advanced to +meet them. With a leap of relief I noted Evie's little quickening as she +saw me. Black "suited" Miss Angela Soames--suited her tower of white yet +young-looking hair, as it also suited her habits of rather aimless +retrospect and toying with stingless memories; but I hoped that Evie's +present wearing of her four-year-old mourning would be her last. +Naturally, she had not passed the day without tears. Her eyes were +large, sombre patches; she held in her hand a little hard ball of damp +handkerchief; and I noticed that a little graveside clay still adhered +to the toes of her boots. But I judged that a night's rest would set her +up again, and as we rumbled in a bus past the Houses of Parliament and +up Whitehall, I bespoke her time for the afternoon of the morrow. I +asked her, could she guess why? and, putting the screwed-up handkerchief +away, she said something about the F.B.C. + +"No," I replied,--"not directly, that is." + +"Mr Pepper?" + +"No." + +Then, the decorum of her sorrow notwithstanding, she gave my sleeve a +quick, light touch. + +"_Not_ a house, Jeff--you don't mean that you've found a _house_!" + +But I refused to tell her. It was better that her mind should be +occupied with guessing. + + +III + +As I have said, I took that house in the Vale of Health. It wanted only +three weeks of the June Quarter, so that I had to take it or leave it +without overmuch delay. Evie and I went up to see it on the following +day, and a scramble indeed we had to force our way through the Bank +Holiday crowds. It took me nearly half-an-hour to get the key at the +neighbouring tea-garden, where I had been told I must apply; on that +day, they said, they couldn't be bothered; but I got it, and at the mere +sight of the outside of the little house Evie gave a soft "Oh!" of +pleasure. + +"_What_ a little darling!" she said. "Look--a separate tradesmen's +entrance--and a little garden--and the Heath at our very door! I wonder +what it's like inside!" she added, much as she still scans the +handwriting and postmark of a letter for a minute for information she +could have at once by opening it. + +"I don't know yet," I replied. + +"You dear, not to have seen it before me!" + +I put the key into the glass-panelled door, and we entered. + +Later I came to hate that little house; but that day, with Evie's +spirits still a little tremulous, I did not dwell on drawbacks. It had +only four rooms, two on each floor, and we walked straight from the +street into the room that later became our dining-room. Behind this lay +the kitchen, completing our ground-plan. Facing the door by which we had +entered, and with a triangular cupboard underneath it, rose a carved and +worn wooden staircase, that turned on itself after three or four steps +and gave access to the floor above. Here the drawing-room exactly +repeated the dining-room, as did the single bedroom the kitchen. But the +drawing-room, besides having an extra window over the street door, had +also the feature I had seen from the hillock on the previous day--the +platform or verandah built out on wooden posts over the garden. This was +gained by two steps and a glass door at the end of the room, and it +provided me with my first disappointment. For, when I stepped out on to +it, I found that we had _no_ garden. The garden belonged to the +adjoining house, the tenant of which had, moreover, secured his privacy +by building in our little platform with a screen of boards and trellis. +There would be just room enough on our little quarter-deck for a +tea-table and a couple of chairs; but of prospect, save for the side of +the hillock, had we none. For the rest, ceilings sagged, the worn old +floor creaked and did not seem over-safe, the panelling (the whole place +was wood-lined) was badly cracked, and the late tenants had turned the +bath into a dustbin and general receptacle for rubbish. + +I saw Evie warm to the drawing-room, our best room, at once. Already in +her mind she was arranging our furniture. I, for my part, content to see +her kindling interest, began to poke my nose into corners, making notes +of such things as waterpipes, locks, window fastenings and the like. I +squeezed into the narrow bathroom again; I am a little squeamish about +baths, and, not much liking the pattern of this one, was wondering +whether it could be altered; but the room was little more than a +prolongation of a bedroom cupboard out over the staircase, and there +would have been no changing the bath without pulling half the interior +down. I bumped my head against its floor as I descended the stairs +again, and passed into the diminutive yard that had the verandah for a +roof. There I inspected a coal-house, and peeped through a knot-hole +into my neighbour's garden. Then I sought Evie in the drawing-room +again. + +"Well?" I said, smiling, as she advanced to meet me.... + +Outside, the air was jocund with the incessant sounds of singing, +calling, penny trumpets, the steam organs of the distant roundabouts, +and all the bustle of the holiday. From our little verandah we could see +the sides of the hillock dotted with picnic parties and coster lads in +their bright neckerchiefs and girls in feathers and black lamb's-wool +coats, making love after their own fashion. A party came round the +house, singing and playing on mouth organs a dragging sentimental +song--arms linked about necks, feet breaking into little step-dances, +and feathers shaking from time to time to kisses that resembled +assaults; and I was glad of it all. It was precisely what I would have +chosen for Evie that day. She was dressed in brown again; a brown +jacket, brown velvet skirt, close brown toque of pheasants' feathers, +and brown shoes that showed their newness under their slender arches as +she walked; no more black! For Life, after all, was made for joy. We had +youth, she and I, in a truer sense than that of fewness of years--we had +the youth which is Hope. Oh, I thought, let us then meet the years to +come singingly--if a little stridently no matter--believing in our +luck--full and spilling over--and taking as it came, like these outside, +all the fun and dust and heat and perspiration of the fair! So I +thought, and Evie too took the contagion. We were standing by the glass +door of the verandah when suddenly she crushed herself hard and +impulsively against me. I knew what she meant. It did not need the +little tight grip of her hand to tell me that all was now "all right." I +drank those tidings from the deep wells of her eyes. And because the +flesh had little part in this promise, but must for once give place to +other things, I did not seek her lips. Instead, my own moved for a +moment about her hair.... + +Then a burst of catcalling caused us to fly from the verandah doorway. +We had been seen from the hillside by the party with the mouth organs. +Evie, adorably red, gave a low laugh ... and this time I did kiss her, +to fresh cheers and calls of "Wot cher!" The lads and lasses outside did +not see the caress, but perhaps, after all, it was not very wonderful +thought-reading. + +Then, after another delighted tour, we locked the house up and came out +on to the Heath again. + +And now that the scales of preoccupation were removed from our eyes, we +could look on all the life and colour and movement spread before us and +feel ourselves part of it. It was well worth looking at. There is a long +ravine near the Viaduct; we looked across it through a bright stipple of +sunny birches; and to close the eyes for a second or two only was to +see, on reopening them, a new picture. Purple and lavender and the black +lamb's-wool coats pervaded that picture; the colours were sown over the +hillside like confetti. They moved slowly, as coloured granules might +have moved in some half-fluid suspension; and spaces that one moment +were spangled with them, the next were unexpectedly empty patches of +green. I am speaking of the thing in the mass, as of a panorama. +Doubtless the sprinkling of white that lay everywhere would resolve +itself on the morrow into torn paper, to be laboriously impaled on +spiked sticks and carried away in baskets; doubtless to-day much of it +on a nearer view would consist of impure complexions and rank odour; but +it was strong and piping-hot Life, inspiring, infinitely analysable, and +irresistibly setting private griefs and joys and over-emphasised +sensations into place and proportion.... And as we left the Viaduct road +and approached a great show in a hollow, the increasing din of a steam +organ became as if we waded deeper and deeper into a sea, not of water, +but of sound. + +I only remembered that I still had the key of the little house in my +pocket as we pushed and jostled through the crowded town of striped +canvas that covered the Lower Heath. My fingers encountered it as we +took a back way behind a long fluttering sheet against which cocoanut +balls smacked every moment. It was necessary to return with it; and, as +men behind the lace-curtained caravans began to make ready the naphtha +lights for the evening, we turned into another thoroughfare down which +the purple and lamb's-wool and lavender and bright neckerchiefs poured +as if down a river-bed. In twenty minutes we had reached the tea-garden +again; I spied a couple in the act of leaving a leafy arbour that held a +table awash with spilt beer; and I put Evie into a still warm seat and +bade her hold it against all comers. I left her, and presently returned +with two glasses, of which I had managed to retain the greater part of +the contents; and I sat down by her. + +"Did you give them the key?" she asked, seizing my arm. + +"Yes, I gave them 'the' key. I'm going to see the agent to-morrow." + +"Oh, Jeff!" She said it as if there was something miraculous in it that +an agent might actually consent to be seen about that little house on +the morrow. + +"That is, unless to-morrow's a holiday too." + +"Oh, you _must_ go!" she broke out. "It would be _too_ awful if we were +to miss it!" + +Then, as a waiter came with a sopping cloth to wipe down the table, we +ceased to talk. + +Already they were beginning to light up everywhere. The crowded garden +became a complexity of ceaselessly moving shadows with a hundred little +accidents of light--the flames of sudden matches, yellow shafts as +people moved aside from windows, the twinkling festoons of the arbours, +the gleam of liquid spilt on tables. A glow like that of a furnace rose +behind the trees in front of us, and over the tree-tops rose swinging +boats, sometimes one, sometimes two or three at a time, with lads +standing with bent knees on the seats and the girls' feathers tossing +and boas flying in the golden haze. The noise became a ceaseless +twanging everywhere, and I watched with amusement a half-drunk but +wholly happy sailor at the next table, who nodded sleepily from time to +time, then looked with wideawake and amiable defiance about him, and had +quite forgotten that he wore his companion's hat hearsed with black +feathers. + +"Do you want to change hats?" I said to Evie, with a glance at her +pheasants' feather toque. + +"No--but----" I saw her own glance at the sailor's thick wrist, which +had appeared on our side of his companion. + +The next moment, though with protests, she was leaning farther back in +the shadow. + +Then, close and in murmurs, we began to talk. + +I am not going to claim for Evie that she ever had any very remarkable +gift of tongues. I don't mean that on occasion she couldn't talk for +half a day on end; but I do mean that beyond a certain point she +displayed a diffidence, talk became something of an adventure to her, +and she had a way of advancing upon a silence as if it was a fortified +place, to be carried by assault, and not to be won by beleaguering. +Therefore, seeing her now sensible of a new liberation and joy, I was +not unprepared for little excesses, things said out of mere fulness, and +perhaps even to be slightly regretted on the morrow. + +Yet I didn't want fulness on the subjects of which she now began to ease +her breast. I didn't want to hear of the events of the day before, nor +of the people who had been there, nor of whether these people had or +had not "thought it odd" that she should have become re-engaged. I +didn't want to hear about the late Mrs Merridew's lingering and comatose +illness. And when, in a burst of almost passionate candour, she spoke of +the relief it was to be able at last to unburden herself thus, I would +gladly have stopped her had I known how. But I lacked the courage to +tell her, when she asked me whether I did not think it a good idea that +she should keep nothing secret from me, that I thought it the worst of +ideas. + +"You see, Jeff," she murmured, out of a beautiful sense of rest and +surrender, "I do so want ours to be a friendship as well as a marriage!" + +Already the nearness and warmth of her had set me trembling. I don't +know that I wanted more "friendship" than needs be; I wanted something, +oh, far deeper and rarer. I wanted that full treasury of her warm blood +and odorous hair and large and mobile eyes. Friendship? I laughed +softly, and gathered these beauties closer.... Understand, I don't for a +moment mean that she was unaware of these possessions of hers; I call +that oval mirror that later we set up in our bedroom to witness that; +but she merely wanted something else, being human, and wanted it the +more, being feminine. And as she told me now what she wanted our +marriage to be, she put me away a little, with her hands on my breast. + +"Don't you, too, darling?" she appealed, with a look that put +"friendship" quite out of existence.... + +"Don't I what, rogue?" + +"Want it to be like that." + +"No," I bantered, adoring her.... + +"Oh! Then there's something you won't tell _me_!... Very well," she +pouted, "keep your old secrets, but I shall tell you everything for all +that, just to shame you...." + +With a laugh I was drawing her towards me again, when I was arrested by +a circumstance so oddly trivial that I really hesitate to set it down. +The first I knew of it was that with an involuntary and nervous start I +had checked the movement, and had put her slowly away again, looking +into her face as a moment before she had looked into mine. To explain +what I saw there I must mention that, a few minutes before, the sailor +and his girl had risen from the next table and lurched away, their heads +together making an apex that wobbled over its base of purple skirt and +wide trousers; but I had been only dimly conscious of the noise with +which a fresh party had pounced upon their empty places. Now suddenly +our alcove was filled with a raw crimson shine. Evie's face, as I held +it away, was as if a stage fire glared upon it. And scarcely had the +bloodshot light died away when it came again, another violent flood.... + +I had looked round in less time than it has taken me to explain this. It +was only one of the newcomers playing with a penny box of Bengal +matches. He struck another. This was a green one, and as he waved the +spluttering thing about the shadows of leaves ran to and fro in our +little interior. + +Then as the match went out, all became an ashy darkness again. + + +Why, at the mere striking of those fusees, had all the life and joy +suddenly gone out of me? I did not know.... But stay; I am not sure that +in this I do not lie. Perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say that I +would not know, and yet again that is not all.... Perhaps I had better +pass on; you may know soon enough, if you care, what was the matter. Red +and gold would now have been better suited to those two mainsprings of +my life, my Love and my Ambition; but suddenly to change the gold into +green, the hated hue of my past Jealousy.... + +Let me pass on. The thing will soon be clear. + + +For a minute and more I had hardly heard Evie's chatter, but presently I +became conscious that she was repeating a phrase, as if a little +surprised that she got no answer. I roused myself. + +"Eh?... What were you saying, dear?" I apologised. + +As if the striking of those matches had made an alteration in her too, +her playfulness had vanished. Apparently another little access of +candour had taken its place. Evidently I had missed some necessary link, +for she was now murmuring, "Poor dear--I haven't been able to get her +out of my head--it seems wrong somehow that I should be so happy and +she----" + +"She?... Who?" I asked in surprise, now fully awake again. + +Evie mentioned a name. At the next table another crimson match went off, +leaving, as it died down fumily, the yellow twinklings of the garden a +bilious green. I spoke slowly. The name she had mentioned had been that +of my own former _fiancee_. + +"Kitty Windus?" I said. "What about her?" + +Evie made no answer, but only stroked her cheek against the cloth of my +shoulder--a familiar gesture of hers. + +"I'm afraid I don't quite understand," I said. + +Nor did I quite. I could not believe she was jealous. If Evie was +jealous, never, never woman had had less cause. Except as the bitterest +of mockeries, I had never been engaged to any woman but herself, for +only that old horrible poverty and despair of mine had been the cause of +my playing a trick with more of the falsely theatrical about it than of +real life--the deliberate engaging of myself to one woman as a means to +getting another. The impossible situation had lasted for a few months +only, and had then ended in the abrupt vanishing, without explanation, +of Kitty Windus from that part of London in which she had lived. From +that day to this I had not set eyes on her. + +I leaned over Evie. "Dearest," I said gently, "do you mean that there's +something you would like to know about Kitty?" + +Then, with a little shock, she seemed to realise that I might think what +in fact had for the moment crossed my mind--that she was jealous of +Kitty. + +"Oh, Jeff ... no, no--really no!" she assured me in tones of which there +was no mistaking the sincerity. "I didn't mean that--poor thing!--I was +only joking when I said there was something you wouldn't tell me! Oh, do +see what I mean, dear! It's only because _I'm_ so happy that I want +everybody else to be--Kitty too--everybody! Really that's all, Jeff!" + +It was not quite all, though it was enough to make my heart a little +lighter. Mingled with it was something very human that only endeared her +to me the more. Her glow and vitality had always put poor Kitty's +skimpiness completely into the shade, and what ailed her now was that +wistful longing of the victress to be magnanimous that is the uneasy +aftercrop of triumph. On herself it had all the effect of a generosity, +but that, and not jealousy, was really it.... + +"Well, after all, we don't know that she isn't happy," I said +cheerfully. "Anyway, she pleased herself, and--it's four years ago.... +Just listen to the row!" + +I was glad of the diversion that came just then. Led by a Jew's harp, +the party at the next table had broken into "Soldiers of the Queen," and +for the five hundredth time that day the song had "caught on" instantly. +The whole garden was now vociferating it, standing on seats, dancing +between the tables, their rising and falling heads a dark and bizarre +tumult in the conflicting lights. At the gate of the garden a +barrel-organ stopped and took up the same song in another key, but they +drowned it:-- + + + "Who've b--ee--een--my lads! + And s--ee--een--my lads!" + + +Talk in that uproar was impossible, and again there enwrapped us that +strong sense of rich and rough and abundant life. As we leaned over our +little table to watch, Evie's finger was moving in time to the song, and +even the thought of the little house a few hundred yards away +disappeared for a moment from my own mind. A chair with a couple of +girls upon it broke, and there were shrieks and applause and whistles +and laughter; and then the song began to die away. Cheers followed it, +and cheers again, for throats cheered readily then; and then our +neighbours of the next table formed themselves into single file, and, +with a last shrill + + + "Who've b--ee--een--my lads! + And s--ee--een--my lads!" + + +marched round the garden and out into the crowds beyond. I seized my +opportunity. Evie and I followed them, I with her tucked safely away +under my arm; and we joined the dense stream that was already pouring +southwards. And as I struggled for places on a bus at Hampstead Heath +Station, my heart was grateful for that illusion of the day that had +banished, first, the remnant of Evie's sorrow, and had afterwards cut +short that impossible course of unmeasured confidences to which that +moodiness had given rise. + + +IV + +I began to foresee those inconveniences that afterwards made me hate +that house in the Vale of Health as soon as I had signed my contract and +got the key. The contract was for a year only, and as for any period +less than three years the agents had refused to "do up" the place for +me, I became plasterer, painter and plumber myself. I suppose that from +the strictly conventional point of view Evie ought to have had no hand +in this; indeed, she read me, from the "Etiquette" column of one of her +weekly papers, a passage that informed me that between her choice of a +house and her going into it as its mistress in the eyes of all the world +a bride-elect ought to betray no knowledge of that house's existence; +but as she delivered this from over the bib of an enormous apron, +holding the journal in one hand, while the fingers of the other rubbed +the lumps out of a bucket of whitewash, the knowledge came too late to +be of much use. Anyway, there we were, with Miss Angela or an old +charwoman or else nobody at all for chaperon, scraping walls, mixing +paint, puttying cracks, fixing shelves, dragging at obstinate old nails; +and seeing that from the point of view of Etiquette we were already +numbered with the lost, we made no bones about walking into a shop in +Tottenham Court Road together and brazenly asking to be shown the +bedstead department. After that we took tea, with never a human eye upon +us, in my lofty room near the Cobden Statue. Doubtless this cut us off +finally from that dim eschatological hope when even the devil shall have +his respite of a thousand years. Our only solace was that we found +ourselves in the company of a good many others who have to square their +Etiquette with their opportunities as best they can. + +But about those inconveniences. Why, with the whole Heath before them, +the children on their way to or from school should make our doorstep +their playground I didn't know; but they did, and it needed no gift of +prophecy to see that when the schools closed later in the summer they +would be an almost hourly nuisance. That was the first thing that struck +me. Next, the crown of my head was like to be sore from many bumpings +before I had learned to avoid the bathroom floor as I mounted our +creaking, turning stairs. Next, ready as I should have been to secure my +own garden from overlooking had I had one, I resented that screen of +trellis that limited the view from our little balcony to the slope of +hillside opposite. Add to these that not a window-sash fitted within +half or three-quarters of an inch, that not a door was truly hung, that, +wherever I wanted to make good a hinge or fastening, the woodwork was +soft as a mushroom with old screwholes, and that I should have ruined a +whole shopful of tools had I even attempted to level our splintery old +floor, and you will see why I rejoiced to think that our tenancy might +not be a very long one. But I need hardly add that, after all, these +things weighed but a trifle against my impatience, and that I was +careful not to let Evie suppose that I did not think our little nook the +most delightful spot imaginable. + +As a matter of fact I was compelled to leave a large part of the work to +Evie; and capitally she did it. She had forgotten her old smattering of +business training so completely that she always found it easier to go +through her day's duties than she did to balance her expenditure +afterwards in the highly ornamental "Housekeeper's Book" I bought for +her; and while I was allowed my way in such unimportant things as where +we should put our old-fashioned chests of drawers and Sheffield caddies +and those sketches of Billy Izzard's, the department that began with the +frying-pan and ended with general cleaning was hers. I had given her a +second key, not only of the new house, but also of my own quarters in +Camden Town; and sometimes at the F.B.C. I would look up from my work, +gaze past the Duke of York's Column with its circling pigeons and away +over the Mall, and wonder what she was doing now--taking our new +dinner-service from its crates and washing it, peeping down the long +cylinder of kitchen linoleum and wishing I was there to cut it to the +floor, lighting fires to get rid of the damp, or (strictly against +orders) scrubbing out the bath which, later, strive as I would, I could +never successfully re-enamel. Then in the evening I would hasten for the +Hampstead bus, stride up from the Heath Station, and, arrived at home, +throw off my coat, put up shelves, fit carpets, see how my new paint (an +ivory white) was drying, and only knock off when, not Etiquette, but the +lateness of the hour and the distance I had to take Evie home compelled +me. + +I liked the daily life at the F.B.C. Our various departments were to a +great extent isolated, so that the intermediate clerks like myself could +only guess at the relation of their own portion of the work to the whole +intricate business; but I have told you how I myself was privately "let +in on the ground floor" by Pepper. I had three "Juns. Ex. Con." as my +immediate subordinates, and they were first-rate fellows, and amusing +company into the bargain. All three, Whitlock, Stonor and Peddie, were +younger than I by some years; and as they were all bachelors, and there +was plenty of time yet for them to begin to take their work very +seriously, they showed not a trace of envy of me. Indeed, being rather +"doggish" in their dress, and reckoning the work of the day as little +more than a killing of time until the pleasures of the evening should +begin, they even made something of a pet of their "Balzac in a +dressing-gown"; and as if the nearness of our offices to Piccadilly put +on them some responsibility that the character for gaiety of that gay +part of London should not suffer through their negligence, they had an +air of owning the quarter. They furnished drinks at Epitaux's as a man +might in his own house, and introduced their companions at Stone's as if +they had been veritable guests. True, funds did not often run to the old +Continental over the way; but they knew by sight many of the loungers +who entered its portals from four o'clock in the afternoon on, and would +exchange intelligent glances over their filing or posting as suede +boots, or picture hat, or something that looked as if it had stepped out +of Stagg & Mantle's window tripped seductively by. + +Pepper, of course, was my own immediate superior, as I was of my three +boys; and while our private arrangement put me after office hours +straightway on a level with the mandarins of the concern, we strictly +kept our respective positions at Waterloo Place. I prepared drafts for +him of such matters as Paying Ballast, Railway Digests, the daily +postings at Lloyd's and the fluctuations of Insurance Rates; and these +he changed into factors of policy in high council with the lords of +other departments. His private office was immediately above ours; and +twenty times a day his secretary, Miss Levey, descended the broad mosaic +staircase or came down in the gilt and upholstered lift, either +commanding my attendance, or bringing me instructions. It was a +"wheeze" among my three boys to pose as her admirers, but I never +thought she was quite so unconscious of their real thoughts as they +supposed. + +I was going to pass on; but while I am about it I may as well say a +little more about this Miss Levey, and my reasons for regarding her as a +person to be rather carefully watched. She was short, and a victim to +her race's tendency to early stoutness; and as she had no neck, and +always wore hats far too large for her, her appearance was top-heavy. Of +her too large and prominent features her pot-hook nose was the most +prominent. Her manner towards myself was that of one who would have +liked to be familiar, but lacked the confidence; and doubtless her +perpetual hovering on the confines of a liberty arose out of some slight +acquaintance she had had with Evie in the days of her business training. +As if Evie's health was as liable to fluctuations as the Export charts +and Trade returns on our walls, Miss Levey never omitted to inquire +after it each morning, becoming daily more _empressee_ as our engagement +proceeded; but so far she had not succeeded in what I divined to be her +object, an invitation to renew the old acquaintance. And though I could +keep the greater part of our intercourse strictly to business, I could +hardly avoid occasional meetings on the stairs, in the lift, or +sometimes a walk up Lower Regent Street with her as far as the Circus. + +It was during the course of one of these short walks, one lunch-time, +that, having obtained from me her daily bulletin, Miss Levey rather put +me in a hole by asking me what I thought Evie would like for a wedding +present. Secretly I neither wanted a wedding present from Miss Levey nor +wished Evie to receive one, but I could hardly give her the slap on the +face of telling her so. Instead I answered, a little abruptly, that I +really didn't know--that it was awfully kind of her--and that she wasn't +to think of it; but she did not take the hint. So, knowing her capacity +for swallowing, but not forgetting snubs, and really feeling that +perhaps I had gone a little too far, I hastened to repair a possible +rudeness. We were approaching the tea-shop near the Circus at which I +usually lunched; we reached it, and paused together on the kerb; and +then, on the spur of the moment, I suggested that she should lunch with +me. With a little demonstration of pleasure she accepted, and we entered +and took our places at a small round table in the shadow of the +pay-desk. + +I knew, of course, that I had been cornered, and that she knew it too; +but in these cases the thick-skinned person always has the advantage. I +resolved that that advantage should be as slight as possible. And for a +time--though probably not for one moment longer than she wished--I +succeeded. As she ate her rissole and sipped her chocolate she talked +with animation of this and that--the morning's business, the people in +the crowded shop, the theatres, and so on; and then she returned to the +subject of the wedding present, the date of my marriage, where we were +going to live, and the rest of it. I was as reserved as my unwillingly +given invitation allowed me to be, but presently I had to promise to ask +Evie what form she would like the present to take. With that, Miss Levey +went off at score, speaking of Evie as she had known her. + +"I suppose she's prettier than ever?" she said. "Such a lovely girl I +used to think her! I'm sure you're very lucky, Mr Jeffries, if you don't +mind my saying so!" + +I did rather mind her saying anything about it at all, but I answered +quite conventionally that I considered myself very lucky indeed. + +"Those were jolly days!" she passed on into reminiscence. "I loved that +poky little old place in Holborn!... Do you remember the Secretary Bird, +Mr Jeffries?" + +I did remember Weston, the wan, middle-aged "professor." + +"Poor old soul! I wonder if he's going with them to the new place? Of +course you know they're pulling the old one down?" + +"Yes." + +"Such a huge one, that one in Kingsway! All the latest +improvements--everything! But it won't ever be the same to me.... 'Not +room to turn round'?... No, I suppose there wasn't, but I suppose I'm +rather faithful to old places and old faces. You aren't, Mr Jeffries?" + +"Not just because they're old," I fancied. + +"Oh, I think I am, just because they're old!" she replied brightly. + +From faces and places she passed to names, though--this was quite +marked--only to certain ones; and I became rather obstinately silent +except when she actually paused for a remark. For far more significant +were the names she omitted than those she pronounced. These, indeed, she +positively had the effect of shouting at me, and I suppose it was some +heavy-handed delicacy that led her to speak of Weston but not of Archie +Merridew, of Evie, but not of Kitty Windus and others she had known far +better. I supposed her to be merely gratifying her racial greed for +general (including personal) information, on the chance, so to speak, of +turning up in the dustheap something she might later sell for twopence; +and, noting one of her marked omissions, it occurred to me to wonder +whether she might not have seen Kitty Windus, and, failing to get +anything out of her, was now pumping myself and looking for an opening +to pump Evie also. My eyes rested from time to time on her +prominent-featured face and wide, high shoulders; and she did not know +that I was wondering whether she was so deeply in Pepper's secrets that +we should not be able to dispense with her services when he and I +cleared out of the F.B.C. together. + +I maintained my silence while she went on with her _Hamlet_ without the +Prince, that is to say, while she talked of the now demolished Business +College without mentioning Archie Merridew, Kitty Windus, Louie Causton +and the rest; and then, pleading an engagement, I rose. She rose too. +With her purse in her hand, she made quite an ado about refusing to +allow me to pay for the lunch to which I had invited her. "Please--or I +shall feel as if we can't lunch together again!" she said; "let me see; +sevenpence, that's right, isn't it? There! You will remember me to Evie, +won't you?" + +And she scrupulously put the sevenpence into one of my hands while with +the other I held the door open for her to pass out. + +I did not give Evie Miss Levey's message that evening, for when, at a +little after seven, I reached the Vale of Health, I found Miss Angela +there. The elder Miss Soames, I ought to say, regarded our wedding as so +exclusively Evie's (myself sometimes appearing to have no part whatever +in it) that I was constantly invited to share her own detached delight. +Giving up Evie's bedroom only, she intended to stay on at Woburn Place; +but from the number of offerings she brought us her own sitting-room was +like to be sadly denuded. She brought, and if possible hid in a corner +for us to discover after she had left, heavy old silver tablespoons, +her shield-shaped embroidered fire-screen, her Colport dressing-table +set with the little coral-like trees for rings, and other gifts; and it +was in vain that Evie laughingly protested. + +"But if you go on like this we shall have to have you come and live with +us!" she said. "Make you up a bed on the verandah--but perhaps that's +what she's really after, Jeff----" + +But Miss Angela shook her head demurely, ignoring the joke. "No, +no--young people ought to be alone; they don't want old things like me +interfering. I shall be just as happy thinking of you both as if it was +my own wedding." + +And I really believe she was. + +For the Etiquette of our preparations, Aunt Angela threw herself +pathetically on my mercy. + +Her sitting-room in Woburn Place, however, was not the only one that was +rapidly becoming denuded. My own place with the terra-cotta festoons and +hobgoblins was now more than half empty. But I was not relinquishing it +yet. I knew I was committing a sentimental extravagance in thus being +lord of two domiciles, but (Etiquette having to be considered) I did not +wish to go into the new place until I should go there with Evie. So +already two cartloads of my belongings had been fetched away, and that +very day Miss Angela had been assisting in a task that more than any +other seemed the beginning of the end--the removal of my carpet. They +did not tell me of this removal. They allowed me to discover it for +myself when I went, without light, upstairs into the drawing-room. They +had already laid it down; my foot struck its softness in the dark; and I +experienced a sudden little thrill of pleasure. It seemed to bring all +so suddenly near.... + +They had crept up after me with a lamp to enjoy my surprise. The room +really looked delightful, and all my sense of drawbacks vanished. Four +glass candle-sconces with musical little drops--I had picked them up +cheap in the street that runs from the Britannia to Regent's Park--were +fastened to the walls, two between the window-bays over my breast-high +mahogany bookshelves, the other two at the sides of the fireplace in the +opposite wall; and across the windows themselves the long chintz +curtains were drawn. Evie set the lamp down on the little table that +folded almost to nothing against the wall, and tripped round with a +taper, lighting up. All my chairs were there, and the couch for which I +had ransacked half the catacombs of the Tottenham Court Road, and I +can't tell you how pretty it all was, with its ivory woodwork, its dark +blue and crimson blotted carpet, and the candle flames turning the +polished glass lustres to soft sprinklings of gems. Miss Angela, +delicate Pandar, seeing Evie's hand steal towards mine, affected to be +very busy at the mantelpiece.... + +"So," I grumbled presently, "this is your idea of the cheapest way of +lighting a room--candles at goodness knows how much a pound?" + +"Well, there's no electric light," retorted Evie. + +"And what have you left me at the other place? A bed and a broken chair, +I suppose, to make shift with for three weeks and more!" + +"_And_ a jampot for your shaving-water. Quite enough for a bachelor." + +"And I'm to get my meals out, I suppose, and pay twice as much for +them." + +But they only begged me to look where they had put Billy Izzard's two +sketches--one on either side of the verandah door. + +I had, in truth, begun to feel the least bit alarmed at the rate at +which the money was going. Kitchens, I learned, cost like the dickens; +but, as Evie frugally extinguished the candles again and led me down +into her special province, I could not deny that that looked pretty too, +with its bright tins, hanging jugs, overlapping rows of plates and +saucers and the new linoleum of its floor. The dining-room, into which +(as Evie said) "all the dirt was brought," had been left until the last, +and was knee-deep in straw, torn packing-paper, split box-lids and cut +string, and of course I grumbled again that good brown paper had been +torn and useful string spoiled, until I was brought into good temper +again by being allowed another peep at the lighted drawing-room--this +time without Aunt Angela. + + +V + +We were to be married at half-past ten on the following Saturday morning +but one, at St. George's, Hart Street, Bloomsbury. We had chosen a +Saturday because of our honeymoon, which was to be a steamboat trip +either down the river to Greenwich or up the river to Hampton Court--we +had not decided which. A good friend of mine, Sydney Pettinger, who had +given me my start with F.B.C., had promised to give Evie away. Pepper +would have done so, but Pepper always dazzled Evie a little. He was +almost inhumanly never at a loss for a word. + +Our little house was now quite ready. They had left me not so much as a +chair in my room near the Cobden Statue. My pallet bed and my +shaving-tackle were about all that remained within its walls, and I was +on the point of disposing of the bed as it stood to a dealer in Queen's +Crescent, when Billy Izzard proposed to me that he should take over the +place. + +Let me describe Billy Izzard as he was then--as he still to a great +extent is for the matter of that, for his innumerable quarrels with +dealers and intransigence on hanging committees have resulted in his +being less well known than the high quality of his painting warrants. He +was a tall, double-jointed, monkey-up-a-stick of a lad of twenty-four, +with well-shaped features that always seemed a little larger than the +ordinary (as if you saw them through a very weak lens), and two or three +distinct voices, the most startling of which was the sudden, imperious +tone into which he broke when he "saw" something--saw it absolute, in +the flat, and as if it had never been seen before--but possibly you know +his painting. He had exquisite manners, which he never used; he dressed +in tweeds that made my own shaggy garments look like the finest +broadcloth--they always seemed stuck over with fishing-flies; and, a +sufficiently large studio being beyond his means until he should cease +to quarrel with his bread and butter, he too had discovered the +advantages of the large rooms that are to be found over shops. + +He came up with his wedding present, yet another painting, just as I was +contemplating the sale of my bed. The picture, wrapped in newspaper, was +under his arm. He scratched his head under his porringer of a "sports" +cap, looked round the big four-windowed room, and said, "Good +light--south and east though--what?" + +"South and east," I replied; and added, knowing Billy, "Rent paid +monthly, in advance." + +"How much?" he demanded. + +"Twelve bob a week." + +"Hm! Rather a lot for me," said the man whose practice (for his theory +never amounted to much) has since been made the foundation of a whole +school of modern painting. "Wish I hadn't brought you this now--I was +offered three pounds for it--that would have paid for the first +month----" + +I hastened to grab the painting, to make sure of getting it. It was only +a small flower