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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd43029 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #69669 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69669) diff --git a/old/69669-0.txt b/old/69669-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6fb3b24..0000000 --- a/old/69669-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,11684 +0,0 @@ - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Messalina of the suburbs, by E. M. -Delafield - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Messalina of the suburbs - -Author: E. M. Delafield - -Release Date: December 31, 2022 [eBook #69669] -Last updated: March 5, 2023 - -Language: English - -Produced by: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The - Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MESSALINA OF THE -SUBURBS *** - - - - - -MESSALINA OF THE SUBURBS - - - - - _Messalina of the - Suburbs_ :: :: _By - E. M. DELAFIELD_ :: - - _Author of “Tension,” “The Optimist,” “A - Reversion to Type,” etc._ - - [Illustration] - - _LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO. - PATERNOSTER ROW_ - - - - -DEDICATED - -TO - -M. P. P. - - -MY DEAR MARGARET, - -We have so often agreed that causes are more interesting than the most -dramatic results, that I feel you are the right person to receive the -dedication of my story about Elsie Palmer, in which I have tried to -reconstruct the psychological developments that led, by inexorable -degrees, to the catastrophe of murder. These things are never “bolts -from the blue” in reality, but merely sensational accessories to the -real issue, which lies on that more subtle plane of thought where only -personalities are deserving of dissection. - -For what it is worth, I offer you an impression of Elsie Palmer’s -personality. - - E. M. D. - - _August, 1923._ - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - MESSALINA OF THE SUBURBS 11 - - THE BOND OF UNION 185 - - LOST IN TRANSMISSION 193 - - TIME WORKS WONDERS 213 - - THE GALLANT LITTLE LADY 223 - - THE HOTEL CHILD 235 - - IMPASSE 249 - - THE APPEAL 259 - - THE FIRST STONE 269 - - - - -MESSALINA OF THE SUBURBS - - - - -Messalina of the Suburbs - - - - -PART I - - -I - -“Elsie, I’ve told you before, I won’t have you going with boys.” - -“I don’t, mother.” - -“Yes, you do. And don’t contradict. Surely to goodness you’re aware -by this time that it’s the heighth of bad manners to contradict. I’ve -taken trouble enough to try and make a lady of you, I’m sure, and -now all you can do is to contradict your mother, and spend your time -walking the streets with boys.” - -“Mother, I never.” - -“Now don’t tell lies about it, Elsie. Mother knows perfectly well when -you’re telling a lie, and you don’t take her in by crocodile tears -either, my lady. Don’t let me have to speak to you again about the same -thing, that’s all.” - -Elsie began to cry, automatically and without conviction. “I’m sure I -don’t know what you mean.” - -“Yes, you do, miss. I mean Johnnie Osborne, and Johnnie Osborne’s -brother, and Stanley Begg and the rest of them. Now, no more of it, -Elsie. Go and give the gurl a hand with washing up the tea-things, and -hurry up.” - -Elsie went away, glad that it was so soon over. Sometimes mother went -on for ages. Thank the Lord she was busy to-day, with two new paying -guests coming in. As she went past the drawing-room door Elsie looked -in. - -“Hallo, little girl!” - -“Hallo, Mr. Roberts! Can’t stay, I’ve to go and help the girl wash up -or something.” - -“You’ve been crying!” - -“I haven’t, then!” She went further into the room and let him see the -downward droop of her pouting mouth and her wet eyelashes. She had not -cried hard enough to make her nose turn red. - -“I say, what a shame! What have they been doing to you?” - -“Oh, nothing. Mother’s on the warpath, that’s all. It isn’t anything.” - -“How rotten of her! Fancy scolding you! I thought you were always good, -Elsie.” - -“And who said you might call me Elsie, if you’ll kindly answer me that, -Mister Impertinence?” - -She shook her short, bobbing curls at him and laughed, suddenly -good-tempered. - -“You witch! Elsie, shall you miss me a tiny bit when I’m gone?” - -“Oh, you’re going, are you?” She pretended to consider. “Let me see, -there’s a single gentleman coming, who’ll have your room, and a married -lady and gentleman for the front bedroom. I don’t really suppose, Mr. -Roberts, there’ll be time to miss you much, with the house full like -that.” She looked innocently up at him. - -“Little devil!” he muttered between his teeth, causing her to thrill -slightly, although she maintained her pose of artlessness without a -visible tremor. - -“Who’s the bounder who’s going to have my room after to-night?” - -“Mis-ter Roberts!” She affected a high key of indignation. “He isn’t -a bounder. You know very well that mother’s awfully particular. She -wouldn’t take anyone without he was a perfect gentleman in _every_ way. -Now I can’t wait another minute. I should get into an awful row if -mother caught me here.” - -“What’s the harm? Don’t run away, Elsie. Just tell me this: are you -coming to the pictures to-night--for the last evening?” - -“Oh, are you going to take me and Geraldine? I don’t suppose -Geraldine’ll be able to--she’s ill.” - -“Can’t we go without her?” - -“Mother wouldn’t let me.” - -“Well, look here, Elsie--come without telling anyone. Do, just for the -lark. I swear I’ll take the greatest care of you.” - -“Oh, how could I? Besides, mother’d want to know where I was.” - -“Can’t you say you’re going somewhere with that eternal friend of -yours--that Irene Tidmarsh girl, or whatever her name is?” - -“I’ll thank you to remember you’re speaking of a friend of mine, Mr. -Roberts. And the idea of suggesting I should do such a thing as deceive -my mother! Why, I’m surprised at you!” - -“Don’t rot, Elsie. Say you’ll come. Slip out after supper, and meet me -at the bottom of the road. There’s a jolly good programme on at the -Palatial.” - -“I hope you’ll enjoy the pictures, Mr. Roberts,” said Elsie demurely. -She sidled backwards to the door. - -“I shall wait for you--eight o’clock sharp.” - -“Don’t catch cold waiting,” she mocked. - -“Look here, kid----” - -“That’s mother! She’ll skin me alive, if I give her half a chance!” She -flew out into the hall and down the passage to the kitchen. - -The servant Nellie was there, and Elsie’s sister Geraldine. - -“Where’ve you been, Elsie?” - -“With mother. I didn’t know you were here; I thought you were s’posed -to be ill.” - -“So I am ill,” returned Geraldine bitterly. “But as you were out, -_someone_ had to do some work.” - -Elsie looked critically at her sister. Geraldine did look ill, sallow -and with black rims round her eyes, but then she had something -altogether wrong with her digestion, and often looked like that. - -“Bilious again?” - -“’M. I think it was that beastly pudding we had last night. I’ve been -awfully sick.” - -“Poor wretch!” - -Neither of them paid any attention to Nellie Simmons, who went on -plunging and clattering greasy spoons and plates about in the water -that steamed from a chipped enamel basin. - -“Can’t you take this rag, Elsie, and wipe a bit, and let me get -upstairs? I’m sure I’m going to be sick again.” - -“I suppose I must, then--poor me!” - -“Poor you, when you’ve been out since dinner! I should like to know -what for. If it was me, now----Oh, Lord, my head!” - -“Well, go on upstairs again. Have you tried the new medicine that -Ireen’s aunt did the testimonial for?” - -“Yes, and I don’t believe it’s a bit better than any of the others. I -feel like nothing on earth. I say, where were you all the afternoon?” - -“Curiosity killed the cat,” said Elsie, wiping the plates. - -“I’m sure I don’t want to know.” - -“That’s all right then, we’re both satisfied, because I don’t mean to -tell you.” - -Geraldine looked angrily at her sister and walked away, her thin plait -of dark hair flapping limply between her angular, slouching shoulders. - -“What is there for supper to-night, Nellie?” said Elsie presently. - -“The ’am.” - -“Oh, goodness, that old ham! Why can’t we ever have anything _nice_, I -should like to know! And I s’pose the cold tart’s got to be finished -up, and that beastly cold shape?” - -“That’s right,” Nellie said laconically. - -“Well, there’ll be no cooking to do, that’s one thing.” - -“_She_ wants some soup put on, because of the new people, but I’ve left -it all ready. I’m off at six sharp, I can tell you.” - -“What’s the hurry, Nellie?” asked Elsie amicably. She saw that Nellie -wanted to be asked, and she felt good-humoured because there was no -cooking to be done, and she could lay the supper and ring the bell -earlier than usual, so as to be able to keep her appointment with Mr. -Roberts. - -“I’ve got someone waiting for me, I ’ave,” Nellie said importantly. -“Couldn’t be kept waiting--oh dear, no!” - -Elsie looked at the ugly, white-faced Cockney woman, whose teeth -projected, decayed and broken, and round the corners of whose mouth -and nostrils clung clusters of dry pimples, and burst out laughing. - -“It’s true!” said Nellie, offended. “And I’m off now.” - -She went to dry her chapped hands on the limp and dingy roller-towel -that hung beside the cold-water tap. - -Elsie laughed again, partly to tease Nellie Simmons and partly because -it really amused her to think that her own projected diversion with Mr. -Roberts should be parodied by this grotesque Nellie and some unknown, -equally grotesque, companion. - -Nellie pulled down her hat and coat from the peg on the kitchen door, -put them on and went away, although it was quarter of an hour before -her time. She knew well enough that none of them would say anything, -Elsie reflected. Girls were too difficult to get hold of, when one took -in guests. - -As soon as the side door had slammed behind Nellie, Elsie flew into the -scullery. A broken piece of looking-glass hung there, where she had -nailed it up herself long ago. - -She pulled down the thick, dust-coloured wave of hair that fell from a -boyish, left-hand parting, until it lay further across her forehead, -deepening the natural kink in it with her fingers, and loosening the -black ribbon bow that fell over one ear. The soft, flopping curls -fell to her shoulders on either side of her full, childish face. She -rubbed hard at her cheeks for a moment, without producing very much -visible effect on their uniform pale pinkiness, starred all over with -tiny golden freckles. The gold was repeated in her eyelashes and pale -eyebrows, but Elsie’s eyes, to her eternal regret, were neither blue -nor brown. They were something between a dark grey and a light green, -and the clear blue whites of them showed for a space between the iris -and the lower lid. - -Her nose was straight and short; her wide mouth, habitually pouting, -possessed a very full underlip and a short, curving upper one. When she -showed her teeth, they were white and even, but rather far apart. The -most salient characteristic of her face was that its high cheek-bones, -and well-rounded cheeks, gave an odd impression of pushing against her -underlids, so that her eyes very often looked half shut, and small. -Elsie saw this in herself, and it made her furious. She called it “a -Japanese doll look.” - -She realised that her soft, rounded neck was really beautiful, and was -secretly proud of the opulent curves of her figure; but to other girls -she pretended that she thought herself too fat, although in point of -fact she wore no stays. - -She thought with pride that she looked more like eighteen than sixteen -years old, although she was not, and knew that she never would be, very -tall. - -Dragging a black velveteen tam-o’-shanter from her pocket, Elsie pulled -it rakishly on over her curls, her fingers quickly and skilfully -pouching the worn material so that it sagged over to one side. The -hands with which she manipulated the tam-o’-shanter were freckled too, -like her face, and of the same uniform soft pink. The fingers were -short, planted very far apart, and broad at the base and inclining to -curve backwards. - -She wiped them on the roller-towel, as Nellie Simmons had done, only -far more hurriedly, and then went quietly out at the side door. It -opened straight into a small blind alley, and Elsie ran up it, and into -the road at a corner of which her home was situated. Turning her back -on No. 15, from which she had just emerged, she kept on the same side -of the road, hoping to escape observation even if Mrs. Palmer were to -look out of the window. - -Very soon, however, she was obliged to cross the road, and then she -rang the bell of a tall house that was the counterpart of the one she -lived in, and indeed of all the other hundred and eighty yellow-and-red -brick houses in Hillbourne Terrace. - -Irene Tidmarsh opened the door, a lanky, big-eyed creature, with two -prominent front teeth and an immense plait of ugly brown hair. Her arms -and legs were thick and shapeless. - -“Hallo, Elsie!” - -“Hallo, Ireen. Look here, I can’t stay. I only want to ask you if -you’ll swear we’ve been to the pictures together to-night, if anyone -ever asks. Quick! Be a sport, and promise.” - -“What’s up?” Irene asked wearily. - -“Oh, only my fun. I don’t particularly want mother to know about me -going out to-night, that’s all. If I can say I was with you if I’m -asked, it’ll be all right, only you’ll have to back me up if she -doesn’t believe me.” - -“Oh, all right, I don’t care. You’re a caution, Elsie Palmer--you -and your made-up tales. Don’t see much difference between them and -downright lies, sometimes.” - -“Well, what am I to do? I can’t ever go anywhere, or have any -amusement, without mother and Geraldine wanting to know all about it, -and if I’ve been behaving myself, and ’cetera and ’cetera.” - -“Who is it this time, Elsie?” - -“Only this fellow who’s leaving to-morrow, the one that’s been P.G. -with us such a time, you know.” - -“Oh, Roberts?” - -“’M. Well, so long, dear. Thanks awfully and all that. Ta-ta. Don’t -forget.” - -“Ta-ta,” repeated Irene. “You’ll have to tell me all about it on -Sunday, mind.” - -“Awright.” - -Elsie turned and hurried homeward again, shrugging her shoulders up to -her ears as the wind whistled shrilly down the street. - -It was September, and cold. - -When she was indoors again, she pulled off her tam-o’-shanter and -stuffed it once more into the pocket of her serge skirt. Then she went -upstairs to the room at the top of the house that she shared with -Geraldine. - -“I wish you’d knock.” - -“Whatever for? It’s my room as much as yours, isn’t it?” Elsie said -without acrimony. - -“Have you been washing up all this time?” - -“Nellie went off early.” - -“The slut! Whatever for? Did you tell mother?” - -“No. It wouldn’t be a bit of good. She won’t say anything to Nellie -just now, whatever she does, with these new people just coming in.” - -“Oh, my head!” groaned Geraldine, not attending. - -She lay on her bed, her white blouse crumpled, and a machine-made -knitted coat, of shrimp-pink wool, drawn untidily over her shoulders. -Her black Oxford shoes lay on the mat between the two beds, and her -black stockings showed long darns and a hole in either heel. - -Elsie began to arrange her hair before the looking-glass in a painted -deal frame that stood on the deal chest-of-drawers. Presently she -pulled a little paper bag from one of the drawers and began to suck -sweets. - -“No good offering you any, I suppose?” - -“Don’t talk of such a thing. Elsie, I can’t come down to supper -to-night. Do be a dear and bring me up a cup of tea--nice and strong. -I’ve got a sort of craving for hot tea when I’m like this, really I -have.” - -“You don’t want much, do you, asking me to carry tea up four flights -of stairs? I’ll see what I can do.” Elsie began to hum, in a small, -rather tuneful little voice. She let her skirt fall round her feet as -she sang and pulled off her blouse, revealing beautifully modelled -breasts and shoulders. Her arms were a little too short, but the -line from breast-bone to knee was unusually good, the legs plump and -shapely, with slender ankles and the instep well arched. She wore serge -knickerbockers and a flimsy under-bodice of yellow cotton voile over a -thick cotton chemise. - -“Are you going out _again_?” asked Geraldine in a vexed, feeble voice. - -“I may go round and sit with Ireen for a bit, after supper. I think she -wants to go to the pictures, or something.” - -“How’s Mr. Tidmarsh?” - -“Going to die, I should think, by all accounts,” glibly replied Elsie, -although as a matter of fact she had forgotten to make any enquiry for -Irene’s father, who had for months past been dying from some obscure -and painful internal growth. - -“Why doesn’t he go to a hospital?” - -“Don’t ask me. Ireen’s always begging him to, but he won’t.” - -“Old people are awfully selfish, I think,” said Geraldine thoughtfully. - -“Yes, aren’t they? Look, I’m going to put this collar on my Sunday -serge. That ought to smarten it up a bit.” - -She pinned the cheap lace round the low-cut V at the neck of an old -navy-blue dress, and fastened it with a blue-stoned brooch in the shape -of a circle. Her throat rose up, fresh and warm and youthful, from the -new adornment. - -“Isn’t it time I put my hair up, don’t you think?” - -“No. You’re only a kid. I didn’t put mine up till I was eighteen. -Mother wouldn’t let me.” - -Elsie dragged a thick grey pilot-cloth coat from behind the curtain -of faded red rep that hung across a row of pegs and constituted the -sisters’ wardrobe, caught up the black tam-o’-shanter again and ran -downstairs. - -All the time that she was laying the table in the dining-room, which -was next to the kitchen on the ground floor, Elsie hummed to herself. - -The tablecloth was stained in several places, and she arranged the -Britannia-metal forks and spoons, the coarse, heavy plates and the -red glass water-jug so as to cover the spots as much as possible. In -the middle of the table stood a thick fluted green glass with paper -chrysanthemums in it. - -Elsie added the cruet, two half-loaves of bread on a wooden platter -with “Bread” carved upon it in raised letters, and put a small red -glass beside each plate. Finally she quickly pleated half a dozen -coloured squares of Japanese paper, and stuck one into each glass. - -“Mother!” she called. - -“What?” said Mrs. Palmer from the kitchen. - -“It’s ready laid.” - -“What are you in such a hurry for? Miss M. and Mr. Williams haven’t -turned up yet.” - -“Mr. Roberts wants his supper early, I know.” - -“You’ve no business to know, then. Well, put the ham on the table and -the cold sweets, and he can go in when he pleases. This is Liberty -Hall, as I call it.” - -Elsie carried in the ham, placing the dish on the table beside the -carving-knife and fork that were raised upon a “rest” of electro plate. -The glass dishes containing a flabby pink decoction of cornflour, and -the apple tart, with several slices of pastry gone from the crust, she -laid at the other end of the table. - -“Supper’s in, Mr. Roberts,” she cried through the open door of the -drawing-room, but this time she did not go in, and flew back to the -kitchen before Mr. Roberts appeared. - -“Geraldine’s asking for tea, mother.” - -“There’s a kettle on. She can come and fetch it.” - -“I’ll take it up,” Elsie volunteered. - -“You’re very obliging, all of a sudden. I’m sure I only wish you and -your sister were more _like_ sisters, the way Aunt Ada and Aunt Gertie -and Mother were. There wasn’t any of this bickering between us girls -that I hear between you and Geraldine.” - -“You’ve made up for it later, then,” said Elsie pertly. “The aunts -never come here but they find fault with things, and Aunt Ada cries, -and I’m sure you and Aunt Gertie go at it hammer and tongs.” - -“Don’t you dare to speak to me like that, Elsie Palmer,” said her -mother abstractedly. (“Give me a spoon, there’s a good gurl.”) “What -you gurls are coming to, talking so to your own mother, is more than I -can say. What’s at the bottom of all this talk about carrying tea to -Geraldine? What are you going to do about your own supper?” - -“Have it in here. I don’t want much, anyway. I’m not hungry. Tea and -bread-and-jam’ll do.” - -“Please yourself,” said Mrs. Palmer. - -She was a large, shapeless woman, slatternly and without method, -chronically aggrieved because she was a widow with two daughters, -obliged to support herself and them by receiving boarders, whom she -always spoke of as guests. - -“Where are these what-you-may-call-’ems--these Williamses--coming -from?” Elsie asked, while she was jerking tea from the bottom of a -cocoa-tin into a broken earthenware tea-pot. - -“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,” said her mother. - -She had no slightest reason to conceal the little she knew of the new -people who were coming, but it was her habit to reply more or less in -this fashion, semi-snubbing, semi-facetious, whenever either of her -daughters asked a question. - -“I’m sure I don’t want to know,” said Elsie, also from habit. - -She made the tea, poured out two cups-full and took one upstairs. As -she had expected, the alarm clock on the wash-stand showed it to be -eight o’clock. - -Almost directly afterwards, she heard the front door slam. - -No. 15 was a narrow, high house, with very steep stairs, but Elsie was -used to them, although she grumbled at the number of times she went up -and down them, and she and Geraldine and Mrs. Palmer all kept numerous -articles of toilet and clothing in the kitchen, so as to save journeys -backwards and forwards. - -She now went down once more, and sitting at a corner of the -newspaper-covered kitchen table, drank tea and ate bread-and-jam -deliberately. - -“That’s the bell!” - -Mrs. Palmer hoisted herself out of her chair, from which she had been -reading the headlines of an illustrated daily paper, commenting on them -half aloud with: “Fancy!... Whatever is the world coming to, is what I -say....” - -“That’ll be the Williamses, and about time too. You’ll have to give me -a hand upstairs with the boxes afterwards, Elsie, but I’ll give ’em -supper first.” - -She went out into the hall, and Elsie heard the sounds of arrival, and -her mother’s voice saying: “Good evening, you’ve brought us some wet -weather, I’m afraid.... You mustn’t mind me joking, Mrs. Williams, it’s -my way.... Liberty Hall, you’ll find this....” - -Elsie ran to the back kitchen, donned the pilot-cloth coat and the -tam-o’-shanter, and slipped out through the side door into the wet -drizzle of a cold autumn evening. - -“Ooh!” She turned up the collar of the coat, and pushed her gloveless -hands deep into her pockets as she hurried along the pavement. It shone -wet and dark, giving blurred reflections of the lamps overhead. Every -now and then a tram jerked and clanged its way along the broad suburban -road. - -Only a few shops were lit along the road. Most of the buildings on -either side were houses that displayed a brass sign-plate on the door, -or a card with “Apartments” in one of the windows. Right at the end -of the street, a blur of bluish light streamed out from the Palatial -Picture House. - -“I thought you weren’t coming,” said young Roberts, reproachfully. -“It’s long after eight.” He wore a light overcoat and he, also, had -turned up his collar as a protection against the rain. - -“I had to help mother, of course. And if you want to know, I ought to -be there now.” She laughed up at him provocatively. - -“Come on in,” he said, pulling her hand through his arm. - - -II - -This was Elsie’s real life. - -Although quite incapable of formulating the thought to herself, she -already knew instinctively that only in her relations with some man -could she find self-expression. - -In the course of the past two years she had gradually discovered -that she possessed a power over men that other girls either did not -possess at all, or in a very much lesser degree. From the exercise of -unconscious magnetism, she had by imperceptible degrees passed to a -breathless, intermittent exploitation of her own attractiveness. - -She did not know why boys so often wished to kiss her, nor why she -was sometimes followed, or spoken to, in the street, by men. At first -she had thought that she must be growing prettier, but her personal -preference was for dark eyes, a bright colour, and a slim, tall figure, -and she honestly did not admire her own appearance. Moreover, her looks -varied almost from day to day, and very often she seemed plain. She had -never received any instruction in questions of sex, excepting whispered -mis-information from girls at school as to the origin of babies. The -signs of physical development that had come to her early were either -not commented upon except in half-disgusted, half-facetious innuendo -from Geraldine, or else dismissed by Mrs. Palmer curtly: - -“Nice gurls don’t think about those things. I’m ashamed of you, Elsie. -You should try and be nice-minded, as mother’s always told her gurls.” - -A sort of garbled knowledge came to her after a time, knowledge that -comprised the actual crude facts as to physical union between men and -women, and explained in part certain violent bodily reactions to which -she had been prone almost since childhood. - -She had not the least idea whether any other girl in the world ever -felt as she did, and was inclined to believe herself unnatural and -depraved. - -This thought hardly ever depressed her. She thought that to remain -technically “a good girl” was all that was required of her, and -admitted no further responsibility. - -Geraldine and she quarrelled incessantly. Geraldine, with her poor -physique and constant indispositions, was angrily jealous of Elsie’s -superb health and uninterrupted preoccupation with her own affairs. She -had only just begun to suspect that Elsie was never without a masculine -admirer, and the knowledge, when it became a certainty, would embitter -the relations between them still further on Geraldine’s side. - -On Elsie’s side there was no bitterness, only contempt and unmalicious -hostility. She disliked her elder sister, but was incapable of the -mental effort implied by hatred. In the same way, she disliked her -mother, almost without knowing that she did so. - -Her home had always been ugly, sordid, and abounding in passionless -discord. Elsie’s real life, which was just beginning to give her the -romance and excitement for which she craved, was lived entirely outside -the walls of No. 15, Hillbourne Terrace. - -To-night, as she entered the hot, dark, enervating atmosphere of the -cinema theatre, she thrilled in response to the contrast with the -street outside. When she heard the loud, emphasised rhythm of a waltz -coming from the piano beneath the screen, little shivers of joy ran -through her. - -A girl with a tiny electric torch indicated to them a row of seats, -and Elsie pushed her way along until the two empty places at the very -end of the row were reached. It added the last drop to her cup of -satisfaction that she should have only the wall on one side of her. -Human proximity almost always roused her to a vague curiosity and -consciousness, that would have interfered with her full enjoyment of -the evening. - -She settled herself in the soft, comfortable seat, slipping her arms -from the sleeves of her coat, and leaning back against it. - -Roberts dropped a small box into her lap as he sat down beside her. - -“Thanks awfully,” she whispered. - -A film was showing, and Elsie became absorbed at once in the -presentment of it, although she had no idea of the story. It came -to an end very soon, and a Topical Budget was shown. Elsie was less -interested, and pulled the string off her box of chocolates. - -“Have one?” - -“I don’t mind. Thanks.” - -“They’re awfully good.” She chewed and sucked blissfully. - -“Ooh! Look at that ship! Isn’t it funny?” - -“Makes you feel seasick to look at it, doesn’t it?” whispered Roberts, -and she giggled ecstatically. - -Words appeared on the screen. - -“‘Hearts and Crowns,’ featuring Lallie Carmichael.” - -“How lovely!” said Elsie. - -The story was complicated, and as most of the characters were Russian, -Elsie did not always remember whether Sergius was the villain or the -lawyer, and if Olga was the name of the “vampire” or of the soubrette. -But the beautiful Lallie Carmichael was the heroine, and a clean-shaven -American the hero. Elsie watched them almost breathlessly, and after a -time it was she herself who was leaning back in the crowded restaurant, -in a very low dress, and waving an ostrich-feather fan, torn between -passion and loyalty. The American hero assumed no definite personality, -other than that which his creator had endowed him. The scenes that she -liked best were those between the two lovers, when they were shown -alone together, and the American made passionate love to the princess. - -At the end of the First Part, the lights went up. - -Elsie turned her shining eyes and rumpled curls towards her escort. - -“It is good, isn’t it?” he said, with a critical air. - -“Isn’t it good? Have another sweet?” - -“Well, thanks, I don’t mind. Are you enjoying yourself, kiddie?” - -“Awfully. I like pictures.” - -“What about me? Don’t you like me a little bit too, Elsie, for bringing -you?” His voice had become low and husky. - -Still under the emotional influence of the story, the music, and the -relaxation produced by bodily warmth and comfort, she looked at him, -and saw, not the common, rather negligible features of sandy-haired Mr. -Roberts, but the bold, handsome American hero of the film. - -“Of course I like you,” she said softly. - -“You won’t forget me when I’ve gone?” - -“No.” - -“You will, Elsie! You’ll let some other fellow take you to the -pictures, and you won’t give me another thought.” - -“Of course I shall, you silly! I shall always remember you--you’ve been -awfully sweet to me.” - -“Will you write to me?” - -“We’ll see about that.” - -“Promise.” - -“Promises are like pie-crusts, made to be broken.” - -“Yours wouldn’t be. I bet anything if you promised a chap something, -you’d stick to it. Now wouldn’t you?” - -“I daresay I should,” she murmured, flattered. “Mother says I’ve always -been a terrible one for keeping to what I’ve once said. It’s the way I -am, you know.” - -No fleeting suspicion crossed her mind that this was anything but a -true description of herself. - -“Elsie, do you know what I should like to do?” - -“What, Mr. Roberts?” - -“Call me Norman. I should like to make a hell of a lot of money and -come back and marry you.” - -“You shouldn’t use those words.” - -“I’m in earnest, Elsie.” - -“You’re making very free with my name, aren’t you?” - -“You don’t mind.” - -“No,” she whispered. - -“You’re a little darling.” - -The lights went out again, and his hand fumbled for hers in the -darkness. Warm and unresisting it lay in his, and presently returned -pressure for pressure. - -The story on the screen began to threaten tragedy, and Elsie’s body -became tense with anxiety. She pressed her shoulder hard against that -of Roberts. - -He, too, leant towards her, and presently slipped one arm round her -waist. Instantly her senses were awake, and although she continued to -gaze at the screen, she was in reality blissfully preoccupied only with -his embrace, and the sensations it aroused in her. - -Intensely desirous that he should not move away, she relaxed her figure -more and more, letting her head rest at last against his shoulder. She -began to wonder whether he would kiss her, and to feel that she wanted -him to do so. As though she had communicated the thought to him, the -man beside her in the obscurity put his disengaged hand under her chin -and tilted her face to his. - -She did not resist, and he kissed her, first on her soft cheek and then -on her mouth. - -Elsie had been kissed before, roughly and teasingly by boys, and once -or twice, furtively, by an elderly lodger of Mrs. Palmer’s, whose -breath had smelt of whisky. - -But the kisses of this young commercial traveller were of an entirely -different quality to these, and the pleasure that she took in them was -new and startling to herself. - -“Elsie, d’you love me?” he whispered. “I love you. I think you’re the -sweetest little girl in the whole world.” - -Elsie liked the words vaguely, but she did not really want him to talk, -she wanted him to go on kissing her. - -“Say--‘I love you, Norman.’” - -“I won’t.” - -“You must. Why won’t you?” - -“It’s so soppy.” - -“Elsie!” - -She felt that the magnetic current between them had been disturbed, and -made an instinctive, nestling movement against him. - -He kissed her again, two or three times. - -Reluctantly, Elsie forced herself to the realisation that the film must -soon come to an end, and the lights reappear. She looked at the screen -again, and when the lovers, in magnified presentment, exchanged a long -embrace, responsive vibrations shook her, and she felt all the elation -of conscious and recent initiation. - -The lights suddenly flashed out, a moment sooner than she expected -them, and she flung herself across into her own seat, pressing the -backs of her hands against her flushed, burning cheeks and dazzled eyes. - -She knew that Norman Roberts was looking at her, but she would not -turn her head and meet his eyes, partly from shyness, and partly from -coquetry. - -“Isn’t this the end?” she said, knowing that it was not, but speaking -in order to relieve her sense of embarrassment. - -“No, it isn’t over till half-past ten; there’s another forty minutes -yet.” He consulted his wrist-watch elaborately. “I expect they’ll have -a comic to finish up with.” - -Elsie sensed constraint in him, too, and in sudden alarm turned and -faced him. As their eyes met, both of them smiled and flushed, and -Roberts slipped his arm under hers and possessed himself of her hand -again. - -“Did you like that?” he whispered, bending towards her. - -“The picture?” - -“You know I don’t mean that.” - -She laughed and then nodded. - -“Elsie, tell me something truly. Has any other fellow ever kissed you?” - -Her first impulse was to lie glibly. Then her natural, instinctive -understanding of the game on which they were engaged, made her laugh -teasingly. - -“That’s telling, Mr. Inquisitive.” - -“That means they have. I must say, Elsie, that considering you’re only -sixteen, I don’t call that very nice.” - -Elsie snatched away her hand. “I get quite enough of that sort of thing -at home, thank you, Mr. Norman Roberts, _Es_quire. There’s no call for -you to interfere in my concerns, that I’m aware of.” - -His instant alarm gratified her, although she continued to look -offended, and to sit very upright in her chair. - -“Don’t be angry, Elsie. I didn’t mean to offend you, honour bright. -Make it up!” - -The pianist began some rattling dance-music and the lights went out -again. - -Elsie immediately relaxed her pose, feeling her heart beat more quickly -in mingled doubt and anticipation. - -The doubt was resolved almost within the instant. Roberts pulled her -towards him, bringing her face close to his, and whispered: - -“Kiss and be friends!” - -All the while that the last film was showing, Elsie lay almost in his -arms, seeing nothing at all, conscious only of feeling alive as she had -never felt alive before. - -Even when it was all over and they rose to go, that sense of awakened -vitality throbbed within her, and made her unaware of fatigue. - -“Follow me,” said Roberts authoritatively, and took his place in front -of her in the gangway. There he waited, meekly and like everybody else, -until the people in front should have moved. But to Elsie there was -masculinity in the shelter of his narrow, drooping shoulders, as he -stood before her in his crumpled light overcoat, every now and then -shifting from one foot to the other. - -She followed him step by step, pulling her hair into place under the -tam-o’-shanter, and settling it at its customary rakish angle. - -It was no longer raining, and a watery moon showed through a haze. - -They dawdled as soon as they were out of the crowd, with linked arms -and clasped hands. - -“Swear you’ll write to me, Elsie.” - -“All right.” - -“Lordy, to think of all we might have done together these three months -I’ve been here, and I’ve never had more than a word with you here and -there!” - -“I was at school all the time, till last week.” - -“You aren’t going back to school again?” - -“No, that’s over, praise be! I’m supposed to be taking up typing and -shorthand, some time, though there’s plenty for two of us to do at -home, _I_ should have said.” - -The faint reverberations of a church clock striking came to them. - -“Goodness, that’s never eleven o’clock striking! Well, you will get me -into a row and no mistake!” - -She began to run, but stopped under a lamp just before No. 15 was in -sight. - -He had kept pace with her high-heeled, uneven steps easily, and stopped -beside her. - -“Say good-night to me properly, then.” - -“How, properly? Good-night, Mr. Roberts, and thank you ever so much. -Oh, and _bonne voyage_ to-morrow, in case I don’t see you. Will that -do?” - -“No, it won’t. I want a kiss.” - -“You don’t want much, do you?” she began half-heartedly, and looking up -and down the street as she spoke. - -It was empty but for themselves. - -Roberts caught hold of her and kissed her with violence. Unresisting, -Elsie put back her head and closed her eyes. - -“Kiss me--you _shall_ kiss me,” he gasped. - -At the sense of constriction that came upon her with the tightened -grasp of his arms, Elsie gave a fluttering, strangled scream and began -to struggle. - -“Let me