group, a straggle of violets, a few white ones among +them, in a lustre bowl, but the other day I refused sixty pounds for it. + +"Too late, Billy," I said; "you know you can't fight me for it.... I'll +throw you in my bed if you want the place, but you're not to give my +name as a reference for your solvency." + +"I think it might do," he said. "I could shut off some of the light, and +I don't suppose they'd mind my making it an un-Drapery Establishment +sometimes." + +Billy was just beginning to paint flesh as truly and seeingly as he +painted flowers. + +With the exception of Aunt Angela's constant trickle, Billy's was our +first wedding-present; but others followed quickly. Pepper, of course, +contrived to get his joke out of his own very handsome offering. One +day, at the end of one of our morning interviews in his office, he said: +"Oh, by the way--I sent a small parcel off to you yesterday. I suppose +'Jeffries, Verandah Cottage, Vale of Health' finds you?" + +"Yes." + +"It brings all good wishes, of course. Being a bachelor I've had to rely +on my own unaided taste. If the things don't seem very useful just at +present, they will be." + +In spite of his twinkle, I did not fear that his present would not be in +the best of taste, and I thanked him for it, whatever it was. Then, when +I returned to my own office, I found another surprise. A square, +shop-packed, registered parcel lay on my desk. This, when I opened it, I +found to contain a large silver cigarette-box with my name upon it, the +offering of my three "Juns. Ex. Con." It was full of cigarettes of a far +finer quality than any for which I had yet acquired the taste; and +though only the mandarins of the F.B.C. were supposed to smoke on the +premises, "Whitlock--Peddie----," I said, "have a cigarette?" + +All of them appeared to come with a start out of a quite unusual +absorption in their work. + +"This is very good of you fellows," I said awkwardly. + +So we lighted up, the four of us, and with the coming of lunch-time I +had to stand whiskies and soda at Stone's. I learned later that on my +wedding evening all three of them got quite disinterestedly drunk in +honour of the occasion. + +I found on reaching home that evening that Pepper's "small parcel" was +really two, the larger one about the size of an ordinary bureau, the +smaller one perhaps no bigger than a tea-chest. As both were addressed +to me, neither had been opened; but I really feared that this severe +continence had done both Evie and her aunt an injury--so much so that I +mercifully cut short my affectation of not noticing the huge packages. + +"If he's not going to sit down without opening them!" cried Evie, +revolted. "And a hammer and chisel put ready to his hand----!" + +"Oh, these things," I said. "They're from Pepper, I suppose. Do you want +them opened at once?" + +"Do we want----! Open them instantly!" + +"Well, I can't in here----" + +I carried the boxes out into our tiny verandah-roofed yard, and there +prised the lids off. Then I fell back before the onslaught they made on +the straw with which the cases were filled. The smaller one contained a +silver-mounted champagne-cooler; the larger one two enormous branched +silver candlesticks, big enough to have furnished the table that stood +before the Ark of the Covenant. So splendid were they that Evie, seeing +them, did not dare to touch them; and I remember how Pepper had said +that they would be useful by-and-by--which, I may say, they were. + +"Hm!" I said. "Well, we'd better pawn 'em at once. We've certainly +nowhere to put them." + +And indeed, the objects, the cases they came in, and ourselves, almost +cubically filled the little yard. Besides taking the shine completely +out of the rest of the house, they cost me getting on towards a pound of +candles that night, for of course we had to have another grand +illumination in their honour; but Pepper only laughed when I told him. + +"I'm setting you a scale of living, my boy," he said. "If you spend a +lot you've got to make a lot--that's all about it." + +"Well, I'll be even with you," I replied, "for your champagne-cooler's +going to be my waste-paper basket." + +And so it was, for long enough. + +In this "setting me a scale of living" Pepper was aided and abetted by +Pettinger, for if the candlesticks of the one meant the extravagance of +candles, so did the two great china bowls of the other a constant +expenditure of money on flowers. The only immediate profit I had of any +of these magnificences was a plentiful supply of firewood. The cases +they all came in, when knocked to pieces, made quite a respectable stack +of timber. + +There were only a couple more wedding presents that I need +particularise. The first of these puzzled us for a long time. It came by +letter post, a small, soft parcel addressed to Evie, containing a +crochet-bordered teacloth; and except for an "L." written on a blank +card, there was no indication of who the sender might be. Then I +remembered Miss Levey. + +"Of course--how stupid not to think of it!" said Evie. "I'll write her a +note at once, and you can give it to her to-morrow." + +"Oh--we'll spend a penny on it," I said. + +But that very evening, before the note was posted, Miss Levey's present +came, a pair of chimney ornaments--bronzed Arabs taming mettlesome +steeds--brought by a young man who might have been either a cousin or a +pawnbroker's assistant. + +And as an explicit note accompanied the Arabs, the crochet teacloth +remained unaccounted for. + + +And so the days slipped by. I was now unfit for anything until I should +be married, and Evie was as restless as myself. A great shyness now +began to come over her at times, leaving her, perhaps in the middle of a +conversation, with never a word to say; and I understood, and secretly +exulted. She bloomed indeed at those moments.... + +Let me, without losing any more time, come to the eve of my wedding and +the last night I spent in my bachelor rooms. + +I paced for long up and down my empty room that night. I had put on a +pair of soft slippers, for the room was immediately above a dormitory +where a number of shop-girls who "lived in" slept; and the light of my +single candle was reflected in one or other of the squares of my naked +windows as I walked. Then I threw up one of the sashes, and looked out +among my terra-cotta Satans and festoons. + +It was a marbled night of velvet black and iron grey, the two hues so +mysteriously counterchanged that you could have fancied either to be the +cloud and the other the abyss beyond until a star peeped out to tell you +of your mistake. It was very still, and must have been very late, for +down the road a mechanical sweeper was dragging along with a hiss of +bristles. I watched it, but not out of sight, for before it had +disappeared my eyes had wandered from it and were not looking at +anything in particular. + +I was thinking of Life--not only of that stormy share of it that up to +the present had been my own, but also of that other portion of it that +lay, unknown and unknowable until it should arrive, still before me. And +so all my thoughts turned on the morrow as on a pivot. In nine hours or +less I should be a married man, and a new time would have begun for me. + +It was on the nearness of that new beginning that I brooded restlessly +and passionately. For just as my Ambition had set itself the aim of that +large house over Highgate way, so my Love also was going to be a thing +of brightness and terraces and spires--nothing meaner, such as men shake +down to out of their failure and disillusion. Ah, if care could compass +it, mine was going to be a marriage! I believed that, and looking out +over the Cobden Statue, I appointed that moment of our union for an +expunging of all--all, all--that had gone before. + +For what man old enough to have heaped up his sins does not, out of that +very ache for a new beginning, seek to bespeak one of heaven by +appointing a time and a season for it? Not one. Poor pathetic things of +the fancy though his decrees may be, he cannot live without their +expediencies. In his mind at least he sets an hour for his release. + +And on that night of all nights I could not but remember all. Sins I had +committed; and though some might have called that a sin which I should +have proclaimed in the face of heaven to have been a righteous act, that +also I remembered.... It seemed, that night, to matter little that I was +acquitted of one guilt when I had incurred a wrath by other guilts +innumerable; it was from the whole body of an ancient death that I +fainted to be delivered. My worldly ambition I knew to be not an empty +boast; oh, might but this other rebirth of mine prove to be equally well +founded! A rebirth--a white page for Evie and myself to write the story +of our love upon--and even that spectre of her own life, of the dreadful +coming of which this was in a sense the anniversary, would not have been +an agony endured for nothing! Not all in vain would have been the grim +discovery of that which, four years before, had hung from a hook in a +bedroom door! Not all lost, not all lost, might but the morrow prove my +second natal day! + +So, passionate and unresting, I prayed among my swags and emblems and +gargoyles. The street-sweeper had long since gone; soon would come a +lamplighter extinguishing the street lamps; now all was quiet. I dropped +my head on my arms for a moment.... + +Then, looking up at the marbled clouds behind which the stars seemed to +drift, I muttered, to Whomsoever might be up there to hear: + +"Oh, let it all but sink and die away--let it all but sink and die +away--and my life shall be--it shall be----" + +I do not know whether my lips framed the promise of what my life should +be, could I but strike my bargain. + + + + +PART II + +VERANDAH COTTAGE + + +I + +In speaking of the early days of my married life I must throw myself +largely on your consideration. I have not guarded through the years that +sharp impatience that I presently came to feel with that tiny house in +the Vale of Health. Lately I have thought more kindly of it, as if at +some stage of my journey through Life (though I cannot tell when) I had +heard a call behind me, turned my head, and, forgetting to turn it back +again, had continued to advance backwards, recognising things in +proportion as they receded. I live now in a mansion in Iddesleigh Gate; +that ambition of mine, my spur in the past, is becoming a mere desire +that when I go my successor shall find all in working order to his hand; +and so the shabby brown earth I once trod has taken the lightsome blue +of distance, and many things are seen through a sheen that, perhaps, +never was there. Therefore if you would see that sheen it must be by +your own favour and through whatever of glamour time and distance have +given to your own young years. + +For, when all allowances are made, I still think that that relation +which is more than friendship was ours. Male and female (the New Man +notwithstanding) we were created, and to a lower conception than that I +have never in all my life declined. I have seen that declension in +others, and know how it sinks ultimately to the mere comfortable +security of a banking account. Whatever else I have known I have escaped +that. By what wide circuit of the spirit I know not, I have returned to +find the divine where others have not stirred from grossness. And I have +even had glimpses of that shadowy apocalypse that finds its images, not +in thrones and sceptres, but in the flesh-hooks and seething-pots of the +kitchen.... But to Verandah Cottage and the Vale of Health. + +I was happy with Evie, she with me. From my daily leaving her at nine +o'clock in the morning until my return at half-past seven at night, she +had almost, if not quite, enough to occupy her; and though I could have +wished she had more friends, so that when she had finished her work the +summer afternoons might not have appeared quite so long, yet I exercised +a care that almost amounted to a jealousy in this regard. Understand me, +however. It was against no person that I protected her with this jealous +care. It was always with pleasure that I learned that Billy Izzard had +looked in and talked to her for an hour at tea, or that Aunt Angela had +been up to take the air or to fetch her out for a couple of hours' +shopping. I merely mean that I saw no reason for her identifying herself +with a set of circumstances that before long would probably have +changed completely. It was part of my Ambition that, until I should have +attained it, we should be a little solitary. Nor was it that I thought +that the people we might by-and-by be able to meet on equal terms would +be any better than those we might have known at once. It was a question +of the place we were ultimately to occupy. And I begged Evie, if at +times she did feel a little lonely, to be patient for my sake. So for +quite a long time Billy and her aunt remained her only visitors. + +The house next door might have been untenanted for all we saw of its +inmates, and that, I confess, made me a little angry. I did not know the +niceties of the matter, nor whether the difference between a thirty-five +pound rental and one of perhaps eighty pounds outweighed those confident +dicta of Evie's penny journals about "cards," "calls," and the rest; nor +yet did I deem it a reason for taking anybody to my bosom that only a +wall separated our dwellings; but the fact that they, whoever they were, +never called stiffened me. An eighty-pound house! To put on airs about a +matter of eighty pounds!... But I saw the humour of it too, and laughed. + +"I'm sorry if it's rather slow, little woman," I used to say, "but wait +just a bit. Let's stick it out on our own for just a little while. You'd +rather be with me, now, than have waited for a year or two till we were +better off, wouldn't you?" + +"How absurd you are!" she would reply, nestling up to me. + +"Well, keep going for a bit longer, and see what happens. I'm not +deliberately hanging back from Pepper's offer for nothing, I promise +you.... And at any rate the Vicar will be calling." + +You see, we had agreed on the imprudence of having children at once. + +But the Vicar never came, which was a fair enough hit back if he meant +it for one, since we only attended his church once, and after that, I am +afraid, went to churches here and there, attracted by good singing, a +beautiful fabric, a man with brains preaching, and other things that +perhaps mitigated the quality of our worship. And very frequently we did +not go to church at all, but explored the Heath instead. And often, on +Saturdays and Sundays, we went still farther afield. Greenwich had been +hallowed to us by our half-day's honeymoon, and as if in this Hampton +Court had suffered a slight, we made amends by going to the latter place +quite often. We must have gone four or five times that summer, so that +we got to know the Lelys and the Holbeins and the tea-shops, and the +long drag home again from Waterloo in the old horse-bus, quite well. And +one week-end we spent with Pettinger, at his place at Bedford, with two +cattle-show men, an actor and an International footballer, all on their +best behaviour until Evie had gone to bed. Then, when I joined her, she +accused me of having had more than one glass of whisky, and wanted to +know what we had been talking about all that time. I tried to tell her +"the bubonic plague," but my tongue betrayed me, and I came a cropper. + +So, as I had done before during our engagement, I could look up from my +work during the day, past the Duke of York's Column and over the Mall, +and wonder what she was doing at that moment--changing our pillow-cases, +popping the pared potatoes into the saucepan of cold water, dusting, +washing up, polishing, or pottering about the flower-boxes I had set on +our little balcony. + +Miss Levey had still not been asked to come up and see Evie, but so +quietly tenacious of her purpose did I divine her to be, that I was +sorry I had not invited her at once and got it over. The thing was +beginning to look almost like an unacknowledged contest between us. At +times I forgot my original reason for keeping her at arm's-length--her +forwardness, pertinacity, and racial hunger for the rags and bones and +old bottles of gossip; and that she "spelt" to be asked was in itself +reason enough for ignoring her hints. I may say that by doing so I cut +myself from quite a distinguished circle of acquaintances, and on this +point had sometimes to check my three clerks. For never a notability +called on Pepper but Miss Levey, on the strength of being called in to +take down in shorthand a conversation, claimed him for a close +acquaintance. And as far as I can make out, she must actually have +believed it, for she kept up the fiction even to us, who knew perfectly +well all about it. Goodness knows what she told outsiders.... So with +Whitlock, Stonor and Peddie it became a byword to say, when speaking of +somebody exalted: "You know who I mean--that pal of Miss Levey's--Lord +Ernest," or "Miss Levey's friend--what's his name--the President of the +Board of Trade." + +After the present of the silver cigarette-box, not to speak of the +handsome compliment of their intoxication on my wedding night, I had +thought it the least I could do to ask Whitlock and Stonor (Peddie lived +out Croydon way, too far to come) to come up one Sunday and have tea +with us. So they had been, and for two hours had displayed manners as +highly starched as their collars. They had been, I fancy, a little +surprised that, if I was a Balzac in a dressing-gown, my wife at any +rate was no Sand in a flannelette peignoir. (For that matter, nothing +was ever neater than Evie's skirts and blouses, and when by-and-by she +began to make her own things there could hardly have been anything more +becoming than her clear, sweet-pea-coloured muslins, that really would +have been too rippling and Tanagra-like altogether had it not been for +the stiffer petticoats beneath.) I surmised later that Stonor had taken, +so to speak, a mental pattern of Evie, for matching purposes when he +should come upon another girl like her; and Whitlock, whose pose it was +that he would never marry, could on that very account admire the more +openly. + +The visit of the two clerks, of course, made my attitude towards Miss +Levey all the more pointed; but I still preferred not to have her at the +Vale of Health. And seeing this, Evie vowed that she did not want her +either. The two Arab horse-tamers stood on our drawing-room mantelpiece, +not because I admired them, but simply because we had nowhere else to +put them; and they were all of Miss Levey that was absolutely needful to +our happiness. + +Yet I recognised that the lack, not of Miss Levey, but of company in +general, was far harder on Evie than it was on me. I knew exactly why I +didn't want overmuch company; Evie, who had the deprivation actually to +bear, had to take the reason on trust. All my interests lay ahead; she +knew only the tedium of the present. It was her part, if I may so +express it, to keep bright those ridiculous empty candlesticks of +Pepper's without my own certainty that candles were coming to fill +them--to polish those rose bowls of Pettinger's without knowing where +the roses were coming from. And I could hardly blame her if sometimes +she seemed to be a little in doubt whether, after all, the things I +prophesied so confidently were not merely fancy pictures of what I +should like the future to be. + +So, more to occupy her than anything else, I bought her out of my small +earnings a hand sewing-machine, and paid for a lesson for her once a +week at a skirt-maker's. And that made things rather easier. She could +now pick not only her blouses to pieces, but her skirts also; and from a +fear lest my interest in these occupations of hers might appear +simulated when she showed me the results on my return at night, I +actually did cast an eye on a costumier's or modiste's window now and +then, relating to her, though goodness only knows in what masculine +terms of my own, what I had seen. And during the day I could gaze past +the Duke of York's Column with its wheeling pigeons and think of her, +unpicking, pinning tissue-paper patterns, basting, threading the eye of +her sewing-machine needle, or, with some garment or other tucked under +her crumpled chin, trying to see the whole of herself at once in the +narrow strip of mirror she had fetched from the bedroom. + +Between Evie's happiness and my important affairs with Pepper, I do not +know which was my major and which my minor preoccupation. If my Love and +my Ambition were really one, that only meant that often I had to do half +a thing at a time. Since Judy and I did not discuss our private affairs +at the offices in Waterloo Place, it followed that we had to do so after +the day's work was over; and, having been away from home all day, this +sometimes caused me to absent myself for the greater part of the +evening also. At first, unwilling to do this, I had brought Pepper home +with me; but as he always seemed altogether too bright a jewel for our +little cottage, and as Evie, moreover, besides getting flurried about +what she was to give him to eat, always drew in her horns in his +presence, reproaching herself afterwards that she had seemed stupid to +my friend, that had not so far proved a great success. The only +alternative was, that I should dine with him, getting away afterwards as +soon as I could. I did not like this, but it was unavoidable. + +From my observation of some at least of the hotels Pepper took me to, I +judged that he had some sort of a running account, balanced afterwards, +whether in cash or consideration, I knew not how; for often enough, +barring the tip to the waiter, no money seemed to change hands. At other +times and other places he paid what seemed to me extravagant sums. +Sometimes he was in evening dress, sometimes not; I, of course, never +was; and so, places where the plastron was _de rigueur_ being closed to +us, I did not at first see Judy in the full blaze of his splendour. On +the whole, we dined most frequently at Simpson's, where morning dress is +not conspicuous; and it was one night at Simpson's that Judy mentioned +this very matter to me. + +"By the way," he said suddenly, over his coffee, as if he had been on +the point of forgetting something, "better keep a week next Wednesday +free. I want you to meet Robson." + +I was conscious of a sudden slight constriction somewhere inside me. +Robson was not royalty, but as far as I was concerned he might almost as +well have been. + +"The Berkeley, at eight," Judy continued. "You'll dress, of course!" + +I wondered what in. His champagne-cooler and candlesticks, perhaps.... + +"You needn't be afraid of Robson," Pepper continued, perhaps noticing my +dismay. "As a matter of fact, he's rather afraid of me, so _you_ ought +to be able to pulverize him." + +I saw that I must take my stand at once. + +"You can bring Robson to Verandah Cottage if you like," I said shortly, +"but I'm not going to the Berkeley." + +"Rubbish," Pepper remarked lightly. "The table's booked. Robson's coming +down from Scotland specially, and Campbell will be there too, and George +Hastie. Hastie's put off a visit to Norway on purpose. You've got to +tell 'em what you told me that Sunday at the Bull and Bush." + +"Then if they want to hear that, they'll have to have it from you." + +Pepper showed not a trace of impatience. "My dear chap, don't I just +wish I _could_ put it as you did!" he flattered me.... "No, no; I've +told them all about you, and it's you, not me, they're coming to see.... +What's the difficulty?" he asked, with a little scintillation of +amusement. + +"The difficulty is that if you'd told me this a week ago, I should have +stopped it." + +"So I thought," he replied dryly.... "Do you know West's, in Bond +Street?" + +"No." + +"Well, you'd better go there to-morrow." Then he patted my arm. "Can't +be helped, Jeff. The plunge has to be taken. You won't find 'em snobs. +It's the waiters you dress for--I expect that's why you dress like 'em. +Good Lord, these chaps have got far too much on their minds to bother +about _that_!... Go to West's and take my card; I'll 'phone 'em. I gave +way to you before; if you don't give way to me now, you'll wreck us. I'd +have had it at Alfred Place if I could, but I don't want Hastie and +Robson there. So you go to West's to-morrow, and remember, a week on +Wednesday, at eight." + +I did go to West's on the morrow, and my brow grows moist yet when I +think of it. It appeared that before West's could dress me they had to +undress me, and my wild and half-formed thoughts that I might pass as a +bushranger or miner or wealthy and eccentric antipodean vanished. +Miners' flannel shirts are not patched as neatly as Evie had patched +mine; bushrangers do not wear loose cuffs with gold-washed links at +eighteenpence a pair; and the respectful "Sirs" to which my two acolytes +treated me made my hands itch dangerously to knock their heads +together.... So they ran their fingers over my burning body; and because +Pepper had let me in for this, I partly, but only partly, got back at +him by ordering an admirable lounge suit also, which, for all I know, he +owes for to this day. Then I left that place of torture, almost prepared +to think twice of my Ambition if it was going to involve very much of +this kind of thing. + +Evie had received the news of my approaching introduction to exalted +personages with a certain wistfulness, which she had tried to cover with +an extreme brightness of manner. Of course my position was altogether +anomalous; that "scale of living" of Pepper's, coming far too early for +my circumstances, was a white elephant; but I don't think it was that +that made Evie at the same time brightly fussy and secretly shrinking. +Rather, I imagine, it was that for the first time she began to fear my +Ambition a little. I don't mean that hitherto she had been hoping that +my great plans were baseless imaginings, but I do mean that she was +settled and happy as she was, and that a Verandah Cottage twice as big +would have contented her to the end of her days. When I brought that +really splendid dress suit home (for I had had it sent to the F.B.C., +not wishing those ducal tailors to know the poverty of my address), I +think her mind suddenly enlarged to strange disturbing vistas, and she +examined the stitching of the garments thoughtfully. + +"They're beautifully made," she said softly. "I never saw anything +finished like that. But I wish Mr Pepper had not had to pay for them." + +"Pepper pay?" I laughed. "Pepper'll pay when the cows come home. It +isn't that that's troubling me." + +"What then?" she asked. + +"I want to see you dressed like that too.... But don't you want to see +me with them on?" + +"Yes," she said, but as it were obediently, because I had suggested it. + +I went upstairs and got into those costly garments. I had ordered +shirts, and ties too, and, not being in the habit of wearing +undergarments, I had to consider what to do with the small tab beneath +the plastron that should have anchored me forrard. With my penknife I +finally performed the operation for appendicitis upon it. Then, looking +bigger even than usual, I descended, black, white and majestical. + +"Your tie won't do," said Evie. "Come here." + +But suddenly, as she was refashioning my bow, she flung her arms about +my neck and burst into tears on my breast. Then, when I asked her gently +what was the matter, she only withdrew herself, wiped her eyes, and +said that she was silly. Queer creatures. It was only the newness and +unfamiliarity of the prospect. It was as if she was quite happy in her +poverty, merely thinking of riches.... + +I myself had the trifling care on my mind of who was going to sit with +Evie while I lorded it at the Berkeley. Ordinarily I should have counted +on her aunt, but Miss Angela had announced that she must go to Guildford +that day on some business or other connected with the late Mrs +Merridew's will. There was, of course, Miss Levey, but I still +considered Verandah Cottage too humble for the friend of Lord Ernest and +the confidante of the President of the Board of Trade. Evie protested +that she would be quite all right alone, but that I would not hear of. + +"I'll tell you what," I said. "Give Billy Izzard dinner that evening. +I'll go round and ask him to sit with you. That'll be the best thing." + +"I should be quite, quite all right, dear," she said again. + +"No," I replied, "I'll get Billy. I'll write a note to him now. Then +I'll show you the other suit." + +The other suit did not flutter her quite so much. It was just as +exquisite in its way, an iron-grey hopsack, with trousers for which I +had had to peel three times, but it did not speak quite so plainly of +functions and high assemblages. I really did not know where I was going +to keep these two suits, as I had no trousers press, and our wardrobe +accommodation was exceedingly limited; and I discovered, on arriving +home early on the evening of the Berkeley dinner, that I had no summer +overcoat fit for my _grande tenue_. As the choice lay between taking a +cab the whole of the way and wearing my heavy winter ulster, I chose the +latter alternative; and Evie tied my bow and turned up the bottoms of +those trousers that pre-supposed broughams and wicker wheel-guards and +alightings on red druggets under awnings built out over pavements. + +"Billy'll be here in an hour," I said. "I'll look in on him as I pass. +You'll be quite all right till then, and I'll be back as soon as I can. +Good-bye, darling." + +She stood in skirt and delaine blouse at the ivy-green, glass-panelled +door, and waved her hand as I turned the corner. I sought the bus +terminus in the High Street, treading carefully, for it had been +raining, and there were puddles to avoid. The bus started. Twenty +minutes later I got down opposite my old place with the gargoyles and +terra-cotta ornaments. I mounted the stairs and tapped at Billy's door, +entering as I tapped. + +"Time you were starting for Verandah Cottage, Billy," I said.... + +The next moment I was staring open-mouthed at what was before me. + + +II + +"All right, Louie--thanks," said Billy Izzard. "Right-o, Jeffries--I +didn't think it was so late----" + +But the model on the throne did not get down. + +I had parted my ulster in coming up the stairs, and my dress beneath +showed. The contrast struck me as brutal. For one moment I was conscious +of it; I don't think that she was, even for one moment. I don't think +she saw anything of me but my eyes. I did not of her. + +Billy had turned his back on his work, but still she did not move. More +even than my own ceremonial dress the bit of crochet woolwork that lay +on the edge of the throne seemed to accentuate the drama that was all +sight, with never a word spoken. As if my eyes had moved from hers, +which they did not, I seemed to see the whole of that room that had been +my own--the imps beyond the sills, Billy's traps, his arrangements of +curtains about the four windows, the bed behind the screen where I +divined her clothing to lie. I say I saw all these things without once +looking at them.... + +The exquisite study was on the easel, and I saw that too--the thing as +it was, east-lighted, admirably cool, the work of an unrepeatable two +hours. Billy, I knew, would look on that canvas on the morrow as an +athlete afterwards measures with astonishment his effortless jump. It +was the eye's flawless understanding.... + +"It isn't a picture," Billy grunted over his shoulder, his fingers +rattling the tubes in his box. "Where the deuce did I put that +palette-knife?--Just a study--I had it in my hand not two minutes +ago----" + +Still she and I stood as motionless as a couple of stones. + +"Dashed if I won't be methodical yet! I never--ah, here it is.... Right, +Louie; I've finished. Chuck my coat over the screen, will you? Sorry, +Jeff--I'd forgotten the time--but I must wash these brushes." + +My eyes parted from Louie Causton's as reluctantly as a piece of soft +iron parts from the end of the magnet. She moved, became alive, stepped +down from the throne; and as she passed without noise to the screen I +saw again, by what legerdemain of visual memory I cannot tell you, the +soft flow of draperies that had always drawn my eyes as she had moved +about the old Business College in Holborn. + +Not until she had disappeared did I myself move from the spot I had +occupied since I had taken my first two strides into the room. + +"Just turn that thing with its face to the wall; I don't want to see it +till morning," said Billy, bustling about. "Sha'n't be a minute----" + +He dashed out with a cake of soap and a handful of brushes. The tap was +on the landing below. From behind the screen came soft sounds as Miss +Causton dressed.... + +I have wasted paper in trying to set down what my thoughts and +sensations were. Not to waste any more, I will tell you instead what I +did. It was some minutes later, and already the running of the tap at +which Billy was washing his brushes below had ceased. Time pressed. +Without quite knowing how I got there, I was standing by the screen. I +spoke in a low and very hurried voice. + +"Miss Causton----" + +The moving of clothes stopped. + +"I can't see you now--I'm late already," I said. + +Miss Causton's voice had formerly been drawlingly slow, but it came back +quickly enough now, and altogether without surprise. + +"Yes, yes--I want to see you too--quick--how late shall you be?" + +"I don't know--eleven--I can't ask you to wait----" + +"I'll wait--I'll have my dinner here----" + +"Where, then?" + +"Where are you going?" + +"Piccadilly way----" + +Then, breathlessly, "Swan & Edgar's, at eleven----" + +"No, no----" + +"Sssh--there's no time to talk--there, at eleven----" + +"Half-past ten----" + +"Yes----" + +Billy came in again, but I was away from the screen by then. "Better +hurry, unless you want a cold dinner," I said, moving towards the door; +and "Better hurry yourself," I heard him say as I left.... + +I dashed across the road for a bus that was just starting; but it was +not for some minutes after I had settled myself inside it that I began +to realise what I had just done. + +Then as bit by bit I grew calmer, it struck me as in the last degree +remarkable. What had so suddenly impelled me to say, "I can't see you +now?" And why had she replied that she too wished to see me? Why should +I have wished to see her at all? Or she me? And why that long, long +stare of eyes into eyes? + +Robson, the Berkeley, my painfully marshalled statement, Pepper and +Hastie and Campbell and all--these things had gone as completely out of +my mind as if they had had no bearing at all on my life and fortunes. + +I had squeezed into a corner of the bus farthest from the door, and the +vehicle had glass panels forward. These were blurred with a fresh +shower, orange squares, with now the halo of a lamp moving slowly past, +now a muffled or umbrella-ed figure. We pulled up for a moment before +the pear-shaped globes of a chemist's window, ruby and emerald, and then +went forward again, and I seemed once more to hear that breathless "Swan +& Edgar's--eleven," and my own "No, no!"... + +I had not wanted that. I had not wanted to keep her at _that_ corner, +draggle-skirted, searching faces for the face she wanted, looked at in +her turn, perhaps moved along by the police. For whatever I had thought +before, if I had thought anything, that long union of our eyes had held +no meanings of commonness.... + +But why the appointment at all? + +"Well," I thought within myself as the bus drew up for a moment at the +Adam and Eve, and then started forward again down Tottenham Court Road, +"at least this explains the 'L' on the teacloth."... + +After a lapse of time of which I was hardly conscious, I became aware of +the glow of the Palace and the lights of Shaftesbury Avenue. By sheer +force of will I dragged myself back to the present. Inexplicable as it +all was, it must wait. My other business could not wait. Now for the +Berkeley.... + +Perhaps the strange incident helped me rather than otherwise in a thing +I had had quite heavily on my mind. This was the stepping out of the +hansom I had picked up in the Circus and my entry into the hotel. +Concerned with so much else, I had now no unconcern to rehearse. I threw +my hat and coat into a pair of hands that for all I knew might not have +been attached to any human body, and grunted out Pepper's name as if I +had been a preoccupied monarch. I was one of twenty others who lounged +or waited in the softly lighted hall, but I think the only conspicuous +thing about me was my size.... Then I was aware of Pepper himself, +beckoning to me across intervening heads and shoulders. + +"Here he is--late as usual," he said, as if a nightly unpunctuality at +such places as the Berkeley was a weakness without which I should have +been an excellent fellow. + +To my abstracted apology I added that not only was I late, but must +leave fairly early also. + +"Not unless it's for a woman," Pepper laughed. "We'll let him go then, +eh, Robson? This is Jeffries--Sir Peregrine Campbell--Mr Robson. Well, +let's go up. _Seniores priores_, Campbell." + +We sought the private room Pepper had engaged. + +Even had the deep disturbance of my meeting Louie Causton face to face +(if I may call it that) not banished things of less consequence, I still +do not think that, socially speaking, I should have let Pepper down too +badly. It was less formidable than I had feared. Robson, whom I need not +describe, since you know his face from his countless photographs, had +evidently, from the look of his shoulders, brushed his hair after +putting his coat on; and Sir Peregrine Campbell made his vast silver +beard a reason for not wearing a tie beneath it. A watch-chain or a ring +apart, Hastie's and Pepper's clothes were no better than those I wore. +The table was round. I was put between Pepper and Robson, and Pepper's +command to a waiter, "Just take that thing away, will you?"