go! You’re hurting me!” - -He loosened his hold so abruptly that she nearly fell down. - -She began to hurry towards home, moving with the ugly, jerking gait -peculiar to women who walk from the knees. - -“Shall I see you to-morrow before I go?” His voice sounded oddly humble -and crestfallen. - -“I’ll come to the drawing-room for a minute--no one’s ever there in the -mornings.” - -“What time, Elsie? I ought to be off at nine.” - -“Oh, before that some time, I expect. I say, you’ve got your key, -haven’t you?” - -A sharp misgiving assailed her as he began to fumble in his pockets. - -“Yes, all right.” He put it into the lock. - -Elsie, relieved, stood on tiptoe and put her arms round his neck. -“Good-night, you dear,” she whispered. “Now don’t begin again. Open the -door and go in first, and if the coast isn’t clear, just cough, and -I’ll wait a bit. I’ll see you to-morrow.” - -When he signed to her that the house was quiet, and that she could -safely enter, Elsie slipped past him like a shadow while he felt about -for matches, and flew upstairs. Her mother slept in the back bedroom -on the third floor, and Elsie saw that her door was shut and that no -streak of light showed under it. Satisfied, she went up the next flight -of stairs to the bedroom. - -Geraldine, of course, was bound to know of her escapade, but Geraldine -would either believe, or pretend to believe, that Elsie had been with -Irene Tidmarsh, and the two Palmer girls always combined with one -another against the sentimentalised tyranny that Mrs. Palmer called “a -mother’s rights.” - -Geraldine was lying in bed, reading a paper novelette by the light of a -candle stuck into an empty medicine bottle that stood on a chair beside -her. She looked sallower than ever now that she had undressed and put -on a white flannelette nightgown with a frill high at the neck and -another one at each wrist. - -Her lank hair was rolled up into steel waving-pins. It was one of -Geraldine’s grievances that she should be obliged to go to bed in -curlers every night, while Elsie’s light curls lay loose and ruffled on -her pillow. Sometimes, when they were on friendly terms, she and Elsie -would speculate together as to how the difficulty could be overcome -when Geraldine married, and could no longer go to bed and wake up -“looking a sight.” - -She rolled over as Elsie cautiously opened the door. “You’ve come at -last, have you? How did you get in?” - -“Mr. Roberts let me in. He knew I’d be late to-night,” said Elsie -calmly, beginning to pull off her clothes. - -“You’ve got a nerve, I must say. Mother thinks you were in bed ages -ago. She came up after supper and said you were in the kitchen. She was -in the drawing-room nearly all the evening, doing the polite to the -Williamses.” - -“Did she find out that supper hadn’t been cleared away?” - -“I suppose she didn’t, or she’d have been up here after you. You’re in -luck, young Elsie.” - -“I shall have to go down and do it first thing to-morrow before she’s -down,” said Elsie, yawning. - -“Where have you been?” - -“Pictures.” - -“With Ireen?” - -“’M.” - -“I shall ask her what they were like, next time I see her,” said -Geraldine significantly. - -Elsie pulled the ribbon off her hair without untying it, shuffled her -clothes off on to the floor from beneath a nightgown that was the -counterpart of her sister’s, and dabbed at her face with a sponge -dipped in cold water. She carefully parted her hair on the other side -for the night, and brushed it vigorously for some moments to promote -growth, but the worn bristles of her wooden-backed brush were grey with -dust and thick with ancient “combings.” - -At the bedside Elsie knelt down for a few seconds with her face hidden -in her hands, as she had always done, muttered an unthinking formula, -and got into bed. - -“You’re very sociable, I must say,” Geraldine exclaimed. “Out half the -night, and not a word to say when you do come up!” - -“I thought you had a headache.” - -“A lot you care about my headache.” - -“I’m going to put the light out now.” - -“All right.” - -They had always shared a bedroom and never exchanged formal good-nights. - -In the dark, a tremendous weariness suddenly came over Elsie. She felt -thankful to be in her warm, narrow bed, and blissfully relived the -evening’s experience. - -She found that she could thrill profoundly to the memory of those -ardent moments, and even the bodily lassitude that overwhelmed her held -a certain luxuriousness. - -Dimly, and without any conscious analysis, she felt that for the first -time in her sixteen years of life she had glimpsed a reason why she -should exist. It was for _this_ that she had been made. - -No thought of the future preoccupied her for a moment. She did not even -regret that Norman Roberts should be going away next day. - -“I must get up in good time to-morrow, and get a word with him in the -drawing-room before he’s off,” was her last waking thought. - -But she was sleeping profoundly, her head under the bedclothes, when -Mrs. Palmer’s customary bang at the door sounded next morning soon -after six o’clock. - -“Wake up, girls.” - -“Awright!” Geraldine shouted back sleepily. If one or other of them did -not call out in reply, Mrs. Palmer would come into the room in her grey -dressing-gown and vigorously shake the bed-posts of either bed. - -They could hear her heelless slippers flapping away again, and Elsie -reluctantly roused herself. - -“I simply must clear that supper-table before mother goes down,” she -thought. Still half asleep, and yawning without restraint, she put on -her thick coat over her nightgown, and ran downstairs with bare feet. - -The broken remains of supper, even to Elsie’s indifferent eyes, looked -horrible in the grim morning light. - -She huddled everything out on a tray, pushed it out of sight in the -back kitchen, and ran upstairs again, her teeth chattering with cold. - -The still warm, tumbled bed was irresistible, and tearing off her coat, -Elsie buried herself in it once more. - -She slept through Geraldine’s sketchy, scrambled toilet and muttered -abuse of her sister’s laziness, and did not stir even when her senior, -as the most unpleasant thing she could do, opened her window, which had -been closed all night, and let in the damp, raw, foggy morning air. - -Elsie did not stir again until the door was flung open and Geraldine -pulled the bedclothes off her roughly, and said angrily: - -“Get up, you lazy little brute! I had to wash all the beastly things -you left over last night, and mother and I had to do the breakfasts, -and see that young Roberts off and everything.” - -“Has Roberts gone?” - -“Yes, of course he has. It’s past nine, you lazy pig, you----” - -“Oh,” said Elsie indifferently, stretching herself. - - -III - -For a little while after Norman Roberts had gone away, Elsie was bored. -She received a letter from him, reproaching her for not having been -downstairs on the morning of his departure, and giving her an address -in Liverpool. He begged her to write to him, and the letter ended with -half a dozen pen-and-ink crosses. - -“_That’s for you, Elsie._” - -Elsie, who hated writing, collected with some difficulty a pen, ink, -and a coloured picture postcard of the Houses of Parliament. - -“Thanks for yours ever so much,” she wrote. “I expect you’re having a -fine old time in Liverpool. All here send kind remembrances.” - -Then, because she could not think what else to put, she filled in -the remaining space on the card with two large crosses. “From your’s -sincerely, Elsie.” - -Roberts, after an interval, wrote once more, and this letter Elsie -did not answer at all. She was out nearly every evening, walking, or -lounging round the nearest public park, with Irene Tidmarsh, Johnnie -and Arthur Osborne, and Stanley Begg. - -Arthur Osborne was nominally Irene’s “friend,” but he, as well as -Johnnie and Stanley, always wanted to walk with Elsie, or to sit next -her at the cinema, and their preference elated her, although the eldest -of the three, Arthur, was only twenty, and not one of them was earning -more than from fifteen to twenty shillings a week. - -At last Irene and Elsie quarrelled about Arthur, and Irene, furious, -went to Mrs. Palmer. - -“It’s no more than my duty, Mrs. Palmer,” she virtuously declared, “to -let you know the way Elsie goes on. The fellows may laugh and all that, -but they don’t like it, not really. I know my boy doesn’t, for one.” - -Mrs. Palmer, on different grounds, was quite as angry as Irene. - -She worked herself up, rehearsing to Geraldine all that Irene had said, -and a great deal that she alleged herself to have replied, and she -summoned her two unmarried sisters, Aunt Ada and Aunt Gertie Cookson, -to No. 15. - -“What I want,” she explained, “is to give the gurl a _fright_. I’m not -going to have her making herself cheap with young rag-tag-and-bobtail -like those Osborne boys. Why, a pretty gurl like Elsie could get -married, as easily as not, to a fellow with money. Nice enough people -come to this house, I’m sure. It’s on account of the gurls, simply, -that I’ve always been so particular about references and all. I’m sure -many’s the time I could have had the house full but for not liking -the looks of one or two that were ready to pay anything for a front -bedroom. But I’ve always said to myself, ‘No,’ I’ve said, ‘a mother’s -first duty is to her children,’ I’ve said, especially being in the -position of father and mother both, as you might say.” - -“I’m sure you’ve always been a wonderful mother, Edie,” said Aunt Ada. - -“Well,” Mrs. Palmer conceded, mollified. - -When Geraldine came in with the tea-tray to the drawing-room that Mrs. -Palmer was for once able to use, because the Williamses, her only -guests, had a sitting-room of their own, the aunts received her with -marked favour. - -“Mother’s helpful girlie!” said Aunt Gertie, as Geraldine put down the -plate of bread-and-butter, the Madeira cake on a glass cake stand, and -another plate of rock-buns. - -“Where’s Elsie?” Mrs. Palmer asked significantly. - -“Cutting out in the kitchen.” - -“Tell her to come along up. She knows your aunties are here.” - -“I told her to come, and she made use of a very vulgar expression,” -Geraldine spitefully declared. - -“I don’t know what’s come over Elsie, I’m sure,” Mrs. Palmer declared -helplessly. “She’s learnt all these low tricks and manners from that -friend of hers, that Ireen Tidmarsh.” - -Mrs. Palmer was very angry with Irene for her revelations, although she -was secretly rather enjoying her younger daughter’s notoriety. - -“Get that naughty gurl up from the kitchen directly,” she commanded -Geraldine. “No--wait a minute, I’ll go myself.” - -With extraordinary agility she heaved her considerable bulk out of her -low chair and left the room. - -“And what have you been doing with yourself lately?” Aunt Gertie -enquired of Geraldine. - -She was stout and elderly-looking, with a mouth over-crowded by large -teeth. She was older than Mrs. Palmer, and Aunt Ada was some years -younger than either, and wore, with a sort of permanent smirk, the -remains of an ash-blond prettiness. They were just able, in 1913, to -live in the house at Wimbledon that their father had left them, on -their joint income. - -“There’s always heaps to do in the house, I’m sure, Aunt Gertie,” said -Geraldine vaguely. “And I’m not strong enough to go to work anywhere, -really I’m not. Now Elsie’s different. She could do quite well in the -shorthand-typing, but she’s bone idle--that’s what she is. Or there’s -dressmaking--Elsie’s clever with her needle, that I will say for her.” - -Mrs. Palmer came back with Elsie behind her. The girl reluctantly laid -her face for a moment against each of the withered ones that bumped -towards her in conventional greeting. - -“Hallo, Aunt Gertie. Hallo, Aunt Ada,” she said lifelessly. - -Mrs. Palmer began to pour out the tea, and whilst they ate and drank -elegantly, the conversation was allowed to take its course without any -reference to the real point at issue. - -“What are these Williamses like, that have got the downstairs -sitting-room, Edie?” - -“Oh, they _are_ nice people,” said Mrs. Palmer enthusiastically. “A -solicitor, he is, and only just waiting to find a house. I believe -they’ve ever such a lot of furniture in store. They lived at Putney -before, but it didn’t suit Mrs. Williams. She’s delicate.” - -Mrs. Palmer raised her eyebrows and glanced meaningly at the aunts. - -Aunt Ada gazed eagerly back at her. - -“Go and get some more bread-and-butter, Elsie,” commanded Mrs. Palmer, -and when the girl had left the room she nodded at Aunt Ada. - -“You know, Mrs. Williams isn’t very strong just now. She’s been unlucky -before, too--twice, I fancy.” - -“But when? Surely you aren’t going to have anything like that _here_?” - -“Oh dear, no! I told her it was out of the question, and she quite -understood. It isn’t till April, and they hope to move into their new -house after Christmas. _She_ must be about fifteen years younger than -_he_ is, I imagine.” - -“How strange!” said Aunt Gertie. - -Both she and Aunt Ada were always intensely interested in any detail -about anybody, whether known or unknown to them personally. - -“Rather remarkable, isn’t it, that there should be an event on the -way----” Aunt Ada began. - -Mrs. Palmer frowned heavily at her as Elsie came back into the room. -“It’s ever so long since we’ve seen you, as I was just saying,” she -remarked in a loud and artificial voice, making Elsie wish that she had -waited outside the door and listened. She thought that they must have -been talking about her. - -After tea was over, they did talk about her. Mrs. Palmer began: “You -can let Geraldine take the tea-things, Elsie. It won’t be the first -time, lately, she’s done your share of helping your poor mother as well -as her own.” - -“I’m sorry to hear that,” from Aunt Gertie. - -“Geraldine’s health isn’t as strong as yours, either. She looks to me -as though she might go into consumption, if you want to know,” said -Aunt Ada. - -They looked at Elsie, and she looked sulkily back at them. - -It was one of the days on which she was at her plainest. Her face -looked fat and heavy, the high cheek-bones actually seemed to be -pushing her lower lids upwards until her eyes appeared as mere slits. -Her mouth was closed sullenly. - -“Elsie’s not been a good gurl lately, and she knows it very well. Her -own mother doesn’t seem to have any influence with her, so perhaps ...” -said Mrs. Palmer to her sisters, but looking at her child, “perhaps -you’ll see what you can do. It’s not a thing I like to talk about, -ever, but we know very well what happens to a gurl who spends her -time larking about the streets with fellows. To think that a child of -mine----” - -“What do you do it _for_, Elsie?” enquired Aunt Gertie, in a practical -tone, as though only such shrewdness as hers could have seized at once -upon this vital point. - -“Do what?” - -“What your poor mother says.” - -“She hasn’t said anything, yet.” - -“Don’t prevaricate with me, you bad gurl, you,” said Mrs. Palmer -sharply. “You know very well what I mean, and so do others. The tales -that get carried to me about your goings-on! First one fellow, and then -another, and even running after a whipper-snapper that’s already going -with another gurl!” - -“This is a bit of Ireen’s work, I suppose,” said Elsie. “I can’t help -it if her boy’s sick of her already, can I? I’m sure I don’t care -anything about Arthur Osborne, or any of them, for that matter.” - -The implication that Elsie Palmer, at sixteen and a half, could afford -to distinguish between her admirers, obscurely infuriated the spinster -Aunt Ada. - -She began to tremble with wrath, and white dents appeared at the -corners of her mouth and nostrils. “You’re not the first gurl whose -talked that way, and ended by disgracing herself and her family,” she -cried shrilly. “If I were your mother, I’d give you a sound whipping, I -declare to goodness I would.” - -Elsie shot a vicious look at her aunt out of the corners of her -slanting eyes. “Are the grapes sour, Aunt Ada?” she asked insolently. - -Aunt Ada turned white. “D’you hear that, Edie?” she gasped. - -“Yes, I do,” said Mrs. Palmer vigorously, “and I’m not going to put up -with it, not for a single instant. Elsie Palmer, you beg your auntie’s -pardon directly minute.” - -“I won’t.” - -The vast figure of Mrs. Palmer in her Sunday black frock upreared -itself and stood, weighty and menacing, over her child. She had never -hit either of her daughters since childhood, but neither of them had -ever openly defied her. - -“Do as I say.” - -“N-no.” - -Elsie’s voice quavered, and she burst into tears. Mrs. Palmer let out a -sigh of relief. She knew that she had won. - -“Do--as--I--say.” - -“I’m sure I’m very sorry, Aunt Ada, if I said what I didn’t ought.” - -“It isn’t what you said, dear,” said Aunt Ada untruthfully. “It was the -way you said it.” - -There was a silence. - -Then Mrs. Palmer pursued her advantage. “You may as well understand, -Elsie, that this isn’t going on. I haven’t got the time, nor yet the -strength, to go chasing after you all day long. I know well enough -you’re not to be trusted--out of the house the minute my back’s the -other way--and coming in at all hours, and always a tale of some sort -to account for where you’ve been. So, my lady, you’ve got to make up -your mind to a different state of things. What’s it to be: a job as a -typewriter, or apprenticed to the millinery? Your kind Aunt Gertie’s -got a friend in the business, and she’s offered to speak for you.” - -“I’d rather the typing,” said Elsie sullenly. - -“Then you’ll come with me and see about a post to-morrow morning as -ever is,” said Mrs. Palmer. “It’s your own doing. You could have stayed -at home like a lady, helping Mother and Geraldine, if you’d cared to. -But I’m not going to have any gurl of mine getting herself a name the -way you’ve been doing.” - -“I suppose I can go now?” - -“You can go if you want to,” said Mrs. Palmer, flushed with victory. -“And mind and remember what I’ve said, for I mean every word of it.” - -It was only too evident that she did, and Elsie went out of the room -crying angrily. She did not really mind the idea of becoming a typist -in an office or a shop in the very least, but she hated having been -humiliated in front of her aunts and Geraldine. - -As she went upstairs, sobbing, she met Mrs. Williams coming down. She -was a gentle, unhealthy-looking woman of about thirty, so thin that -her clothes always looked as though they might drop off her bending, -angular body. - -“What’s the matter, dear?” - -“It’s nothing.” - -“Come into the sitting-room, won’t you, and rest a minute?” - -“Well, I don’t mind.” - -Elsie reflected that there would probably be a fire in the -sitting-room, and in her own room it was cold, and she knew