--the thing +being a centrepiece of flowers--enabled me to see Hastie and Campbell on +the other side. + +Pepper's tact on my behalf that night was matchless. Especially during +the early part of the meal, when Robson was talking about Scotch moors, +Hastie of tarpon-fishing in Florida, and Sir Peregrine (in a Scotch +accent harsh as a macadam plough) of places half over the globe, he +protected me (who had seen the sea only at Brighton and Southend) with +such unscrupulousness and mendacity and charm that I really believe I +passed as one who could have given them tale for tale had I chosen; and +I gathered that he had carefully concealed my connection with the +F.B.C.... "Has Jeffries shot bear?" he interrupted Hastie once, +intercepting a direct question. "Look at him--he doesn't shoot 'em--he +_wrestles_ 'em--Siberian fashion, with a knife and a dog!... I beg +pardon, Robson, I interrupted you----" And so on. He told me afterwards +that my hugeness and my taciturnity had created exactly the impression +he had wished. You would have rubbed your eyes had you been told, seeing +me in those evening clothes, that less than four years before I had worn +a commissionaire's uniform in Fleet Street and touched my cap to the +proprietors of Pettinger's paper. + +But until our real business should begin I took leave to drop out of the +conversation more and more. That low, urgent whispering over Billy +Izzard's screen ran in my head again, with the thought that I had made +an inconvenient and apparently purposeless appointment for half-past +ten. _Why_ had that quick exchange of whispers been as it were torn out +of us, and _what_ had she to say to me, I to her? + +Again I remembered her and her story. I remembered her cynical +concealment of depth under the ruffled shallows of lazy speech, the dust +it had pleased her to throw into eyes by her affectations of +perverseness or indifference, her munching of sweets, her exquisite +hands, her violin-like foot, her soaps and pettings of a person that +even then I had divined to be ill-matched with her not strikingly pretty +face. I remembered the vivid contrast between her and Kitty +Windus--Kitty's ridiculous fears of non-existent dangers from men in +omnibuses or under gas-lamps, and Louie Causton's nonchalant, "Men, my +dear? So long since I've spoken to one I really forget what they're +like!" And I remembered the event that had unstrung poor Kitty and +shocked Evie once for all out of her unthinking girlhood--the news that, +however it had come about, Miss Causton had one day given birth to a +son. That son must be between four and five years old now.... + +Yet it was hardly likely she had wished to speak to me about her little +boy.... + +And why had she sent Evie that piece of crochet as a wedding present? +That too became the odder the more I thought of it. Had the teacloth +been, not primarily a present to Evie, but a message to myself? The +teacloth--that long, long stare--that breathless conversation over the +screen--were these, all of them, calls of some sort to me? + +Yet to appoint Swan & Edgar's, at half-past ten! I disliked that +intensely. Not every lonely woman who has taken to herself a lover would +willingly court what, were I but five minutes late, she would have to +endure at that rendezvous. And the more I thought of it the more +convinced I was that, not anything base, but austerity, command and a +glassy clearness had lain in that long regard I had met on pushing at +Billy's studio door and seeing her standing there.... + +Then it crossed my mind that Evie was probably thinking of me that +moment and wondering how I was getting along in my high company.... + +I could not have told you that night what the Berkeley dinners were +like. I ate and spoke mechanically, and plates were taken away from me +of which I had barely tasted, yet of which I had had enough. Then there +came an interval without plate, or rather with a plate, doyley and +finger-bowl all stacked together, and I heard Pepper say: "Let's have +coffee now and then see we aren't disturbed.... Well, what about +business?" + +Five minutes later we were deep in the matters that were the reason of +my being there. + +These again Judy handled exquisitely, making of my own statement +especially the most skilful of examinations-in-chief. Ostensibly laying +down lines of policy himself, he contrived that these should be a +drawing of me out; and it was only afterwards that I recognised how +frequently he set up a falsity for me, coming heavily in, to demolish. +Though ordinarily I can concentrate my thoughts when necessary for a day +and a night together, I have no power of sustained speech; and so Pepper +"fed" me with opportunities for destruction or approbation or comment. +No large occurrence in any part of the world is immaterial to our +business; as we have to look forward, reasonably probable occurrences +and developments are more important still; and so our talk ranged from +current events, such as Hunter's recent loss, Rundle's operations, or +Loubet's plans for a _rapprochement_ of the municipalities, to the +coming American elections, the state of the labour world, and the +health of the Queen. To the test of these general conditions, particular +proposals were submitted; and though I had long known Pepper's private +"hand," the skill with which he now played it was a revelation to me. At +one and the same time he was laying the foundations of a dividend-paying +business and of an administrative programme of which he and I were to be +an indispensable part; and so, knowing more of some things than Robson, +and more of others than Campbell, he set them one at another, coming in +himself from time to time with an idea born of themselves five minutes +before, but given back so cut and polished that it had the appearance of +a new thing. I prudently said little save on an overwhelming certitude, +but I think I encompassed it all and made my presence felt, now +sweepingly, now as a mere deflection. I was now oblivious of all, save +our conference. I seem to remember that at one juncture I must have +spoken for getting on for five minutes, a feat unparalleled for me; but +I knew my ground. It was of the academic Socialism and the newer kind, +then just showing over the horizon, and perhaps better understood by +those who like myself had gone through the fire than by any official. I +was only interrupted once, by Pepper, when I mentioned Schmerveloff's +name, the Russian social doctrinaire. "Ah yes, your neighbour," he +murmured, and I went on.... + +Then suddenly I looked at my watch. It was ten minutes past ten. I still +had some minutes, and I used them for a sort of cadenza to whatever my +performance might have been. Then, rising abruptly, I said I must be +off. + +"I must be getting along myself presently," said Pepper. + +He came downstairs with me and saw me into my hat and coat. I saw his +glance at my new topper, but he said nothing either about my appearance +or my recent demeanour. Instead it was I who said suddenly, as we walked +to the door, "By the way--you didn't tell me that that neighbour of mine +was Schmerveloff." + +He laughed. "Didn't I? Well, you ought to know who your neighbour is +better than I do!" It was only then that he added, "Well, I think we've +done the trick, Jeffries!" + +I left him, and turned towards Swan & Edgar's. I had another trick to do +now, though of what its nature might prove to be I had not the faintest +conception. + + +III + +As they had done three hours before, again our eyes met simultaneously. +She had been sheltering in a doorway, but she advanced immediately, and +without hesitation took my arm. I suppose she must have chosen our +direction, for we had crossed to the corner of Lower Regent Street +before I had as much as wondered where, at that hour of the night, we +were to go. It was still raining; the flimsy umbrella she carried +protected her soft grey hat, but not her skirts; and I did not wish to +take her to any of the brightly lighted establishments of the Circus for +two reasons--first, because I had only four shillings in my pocket, and +secondly, because I wanted--well, say to distinguish. The west-bound +buses start from the corner to which we had crossed, and it looked as if +we should have to talk in whichever of them took her homewards. + +"This one?" I said laconically, as a West Kensington bus drew up. + +But she drew me away. "Let's go this way," she said. + +I took her umbrella, and with her hand still on my arm she led me down +Lower Regent Street. + +If we had anything important to say to one another, it was +extraordinary how we delayed to say it. We reached the offices of the +F.B.C. without having spoken, and turned along Pall Mall East and into +Trafalgar Square still without a word. And when presently she did speak, +at the top of Parliament Street, it was merely to tell me that my hat +would be spoiled if I didn't take my share of the umbrella. + +"Then you might at least turn your trousers up," she added, as I made no +reply; and I stooped and did so. We resumed our walk, stopped at the +Horse Guards, and made our way slowly towards the Mall. + +"Are you warm?" I asked some minutes later. + +"Quite," she replied; and the silence fell on us again. + +At last, somewhere near the spot where the Artillery Memorial now is, +she did speak. It was a curious question she put, her fingers working +slightly on my sleeve as she did so. During the past minutes a sense--I +hardly know how to describe it except as a sense of protection--had +begun to grow on me, the odd thing being that it was not I who protected +her, but she me. Perhaps the perfect calm with which she had claimed my +arm had begun it; it certainly now informed the very curious question +she suddenly put. + +"Are you happy?" she asked. + +You may imagine I was a little surprised. Quite apart from the nameless +reassurance that thrilled in her tone, some queer gage of fidelity, +though fidelity to what I could not make out, the question itself was a +long way out of the ordinary. Was I happy! Ought I not, from any point +of view she could possibly have, to be happy? Newly married--sure of +myself--wearing clothes the luxury of which was only an +anticipation--fresh from a conference with the great ones of the land +(though to be sure she could hardly know all this)--what else should I +be but happy? It looked as if for some reason or other she had supposed +I would _not_ be happy.... I spoke slowly. + +"I wish you would tell me," I said, "what makes you ask that?" + +She looked straight before her through the rain. "Why I ask that? It's +just that that I wanted to ask you," she replied. + +"It's just that that you----" I repeated after her, stopping, however, +half-way. + +Yet I felt somehow that that she had just uttered was no banal +compliment. She was not thinking of the kind of felicitation that had +been implied when she had sent Evie the teacloth. She had not asked +after Evie, and was not, I knew already, thinking of Evie. And again I +had that odd sense that she was protecting me, and would continue to +protect me. + +"Well, it's an odd question--the whole thing's odd, of course--but +since you ask, I don't mind telling you. I am happy." + +She turned under the umbrella eagerly, almost (I thought) joyously. + +"You _are_?" + +"_I_ am," I emphasised slightly. + +But still she did not mention Evie. Again we walked. Then: + +"You are? After all--that?" + +Softly from the background of my memory there came forward what I +conceived to be her meaning. It was a humiliating one, and I hung my +head humbly. + +"You mean after--poor Kitty?" + +But it seemed I was quite wrong. "No, I don't mean that," she said. "Or +at any rate only partly that." + +"Then," I asked quickly, "will you tell me what you _do_ mean?" + +In Billy's studio we had been positively straining at one another to +speak; since then, free any time this last half-hour to say what we +would, we had hung just as desperately back; but now came a sudden +enough end both to straining and to reluctance. She turned to me; my +eyes would have fallen before the gaze she gave me, but were compelled +to endure it; and the lightning is not more instantaneous and direct +than were the words that now burst from her. + +"Tell me--you killed that boy, didn't you?" + + +I said you should have it soon. It has been a little longer than I +thought. At any rate you have it now. + + +The remaining events of that evening are easier to set down than to +account for. My difficulty perhaps is that I am trying to tell an +extraordinary thing in terms that are inappropriately plain. Nothing, +for example, would be simpler than to say how we stopped in our walk, +presently resumed it, slowly passed the Palace and the Royal Mews, and +in course of time found ourselves walking up Grosvenor Place. It is true +that we did these things, but it is also true that they are all more or +less beside the mark. I need not urge my point, how beside the mark they +are, by comparison with the remarkable results of being asked by a woman +whom you have known only slightly and whom you have almost forgotten all +about whether you have killed a certain young man. Therefore if, as may +very well be the case, you yourself have no experience on such a point, +that is all the more reason why you should trust me to give, in my own +way, the essence of an hour without parallel in my experience, and, I +imagine, to be matched in that of few others. + +As she had spoken I had stepped back, without haste, a pace from her, +taking her umbrella with me. I was stepping back another pace, when my +back encountered the iron railings, stopping me. Until then her hand had +not left my sleeve. Now perhaps three yards separated us, she standing +in the rain, I with her gimcrack of an umbrella. There was a lamp not +far away; the veil of falling rain held and diffused the light of it, so +that I actually saw her with more evenness of detail than I should have +done had she stood directly in the light, one side of her face +illumined, and the other dark; and probably my own face was not entirely +lost in the shadow of the umbrella. Our eyes had met again, exactly as +they had met in the studio.... + +On her soft floppy hat and over the shoulders of her three-quarters grey +coat I saw the rime of fine rain gather. It became a sort of soft moss +of rain, that gave her figure a faintly discerned outline of light. +Though her wrists were damp and dark, and her skirts straight and heavy, +I still did not think of passing her the umbrella; it is wonderful how +many small things escape you when you have just been asked whether you +have put an end to a young man's life. The rain came on still more +sharply. I saw it gleam on the backs of her kid gloves.... + +It never occurred to me to wonder how she knew. I suppose I ought to +have wondered this, but I gave it no thought. Instead, I was wondering +why I had never noticed before what her eyes were like--why, indeed, I +had thought them to be quite different. Had you asked me that morning +what Louie Causton's eyes were like I should first have rummaged in my +memory for who Louie Causton was, then have dismissed them as ordinary +and a sort of grey, and so have missed a wonder. Grey? Yes, they were +grey, but that is not saying anything. And perhaps after all it was not +the eyes that held me. Perhaps the eyes were no more than rounds of +crystal between us, pure crystal, hiding nothing. Better still, perhaps +they were of that substance which, placed across itself, allows no light +to pass, but, turned parallel, ceases to intercept. Formerly I had seen +those tourmaline rounds of Louie Causton's grey eyes as it were +transversely placed, opaque, riddling, mocking, impenetrable; now, +quicker than the flicker of a camera-shutter, they had changed, and, for +me, would never again change back. I had seen down into her soul. Her +physical form, three hours before, had not been more openly offered to +my gazing than was that measureless deep interior she showed me now.... + +And that she too had plunged to the bottom of my own soul, her question +was sufficient evidence. + +And now, as that vision of her spirit, stark and piercing as Billy +Izzard's of her body had been, must abide with me for ever, there was no +special need for hurrying matters. Though I had known it not, it was for +that last stripping look that I had whispered so breathlessly to her +over the screen; and she, unlike me, had known why she had whispered +back. So, the thing being now done, our time was our own. As slowly as I +had retreated to the railings, I advanced from them again. Once more I +held the umbrella over her. + +"Come," I said. "You're getting wet." + +Again, without a moment's hesitation, she passed her hand under my arm, +and we moved towards the Palace. + +There are some supreme moments--they say the moment of violent death is +one of them--in which all Life's obscurations are made instantaneously +clear; but if my own supreme moment ought to have taken that form, I can +only say that it did not. No sudden explanations of the hitherto +inexplicable flashed through my mind. Afterwards, when a certain amount +of imperfection had supervened between me and that perfect look, these +explanations did present themselves, yes, in crowds, but not then. I did +not ask why, knowing me for a murderer, she should still take my arm. I +did not wonder how she regarded the matter from Merridew's point of +view. I did not trouble myself about how she knew, nor, for the matter +of that, whether she did know--for she had made no charge, had only put +a question. I cared for nothing but that sweet yet terrible depth and +stillness I had seen beyond the tourmalines of her eyes. Indeed, +somewhere near the Palace, I suddenly found myself irresistibly longing +to look into those eyes again. We were approaching another lamp. I +stopped. Again I did not notice that I did so under a dripping +plane-tree. I looked. They were still the same--flawless transmitters, +accesses to the ether of her soul.... + +Again she put her question. + +"You did kill that boy, didn't you?" + +"Yes." (I could not have dared to lie to her.) + +"Ah!"... + +We walked on again. + +And I know not what rest, akin to the longing of a weary spirit for +death, I found in it all. Nor do I know whence came the special and +unimaginable peace that filled me. For that peace was special. My +marriage had been a different rapture; the dreams of the first days of +my love had not been the same; and it was perhaps this that I had +implored in vain that night when, stretching out among my swags and +gargoyles, I had cried to Whatever lay beyond the marbled sky that, +might I but be delivered from this body of an ancient death, my life +should be a dedicated thing. And now, when I least expected it, I had +it. Between me, a man who had committed murder, and her, the mother of a +nameless child, something I knew not--something still and splendid and +awful--had come into being. Do you wonder that, in the stillness and +splendour and awe of it, my brain slumbered within me, so that though +those grey abysses full of answers waited for me, not a question did I +put?... + +"Yes," I said. "You know I killed him." + +And "Ah!" she said again. + +You will not find it difficult to believe that when you have been asked +the question I had been asked, you and your questioner are not on +ordinary terms. Indeed--believe me--you are hardly flesh and blood at +all. You become eyes and voices, and yet not exactly that either--you +are parts of an immanent vision and speech. You will also see that to +dare such a question is to dare to be questioned in your turn. +Therefore, less as wanting the information than as doing her the +reciprocal honour of putting her on the same stark footing as myself, I +again sought those marvellous eyes. + +"You asked me," I said, "whether I was happy. I told you.... Are you?" + +You have learned what she was; to what you already know I will add one +or two things I picked up later. I wish to show you what elements she +had to make happiness out of. She did fairly well out of her sittings. +Ordinarily she made as much as two pounds a week, and she made more +still when she was engaged for an evening class. To this were to be +added the small sums she made by her crochet-work during her short +rests. (Evie's teacloth had been made during the rests.) When she did +not crochet, she made garments for her boy. She rose daily at seven, +dressed her boy, breakfasted with him, and at nine o'clock brought him +out with her. They walked a quarter of a mile together to her bus, where +the child was met each day by a guardian, an old governess she trusted. +She kissed him, and blew him another kiss as the bus turned the corner. +He always waited with the old governess for this, but sometimes other +buses intervened, so that she went without her last glimpse of him. Then +she sought the studio where she happened to be engaged. There she posed, +crocheted, posed again, lunched, and once more posed. She usually +reached home again at eight o'clock, but when she secured evening +sittings it was eleven before she got back. By that time her boy was in +bed. She dressed him well, fed him well, told him tales, and bought him +tops and toy soldiers. She paid the governess ten shillings a week. +Sundays were her heavenly days. If they were cold or wet, she spent them +in playing with the tops and soldiers on the floor; if they were fine +she took him out on to the commons of Clapham or Wandsworth, or to the +Zoo, for which her employers gave her Sunday tickets. She had saved a +few pounds, and was adding to this sum by shillings and half-crowns, +against the day when she would have to send him to school and start him +in the world. This was her life. + +And when I asked her if she was happy, she said, in a voice little +above a whisper, "Yes--now." + +Then, with another deep, clear look, she added, "I think I have all the +best of Life." + +It did not occur to me just then to wonder what she meant by that "now." +I was pondering her last words. All at once, on a sudden impulse (though +I was pretty sure beforehand what her answer would be), I said: + +"He left you?" + +Her answer was supremely tranquil and unaffected. + +"Yes--as far as he was ever there to leave. It meant nothing--a +folly--merely stupid--it had no significance whatever. I've no grudge +against him. He didn't really wrong me. It hardly mattered, ever--it +doesn't matter--now----" + +A question must have shown in my eyes even as I decided not to put it, +for all at once she laughed a little. + +"Oh, I'd tell you if you wished to know, but you'd be no wiser. It's a +name you've never heard. But one thing I should like----" For one moment +she hesitated. + +"I ask you nothing." + +"No; but I should like you to know one thing--oh, quite for my own sake! +If ever you _should_ hear a name--three names--four--you needn't believe +them. I lied perfectly recklessly. It seemed to me--stupidly +perhaps--that I owed him that. So I blackened myself. You see, they +tried to find out--my friends----" + +"You mean----?" + +"Oh, one lover was enough," she answered, with another laugh, rich, low, +and without bitterness. "And it doesn't matter--_now_." + +It was then that I knew what she meant by that reiterated "now." The +thing that beat suddenly in on me explained in a flash that curious +attitude of protection towards myself. That kiss blown from the top of +the morning bus--the shillings she earned by sitting to morose and +impatient artists--those heavenly Sundays--that desertion which also she +ranked as a happiness--her self-slanders rather than betray her +betrayer--all these things together had not, somehow, seemed to me to +make up that "best part of Life" of which she spoke. Beyond even her +beautiful devotion to her boy must lie some other deep sustaining dream. +Without such a dream, her life would not have been what patently it +was--full.... + +But now it was all in the eyes she turned on me.... + +And I knew that the look that told me she loved _me_, had long loved me, +and must now go on loving me to the end, put love between us high out of +our reach for ever. + +"You can't prevent it," she almost triumphed, shining it all out on me. +"It's mine, whether you want me to have it or not. And of course it +makes no difference to you----" + +"None," I murmured mechanically.... + +"Then _haven't_ I all the best of Life?" she exulted, smiling up at me. + +And before that strange tension that for so long had held us had quite +left us, I had muttered, with a little choke, "God bless your little +chap, anyway!" + +It was all I could say. The other thing she had told me could make no +difference to me. + + +Then came the swift change. It came as we reached the top of Grosvenor +Place, turned, and descended again. It came as a torrent of rapid +speech, sometimes both of us speaking at once, both stopping and +waiting, and then both breaking out simultaneously as before. They were +short, half sentences, taken and given back with bewildering quickness. + +"And now you want to know----" she said. + +"Yes----?" + +"--how I knew?" + +"How did you?" + +"I didn't--quite--I knew in myself--not otherwise." + +"In yourself--how?" + +"Oh, how does one know these things? One sees this--hears that----" + +I clutched at her hand. + +"Not so quickly. What 'this'? What 'that'?" + +"Well, for one thing, Kitty Windus----" + +"Does she know?" + +"No----" + +"You hesitate." + +"She doesn't know. She helped me to knowledge. She doesn't know she +did." + +Again I snatched at her hand. + +"That's not the same thing. She may know of--that other--but not know +she's let you know." + +"That's just possible. That's why I----" + +"Oh, anything's possible!" I broke out. "Let's be plain. Does she know +that I killed----?" + +"I don't think so. Indeed I'll say no." + +"But you hesitate again. (Come this way--it's quieter.)" + +As if a fusillade had been suspended there came a thrilling silence. We +were passing St. Peter's Church at the east end of Eaton Square. We were +in the Square before she replied. + +"Very well. Don't interrupt unless I ask you questions. I'll be as plain +as I can. It's extraordinarily difficult...." + +I waited. + +"You see," she began carefully, "Kitty's so--queer. You couldn't expect +that insane arrangement with her to go on indefinitely--I mean that +incredible engagement of yours. She was bound to find out something. +She----" + +"Yes--that's it--what _did_ she find out?" broke once more from me. + +"Sssh!... Of course she found out--about Evie--that it was Evie you were +in love with. Naturally she did. What woman wouldn't? _I_ saw it, with +far less reason than Kitty had. We won't waste time over that. So after +she left you, she expected week by week to hear of the next thing--your +becoming engaged to Evie. Week by week, I say. How many weeks was it?" + +"Four years." + +"Week by week, for four years. All those weeks. If it didn't come one +week it would be the next--you see. She prophesied it. It became an +_idee fixe_. You never saw her during that time?" + +"I never as much as----" + +"Nor heard of her?" + +"No." + +"You didn't hear of her breakdown?" + +"No; but all this doesn't----" + +"Doesn't go beyond you and Evie. I know. Don't interrupt. And Evie +didn't hear of her breakdown either?" + +"No--I think I can say that." + +"What did Evie think of--let us say Archie Merridew's suicide?" + +I hesitated. "What should she think? She thought what everybody +thought--more or less." + +"As something inexplicable?" + +"I assume so--but of course I've never----" + +"What does she think now?" + +"I hope she doesn't think of it at all. As far as I've been able----" + +"Yes, yes, yes.... Plainly, then, have you told her? Told her what you +did?" + +"Told her? No!" + +"Have you _thought_ of telling her?" + +"Have I thought ... do you mean have I thought of killing her too?" + +Louie was suddenly silent. A hansom slipped swiftly through the deserted +Square, its wheels making no sound and the slap of the horse's hoofs +dying gradually away in the distance. The rain had stopped, but the +trees still dripped sadly, and something vague and far away had +approached, resolved itself into a policeman's shining cape, and passed +again before Louie spoke. + +"Well," she said slowly, "after all, that's not the immediate point. +That comes later. The first thing's Kitty's condition. That condition, +as far as I can make it out, is this. You showed yourself clever and +unscrupulous almost beyond belief in one thing, and she found you out in +that; now, I fancy, she thinks there's no end to your cleverness and +unscrupulousness. Positively no end. You're _capable de tout_.... So she +broods. Of course she ought never to have been allowed to live alone.... +And she knows she has these--fancies--about you--and so when she's all +right she's quite persuaded they _are_ fancies. And most of the time she +_is_ all right. Then the fits come, and--she's off." + +A quick shiver took me. "Do you mean----?" I faltered. + +"Violently? Oh no. At the best she's just as she used to be; at the +worst she's merely helpless, a child. Otherwise I should never dare to +have her come and live with me." + +"What, you're----?" + +"Well, somebody's got to look after her." + +"And so you----?" + +"She's coming to me next week." + +"I see," I said slowly.... + +Again such a silence fell on us as, after prolonged sound, has an +importunate quality that even sound has not. As if in a dream, I strove +to realise that Evie and Billy Izzard were away over in the Vale of +Health, dozing probably, awaiting my return from the Berkeley. I tried +to understand the plain fact that I was walking the wet streets in the +company of a woman who, judged by ordinary standards, bore a smirched +reputation, and that I had permitted that woman to make, though without +words, a declaration of her love for me. As this last grew on me a +little, I let my mind take that particular bypath of speculation. I +almost forgot her presence by my side in my odds and ends of memories of +her. Once, at a breaking-up party at the old Business College, she had +said to me: "As you don't come to me, I come to you," and at the same +party she had asked me for a cup of coffee, which I had brought to her +in the crowded room instead of giving it to her in some sequestered +corner where we could "sit out." Then other memories came. Memory adding +itself to memory until I had all the leading facts of her story--that +fatal, insignificant, desperate accident--then, mockingly too late, her +love for myself--her so strangely happy life, its fulness now to be +turned into a superabundance by her voluntary taking up the care of a +weak-minded woman--all, all her happy-unhappy story. And now for us to +be thrown together like this! Extraordinary, extraordinary! I fancy we +were somewhere in the neighbourhood of Sloane Square by this +time--Sloane Square, with Evie and Billy waiting for me in the Vale of +Health, and her boy asleep many hours ago!... I smiled, though grimly +enough, as my eyes encountered my own trousers. Those expensive garments +were soaked to the knees. Louie, broken by her day's arduous sitting, +now hung heavily on my arm. Her sleeves lay flat to her arms, and her +skirt held pounds' weight of water. And we were still walking down Lower +Sloane Street, and approaching the Barracks.... + +It was in Lower Sloane Street--there is a little naturalist's shop +thereabouts--that I stopped, once more facing her. It seemed to me that +there was something which, if she didn't know it, she ought to know. + +"Louie," I said slowly, putting a hand on her shoulder to turn her face +towards mine, "I don't know whether you know what you ought to do?" + +I saw that she did know. For the first time I saw a return of her old +ironical smile. But "What's that?" she asked. + +"What, unless you do to me, I can now equally do to you." + +"And what's that?" she smiled. + +"There are no accessories in this business. You're a principal too." + +She laughed outright. "All right, Jim," she said. "I'll trust you not to +give me away." + +"But listen to me----" + +That was exactly what she would not do. She cut in brusquely. + +"Oh, my good man, be quiet! Anybody'd think you thought I was going to +blackmail you!" Then, leaning heavily on me once more, "I suppose all +you men take that view of it," she went on, with an energy that +triumphed momentarily over her fatigue, "but here's _my_ view if you +must have it--that men deserve rewards who stamp out creatures like +that! Oh, you needn't look at me--_I'm_ experienced if anybody is, and +_I_ know why young men hang themselves just before their weddings! And +that, Jim--come along, it's no good standing here--that's why I asked +you whether you'd told Evie. You know your own business best, but I'll +tell you this--that if women were on juries not a jury in the land would +convict you! _Oh!_----" She shuddered the more strongly that she earned +her daily bread in the way she did. "_I_ can face these things. I've +learned--I've had to. Am I the same woman you once knew? I think not. +And I tell you plainly, that if you'd done what you have done for me I'd +kiss your feet and ask you to bless me! But of course there's Evie. I +don't know why you haven't told her: I don't know her very well, you +see. My own opinion is that you'll find you've got to tell her. I'm sure +that sooner or later you'll find that. And that reminds me of something +else. What do you suppose you ought to do about Kitty?" + +I smothered a groan. "Oh, I'm past supposing," I answered dully. + +"Poor man!... Well, this is how it is. Kitty's unreliable. She has these +outbreaks. I hope she'll be better with me, but I can't answer for that. +So--I'm only preparing you, Jim, but it _may_ come to this, that before +she gets it fixed in her head once for all that young Merridew _didn't_ +hang himself she's got to be made quite certain that he _did_. Even if +she's got to be told so she must be made certain of that. And I shall be +greatly surprised if you haven't to tell Evie exactly the opposite. +_Voila!_" + +I scarcely heard her now. An overwhelming weariness had come over me. +It was a weariness of the mind no less than of the body. My mind too +seemed to be making an endless pilgrimage through wet and benighted +streets, far from its rest; and even that strange hallucination of +Louie's protection had left me now. After leaving Lower Sloane Street I +suppose we must have turned still farther west, for I seem to remember +that we passed the Chelsea Hospital, but in this I may be wrong, unless +they have since pulled down a row of old houses I distinctly remember +seeing across the road. It must have been not very far from there that I +went for a time, physically and mentally, all to pieces. Probably the +net result of all this talk had just begun to sink into me--that, the +intervening years notwithstanding--my well-nigh flawless planning +notwithstanding[1]--my cares and prayers and vigils notwithstanding--all +was not yet over. I have boasted in my time that I have been untroubled +by what I had done, and that is also no lie; but the consequences are +another matter. Suppose even that Louie were right, and that I had done +nothing but a worthy act; there are still worthy acts that overwhelm the +doer of them. So the prophets were hounded to their death--and I was no +prophet, but, for a space of time of which I took no account, a broken +man, who, in a doorway somewhere near Swan Walk (it was an old doorway, +with a porter's grille and an antique bell-rod), gave out utterly, +began to double at the knees, and would have fallen but for the two arms +of a woman as spent as himself--a woman who murmured, with unthinkable +selflessness and a charity and encouragement and comfort past telling: +"Oh, come, come--come, come!"... + +By-and-by--it could not have lasted very long, for a clock somewhere was +striking one, and the public-houses had been closing as we had left +Sloane Square--I was better. I was well enough to walk, still supported +by her, to a bench on the Embankment, where we sat down. Her umbrella +was still in my hands; how I had come to break it I didn't know; but I +had broken it, and I remember thinking dully, as if it had been a great +matter, that I ought to get her another ... or get that one mended.... +It was only right that I should pay for it. Somebody would have to pay +for it, and in common fairness it ought not to be she.... And, I +thought, while I was about it, I might as well get her a cab also. She +must be unspeakably tired, and I had four shillings in my pocket.... + +"Thanks," I said. She had taken off my ruined silk hat and unfastened my +white bow and collar, and was bending over me solicitously, fanning my +face ineffectually, now with my own hat, now with her hand. "Thanks. +That was absurd of me. I'm not--not in the habit of giving out like +this--but we'll finish--another time, if you don't mind. Where do you +live?" + +She lived near Clapham Junction. "But what about you?" she said, as we +rose. + +"Oh, I'll take a cab too. I'll walk a little way though. Up here--this +seems a likely place for cabs----" + +We took one of the minor streets that led to the King's Road. There I +hailed a hansom that was returning eastwards. I had put her into it when +a thought struck me. + +"By the way," I said, "what is your name--your business name, I mean?" + +She smiled, as if at a wasted care. "Oh, the same," she said. + +"Does Billy Izzard know you know me?" + +"No. That is, he didn't." + +"Well, he does by this time probably. If Evie and he have been +talking----" + +("'Urry up, gov'nor!" growled the cabman.) + +"He'll think it odd I didn't speak to you. Never mind. Where can I hear +from you?" + +"Your office----?" + +"Yes--no, I mean, not there." I had suddenly remembered Miss Levey. +"Give me your address." + +She gave it to me, and I gave it to the cabman. "You really will take a +cab?" she said, looking anxiously at me as the vehicle pivoted round. + +"Yes, yes." + +And she was off. + +I was in the King's Road, without a penny. It was a quarter to two when +I passed the Post Office near Sloane Square, and it was twenty past by +the time I reached Park Lane. After Park Lane I lost count of the time. +I came out of the doze in which I walked to find myself at various times +in Upper Baker Street, near Lords, and, I don't know how long after +that, on the point of missing the turning into Fitzjohns Avenue. The day +began to break greyly. I still walked, sleeping as I went. It was only +as I ascended Heath Street, hardly a quarter of a mile from home, that I +came sufficiently out of my torpor to begin to wonder what account I +should give of my absence to Evie. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[1] See "In Accordance with the Evidence." + + +IV + +Three weeks or a month after that night on which I had reopened, so to +speak, a bottle containing a grim and familiar genie, an incident +happened that riled me exceedingly. This was nothing less than an +unexpected meeting, on one of our Sunday visits to Hampton Court, with +Miss Levey. + +Under other circumstances this meeting would have been too ludicrous for +annoyance. It happened in the Maze, of all places, where, in some moment +of physiological high spirits, I had taken Evie, threatening to lose her +and leave her there. As a matter of fact, I had lost both her and +myself. Perhaps you know the Maze. Its baffling windings of eight-foot +hedges have their single legitimate way out, which you may find if you +can; but, for the release of burrowers at turning-out time, there is +also a locked iron gate, as impossible to miss as the true exit is to +find. Half-a-dozen times, believing ourselves to be at last in the +proper alley of green, we had been brought up by this gate; and it was +at the gate that we met Miss Levey. + +At certain points, where the high mattress-like hedges are a little +thin, you can almost see through them; and several times we had caught +sight of a scarlet shadow, accompanied by a young man in checks. Now, +at the gate, we came full tilt upon this scarlet. Her wide hat and +buttons only were black, and from her bosom projected an enormous frill, +very white against the red cloth, that gave her the appearance of a +pouter pigeon. She had lost Lord Ernest or the President of the Board of +Trade or whoever her companion was, and of course there was no avoiding +her. + +"_You_ here!" she cried, seizing both Evie's hands and setting her head +so far back and on one side that it was half lost behind the frill. +"Vell!" (I write it so, though her accent was in reality less marked.) +"This _is_ delightful!--You see, Mr Jeffries----!" + +I was mortified, but couldn't very well show it. I laughed. "Oh! What do +I see?" + +"Dear Evie and I do meet after all!" she half jested. + +"Oh!" I laughed again. "Well, if that's all, you could have met long +ago. I assumed that you didn't come up to see us because you didn't want +to." + +It was, of course, lame in the extreme, but Miss Levey saw fit to affect +to believe it. Again she put her head back like an inquisitive bird, +dandling Evie's hands up and down. + +"Oh, _I_ thought I wasn't wanted! So of course I stayed away.... Vell, +Evie, I _am_ glad!" + +So Evie said she was glad, and I said that I was glad too, with +something about the ridiculousness of such old acquaintances standing on +ceremony, and Miss Levey, I knew, was the only glad one of the three. + +"Isn't it annoying, the way we always find ourselves at this gate!" she +said, when at last she had dropped Evie's hands. "Aschael and I have +been here at least ten times! You ought to know the way out, Mr +Jeffries, a clever man like you!" + +"I'm afraid I don't, but there's the man up the perch there--he'll +always point out the way." + +"Oh, but one doesn't like to be beaten!" she said, with a covert look at +me. "Dear me, I'm quite hot! I think Aschael must have given me the +slip. Perhaps you wouldn't mind finding him for me, Mr Jeffries?" + +My polite "With pleasure" didn't in the least represent my feelings, but +as I thought I should recognise the pawnbroker's assistant who had +brought our Arab horse-tamers, I bade them stay where they were, and +left them. + +After I had found the ringleted Aschael it took us half-an-hour to +escape from the pair of them, and even then it was done only at the cost +of the invitation I had so obstinately withheld. Miss Levey was to come +up with me from the F.B.C. on the following Wednesday evening, and +Aschael was to fetch her away again at ten o'clock. It seemed quite a +nicely balanced point whether she would kiss Evie or not when she left, +but she did not, and for some minutes after we had lost sight of them I +saw the man up the perch pointing out turnings and heard his calling to +them. + +"Deuce take her!" I muttered, twenty minutes later, when Evie and I had +also been shown the way out. We had passed the glowing parterre, and +were just turning into the cool Fountain Court. + +"It couldn't be helped, dear," said Evie. "It was all there was to do. +We needn't get into the habit of asking her if you don't want her." + +"Oh, it doesn't matter," I answered absently. I was once more wondering +whether Pepper intended to take Miss Levey over presently from the +F.B.C. Already I was pretty well resolved that he should not. + +And I was quite resolved on this point when Evie next spoke. We had +stopped by one of the arches, and were looking over the grass plot and +fountain in the middle. The Court was deliciously cool, and I should +have liked Billy Izzard to make a sketch of Evie as she leaned against +the pillar, dressed in soft pink muslin, her hand touching her cheek, +and only her dark eyes darker than that Black Knight sweet-pea of her +hair. Those eyes were full of grave thought. + +"Jeff," she said diffidently by-and-by. + +"What, dear?" + +"You know where you left us just now----" + +"Left you and Miss Levey?" + +"Yes.... She told me something I think I ought to tell you." + +"Oh? She didn't lose much time," I could not forbear remarking. + +"It was something I know you'd far rather I told you--it was something +about poor Kitty," Evie went awkwardly on. + +"Oh?"