that the -bed was still unmade. - -She followed Mrs. Williams into the sitting-room, where Mr. Williams -sat reading a Sunday illustrated paper. - -“Horace, this poor child is quite upset. Give her a seat, dear.” - -“It’s all right,” said Elsie, confused. - -She had only seen Mr. Williams half a dozen times. He always -breakfasted and went out early, and Elsie, of late, had eaten her -supper in the kitchen. They had met at meal-times on Sundays, but she -had never spoken to him, and thought him elderly and uninteresting. - -Mr. Williams was indeed forty-three years old, desiccated and inclined -to baldness, a small, rather paunchy man. - -His little, hard grey eyes gleamed on Elsie now from behind his -pince-nez. - -“No bad news, I hope?” His voice was dry, and rather formal, with great -precision of utterance. - -His wife put her emaciated hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Two heads are -better than one, as they say. Horace and I would be glad to help you, -if we can.” - -“It is silly to be upset, like,” said Elsie, sniffing. “Mother and I -had a few words, that’s all, and I’m to get hold of a job. I’m sure I -don’t know why I’m crying. I shall be glad enough to get out of this -place for a bit.” - -“Hush, dear! That isn’t a nice way to speak of your home, now is it? -But about this job, now. Horace and I might be able to help you there.” - -She hesitated and looked at her husband. “What about the Woolleys, -dear?” - -“Yes--ye-es.” - -“These are some new acquaintances of ours, and they’ve a lovely house -at Hampstead, but Mrs. Woolley isn’t any too strong, and I know she’s -looking out for someone to help her with the children and all. It -wouldn’t be going to service--nothing at all like that, of course; I -know you wouldn’t think of that, dear--but just be one of the family at -this lovely house of theirs.” - -“It isn’t in the country, is it?” Elsie asked suspiciously. - -“Oh no, dear, Hampstead I said. Only three-quarters of an hour by ’bus -from town. Don’t you like the country?” - -“Too dead-alive.” - -“Well, these people that I’m telling you about, this Doctor and Mrs. -Woolley, they’re youngish married people, and most pleasant. Aren’t -they, Horace? And they’ve two sweet kiddies--a boy and a girl. Don’t -you think you’d like me to speak to Mrs. Woolley, now, dear?” - -Elsie was not sure. She felt that Mrs. Williams was going too fast. “I -don’t know,” she said ungraciously. - -“She’s right,” said Mr. Williams. “We mustn’t be in too great a hurry. -Write to your friend Mrs. Woolley by all means, my dear, and let this -young lady think it over, and have a talk with her mother and sister. -She may not care to live away from home altogether.” - -“Horace is always so business-like,” said Mrs. Williams admiringly. “I -expect he’s right, dear. But you’d like me to write, just to see if -there’s any chance, now wouldn’t you?” - -“What should I have to do there?” - -“Why, just help look after the kiddies. I’m sure you love children, now -don’t you?--and perhaps make a dainty cake or two for afternoon tea, if -Mrs. Woolley’s busy, or do a bit of sewing for her--and keep the doctor -amused in the evening if she has to go up early.” - -It was the last item that decided Elsie. “I don’t mind,” she said in -her usual formula of acceptance. - -Mrs. Williams was delighted. “I’m going to write off this very -evening,” she exclaimed enthusiastically. “Horace and I have to go out -now, but I shan’t forget. It’ll be a lovely chance for you, dear.” - -Elsie rather enjoyed telling her mother and Geraldine that evening that -“Mrs. Williams was wild” to secure her services for a lady friend of -hers, who had a lovely house at Hampstead. - -“This Mrs. Woolley is delicate, and she wants a young lady to help her. -Of course, there’s a servant for the work of the house.” - -“If she’s counting on you to help her, the same as you’ve helped your -poor mother since you left school, she’s got a disappointment in -store,” said Mrs. Palmer grimly. “I don’t know that I’d let you go, -even if you get the chance.” - -In the end, Geraldine, who wanted the top bedroom to herself, and -who thought that Elsie, and the problem of Elsie’s behaviour, were -occupying too much attention, persuaded Mrs. Palmer that it would never -do to offend the Williamses. - -“Besides,” she argued, “it’ll be one less to feed here, and we can -easily move her bed into the second-floor back room and use it, if we -want to put up an extra gentleman any time.” - -Mrs. Palmer gave in, contingent on a personal interview with Mrs. -Woolley. - -This was arranged through Mrs. Williams. She one day ushered into the -dining-room of No. 15 a large, showily-dressed woman, who might have -been any age between thirty-eight and forty-five. - -Her rings, and her light, smart dress impressed Elsie, and her -suggestion of paying twenty-five pounds a year for Elsie’s services -satisfied Mrs. Palmer. - -“My hubby’s a frightfully busy man,” Mrs. Woolley remarked. “He isn’t -at home a great deal, but he likes me to do everything on the most -liberal scale--always has done--and he said to me, ‘Amy, you’re not -strong,’ he said, ‘even if you have a high colour’--so many people are -deceived by that, Mrs. Palmer--‘and you’ve got to have help. Someone -who can be a bit of a companion to you when I’m out on my rounds or -busy in the surgery, and who you can trust with Gladys and Sonnie.’” - -“I’m sure Elsie would like to help you, Mrs. Woolley, and you’ll find -her to be trusted,” Mrs. Palmer replied firmly. “I’ve always brought up -my gurls to be useful, even if they _are_ ladies.” - -“She looks young,” said Mrs. Woolley critically. - -“She’ll put her hair up before she comes to you. It may be a mother’s -weakness, Mrs. Woolley, but I’m free to confess that Elsie’s my baby, -and I’ve let her keep her curls down perhaps longer than I should.” - -Elsie remained demure beneath what she perfectly recognised as a form -of self-hypnotism, rather than conscious humbug, on the part of her -mother. - -There was at least no sentimentality in her leave-taking a week later. - -“Good-bye, Elsie, and mind and not be up to any of your tricks, now. -Mother’ll expect you on Sunday next.” - -“Good-bye, Mother,” said Elsie indifferently. - -She had that morning washed her hair, which made it very soft and -fluffy, and had pinned it up in half a dozen fat little sausages at -the back of her head. She was preoccupied with her own appearance, and -with the knowledge that the newly-revealed back of her neck was white -and pretty. She wore a blue serge coat and skirt, a low-cut blouse of -very pale pink figured voile, black shoes and stockings, and a dashing -little hat, round and brimless, with a big black bow that she had -herself added to it on the previous night. - -In the Tube railway, a man in the seat opposite to her stared at her -very hard. Elsie looked away, but kept on turning her eyes furtively -towards him, without moving her head. Every time that she did this, -their eyes met. - -The man was young, with bold eyes and a wide mouth. Presently he smiled -at her. - -Elsie immediately looked down at the toes of her new black shoes, -moving them this way and that as though to catch the light reflected in -their polish. - -At Belsize Park Station she got out, carrying her suitcase. - -As she passed the youth in the corner, she glanced at him again, then -stepped out of the train and went up the platform without looking -behind her. Although there was a crowd on the platform and in the lift, -and although she never looked round, Elsie could tell that he was -following her. - -The feeling that this gave her, half fearful and half delighted, was an -agreeable titilation to her vanity. She had experienced it before, just -as she had often been followed in the street before, but it never lost -its flavour. When she was in the street, she began to walk steadily -along, gazing straight in front of her. - -She heard steps on the pavement just behind her, and then the young man -of the train accosted her, raising his hat as he spoke: - -“Aren’t you going to give me the pleasure of your acquaintance?” he -suavely enquired. - -His voice was very polite, and his eyes looked faintly amused. - -“Oh!” Elsie cried in a startled tone. “I don’t think I know you, do I?” - -“All the more reason to begin now. Mayn’t I carry that bag for you?” - -He took it and they walked on together. - -“Perhaps you can tell me where Mortimer Crescent is,” Elsie said primly. - -“It will be my proudest privilege to escort you there,” he replied in -mock bombastic tones. - -It was a form of persiflage well known to Elsie, and she laughed in -reply. “You _are_ silly, aren’t you?” - -“Not at all. Now if you called me cheeky, perhaps....” - -“I’ll call you cheeky fast enough. A regular Cheeky Charlie, by the -look of you!” - -“I think I was born cheeky,” he agreed complacently. “D’you know what -first made me want to talk to you?” - -“What?” - -“That pink thing you’ve got on with all the ribbon showing through it.” - -He put out his hand and, with a familiar gesture, touched the front of -her blouse just below her collar-bone. - -“You mustn’t,” said Elsie, startled. - -“Why not?” - -“I don’t allow liberties.” - -“We’ll have to settle what liberties are, miss. Come for a walk this -evening and we can talk about it.” - -“Oh, I couldn’t! I’m just going into a new job.” - -She purposely used the word “new,” because she wanted him to think her -experienced and grown-up. - -“What can a kiddie like you do?” - -“Why, I’m private secretary to a duke, didn’t you know that?” - -“Lucky duke! Where does he live?” - -“Oh, that’d be telling. This isn’t Mortimer Crescent?” - -“It is, very much so indeed, begging your pardon for contradicting a -lady.” - -“Well, don’t come any further,” begged Elsie. “Ta-ta, and thanks for -carrying the bag.” - -“When do I see you again?” - -“I dunno! Never, I should think.” - -“Seven o’clock to-night?” - -“No, I can’t, really.” - -“To-morrow, then? I’ll be outside the Belsize Park station, and we’ll -go on the razzle-dazzle together. I’d like to show you a bit of life. -Seven o’clock, mind.” - -“You and your seven o’clock! You’ll be somewhere with your young lady, -I know.” - -“Haven’t got one.” - -“Wouldn’t she have you?” scoffed Elsie. “No accounting for tastes, is -there?” - -“I’ll make you pay for this to-morrow night, you little witch--see if I -don’t!” - -Elsie had caught hold of her suitcase, and began to walk away from him. - -“Which number are you going to?” - -“Eight.” - -“I’ll ring the bell for you.” - -He did so, rather to her fright and vexation. She urged him in low -tones to go away, but he continued to stand beside her on the doorstep, -laughing at her annoyance, until a capped and aproned maid opened the -door. - -Then he lifted his hat, said “Good-night” very politely, and went away. - -She never saw him again. - - - - -IV - - -Elsie found the life at 8, Mortimer Crescent, a pleasant contrast to -that of her own home. - -Mrs. Woolley herself never came downstairs before half-past nine or -ten o’clock, and then she was very often only partly dressed, wearing -a stained and rumpled silk kimono and a dirty lace-and-ribbon-trimmed -boudoir cap. Elsie’s only duty in the morning was to keep the two -children quiet while their mother slept. This she achieved by the -simple expedient of letting them go to bed so late at night that they -lay like little logs far on into the morning. - -Elsie shared a bedroom with Gladys, and Sonnie’s cot was in a -dressing-room opening into theirs. - -The children were rather pallid and unwholesome, never quite free from -colds or coughs, and seeming too spiritless even to be naughty. They -went to a kindergarten school from eleven to four o’clock every day, -and Elsie took them there and fetched them away again. - -During the daytime she was supposed to dust the dining-room, -drawing-room, and Mrs. Woolley’s bedroom, but she soon found out that -no accumulation of dust, cigarette ends, or actual dirt would ever be -noticed by the mistress of the house. - -There was a general servant, who was inclined to resent Elsie’s -presence in the house, and who left very soon after her arrival. -Another one came, and was sent away at the end of a week’s trial -because Mrs. Woolley said she was impertinent, and after an -uncomfortable interim, during which Elsie nominally “did” the cooking, -and they lived upon tinned goods and pressed beef, there came a -short-lived succession of maids who never stayed. - -At first, Doctor Woolley was seldom seen by Elsie. He went out early, -and both he and his wife were out nearly every night. - -Mrs. Woolley told Elsie that they adored the theatre. Elsie, who adored -it too, had on these occasions, after putting the two children to bed, -to remain sulkily behind while Dr. and Mrs. Woolley, after an early -meal, walked away together to the Underground station. Sometimes Dr. -Woolley was sent for, and could not go, and Mrs. Woolley rang up one -of her friends on the telephone--always another woman--and took her -instead. One evening after this had happened, the doctor returned -unexpectedly early, just as Elsie had finished putting Gladys and -Sonnie to bed. - -She was coming downstairs, some needlework in her hands, as the doctor -slammed the hall door behind him. Instantly the prospect of a dreary -evening, probably to be spent in sucking sweets and surreptitiously -looking over everything on Mrs. Woolley’s untidy writing-table, -disappeared. - -“Hallo! And how was you to-morrow, Miss Elsie?” cried the doctor -genially. - -He was a stout, middle-aged man, jocose and very often foul-mouthed, -with nicotine stains on his fingers and grease spots on his waistcoat. - -He affected a manner of speech that Elsie found intensely amusing. - -“You and I all on our ownie own, eh? Where’s the missus?--and the kids?” - -“The children are in bed, and Mrs. Woolley’s gone to the play with Miss -Smith, Doctor.” - -“And haven’t you got a drink of cocoa and a bit of bread for a poor -man, kind lady?” - -Elsie burst out laughing. “You’re so silly, I can’t help laughing!” - -“‘Silly,’ says she, quite the lady. ‘How’s that?’ says I; to which she -says, ‘Not at all,’ says she, and the same to you and many of them,” -was the doctor’s reply. - -Elsie giggled wildly. - -“Come along now, tell that slut in the kitchen to stir her stumps and -bring some food to the dining-room. Have you had your supper yet?” - -“No, Doctor.” - -“Then you and I will make a party-carry, otherwise a _tête-à-tête_, -otherwise a night of it. Run along and I’ll get out something that will -make your hair curl.” - -Elsie had heard this formula before, and understood that the doctor -would unlock the door of the tiny wine-cellar and bring out a bottle. - -She told the maid to bring supper for Doctor Woolley to the -dining-room, but she herself carried in her own plate and cup and -saucer, knowing that Florrie was quite aware she had already eaten her -evening meal with Mrs. Woolley. - -The doctor was drawing the cork out of a bottle as she came into the -room. The electric light was turned on, and the small dining-room, with -drawn red curtains, and the gas-fire burning, was bright and hot. - -The doctor ate heavily of cold meat and pickles, prodding with a fork -amongst the mixed contents of the glass jar until he had annexed all -the pickled onions that it contained. - -He made Elsie sit down and eat too, but he made no demur to her -assurance that she wasn’t hungry and only wanted some cake and a cup of -cocoa. - -At first the doctor gave all his attention to the food and warmth of -which he stood in need, and Elsie felt self-conscious, and as though -she were out of place. - -She ceased to answer his occasional facetious interjections, and threw -herself back in her chair, gazing down at her own clasped hands. - -Gradually the atmosphere of the room altered, and Elsie’s instinct told -her that the current of magnetism that had never failed her yet was -awakening its inevitable response in the man opposite. - -At once she felt confident again, and at her ease. - -“I say, why didn’t the missus take you to the theatre when she found I -was busy?” he queried suddenly. - -“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose she never thought of such a thing.” - -“Wanted someone nearer her own age, eh? You won’t find the ladies -running after someone younger and prettier than themselves, you know. -Too much of a contrast.” - -Elsie laughed self-consciously. - -“All the better for me, eh? I’m not often allowed to get you all to -myself like this, eh? Ah, when I was a gay young bacheldore things was -different, they was.” - -Elsie laughed again, this time in spontaneous tribute to the humour of -wilful mis-pronunciation. - -“Now, what about this bottle that you made me get out, eh? Where are -the glasses?” - -He found two in the cupboard of the carved walnut sideboard, and poured -a liberal allowance of port from the bottle into each. - -“Oh, I couldn’t, Doctor! You must excuse me, really you must. I simply -couldn’t.” - -“Oh, couldn’t you, really, awfully, truly couldn’t?” he mimicked in -exaggerated falsetto. “Well, you’ve got to--so that’s _that_!” - -“Who says so?” - -“I say so. I. _Moi._ ‘_Je_,’ replies I, knowing the language. Come -along now, be a good girl.” - -He laid his big coarse hand on hers, and at the contact the familiar -thrill of sensuous excitement and pleasure ran through her. - -“Are you going to drink it?” he said masterfully. - -“Oh, I suppose I must try it. I’ve never tasted wine before,” Elsie -added truthfully. - -“High time you began, then.” - -He went back to his place, and drank in long gulps, first saying: - - “Our hands have met--our lips not yet-- - Here’s hoping!” - -Elsie sipped at her glass, choked, and put it down again. “How -beastly!” she said, shuddering. - -“You’ll get used to it.” - -“No, I shan’t, because I’m not going to touch the horrid stuff again.” - -“We’ll see about that.” - -He came round beside her again, and held her with one arm while he -tried to force the glass to her lips. - -Elsie turned her head aside, struggling and laughing. - -“You young monkey!” said the doctor, and forced her face upwards with -his free hand. - -His breath was in her face, and his inflamed eyes gazing into hers. -Instinctively Elsie ceased to struggle and closed her eyes. - -He kissed her mouth violently. “God! You haven’t got much to learn. -Who’s been teaching you?” he asked her roughly. - -“Oh, you oughtn’t to have done that,” said Elsie feebly. - -“Rubbish! You know I’ve been thinking of nothing else since you’ve been -here.” - -He sat down and pulled her on to his knee. “Now tell me all about it,” -he commanded. His manner was no longer facetious, and he had dropped -his jocosities of speech. - -“Let me go,” said Elsie. - -“Sit