... + +You may guess from this "Oh?" that I had told Evie no more than I had +thought fit about my meeting with Louie. Indeed, of that extraordinary +walk that had begun at Swan & Edgar's corner and ended in the King's +Road, Chelsea, I had told her nothing at all. When I had reached home +again, at four o'clock in the morning, Evie had been in bed, Billy +asleep by the ashes of the dining-room fire. He had yawned hugely and +stiffly: "A-a-a-h!... I like your idea of a couple of hours in the +evening, my friend! I say, you look rather done up; what have you been +doing with yourself?... Evie? She went to bed at two; she would sit up +till then. What time is it? Nice goings-on at the Berkeley!" + +And Billy and I had lighted the fire and breakfasted, moving about +quietly so as not to wake Evie. Evie did not know the exact hour of my +return, and had made no remark about the condition of my hat and +trousers. + +It seems an odd thing to say, but I simply had not dared to tell her. +When I say that she would never, never have understood I am not +belittling her either; she simply would not have understood. It would +have been different had I been able to tell her all, but better nothing +than half. Nay, what she already knew was in its way almost too much, +for of course Billy, taking studio mysteries for granted, had told her, +rather as a joke against myself, of my coming upon Louie Causton. Seeing +Evie's almost painful blush, he had been a little sorry he had spoken. +For while Evie liked Billy, she could never get used to the idea of his +models. It was a little as if some outwardly very charming person should +be in reality a known dynamiter. And even when she had grasped the model +(so to speak) in theory, it had only to be made a personal matter for +the blood to rise into her cheeks. Suppose I had come upon Aunt Angela +thus!... So, unable to tell her all, of the later events I had told her +nothing. + +But now she said again, looking over the quiet Fountain Court, "It's +about poor Kitty. Louie didn't tell you, I suppose?" (I had admitted +having had a few words with Louie.) + +"In Billy's studio, do you mean?" + +"Yes." + +"No," I answered, with what strictness of veracity you will observe. + +I saw, by the way she dropped her great eyes and pushed a bit of gravel +about with her toe, what had come over her again. Just as, on that Bank +Holiday evening in the tea-garden in the Vale of Health, she had had +Kitty, if not on her conscience, at any rate on her magnanimity, so she +had her now. By reason of that slight emptiness and waiting state of her +life (in spite of all that I could do), her thoughts still flew back. +Between my departures in the mornings and returns again o' nights, +reminiscences, the freer in their play that her work was merely +mechanical, still occupied her. These reminiscences welled up again in +her now, and, added to them, filling her breast completely, was that +half-compunctious desire of the victress for the squaring of accounts +that is to be found in the exercise of compassion. + +And as I saw her perturbation, something welled up in me too. She did +not know I was looking at her, but I was, and already I had begun to see +the only thing that would be more than temporarily efficacious against +these strayings. There was only one thing. A picture came into my mind +of a woman who blew a kiss from the top of a bus, played on the floor on +Sundays with her boy, and found her life full and happy.... + +"Oh, my darling," I thought as I looked at her, "is it so very, very +long--so very long and empty?... Very well.... It will modify a good +many plans, but better that.... Your life too shall be full--and your +arms----" + +When next she looked up there was, about her eyes, a tiny bright edging +of tears that did not fall. + +"Jeff," she said, unusually quickly, "Kitty's ill. She has attacks of +some kind. I couldn't quite make it out. I suppose Miriam Levey'll tell +us all about it on Wednesday. I know you don't like Miriam, but she's +awfully troubled about Kitty, and thinks she ought to be looked after. +Somebody told her--told Miriam--that poor Kitty'd been found one night +walking round and round Lincolns Inn Fields, and when the policeman +asked her, she couldn't remember at first where she lived. Oh, Jeff, it +does seem so sad!" + +Privately I found that horrible. It had been in Lincolns Inn Fields that +Kitty and I had walked together, and to think of her still haunting the +place, alone, I found very horrible. But if that horror was mine, it was +not going to be Evie's if I could help it. I nodded gravely, and took +her arm. + +"Well," I said (although I was again cudgelling my brains to see how +Miss Levey's visit could be frustrated), "no doubt you will hear all +about it next Wednesday. I wouldn't worry till then.... What about tea?" + +We left the Palace, and sought the teashop near the Bridge. Miss Levey +and Aschael passed the door of the shop as we sat, and Miss Levey waved +her hand and gave us an artificially bright smile. But her goose was +cooked with Jeffries & Pepper. I had far too much respect for her +inquisitiveness and persistence to admit her to our new enterprise. +Between her and myself Pepper would not hesitate for long, and I +intended, if necessary, to put the matter in precisely that form.... + +After tea, Evie and I took another turn in the Palace. It was a golden +evening, with a wonderful bloom on the old walls, windows flashing +yellow, and the forests of twisted chimney-stacks brightly gilded. Her +arm was in mine, and her hand made little delicious pressures from time +to time, and ever and again her cheek seemed to be on the point of +falling against my shoulder. Louie Causton's touch had not thrilled me +thus. Some high forbiddance would ever have said Louie Causton and +myself Nay, but here was flesh of my flesh, and the promise of sweet and +rosy flesh between us--for we had spoken of it, and the west that bathed +all in golden light was not more tranquil than that other heaven in our +hearts.... + +I remember very well our journey back from Waterloo in the old horse-bus +that night. I remember it because of that whispered new pact between +Evie and myself. She, tired out no less by that gentle vista than by the +fatigues of the day, slept for the greater part of the way with her head +on my shoulder and her hat in my lap; and I had to wake her to change +buses. In the new bus she settled down again; and I was left free to +consider whether the promise I had passed would or would not +necessitate a hastening of matters with Pepper. If it should turn out +so, so much the worse. In any case it had to be done. For fear of the +seven devils, Evie's mind was no longer going to be left as it now was, +swept and garnished. + +As it happened, I was spared the trouble, though not the subsequent +responsibility, of putting Miss Levey off for the following Wednesday +evening. On the morning of that very day, as I took Judy a number of +drafts, he said, in Miss Levey's hearing, "Are you doing anything +to-night?" + +"To-night? I'm afraid I am," I replied, though solely for Miss Levey's +benefit. "To-morrow I'm not." + +"To-morrow won't do. You're a dashed difficult man to get, Jeffries!" + +"You should have given me a little notice," I said, though foreseeing +already that Pepper would eat Miss Levey's supper that night. + +"Well, we'll talk about it presently; if you can possibly put your +engagement off, do.... Now, Miss Levey----" + +He began to give instructions to Miss Levey. + +Later in the morning Miss Levey sought me. + +"Oh, Mr Jeffries," she began, very _empressee_, "I think we won't come +to-night. Mr Pepper----" + +"It is rather awkward," I admitted. "I'm awfully sorry----" + +"Please don't apologise. It really doesn't matter. I can come up any +evening, you know." + +"Well, in that case----" + +"We'll fix another evening. I know you and Mr Pepper have private +affairs." + +"Yes," I thought, not very graciously, "and to be in at 'em's the only +thing you want more than to pry into my domestic ones." But aloud I +said, "It's awfully good of you--do tell Mr Aschael how sorry I am." + +So it was Judy Pepper, and not Miriam Levey and Aschael, who dined at +Verandah Cottage that night. + +Were it for no other reason than to let you know a little of these +Schmerveloff neighbours of mine I should have to tell you of Judy's +visit that evening. This sounds a little portentous, as if my tale were +about to take a sensational turn, with bombs and secret agents in it. Be +calm, it is not; I only mention these Schmerveloffs as standing, in a +way, for certain forces of which Pepper and I intended to make use. A +very few words will explain what I mean. + +We are not social theorists, Pepper and I; we have to handle social +problems practically, as they come; and so in the wider humanitarian +sense we may be all wrong. But even then this Schmerveloff school of +thought had its importance for us. It was very useful to us, for +instance, when the Aliens' Act was drafting; and with the outbreak of +Syndicalism, with all the bearings that has had on Trades Disputes, it +became very important indeed. Perhaps, after all, the only hint I need +give you as to the way in which we handled it is this: that, the rate of +progress of this International Socialism being necessarily that of the +slowest-moving and most backward partner in the alliance--Russia--we +have used that fact either as a drag on Syndicalism or as an apparent +encouragement of it, as the needs of the moment dictated. And when I say +"apparent encouragement," I mean that we have winked at all this +translation from the Russian pessimists that has harnessed art to +purposes of social propaganda. That, since racial development is of far +greater lasting weight than economic theory, has seemed to us the +readiest way of letting folk see that Russia's problems are not +necessarily ours; and if we can only keep Syndicalism in check, they may +Russianise our literature completely for all Pepper and I care. + +So we talked of Russia that night. Evie, as soon as she had seen Pepper +instead of Miss Levey, had worked herself into a flurry in changing +preparations at the last moment, and had had to run out for candles for +our guest's candlesticks. But when dinner was at last served, +half-an-hour late, nowhere could have been found a prettier waitress +than we had--Evie herself. Indeed, she seemed to prefer waiting to +dining. As long as she was doing things she felt herself on safe +ground; it was the folding hands afterwards to talk to our terribly +engaging visitor that she dreaded. She strove to attain by little +formalisms what he achieved by the mere ease of nature, and, as she +stuck tenaciously to it, I admired what was neither more nor less than a +kind of courage in her. We finished dinner, and ascended to the +drawing-room, I carrying those cumbersome candlesticks. + +Pepper worked really hard that night to put Evie at her ease, but alas! +through no fault of anybody's, but by the sheer decreeing of the stars, +his labours were not a success. The first accident he had was when he +asked her how she found her neighbours, compelling her to say that she +didn't find them at all--didn't know them. And when he said, "Ah, +Russians are like that," and related an anecdote, she perturbed me a +little by asking him whether he had been in Russia--for I did not know +that the extraordinary man had, and fancied the question not very kindly +put. But Pepper surprised me by saying "Oh yes," and went on to tell +more stories.... + +With these stories he was safe for a time, but presently he again had +bad luck. He was speaking, as if he had come for no other purpose than +to tell us travellers' tales, of the difficulty of the Russian language, +which I gathered to be great; and suddenly he said, "But it's an +exceedingly valuable asset from a commercial point of view. Should you +have a boy to put into business, Mrs Jeffries, let him learn Russian." + +It was, of course, hyper-sensitive of Evie, but not unnatural in the +circumstances. She coloured deeply; she rose; she said good-night; and +even then Pepper was not at the end of his troubles, for, advancing +punctiliously to open the bedroom door for her, that insecure old door, +that always opened at a touch, flew back, displaying the unmade bed on +which Evie had lain that afternoon, and the general disorder of the +interior. Pepper was already in the midst of a deep bow, but he must +have seen.... After that I got him whisky; we settled down to our talk, +and, ordinary speech being plainly audible from the bedroom, he dropped +his voice to match my own tones--and was, I dare say, heartily glad when +the evening was over. + +This mention of our cramped quarters reminds me that I may as well get +those inconveniences of which I told you over at once. To save time, I +will tell you both what they were then, and what they afterwards became. + +I had begun well-nigh to hate children. The schools, you see, had not +yet reopened, and urchins played under our windows till half-past nine +or ten o'clock at night. I frequently had work in the evenings that +demanded close concentration, and it mostly happened that, when I sat +down to it, as if by appointment the noise began. I do not know which +howl or thump or bump was the most hideous. Iron hoops, driven with a +hooked iron rod, were bad, but the shouts and whoops and calls, all in a +blood-curdling Cockney accent, were worse; for while by great resolution +you can nerve yourself to endure an iron hoop, you never know which yell +or shout a child is going to emit next. These had all the horror of +unexpectedness. I used to make mental bets on it, and I was always +wrong.... And then sometimes there would come an endless racket that +resembled nothing so much as a fire-engine in full career, which, on +descending, I should discover to come from a diminutive cart at the end +of a string, pulled by a toddler of four. + +Sometimes these noises drove me half frantic. I carried my papers from +the dining-room to the drawing-room--thence to the bedroom--I even tried +the kitchen; and this, mark you, was important work, work that has +since, I may say without boasting, become of national value. I spoke to +policemen--I even used the power of beauty, and got Evie to speak to +policemen--but only to be told that they were as helpless as I: +"Children is eddicated now, and not as afraid of bobbies as they used to +be." And on a fatal evening I was so unthinking as to distribute a +number of pennies in order to buy an hour's peace for a calculation that +seriously involved the interests of three shipping lines. That settled +it. Thenceforward I was never without children. One Sunday afternoon I +forgot myself and boxed the ears of the biggest of them. That brought +round a parent--not a father, but a mother.... Ugh!---- + +And the house itself was far too small. Billy Izzard's sketches on our +walls shook to my tread, and passing vans made the very foundations +tremble. In order to get even our small belongings into the place Evie +had to put boxes inside boxes, and boxes inside these again, so that in +the finding of a garment she had not worn for some time the whole tiny +bedroom floor was choked with boxes. Save for the little recess in the +kitchen, the triangular cupboard under the stairs was the only storage +accommodation we had. With the greatest care, Evie could not always +avoid hanging an old skirt over my best hopsack (West's, Bond Street), +or mislaying some article of which I had need in the very moment of +bolting for my bus. And worst of all was that screen on the verandah +that gave us nothing to look at but a short slope of parched green. +Verandah Cottage! By Jove, yes!... + +One other thing I will mention, though this did not come till the +winter. The neighbouring house, which hitherto had been a tomb, became +alive. I never knew the reason for this sudden awakening, nor whether +Schmerveloff had suddenly found himself reduced to taking in lodgers, or +whether he was merely holding out a helping hand to co-revolutionaries +in the hour of their need; but I do know that presently he began to +have a succession of extraordinary visitors. Hairy, uncouth-looking men, +with soft hats, came for a week or a month, and brought their women, +fat, spare, astrakhan-capped or bare-headed. They wore smocks and +embroidered _portieres_, and worked at peasant industries. One of them +had a child, the sweetest of little girls--but oh, her sweetness +vanished from me when she began to play at all hours in the garden, +shouting, crowing, and impossible to turn away! I went so far as to wait +on Schmerveloff himself about this dreadful child, and was told that, +inconvenient as these things might be to me, the question was not a +private one at all. It was a Social Question. Society oppressed them, +they oppressed me; it was Society that was wrong.... I told our fellows +this afterwards, when the Aliens' Act was drafting; Robson was immensely +amused. "What did you say?" he asked.... Of course there was nothing to +say.... + +And then, about Christmas, the Social Question became acute indeed. For +the development of the peasant industries the most Asiatic barber-robber +of the lot set up a furnace, a lathe and an anvil.... + +No wooden walls (save Nelson's) could have kept that racket out.... + +Had the sum of the world's beautiful things been added to, I could have +grinned and borne it, but it was beaten copper-work the Asiatic made. + +And I could do nothing. + +I pass on. + +Weeks before this invasion of beards and embroidered casement-cloth, I +earnestly hoped that my firstborn, when I should have one, would never +remember that little house with the glass-panelled door and the +verandah. But the prospect of our "domestic event," as Miss Levey called +it, hardly weighed on me yet. I gave little heed to Louie Causton's +prophecy, that I might sooner or later find myself driven to take the +desperate course of telling Evie what, so far, only Louie and myself +knew; and I did not see, as Louie seemed to see, where the peril lay. If +it was only a question of keeping Evie busy and amused for a little +while longer, I thought I should be able to manage that. Only later did +I see myself as a man who pours water constantly into a vessel and tells +himself that because the level remains the same there is no leak. I +still intended to stand between Evie and Life. In effect, if necessary, +I would live much of her life for her. And now let me, before I leave +this part of my tale, tell you briefly what that life was at its +loveliest. + + +V + +Had there ever been any shadow of a division between Evie and myself, +which there had not, it must have vanished now. I did not attempt to +conceal from myself that her gifts did not extend in all directions +equally. Socially expert in Pepper's sense, for example, she could +hardly yet be expected to be, and I should have been unreasonable to +have reproached her for not grasping the intricate problems that, if the +truth must be told, frequently filled Pepper and myself with perplexity. +But these things are independent of deep humanity, and by as much as she +fell short in them she was richly dowered in other ways. It was still +the love of a woman I wanted, not the semblance of a masculine +friendship; and I had it, and was glad at the thought of my rich +possession. Often, for pure emotion, I caught her in my arms when I saw +her, rejoicing yet timorous before that which was presently to come to +pass; and whether it was a pallor that sometimes crossed her face, or a +sudden glow as of some warm and Venetian underpainting or else a +smiling, happy lassitude infinitely moving in its appeal, all spoke of +the pledge that had been given and taken between us. + +Quite past telling was the peace this pledge brought to me. I was, after +all, to begin anew. Despite Life's mauling of my hapless self, here was +a tiny white leaf preparing for the writing of a record that should +supersede and obliterate my own. Deeper things than men know were seeing +to that ushering, and by nothing less miraculous than a birth was I +going to be delivered from the body of that haggard death. Often, as I +seemed to be busily writing at our small folding table, I quite lost +myself in the contemplation of this coming manumission; and day by day, +looking out over Waterloo Place and the Mall, I conjured up her +image--resting while Aunt Angela (who now came up from Woburn Place +almost daily) dusted or swept or washed up, taking her easy walks on the +Heath, sewing (though not now for herself), or doing such light work as +would not tire her. Fortunately, the Social Question next door had +reached the crisis of over-production in the beaten-copper market; a +glut had supervened; and the making of the wooden bowls and carved +porridge-sticks that are designed for oppressed serfs and sold at a high +price to the amateurs of the Difficult Life, caused less disturbance to +our panels and pictures. The whooping child too had gone. + +Aunt Angela had bought Evie a deep wicker basket lined with pale blue, +and with the greatest circumspection I delayed to fill this basket too +quickly. We talked for a week before making a purchase, and, in one +case, for quite three weeks. This was when I bought, at a shop near +Great Turnstile, what Evie called a "jangle"--a beautiful Jacobean coral +mounted in silver, with many silver bells and a faint piping whistle at +one end. Both as I entered the shop and left it again a grey nightmare +tried to fasten itself upon me, of a woman who had forgotten where she +lived, walking the Fields round the corner, alone at night; but I shook +the horror off.... Even down to such details did I keep Evie from +fancies--for she had fancies, the ousting of which was a matter for +diversion rather than argument. One of these fancies was that she now +wanted to see Miriam Levey. Another was that she did not want, just then +at any rate, to see Louie Causton. + +For as it chanced, Louie came the nearest (though with a nearness sad +enough) to a married woman of anybody she happened at present to know; +this, of course, largely as a result of my own exclusive attitude. Aunt +Angela, by virtue of George and her other experiences, knew as much as +ten married women, and that was frequently precisely the difficulty. +Certain charwomen, I gathered, inured to immoderate families, gave Evie +the benefit of their advice now and then, but that was about all. And it +was one evening as I cast about for an opening to introduce Louie's name +that Evie herself said once more that she would like to see Miss Levey. + +"Certainly," I said, with a readiness that was only the result of +seeing no way out of it this time. "As long as she won't tire you." + +"I won't let her do that," Evie promised. + +"All right," I said.... "And by the way"--I put this as if it had just +occurred to me--"should you care to have Louie Causton up if Billy knows +where to find her?" + +"Yes, I should some time--but not just now, dear. You'll tell Miriam, +then?" + +"Yes." + +I had promised it before I remembered something that might have made me +less ready to promise it. It was now the beginning of October. We had to +take our holidays in rotation at the F.B.C.; for a fortnight I had been +working late in order that Whitlock might take his; and next on the list +in our department was Miss Levey. Grumbling that it was almost too late +to take a holiday at all, she was going away for a week-end only. +Instantly, I saw what that meant.... + +The next day I capitulated to her as gracefully as I could. + +"You'll be able to have a really satisfactory visit now, a whole day," I +said. "It would only have been a couple of hours before." + +"I'll take _such_ good care of her!" she purred. + +"I am sure you will," I said conciliatingly.... + +Three days later Miss Levey was up at Verandah Cottage. She was up there +the next day also. Although she had always gone by the time I returned +at night, she was up several times after that. + +Well, it couldn't be helped ... and I was going to tell you, not about +Miriam Levey, but about my happiness and Evie's. + +Today, in my house in Iddesleigh Gate, there are many things thrust into +dark corners that will ever occupy odd corners of my heart. They are the +pieces of furniture from that poky old place in the Vale of Health. The +people of my household tell me they are shabby, but as I never see them +divorced from a hundred gentle associations, their shabbiness matters +nothing to me. In the children's day-nursery there is the old +shop-damaged couch from the Tottenham Court Road cellar. Its pegamoid is +frayed and its springs broken, but Evie lay on it before those +destructive little hands came into being. She lay on it with her legs +wrapped in an old, faded, mignonette-coloured Paisley shawl--for +presently the days were shortening, we had started fires, and Verandah +Cottage was a Cave of the Winds for draughts; and my housekeeper had a +bad five minutes only the other day when that shawl nearly went out of +the house with the bottles and crates and old rags. The bookshelves Evie +used to dust and polish still serve me; and quite a number of smaller +things, including that first wicker basket into which the "jangle" was +put (Evie keeps that) carry my mind back in a twinkling to that early +time. + +Evie had her little jokes about our unborn mite. Still further to repair +the slight on Hampton Court of our Greenwich honeymoon, the infant at +one time was to be called "Hampton," but as she had ten different names +for it each week, a name more or less didn't matter. Its eyes were to be +so-and-so--the colour also varied day by day. If a boy, it was to be of +my own bone and stature; if a girl, less. I used to joke with her when, +seeing her brooding and gently smiling, I pretended to discover these +and a hundred other patterns and specifications in her eyes; but, +however lovely these imaginings were, they were no lovelier than +herself. Though the days now seemed less long, the little _elans_ with +which she ran to me when she heard my step at night were a passionate +rendering of herself far greater than before; and I will end this part +of my tale with the first time, the very first, I heard her sing. + +She had gone into the bedroom that night, and I had heard her moving +about; and then there had stolen out low contralto notes that might have +belonged to somebody else, so new were they to me.... She was happy. She +was so happy that she was learning to sing. I stood listening, with +tears gathering in my eyes and suddenly rolling down my cheeks.... + +She was happy.... + +She did not know why, a few moments later, with the face of one who +hears joyful news, I pushed at the bedroom door and took her, half +ready for bed as she was, into my arms. + +Oh, to hear her, of her own accord, sing--and to know that soon her song +would not more gently rock those feeble limbs and close those unknowing +eyes than it now brought rest to my own weary frame and sleep to my own +heavy eyes, weary with watching for the day that at last, at last was +coming! + + + + +PART III + +WELL WALK + + +I + +As far as my worldly position is concerned, two leaps have sufficed to +place me where I stand to-day--the first from the Vale of Health to the +Well Walk, not a quarter of a mile away, and the second from Well Walk +to Iddesleigh Gate. I am omitting such interludes as furnished rooms for +short periods and odd times in which I have packed Evie off with the +children to the seaside. We were in the Vale of Health for exactly a +year, and in Well Walk for three. I took the Iddesleigh Gate House, +wonderful ceilings and Amaranth Room and all, from the late Baron +Stillhausen. + +But this is a very summary statement of what my real advance has been. +Those who have called me a lucky man--which on the whole I also am +persuaded I am--know nothing of my hidden labour. Of this, since it is +just beginning to show in the contemporary history of my country, I +cannot say very much; and so, picking out a fact here and an incident +there, I shall take leave for the rest of my tale to keep as closely as +may be to my increasingly intricate personal story. + +The incident with which I will resume--the incident which resulted in +Louie Causton's appointment to the post still held by Miss Levey--came +about as follows. + +In taking the Well Walk house--(here I am skipping six months; my infant +son was born; I still had seven or eight weeks to run with the F.B.C., +but already our plans were perfected, and the new Consolidation had +already secured its premises in Pall Mall)--in taking the Well Walk +house I had made a woeful miscalculation of how far the Verandah Cottage +furniture would go. Indeed I had so over-estimated its quantity that our +new abode was almost as bare as a barracks, and, occupied as I was with +important business, I had almost got used to its barrenness. But as Evie +had to live in the place, I had found that I really must raise a sum of +money for carpets, curtains, and other things indispensable to married +folk who find themselves three; and I had decided that part of the one +hundred pounds I got as an advance from Pepper was going to be spent on +a dining-room table that I had not always to remember I must not sit +down on. Well, on a Saturday afternoon in October this table came. I saw +it into the dining-room, and then, feeling the need of air, I put on my +hat and coat and took a walk as far as the Whitestone Pond. There I met +Billy Izzard, in the dickens of a temper. + +"Well, how goes it, Billy?" I asked cheerfully, seeing that he was put +out. Billy's grumblings always have the effect of cheering me up. + +He looked up, scowled, and then resumed his gazing across the Pond. Then +he watched the passage of a horse and cart through the water, looked up +again, and broke out. + +"It goes rottenly--that's how it goes!" he growled. "Do you remember +coming into my place one evening when I had a girl sitting for +me--tallish girl, with a perfectly exquisite figure--Louie Causton her +name was?" + +I said that I did remember it. + +"Well, she's the trouble. I want her--must have her--and I can't get +her. She says she isn't sitting any more; her doctor's forbidden it. Her +doctor!... The jade's as sound as a bell; she never had a doctor in her +life, I'll swear; she just won't sit, doesn't want to. She wheedled that +sketch out of me too, the one I was doing that day--walked off with it +under her arm--stole it, practically--and now I can't get her for love +or money." + +This interested me. It interested me so much that to conceal my +interest, I made a joke. "Oh? Tried both?" I said; but Billy went on. + +"Perhaps she'll change her mind when she finds she's nothing to live on. +She'll sit in costume, it appears; some cock and bull story about +chills; and she said, Couldn't I paint her in some old supers' duds that +she can hire at the Models' Club for sixpence a day?--me painting +theatrical wardrobes _a la_ Coleman, Roma?... And her crochet!" + +"What about her crochet?" + +"Her crochet? Why, when I told her she wouldn't make fifteen shillings a +week as Marguerite with the jewel-casket--she's not pretty--I told her +so--she said she could fall back on her crochet! A goddess, I tell you +... and she pitches me a tale about a doctor that she can't help +laughing at herself!" + +He ran on, to Louie's detriment from his special point of view, but +already I was wondering what her own point of view might be. + +That I had not heard from Louie since that night of the Berkeley dinner +had been, as far as it went, reassuring. Had she needed me, or I her, +whichever in the tangled circumstances it might be, I should have heard +from her; and I had had no reason for seeking her out. When Evie had +told me that Louie now had charge of Kitty Windus she had told me +nothing that I had not already known; and as Evie had had this from +Miriam Levey, I find I must break off for a moment to speak of my +relation with that lady. + +Since she had got her fat, high-heeled foot inside my door, Miss Levey's +devotion to Evie had been as unremitting as if, lacking her attentions, +my little son would never have got himself born at all. Not a week had +passed but she had dropped in once or twice, mostly alone, but not +infrequently with the ringleted Aschael. It annoyed me that Evie should +like her as much as apparently she did, and my annoyance was the greater +that I could give no reason for it. One night I had given way rather +petulantly to this annoyance. It had been just before we had left +Verandah Cottage. Billy Izzard had come in and had made some remark +about our Arab horsemen, and, more that I might relish its artistic +vulgarity than for any other reason, I had taken one of these objects +down from the mantelpiece. I had not known that I had held the thing in +a rather vindictive grip until suddenly the plaster had broken in my +hand. My other hand had made an instinctive movement by no means +prompted by presence of mind. I had saved the body of the ornament from +total smash, but the heads both of tamer and steed were in fragments. I +had been on the point of throwing the ridiculous thing away, but had +changed my mind, and put it back on the mantelpiece. Later I had +expressed bland sorrow to Miss Levey, and had assured her that I was +going to have it mended; but I had not done so during the remainder of +our stay at Verandah Cottage. I did not know what had become either of +it or of its companion statue. + +During the last anxious days before the birth of our child, Miss Levey +had triumphed over me completely. There had been no withstanding her. +She had bidden me fetch hot-water bottles, had informed me when it was +time for Evie to go to bed, and, conspiring with Aunt Angela, had, in a +word, taken things out of my hands entirely. Once or twice she had +overdone this even in Evie's eyes, but I had been dull enough not to see +at first that her ascendancy over Evie was not direct, but mediate. Only +lately had I discovered that Evie's real interest was, not in Miriam +Levey, but in Kitty Windus. + +For those talks I had dreaded yet had been powerless to prevent had +already borne fruit. I don't think it was so much that Evie experienced +again those compassions and magnanimities that had given her that gentle +heartache in the tea-gardens on that Bank Holiday evening, as that she +remembered the wish into which they had solidified--the wish to have +Kitty completely off her mind. Miss Levey, I was pretty sure, had seen +to it that this wish should become firmly fixed. She had evidently +assumed, for example, that I should be adverse to a meeting between +Kitty and Evie. "Your husband wouldn't like it," I could imagine her as +having said; "quite naturally, my dear; one can't blame him; and so I +suppose that ends it." And to the last words I could imagine her as +having given the meaning, "We do seem to be dependent on the will of +this dull opinionative sex for some reason or other--why I can't make +out." Miss Levey, you see, was an economically emancipated woman. + +So, though not a word had been said, Kitty had come, by reason of I knew +not what sympathy Miriam Levey had worked up on her behalf, to be +between Evie and myself. That poor Kitty deserved all the sympathy we +could give her I had never a doubt, but you see the two things that +stood in the way--the lesser thing that Miss Levey assumed I "should not +like," and that other huge and fatal thing that was the truth. To the +multitudinous harassings of my business these two things made a dense +background of private harassings.... But I did not intend that another +long and dogged duel should begin between Miriam Levey and myself. She +was not going to be taken over by Pepper, Jeffries and the +Consolidation. If this enterprise did anything at all it would do +something very big indeed; soon I should be placed high above the +wretched little Jewess's power to hurt; and after all, there is no man +who attains to great power but leaves in his train a score of these +carpers, wishful yet impotent to harm. + +But the offering of the new post to Louie Causton was another matter. I +hesitated and wavered. Plainly, I doubted whether I had the right to +find Louie a job. In the close-packed fulness of her life, struggles and +anxieties and all, her happiness consisted; and though she might need +the money, as matters stood she had a peace that money could not give, +and might take away. Let her, I thought at first, toil and keep her +heaven. + +But that, I thought presently, might be all very high and fine, but +practically not very much to the point. Billy had been perfectly right +when he had said that by costume-sitting and crochet she would hardly +make fifteen shillings a week. I knew of old what heaven in those +circumstances meant, and I had had no boy to look after, and no woman +intermittently infirm. One can have too much even of heaven on those +terms.... + +And yet it would be impossible to attach her to my own office. What I +had seen in those grey eyes on the night of the Berkeley dinner would +not brook daily meetings, dictation of letters, and the other duties I +had already cast Whitlock for. Myself left out of the question, she, I +was quite sure, would never accept it. Turn her over to Pepper, then? +That would hardly be fair to Pepper, who might wish to choose for +himself.... + +And one other thing, of which I will speak presently, had already caused +my cheeks to burn. + +Well, I should have to see what I could do. + +It did not surprise me much that when I reached Well Walk again, Miss +Levey was there. That echoing, half-furnished house of ours, I ought to +say, was on the south side of the Walk, and my own study was on the +ground floor at the back, with Evie's drawing-room immediately overhead. +I heard this drawing-room door open as I entered, and it was on the bare +half-landing, against the red and blue window, with cut-glass stars +round its border, that I saw Miss Levey's flamingo-coloured costume with +the black satin buttons. + +"Oh, here he is," Evie was saying; "he'll take you on to your bus. +Good-bye, Miriam, dear--remember me to Aschael----" + +"Good-bye, darling--don't forget, will you?" + +"Good-bye." + +I remember that it was as I took Miss Levey to her bus that afternoon +that she asked me to call her by her Christian name. Instantly I did +so--and forgot her request again with a promptitude even greater. To +tell the truth, that "Remember me to Aschael" of Evie's stuck a little +in my throat. A little more ceremony, it seemed to me, would have fitted +the relation better, and I differed from Miss Levey if she thought that +in asking me to call her "Miriam," she, and not I, was conferring the +favour. Therefore as I saw her off I again addressed her as "Miss Levey" +and let her take it as an inadvertence or not as she list. Then, with +that "Remember me to Aschael" again uppermost in my mind, I returned to +Evie. + +In hoping to see her alone, however, I was again disappointed. This time +Aunt Angela was there. She was standing by the new dining-table, and +apparently deploring my purchase. + +"_What_ a pity!" she was saying. "Just when I'd arranged for you to have +that one of mine! I meant it as a surprise--oh, why didn't I tell you +sooner!" + +I have referred, I hope not unkindly, to a certain laxity in this dear +and harmless spinster's hold on life. Since the birth of our child this +laxity had become intensified, if such a word can be used of laxity, and +very rarely had she come up to see us empty-handed. From some mysterious +hoard of belongings that seemed ever on the point of exhaustion and yet +ever stood the strain of another gift, she had brought, now a tiny pair +of knitted woollen socks, now a shawl, now a bit of silver, and even the +mite's cradle was that in which Evie herself had been rocked. She found +a pleasure quite paradisal in these continual givings. I think they were +her spiritual boasts of how little she required for herself. + +"_What_ a pity!" she purred again. "But I dare say they'd take it +back----" + +"Hallo!" I said, shaking hands. "Take what back? What's that you're +saying?" + +"This table. I'm sure they'd let you off your bargain for ten shillings +or so. The money would be so much more useful." + +I laughed. "Oh, money's no object," I said. + +This, of course, was mere mischief. The truth was that Angela Soames, +like Evie, had begun to hold my ambition a good deal in dread. It had +been good fun to think about in the early stages; they had enjoyed that +part as much as anybody; but to take the plunge as I was taking it +was--in Miss Angela's case I might almost say "impious"; certainly it +was a storming of destiny that was bound to bring a crop of consequences +they were sure I had not sufficiently weighed. So it had become my +habit to hold their timidity over them as a joke, talking sometimes in +sums that might have staggered even the Consolidation. "Oh, money's no +object!" I said, laughing. + +"Well!" Aunt Angela retorted, "even you can't afford to throw it away +till you've got it. So, Evie, I thought my round table in place of this +one--send this back--and the tea-urn I promised you in the middle of the +sideboard, with Mr. Pepper's candlesticks on each side of it--just +here--and you could buy a quite nice pair of curtains with the pound +Jeff turns up his nose at." + +I interrupted. "Your tea-urn? Oh, come, come! We're not going to accept +that!" + +But she only dropped her eyes. "My wants are few," she said, "and I've +more than enough for them. You young people come first. How do you know +I haven't had a legacy?... And of course I shall have the table +repolished, Evie, and if Jeff _will_ be stupid, you can have it in the +drawing-room, in that corner by the bureau----" + +I was about to laugh again at the artless mixture in her of expansive +unworldliness and quite astute machination when suddenly I thought +better of it, and turned away. Aunt Angela was taking off her hat and +giving coquettish touches to her tall, snowy hair. As that meant that +she proposed to spend the evening with us, I had to postpone what I +wished to say to Evie until she should have departed. + + +II + +This was no more than that I thought the Christian name business was +being a little overdone; but the more I thought of it, the less easy did +it become to put. Perhaps you see my difficulty. It was, in a word, +this: that a man on whom circumstances have pressed with such unique +urgency that he has had, or conceived himself to have, no choice but to +effect the removal of a fellow-being from the world, cannot take even so +small a matter as this precisely as another man can. The quick of his +soul is perpetually exposed. There are no trifles in his world. What is +another man's slight annoyance is to him the menace of an assassination; +another's nothings are his doom. A single unconscious touch and the +toucher starts back with an amazed "What's this?" + +Yet I have said that it was not remorse that bred this sensitiveness in +me, and I hasten to maintain that. Remorse is a damage, in which a man +is penally mulcted; but this of mine was no more than a price, fairly +and squarely agreed upon, which I was prepared to pay. It was a heavy +one; you may take my word for it that there is no more costly purchase +in the whole market of human happenings than a righteous murder; but it +still remained a price, in the fixing of which I had concurred. More +than this: men have been known, from remorse, to give themselves up; but +at the thought of such a surrender I grew hot and vehement. I +appreciated the point of view of the very revolutionaries against whom +my life's work has been directed. What! Suffer an outside judgment when +I was acquitted in my own!... I laughed, and in my laughter found +courage. Not I!... + +And a man is not in the grip of remorse who, asked whether he would do +his deed again, can reply with a deep "By heaven--yes!" + +Nevertheless, I was perilously open. I alone among men could not rebuff +the freedom of a Christian name without bringing my soul into the +transaction; nay, I could not even buy a dining-table without having (as +I had just had) to check an utterance and to turn away. For at Aunt +Angela's words, "How do you know I haven't had a legacy?" I had become +vigilant again. She had had no legacy; I knew that; but she _had_ been +twice or thrice to Guildford, and, if she wished to indulge herself in +the luxury of giving, would be likely to make the most rather than the +least of whatever mementoes of the late Mrs Merridew she might have +chanced to come by. You see how, on an afternoon taken at random, two +nothings had made still denser by a fraction that background of which I +was every moment conscious. I was beginning to realise that I was the +man who was denied the luxury of carelessness. I might not jest or laugh +or move a finger without first looking around the corner. I went +hampered among free men. I tell you it is a hard thing to live in a +world that has no trifles.... + +Still, exposed or guarded, I had my life to live, and I was no longer +disposed in the matter of this intimacy with Miss Levey to do nothing at +all. Therefore, when I returned from seeing Aunt Angela away and found +Evie still in the dining-room, I took my risk. + +She ought to have been in bed; but instead she had drawn up a chair to +an old bureau, and was quite unnecessarily fiddling with old papers and +letters and nondescript objects put away in the nest of drawers. She +looked up as I entered, and the vivacity with which she spoke seemed a +little forced. + +"Fancy, Jeff!" she exclaimed, her fingers in the leaves of some old +twopenny notebook or other, "I can actually read my old shorthand yet! I +should have thought I'd forgotten all about it, after all this time! +I'll bet I could read as quickly as you!" + +I stirred the dying fire. "Isn't it time you were in bed?" I said. + +"Oh, just let me tidy this--I sha'n't be many minutes." + +And while I picked up an evening paper she went on with her pottering +about the bureau. + +But the light sound of the moving paper began to get a little on my +nerves. It does that sometimes. I suppose it's like some people +fidgeting if there is a cat in the room. And presently I noticed that +when she supposed me to be busily reading the rustling stopped. It was +no good going on like this; the sooner I came to the point and said what +I had to say, the better. I thought for a moment, and then put down my +newspaper. + +"Evie----" I said. + +"Yes, dear?" she said brightly.... + +I put it with perfect gentleness. Suddenness and sharpness also are +among the trifles of life I had had to forego. When I had finished, she +did not seem surprised. She only nodded once or twice. + +"I see," she said slowly. "Well, Miriam--I mean Miss Levey, if you wish +it, dear----" + +"No, darling; I don't know that I go as far as that. I was only speaking +of these broadcast intimacies." + +"Miriam, then--Miriam said you would object----" + +"Well, I never denied Miriam a certain acuteness." + +But she shook her head. For a minute or two I had been sure that I was +not the only one who had something to say. When she did go on, it was at +first haltingly, and then with just such a little setting of her +resolution as she had used when, years ago, a sweet and awkward flapper, +she had complimented me on my spurious engagement to the lady whose +name she now suddenly mentioned. + +"I don't mean to object to--to what you've been saying, Jeff. I mean--I +mean object to this about poor Kitty. I know," she quickened, as if to +forestall a remark, "that we haven't said anything about it--you and +I--for a long time--but"--once more the rush--"I've felt you've known +what I've been thinking, Jeff----" + +I gained a little time. "But I wasn't speaking of Kitty Windus, dear," I +said. "It was something quite different." + +Then, before her look of trouble and appeal, I ceased my pretence. + +"Very well, dearest," I sighed. "But tell me one thing. If I hadn't said +anything to-night, _you_ wanted to say something." + +"Yes," she mumbled in a low voice to the twopenny notebook. + +"Is that what Miss Levey meant when she said 'Don't forget' an hour or +two ago?" + +"Yes." + +"You hadn't to forget to--to bring something, whatever it is, up about +Kitty?" + +Her silence told me that that was so. Then, slowly: + +"And why should she think I should object to that?" I asked. + +Evie's manner changed with almost electrical suddenness. She thrust her +hands into her lap, straightened her back, and spoke almost +victoriously. + +"_There!_ I _knew_! I told her so!" she triumphed. "'Miriam,' I said, +'you're _quite_ wrong in thinking that--that----'" + +"In thinking there's something to be ashamed of in an old engagement +you've changed your mind about?" I suggested gently. + +"Yes!" she exulted. "I said to her, 'Jeff wouldn't in the _least_ mind +my going to see her if I wanted'--and you wouldn't, would you, Jeff?" + +"No," I said quickly. I said it quickly lest I should not say it at all. +Then I qualified. "No.... One shrinks from pain, that's all, either +enduring it or giving it." + +"Giving Kitty pain?" + +"Well, does Miss Levey think it would be pleasant to her--or is she +merely willing to hurt her if she can hurt me too?" + +"But--but--Miriam says she would really be awfully pleased--Kitty +would--and I'm sure you're wrong, Jeff, about things like that lasting +for years and years! They don't. I----" She checked herself. + +But whether it was the check or what not that made the difference, all +at once she started forward from the bureau and sank on her knees at my +side. She herself put one of my hands about her waist, as if to compel +it to a caress, and stroked her cheek against the other. The words she +murmured were disjointed enough, but her tone was, oh, so eloquent.... + +"Dear, dear!" she besought me. "Miriam _was_ wrong, wasn't she? Not that +I care in the very least, only I've been, oh, so wretched, thinking +there was something between us! I don't want to see her--Miriam--nor +Kitty--very much--but it was so lonely--till Jack came--and there isn't +anything now, is there, Jeff? I know there has been--but it's gone now, +hasn't it?... Great strong hand!" She moistened it with her +breathing.... "But it _is_ all right now, isn't it, Jeff?" + +I did not know why, all in a moment, I found myself remembering that +curious prophecy of Louie Causton's: "I think you'll find that sooner or +later you've got to tell her." Perhaps it was that in that moment I had +my first glimpse of what Louie had really meant. Already it was useless +to say there had been no slight shadow between us; Evie, who knew few +things, at least knew that; but I had not dared to acknowledge it for +fear of worse.... Yes, I began to see; and with my seeing I again grew +hot and rebellious. + +Why, since the act I had committed had had at least as much of good as +of evil in it, should I be hounded thus? Why should trifles accrete to +an ancient and hideous memory until it became a corporeal, living, +malignant thing? Why should that commonest of experiences, an old +rescinded engagement, not, in my case also, be what Evie thought it +was--a wound made whole again, or at any rate so hardened over that it +could be touched without provoking a sharp scream of pain? It was +intolerable.... + +Oh, never, if you can help it, live in a world without trifles! + +Evie, at my knee, continued to supplicate. "Oh, darling, I've so, _so_ +wanted it to be like it was at first! Do you remember--in Kensington +Gardens, sweetheart?" + +And she turned up those loveliest eyes I ever looked into.... + + +It had been in Kensington Gardens, early on a September evening, that I +had asked her to marry me. Our chairs had been so drawn back into the +clump of laurels that the man with the tickets had not noticed us, and +we ourselves had seen little but a distant corner of the Palace, and, +forty yards away across the grass, a dead ash gilded by the setting sun. +At the F.B.C. Pepper had just begun to single out his new Jun. Ex. Con. +for special jobs, and as a matter of fact I had had a small rise of +salary that very week. Little enough it had been; certainly not enough +to warrant me in exchanging our footing--one of increasingly frequent +calls at Woburn Place and goodness knows how much lingering in likely +streets on the chance of a sight of her--for a more explicit relation; +but--well, as I say, I had thrust all else recklessly aside, and that +evening had asked her to marry me. + +There are some things that one must needs exaggerate if one is to speak +of them at all; so if I say that at first it had seemed to her that my +proposal was merely that two bruised spirits should thenceforward make +the best of things together, I must leave you to discount that. I don't +think she had known clearly what she had felt. The hand I had taken had +trembled a little, and in the great dark eyes that had looked +steadfastly away to the dead ash I had fancied I had discerned the +beginnings of a refusal--a refusal out of mere customariness and a +settled acceptance of our former relation. I had fancied that---- + +But even to the trembler a tremble may speak truer than words, and she +had trembled and become conscious of it. For the first time it had +occurred to her, sweet soul, that we had been all unconsciously passing +from friendship to love, and were now making the discovery together. She +had not known that I had never had anything but love from which to pass; +and another access of trembling had taken her.... + +"The last evening you and I had a walk together," she had whispered at +last, her eyes still gravely on the pale ash, "we--we didn't think +of--this." + +(Did I mention that during all the time I had known her we had only +spent one other evening out of doors alone together? It had been more +than four years before, and we had heard a nightingale sing on Wimbledon +Common.) + +I had not answered. To allow the memory of that other evening to +repossess her had seemed the best answer to make. For though we pack our +hearts daily with the stuff of life, only time shows us which is the +tinsel we have coveted, and which the lump we have not known to be gold. +More than four years had passed; presently those four years would have +opened her eyes to differences too; and so I had waited.... + +And, if not yet discovered, at any rate sudden and troubling new +questions had crowded into her eyes as I had watched. Another silence of +many minutes, then: + +"We've been such friends up to now," she had faltered, as much to the +darkening evening as to myself. + +"Need that mean 'No,' Evie?"... + +"I don't know--it's so--strange--I never----" + +I had drawn a little nearer. + +"Never? Never once? You never once thought that perhaps----?" + +Then once more had come the memories of that other evening, with the +unhappiness of another's bringing, and the comfort of my own. Night had +begun to creep under the trees, but the shadows but made zenith the +purer. On such evenings lovers vie with one another in looking for the +first star, but we were not lovers yet, and could see nothing save the +ash, now become grey, and away to the north the faint yellow haze of the +Bayswater Road. Evie's own figure had become dim until little of it had +showed but the handkerchief in her lap, the narrow white stripe of her +black and white blouse where her little black jacket parted, and, as at +last she had turned, the motion of her eyes. + +"You don't want an answer now, Jeff," she had said quickly, immediately +dropping the eyes again. + +But I had wanted my answer there and then. + +"Now," I had replied as quickly as she, with I know not what grimness +and resolution mingled with my tenderness. + +"Not now, Jeff--I'm fonder of you than of anybody--you know +that--but--but----" + +But if her "buts" had included the vanished Kitty Windus, Archie +Merridew, or anything else from that four-year-old dustheap, I had +allowed them to avail her little. Over my heart too had come that +nightingale's song, heard by a still mere, and her hapless sobbing on my +breast because Life was harsh, and my own desperate struggle not to +clasp her there and then. Repression so powerful as that had been is not +given twice to a man, at any rate not to such a man as I; nor had I +thought that she, whose tremors were more eloquent than her speech, had +desired it either.... "Not now, Jeff--please--soon----" she had half +sobbed, shrinking as it were from the wonder of her own enlightenment; +and her handkerchief had fallen to the grass.... + +The next moment, in returning it to her, I had had her in my arms. + +Those truer tidings than any words of hers could give expression to had +come from the lips that had not even sought to avoid mine. Sought to +avoid them? I call the first star that peeped through the laurels to +witness the handful of dust that friendship of ours had become. Speech? +Language? She used neither; to me in that moment she _was_ both speech +and language--vocal flesh, her very hair and eyes an utterance. You will +not ask me an utterance of what; I take my chance of being understood in +the light of what Woman is to you. Make her what you will: a riddle +herself--or the answer to the deepest enigma of the soul; as much earth +as a man's hard hands must needs be filled with--or as much spirit as he +can bear until he himself is all spirit; a lovely casket--yet not too +lovely for the scroll of the Freedom it contains. Have it your own way. +I only know that if she spoke thus I heard as if my whole body had been +one attuned and exquisite nerve. We had drawn a little deeper into the +laurels.... Again we kissed.... + +And in my heart there had been jealousy of no man, dead or living. That +dead young man had awakened her from sleep, but I had made her mine +with her eyes wide open. He had taken her by surprise, but me she had +chosen. And as our lips had met once more, I had known that she loved +even the pain I caused her in straining her in my arms. + +"You never once--never once thought of it?" I had said huskily at last. + +"Dear--dear! How _was_ I to?" + +"Kiss me--kiss me----" + +And now, on her knees at my knee by our dying dining-room fire, she +asked me if I remembered that evening in Kensington Gardens. + +All at once I vowed that I wouldn't stand it--wouldn't stand the +intervention of anything on earth, whether of my own making or +another's, between us and that first joy. And again, as I held her, I +thought of Louie's words. Louie was right--or at least half right. For +the present the shadow had passed, but unless I did something now, it +would return. Again we should drift apart, and Miss Levey would keep us +so. If I did not partly explain, circumstances might do so entirely. +Yes, Louie was so far right. If I was to keep the dearest thing on earth +to me, I must make a half-truth seem to guarantee the false remainder, +and tell Evie of that cruel Kitty Windus episode. + +And so I come to my first, though not to my last, attempt to tell +without telling, and, as they say, to make my omelette without breaking +my eggs. + +Her cheek was still against my hand; I looked mournfully down on her. +With such a goal it didn't much matter where I began. + +"What do you suppose, darling," I began, "Miss Levey's object is in all +this?" + +Evie's eyes moved to the mantelpiece. It was a bare entablature of black +marble, with nothing on it but a small Swiss clock and one or two +cabinet photographs--no Arab horsemen. Shyly she glanced from the +mantelpiece corner, where the horsemen should have been, to me. + +"Yes, she asked to-day whether you'd got it mended," she murmured. + +"Do you really like her?" + +"I was so lonely, Jeff," she pleaded. + +"Poor child!... Evie----" + +She looked quickly up at my change of tone. + +"What?" + +"I want to tell you what her object is. I don't find it easy." + +"What do you mean, Jeff?" she asked, strangely abruptly. + +"And I'm afraid you won't find it easy either." + +She had dropped my hand. "Jeff, what do you mean?" + +"I mean that she thinks she's found out--is finding out--something +discreditable about me." + +At first I did not understand the change, almost to horror, that came +into Evie's eyes. Only after a moment almost of fear of what I saw +there did I fathom her thought. I don't know how men speak who have an +unfaithfulness to confess to their wives, but it flashed on me that Evie +actually thought it might be that--so can pure innocence and worldly +experience be pierced by the same fear. + +"Jeff," she said faintly, her colour all gone, "don't you--haven't +you--loved me?" + +"Loved you?" I laughed for the irony of it. "Yes, dearest," I said +quietly, "I've loved you. Never fear for that. That was the beginning of +it all." + +"The beginning?" + +"Of what Miss Levey thinks. Dear, could you bear to think she's right, +and that I've been a blackguard?" + +So great was her suspense that the little sound she made was one almost +of irritation. "Oh, Jeff, say what you've got to say----" + +"It's why I spoke of causing pain to Kitty Windus----" + +"Oh, you're cruel----!" + +I moistened my lips. "Very well...." + + +Locked up in my private desk, written in Pitman's shorthand, there lies +a full statement of that curious affair of mine with Kitty Windus; but I +am not going to quote from that statement here. So long as it is +understood that that heartless thing had existed side by side with a +love for Evie that had never for a moment wavered, that is all that +matters. I had now no longer a thought for the undesirableness, the +danger even, of a meeting between Evie and Kitty; risky though that +would be, I now saw nothing save that we were reunited, and that we +could only remain so by passing on to her a portion of my shame. If you +don't see this you are lucky. Your life has trifles in it. You can buy +dining-tables, and use or reject the familiarity of Christian names. You +have not had to carry upon your shoulders a weight greater than a man +can support, nor to choose which portion you are to leave on the road +behind you unless your back is to break. You have not known the +conclusion to which--but you shall hear the conclusion to which I have +been driven all in good time. + +In the meantime, sparing myself in her eyes no more than I am sparing +myself in yours now, I told her how little she had ever had to fear from +Kitty Windus. + + +The hands of the tiny Swiss clock on the mantelpiece pointed to +half-past ten by the time I had finished. I gazed at the clock dully, +thinking for a moment how little time my recital had occupied. Then I +remembered that the hands had pointed to half-past ten before I had +begun.... Mechanically I took the clock down and wound it up. To wind +up a clock was something to do until Evie should speak. + +She had not once interrupted me. At one point of my story she had merely +got up from my knee and seated herself in a low rocking-chair, in which +she now rocked softly. As I still sat with the clock in my hands I tried +idly to remember at which point of my story she had got up; it might be +an indication of her state of mind; but I forgot this again, and found +myself examining the back of the clock almost with curiosity. I did not +look at her. I put the clock back on the mantelpiece again and once more +sat down, still without looking at her. Glancing presently at the clock +again I saw that its hands pointed to five and twenty minutes to eleven. +I had wound it up, but had forgotten to set it right. That again was +something to do. I adjusted it by my watch, and again sat down. + +Then she spoke, and my heart sank. There was nothing in her tone but +wonderment--wonderment, not at the story I had told her, but that I +should have found it worth telling at all. + +After all that portentous preparation--only that! + +Odd enough, of course--sad enough, if you liked--but---- + +"Well, but, Jeff," she said, puzzled, "what about it?" + +"Don't you see?" I asked, in a lower voice. + +"Of course I see--how do you mean, 'see'? And I think you were awfully +stupid. She was _bound_ to find out, and she did find out, and left you, +poor dear. It was absurd from beginning to end. Really I shall begin to +think myself clever and you a simpleton, if that's all you've been +moping about." + +As you see, I had not advanced matters by one single inch. + +"It _is_ all, isn't it, Jeff?" she asked anxiously, suddenly sitting +forward in the rocking-chair. "I don't mean," she went on more anxiously +still, "that the whole thing wasn't awfully queer--not quite nice, dear, +to speak the truth--but--but"--again there returned that quick look of +fear with which she had asked me whether I had not loved +her--"but--there wasn't--anything--Jeff?" + +I sank back in my chair. + +"No, there wasn't--anything," I said wearily. + +"Then, Jeff----" she cried gladly. + +And the next moment she was at my knee again, overflowing with comfort +and compassion. + +"You poor boy--you poor darling boy!" she crooned, so melted by my +contrition that my offence went uncondemned. "Poor love!... And," she +looked adorably up, "how _could_ Evie reproach you, Jeff, when it was +all for her? Darling!" she broke out, "_you_ ought to reproach _me_, for +thinking.... But you were so fearfully solemn.... I thought perhaps you +hadn't loved Evie.... _Has_ always loved Evie, hasn't he? And _will_ +always love her, yes? Great strong hand!" + +And as she murmured thus, again I thought of Louie. It was with +something like awe that I did so. "I think you'll find that sooner or +later you've got to tell her." How did she know that? Did she know it? +Had she foreseen how half-attempts would end, and known them beforehand +to be wasted breath? + +Then there came upon me the great need to see Louie again. I must see +her, and quickly. With Evie still unenlightened, the actual perils of a +meeting between herself and Kitty stood forward again, exactly as +before. Evie herself might not now wish for such a meeting, but that +would be on my account, and not that, if Kitty didn't mind, or +positively wished it, she saw any reason against it. Why should she, if +Kitty didn't?... Yes, I must see Louie again, at once. To-morrow was +Sunday. I must see her on the Monday. I must write--telephone--do +something---- + +"And to-morrow, Jeff," Evie was saying, with decision, "you really must +have a walk. You're working yourself ill--you look worried to death. I +can't come, of course, but I wish you'd go to Amersham or Chalfont or +somewhere, just for a blow. Leave horrid business just for one day, and +I'll have a nice supper ready for you when you come back. I shall be all +right.... Hush! Listen!" + +From upstairs had come a low, reedy cry. + +"That's Jackie--I must fly! Don't sit down here, dear--come now----" + +And she was off. + +I followed her; and as I stood looking down on the boy, who had gone to +sleep again of himself, I remembered my former dream, that by the wonder +of an innocent birth atonement was to have come. I sighed. Apparently it +hadn't. + +Well, I must see Louie on the Monday, that was all. + + +III + +I did see her on the Monday. I saw her at the models' Club, to which +place I telephoned early on the Monday morning. I had the luck to get on +to her immediately. "Yes?... This is Miss Causton," came the diminished +voice over the wire; and she said she would see me that evening at +seven. I sent Evie a message that I should be late. + +Perhaps you know those premises in the Chelsea Square. Two houses have +been thrown into one, but all I know of the establishment is the two +rooms of the ground floor, which, barring a narrow passage with a +rustling bead curtain across it, communicate. The room on the left of +the curtain is a large bare apartment that is used for parties, +tableaux, dancing and such like entertainments; that on the right is the +tea-room, sewing and wardrobe room, and room for general purposes. At +one end of it is a kitchener; placed near the kitchener is a small +service counter, brass foot-rail and all, that has done duty in some +saloon bar or other--it was probably picked up in the York Road, N.; and +the furniture has been given piecemeal by artists and is characterised +by great variety. The members can get tea for threepence halfpenny and +dinner for eightpence; and of course I was Louie Causton's guest. She +was looking out of the window as I approached the house; she herself +opened the door to me; and we walked through the bead portiere and +entered the party-room on the left. We sat down by a yellow upright +piano at the farther end of this room. I heard the frying of chops +across the passage. They wouldn't be long, Louie said, and then added +that I was looking pretty well. + +A long walk round Chalfont Woods the previous day had, in fact, done me +good. She herself appeared to be in excellent health and spirits. She +asked me whether I had seen Billy Izzard lately, and then, without +waiting for an answer, laughed as two girls, in waltzing attitude, +balanced in the doorway for a moment, and then, seeing us, went out +again. "The girls dance in here," Louie explained. "Oh, do you?" I +remarked. "Oh, _I_ don't," was her reply; and she went on to ask what +was new with me. It was all refreshingly ordinary and matter-of-fact, +and there was no indication that she had any serious care on her mind. + +A stout woman in an apron appeared in the doorway and announced that our +chops were ready. We passed into the other room. I said that the +furniture of the Club had been given by artists; the table at which we +sat down had been a card-table. As I could not get my legs under it I +had to sit sideways at it, and our plates, cups and saucers were edge +to edge, with the salt and pepper in the interstices. Louie smiled and +said something about our interview being literally a tete-a-tete, and we +attacked our chops. + +From where I sat I could see the vista of the party-room across the +passage, and Louie's eyes, as they met mine from time to time, had +something of the same soft sheen of the polished floor of that +apartment. She wore a navy blue skirt and plain white mercerised blouse +without collar or any other finish at the neck; and as we ate and talked +of this and that there rose in my mind again that surmise I had had when +Billy had told me, by the Whitestone Pond, that she had stopped sitting. +Nothing that I can describe happened to confirm that surmise, and yet +somehow I was conscious of the growing confirmation. It had begun when +she had twinkled and said, "How's Billy?" and a moment or two later, +when the two girls had stood poised in the doorway for dancing, she had +smiled and said, "Oh, _I_ don't dance." The twinkle about Billy had not +been lost on me; and when I tell you that the single dance of my own +life had been with her, years before, at a breaking-up party at the old +Business College, perhaps you can make a guess at the nature of my +surmise. + +For I had read in those eyes of hers, on that night of the Berkeley +dinner, that she loved me and must go on loving me; and she herself had +said, in so many words, "It's nothing to do with you--you can't help +that." And now she had taken this fantastic resolution not to sit any +more. Whether I would have it so or not, she had a right in me, in +which, quite calmly and ordinarily, she now exulted. Yet had ever before +mortal woman exulted over anything less substantial? The whole thing +seemed to me both preposterously lovely and quite movingly absurd. She +had wheedled out of Billy that perfect sketch that had stood on his +easel that evening I had walked, unannounced, into his room opposite the +Cobden Statue. Why? What ridiculous and sacred tapers did she burn about +it? Billy must now paint her in costume or not at all. Why? Of what +beautiful and empty union was this a consummation? Did she seriously +intend that thenceforward no eye but mine---- But I waste words. You see +it or you don't see it. That, as near as makes no matter, appeared to be +how things stood between us, and there was nothing to tell me that she +was not happy in this beautiful lunacy. As for myself, I supposed I must +be content to be owned almost to the point of insult in possession. + +"I'm just beginning to get used to it," I remember she said to me at one +stage of that evening--the thing she was just beginning to get used to +being sitting under the new conditions. "Did you know it was really +harder? Your clothes tingle on you, you know." + +I mention this only to show that, since she might speak at her pleasure +of a thing of which I might not even recognise the existence, her +tyranny over me was pretty complete. + +We had finished our chops, and I was wondering what she supposed my +reason for having sought her to be, when she herself put the direct +question. She put her plate on the floor so as to make room for her +elbows on the table. + +"Give me a cigarette if you have one," she said. "I'm afraid I've picked +up that habit here. All the girls do it: there's a cigarette-case in +their bags if there's nothing else." + +And when I had given her a light, she put her elbows on the table again, +her wrists and forearms fell into an attitude that really made me sorrow +for Billy, and she said: "Well, what is it?" + +With no more waste of words than she herself had used, I told her of +Miss Levey's voracious curiosity, of Evie's perplexed sense of something +unexplained, and of my own unsuccessful attempt to have my eggs and my +omelette too. + +She listened attentively: the change of which I shall speak in a moment +did not come all at once. Other girls had now come into the Club, and +two or three of them were gathered about a brown-paper parcel, some +purchase of dress material or other which they were discussing with +animation. Others fetched cups of tea from the saloon bar counter, +eating and drinking, perched carelessly on the ends of tables, the +spiral twist of the work of their stockings telling how readily they got +into and out of their clothes. + +Before I had finished my story Louie interrupted me with the first of a +little series of detached remarks. + +"One moment," she said. "When do you start--this Consolidation, I mean?" + +"In a few weeks. We shall send some of the men on in advance in about a +fortnight. Why?" + +"You don't intend to take Miriam Levey over with you?" + +"I do not." + +"You don't suppose she doesn't know that?" + +"Well?" + +"Well--but go on." She made a little gesture. "I interrupted you." + +I went on. + +"Half-a-minute," she came in again presently. "All this was quite---- I +mean, there was no quarrel?" + +"With Evie? No--oh, no, no." + +"Well----" + +And the next time she interrupted me was merely to ask me whether I had +another cigarette. + +I admit that there had come over me as I had talked an increasing sense +of the burden I had placed upon her. Nor do I mean that I had not had +this sense before. I had, indeed, thought of little else during my walk +to Chalfont the previous day. But it is yet another coin added to the +price of a righteous but unlicenced slaying that a man's selfishness +becomes merely inordinate. I had known more or less what she must bear; +exactly what she had to bear it with I had taken for granted. She had +perhaps herself to thank for that, and that tense and incredible calm +she had shown on the night I had dined at the Berkeley. I had known the +depths of her womanliness that other night; soon I was to learn the +shallows of her femininity. + +"Well," she said, when at last I had finished, "I really don't see what +else you expected. And," she went on, but more slowly, and somehow as if +she didn't quite trust herself, "I don't see either what you expect of +me. I told you what I thought before." + +"You mean that I should have to tell her?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, tell me why." + +"You've just told me why." + +"Well, put it another way. You see the frightful risk--to her. The +question is, ought it to be taken?" + +For a moment those tourmalines of her eyes seemed to flicker, as if she +would have shown me again the abysses beyond them; but they remained +shut as she spoke more slowly still. + +"That's not quite the question. Can you--go on--as you are doing? And +if you can't, what's the alternative?" + +To that I had no answer to make. + +Her cigarette had gone out, and her beautiful fingers were holding it +listlessly. All at once I found myself noticing the contrast between her +and the chattering group of models down the room. The girl with the +brown-paper parcel had approached a cupboard and taken out some +second-hand property or other of frayed velvet and torn gold: "It's +hardly worth re-making: I vote we cut it up," I heard her say. And I +wondered whether Louie had sat in the torn and tawdry thing--now that +she had been warned against chills. The giggling and the skiddle of +teacups went on, but Louie pressed her fingers on her eyeballs for a +moment. Perhaps it was this pressure that made them, when she looked up +again, seem dull and tired. + +"At any rate, that's how it strikes me," she said. + +She looked suddenly older--much older--so much older that it gave me a +pang. During my walk on the previous day I had told myself over and over +again that I must have made of her life also exactly what I had made of +my own--a fearful thing without trifles; but I had _had_ to tell myself, +if you appreciate what I mean. Now, to see it with my own eyes was +another matter. There was that other quantity, the quantity unknown to +me but drearily familiar enough to her, I didn't doubt--Kitty.... A +word of advice to those who contemplate the putting out of a life on +their own responsibility: When a woman, on a rainy night in St. James's +Park, or wherever and whenever, lets you look down into her soul, and +drops a plummet into your own, and asks you whether you are not a +murderer, and you no more dare to lie than you would dare a foulness in +the face of majesty, then do anything you like--fly from her, bite out +your tongue, kill her also--but for mere pity of her don't answer "Yes." +Don't, that is, unless you are sure that she will betray you. If you do, +depend on it she'll ask you to a Models' Club or somewhere, and the +horror of a life without trifles will come over you, and you'll see her +press her fingers on her eyeballs and then look up again, five years +older in as many minutes. + +"What about Kitty?" I asked abruptly. + +She answered quickly--too quickly: "Oh, Kitty's all right; you needn't +bother about Kitty; leave her to me. As a matter of fact she's been +awfully useful to me." + +"How useful?" + +"Oh, in quite the most material way," she said, with a short and +mirthless laugh. "That's not been pure philanthropy, I assure you. I +dare say you know----" + +I did know that Kitty had perhaps a pound a week of her own money, from +some tramways out Edgbaston way. + +"And she types at home, too--authors' manuscript--when she can get +it--and I save the ten shillings I had to pay somebody to look after the +boy." + +"And you yourself?" I ventured meaningly. + +"Oh," she answered evasively, "we've not stuck fast yet." + +"In spite of your chills," thought I; and then, as another burst of +laughter broke from the girls down the room, I said aloud: "Tell +me--I've never asked you--how did you drop into this kind of thing? You +used to be at a business college." + +Again she smiled. "Did I? Sometimes I can hardly believe that was I. +It's precious little I learned there, anyway. And this other--I could +explain to Billy--I'm not pretty, I know, not my face, but--well, it +seemed a fairly obvious thing to do. There wasn't much else, anyhow, and +remember I did fairly well out of it--better than most girls in +offices." + +She had grown faintly pink, and again the tourmalines had given, as it +were, a half turn. I dropped my voice and looked earnestly at her. + +"And these--chills--aren't they anything you could ever grow out of?" + +The soft irradiation deepened as she looked as earnestly back at me. + +"No," she said. + +"I see. And what you learned at the College--have you forgotten all +that?" + +Then, looking almost challengingly at one another, we began to speak +rather quickly, and a little elliptically. + +"I think I can guess what you mean," she said, dropping her gaze again. + +"I think you do." + +"That's why I asked you just now when the Consolidation was starting.... +You don't suppose she'll love you any more for throwing her out of a +job, do you?" + +"She can't hate me much more than she does." + +"Well, you may depend upon it, she knows she's going." + +"Well, that saves trouble." + +"Oh, no, it doesn't." + +"Ah!--You think not?" + +"I'm sure not." + +A pause. + +"I gather you've seen her?" + +"Oh, often." + +"At your place?" + +"Yes." + +"I don't suppose you love her much. Why do you have her there?" + +"You don't love her either. Why do you?" + +"Well, there's Evie." + +"And there's Kitty." + +Another pause, and then: "I see." + +Then suddenly I spoke a little more to the point. + +"Well, would you accept the job if I could arrange it?" + +She hesitated. "It's very necessary, of course, that I should do +something." + +"You'd take it?" + +"I almost think--there's my boy, you see--but we'll talk about that in a +minute. You were asking me about Kitty. I don't think you need worry +about her. I keep her in hand. I don't think it would matter very much +if she and your wife did meet, and, on the whole, you'd be doing more +harm by objecting beyond a certain point than you would by allowing it. +So, as far as she's concerned, things had better drift. The worst of it +is"--again the fingers on the eyeballs--"they don't drift." + +"Don't drift?" + +"You know what Miriam Levey is." + +I caught my breath. "You don't mean _she's_ any idea----" I said +quickly. + +"Oh, none whatever," Louie said hurriedly. "I don't mean that +at all. But I _do_ mean she'd thoroughly enjoy seeing you made +uncomfortable--got at--scored off--get her own back--you know what I +mean." + +"That's noth----" I began absently, but checked myself. "That's +nothing," I had been on the point of saying, but there were no nothings +for us. Louie's vigils must be as unremitting as my own. + +Suddenly I found myself without the heart to ask her in detail what +these were. We now had the tea-room to ourselves; the bevy of models had +scurried off to the party-room, and two of them appeared to be playing +an elementary duet on the piano, with wrong notes loudly and laboriously +corrected, amid laughter and general high spirits. Again the contrast +was cruel. _They_ hadn't to look before, behind and about them for the +dread of a ruinous inadvertence.... You will find it difficult to +reconcile with remorse, by the way, that, stealing another glance at +Louie's drawn and anxious face, I cursed a heedless young cub who had +gone to his account nearly six years before. + +"Anyway," she said, after a long silence, "I'll see to that as far as I +can. Plan as we like, we've got to take some risks. Don't look at me +like that. It isn't more than I can bear. There's joy in it too. The +only thing I don't quite understand is why _I_ should want to throw that +joy away by--by giving you the advice I did." + +"The advice you did?" + +"To tell your wife." + +"But----" It broke agitatedly from me. Again the tourmalines seemed to +move. + +"The risk; just so; don't think I don't see it. Oh, I see it--far more +plainly than you do! Haven't you thought that perhaps it's that +that----" She stopped abruptly, ending in a little twanging murmur. + +And I had at last become conscious of something that hitherto I had only +half consciously noticed--namely, that she spoke of Evie repeatedly as +"your wife." Obstinately she refused to use her name. I think that I +felt even then our approach to what I have called the shallows of her +femininity. Can you wonder at it? Is it so very surprising that, with +the tremors of those shut transmitters of her eyes, the whole fantastic +and exhausting fabric of my interpretation of her feeling for myself +tottered? He has to be a greater painter than Billy Izzard whose fiction +can fill the life of a woman already past thirty, whom you have so +heaped with cares that her face takes on age as you look at it! Her +voice shook as she strove to hide all this from me. + +"But you see the disadvantage you have me at," she said. "_You_ know +what you really want, though you haven't put it quite plainly yet; but +even if I were to try it you wouldn't let me say what _I_ mean." + +"Oh, say it, say it: we're in the mess, and it's no good keeping things +back." + +"No, no--you've no right to expect that of me. I'll do everything else, +but I'm only a mortal woman, with limbs and hungers, after all." + +"You're a very wondrous one." + +"Tch!" The exclamation broke from her as if I had blundered on a nerve +with an instrument. "You're making big demands of my wondrousness, +Jim!" + +I gave a low groan. "Poor woman! Is it more than----" + +But she broke out into quite a loud cry. + +"Not that, Jim," she commanded, "not--that! That's the only thing I will +_not_ bear! If you're going to make me out noble, or disinterested, or +self-sacrificing, or anything of that sort I--I can't bear it. I'm not. +I hate Evie. I hate myself. I almost hate you when I see how stupid and +clumsy you can be. Oh, _you_ know what _you_ want! You want just one +thing--to be happy with her; but do you think I scheme and contrive for +you because _I_ want you to be happy with her? Oh no! I do it because I +can't help myself, and because it's that or nothing between you and me, +and that's all there is splendid about it! I won't be called 'Poor +woman.' And you needn't shake your head either. If I could get you, I +would; but there it is, I can't, and that's all the loyalty I have for +_her_! And you ask me," she broke out anew, almost furiously, "you ask +me whether I 'don't see' things! It's you who don't see, and never will! +You get a fixed idea into your head, and everything else----" She +snapped her fingers. "What do you suppose your wife would say if she +knew you were here with me now? _I_ shouldn't care a straw about her +knowing, but have you told _her_? _Will_ you tell her? You know you +won't! You daren't--you daren't trust her! Oh, I know what you're going +to say--that you can't discuss her with me--but in that case you +shouldn't take my position quite so much for granted. I'm the last +person to put on a pedestal. You ask me whether I see things: don't I! +Don't I see what they might have been--yes, even in spite of the mess I +made of them! With half a chance I could have----" + +"Louie!" + +"Sssh--it's got to come out now! I was happy till that night--you know +the night I mean--and that night I was fool enough to think it was +possible to stop up there--away up in the air. I gave you and got from +you that night what no other woman on earth could have done, and I +thought we could stop at that. I thought I could go on living at that. I +thought that would be enough for me; and when I found it wasn't, I began +to--bolster it up. You've seen Billy--you know what I mean. And I still +have something of you that nobody else has, and--I want to give it away! +I want you to give her that too! I advise you to tell her and leave me +with nothing! I must be mad! Jim"--her voice dropped with startling +effect--"you once said that to tell her would be to kill her: _if I +could only think that_!... But there, you'll tell her, and take away the +last thing I have of you.... But she won't get that thing. It's beyond +her. That's yours and mine whether you wish it or not. If you don't +believe me, try it. Tell her. Tell her her husband made away with her +sweetheart; tell her why; tell her what you've told me, and if she takes +it as I did, I haven't another word to say. I hate her; I'm not running +away from that; so perhaps I'm not just. Perhaps there is a chance: if +so, it's your only one. I've had no luck. I'm out of it, and there's no +more to say. Give me a match." + +She took up and relighted her half-smoked cigarette. + +I have merely set down what she said, and the way she said it; for the +rest, I leave you to draw your own conclusions. Perhaps it is unusual to +allow these freedoms to be taken with your wife, but I think you will +admit that the occasion was unusual. She had told me, in effect, that +murderers ought to be careful whom they marry, and that I had married +the wrong woman: but she had left out of the account one thing that made +all the difference. You know as well as I what she had left out--the +supreme sanctification of the flesh: "With my body I thee worship."