still.” - -“Suppose someone were to come in?” - -“No one will.” - -She wriggled a little, half-heartedly, and he gripped her more firmly -round the waist. The scene degenerated into a sort of scrambling orgy -of animalism. - -Elsie, although she was frightened, was also exhilarated at the -evidence that she possessed power over a man--and a married man--so -much older than herself. - -She knew that if at any moment he became unmanageable, she had only -to threaten to call the servant, and she fully intended to do so as -a last resort. But in the meanwhile there was an odd and breathless -fascination in feeling that she stood so close to a peril in which lay -all the lurking excitement of the unknown. - -A sudden wail from the room overhead startled them both. - -“That’s Sonnie!” gasped Elsie. - -“Oh, blast the kid!” - -But he let her go and she flew upstairs, glad, and yet disappointed, at -her release. - -She dismissed Sonnie’s nightmare with sharp injunctions not to be -silly, tucked him up and decided to go to her own room and not to -return downstairs. - -“That’ll show him,” she murmured, simulating to herself a conventional -indignation. - -In reality, she was intensely excited, and she had been tossing about -her bed restlessly for nearly an hour before reaction overtook her, and -she became prey to a strange, baffled feeling of having been cheated of -the climax due to so emotional an episode. - -When at last Elsie slept, it was after she had heard Mrs. Woolley come -in and the doctor bolt the hall door and both of them go upstairs to -their bedroom, on the other side of the landing. - -Every day now held the potentialities of amorous adventure. - -Sometimes Elsie did not see the doctor all day long, sometimes they met -in the evenings, with Mrs. Woolley present, and he talked in the old -facetious style, watching Elsie furtively as she giggled in response. - -He very often made excuses for passing things to her at meals, so that -their hands touched, and he pressed her foot under the table with his -big one, or rubbed it up and down her ankle. - -There were moments, however, when they were alone together, and then he -pulled her to him and kissed her roughly all over her face and neck, -pushing her abruptly away at the first possibility of interruption. -Once or twice, at the imminent risk of being discovered, he had -snatched hasty and provocative kisses from her lips in a chance -encounter on the stairs, or even behind the shelter of an open door. - -The perpetual fear of detection, no less than the tantalising -incompleteness of their relations, was a strain upon Elsie’s nerves, -and she was keyed up to a pitch of unusual sensitiveness when the -inevitable crisis came. - -Mrs. Woolley, in a new blue dress that looked too tight under the arms, -had taken the children to a party. - -The maid Florrie was out for the afternoon. Elsie, restless and on -edge, terribly wanted an excuse to go down to the surgery. At last she -found one, and after listening at the door to make certain that no -belated patient was with the doctor, she knocked. - -“Come in!” - -He was sitting at the writing-table, rapidly turning over the leaves of -a big book. - -“Elsie!” - -“Oh, if you please, Doctor,” she minced, “they’ve all gone out, and -Mrs. Woolley left a message to say if you _could_ go and fetch her and -the children from 85, Lower Park Avenue, about seven o’clock----” - -“Stow it, Elsie! D’you mean to say you and I are the only people left -in the place? Where’s that damned slut in the kitchen, eh?” - -“It’s Florrie’s afternoon out, Doctor, but----” - -“Florrie be damned! Look here, Elsie, this sort of thing can’t go on.” - -She backed until she stood against the wall, feeling the warm blood -surge into her face and looking at him through half-closed eyelids. - -“What sort of thing?” - -“You know very well what I mean. Look at me. D’you think I’m a man?” - -He thrust out his chest and doubled up his arms, standing with his -legs wide apart. In spite of his grossness and unwholesome fat, Elsie -thrilled to the suggestion of his masculine strength. - -“Yes,” she murmured. - -“Well, I tell you no man’s going to stand what you’re making me stand. -Elsie, you little devil! Don’t you know you’re driving me mad? God, if -I could tell you the sort of dreams I get at night, now!” - -“About me?” she asked curiously. - -“Shut up!” His voice was savage, and she suddenly saw sweat glistening -on his upper lip and round his nose. - -Elsie decided to begin to cry. “It frightens me when you shout at me -like that. Perhaps I’d better go,” she said sobbingly. - -“No, no, no! I say, what a brute I am! Come here and be comforted, -little girl.” - -He sat down heavily in the revolving chair before the writing-table and -held out his hand. - -Elsie advanced slowly, without looking at him, until she came within -reach of his arm. Then he caught hold of her and drew her on to his -knee, gripping her tightly until her weight sank against his shoulder. - -“Let me kiss all the tears away. What a hound I am to make you cry! -Was’ums very mis’mis?” - -He petted and soothed her, kissing the back of her neck and her -dust-coloured curls, murmuring absurd, infantile phrases. - -Presently he whispered: “D’you love me?” - -Elsie laughed and would not answer, and he struggled with her -playfully, pulling her about, and grasping at her with his big hands. - -After the horse-play, she put both arms round his neck and lay still. - -“I want to know something,” said Doctor Woolley slowly. - -“What’s that?” - -“Don’t you know more than a good little girl ought to know?” - -“What about?” - -“About--life. About being kissed, for instance. I’m not the first, my -girl, not by a long, long way. You’re the sort that begins early, _I_ -know.” - -“You’ve a nerve!” Elsie ejaculated, not knowing what to say. - -“Well, it’s true what I’m saying, isn’t it? I mean, you’ve let fellows -kiss you?” - -“Just boys, perhaps.” - -“Hasn’t anyone taught you anything besides kissing, eh?” - -“Of course not! What do you take me for, I’d like to know? Mother -brought up me and my sister like ladies, let me tell you. Besides, I -don’t know what you’re driving at, I’m sure.” - -“Yes, you do.” - -“No, I don’t.” - -“Then I’ll show you.” - -“No!” screamed Elsie in a sudden, only half-assumed, panic. - -She sprang up, but he pulled her back again. - -“You silly little fool! You don’t suppose I’d really say or do -anything to frighten you, do you? Why, you’re much too precious.” - -He kissed her again and again. - -“Tell me one thing, though. You did know what I meant, didn’t you?” - -“I suppose so.” - -“Of course you did! A girl like you couldn’t help knowing. My God, I -wish I’d known you ten years ago. I wasn’t married then.” - -“You oughtn’t to talk like that.” - -“Why not? It’s true. Amy’s as cold as ice--not a real woman at all. And -she’s as jealous as the devil. I’ve always wondered why she let anyone -like you come into the house at all. It’s a miracle she hasn’t spotted -us yet.” - -“It’d be all up with me being here if she did,” said Elsie shrewdly. - -“If you go, I swear I’ll go with you,” said Doctor Woolley, but he said -it without conviction, and Elsie knew it. “Can’t do without you, little -one, at any price, now. But you’ve got to be even sweeter than you’ve -been to me yet.” - -Elsie shivered a little, excited and disturbed, and in part genuinely -shocked. - -“When will you, Elsie?” - -His breath on her neck was hot and hurried. - -She jumped off his knee. “Oh, look, it’s getting on for half-past six! -You’ll have to be off.” - -“Come back! You haven’t told me what I want to know yet.” He grabbed at -her dress. - -“Listen!” cried Elsie. - -In the second during which he turned, arrested, she slipped out of the -room. - -Her heart was beating very fast, and her face burning. - -She half expected him to follow her, but he did not do so; and she was -partly relieved and partly disappointed. - -She saw him again at supper, which the Woolleys always called dinner, -and the consciousness between them caused a singular constraint to -pervade the atmosphere. Mrs. Woolley, for the first time, seemed to be -aware of it, and every now and then turned sharp, bulging brown eyes -from her husband to Elsie, compressing her thin lips until they formed -a mere hard line in her red face. - -When the meal was finished, she told Elsie to go upstairs and fetch one -of her evening dresses. “I want to see if I can’t smarten it up a bit,” -she explained. “I’m in rags, not fit to be seen.” - -“I’ll stand you a new frock, Amy,” said the doctor suddenly. “How much -d’you want, eh?” - -“Oh! Why, whatever’s up, Herbert? I’m sure it’s ages since I’ve had a -thing, and I’d be only too delighted----” - -She broke off. - -“Run up, Elsie, will you? The primrose dress, with the black lace, in -the left-hand corner of my wardrobe....” - -Elsie went, envious of the new dress, and at the same time thinking -mockingly of Mrs. Woolley’s mottled skin and the lines that ran from -her heavy nostrils to her sagging chin. Dresses and jewellery ought to -be for girls who were young and pretty, not married women, plain and -stout, like Mrs. Woolley. When Elsie came down again the doctor had -gone, and Mrs. Woolley was in high good humour. - -“I’ll get some tulle to-morrow, Elsie, and we can freshen it up round -the neck and sleeves. You’d better rip off all this old stuff. And look -here--you’re handy with your fingers--you can take the lace off and put -it on that old navy blouse of mine, that’s got no collar. You know the -one I mean ... you can drape it a bit....” - -Elsie assented rather sulkily. - -“Doctor Woolley’s so generous,” said Mrs. Woolley complacently. “He’s -for ever giving me things, me and the children. If you knew more of -the world, Elsie, you’d realise how lucky a woman is when she gets a -hubby like mine who’s never so much as looked at another woman since -he married. Some men aren’t like that, I can tell you. The tales I -could let out, if I cared to, that I’ve heard from some! But if Doctor -Woolley’s manner sometimes puts ideas into people’s heads, why, they’ve -only themselves to blame is what I always say. He wouldn’t give a -thought to anyone but me, not really.” - -She looked full at Elsie as she spoke, and Elsie stared back at her. - -The girl was puzzled and angry, not feeling certain that she knew -whether Mrs. Woolley really believed her own words, or was using them -to convey an oblique warning. - -“If she really imagines that, she must be a fool,” thought Elsie -contemptuously, only to veer round uneasily a moment later to the -conviction that Mrs. Woolley had been talking _at_ her. - -It was the latter unpleasant belief that prevailed, without possibility -of mistake, in the course of the next few days. Whenever the doctor was -in the house, Mrs. Woolley made a point of remaining at his side, and -during the hours when he was in the surgery she kept Elsie employed -with the children, every now and then coming to look in on her with -excuses that were always transparently flimsy. - -The tension in the atmosphere pervaded the whole house. - -At last one afternoon, when Gladys and Sonnie were at school, and Mrs. -Woolley in the drawing-room with an unexpected caller, Elsie and the -doctor met upon the stairs. - -She knew that she was looking her worst, strained and overwrought, and -with the odd Japanese aspect of her eyes and cheek-bones intensified. -Even her hair felt limp and unresilient. - -She looked at the doctor rather piteously, envisaging to herself her -own unprepossessing appearance, and wishing that she had at least -powdered her face recently. - -“Where’s Amy?” - -“In the drawing-room, with a lady visitor.” - -“Thank God! I’ve been hag-ridden for the last week. What the devil’s -up, Elsie?” - -“I don’t know,” she murmured. “At least, I know Mrs. Woolley’s been -horrid to me lately, that’s all.” - -“She has, has she?” he muttered furiously. “Here--come in here.” - -He drew her into the shelter of the nearest doorway. - -“Elsie, I’m mad about you. This sort of thing can’t go on--it’s simply -hell.” - -“Oh, hush, someone’ll hear....” - -“I don’t care who hears!” But he lowered his voice. “I haven’t had a -kiss from you for days--quick_!_” - -Their lips met. - -“You dear little girl! Is she being a beast to you?” - -Elsie, in his embrace, started violently. “_Someone coming upstairs!_” -she hissed. - -He stood motionless to listen, waited a second too long, and then -sharply shut the door. - -“Florrie!” Elsie whispered in a frightened voice. “Did she see us?” - -“No, no--not a chance. Or, if she did, she only saw me. She won’t think -anything of that.” - -“She’s gone upstairs--I must go.” - -“No, don’t. I tell you it’s all right. Hang it, Elsie, when am I going -to get a word with you again?” - -“Oh, I don’t know. I think I shall go home again.” She was half crying. - -“Elsie, d’you know Amy’s going out to-morrow night? She’s going to see -her friend, that Williams woman, who’s ill.” - -“What, the one that was at mother’s place?” - -“Yes--yes--but they’re in their own house now. It’ll take her all the -evening to get there and back, pretty nearly.” - -“She won’t go.” - -“Yes, she will. I shall tell her I’m going off to a case at Roehampton -or somewhere, and that I shan’t be back till late.” - -“Oh, don’t. It simply isn’t safe.” - -“It’s quite safe, you little fool. You and me have got to come to an -understanding, I can’t stand this life another minute. Look here, we’ll -go out somewhere together.” - -“No, no! That’d be much worse. Sonnie always wakes up, and he’ll scream -himself into a fit if I’m not there, and then Florrie would know----” - -“I forgot the kids. Elsie--Gladys sleeps in your room doesn’t she?” - -“Yes,” said Elsie, suddenly flushing scarlet. - -He laughed abruptly, scanning her face with hungry eyes. “I’ll have a -fire in the surgery. We’ll go down there. Florrie knows better than to -put her foot inside it,” said Doctor Woolley significantly. - - - - -V - - -It was two days later. - -Florrie and Mrs. Woolley were talking in the kitchen. Elsie hung about -in the diminutive passage, trying desperately to hear what they were -saying. An awful intuition gripped her that they were talking of her. - -Florrie’s voice was indistinct, almost inaudible, but snatched phrases -rose occasionally from the angry monotone that was Mrs. Woolley’s. - -“... My innocent children ... turn my back ... the gutter ... don’t you -talk to me ... the gutter ... out of the gutter....” - -Elsie tried wildly to persuade herself that Mrs. Woolley was abusing -Florrie. Sometimes she lost her temper with her servants, and shouted -at them. - -On the evening that Mrs. Woolley had gone to see her friend Mrs. -Williams, who was reported very ill, Elsie, in her best frock, had -boldly gone into the surgery, where a fire blazed, and there was a -sofa newly piled with cushions. On the table had been placed a bottle -and glasses and a dish of biscuits. Doctor Woolley had locked the door -behind her, in spite of Elsie’s half-meant protests, but at first he -had been entirely jovial, using catch-phrases that had made her laugh, -and drinking heartily. - -She herself had begun to feel rather affronted and puzzled at his -aloofness, before it suddenly came to an end. - -The remembrance of her own surrender rather bewildered Elsie. She -had never consciously made up her mind to it, but the doctor’s -urgency, her own physical susceptibility, and an underlying, violent -curiosity had proved far too strong for her feeble defences, based -on timidity and on the recollection of certain unexplained, and -less-than-half-understood, arbitrary axioms laid down during her -childhood by her mother. - -She supposed that that one half-hour in the surgery had made “a bad -girl” of her, but the aspect of the case that really preoccupied her -was her terror that Mrs. Woolley should have found it out. - -She felt sick with fright as the kitchen door opened, and, turning -round, pretended to be looking for something in the housemaid’s closet -under the stairs. - -She heard Mrs. Woolley brush past her and go into the drawing-room, -slamming the door violently behind her. - -Elsie, her knees shaking, went upstairs to fetch Gladys and Sonnie and -take them to their kindergarten. - -She dawdled on the way back, being unwilling to go into the house -again, and alternately hoping and dreading that the doctor would be at -home for the midday meal. - -At one o’clock, however, Mrs. Woolley and Elsie sat down without him. - -Mrs. Woolley did not speak to Elsie. She kept on looking at her, -and then looking away again. Her hard face was inscrutable, but -Elsie noticed that her hands, manipulating her knife and fork, shook -slightly. The doctor came in before the meal was over, jaunty and -talkative. - -“Hallo! Is this Wednesday, or Piccadilly, or what? Which I mean to say -is, has the cold meat stage been passed and the rice pudding come on, -or contrarywise?” - -Elsie burst into nervous laughter, the strident sound of which caused -the doctor to glance at her sharply, and Mrs. Woolley said: - -“Nonsense, Herbert! The way you talk, sometimes! The girl has got your -meat and vegetables keeping hot in the oven, and I’m sure you haven’t -seen rice pudding at the table for a fortnight. There’s a nice piece of -cheese on the side, too.” - -The doctor ate in silence, voraciously, as he always did, and his wife -presently said in a thin, vicious voice: - -“Of course, you’ve nothing to say to your wife, Herbert. It’s easy -enough to talk and be amusing with strangers, isn’t it?--but I suppose -it isn’t worth while in your own home.” - -“What’s up, Amy?” he growled. He did not look at Elsie, who found -herself fixing apprehensive eyes on him, although she knew it was a -betrayal. - -“Why should anything be up, as you call it? But as it isn’t very -amusing for me to sit here all day while you eat, and as I happen to be -rather busy, strange though it may seem, I think I’ll ask you to excuse -me.” - -She turned her head towards Elsie, but spoke without looking at her. -“I’ll thank you to come and find that paper pattern for Gladys’s smock. -The child isn’t fit to be seen.” - -Mrs. Woolley pushed Elsie out of the room in front of her, making it -obvious that she meant her to have no opportunity of exchanging a look -with the doctor. - -Throughout the afternoon she never let the girl out of her sight until -Elsie had actually left the house to go and fetch the two children from -school. - -It was abundantly evident that a crisis impended. The atmospheric -tension affected everyone in the house, and Elsie, her nerves on edge, -became frantic. - -She said, immediately after supper, that she was tired, and should go -to bed, and Mrs. Woolley laughed, shortly and sarcastically. - -Elsie went up to her room and cried hysterically on her bed until -Gladys woke and began to whine enquiries. - -It seemed impossible, to Elsie’s inexperience, that the horrors of that -day should repeat themselves, but the next one was Sunday, and brought -its own miseries. - -The doctor, who did not go to church as a rule, announced his intention -of accompanying his family, and they set out, a constrained procession: -Gladys, in tight black boots and with fair hair crimped round her -shoulders, holding her father’s hand, Mrs. Woolley, walking just a -little faster than was comfortable for Sonnie’s short legs, clutching -the boy’s hand, and Elsie slouching a pace or two behind, cold and -wretched. - -At the bottom of the Crescent they met an elderly couple who often -came to see them, and whom Elsie knew well by name as Mr. and Mrs. -Loman. - -The encounter broke up the procession, and caused a readjustment of -places. Mrs. Woolley was at once claimed by the sallow, spectacled Mrs. -Loman, and the children, with shrill acclamations, ran to her husband, -Sonnie’s godfather and the purveyor of many small treats and presents. - -The doctor, after a loud and boisterous greeting, boldly joined Elsie, -and both of them dropped behind the others. - -“Oh, I’ve wanted so to speak to you!” gasped Elsie. - -“Shut up--don’t make a fuss now, there’s a good girl. Keep a cheery -face on you, for God’s sake, or we shall give the show away worse than -we’ve done already.” - -Mrs. Woolley turned round. “Herbert, Mrs. Loman is just saying that she -hasn’t set eyes on you for ages. Come and give an account of yourself.” - -She spoke in a thin, artificial voice, but her eyes blazed a command at -him. - -The doctor stared back at her, insolent security in his manner. -“Thankee, Amy, but I wouldn’t interrupt a ladies’ confab. for the -world. Go on about your sky-blue-purple Sunday-go-to-meeting costumes, -and I’ll keep Elsie company.” - -Mrs. Loman laughed and the doctor grinned back at her. - -White patches had appeared on the mottled surface of Mrs. Woolley’s -face, but she made no rejoinder. - -Doctor Woolley turned to Elsie again, the merriment dropping from his -manner. “That’ll shut her up for a bit,” he said between his teeth. -“Has she been giving you gyp, Elsie?” - -“Oh, it’s been awful. I’m certain she’s found out.” - -“How?” - -“That Florrie, I suppose.” - -“Damn Florrie and her mischief-making! Well, kiddie, the fat’s in the -fire. I’m afraid there’s only one thing for it.” - -“What?” - -“Why--why, my dear child, don’t you see for yourself--you’ll have to -clear out of here. No use waiting for Amy to make a bloody row, now is -there? If you simply say you’re going home again, she won’t have a leg -to stand on. And if it wasn’t for--for the kids, I’d go with you.” - -“You wouldn’t,” said Elsie bitterly. “I may be a bit green, but I’m not -green enough to swallow that.” - -“Don’t talk like that,” said Doctor Woolley. He slipped his hand under -her arm, and at the contact, jaded and miserable as she was, her pulses -leapt. His fingers squeezed her arm. - -“We’ve had some happy times together, little girl, eh?” he murmured in -a sentimental voice. “And don’t you see that when you’re on your own -again we can meet ever so much more freely. I want--you know what I -want, don’t you, Elsie?” - -She did not respond. “What _I_ want, is to know what’ll happen to me if -I go back to mother and say I’ve left Mrs. Woolley. You don’t suppose -she, and my sister and my aunts, aren’t going to ask what’s happened, -do you?” - -“Well, you can tell them something,” said the doctor impatiently. -“A clever girl like you, Elsie, surely you can think of something. -Besides, everybody knows that a pretty girl doesn’t always hit it off -with a woman older than herself. There’s nothing wonderful in that. -Damnation, they’re stopping!” - -“Here we are,” said Elsie. - -He withdrew his arm hastily from hers after a final pressure. - -Mrs. Woolley and her friend were already standing at the church steps, -and both of them fixed their eyes on Elsie and the doctor as they came -up. Elsie saw Mrs. Woolley touch the other woman’s elbow, and guessed -at, rather than heard, the words coming from between her teeth: - -“Look at that, now--_look at that_.” - -On Mrs. Loman’s face was an expression of mingled eagerness, curiosity, -and disgust. It was evident that Mrs. Woolley had spoken freely of her -wrongs. - -Elsie spent her time in church in wondering whether it would yet be -possible to blunt Mrs. Woolley’s suspicions, or whether she dared face -her mother with a made-up story to account for her return. - -She was still young enough to have a furtive dread that her mother must -be omniscient in her regard, and she was afraid that Mrs. Palmer would -somehow guess at her lapse and tax her with it. - -Elsie had very often lied to her mother before, but not with any -conspicuous success, and she felt just now strangely shaken and -unnerved, physically and morally. - -When they came out of church, the Lomans hospitably pressed their -friends to return with them, share the hot Sunday dinner, and spend -the afternoon. The children were specifically included, but Mrs. Loman -glanced in Elsie’s direction, and then looked back at Mrs. Woolley, -raising her eyebrows. - -“You’d better go and see your mother this afternoon,” said Mrs. Woolley -coldly. “Go home first and tell Florrie we shall be out, and she can -lock up the house and go out for a bit herself. Tell her she must be -back by five.” - -“All right,” said Elsie lifelessly. - -She turned on her heel, when a sudden shout stopped her. - -“Post those letters of mine, will you?” said Doctor Woolley very -loudly. “You’ll find them in”--he came nearer to her--“_wait in till -I come_,” he muttered almost inaudibly, and rejoined his wife before -Elsie had taken in the meaning of his words. It came to her afterwards, -and the renewed sense of intrigue very slightly relieved the dull -misery pervading her. - -At No. 8, Mortimer Crescent, the hot joint was taken out of the oven -and left to grow cold, but Florrie had made a Yorkshire pudding, and -she and Elsie ate it for their dinner, and added pickles and bread and -cheese and cake to the meal. Very soon afterwards, Florrie announced -that she was going off at once. - -“So am I,” said Elsie. “I told _her_ I’d lock up the house. Mind you’re -in by five.” - -“That’s as it may be,” haughtily said Florrie, with a venomous glance. -Elsie felt far too tired to quarrel with the maid, as she had often -done before, and when Florrie was actually gone she went upstairs and -lay down on her bed. It was nearly three o’clock before a cautious -sound from below betrayed the return of the doctor. - -Elsie rose and automatically glanced at herself in the looking-glass. -One side of her face was flushed, her eyes looked small and -swollen-lidded, and her hair was disordered. She dabbed powder on her -face and pulled her wave of hair further down over her forehead before -going downstairs. - -The doctor was hanging up his hat on the crowded hooks that lined one -side of the wall in the tiny entrance lobby. - -“Coast clear?” - -Elsie nodded. - -“Sure?” - -“Absolutely.” She held out the key of the house door. “I’ve locked up -at the back.” - -“Then I’ll lock up at the front,” said Doctor Woolley, and did so. - -“My God, we’re in a bloody mess,” he began, turning round and facing -Elsie. - -Desperate, she ran forward and threw herself into his arms, -instinctively seeking the only reassurance she knew, that of physical -contact. - -The doctor suddenly buried his face in her hair, then forced her face -upwards and kissed her passionately. - -They clung to one another. - -At last he released his clasp, only keeping one arm round her waist. - -“Where can we go? We’ll have to settle something, and Lord knows when I -shall get another chance of speaking to you, with that hell-cat on the -warpath. I’ve had the deuce and all of a time getting here now, and we -must both clear out of the place before she and the kids get back. Put -on your hat and coat, old girl, and come along.” - -“Where to?” - -“Where I take you,” said the doctor brusquely. - -When she came down again, he hurried her out of the house, locking the -door again behind them, and putting the key under the scraper, where it -was always looked for on Sunday. - -“Taxi!” - -The doctor hailed a passing taxi and made Elsie get into it. - -He gave the address of a hotel in a street of which she had never heard. - -“Where are we going to?” - -“Somewhere where I can talk to you.” - -He passed his arm round her again, and she made no pretence of -resistance, but lay against him, letting him play with her hand and -occasionally bend his head down to kiss her lips. - -Elsie had slept very little for the past three nights; she had shed -tears, and she had been subject to a continual nervous strain. By -the time that the taxi stopped she was almost dozing, and it was in -a half-dazed state that she followed Dr. Woolley into the dingy hall -of a high building and, after a very short parley with a stout man in -evening dress, to an upstairs sitting-room. - -She asked nothing better than to sink on to the narrow couch in a -corner of the room and let herself be petted and caressed, but after a -time her wearied senses awoke, and told her that the man beside her was -becoming restive and excited. - -“Look here, Elsie,” he said finally, “you’re a beguiling little witch, -you are--but we’ve got to come down to hard facts. I’m going to order -you a pick-me-up, and have one myself, and then we can talk about -what’s to be done next. I’ve got to be home again, worse luck, by seven -o’clock. I’m supposed to have had an urgent call to Amy’s friend, Mrs. -Williams. She’s ill enough, poor soul, in all conscience, and I’ll have -to go there before I go home. Now then, what’ll you have?” - -“Tea,” said Elsie. - -He laughed. “Women are all alike! You can have your tea--poisonous -stuff, tincture of tannin--and I’ll order what I think’s good for you -to go with it. Wait here till I come back.” - -He went out, and Elsie, already revived and stimulated, flew to the -spotted and discoloured looking-glass, and took out her pocket-comb to -rearrange her curls. - -She actually enjoyed the hot, strong tea when it came, and her spirits -suddenly rose to a boisterous pitch. - -They both laughed loudly at the faces that Elsie made over the bottle -that the doctor had obtained, and from which he repeatedly helped -himself and her, and although they kept on telling one another that -they must talk seriously, their hilarity kept on increasing. At last he -began to make violent love to her, and Elsie responded coquettishly, -luring him on by glance and gesture, while her tongue uttered glib -and meaningless protests. Very soon, her flimsy defences gave way -altogether, and she had ceded to him everything that he asked. - -Then the inevitable reaction overtook her, and she cried, and called -herself a wicked girl, and finally sank limply into a corner of the -taxi that Dr. Woolley had summoned to the door of the hotel. - -He got in beside her. “Buck up, little girl!” he cried urgently. -“You’ll be at No. 8 in no time, and we don’t want Amy asking awkward -questions. Look here, I’ll put you down at the corner of the Crescent, -and you can walk to the house. The air’ll do you good, and besides, we -can’t be seen together. I’m off to that wretched Williams woman, and -I’m not going to be in till late.” - -Elsie continued to sob. - -“Come, come, come--pull yourself to pieces,” Doctor Woolley tried to -make her laugh. “We’ve not settled anything, but we’ve had our time -together. Ah, a little love is a great thing in a world like this one, -Elsie. Thank you for being so sweet to me, little girl.” - -He kissed her hastily, with a perfunctoriness of which she was aware. - -When the taxi stopped in the main thoroughfare, a little way before the -turning into Mortimer Crescent, he almost shoved her on to the pavement. - -“Don’t forget--you’ve been out ever since dinner-time, and you imagine -me to have been in the buzzim of my family enjoying back chat with the -old Lomans. Don’t say anything about that, though, unless you’re asked. -Tell the man to drive like blazes now, will you?” - -Elsie mechanically obeyed. - -Then she dragged herself to No. 8. Her ring was answered by Florrie. - -The little servant girl was grinning maliciously. “She’s in the d--’s -own temper and all, and you’re going to catch it hot and strong for -leaving her to put the children to bed.” - -“Mind your own business, Florrie,” said Elsie, pushing past her. - -She affected not to hear the single word that the servant flung at her -back, but it made her wince. - -In the bedroom she found Gladys already in bed, wide awake. - -“Mother put us to bed. She was awfully cross, and she slapped Sonnie -twice and me once.” - -“What for?” - -“Oh, because I whined, she said. And she slapped Sonnie when he told -her about Dadda being so funny with you. You didn’t know we _saw_ one -day,” giggled Gladys. - -“Saw what?” - -“One day when Dadda kissed you and Sonnie and I saw, over the -banisters, and we laughed, but you didn’t hear us.” - -“You little viper!” muttered Elsie between her teeth. “I’d like to kill -you, I would.” - -Gladys alternately giggled and whined, and Elsie was quite unable to -distinguish whether the child was really malicious or simply amused by -something to which she attached no meaning. - -“Anyway, if she’s told her mother, it’s all up,” thought Elsie. - -She saw that there was nothing for it but to leave Mortimer Crescent, -and spent a miserable night wondering what to say to her mother and -sister. - -At midnight she heard the sound of the doctor’s key in the front door -and his heavy foot on the stairs. He paused outside her door for some -seconds, then she heard him go into his wife’s room. - -Elsie tossed about in her narrow bed. Her present dilemma frightened -her, and she had a vague, irrational idea that some awful and horrible -penalty always descended sooner or later upon girls who had done as -she had done. These fears, and her lack of any vivid imagination, had -dulled her emotional susceptibilities, and she scarcely felt regret at -the thought of no longer seeing the doctor. He now stood to her for the -symbol of an assuaged desire, the fulfilment of which had brought about -her present miseries. Nevertheless, at the back of her consciousness -was latent the conviction that never again would she be satisfied with -the clumsy demonstrations and meaningless contacts of her intercourse -with the boys and youths whom she had known at home. - -It seemed to her next morning that she was wholly ugly. Her complexion -looked sodden and her eyes were nearly invisible. Her mouth, in some -odd way, seemed to have swollen. No one could have called her pretty, -and to anyone who had seen her in good looks she would have been almost -unrecognisable. Mrs. Woolley, coming downstairs at ten o’clock, eyed -her with a malignant satisfaction. - -“Perhaps,” she said, “you won’t be altogether surprised to hear that -I’m going to make some changes. You’d better pack your box, and go home -to your mother, I think.” - -“I was going to tell you that I couldn’t stay on here any longer,” said -Elsie swiftly. “The ways of the house aren’t what I’ve been used to, -Mrs. Woolley.” - -In a flash, Mrs. Woolley had turned nasty, and Elsie had seen her own -unwisdom. - -“Oh, aren’t they indeed? Perhaps you’d be so kind as to tell me what -you are used to--or shall _I_ tell _you_?” - -Then she suddenly raised her voice almost to a scream and poured out a -torrent of abuse and invective, and the two children crept in from the -hall and began to cry, and to make faces at Elsie, and demonstrations -of hitting her with their little hands, and the servant Florrie held -the door half open, so that she might see and hear it all. - -Elsie screamed back again at Mrs. Woolley, but she had neither the -fluency nor the determination of the older woman, and she was unable to -prevent herself from bursting into tears and sobs. - -Finally Mrs. Woolley drove her out of the room, standing at the foot -of the stairs while Elsie ran up to pull on her best hat and coat, and -forbidding the children to follow her. - -“Don’t go near her, my pets--she’s a wicked girl, that’s what she -is--not fit to be in the same house as innocent little children. Now -then, out you go, miss, before I send for the police.” - -“I’ll go,” said Elsie, shaking from head to foot, “and I’ll never set -foot in your filthy house again. And I’ll send for my trunk and for -every penny you owe me, and I’ll have the law on you for insinuations -on my character.” - -Then she dashed out of the house and into the street. - - -VI - -Elsie’s return home caused far less sensation than she had feared. Mrs. -Palmer, indeed, was very angry, but principally at Elsie’s folly in -having come away without her trunk or the money due to her. - -When a week had elapsed, and nothing had come from Mortimer Crescent, -Mrs. Palmer declared her intention of going to a solicitor. - -“However you could be such a fool, young Elsie--and I don’t half -understand what happened, even now. What was the row about?” - -Elsie had decided upon a half-truth. “Oh, she was a jealous old fool, -and couldn’t bear her hubby to look the same side of the room as -anyone else. That’s all it was, really. She spoke to me very rudely, I -consider--in fact she was decidedly insulting--so I simply up and said: -‘Mrs. Woolley,’ I said, ‘that’s not the way I’m accustomed to be spoken -to,’ I said, ‘and what’s more I won’t stand it.’ Quite quietly, I said -it, looking her very straight in the face. ‘I won’t stand it,’ I said, -quite quietly. That did for her. She didn’t know how to take it at all. -But, of course, I wasn’t going to stay in the house a moment after -that, and I simply walked straight upstairs and put on my things and -left her there. She knows what I think of her, though.” - -“Yes, and she knows what she thinks of you,” remarked Mrs. Palmer -shrewdly, “and it probably isn’t so far out, either. She may be jealous -as you say--those fleshy women often are, when their figures come to be -a perpetual worry, so to speak--but there’s no smoke without a fire, -and I know you, Elsie Palmer. I suppose this doctor fellow was for -ever giving you sweets and wanting to take you out at nights, and sit -next you in the ’bus coming home, with his wife on the other side of -him as like as not. You were a young fool, let me tell you, to lose a -good place like that for a man who can’t be any use to you. What you -want to look out for is a husband. I shan’t have a minute’s peace about -you till you’re married.” - -“Why?” asked Elsie, rather gratified, and very curious. - -“Never you mind why. Because Mother says so, and that’s enough. Now you -can get on your hat and come with me to Mr. Williams’ office and see -what he can do to get this trunk of yours away from that woman. She’s -no lady, as I saw plainly the very first time I ever laid eyes on her.” - -On the way to the City, Mrs. Palmer questioned Elsie rather -half-heartedly. “You’ve not been a bad girl in any way while you’ve -been away from Mother, have you?” - -“No, of course not. I don’t know what you mean,” Elsie declared, sick -with sudden fright. - -“I should hope you didn’t. Because mind, Elsie, any gurl of mine who -disgraced herself wouldn’t get any help from _me_. And though I don’t -object to a bit of fun while a gurl’s young, skylarking may lead to -other things. I hope there’s no need for me to speak any plainer. I’ve -brought you gurls up innocent, and I intend you shall remain so. Not -that Geraldine’s ever given me a moment’s worry.” - -“Oh, Geraldine!” Elsie was profoundly relieved at seeing an opportunity -for changing the subject indirectly. “She’s a sheep.” - -“You’ve no call to speak like that of your elder sister, miss. I wish -you were half as steady as she is. She’s the one to help her widowed -mother, for all she has such poor health.” - -“What do you suppose is the matter with her, Mother?” - -“Bile,” said Mrs. Palmer laconically. “Your father was the same, but it -doesn’t matter so much in a man.” - -“Why ever not?” - -“It doesn’t interfere with his prospects. Now I often think Geraldine -won’t ever get a husband, simply because of the bad colour she -sometimes goes, and the way her breath smells. She can’t help it, poor -gurl.” - -Elsie felt contemptuous, rather than compassionate. When they came to -the office, a very young clerk, who stared hard at Elsie, explained -that Mr. Williams was away. He had suffered a family bereavement. - -“His wife?” gasped Mrs. Palmer, greatly excited. - -“I am sorry to say that Mrs. Williams died yesterday morning. Mr. -Williams was not at the office, and a telephone message came through -later to the head clerk, giving the melancholy intelligence. I believe -Mrs. Williams had been ill for some time.” - -“Why, goodness me, we knew her ever so well, my daughter and I! They -stayed with us in the autumn.... Elsie, fancy poor Mrs. Williams dying!” - -“Fancy!” - -“Would you care to see the head clerk, Mr. Cleaver, madam?” said the -youth politely, still gazing at Elsie. - -“Yes, yes, I think I’d better. He may be able to tell us something -more, Elsie,” cried Mrs. Palmer gloatingly. - -But when the clerk had gone away to see whether Mr. Cleaver was -disengaged, Mrs. Palmer remarked to her daughter: - -“Not that he’ll be able to say much, naturally not. It’s an awkward -subject to enter on at all with a gentleman, poor Mrs. Williams being -in the condition she was.” - -“I heard Doctor Woolley say she was very ill.” - -“It’s a funny thing, Elsie, but many a time I’ve felt a presentiment -like. I’ve looked at Mrs. Williams, and seen death in her face. And -that Nellie Simmons, she told me she’d had a most peculiar dream about -Mrs. Williams one night. Saw her lying all over blood, she said, and it -quite scared her. I knew then what it meant, though I told Nellie not -to be a silly gurl. But dreams can’t lie, as they say, not if they’re a -certain sort.” - -Elsie shuddered, as a thrill of superstitious terror went through her. -Dreams played a large part in her life, and Mrs. Palmer had always -shown her children that she “believed in dreams,” especially in those -of a _macabre_ nature. - -The young clerk came back, and took them into a small room where a -bald-headed, pale-faced man sat at a writing-table. Mrs. Palmer’s -delicacy ran no risk of affront from him, for he was monosyllabic on -the subject of Mrs. Williams’ death, and only said that Mr. Williams -would not be back until the following week. - -Mrs. Palmer, looking disappointed, launched into a voluble story of -Elsie’s trunk and its non-return. - -Mr. Cleaver said that the firm would write a letter to Mrs. Woolley -that evening. He seemed disinclined to enlarge on that, or any other -subject. - -“It’s been a great worry, as you can imagine,” Mrs. Palmer said, -reluctant to terminate an interview which was anyhow to cost her money. -“However the girl could have been so silly, I don’t know. But we -mustn’t look for old heads on young shoulders, I suppose.” - -“I suppose not.” - -For the first time, Mr. Cleaver glanced at Elsie as though he really -saw her. “Your young lady will be looking for another post, no doubt?” - -“By-and-by,” said Mrs. Palmer with a sudden languor. “I’m afraid if I -had my way, Mr. Cleaver, I’d keep both my girlies at home with their -mother. And this one’s my baby, too. I really only let her go to that -Mrs. Woolley to oblige poor Mrs. Williams, who was a dear friend of -mine. My daughter has been trained for the shorthand-typing, really, -haven’t you, Elsie?” - -“’M.” - -“I see. Well, Mrs. Palmer, the letter shall go off to-night, and I am -very much mistaken if the lady does not----” - -“Don’t call her a lady, Mr. Cleaver. She’s no----” - -Mrs. Palmer had said all this before, and Mr. Cleaver held open the -door for her, and compelled her to pass through it before she had time -to say it all over again. - -Elsie and Mrs. Palmer were in the omnibus that was to take them back to -their own suburb very much earlier than they had expected to be. - -“I’ll tell you what, we’ll stop at the corner shop and have a wreath -sent in time for the funeral. I’ve got some money on me,” said Mrs. -Palmer. - -They chose a wreath and were given a black-edged card upon which Mrs. -Palmer inscribed the address of Mr. Williams and: “With true sympathy -and every kind thought from Mrs. Gerald Palmer, Miss Palmer and Miss -Elsie Palmer.” - -“I’d meant to say a few very sharp words to them about introducing -_that_ Mrs. Woolley to me, and persuading me to let you go to her, but -of course, it’ll have to be let drop now. I daresay poor Mrs. Williams -was taken in by the woman herself.” - -For two or three days Elsie lounged about at home, obliged by her -mother to help in the house, but spending as much time as she could -with Irene Tidmarsh, whose old father was still living, although -suffering from incurable disease. Sometimes when Elsie and Irene were -gossiping in the dining-room, they would hear the old man roaring with -pain overhead, and then Irene would run up to him, administer a drug, -and come down again looking rather white. A desiccated spinster aunt -made occasional appearances, and took Irene’s place whilst Irene went -to the cinema with Elsie. But Irene never mentioned Arthur Osborne, and -Elsie saw neither him nor his brother. - -She told herself that she did not care, and that she was sick of men -and their beastly ways. - -She one evening repeated this sentiment to Geraldine, whom she -suspected of disbelieving her version of the quarrel with Mrs. Woolley. - -“So you say. I s’pose that’s because there isn’t anyone after you. If -that Begg boy turned up again, or Johnnie Osborne or any of them, you’d -sing quite a different song.” - -“You’re jealous,” said Elsie candidly. - -Her sister laughed shrilly. “That’s a good one, young Elsie. Me jealous -of a kid like you! I should like to know what for? Why, you’re not even -pretty.” - -The taunt enraged Elsie, because she knew that it was true, and that -she was not really pretty. What she did not yet realise was that she -would always be able to make men think her so. - -“Your trunk’s come, Elsie,” Mrs. Palmer screamed at the door. “Carter -Paterson brought it, carriage to pay, of _course_. You’d better see -there’s nothing missing out of it.” - -Elsie made a perfunctory examination, noticing nothing but that there -was a letter lying just under the newspaper spread over her untidily -packed belongings. - -“It’s all right.” - -Mrs. Palmer had gone back into the kitchen again, and Elsie, who did -not care what Geraldine thought of her, pulled out the note and read -it. It was from Doctor Woolley, as she had expected. - - “MY OWN DEAR LITTLE GIRLIE, - - “What a rotten world it is, kiddie, and what a shame you being turned - away like that. Believe me, dear little girlie, if I had been at home - it would never have happened. Now, Elsie, you and I have had a very - nice friendship, and I know you will understand what I mean if I say - that it must come to an end _for the present_. Burn this letter, - dear, won’t you, and don’t answer it on any account. The letters that - come for me to this house are not safe from interference, so you see - what trouble it might make. With all best wishes for your future, and - thanking you for your sweet friendship, which I shall never forget, - - “Yours, - “H.” - -“The cad!” said Elsie disgustedly. - -She had not really expected Doctor Woolley to write to her at all, -although there had been in her mind a vague anticipation of seeing him -again very soon. But the letter, with its perfunctory endearments and -cautionary injunctions, suddenly made it clear to her that the whole -episode of their relationship was at an end. - -“The swine,” said Elsie, although without violent emotion of any kind. - -She felt that life, for the moment, was meaningless, but rather from -the familiar and sordid surroundings of her home, and from her own -listlessness and fatigue, than from the defection of Doctor Woolley. - -It failed to excite her when a letter arrived for Mrs. Palmer, from -the office of Mr. Williams and written by himself, saying how much he -regretted that Mrs. Woolley, the merest acquaintance of his dear late -wife, should have failed to make Miss Elsie happy in her house. If -Miss Elsie desired to find an appointment in the clerical line, as he -understood, then Mr. Williams would be most happy to make a suggestion. -Could Mrs. Palmer, with Miss Elsie, make it convenient to call at the -office any afternoon that week? - -“He may want to take you into his own office, Elsie, as like as not. -He’d feel he ought to do something, I expect, considering they sent you -to those people, those Woolleys, as they call themselves, in the first -place.” - -“I’m not sure I want to go into an office, Mother.” - -“Now look here, Elsie, let me and you understand one another,” said -Mrs. Palmer with great determination. “I’ve had enough of your wants -and don’t wants, my lady. One word more, and you’ll get a smack-bottom -just exactly as you got when you were in pinafores, and don’t you -forget it. If you think you’re going to live at home, no more use in -the house than a sick headache, and wasting your time running round -with God-knows-who, then I can tell you you’ve never made a bigger -mistake in your life. Off you pop this directly minute, and get on your -hat, and come with me to Mr. Williams. If he’s heard of a job for you, -we’ll get it settled at once.” - -“I suppose,” said Geraldine bitterly, “I’ll have to see to the teas and -everything else, while you’re out. It seems to me it’s always Elsie -that’s being thought about, and sent here, and taken there, and the -rest of it.” - -“More shame for her,” said Mrs. Palmer sombrely. “I declare to goodness -I don’t know how I’m to face your aunties next time they come here, -unless there’s something been settled about Elsie. I’m sick and tired -of being told I spoil that girl.” - -“Whatever job she gets, she’ll be home in a month,” said Geraldine. - -“She’ll get something she won’t relish from me if she is,” Mrs. Palmer -retorted. She pinned on her hat and pulled a pair of shiny black kid -gloves out of a drawer in the kitchen dresser. - -Elsie, rather sulky and unwilling, was obliged to follow her mother -once more to the dingy office, but it cheered her to see the pleased, -furtive smile on the face of the young clerk who had admitted them -before. It was very evident that he had not forgotten her. Elsie -thought more about him than about the desiccated, wooden-faced little -solicitor, with the crêpe band round his arm, who responded to all Mrs. -Palmer’s voluble condolence with solemn little bows and monosyllables. - -Mrs. Palmer was evidently disappointed at extracting from him no -details about his wife’s illness and death, and at last she turned the -subject and began to speak of Elsie’s qualifications as a typist. - -“You see, Mr. Williams, I always felt it was waste, her going to be a -kind of mother’s help to that Mrs. Woolley. ‘It’s not what you’ve been -trained for, my dear,’ I said, ‘but still, if you want to, you shall -try it for a bit.’ I’ve always been a one to let my girlies try their -own wings, Mr. Williams. ‘The old home nest is waiting for you when -you’re tired of it,’ is what I always say. You’ve heard mother tell you -that many and many a time, haven’t you, Elsie?” - -“Yes,” said Elsie, bored. - -She had often heard her mother make the like statements, in order to -impress strangers, and she had no objection to backing her up, since it -was far less trouble to do so than to have a “row” afterwards. - -Mr. Williams bowed again. “I am sorry that Miss Elsie was exposed to -unpleasantness of any sort, through an introduction of mine, and I -may add that I entirely agree with you, Mrs. Palmer, in thinking that -the--the domestic duties embarked upon were quite unworthy of her. Now, -I am in want of a confidential clerk in this office.” - -Elsie saw her mother’s eyes glistening behind the coarse fibre of her -mended veil, and felt that her fate was sealed. - -“Yes, Mr. Williams?” - -“If I could persuade you to allow Miss Elsie to come to me.... Nine to -six, and twenty-five shillings a week to begin with. Her duties would -be light, simply to take down, type, and file my personal letters.” - -“It would be a very good beginning for her,” said Mrs. Palmer, firmly, -but with no undue enthusiasm. Elsie knew that her mother’s mind was -quite made up, but that she did not want to seem eager in the eyes of -Mr. Williams. - -“You’d like to give it a trial, Elsie?” - -“I don’t mind,” said Elsie. She met the eyes of Mr. Williams and -managed to smile at him, and for an instant it seemed to her that an -answering pin-point of light appeared behind the pince-nez. - -“It would be quite usual,” said Mr. Williams gravely, “for me to give -you a short test. Take this pencil and paper, please, and take this -down.” - -He handed Elsie a shorthand pad and a pencil. She took down in -shorthand the brief business letter that he dictated to her, and then, -more nervously, read it aloud, stumbling over the pronunciation of one -or two words, and once substituting one word for another, of which the -shorthand outlines were similar, without any perception of the bearing -of either upon the context. - -Mr. Williams corrected her. “It’s always the same,” he told Mrs. Palmer -in a low, rather melancholy voice. “These young people are wonderfully -clever at taking dictation--eighty words a minute, a hundred words a -minute--but you can’t depend upon them to transcribe correctly.” - -Mrs. Palmer looked offended. “I’m sure Elsie will tell you that she -wasn’t doing herself justice, Mr. Williams. I’m sure she’s as accurate -as anybody, when she’s not nervous. But if you think she won’t do the -work well enough, of course....” - -Mrs. Palmer’s lips were drawn together, and her intonation had become -acidulated. - -“Not at all,” said Mr. Williams quietly, “not at all. You misunderstand -my meaning altogether. I have no doubt that Miss Elsie will suit me -very well indeed, when she has fallen into my little routine. What -about next week?” - -“Very well,” Mrs. Palmer answered swiftly. “I’ll let her come to you -on Monday morning, Mr. Williams, and I’m very much obliged to you for -thinking of us. It’ll be a relief to me to know Elsie is in a good -post. You see, I’m in the position of both father and mother to my -girlies, and this one’s my baby, as I always say----” - -As Mr. Williams opened the door for them he said: “I hope that little -affair about the trunk was satisfactorily concluded? It was perhaps -a shade awkward, having the letter written from this office, in view -of the fact that we were personally acquainted with the parties--but -my head clerk, Mr. Cleaver, could hardly be expected to appreciate -that.... A very worthy man indeed, and an able one, but the finer -shades are rather beyond him. Good morning, Mrs. Palmer--good morning, -Miss Elsie. Nine o’clock on Monday morning, then.” - -Mrs. Palmer went away in high spirits, and commented to Elsie and to -Geraldine so enthusiastically upon Elsie’s good fortune, that she began -to believe in it herself. - -“Are there any other girls there?” Geraldine asked. - -And Elsie said quickly, “Oh dear, no! Both the other clerks are men.” - -She began to think that perhaps after all the hours spent in the office -might not be without amusement. - -Besides, all sorts of people came to see a solicitor. - -Elsie spent the week-end in cutting out and making for herself a blue -crêpe blouse, which she intended to wear on Monday morning. She also -made a pair of black alpaca sleeves, with elastic at the wrist and at -the elbow, to be drawn on over the blouse while she was working. - -She put the sleeves, her shorthand pad and pencil, a powder-puff, -mirror, pocket-comb, and a paper-covered novel in a small attaché case -on Monday morning, pulled on the rakish black velvet tam-o’-shanter, -and went off to Mr. Williams’ office. - -Her first day there was marked by two discoveries: that Mr. Williams -expected to be called “sir” in office hours, and that the name of the -youth who shared with her a small outer room where clients waited, or -left messages, was Fred Leary. - -A high partition of match-boarding separated the waiting-room from -an inner office where Mr. Cleaver sat. And if Elsie and Fred Leary -spoke more than a very few words to one another, Mr. Cleaver would tap -imperatively against the wood with a ruler. He was also apt to walk -noiselessly round the partition and stand there, silently watching -Elsie, if the sound of her typewriter ceased for any undue length of -time. - -She learnt from Fred Leary that there had never been a female typist in -the office before, and that Mr. Cleaver had been greatly opposed to the -introduction of one. - -“The Old Man always gets his way in the end, though,” said Fred Leary, -alluding to Mr. Williams. - -“I knew him before,” Elsie asserted, to give herself importance. “Him -and his wife were in our house for a bit. I knew Mrs. Williams too.” - -“They said he led her a life,” remarked Leary. - -“What sort of way?” - -“Oh, I couldn’t tell a kid like you.” - -“What rubbish! As though I didn’t know as much as you, any day.” - -He laughed loudly. “Girls always think they know everything, but they -don’t--not unless some fellow has----” - -The sharp tap of Mr. Cleaver’s pencil sounded against the matchboard, -and silenced them. - -The fact that their conversations