... +It was Evie, not Louie Causton, with whom I had heard that nightingale +sing on Wimbledon Common. They had been Evie's lips, not Louie's, that +had not sought to escape my own on that September evening in Kensington +Gardens. It was Evie whom I had married.... It was natural that Louie +should see how things might conceivably have been different; you can say +that however they turn out; and perhaps that was where the fatality +came in. Circumstance, propinquity, accident, a step rightly or wrongly +taken, and the rest is predicated with a terrible inevitability. Louie +had had no luck; and now, not because I had placed a crushing weight +upon her, but because I had given her the pity while another got the +love, she had broken out upon me. + +At any rate, I saw her own position sadly clearly now. + +And, there being no more to say, she rose. + +In the hall, however, she did find one more word to say. They were +playing Sir Roger in the party-room as I held aside the bead _portiere_ +for Louie to pass, and the couples, seen through the gauzy hanging, +seemed spectrally charming. Louie stood on the other side of the +curtain, mortal, unspectral enough under a cheap square hall lamp with +tesserae of coloured glass. With head downhung, she moved spiritlessly +towards the outer door, where she stood meditatively with her hand on +the letter-box. At last she looked up. + +"About what you were saying about Miriam Levey," she said, without +preface. "I don't think it would do--not now." + +I knew she meant her own acceptance of Miriam's place. I asked her why +not. + +"Oh, I've said too much for that to be possible now. We've been too +near. We mustn't come so near again." + +"But surely," I said dispiritedly, "a job----" + +She shook her head. "I should be seeing you," she said. "It wouldn't do. +Good-night." + +And I lost the strains of Sir Roger as the door closed between us. + + +IV + +Looking back over what I have written, I find it will hasten my tale if +I take events with rather a free hand in point of time, sequence and so +forth; and I shall do so. For example, the setting up of the +Consolidation in Pall Mall did not actually take place until the +following spring, but our arrangements were complete long before that +time, and, as my tale is about myself rather than about the +Consolidation, I will say as much as is necessary about that enterprise +now, and have done with it. + +We have to all intents and purposes absorbed the old F.B.C., and this +has been greatly to the advantage of both concerns. The Company's +mercantile position is the firmer, and we are left the freer for things +both larger and more special. In the handling of these Pepper has been +brilliant. True, he has taken chances, sometimes more than I have liked; +but he is a born taker of chances, and it is astonishing, on the whole, +how seldom things have failed to come off. In his own line I have never +met his equal. I think I mentioned that he had been in Russia: I never +knew exactly what his errand was there; but I can make a guess at the +kind of thing. Last summer, for instance, he was out in the West +Indies--with a few tin specimen-boxes and a butterfly net (this is the +man who doesn't know a butterfly from a bumble-bee, and once asked me +what a birch was). Out in the West Indies he met Magnay, of Astbury, +Phillips--a valetudinarian after tarpon. Sichel was there too; I forget +whether he was playing golf, or healing a lung, or merely yawning his +head off in deck-chairs. And of course (a nod being as good as a wink to +a blind horse) there could be no possible connection between these +innocent pursuits and the Panama Canal, trans-shipment stations and the +South American coasting trade.... So maybe Pepper had had no thought of +hides or timber or tallow when he had learned the Siberian method of +hunting bear.... Anyway, all I want you to understand, without making it +too plain, is that we leave these things to Pepper. He dines geologists +and botanists and explorers and concessionaires: he does them well, and +is perfectly charming; and it may quite well be that, before he has +finished with them, a little inconspicuous piece of paper that not one +in a thousand as much as glances at is posted up in Whitehall one day, +Britain has proclaimed a new Protectorate somewhere or other, and the +Consolidation is at the bottom of it. It pays us that Pepper keeps his +nails manicured and knows his way about a wine-list. It may not be noble +or altruistic or anything of that kind, but it's the way things get +done in this world, and be hanged to Schmerveloff and the humanitarians. + +So, while we were still with the F.B.C., Pepper was playing every ball +straight back to the inquisitive folk who wanted to know what was in the +wind, we were ready to go over at a month's notice to that great new +cathedral of a place with the mosaic floors and the bronze statues in +the niches, and I was free to rub my rosy prospects into Aunt Angela to +my heart's content. It had come off, or, thanks to Pepper and Robson and +the rest of them, could hardly now fail to do so. But Aunt Angela, when +I twinkled at her, and mentioned this, only gave me back my smiles +thrice spiritualised. She never failed to rejoice, for our sakes, +whenever a new piece of furniture came into the house in Well Walk, but +for herself, her attitude was piously and amusingly penitential. I never +knew austerity so resemble luxuriousness--or the other way about, +whichever it was. And of this new furniture we presently began to have +quite a lot. Collecting, as I have since come to understand the word, +was as yet, of course, far beyond my means; but I used a bronze copy of +a lioness by Barye on my desk as a paper-weight, I had good autotypes of +Meryon on my study walls, I had bought Evie a dinner service, quite good +enough for most occasions even to-day, and I had sales' catalogues and +auctioneers' circulars, a dozen a week. Oh, yes, we were getting on, +and Pepper winked, remembering his candlesticks, but said nothing. + +But let me return to Aunt Angela for a moment. The effect on her of +these evidences of our increasing prosperity was curious. Without the +loss of a jot of her amiability, but rather to the increase of it, she +set herself apart from our modest splendours. If I use the word +"religiosity" I mean it only in its most innocent sense: but something +of the sort had been incipient in her for a long time, and now merely +became declared. Perhaps I cannot do better than tell here of the +evening in which I first discovered how far this had gone. If at this +point my narrative seems a little diffuse, it is merely because the +longest way round is often the shortest way home, and also because Aunt +Angela's attitude was not the only thing I learned that night. + +I think it would be a little before Christmas, on a Tuesday or +Wednesday; I know the day, if not the week, because it was what Evie, +who corrected some of my own recklessnesses by still clinging to small +economies, called an "eating-up night." On those nights I was expressly +forbidden to bring anybody home to dinner--I except Aunt Angela and +Billy Izzard, who came when they pleased. As it happened, they had both +turned up on that very evening, and had partaken of a rather scratch +supper; and I, who had had an exceptionally heavy day, hoped that nobody +would come in afterwards--not that anybody was very likely to. As +Jackie had gone to bed, Billy had been allowed to play Evie's new piano +only with the soft pedal down (Evie herself, I may say, did not play, +but was resolved to learn); and Aunt Angela had several skeins of wool +to wind into balls. From the arm-chair in which I half dozed I could see +Evie, still in the waterproof apron in which she had given Jackie his +bath, setting the child's basket to rights. Our only maid was taking her +"evening out" and was probably up on the Spaniards Road. + +I was not too sleepy to see that Aunt Angela needed somebody to hold her +wool, and I volunteered drowsily for the service. But, "No, thanks, +Jeff," she replied; "you have a nap; besides, I must be getting used to +doing things for myself." I did not insist, and the last thing I +remember before I dropped off for forty winks was seeing her reach for +Pepper's candlesticks, place them on the hearthrug, and, passing a hank +of wool about them, begin to wind. + +It seemed to me that several sounds awoke me simultaneously--the +stopping of a hansom at the front door, the ringing of a bell +downstairs, and a quick exclamation from Evie. It was not impossible, of +course, that any one of a number of visitors might have called in a +hansom at half-past nine at night, but Evie had concluded, and rightly +as it happened, that this was the one with whom she was least of all at +home--Pepper. I heard her suppressed exclamation of "Bother!" The next +moment she had whisked off the waterproof apron, thrust it under the +piano lid, then, seeing Aunt Angela still placidly winding, had said, +"Quick--in case--hide them, Auntie," and had flown to answer the bell. + +But Aunt Angela, in her flurry, had only succeeded in making the +candlesticks a hopeless cat's-cradle of wool before Evie's voice of +vivacious welcome was heard, and Pepper himself entered. + +He had Whitlock and a stranger with him, the latter a bearded and +taciturn provincial who was introduced as Mr Toothill. Mr Toothill, +indeed, I gathered to be the reason of the visit. Pepper has to be +charming to a great variety of men, and is not often beaten, but +occasionally there does fall to him ("for his virtues," he says) a man +he can neither dine, wine nor take to a show, and I know the signs in +him when he is at his most affable and most intensely bored. I may say +at once that Mr Toothill has no connection with my tale other than as +having been the cause of this visit. + +Now Pepper has the gift of being able to make all manner of things +(especially men) invisible when he chooses; and although Aunt Angela, in +making out of sight with the wool and the candlesticks of Pepper's own +giving, had only succeeded in putting them on the table and making them +the most conspicuous objects in the room, for Pepper they did not +exist. That bright photographic eye of his took in every other object in +the room, but no candlesticks. + +But not so Mr Toothill. He came, Whitlock told me afterwards, from the +West Riding of Yorkshire, where he was a power; but so little of a power +was he in London that, had Pepper not rashly burdened himself with him, +he would probably have waited in King's Cross Station for the next train +back to his own parts. Anyway, here he was in my house, and as his eyes +fell on the wool-winding, they lighted up (so Whitlock said) with the +first spark of interest they had shown that evening. + +"This is like ho-o-ome, at all events," he said, giving the word I don't +know how many "o's." "But you've got it felted, haven't you? If the +ladies will excuse me----" + +And without more ceremony, and in spite of Aunt Angela's protestations, +he drew the candlesticks towards himself, began to unravel the +ridiculous tangle, and became for purposes of conversation a piece of +furniture with a beard. + +Of course Mr Toothill had been foisted on us merely because Pepper had +not known what else in the world to do with him; but Pepper's beautiful +candour rarely confessed much of what was really passing in his mind, +and I awaited with relish the reason he would give for his call. By this +time I was quite wide awake again; and Mr Toothill had refused the +whisky I had got out. + +Well, Judy had several reasons, all sufficient, all perfect; but alas! +he and Evie ever hit it off with deplorable lucklessness. He and +Whitlock were Jackie's godfathers; but, as against the rather loud way +in which he had rung the bell, his urbanities about the spiritual +relationship availed him little with Evie. Her looks said plainly, to me +at all events, that if Pepper intended her to believe that he had called +on an eating-up night merely to ask how Jackie was getting on, he +mistook her. Driven from this outpost, Pepper proudly refused to urge +the commonplace excuse of private business with myself. Instead, he +delicately adjusted his trousers, produced his cigar-case, besought +Evie's permission with a glance, and then, lighting up with +deliberation, astonished myself hardly less than Evie by saying: +"Well--unless Whitlock's already told you--I've come for your +congratulations, Mrs Jeffries." + +"Oh? What on, Mr Pepper?" said Evie. She had summoned up a ready, glad +look. + +"Ah, I see he hasn't told you. Stupid of me--of course he couldn't have, +as I only heard myself about four hours ago. Dear Mrs Jeffries, you may +congratulate me on my impending knighthood." + +Evie jumped up. "_Really?_" I myself was not so much surprised at the +fact as at the moment of its coming, though my surprise at that also +passed instantly. Of course it would be so much prestige for the +Consolidation. + +Yes, Judy was down among the approaching New Year's Honours. And so he +ought to have been. If there is official recognition for a man who can +merely advise in a party's interest which provincial mayors can be given +the accolade without being made the laughing-stock of their neighbours, +Judy's services to the Administration had been far greater. To the man +on 'change this would doubtless seem a feather in the cap of the F.B.C.; +only a few knew that before long it would prove a thorn in their sides. +Yes, it was distinctly good preparation for the coming Consolidation, +and, in the meantime, there was the knight-elect's health to drink, and +I had only got the whisky out. I myself fetched up the claret for Aunt +Angela and Evie. Both the announcement and the manner of it had been a +huge success, and Billy Izzard, remarking "I won't say 'may I,'--" +reached for Pepper's cigar-case. + +"Well, I _am_ glad!" said Evie, maybe, wife-like, casting ahead in a +wonder as to what my own chances might be. "And are we really the first +to know?" + +"Except Whitlock and Mr Toothill, yes. But of course I needn't say----" + +"Oh, of course we wouldn't breathe a word! Isn't it splendid, auntie?" + +Indeed, Evie seemed quite won over. I think she came nearer that +evening to liking Pepper than she has done either before or since. + +As I said, I have an object in relating all this--several objects. The +next thing happened perhaps half-an-hour later, when Mr Toothill had +almost freed one candlestick of wool, but otherwise had not greatly +added to our sociability. For that half hour Pepper had reigned among +us, but then, bit by bit, he had begun slowly to slip back again. We had +guardedly discussed the prospects of the Consolidation; and then, as a +preliminary to his coming down presently with a run, Pepper made a +perfectly innocent but altogether luckless remark. It was about Miss +Levey. + +"It was understood she wasn't to come over," he grumbled; "I agreed to +that; but I don't see why she should be taken away from me just now." (I +had got rid of Miss Levey that very week.) "Hang her private +convictions! What do I care about her private convictions as long as she +does her work?" + +I laughed, though a little lamely. "My dear Judy, we don't want a woman +whose job interferes with her propaganda, and she's been incubating +'rights' of one sort and another for a long time. Send her to +Schmerveloff: he receives that sort with open arms. Let him make a case +of persecution out of it. We want efficiency." + +"But, dash it all, she _was_ efficient." + +"She wasn't. You had to pull her up last week, and I had twice the week +before. She'd been warned." + +Judy, who really didn't care a button about the loss of Miss Levey, +laughed. "The red rag again, Jeffries! You have here, Mr Toothill, quite +the most insular man in this realm, _and_ the most obstinate. I can make +him do anything he's a mind to--and not much else. Well, well, if you +won't have a suffragette, perhaps you'll find me a member of the Women's +Primrose League?" + +But here Whitlock struck in. "By the way, I'd an applicant this +morning." + +"From the Women's Primrose League?" Pepper tossed over his shoulder. + +"I don't mean for the private work, but as general amanuensis," Whitlock +went on. "I asked her how she heard we wanted anybody, and she said she +hadn't--had just looked in on the chance." + +"Go to Jeffries, since he's made it his affair," Pepper grumbled. + +"Well, Miss Day _is_ getting married," Whitlock went on, "so that we +shall want somebody in the outer office. Then promote Miss Lingard----" + +"What was she like?" + +Billy Izzard's eyes were dreamily on the smoke of Pepper's expensive +cigar, but I saw a change come into them. Whitlock has a passable gift +of description. He began to describe the woman who had looked in on the +chance of a job: before he had finished I had no doubt, and Billy (I +gathered) not much, of who the female out-o'-work had been. "Hallo, my +model!" I guessed to be in his mind; but it was no business of his, and +he appeared to be relishing his cigar as before. + +"I've forgotten her name, but I have it in the book," Whitlock +concluded. "Clouston or Christian or something like that." + +"Well, see she isn't anti-suffrage either," quoth Pepper; "as far as I +can see, that would be just as bad." + +And he selected a fresh cigar. + +My first thought had shaped itself in the very words for which Louie +herself had pulled me up so sharply: "Poor woman!" For it was +pathetically clear what had happened--what must have happened. Once more +she had taken a resolution too heroic to be held to, and whether she had +caved in because of myself or because of the necessity for feeding and +clothing her boy made no practical difference. I could only hope it was +the last. Poverty leaves little room for heroics. Later, as I think I +told you, Louie got Miss Day's post, and after that Miss Lingard's, +which she has still. + +And my second thought was that, as she had applied of herself for Miss +Levey's place, there would now be no more love lost between her and Miss +Levey than there was between Miss Levey and myself. I began to muse on +this.... + +But let me go on with that curiously broken evening. + +Ever since Pepper had told us about his knighthood Aunt Angela had sat, +her slender fingers folded in her lap, smiling from time to time into +the fire. Now knighthood is a temporal distinction, and, as such (I am +putting this bluntly), another nut for that new and dainty humility of +hers to crack. For worldliness, it was my own promised wealth in another +form; and against such things she seemed to have taken up some sort of a +position. I think the less practicable human charities had given her a +tenderness even for Miss Levey, for I had not escaped a soft look of +reproach when I had made my observations on that lady; and altogether +she appeared to be wrapped in a little private veil of dissociation from +the rest of us and our doings. + +So--again to anticipate what became plain a little later--she also was +nursing her little surprise for us. Several times during the last month +or two she had spoken vaguely of leaving her rooms in Woburn Place, the +rooms she had shared with Evie before our marriage; but I had not taken +her very seriously; she was welcome to come to us (as she afterwards +did) whenever she chose, and she knew it. But she had got it into her +head that she would like to take a single room--oh, quite a large, airy, +cheerful one--and, as it turned out presently, she had actually done so +that very day. + +Some chance remark of Pepper's--I think it was something about how +pleasant it was to see us thus in our little family circle--gave her the +opportunity for her announcement. There had been a little byplay between +Pepper and Evie, who had wanted to know why in that case he didn't get +married himself; and to that Pepper, abolishing (as it were) the +candlesticks under his nose by an act equal in potency to that of +creation itself, had answered gallantly (and, in the presence of those +candlesticks, rather naughtily) that our own menage set him a standard +which he would rather cherish in thought than fall from in miserable +actuality. It was then that his look embraced Aunt Angela, and my maiden +aunt by marriage smiled. + +"I suppose Mr Pepper thinks I live here because he always finds me +here," she said. "But that's only because I've no conscience about +inflicting myself on other people. _My_ dwelling's a much more modest +one than this, Mr Pepper." + +I think Pepper was insincere enough to reply that that it might quite +well be and yet almost everything that could be desired. + +"I forgot to tell you that, Jeff," Aunt Angela continued, turning to me. +"As a matter of fact I only settled the matter to-day--so you're not the +only one for whom to-day's been _quite_ important, Mr Pepper." She +preened herself. + +"Oh!" I said shortly. I thought the whole idea rather stupid. But she +continued: + +"I go in in exactly ten days, as soon as the paint's dry. And as I don't +begin to pay till Christmas, I actually get a week for nothing. That +might not be much to some people," she purred, dropping her eyes, "but +it's quite a lot to me. So, Jeff, I shall want you to bring a hammer and +a foot-rule--or whatever it is. He's _so_ clever at putting up things, +Mr Pepper." + +She ran amiably on, describing her proposed arrangements. + +I could hardly blame Pepper that, to save himself from talking, he drew +her out. He was bored to death with the drowsy banality of the evening. +So Aunt Angela told us how cosy she was going to be in her new quarters. +With her bed screened off in one corner, and the day's fire still +burning, she would be able (she said) to lie happily awake and watch the +firelight on the ceiling and indulge "an old woman's fancies"; there +would be no stairs except when she came out of doors; and she wouldn't +have to cook in the same room, for there was a little landing with a +stove left by the last tenant--and so on. Pepper was the picture of +polite interest. + +"And I shall give a little housewarming, I think," she said, as one who +knew that hospitality consisted in the hostship and not in the +entertainment provided. "Really I should like to ask you all, Mr +Toothill too." + +Toothill, who had now finished the "unfelting," had struck a match and +was experimenting to find out how much of the worsted was cotton and how +much wool. He looked up for a moment, but resumed his occupation. Pepper +hoped that _he_ would not be left out of Aunt Angela's housewarming. + +Aunt Angela murmured that that was very sweet of him. + +And the smallest of small talk went on. + +I don't know that I need give any more of it. Indeed, I don't remember +any more of it. Toothill found the wool to be "sixty Botany" or +something of the kind, and we sat on, everybody wanting to break the +party up, but nobody (not even Pepper) knowing quite how to do so +without an open reference to a watch. I omit the details of Pepper's +complete downfall in Evie's eyes. I know that by some accident or other +the piano lid was opened, displaying the waterproof apron, and that poor +Evie, flurried until she hardly knew what she was saying, committed the +solecism of calling Pepper "Sir Julius," grew pink (poor dear), and +hated, not herself, but Pepper. Also her frugality received a shock when +it was discovered that the hansom had been kept waiting all this time. +Then the maid, returning from the Spaniards Road, filled my poor wife's +cup by bringing in I know not what homely provision for Jackie's +comfort during the night. Then they went. + +Now, except when the flattery of personal attention is of the highest +importance, Pepper turns all provincials over to Whitlock; and I myself, +if ever Mr Toothill turns up at my house again, shall take the +precaution of having a whole barrow-load of worsted for his +entertainment, and if possible a kitten to "felt" it for him. + + +V. + +I have now to tell how Aunt Angela was as good as her word about the +housewarming of her new abode. I hope that in these last pages I have +not seemed harsh in thought to the kind and aimless soul. She did not +meditate the mischief that came of that evening, and it was not for lack +of anything she was able to do to remedy it afterwards that partial, if +not total shipwreck came. But that helped little. Malevolence, in my +experience, is not the worst of dangers a man as exposed as I has to +fear. It is the mischief hat grows as it were of itself, inherent in +persons and their diverse characters and manifold relations that is the +deadly thing. That is not mere bad luck; it is fatality, and there is no +defeating it. I myself was so specially open to it that to all intents +and purposes I might as well have gone skinless through the world.... +Well, I grinned and bore it. Only one other person knew that I was +skinless, and she, alas, was skinless too. Oh, take it on my authority +if you cannot take it otherwise, that you will do wisely to keep out of +my predicament unless you are of a different temper from mine, have +skins to spare, or are prepared to endure the shock I was presently to +endure. + +I made no attempt to see that other skinless person. If she had found +herself driven, from need or any other consideration, to seek a job with +the Consolidation, so much the worse; I did not see that that released +me from anything she had laid upon me. In any case, as Miss Day's +successor, I should rarely see her; even did she pass to the place +lately held by Miss Lingard I should, no doubt, be able to avoid her; +and for the rest, as she herself had said, things must drift. Sometimes, +if I must confess the truth, I found myself getting quite childishly +petulant about her. Why had she given me to suppose she was something +she wasn't? Why had she let me see her all caught-up and wise and able +to bear, as she had shown herself on that first memorable night, and +then gone to pieces like this? _I_ couldn't have known her private +feelings, but _she_ must have known them.... + +And what kind of impossible situation was going to be created if, even +avoiding other intercourse, I had to encounter those tourmalines of her +eyes every time I passed through the busy office to Pepper's room? + +So sometimes I forgot what I had laid upon her, and was callous enough +and harassed enough to entertain almost a weak resentment against her. + +Aunt Angela's new dwelling was in one of those curiously secluded little +squares or "circuses" that lie immediately east of King's Cross Road in +the neighbourhood of Mount Pleasant. You turn up from the squalid shops +and public-houses and trams, and the length of a short steep street +brings you into a space with well-built houses about it, trees and birds +in the middle, and long narrow gardens with apple and plum and pear at +the back. Away to the north the heights of Hampstead seem positively +precipitous, and, looking the other way, the multitude of turrets and +towers and spires, with St Paul's reigning over them all, is singularly +inspiring. Aunt Angela's rooms were very advantageously placed for both +these prospects. The first time I went she took me up a breakneck +ladder, through a square trapdoor in which I almost stuck fast, and out +on to the leads. The sky, torn in primrose-coloured rents and all +smoke-browned, was very stormy and fine; and Aunt Angela was looking +forward to taking tea out on the roof when the summer came. + +"And I shall be able to look away to where my dear ones are," she said, +looking north again. + +Her room was immediately under this flat roof. It had two windows which +looked on the trees in front, and, at the half turn of the stairs, a +third which gave on the grimy back garden. In this garden poultry +scratched; but there really was a plum-tree, and also a fig that had +been known to bear. Her bed, being convertible into a couch by day, did +not require to be screened off after all, and the tiny fireplace had +brown tiles and a blackleaded iron kerb. One peculiarity the apartment +had which I ought to mention: this was a large enclosed cistern, which +by rights ought to have been on the roof outside. It held the water +supply for the whole house, and as the ball inside it rose and sank, its +sounds varied from a gentle tinkling to a soft whispering; the sounds +never quite ceased. A stout post some feet from the wall supported one +corner of this cistern, and this Aunt Angela, or rather I for her, +converted into a hatstand. + +It was as she handed me the four black hooks and the paper of screws for +this purpose one evening that the sound of the cistern sank to a +hissing. "Oh, do give a look to it," she said; "perhaps it wants a +washer or something: you can reach it from the window-ledge. And oh, +dear, I've got the screws but no screwdriver! There have been hooks in +before, haven't there? You'll have to put these higher up then. I'll see +if I can borrow a screwdriver downstairs; but see to the cistern first." + +But there was nothing to be done with the cistern; if she stayed there +she would have to get used to it, that was all. I went up from Pall Mall +several evenings to see to her installation, but I never imagined she +would stay there very long. The place looked too suddenly cosy when the +fire was lighted and the tea-table brightly set. + +And so I put her the hooks and a shelf or two up, and made her as +comfortable as I could. + +Then one night, just as she was settling down, I went in about something +or other and found Miss Levey and Aschael there. They seemed to have +come for the evening, for their hats were on the hooks on the cistern +post. Miss Levey appeared to have forgotten that I had virtually +forbidden her my house and turned her out of her job as well; as we +shook hands anybody might have supposed that we were the best of +friends. She and Aunt Angela appeared to be on quite affectionate terms; +and I gathered that Miss Levey was giving lessons by post in secretarial +work and doing quite well out of it. Her passing over by the +Consolidation she spoke of as a resignation. She was planning to link up +her Commercial Correspondence Class with some Guild or other for the +Economic Emancipation of Women, and wanted to tell me all about it. I +did not stay long. + +And of course I couldn't choose Aunt Angela's associates for her. + + +At first I had refused to go to that party of Aunt Angela's. I had +grounds enough for my refusal, for we live half our lives two or three +years ahead at the Consolidation, and there were clouds on the economic +horizon. Men who live what I may call "short-date" lives can provide for +contingencies as they arise, but the surveyor of the future, though he +may know things to be inevitable, must be prepared, not for one way in +which they may come about, nor even for the most probable way, but for +all possible ways. Any one of a thousand symptomatic occurrences may +make the Consolidation's most elaborate plans of yesterday of no avail, +and work is ten times work when this happens. It had happened several +times lately, and but for Pepper's marvellous resilience, my own +capacity for long spells of forced labour, and the invaluable inertia of +administrative departments, it would have proved too much for us. + +I can honestly say that, full of these preoccupations, I had not been +influenced by the fact that in all probability Aschael and Miss Levey +would be there. I had forgotten all about them. + +But Evie's look of resignation when I had told her that I was not going +had touched me. We now knew quite a number of people, some of them quite +charming people too; and while Evie made less use of this advantage than +I could sometimes have wished, I couldn't reproach her for being +faithful to her older friends. For a long time we had not been anywhere +together. Therefore, seeing her patient yet fallen face, I had promised +to make an effort at least to fetch her away, and to arrive earlier if +possible. Her instant brightening had amply repaid me. + +The party was given on a sharp night towards the end of January, and, +try as I would, I had been unable to leave Pall Mall before half-past +nine. I should have liked to walk, but that would have taken nearly +three-quarters of an hour, and so, near the old F.B.C., I had hailed a +hansom. "King's Cross, and then I'll tell you," I had said to the +driver; and as I had sped along Holborn and up Judd Street I had +relapsed into consideration of the affairs of the day again. The +stopping of the hansom and the lifting of the trap aroused me. I gave +the man the name of a chapel, and bade him then take a turning to the +left; and we went forward again. We passed up a short, steep street at a +walk, and stopped in the little "circus." + +Aunt Angela's two front windows were lighted and open at the top, and as +I paid off my cabman sounds of a nasal singing floated out. I ascended +the steps and rang twice--Aunt Angela's signal; but I had to give the +double ring again, so merry were they making upstairs. Then I heard +steps descending. They were a man's steps, and I gave a sort of mental +nod when Aschael opened the door. I had thought he would be there. + +"Ve'd about given you up," he said familiarly. "Come in, von't you?" + +I followed Aschael upstairs. + +It would not greatly have surprised me had Miss Levey taken it upon +herself to receive me, as her _fiance_ (if he was her _fiance_; I never +knew) had made me welcome downstairs; but Aunt Angela, trying to appear +calm, but really one flutter of pleasure at the success of her little +party, met me at the door. + +"How late you are," she said gaily. "Yes, yes--I know you'd have come +sooner if you could. I'm not scolding you. Now I expect you're hungry; +you must have some supper first, and then you shall be introduced to +anybody you don't know. Mr Aschael, you'll get him all he wants, won't +you?" + +"Vith pleasure, Miss Angela," said Aschael, bustling about, all hands +and smiles and ringlets. + +Along the wall to my right, as I entered, ran a table, spread with the +disarray of a quite elaborate supper. Plates were littered with banana +skins, grape-twigs with the tiny morsels of pulp still on them, broken +biscuits and remnants of jelly; and beyond this table, under the cistern +in the corner, was a smaller one, with half a frilled ham, the wreckage +of a tongue and a severely mutilated cold pie. Several flasks of +colonial Burgundy had been opened; syphons stood among these; and from +that secret and inexhaustible hoard of her belongings Aunt Angela had +unearthed quite a large number of wineglasses, red ones, green ones, and +some of clear glass. Nay, the entertainment had even run into a large +box of Christmas crackers; the coloured paper and bright gelatine of +these lay scattered among the plates; and my first impression of the +number of people who made the room very warm was that half of them had +flimsy tissue-paper caps and bonnets on their heads. + +But, as I happened to be more than a little hungry, I merely sketched a +sort of general and inclusive bow, sat down, and allowed Aschael to wait +on me. + +Then, my hunger appeased, I began to look about me. + +That the gathering was too large for Aunt Angela's not very large room I +instinctively set down to Miss Levey's account, for several of those +present appeared to be her friends. There must have been ten or a dozen +people there. Miss Levey herself had already given me several welcoming +nods across the room from where she sat, cross-legged and resolutely +youthful, on the floor at Evie's feet; and on her black hair was a +tissue-paper cap of Liberty, with a red spot on one side of it. I had +already discovered that the sounds of nasal singing I had heard came +from the metal corolla of a gramophone. This, I surmised, belonged to +the gentleman who was operating it, a little Japanese named Kato, whom I +had seen once or twice at Aunt Angela's old boarding-house in Woburn +Place. He wore a dairymaid's bonnet of pale blue, with torn strings. Two +other of Aunt Angela's old fellow-boarders also were there, one of them +a delicate little man with white spats, a Mr Trimble, the other an +attenuated little lady, with the red marks of a pince-nez across the +bridge of her nose, and very thin hair, silver save for a few strands of +a yellowish hue. Sitting on Aunt Angela's couch-bed was a younger +couple, not very obviously engaged, yet nevertheless carrying on what I +gathered to be a courtship by means of quick glad exchanges of the more +paradoxical sayings of Schmerveloff. "Oh, rather!" the lady gasped from +time to time; "And do you remember that passage?"... "Remember it! _I_ +should say so--about the 'man-made law' you mean?" These at any rate +bore all the marks of being friends of Miss Levey's, and members of the +Emancipation Guild. Aunt Angela herself, Evie, and Billy Izzard +completed the party. + +As I was pushing back my chair, having supped, the gramophone broke out +again. Not to interrupt it, I sat where I was, watching the little +Japanese who operated it. Mr Kato seemed to have neither eyebrows nor +lashes, and the slits of his eyes with their little bitumen dots held, +as he looked slyly up from time to time, that indulgent, insulting +expression that I distrust in his race over here. He had the appearance +of trying the air of the "Intermezzo" from _Cavalleria Rusticana_ upon +us, as if he contemptuously thought to gauge our taste; and his small +hands touched screws and lifted little metal arms with a negligent +intelligence. He, too, had nodded to me, though our acquaintance was of +the slightest; and with him on the one hand, and Miss Levey on the +other, I hoped Evie would not want me to stay very long. + +The tune had finished, and I had made another motion to rise when +suddenly a few words of Miss Levey's caused me to start, and then to +sink slowly back into my chair again. She was speaking to Mr Kato. + +"Oh, _do_ let's have 'Ora pro Nobis' again, Mr Kato--Miss Windus loves +it so--don't you, Kitty?" + +The next moment the lady whose silver hair was intermixed with brownish +strands, the lady whom I had taken to be an old fellow-boarder from +Woburn Place, had given a little nod and said "Please." As if to hear +the better, she set her pince-nez on her nose. + +I saw the little scalene triangles of her eyes.... + +Like so much obliterating smoke, the past six or seven years rolled +away.... + +Only six or seven years, and I had failed to recognise her! + +Not quite knowing what I did, I found myself crossing to the table under +the cistern and returning again with a great hacked-off piece of tongue. +I sat down to supper again. + +There were candles on the table, and little bright refractions of light +came darting through the angles of flower-stands and glasses. I watched +these as I made pretence to eat. Presently I found myself quite curious +about which fleck of light came from which angle, and my eyes sought to +trace each sparkle to its origin. A few moments before I had been +drinking Burgundy from a green glass; another glass, a red one, stood +close to it; but as the candles were placed neither dyed the cloth with +the little spot of its own hue. Perhaps--I am trying to tell you quite +literally, and as nearly as I can remember, the infantile occupation +that had suddenly engrossed me--perhaps if I moved the candle I should +get the little spots. I moved the candle this way and that. Presently +each of the glasses stood over its own little jewel of light, this one +red as a ruby, the other green as grass.... + +And I cannot better tell you how curiously stunned even my sense of +hearing seemed to be than by saying that I heard not one note of "Ora +pro Nobis," but only the soft hissing of the cistern overhead in the +corner. + +But, after I know not what space of time in which I had become half +hypnotised by those two tiny refractions of coloured light, I suddenly +put the glasses away from me. Also I heard the gramophone once more, and +felt the returnings of methodical thought. There came to me, after all +this time, the very ordinary reflection that Kitty must have recognised +me--had probably known I was coming--and had not been able to endure my +presence in the room.... I remembered Evie's words: "I think you are +wrong if you think that things like that go on for years and years." +Looking covertly up, I saw that Evie had moved, and was now on the other +side of Kitty from that occupied by Miss Levey. As I watched, she picked +up Kitty's handkerchief, and Kitty smiled. Kitty's eyes even met mine, +but whether they saw me or were merely full of "Ora pro Nobis," which +was being played for the second or third time, I could not tell. They +moved away again without having given any sign of recognition. + +Then the tune ended, and Miss Levey jumped up. + +"Now, let's have something jolly!" she cried. "And Mr Jeffries has +finished his supper--make room for him in the circle--move up, Aschael." + +It came suddenly upon me that there was one place, and one place only in +that room for me to take. I had risen. I strode over the box of records +in which Mr Kato was rummaging, sat down next to Kitty Windus, and held +out my hand. + +"How do you do, Kitty?" I said. + +So far was she from starting or trembling that she merely turned, +blinked a little, and, taking my hand, said, in the thin little voice I +used to know so well, "Ah! I _thought_ you'd come and speak to me, +by-and-by." + +So if Miss Levey had deliberately planned this for my confusion, I +triumphed over her. + + +For a quarter of an hour Evie and I sat one on either side of Kitty +Windus. There was no difficulty whatever. Kitty, though she spoke +little, showed no more restraint than it had been her wont to show, and +there was nothing to bring up even the ghost of our past relation. And +if I triumphed over Miriam Levey, so Evie triumphed over me in the +private glances she gave me past the back of Kitty's head. She had been +right, and I wrong. Those stories of how Kitty had been found walking +round and round Lincoln's Inn Fields at night, unable, when confronted +by a policeman, to remember her own name, or where she lived--I strongly +doubted them. I even found Louie's account of her mental state difficult +to believe.... She spoke of her neuralgias. She had been a martyr to +them, she said, but they had been better lately. Somebody's Tic Mixture +had done them more good than anything else. I ought to try it--she'd +write the name of it down for me on a piece of paper in case I +forgot--she hadn't been remembering things very well lately herself. +Louie had advised her to try Somebody Else's Tincture, but she didn't +believe in that at all; it was one of these imitations that the shopmen +were always trying to palm off on people.... At this point, seeing she +had mentioned Louie, I thought it safe to venture an offhand, "Oh, how's +Louie, by the way?" But Kitty, apparently forgetting that she herself +had introduced the name, pursed her lips. Louie, she mumbled, hadn't +behaved very well. She didn't mean to herself; she wouldn't in the least +have minded that; but one had friends, and liked to see them treated as +friends, which some people---- She stopped as Billy Izzard came up, +perhaps hearing Louie's name. + +So great was my relief at all this, that I suddenly found myself quite +carelessly gay. But for Miss Levey's presence I might have been +positively happy. But that lady's fussy attentions to myself did not +cause me to drop my guarded attitude towards her. I smiled when she put +a paper cap on my head also (she had kept a cracker specially for me, +she said); and I made a joke when she read some amatory motto or other; +that, I said, would be more in her friends' line--indicating with a +glance the couple who conducted the intellectual courtship on the couch. +But Miss Levey wagged her short finger at me; she wasn't going to have +fun made of the members of her League, she said; and she even went so +far as to slap the back of my hand with a paper fan she carried and to +tell me I was naughty. Mr Kato, the dotted almonds of his eyes +blinkingly comprehending us all, ran through the remaining records and +then asked if there were no more; and Aunt Angela herself said that if +he wanted more she was afraid he'd have to fetch them from the landing. +It was only then that I learned that the gramophone was Aunt Angela's. I +had supposed it to belong to Mr Kato. + +So we sat and laughed and enjoyed ourselves. Billy Izzard had taken an +old letter from his pocket and was making a jotting of the scene. I +suppose that mixture of littered supper-table, grotesque tissue-paper +caps, and Aunt Angela's miscellaneous furniture must have appealed to +his always keen sense of the incongruous. They had got fresh records; I +had seen Mr Kato come in with an old soap-box, and had heard Miss +Levey's cry of juvenile delight: "Oh, they're all comics!" They were +entreating Aschael to sing, who liked being entreated, but said, No, +Miriam was the singer. Miriam replied merrily that unless they were +careful she _would_ sing, and then they would know all about it. Aunt +Angela laughed heartily at this: and in the end Aschael sang, not very +appropriately, "The Boys of the Bulldog Breed." Mr Kato "Hurrahed" and +Miss Levey "Banzaied," and Aunt Angela, who had slipped out during the +song to wash glasses in her little pantry, called the little nonentity +from Woburn Place to help her in giving us all claret-cup. + +"What a pity Mr Aschael's voice isn't properly trained!" Kitty remarked, +turning to me. + +"An awful pity!" Evie struck vivaciously in from the other side of her. +"I'm sure he'd have a splendid voice!" + +It was odd, the way in which the pair of us took Kitty under our wing. + +"You don't sing, do you, Kitty?" Evie next asked. + +Kitty didn't. Evie admitted that she didn't either. "But," she said, "we +aren't going to let Mr Aschael off with one song, are we? Come, Mr +Kato--you're Master of the Ceremonies----" + +"I'm just finding one he knows." Mr Kato grinned over his shoulder. + +"A comic, mind," warned Miss Levey, "and then Kitty can have 'Ora pro +Nobis' again before we go." + +And in token that the song was going to be comic, Aschael got up on his +feet and set himself in a gesture he had doubtless picked up at the +Middlesex Music Hall. + +"Now, Mr Aschael," said Kato. + +Aschael cleared his throat. + +At the first notes of a curiously thin piano accompaniment, I felt Kitty +shrink and close as a daisy closes at the approach of night.... + + +You will tell me that I ought to have stopped the machine--smashed +it--fallen on it--done something, anything; but put yourself in my +place; nay, put yourself in the place of the three of us who sat +together, and who had sat together the last time we had heard the song +Aschael sang. Did I tell you when that had been, or didn't I? I had +better tell you now.... It had been up the River, with a summer twilight +falling, and distant banjos sounding, and the Japanese lanterns making +long, wavy reflections in the water. Our party had been four, not three, +then, and the fourth of us had sung this song Aschael was singing now. +He had sung it, lolling in the stern, beating time with one hand, and +very careful about the spotting of a new pair of white flannel trousers. + +Oh yes, I daresay I ought to have done something rather than let those +two other poor things hear _that_ song again.... + +But a hideous fear, of which they knew nothing, kept me fascinated and +still. So long as they _only_ remembered the song and that other +occasion they were the lucky ones. I envied them their luck. No let-off +so merciful was mine.... And my horror was enhanced, not so much by +those two faces at which I dared not glance, as by our atmosphere of +tawdry festivity--the sprinkling of coloured gelatine on the floor, the +mocking caps of tissue paper on our heads, and the florid antics of +Aschael, turning and grimacing, now this way, now that. + +That I might keep this added horror of mine from them, there was even +yet a chance.... + +For the song, you understand, was being sung _twice_, once by the +unknown maker of the record in the machine, and the second time, as it +were over it, by Aschael. As the two voices did not perfectly coincide, +the result was a sort of palimpsest of sound, with, as sometimes happens +in palimpsests, the old and almost erased message the more significant +one. Aschael kept irregular pace with a far-off amateur voice and the +faint tinkling of a piano.... Like a bolt into my brain had come the +knowledge of _whose_ that horrible instrument had been, and how it had +come into Aunt Angela's possession. I remembered her visits to +Guildford; I remembered Mrs Merridew's funeral; I remembered her old +kindnesses in providing a certain young man in London with a "home from +home." The machine had come from Guildford, a legacy, a memento, a +giggle from the tomb.... + +But they, those two poor stricken souls, could yet be spared that +knowledge. It was dreadfully too much that they knew the song, and that +he had known it, and that he had sung it that summer's evening up the +River. The rest of the horror might still be kept from them. + +"All together--chorus," cried Aschael jubilantly: + + + "'Why--don't--you marry the girl? + D'you want--the poor thing--to die? + You can see--she's gone--upon--you + By the twin--kle in--her eye! + Do--the trick--for se--ven-and-six, + Take--the tip--of a pal-- + I've--been--watching your game-- + Why don't you marry the gal?'" + + +Then I felt that last desperate hope of mine slipping away--Aschael was +beginning to forget the words, and to make out with gestures and +grimaces, leaving gaps through which there started up thin and tinkling +and facetious horrors.... I saw that Kato had realised; I had once come +upon him and Archie drinking whisky and soda together; his eyes met mine +curiously, and I fancied his lips shaped the name: + +"Merridew?" + +This next I have from Billy Izzard. He tells me that all at once I +sprang to my feet and cried, in a huge and boisterous voice that drowned +everything else, "Never mind, Aschael--chorus--all together!--" + + + "'Why--don't--you marry the girl? + D'you want--the poor thing to die? + You can see--she's gone--upon you + By the twin-kle in--her eye! + La--la la--sing up! + Take the tip--go on, Aschael!-- + I've been--watching your game-- + Why don't you marry the gal?'" + + +Clapping my hands, Billy says, I fell back into a chair. + +But I was out of it again in an instant. I was not to escape so easily +as all that. Kato had his finger on the lever; I cannot say how, nor +whether, he guessed what was to come, nor whether he tried to avert it; +if he did, he was too late. From that damnable box there came a long +catarrhal wheeze--high-pitched and tenor the words came: + + + "Now, Evie--Evie's turn--make her sing, mother--bosh--of course + she's going to sing!----" + + +I was neither at Aunt Angela's party nor yet in a boat on a summer's +evening up the River. How can I tell you where I was? In what +drawing-room? Sitting on what chair? Surrounded by what company?... I +swear to you that I have seen a place I have never seen, been in a place +I never in my life was in. I can describe to you a family gathering with +Mrs Merridew there, and her son there, and Evie there, and myself never, +never there. I have seen, whether they ever existed or not, French +windows opening on a lawn, and a slackened tennis-net beyond, and an +evening flush in the sky, and the air dark with homing rooks.... Nothing +will persuade me that these eyes are in fact ignorant of that quiet +home of Archie Merridew's--and yet Guildford is a place in which I have +never been. + + +Then a sound like the hissing of a thousand cisterns filled my ears. +Through it I heard Kitty Windus's scream of terror, but it sounded an +infinite distance away. From Evie I had heard nothing. For one moment I +saw everything reel and aslant--Kato, the Schmerveloffians on the sofa, +the cistern-post with its hats and coats and one hook empty, steeving up +towards a tilted ceiling.... + +Then came the blow on the back of my head, and the sounds of the cistern +ceased. I had fallen across Aunt Angela's tiled hearth, and lay in a +cloud of steam from the kettle I had overturned in my fall. + + + + +PART IV + +IDDESLEIGH GATE + + +I + +It is against the advice of my doctors that I have written these last +pages--these last chapters in fact--at all. But I wrote them only a very +little at a time, after I came back from Hastie's place in Scotland. And +I went to Scotland only after I came back from Egypt. But I am back at +the Consolidation now, having missed nearly a year, and I really don't +think that this private writing tires me too much. + +I admit that it seems odd that I should wish to do it at all, and doubly +odd that I should have kept, not one private record, but two.[2] I +thought I had finished when the first one came to an end. Then I found I +hadn't. Let me say quite plainly, however, that the second one is no +retractation of the first. There is not a single statement in that first +writing from which I recede. I stand by every word of it. I wrote there, +for example, that I did not fear to be left alone in my library at +night; and that is true. I wrote that there glided no shadowy shape by +my side when I stepped into my brougham or passed between the saluting +commissionaires in Pall Mall; and that also is true. It is true that I +play with my clean-born children, both of them, and still do not pardon +even the meditation of that old crime that would have made the life of +her I love an abhorrence worse than death. These things are as true now +as when I first wrote them, and I shall die without regret for them. + +But the impulse that drives a man to write about himself at all still +remains a curious thing. I don't find it an inexplicable one--but as I +shall return to this by-and-by, I will leave it for the present. Let me +say this, however, now; that whatever cares may or may not weigh on me, +I neither consider myself on my defence nor yet join hands with +Schmerveloff and his crew in their sweeping and futile denunciations of +the whole Scheme of Things as they are. If I cannot stand alone I can at +least fall alone, and I haven't fallen yet. + +Nevertheless, this writing will have to be less frequently indulged (if +that is the word); there is little sense in paying doctors if you don't +take their advice. There have been few physically stronger men than I; +especially my strength of finger and forearm and wrist have been +remarkable; and I can still bend a half-crown and make a dog's leg out +of a thick poker. But I don't pretend that I am the man I was. +Separately, my brain and body work as well as ever they did, but they do +not always jump together. I don't know whether this is due to the hole +Aunt Angela's blackleaded fender made in my skull. It was a bad hole, +and I cracked three of Aunt Angela's brown tiles. Perhaps that is the +reason why my doctor advised me to get to bed early, and cautioned me +about the use of stimulating drinks and heating foods.... Let me see, +let me see.... + +Ah, yes, I was going to speak of that evening. Mercifully, Evie was +spared the worst of that shock. So gently and easily that for quite a +time nobody discovered it, she had slid off into a faint at the very +beginning of that song of Aschael's, and so had not seen my own headlong +fall. This saved us from a disaster, for otherwise our little girl would +probably not have been born in the following July, not to be welcomed by +her father until October came. Indeed, I had to wait till October before +I learned a good many things; but such was my state of lassitude that I +was able to do so without impatience, and even without much interest, +content to be free from pain and to be looked after by those people of +Hastie's party. After a time they began to allow me to do little +things--superintend the packing of the luncheon-baskets and, as I grew +better, to join the guns in the clearing when the whistle went; and +Evie, away at Broadstairs with Aunt Angela (who had given up her room in +the little "circus"), sometimes seemed part of a charming but not very +moving dream to me. You see from this how bad I was.... Then I returned, +and the winter in Egypt and Hastie's house in Scotland began in their +turn to fade. + +Apart from my work at the Consolidation, I began to be full of a +curiously single preoccupation. I had not brooded on this while I had +been away: as I have said, I had not brooded on anything; it merely came +back to me as the most natural thing to do, a matter of course. It was +the thing that Louie Causton, against what she conceived to be her own +interests, had advised that night when I had dined with her at the +Models' Club. There was something I must now tell Evie. + +I think I let it go, vaguely, as "something." It was not that I did not +know perfectly well what it was; but those lazy days free from pain +among the heather had made that also somehow unreal; I suppose I had +worn smooth the thought of it; and it seemed nothing to make a fuss +about. It did not even require resolution. It was merely something that +ought to have been done long ago. This was my attitude of mind then. I +don't say that it is now. + +That long separation had altered our relation in more ways than one. +With such joy did I rejoin Evie that for both of us it was as if we were +newly, and yet both more strongly and more peacefully, married again. My +lovely little Phyllis had put even poor Jackie's nose out of joint. On +the other hand, a year is a year, and if my own time had been one of +vacancy and healing, Evie's had not. I had only to listen to her and +Aunt Angela to become aware of this. They had made quite a circle of +acquaintances in Broadstairs; several of these had since been kept up in +London; and there were things I was at least temporarily out of. I +mention this not because I wanted to be in at them; indeed it all seemed +to me a little casual; but I could hardly have expected Evie to sit +moping in a boarding-house parlour all that time, and certainly she +looked a picture of blooming health. I say "looked," because it was only +later that I learned what the first question of the doctor who had +attended her had been: "Has she ever had a severe shock?" + +I am unable to explain how it was that at first I was quite incurious to +know what people had thought of that extraordinary collapse of mine, and +why the effect of that song on Kitty Windus, for example, should have +been less marked than its effect on myself. For Kitty, though she had +screamed, and babbled incoherent things that probably I have never been +told about, had sustained no lasting injury. An icy breath had passed +over everybody there, and nobody, I thought, would be so morbid as to +push their inquiries into the varying degrees of iciness. I may say at +once that I thought quite rightly. Nobody has, not even (so far as I am +aware) Miriam Levey. + +It was from Aunt Angela, of course, that I learned what that first +question of the Broadstairs doctor had been; and it brought me face to +face with that so easily assumed resolution of mine rather sharply. By +mere luck Evie had escaped that shock of the party, but the original +one, the seven or eight years' old one, remained. That I might know +exactly to what extent this might affect my determination, I had the +Broadstairs doctor to meet my own more distinguished one. I told this +one of the tragedy of Evie's former engagement, and related the affair +of the gramophone. He looked grave. + +"You must see that she doesn't get another shock," he said. + +Evie herself was not made aware that the visit had more than an ordinary +significance. + +But Louie's advice now seemed rather beside the mark. + +I saw Louie daily now; and whether it was that she had been able to +entrench herself behind her work in my absence, or had found some _modus +vivendi_ midway between that ecstasy of the night when she had supported +me in a Chelsea doorway and the anguished outbreak of that other evening +in the Models' Club, or however it was, my fears for the impossibility +of the situation now appeared to have been groundless. Whitlock, indeed, +saw more of her than I. He spoke exceedingly favourably of her. She used +quickness and common-sense in her work, he said, and, when he had +half-a-dozen things to do at once, did not take down a remark +interpolated to somebody else as part of the letter he was dictating. I +was not surprised to learn that she "flashed" intelligently at +unexplained meanings. She converted Whitlock's rapid mumbled +instructions into (commercial) English with ease, and had already +attracted Pepper's notice. + +I don't know whether it has struck you that Evie, who had given it as a +sufficient reason for renewing her intimacy with Miriam Levey and Kitty +Windus that they had been at the old Business College in Holborn +together, had never once urged the same thing on behalf of Louie +Causton. It was not that I wanted her to do so; as a matter of fact I +very much preferred them apart. And I thought I saw the reason for +Evie's silence. Louie trailed an unhappy story behind her. Louie had +been a model. Aunt Angela had not asked her to her party. If there was +any coolness between Miriam Levey and Louie, which now might well be, +Evie would naturally be disposed to take the part of the former. I don't +mean to say that she looked down on Louie. It was only later that I +learned that she wasted a thought on Louie. I only mean that their paths +lay in different directions, and that Evie had hitherto appeared content +that they should do so. + +It was in a roundabout way that I discovered that Louie had a place in +Evie's thoughts. Acting under my doctor's orders, I had begun to come +home early in the afternoon, seldom working after tea; and I entered the +drawing-room one afternoon to find a couple of her Broadstairs +acquaintances, a Mr and Mrs Smithson, with her. Smithson was, I think, a +cycle agent; she was an openwork-stockinged, flirtatious little woman, +for ever making eyes, and apparently under the impression that all +conversation would languish unless she took the greater part of it upon +herself. I imagine it had been she who had sent Evie one or two vulgar +seaside post cards that, had they been addressed to me, would have gone +straight into the fire. It appeared that they knew Peddie slightly, my +old Jun. Ex. Con. of the F.B.C., and now Whitlock's abstract clerk; and +I was not disposed to congratulate Peddie on the acquaintance. + +They were just leaving as I arrived, so that we only exchanged a few +words; indeed, the ringing of the telephone I had had fixed up in my +study gave me an excuse to cut our leave-taking short. I went to the +instrument; it was Louie Causton with a message from Whitlock; and I +gave my instructions and returned to Evie. + +Now Jackie, who was just beginning to babble and notice things, was +greatly interested in the telephone, and I entered the drawing-room just +in time to hear him make some remark about "plitty typies." As I took no +notice, Jackie repeated the unchildlike expression. Evie was pouring me +out more tea. + +"Plitty typies, farzer," Jackie clamoured, imperious for notice. + +I turned to Evie. + +"Where did he pick that up?" I asked. + +Evie said: "Oh, it was some silly joke of Florrie's." + +"Florrie is Mrs Smithson?" + +"Yes." + +I was not pleased. I suppose that, like Charles Lamb, I am squeamish +about my women and children, and I remembered Mrs Smithson's post cards. +One of them had borne the legend, "Detained at office--very pressing +business," and if you have seen these things you will not want it +described. But I was loth to raise again the question I had formerly +raised about Miss Levey and Aschael, and so I merely asked whether it +was not possible for her to give Mrs Smithson tea without having Jackie +there. She said, "Very well," though in a tone a little subdued. She +knew what I meant. + +It was ten minutes later that, returning of her own accord to the +subject, she said a little poutingly: "I don't see much to make a fuss +about. He doesn't know what it means." + +"That doesn't improve matters very much," I said. "It seems to me to +make them worse." + +"Oh, very well," she answered. + +But she returned to the subject yet again. She spoke defensively. + +"I had to have him at Broadstairs with me. You couldn't have him in +Scotland with you." + +"Jackie, you mean?" + +"Yes." + +She gave a slightly marked shade of meaning to the words "in Scotland." +To tell the truth, it was a little on my mind that I had had the more +desirable summer of the two of us. I am no snob, but I do prefer some +people to others, and if people do run in strata, well, nobody can tell +me much I don't know about the clerk and cycle-agent class, and they +don't charm me. I spoke with a little compunction. + +"I wish it could have been helped, darling. Anyway, we sha'n't be +separated again." + +(I may say that I don't think Evie had thought it very remarkable that I +should have had that accident at Aunt Angela's party. She had fainted +herself, and knew little of the later events; and we have lived too long +together for her not to be aware that, rugged as I may appear to the +rest of the world, I am a sensitive man.) + +After a moment's silence: "Mrs Smithson has asked me down to Broadstairs +for a week," she said. "She--of course she hadn't met you." + +"You mean she's asked you without me?" + +"She hadn't met you," Evie excused Mrs Smithson. + +"And--shall you go?" + +She answered quite readily: "Of course not--not without you." + +I got up and kissed her. I had expected no less of her. + +But I knew that she would have liked to go to Broadstairs, and was only +staying away out of her duty to me, it was not for me to deny her her +sex's equivalent of a grumble--a sigh. Then we began to talk. + +We talked quite equably: I never in my life wrangled with Evie. I said, +quite gently, that I did not wish the boy to acquire precocious chatter +about pressing business and pretty typists, and Evie made no opposition; +indeed, she laughed when I suggested how unlikely it was that any pretty +typist would have pressing business with myself. By-and-by she asked me +who had rung me up, and I told her. "Oh, yes, I forgot; she's with you +now," she said; "Mr Whitlock engaged her, didn't he?" + +"Yes," I answered. Then, after a little further talk, we kissed again, +and she went out to give Phyllis her bath. + +Oddly enough, very soon after speaking thus of Louie after that long +silence, she saw Louie herself. One morning she announced that she was +going shopping that day, and would call for me at Pall Mall and bring me +home to tea. She finished her shopping earlier than she had thought she +would, and, not wishing to disturb me before the appointed time, had +come upon Louie in the counting-house. She told me this when we got +home. She had asked Louie to show her round, and was full of the wonders +of the place--the lifts, the telephone exchange, the series of +waiting-rooms, the advice-board from Lloyd's, the acre-wide office full +of busy clerks. "What a change from Holborn!" she said she had said to +Louie, and then Louie had brought her to my own private room. + +The next day Louie made a mistake in a rather important draft. It was +not like her, and Whitlock blamed himself for having left too much to +her intuition. The error necessitated a consultation between Louie, +Whitlock and myself. It was set right, and Louie was going out again +when I glanced at Whitlock. He looked inquiringly, nodded, and left us. +There was something I wanted to say to Louie; perhaps it was rather +something that it would not be very graceful not to say; perhaps it was +both. + +I think this was the first time I spoke to her at the Consolidation +except on business. + +"Well, that will be all right," I said, dismissing the error in the +draft.... "By the way, you saw my wife yesterday, didn't you?" + +She gave a little nod. + +"And showed her round? It was very good of you. She enjoyed it very +much. She told me all about it." + +Louie said something about it being no trouble, and then appeared to be +going. But I stopped her. Then, when I had stopped her, I didn't quite +know what to say. + +"Oh--er----" I said awkwardly, looking at her and then looking away +again. "Without opening matters up--you know what I mean--going into +things--I want to say just one thing. It's about--a piece of advice you +once gave me." + +She had half opened the inner door, and stood, as it were, on the +threshold of the box-like space between the inner one and the outer one +of baize. The look she gave me was almost hostile, and the tourmalines +were shut. I don't think, by the way, that she ever heard of that +incident at Aunt Angela's party. I neither asked her whether she had, +nor ever told her about it. + +"If you feel that you must----" she said, not very invitingly. + +"It's merely this," I said rather hurriedly, "that what you suggested is +impossible now." + +"Yes," she said; "I suppose it is." + +"Her doctor's forbidden it--I mean, he says she mustn't have another +shock." + +Instantly I saw, by the way in which she said, "Oh!" that she had had +something else in her mind. "Oh!... I see," she said, and I pondered. + +"Ah!" I said at last. "You mean you've just seen--just this moment?" + +She made no reply. + +"You've just seen, just this moment. Then why did you say yes, you +supposed so?" + +Her answer was impatient. "Oh, _must_ you?" + +"Must I what?" + +"Must you do this?" + +"Ask you why you assented when I said something was impossible now?" + +"Ask me anything at all!" she almost snapped. + +I gave her a long look. "Shut the door," I said.... "Now tell me why you +agreed with me when I said that it was impossible to take your advice +now." + +The tourmalines flickered almost scornfully. "Don't you know?" + +"I do not." + +"What! You can't guess?" + +"Will you tell me?" + +For a moment she looked as if she was going to sit down for something +that would require time; but she changed her mind, and stood, a crumple +of skirt grasped in either hand. + +"Ask me again and I will," she said, in a slightly raised voice. + +"I do ask you." + +Then, with a harsh little laugh, Louie made her second mistake of that +day. + +"Because she's jealous," she said. "Evidently that wasn't _your_ reason; +I don't know what yours was; but that's mine." + +"Oh!" I said. In the face of a statement so preposterous I really could +think of nothing else to say. + +"What else did she come here yesterday for?" Louie demanded. + +I smiled. That was too absurd. "Well--shall we say to keep an +appointment with her husband?" I suggested. + +"Oh, if you like!... Then why does she want to come and see me at my +house?" she demanded. + +It was news to me that Evie did want to go and see Louie at her house, +but I was careful not to let Louie see that. + +"Oh!" I said, still smiling. "And you think these grounds enough for +your statement?" + +"My good----" she broke out. "I'm not asking you to accept them. I know +better than to try to persuade _you_! You asked me, and I've told you; +that's all." + +"And if I say once for all that it is not so, and that nothing could +make it so?" + +"Make it so!" she broke out. "Really, Jeff, you talk like--a man! 'Make +it so!'... If you can't see your little definite reason for everything, +you deny the fact! If I could say that Kitty Windus and Miriam Levey had +been chattering--I'm not aware that they have, but if I _could_ say +that--I suppose you'd call that a reason, and listen to it; but anything +else--pshaw! I don't care a button for your reason! Your reason may have +made this business, but it won't persuade a woman against something she +knows--myself _or_ Evie. It just is so, and there's an end of it. And of +course you see the beautiful new fix it puts you in." She gave a little +stamp that made her garments quiver. + +"Louie, I can't----" + +"Oh, a perfect fix! Really, I'm curious to know what you're going to do +about it! Try to persuade her that there's nothing between you and me! +Try it, try it! Why, how shouldn't she be jealous when I am? Do you +think she doesn't see that? Oh, I don't know why I waste words with +you!... But you see your fix. It was Kitty before, and you tried half +telling then; now it's me; but it isn't either of us really; oh, if it +only could be!... It's the secret, Jim. You've got to tell her--and you +can't. I don't know what this is about a shock, but it's too late now. +Try it if you like--I don't care what you say about me. Try the half +truth again--give her reason--the reason's yours whenever you want it." + +Of course I couldn't listen to this nonsense and immodesty and worse. +Who should know better whether Evie was jealous or not, Louie or I? Evie +jealous!... Of course, if it were so, the position _would_ be precisely +as Louie had stated it. I _should_ have to choose between Evie's love +and the risk the doctor had so gravely foreshadowed. Our very existence +together _would_ hang on precisely that last desperate chance. And from +the bottom of my heart I blessed my Maker that, tossed and buffeted as +my life had been, at least that perfected anguish of body and spirit was +to be spared me.... + +I had risen. Smiling rather sadly, I turned to Louie. + +"Well--as I said--I don't want to re-open things," I said. + +With the door already half open, she turned. + +"Do you think they're closed?" she said. + +And she did not wait for my reply. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[2] See "In Accordance with the Evidence." + + +II + +It is as I feared: this writing, as a continuous record, will have to +stop. My life is getting too full. I daresay its crowded outward +happenings are a good thing for me; it is better, as the saying is, to +wear out than to rust out; and I am beginning almost to enjoy change for +change's sake. + +My newest change is a removal. Pepper's latest cosmopolitan, Baron +Stillhausen, wants to be rid of that Iddesleigh Gate house as it stands, +and already I have taken Evie round to see it. It almost took away her +breath: I didn't know how near delight could come to timidity--I almost +said to dismay. When I said, "Well, darling, am I to take it?" she +looked at me as much as to say "_Dare_ you?"... I think I dare--though +I have only to remember my own beginnings to be a little intimidated +myself. I walked over to Verandah Cottage the other evening; a +sign-writer has the place now; and it seems either very much more or +very much less than four years since I lived there--sometimes hardly +four months, sometimes half-a-lifetime.... But Evie will very quickly be +turning up her nose at Well Walk. Already she had begun to shop quite +freely. For getting to and from Pall Mall (I told you I was to spare +myself physically for the present) I have bought a small runabout of a +car. Really it is only an ordinary taxi, with a rather superior shell +placed on it, and I have an agreement with a young fellow who has just +taken his driving certificate; but Evie was talking about a livery for +him the other night, and I was pleased. That is as it should be. It will +be a joy to me to see her take her proper place.... + +So this record will have to be more and more a diary, jotted down as I +can find opportunity for it. I need not say that the change to +Iddesleigh Gate will be a larger undertaking than, say, Aunt Angela's +installation in the little "circus" near King's Cross was. And there is +the Consolidation. That is heavy work, and the heavier that at present +we are working very much in the dark. In these present industrial +troubles, for example, we do not quite know where we shall come out; we +can only throw in our weight with the big natural forces that, in +history as in dynamics, balance themselves in the end. The air is thick +with dust of Schmerveloff's raising; and though all this dust may turn +out presently to be like the comet's tail, packable into a portmanteau, +for the present it certainly obscures our vision. We have to take into +account, too, that even dust is not raised without a cause; and so in +public we sit, Radicals all, in solemn inquiry into things, with plenty +of Westminster stage thunder, while behind the scenes we get in good old +Tory heavy work, not necessarily because we are Tories, but because +Toryism serves a useful purpose just at present. Once or twice lately I +have disobeyed my doctor, and stayed at the office for tea, so closely +in touch have I had to keep with various Committees and Conferences; and +we have had to keep our staff late too, which is rather hard on them, +since they get none of the kudos. But the days when I could burn the +candle at both ends all the time are over for me, I'm afraid. + +Louie Causton rarely gets away early now; in that respect she was better +off when she sat for the evening classes at the Art Schools; but she +gravitates more and more to Pepper's side of the business. That bee she +has in her bonnet about Evie's being jealous of her does not, I am glad +to say, impair her business efficiency. The other day Pepper remarked on +her distinguished carriage, and, as he never neglects appearances, he +chooses her, when an amanuensis is necessary, for his more important +consultations. The other night he took her and Whitlock to dinner before +going to Sir Peregrine Campbell's. I can picture his dismay had it ever +been suggested that he should take Miss Levey out to dinner. And Stonor +and Peddie do not crack the old jokes they did at the F.B.C., about +"Miss Causton's pal--Sir Peregrine," or "You know who I mean--that +friend of Miss Causton's--the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs." +Indeed there seem to be fewer jokes going about than there used to be. +We are all getting older--Louie (save for those slender yacht-like +lines of hers), Aunt Angela (whose self-satisfied humilities have rather +lost their resilience since that night of her housewarming in the little +"circus"), Evie (who now takes the prospect of a day and a night nursery +as a matter of course, and has bills sent in to me quite naturally) and +the rest of us. Even Billy Izzard, clean painter as he is, seems to be +forcing his jokes. He has lately found an artificial amusement in balls +and pageants, rather to the neglect of his work; and all this, slight as +it seems--I mean the spread of the love of amusement--has actually more +to do with Consolidation than you would guess.... But I must stop. I get +Consolidation enough during the day without bringing it home with me at +night. Evie has just knocked at the door. That is her signal that I have +"consolidated" enough--as she calls this journal of which she has never +heard. + + +_1st March._--For the first time I make this frankly a diary. According +to my agreement, we go into Iddesleigh Gate on Lady Day; as a matter of +fact we are there now. My lease is for ten years. I got as many of +Stillhausen's effects as I wanted at forced-sale rates; a good deal I +didn't want. Evie went half wild with joy about a certain crystal bath; +I about the Amaranth Room. It is extraordinary how few pieces it takes +to furnish this last splendid apartment: a settee, a few chairs, a few +cabinets, a bust or two, and the vast turfy carpet.... A smaller room +would look half empty with twice the furniture. Billy says it's the +proportions, and is puzzling about them, seeking what he calls "the +unit," and taking now the length of a gilt Empire settee, now the height +of a lacquered cabinet, now his own height, etc., etc. It is Evie's +music room; she has begun her lessons; but it will be some time, I am +afraid, before she makes very much of it. Billy threatens to quarter +himself on us while he makes paintings of the whole house. Aunt Angela +has two rooms on the second floor, with distempered walls; and she began +her furnishing with a crucifix. My library is stately. The heavy, +slow-moving doors scarcely make a click when they close, and a +bell-connection down the passage warns me of the approach of anybody. I +suppose Stillhausen found this useful; he was in the Diplomatic Service; +and perhaps it is well that these stamped leather walls do not whisper +secrets. There is a secret of my own that I keep in the bureau by the +heat-regulator there. I am not sure that the fire would not be the best +place for it. It is odd, by the way, that this impulse to burn these +papers should lately have become almost as strong as the impulse to +write them formerly was. + +I have a telephone switchboard to half the rooms in the house, and the +line to Pall Mall is doubled, the second wire not passing through the +Company's Exchange. A switch turns on the masked lights behind the +cornice, and what with one device and another, it would pay me to have a +private electrician. Aunt Angela, I may say, who has managed to +reconcile herself to heavier expenditures, is harrowed at the waste of +electric power, and wanders about the house turning off switches. On a +Jacobean table at the far end of the library are two small bright things +with branches--that is to say, they seem small until you take a walk to +them. They are Pepper's candlesticks. I have attained the scale. + + +_28th March._--That impulse to destroy these papers has reminded me of a +little thing that happened while I was away in Scotland. One of Hastie's +boys, Ronald, aged fourteen, has a little den of his own in the back +part of the house, and during my convalescence he was so good as to make +me welcome there. The paraphernalia of I don't know how many hobbies +littered the place; his latest had been chemistry; and he stank of +chemicals, and had his clothes red-spotted with acids. His greatest +success, at which I was privileged to assist, was to fill ginger-beer +bottles with hydrogen and explode them. One day he invited me to witness +a really superior explosion. It was lucky he did invite me. He had +charged an earthenware jar, as big as a bucket, with the gas and would +probably have blown the wall out. He said he didn't funk it, but I did, +and we opened the window and allowed the gas to be lost. + +I feel rather like that about this writing. Last night I almost made +away with the dangerous stuff. But I hung back. It has cost so hideously +dear. This may be a sentimentalism, and obscure, but there it is, and as +it puzzles me I shall try to get to the bottom of it.... + +_N.B._--Evie says she will soon "begin to feel that she lives here." She +is getting used to having things; soon she will be getting used to +having people. Soon she'll have to be thinking about her first +dinner-party. Must stop now. The more sleep I get before midnight the +better. I shall think about the destroying, though. + + +_29th April._--(A month since I made an entry.) A rather curious +conversation with Evie last night. You will remember that Louie Causton, +trying to justify that ridiculous attitude of hers about Evie's +jealousy, had exclaimed, as if that clinched something, "Why does she +want to come to my house, then?" Well, she has been. Apparently she went +some little time ago, but she only spoke of it last night. I shall not +ask Louie for her account of it; this is Evie's: + +She went on a Saturday afternoon, taking the train from Clapham +Junction. Louie was just setting out with her boy to the South +Kensington Museum, but she turned back. Since Kitty left her she has got +another governess for the lad, but she still devotes her Saturdays and +Sundays to him. There are several things about Evie's account I am not +quite clear about, but I admit that she has no great gift for picking +out the essentials of a conversation, and perhaps unconsciously she has +emphasised the wrong things. She told me, for example, a good deal about +Master Jim, but said very little about Kitty's reason for going over to +Miriam Levey. She wandered off into old recollections of the Business +College in Holborn that I had forgotten all about, and allowed these +things to divert her from the visit itself. I had to ask her whether +Louie seemed comfortable in her rooms, whether they were decently +furnished or not, and so on; and she said, "Oh, of course, you've never +seen them," and described them to me in excellent detail. Then suddenly +she asked me whether Miss Lingard (who had been away out of sorts), was +back at the Consolidation yet. Miss Lingard was my own private +amanuensis, and during her absence Louie had had to help with her +work.... And so we talked. This was in our own bedroom, while Evie was +making ready for the night. + +"Well," I said, yawning, "and what did you talk about besides the +Holborn days?" + +"Oh, lots of things," she answered brightly, busily brushing. "She's got +to look older since then--but I daresay you wouldn't notice that, seeing +her every day." + +"Louie Causton, you mean?" + +"Yes." + +"Did she say anything about Miss Levey?" + +"Oh, yes. Her correspondence class is a great success. Schmerveloff's +taken her up, and she's no end of pupils. Wasn't it funny, our living +next door to Schmerveloff and not knowing it? They little thought that +in a few years we should be living here!" + +I laughed a little. She glows prettily when she shows her pride in my +achievement. Then I yawned again. "Well," I said sleepily, "I hope +Kitty's changed friends for the better." + +"Oh, she thinks so," Evie replied promptly. "You see, it wasn't very +nice for her, when she'd had the boy all days, and Louie didn't come in +till ten or eleven or twelve at night, or later, to be snapped at and +spoken crossly to." + +Here I checked a yawn. "What's that?" I said. "Miss Causton didn't tell +you that, did she?" + +"Eh?" said Evie. "Oh, no, of course she didn't. Didn't I tell you I +looked in at their offices in Gray's Inn one day--Kitty's and Miriam's? +Oh, that was a fortnight and more ago! I'm sure I told you, Jeff!... And +Miriam took me to the New College in Kingsway. It's nothing like the +Consolidation, of course, but it's such an improvement on that poky old +Holborn place! How we ever gave a dance there I can't imagine. You +remember that dance, Jeff?" + +And she was back at the old College once more. + +I said this conversation was curious, but perhaps that was not quite the +word. Slightly distasteful would be nearer, for of course you see what +it all implied. It implied that Evie might easily be dragged into some +trumpery quarrel between Louie Causton and Miriam Levey. For Miriam +would not be at all above concluding that Louie had schemed to get her +place, and that I had thrown my influence into the balance; and anybody +could always make poor Kitty agree with them. I didn't want Evie mixed +up in anything of that kind. I was even a little sorry she had been to +see Louie. How little, for my own part, there existed in the way of +affection between Louie and myself you already know; and, if the thing +was not quite the same from Louie's point of view, I did not see that +any useful end would be served by their being much together. On that +morning when Louie had first made her ridiculous suggestion about +jealousy, her whole manner had been rather that of one who throws up the +sponge, ceases to exercise care, I don't know what; and there is no +sense in deliberately manufacturing something that doesn't exist. And +about that other visit to Gray's Inn. I am quite sure that Miriam Levey +would not scruple to hurt me in any way she could.... There's the +telephone; Whitlock, I expect. + + +_10th May._--In a week Evie is to give her first dinner-party. Naturally +she is a little timorous about it. The fact that Pepper, with whom, I +am sorry to say, she gets on no better, will be there to watch her, +would be quite enough to flurry her; but there will also be other people +there whom she hasn't seen yet--the Hasties, the Campbells, Sichel, a +Mrs Richmond (a very smart little woman, a friend of Pepper's) and +others. Poor dear, it will be rather an ordeal for her, and no wonder +she spoke to me the other night a little crossly. It hurt a little at +the time, but I have forgotten it. I will put it down, however. + +Among all these "Hons. and Sirs," as she calls them, plain familiar +Whitlock and Billy Izzard (I am dragging Billy in because these people +may be useful to him when he has got over his pageant craze) were her +chief comforts; but the question of the final chair, a lady's, had +arisen. There being nobody else I particularly wanted, I had been +disposed to call on Pepper, who can always produce a prettily frocked +woman or a well-turned-out young man at a moment's notice; but Evie had +managed to get a dig in at Pepper, at which I laughed heartily. "He +might bring Mrs Toothill for all we know," she had said. "No, Jeff, it's +our party," she had demurred, and had then ruminated.... + +"All right, anybody you like," I had agreed cheerfully. + +"You don't like Mrs Smithson," she had then said doubtfully. + +Of course, having just given her full liberty, I ought not to have +qualified it, even by a look; but I confess my face fell. It was only +for an instant, and I hoped my darling hadn't noticed it. + +"Have Mrs Smithson if you like," I said a little shortly, I am afraid. + +But she had noticed. She spoke shortly too. + +"No, thank you, not to have her thrown in my face afterwards. I know you +don't think the Smithsons are good enough." + +I was shocked. "Dearest," I said slowly, "when have I 'thrown things in +your face afterwards,' as you call it?" + +She must indeed have been tried, otherwise she would never have said the +absurd thing she did. + +"Well, if you don't say it, you think it. Better have your friend, Miss +Causton. She can go out to dinner with Sir Julius, it seems." + +"Evie!" I exclaimed, for the moment deeply wounded. + +"Well, you told me she did, and if she can dine with him she can with +you, I suppose." + +I turned away. "I shall leave it entirely to you," I said. I reproach +myself now for my impatience. + +But instantly her generous little heart was itself again. She ran after +me and threw her arms about my neck. + +"Forgive me, Jeff," she pleaded tearfully. "I didn't mean anything, and +I am _so_ afraid of it all! I'm _not_ used to it, you know, but I am +doing my best. Do ask Mr Pepper to bring somebody." + +And we kissed and said no more about it. Perhaps I am foolish to write +it down. + + +_14th May._--Evie has made the acquaintance of most of her guests for +the seventeenth beforehand. The Hasties have called on her, and Lady +Campbell, and Pepper has brought Mrs Richmond (who, I confess, strikes +me as rather a superfine Mrs Smithson), and half her fears are gone. She +didn't much care for Mrs Richmond, she says; "toney" was the adjective +she used; but she quite took dear homely Lady Campbell under her wing. +She likes receiving, she says, and remarked, rather acutely, that what +makes these little afternoon functions the occasion for bickering they +are, is that people seem to rattle off what they have to say without an +interval for breath, and then to take their departure. She had Jackie +down, and Phyllis was brought down for a moment by her nurse; and Jackie +showed Lady Campbell his ship. Lady Campbell married her husband when he +was master and a fifth-part owner of a coasting boat; and when Jackie +lifted the hatch of his model to show her the "cabin" she laughed, and +said it was a far more comfortable cabin than that in which she spent +her honeymoon. Then Jackie, of course, wanted to know what a honeymoon +was, and when told made some remark about a honeymoon that set +everybody laughing except Evie, who blushed. I hope she will not forget +how to blush among all her smart ladies. I find her blushing adorable. + + +_17th May_, 4 P.M.--Without warning, a thing that I had thought +impossible has come upon me. For nearly twenty hours--since nine o'clock +last night--my thoughts have been such a series of jerks, stoppings, +leapings forward and dead stops again as only once before in my life I +have known. I have paced my private room at the Consolidation for half +the day, and have done no work since I looked over and signed the papers +that were brought to me here last night. Were I able to speak of "mere +nothings" I should say that a mere nothing has brought all this about. +Let me tell it. I have come home for the purpose of telling it. + +Since I began to leave the Consolidation early, papers have often been +brought to me here. Usually Stonor brings them, and is shown straight +into the library. You may judge of their urgency when I tell you that +last night there was nobody to bring them but Louie Causton. + +Evie, Aunt Angela and I were just finishing dinner when the servant +whispered to me. I think he said "Somebody from Pall Mall, sir," for if +he had said "A lady" I should have wondered who the lady was, which I +didn't do. I was expecting the papers; they would not keep me long; so, +telling Evie that I should be back in a few minutes, I followed the +servant out. + +Louie was standing by my desk. She had not lifted her veil, and I do not +know what it was about her attitude that struck me. Something did; I +suppose it was some proportion or relation; something that Billy would +perhaps have called the "beautiful unit" of the room; some purely +aesthetic quality, I don't doubt, which it is odd I should remember +now.... She was looking towards me as I entered; she had heard that +discreet bell of Stillhausen's; and only when I advanced did she push +her veil back. + +"Here are these," she said, with a twisted, pained sort of little smile. +"The others had all gone home, and I understood they were to come at +once. No, thanks, I won't sit down." + +Even when it appeared that, after all, the papers would need a few +minutes' looking into, she still refused to sit down. She stood as close +to the papers she had brought as if, without them, her sole reason for +being there, she might have been ejected; and as she still persisted in +her refusal to sit, I sat down myself. + +It took me perhaps a quarter of an hour to go through the papers. It was +as I was pushing back my chair that Stillhausen's bell purred again. A +moment later there was a tap at the door. "Come in!" I called. + +Evie entered. + +I was not embarrassed. It humiliates me to have to write that word now, +so many hours later. There was nothing to be embarrassed at. Indeed, as +Evie advanced from the door, I barely explained the reason for Miss +Causton's call. Louie touched the hand Evie extended. Evie was not, as +she was with Miriam Levey and Kitty Windus, on kissing terms with Louie. + +"I think you'll find these all right now," I said, giving Louie back the +papers. "I don't know whether Miss Causton has had supper, Evie?" + +Evie smiled graciously. "Yes, won't you have something, Miss Causton? +Let me have them lay a tray for you--it will be really no trouble." + +But Louie would take nothing. She had drawn down her veil again, and was +extending her fingers to Evie. "Don't trouble to come, Mr Jeffries," she +said, moving towards the door, while Evie prattled polite phrases. + +But I took her to the door. Four words--a "Good-night" on either +side--were all that passed between us. Then I returned to the library. + +Evie was standing where Louie had been standing, but no sooner did I +enter than she passed me. Taking into account the warning of +Stillhausen's bell, she must have waited for the purpose of so passing +me. But this did not strike me until a little later. Only when she +reached the door did she turn and speak. + +"Did Miss Causton ask for me?" she said. + +"Eh?" I asked, surprised.... "No. Why?" + +"Oh, nothing. Only that I thought that when one called one asked for the +lady of the house." + +I smiled as I set my writing-table to rights. "'Called?' It was hardly a +call, my dear." + +"Evidently not." + +I looked quickly up. Evie's tone was new to me. + +"Come, come, darling--a necessary matter of business," I expostulated. + +"I'm sorry I interrupted." + +"'Interrupted!'... Good gracious, Evie!" + +"But of course I didn't; you can't be interrupted here." + +I was astonished. + +"Why, what--what do you mean?" + +She looked coldly at me, without replying. + +I frowned. I am ashamed to say that it cost me a little effort to master +an impatience that had suddenly arisen in me. I spoke slowly for that +purpose. + +"If by your last remark you mean that bell, Evie, it was here before we +came, and I fancy you knew it was. At any rate it shall be taken away +to-morrow." + +Very irritatingly (I have told you how I am not quite the man of phlegm +I was) she took me up at my last word. + +"Oh, yes, about to-morrow," she said. "You don't happen to be going out +to-night, do you?" + +"No. Why?" This was stranger than ever. She knew I never went out at +night now. + +"Because Mrs. Hastie telephoned me to-day. Joan isn't well, and can't +come. So perhaps you'd like Sir Julius to ask somebody else--unless, of +course----" + +"Unless what?" + +"Unless--there's somebody you'd rather ask yourself." + +For a moment I was silent; then, "Evie," I said slowly, "do you--I don't +see how you can, but do you--mean Louie Causton?" + +She laughed tremulously. "Oh, very well; if I can't, I can't, I suppose, +so that ends it." + +And the next moment she was gone. + +Half-an-hour later I met her on the stairs. + +"Oh," she announced, without preface, "Phyllis isn't very well, and I +think I shall spend the night in the nursery with her." + +She has done so. + +I have had a wretched night. I turned and turned, but found no sleep. By +dint of turning, I found something else, though--a new meaning in those +words Louie Causton had said to me: "If I could say that Miriam Levey +and Kitty Windus had been chattering, which I can't----" I tossed and +tossed. + +At half-past ten this morning I went round to the offices of the Women's +Emancipation League in Gray's Inn. I can't say, even when I found +myself there, asking for Miss Levey, that I was very clear in my own +mind as to why I had gone, but if anybody _had_ been tampering with +Evie, it was as likely to be the Jewess as anybody else. + +She kept me waiting: a thing, I may say, that few people do nowadays. I +waited in a matchboarded anteroom, among emancipated flappers and +middle-aged disciples of Schmerveloff. Then Miss Levey herself came in +as if by accident, and gushed out into apologies. She had had no idea it +was I, she said; she did so beg my pardon.... She showed me into an +inner room in which a hairy man, the single male-bird of the run, was +expounding from a Blue Book to three or four more women; one of them was +the lady who had participated in the intellectual courtship on the night +of Aunt Angela's party. I turned to Miss Levey. + +"I should like, if I may, to speak to you in private," I said. + +She asked if Mr Boris's room was empty. The hairy man, looking up from +his Blue Book for a moment, said that he thought so. She led the way +into Mr Boris's room. + +At the sight of her all my old dislike revived, and I found myself able +to go straight to the point. I did so, without wasting a word. + +"I've called to ask you, Miss Levey, whether you've given my wife the +impression that I was the cause of your leaving the Freight and Ballast +Company in order that room might he made for Miss Causton?" + +She gave a shocked "Mis-ter Jeffries!" but I held up my hand. + +"I know I'm putting it bluntly. You can be as blunt as you like also. +Will you tell me whether that is so?" + +"May I die, Mr Jeffries--but _surely_ you know I'd arranged with Mr +Schmerveloff long before!" + +"I see. You dismissed us. Very well. Then let me put it in another form. +Have you, in my wife's hearing, associated my name with Miss Causton's +in any way whatever?" + +This time her answer was not quite so ready. When it came, it was a +question. + +"Do you mean lately, Mr Jeffries?" + +"At any time, but especially lately." + +Then she broke into glib speech, and all her "w's" became "v's." + +"There, now I _knew_ there vould be mischief before it was all over! +'Vot _is_ the good of going into it?' I said; 'vot _is_ the good, ven +nobody even believed it at the time? Evie was there,'I said, 'and knew +it was not true, so vy rake it all up now, Kitty?' I said. 'Ve all knew +all about poor Louie,' I said, 'and vot's done's done anyway, and Evie +doesn't vant to hear about it.'" + +Here, suddenly tingling curiously all over, I interrupted Miss Levey. I +spoke with a steadiness that astonished myself. + +"One moment. You seem to be speaking of a definite occasion. Was this +lately?" + +Miss Levey was all pouting bosom, thick lips and fluent hands. + +"Vy, _yes_! Ven Evie came here. Evie and Kitty and me, though vy I have +Kitty here at all I don't know, seeing she makes slips in her work, and +Mr Schmerveloff grumbles, and the other girls has it all to do over +again----" + +And the torrent continued. + +I don't know what else she said; the rest didn't matter. Why it didn't +matter you will see when I tell you that the tongue of a dead young +libertine once, years before, had made free with Louie Causton's name +and my own, and that the abominable slander, which had lasted for some +days, had turned on nothing less than the paternity of Louie's child. +All at the Business College, including Evie, had known of it; they had +known, too, of the public apology I had been prompt to exact; but that +mattered nothing, nothing, nothing now. This wretched little Israelite, +revelling in her "v's," and even touching my sleeve from time to time, +had seen to that. What the filthy rest was I do not know. Doubtless, +beginning with that, and with the feeble Kitty to support her, she had +made a complete history of jealousy.... And she did not even triumph +openly. She lisped and protested, and put all on Kitty.... I left her, +and almost fled from Louie also when, returning to Pall Mall, I +encountered her coming out of Whitlock's room. + +And now I have sat since lunch wondering what is to be done next. The +afternoon hours have brought me no more light then those of the night +did. Dully, I liken my life to that Maze at Hampton Court in which, one +happy Sunday I don't know how long ago, Evie and I spent an hour. As +then I seem to see Miss Levey's flamingo red behind the green hedges; +she seems to lurk in my life, too wary to confront me, too malicious not +to scratch. I am lost in winding intricacies. True, there is a door, +even as there is a door at Hampton Court that is opened when the +labyrinth is to be emptied. I find myself brought up against this door +time after time, but I do not know what lies beyond it. You see what the +door is: it is to tell Evie everything--everything.... Too wonderful +Louie! Why, if you foresaw all this, did you not _make_ me tell +her--thrust me into a closet with her and keep the door until it was +done--instead of letting me grope in my blindness and slip ever further +and further away from her?... Oh, I am tired, tired. + +I am too tired even to be angry for my poor practised-upon darling. For +they have sprung this horrible thing upon her. Half the time she does +not, cannot, believe it; of the other half of her life they have made a +torment. Poor lamb! Of course if they are cruel enough they can make it +seem plausible to her; I only wonder that, harrowed as she must have +been for all these weeks, she has borne up at all. _I_ know the horror +she must have wrestled with!... That _that_ wicked old story should crop +up again!... But I must stop. Perhaps an hour's sleep will do me good. + + +5.30 P.M.--That was a reckless thing to do, to go to sleep with these +papers spread out on the table and my door unlocked. Not that my +household is a staff of commercial collegiates, able to read this +out-of-date old shorthand; but it was foolish for all that. Anyhow I am +rather better, and think I can face the dinner to-night. After that I +don't know what I shall do. I have not seen Evie all day. + +I never felt less up to a dinner. But a little champagne will keep me +going. They will be here in two hours and a half. It will take Evie an +hour and a half to dress; I wonder what she is doing for the final hour! +Dear heart, if she only knew how I ache to go up to her; but I must not +do that until I have made up my mind what course to take. I shall have +come to a resolution before I sleep to-night that will settle things one +way or the other. We cannot stop at this _impasse_. I don't think Evie's +is a real jealousy. To-morrow she will be sobbing on my shoulder that +she has harboured it. But at present it has the venomous effect of the +real thing, and if I do not put an end to it, it will recur. Let me +think.... + +Again it comes upon me--why do I write this at all, that I shall most +certainly be destroying? I have hardly the heart to think it out, but as +it may have some bearing on what I shall have to say to Evie presently I +must. I don't think it's that I'm urged to set myself right with +anybody, even with myself. At first, when I began, I thought it was +that--the need for self-justification--but now I don't think it's a +question of justification or condemnation at all. It is a far more +essential question. Suppose we call it the question of the personal +standard.... + +I dare say my standards pass for low. That physical basis of marriage, +for example, may pass for low--I'm sure it must to that ardent young +couple who pant for intellectual companionship and Schmerveloff. And I +confess that several of the Beatitudes are beyond me. To tell the truth +I am not really at home with anything much higher than the best of human +intelligence; and when I hear people speaking glibly of "man-made laws," +I recognise that some folk are on terms of affability with Omnipotence +that are denied to me. I suppose I am temperamentally reluctant to alter +as much as a regulation once it is established, and I am certainly not +ready with divine amendments to everything of man's offhand. Man's law +I hold to be a necessarily imperfect, but roughly sufficient measure of +man's conduct, and in the light of that law I may presently have a +murder to confess. + +I say _a_ murder, not murder. Is there a difference? I do not know, and +I am too weary to split hairs about it. Call them, if you like, one and +the same thing. Still, if the one command be absolute, for the other a +case may be stated. Do I, then, write to state a case? + +But state it to whom? There is one Addressee to whom I have not lifted +up my eyes. I, proud and conquering whom among my fellow-worms, have +found the lesser law press hard on me, but I have not straightway +invoked the greater. Man's decrees I have found strong and wise and +admirable; the other is too wonderful for me. And this is the conclusion +I promised you. To man, man's law is of more consequence than God's. +Perhaps the damned are not utterly damned, so long as they do not add +presumptuousness to their error. To have appealed and to have had that +appeal rejected _were_ damnation.... I do not appeal. + +Nor can I see that I state my case to man. Nay, for I confess man's +authority, lest it should appear that I do not, I shall destroy these +papers. To-night or to-morrow I shall destroy them. Man shall not say +that I have shirked the human issue. I refuse to plead at all. Let any +who take it upon themselves to accuse or defend me plead or charge what +they will. I am mute. I burn this.... + +I am tired.... + +And yet one boon I do crave. Perhaps those standards of mine, by their +very lowness, may be the evidence, not of a smaller, but of a larger +conception of Him Who Reigneth than might at first glance appear.... + +I am tired.... + +But all this advances me little with my resolution. Indeed, a fresh +glare has just broken in on my brain. I was looking back a few moments +ago on that long chain of circumstances with which my darling has been +torturing herself--that old slander, innocencies between Louie and +myself possible to have been misconstrued, my coming upon her that night +in Billy's top room, Evie's own temperamental bias against Louie's +profession, her silences, her belief of the calumny. Had Miriam Levey +but known of my visit to the Models' Club and that strange walk of ours +on the night of the Berkeley dinner, her case had indeed been complete! +I had been reviewing all this, I say; and suddenly it struck me, suppose +I do tell her? _What then?_... + +Do you see--as the terrible Louie had seen--what then? I am supposing +that the revelation did not kill her; do you see what then? + +At last I saw it, and groaned. What then? Why, what but that I had put +another before herself? What but that, while she had shared my board and +bed, that fatal burden of my honour and confidence and trust had gone +to another? What but that Louie, after all, _had_ had the key and +password of my life that I had denied to herself? What could I answer +did she live to say, "What, you married me without telling me this? You +tell me _now_, after having concealed it until concealment is no longer +possible? You give me, _now_, something she's had the use of and has +passed on to me? What is she to you, then, that _I_ am not? Where do I +fall short as a wife that _I_ couldn't have borne this for my husband or +died trying to bear it? Take it. Give it to her. She can have it. Fool, +that I couldn't see this for myself, but must have Miriam Levey to point +it out to me!" + +Oh, my dear, my dear, my dear! We had never a fair start.... + +I do not know whether she intends to spend the night in the nursery +again.... + +Seven o'clock. I must dress. And I must drink something now, or I shall +never get through the evening.... + +And even yet I have not come to my decision. + + +11.30 P.M. This page at least it will be almost superfluous to destroy. +My hand shakes like dodder-grass. That is the liquor I have drunk, but I +had to do it. + +They have gone. As I thought would be the case, I have had to play +Evie's part too. That's twice Billy Izzard has seen me do that, for +to-night was to all intents and purposes a repetition of that other +night, when I tried to silence the voice of a gramophone by jumping up +and bawling out an overstrained merriment. I don't mean that I jumped up +and bawled to-night, of course. I merely had a number of flowers removed +from the table, so that my eyes had a straight lane to Evie's at the +other end, and sent down smiles and encouragement and support to her. +And I allowed the men a bare ten minutes afterwards before I hurried off +to her aid again. That and plenty of champagne; and I think I pulled it +off. Billy, who lingered behind until I turned him out, says everything +went splendidly. He didn't know I'd such gaiety in me, he said. + +And Evie has gone to the nursery, but is not going to stay there. She +told me that, with a hot little kiss, and a grip of her moist hand.... +This was on the stairs, and she whispered (_words illegible_), and she +had to run away so that the gratitude in her eyes would not run quite +over--but that she whispered (_words illegible_).... + +I shall do it to-night, unless my tongue is as shaky as my hand. There +is a perfect stillness in my brain. I can see the whole thing spread out +in my mind like a map; never have I been so triumphantly the master of a +thing ... (_words illegible_).... The map is as steady as a rock, too; I +turn my attention from it for a moment, choosing the form in which I +shall present this aspect of the case or that, and when I return to the +map it hasn't moved. Words, whole phrases, rise up in my mind, all so +perfect that there will hardly be any shock at all. Evie cannot help but +see it as I see it, and then I shall beg her pardon that I didn't tell +her long ago. I have never loved her as I love her to-night, and those +lovely pools of her eyes on the stairs (_words illegible_). + +At last we are going to have a fair start. We hadn't that, you know. I +still think I was right to stand between her and much of life, but this +other thing was really too huge to be hidden. And she will not be +jealous any more of Louie when I tell her that though Louie dragged all +this out of me--she's no idea really how clever Louie is--my pulse has +never quickened at Louie's touch nor my eyes brightened when they have +met hers. "With my body" I have worshipped Evie, and shall (_words +illegible_).... And so to-morrow will be a new beginning for us. I am +rich; I have power; my only desire is now almost within my grasp. It was +nonsense I wrote an hour or two ago--or perhaps it was the other +day--about this only being the beginning of a deathless jealousy between +those two. Evie will see. I shall make it all perfectly plain. I could +almost do impossibilities to-night, with the words running like +quicksilver in my mind and that chart I have in my brain steady as a +rock. And if the anticipation of peace is such bliss, what will the +peace itself be?... + +I suppose she will be ready about twelve. I mustn't let this wondrous +stillness of my brain slip from me. I was clever enough to foresee that +it might, and so had the tray of liqueurs sent down here. But it doesn't +do for an abstemious man to mix his liqueurs; the brandy again, I think. +(_Several lines undecipherable_). I have only been drunk once in my +life; I forget when that was; and once I shammed drunk; I don't suppose +I shall ever be drunk again. A moment ago I felt a twinge where I made +that dent in my head on the corner of Aunt Angela's fender, but it has +passed.... It was a good dinner-party; I saw to that.... Evie, +sweetheart--she'll be ready about twelve.... + +It is a quarter to now. I must be getting up. But first I must put these +papers away. One of them slipped away somewhere a few minutes ago; I +stumbled and upset a pile of them, but gathered them all up again, all +but that one; never mind, I will look for it in the morning. It was my +foot that slipped, not my brain. My brain is all right.... + +Well, it will be all right to-morrow.... + +END OF JEFFRIES' JOURNAL + + + + +ENVOI + +SIR JULIUS PEPPER DICTATES + + +ENVOI + +"Er--Miss Causton--can you stay for an hour or so? No, a private affair; +I hope it's not inconvenient; thanks, and if I might give you supper +afterwards?... + +"Fact is, it's about poor old Jeffries. Better date it, and keep it +safe. They've asked me to write something about him, and I'm no writer; +but Izzard's found me a man who'll lick it into shape if I supply the +material. 'Just talk it anyhow,' he said. Easily enough said, about a +chap like Jeffries.... + +"You've seen this cutting, of course? No, not the first one; this from +this morning's paper, about Mrs Jeffries. By Jove! it has followed +quickly; awful! (By the way, you once met her, didn't you?) No, I want +this copy; you can get another to-morrow; I'll read it out: + + + TRAGIC DEATH OF A LADY + + We have to report a melancholy sequel to the death of Mr James + Herbert Jeffries, of the Exploration and Mercantile Consolidation, + Pall Mall, which was announced in our issue of the 10th ult. The + circumstances of Mr Jeffries' sudden demise are still fresh in the + public mind. The deceased gentleman, it will be remembered, + succumbed to an attack of cerebral haemorrhage brought on by strain + and overwork and culminating on the night of a dinner-party given + by him at his mansion in Iddesleigh Gate. It is with the deepest + regret that we now announce that his widow has survived him only a + few weeks. + + We understand that during the intervening time the bereaved lady + had occupied herself by going through the private papers of her + late husband, sitting up late at night in order to render this last + devout service. At about three o'clock yesterday morning Ann + Madeley, a housemaid in Mrs Jeffries' employ, suffering from + insomnia, had recourse to a medicine closet, situated where the + servants' quarters adjoin the dwelling parts of the house. Her + attention was attracted to a strong smell of escaping gas. She woke + James Baines, a butler, and the two, wisely refraining from + striking a light, made their way in the direction from which the + smell of gas seemed to come. This brought them to their mistress' + room. Obtaining no answer to their knocks, an entrance was forced, + and in a small dressing-room lately used by Mr Jeffries---- + + +"I hope this doesn't distress you too much, Miss Causton---- + + + --Mrs Jeffries was found, fully dressed, stretched on a couch. The + doors and windows had been closed, and a gas-fire turned on. We + understand from Baines that Mrs Jeffries had remained as usual + downstairs in the library until a late hour; and a page of notes in + her husband's shorthand which has been found under one of the + pillars of the writing-table---- + + +"I've got that page of notes, by the way.---- + + + --is sufficiently eloquent testimony as to what her sad duty had + been. Dr McKechnie, who was at once summoned, certified that life + had been extinct for some hours. The deceased lady, who was a great + favourite in society, leaves two children in the care of a maiden + aunt, Miss Angela Soames. The inquest is fixed for Tuesday next. + + +"Sad business, sad business.... Afraid they'll have to bring it in +suicide--through grief, probably.... + +"Well, let's put it down as it comes. Of course he was a big man; lived +an intense crowded life too. I should say at a guess there weren't many +things he hadn't done at one time and another, short of committing a +murder or a matrimonial infidelity. Don't think he could have been +tempted to do that. One woman could do anything she liked with him, but +the others wouldn't have much chance. Oh yes, a full life. Did you know, +Miss Causton, that the man who first passed him over to me found him +helping to pick a fallen horse up in Fleet Street, when he hadn't a +penny to his name? He was a commissionaire once.... As you know, he was +the steam of this concern; it was the chance of my lifetime finding him, +poor chap. Extraordinary man! He used to go at things by a sort of +intuition; he tried to explain it to me, but I never could understand +it. Once I said something about 'scientific method'; but he said it +wasn't scientific method at all. Scientific method, he said, was +something purely empirical, concerned with investigation, and not +practically constructive in the least. Constructiveness came after. His +method, he said, was based on the truths of art, 'the only truths we +know anything about,' he said, whatever he meant. I never could follow +him at all.... Well, if that's so, it rather explains a lot of these +business giants going in for collecting--I mean it isn't that they just +have the money to gratify their artistic tastes. But, as I say, I could +never make head nor tail of it.... Which reminds me; that paper that got +wafted under his desk; that was a dabbling in art in its way; fiction; +did you know he tried his hand at fiction, Miss Causton? Here it is--an +odd page--Whitlock knows a bit of shorthand, and he transcribed it for +me: + + + _'--show him that red thing on the floor, and that curved thing on + the door.'_ + + _But now Archie in his turn seemed to have become divided. He had + suddenly turned white. But an habitual pertness still persisted in + his tongue. I don't think this had any relation whatever to the + physical peril he seemed at last to have realised he was in. I + stood over him huge and black as Fate.... 'Spare him if you can,' + that generous bloodthirsty devil in me muttered quickly...._ + + _'Merridew,' I said heavily, 'you'll disappear to-morrow + morning--or----'_ + + _'Shall I?' he bragged falteringly...._[3] + + +"And so on---- + + + _His only chance now was to have screamed aloud; but he did not + scream. Instead he stooped quickly, caught up the poker, and struck + at my head with it._[3] + + +"And that's the end of the page. Sort of grim tale he would write. Queer +hobby for a mercantile and political giant, wasn't it? But I'd go in for +fiction myself if I thought it would make me like him. + +"Verandah Cottage--that was no place for a chap like him. I hated to see +him there. He could always go anywhere, meet anybody, was on equal terms +with the best--and he without antecedents that I ever heard of, standing +out solitary against a black background, just genius.... I wonder who +his people were! Something uncommon, or else he was just a gigantic +'sport'---- + +"Of course--_de mortuis_ and so on--but he did marry the wrong woman. To +tell the truth, she was as ordinary as they make 'em; would have looked +her best in the lights of the Holborn Restaurant at half-past six, +waiting with the rest of the shop-girls for her bus home. He was a mass +of contradictions, and one of 'em was that he merely idealised her. +Pretty, of course, but poor Jeffries could have done better for himself +than that. She never could bear me.... Well, there's nothing to be said +now, poor creatures.... But sometimes it made me almost angry that he +hadn't married the woman he ought.... + +"Well, let's begin with the day he first came to the F.B.C.----" + +And Louie's pencil flew on. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[3] See "In Accordance with the Evidence." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEBIT ACCOUNT*** + + +******* This file should be named 37479.txt or 37479.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/7/4/7/37479 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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