had to be more or less clandestine -added zest to them, and although Elsie was not in any way attracted -by young Leary, who was spotty and unwholesome-looking, she several -times went to a cinema with him on Saturday afternoons, and once -to a football match. After the latter entertainment, however, they -quarrelled. - -Elsie had disliked the mud, the cold, the noise, the standing about and -the crowds. She had been bored by Leary’s enthusiasm, which was utterly -incomprehensible to her, and secretly annoyed because, of the multitude -of men surrounding her, not one had paid any attention to her, or to -anything but the game and the players. - -“I wasn’t struck on that outing of yours,” she remarked critically to -her escort the following Monday morning. “Another time we’ll give the -football matches a miss, thank you.” - -Leary’s admiration for Elsie, however, was less strong than his desire -to see a league match, and he offended her by going by himself to the -entertainment that she despised. - -Elsie resented his defection less for his own sake than for that of -the excitement that she could only experience through flirtation, and -without which she found her life unbearably tedious. - -She had been in the office nearly three months when Mr. Williams asked -her suddenly if she liked the work there. - -“I don’t mind it,” said Elsie. - -She was in reality perfectly indifferent to it, and merely went through -the day’s routine without active dislike, as without intelligence. - -“Now that you are used to our ways,” said Mr. Williams deliberately, -“I think you had better remove your table into my room. The sound of -your machine will not disturb me in the least, and if clients desire a -private interview, you can retire.” - -Elsie looked up, astonished, and met her employer’s eyes. - -His face was impassive as ever, but there was a faint, covetous gleam -in his fish-like eyes. - -Elsie, at once repelled and fascinated, gazed back at him, and felt -her heart beginning to beat faster with a nervous and yet pleasurable -anticipation. - - -VII - -“When do you want to take your holiday, Elsie?” - -“I’m not particular.” - -“Your mother will want you to get a breath of sea-air, I suppose.” - -“Oh, I don’t know,” said Elsie. “Mother’s not awfully struck on going -away.” - -It was late July, and between Elsie and her employer a curious, secret -relationship had been established, at present only symbolised by -occasional furtive touches of his hand on her neck or her dress, and -a continual exchange of glances, steady and compelling on Williams’s -side, and responded to by Elsie almost against her own will. - -Her typewriting table had been moved into his office, and she sat there -nearly all day. - -He spoke to her very little, but she was now always intensely conscious -of his presence, and of her own effect upon him. - -At first she did not understand to what his questions about the -holidays were leading. - -Next day, he spoke about them again. - -“Shouldn’t you like to go to Brighton--some place like that?” - -“Rather.” - -“I often run down there myself from Saturday to Monday.” - -Mr. Williams looked at her more attentively than ever, and Elsie felt -the blood creep up into her face. She knew that she blushed easily and -deeply, and that men enjoyed seeing her blush. - -“That hasn’t got anything to do with me,” she stammered, at once -excited and confused. - -“Hasn’t it?” - -“Mr. Williams!” - -He glanced cautiously at the door, and then lowered his voice. “Look -here, my dear child, I’m old enough to be your father and--and my dear -late wife took quite a fancy to you. Surely you and I understand one -another well enough to take a little holiday jaunt together without -anyone but our two selves being any the wiser.” - -Elsie had not really expected the suggestion, and she was startled, but -also triumphant. - -“Whatever do you mean, Mr. Williams?” - -He smiled, a small, thin-lipped smile, that held a suggestion of -cynical mockery at her transparent pretence. - -“Only what I say. I’m a poor, lonely fellow, with a little bit of money -and no one to spend it on, and if I go to a nice hotel for the week-end -I want someone to keep me company. Think over it, Elsie. You quite -understand that I’m not asking anything of you--you’re as safe with me -as if I were your father. Just a pretty face opposite me at meals, and -a smartly dressed little companion to take out for a walk on the front -or to the theatre on Saturday night--that’s all I want.” - -“Oh, I daresay,” said Elsie. - -His face stiffened, and she felt immediately that she had made a -mistake. - -“It’s awfully kind of you to think of such a thing, Mr. Williams, but -I really couldn’t dream of it. Why, I don’t know what mother would -think----” - -“Of course, it’s a very conventional world,” said Mr. Williams gravely. -“You and I would know well enough that our little adventure was most -innocent, but we don’t want anyone to think or say otherwise. So I -propose, Elsie, that we should keep it to ourselves. I presume it would -be easy to tell your mother that you were staying with a friend?” - -“Well--there’s Ireen Tidmarsh, a young lady I often go with. I could -say I was going to her.” - -“Just so. After all, you’re of an age to manage your own affairs.” - -Elsie swelled with gratified vanity. She loved to be told that she was -grown up. - -“Well, what about the August Bank Holiday week-end? I could meet you at -the booking office at Victoria Station on the Saturday, and we could -travel back together on the Tuesday morning. I’d like to show you -something of life, Elsie.” - -He moistened his lips with his tongue as he spoke the words. - -Elsie wished desperately that she could feel attracted by him, as -she had been by Doctor Woolley. But Mr. Williams, physically, rather -revolted her. - -“Oh, I couldn’t!” she repeated faintly. - -He was very patient. “No expense, of course. And if you’d like a -new hat or an evening frock, Elsie, or a pretty set of those silk -things that girls wear underneath, why, I hope you’ll let me have the -privilege of providing them. You can choose what you like and bring me -the bill--only go to a West End shop. Nothing shoddy.” - -Elsie was breathless at his munificence, and she longed wildly for the -evening dress, and the silk underwear. Pale pink crêpe.... - -Perhaps it would be worth it. - -“I’m sure you wouldn’t ask me to do anything that wasn’t perfectly -right, Mr. Williams,” she said demurely. - -“I am glad you feel that. I’m glad you trust me,” he solemnly replied. - -“Of course I do.” - -“Then that’s our secret. We need take no one into our confidence, -Elsie, you understand. The arrangement is a perfectly innocent and -natural little pleasure that you and I are going to share, but people -are very often coarse-minded and censorious, and I would not wish to -expose either of us to unpleasant comments. You’ll remember that, and -keep it to yourself?” - -“Oh, yes,” said Elsie. - -That night as she was going to bed, she critically examined her own -underwear. Her chemise and drawers were coarse, she wore no stays, -and the garters that held up her transparent lisle-thread stockings -were plain bands of grimy white elastic. Her short petticoat was white, -with a torn flounce, and only the camisole, which showed beneath her -transparent blouses, was trimmed with imitation Valenciennes lace and -threaded with papery blue ribbons. - -“What you doing, Elsie?” grumbled Geraldine from her bed. “Get into -bed, do; I want to go to sleep.” - -“Have you seen those things they sell in sets, Geraldine, in some -of the High Street shops? Sort of silk combinations and a princess -petticoat and nightgown, all to match like?” - -“I’ve seen them advertised at sale times, in the illustrateds, and -beastly indecent they are, too. Why, you can see right through that -stuff they’re made of.” - -Elsie became very thoughtful. - -Her sister’s words had brought before her mind’s eye an involuntary -picture that both startled and repelled her. - -“Anyway, the prices are something wicked. What’s up, young Elsie?” - -“Nothing. I heard something to-day that set me wondering, that’s all.” - -“What?” - -“Oh, some girl that wanted a pink silk rig-out, that’s all.” - -“You must have some queer friends. No decent girl would wear those -things--only tarts do, unless it’s fine ladies that aren’t any better -than they should be, from what the Society papers say.” - -Geraldine, in her curling-pins and her thick nightgown, looked rigidly -virtuous. “Get into bed, do.” - -“It’s too hot,” sighed Elsie. - -The room was like a furnace, but neither of them would have dreamed of -opening the window after dark. - -Elsie tossed and turned about for a long while, unable to sleep. She -visualised herself in new clothes, in evening dress, which she had -never worn, and she thought of the excitement of staying in a big hotel -where there would very likely be a band in the evenings and, of course, -late dinner every night. - -If only it had been anyone but Mr. Williams! But then, he was the only -rich man she knew. - -“It’s a shame,” thought Elsie, “that I shouldn’t have opportunities -of meeting other men like him, only different. I wish I’d gone in for -manicure--I’d have met all sorts then.” - -For a moment she wondered whether her friendship with Williams might -not lead to his introducing her to his wealthy friends, but she was -shrewd enough to perceive that his first preoccupation would be to -keep their connection secret, and that he was of far too cautious a -temperament to risk her meeting with men younger and more attractive -than himself. - -Her last waking thought was of the silk set of underclothes, cool and -lovely and transparent against her skin. - -The following morning Mr. Williams behaved exactly as usual, and made -no reference whatever to his suggestion of a holiday. Elsie, rather -anxious and affronted, took advantage of a late call from a client to -leave the office at six o’clock exactly, without returning into her -employer’s room to announce her departure as she usually did. - -On her way to the crowded Tube station she was followed and accosted -by a strange man. This adventure had become a common one to Elsie, but -a certain recklessness pervaded her that evening, and when he urged -her to come and sit in the park, under the cool of the trees, she went -with him. He was a man of thirty-five or so, with a miserable, haunted, -disease-ravaged face, and he began almost at once to pour out to her -a long story of his wife’s treachery, of which he had just made the -discovery. - -“I’ve never looked at another girl,” he kept on saying. “I’ve never -spoken to one the way I’ve spoken to you to-night. But you remind me -of her, in a way, and I knew you’d be all right, and sorry for a poor -devil who’s been fooled.” - -Elsie hardly listened to him, but she let him put his arm round her -waist, and as his caresses became more violent and eager, she again -felt that instinctive conviction that it was to such an end that she -had been created. These physical contacts only, brought her to the -fullness of self-expression. At last she realised that her companion -was muttering a request that he might go home with her. - -“What do you take me for?” Elsie asked furiously. “I’m a respectable -girl, I am.” - -He became maudlin and begged her to forgive him, and she sank back -again into his embrace, appeased at once. - -At last, when the park gates were closing, she roused herself and -insisted that if he wanted to go on talking to her they must go -somewhere and have supper. - -The man seemed too dazed and wretched to understand her, but when -Elsie, rendered prudent by certain previous experiences, asked whether -he had any money, he drew out a handful of loose silver. - -“That’s all right, then,” she said, relieved, and took him to a cheap -and very popular restaurant. - -Elsie drank cocoa and ate sweet cakes, and her escort, leaning heavily -on the marble-topped table, continued his low, maundering recitation of -self-pity. - -She had very little idea of what he was talking about. - -She liked the restaurant and enjoyed her cakes, and the occasional -contact between herself and the unknown man satisfied her for the time -being. - -When they left the restaurant, Elsie directed him to the omnibus that -would take her nearest to her own suburb, and they climbed to the top -of it, and sat in close proximity on the narrow seat all through the -long drive. - -It was with real difficulty that she tore herself away in the end, -physically roused to a pitch that rapidly amounted to torment. She was -frightened and disgusted by her own sensations, but much less so than -she had been in the days of her technical innocence, before she had -known Doctor Woolley. She decided that she would go to Brighton with -Mr. Williams. - -And she would buy the silk underclothes--pink silk--and a real evening -dress, cut low, that should reveal her shoulders and the full contour -of her bust, and perhaps he would give her enough money for a string of -imitation pearl beads as well. - -“After all, he can afford to be generous,” Elsie thought complacently. -“An old man like him! I expect I’m a fool to look at him, really.” - -She meant that her attraction for men was sufficiently potent to -ensure her ability to cast her spell wherever she chose, but common -sense reminded her that the number of men within her immediate sphere -was limited. Even men who followed her, or addressed her casually in -the street, were mostly of the bank-clerk type, and of her own actual -acquaintance scarcely one reached the level of the professional class -to which Williams belonged. - -At Hillbourne Terrace, Elsie found the front door locked, and realised -that it must be late. She understood what had happened. Mrs. Palmer, -angry at her daughter’s tardiness, had probably decided to give her -a fright, and was waiting in her dressing-gown, angry and tired, for -Elsie to try the side door. - -“I just won’t, then,” muttered Elsie angrily. “I’ll jolly well go to -Ireen.” - -She had seen a light in the house opposite as she came up the street, -and it would not be the first time that she had called on Irene -Tidmarsh for hospitality. - -Her friend opened the door in person, and Elsie explained her position, -giving, however, no specific reason for her lateness. - -“Come in,” said Irene indifferently. “You can sleep with me if you want -to. I often thank God I’ve no mother.” - -The two girls went up to Irene’s large, untidy bedroom in the front of -the house, and began to undress, and Elsie was unable to resist the -topic of the pink silk underclothes that obsessed her imagination. - -“Geraldine says only tarts wear them.” - -“What does she know about it?” Irene enquired. “Ladies of title wear -them--that Lady Dorothy Anvers, that’s always being photographed, she -goes in for black silk nightgowns--_black_, if you please!” - -“I’d rather have pink, a great deal. I think black’d be hideous.” - -“Depends on one’s skin, I suppose,” said the sallow Irene thoughtfully. -“Who wants to give you a silk nightie, young Elsie?” - -Elsie deliberated. She was not usually communicative about her own -affairs, but the notice of her employer had gratified her vanity, and -she very much desired to boast of it to someone. Irene, at least, -would be safe, and she sometimes offered shrewd pieces of advice that -were not the outcome of experience, of which, by comparison with Elsie -herself, she had little, but of a natural acumen. - -Elsie, when the gas had been turned out, and the two girls were lying -in Irene’s bed, after extracting giggling oaths of secrecy, recounted -to Irene the whole story of her adventure with Mr. Williams. She -represented herself as still entirely undecided as to the sincerity of -his assurance that their relationship was to be purely friendly. - -“Rats!” was Irene’s unvarnished comment. “It isn’t very likely the old -fool would have told you to get silk nighties and things unless he -meant to see them himself. But I wouldn’t do it, Elsie. It’s too risky.” - -“Why, who’s to find out? It isn’t as if his wife was alive,” said -Elsie, with a recollection of the household in Mortimer Crescent. - -“I don’t mean that at all. But it’s a beastly risk for you. He’s your -boss, after all. Suppose he gives you the sack, once this week-end -business is over? Men are like that--they get sick of a girl directly -they’ve had their fun, and then they don’t want to be for ever reminded -of it.” - -“It’s quite as likely he’d be for ever pestering me to go with him -again,” Elsie declared, not at all desirous of supposing that her -attractions could be provocative of such speedy satiety. “And even if -he did sack me, there are plenty of other jobs going.” - -“You young fool! Don’t you see what I mean? Suppose he landed you with -a baby?” - -“Oh!” Elsie was startled. - -Like a great many other girls of her class and upbringing, although -she possessed a wide and garbled knowledge of sex, she was singularly -unable to trace the links between cause and effect. “A baby,” in this -connection, was to her nothing but an isolated catastrophe, that she -had never particularly connected with the physical relations between a -man and a girl. - -“It couldn’t, Ireen.” - -“Why not? Of course it could happen. A girl I know got caught, only -luckily she had some sense, and went to one of these doctors that can -stop it for you----” - -“Can they?” - -“Some can,” said the well-informed Irene. “But mind you, it’s an -expensive business, and a jolly dangerous one. Why, the doctor can be -had up for doing it, I believe. So don’t you go and get yourself into -any mess of that sort, now.” - -“I should think not,” murmured Elsie. - -“How old did you say this fellow, this Williams, was?” - -“I don’t know. About forty or forty-five, or something like that. He -was years older than his wife, and she wasn’t a chicken.” - -“And she’s dead, is she?” - -“Of course she is. I told you all about that ages ago.” - -“I know. Look here, Elsie, I’ve an idea. Why don’t you marry this -fellow?” - -“Ireen Tidmarsh, are you dotty or what?” - -“I’m giving you jolly good advice, and you’ll be a young fool if you -don’t take it. He’s rich, and you’d have a splendid position, and after -a year or two you’d probably find yourself free to go your own way. He -wouldn’t live for ever, either.” - -“Don’t,” said Elsie. - -“Well, it’s true. You can bet he’s on the look-out for a second wife -already--widowers of that age always are.” - -“He wouldn’t think of marrying me.” - -“Only because he can get what he wants without,” said Irene curtly. -“You show him he can’t, and set him thinking a bit. If he’s half as -keen on you as you say he is, anyway, the idea’s bound to cross his -mind.” - -Elsie was rather bewildered, and disposed to be incredulous. She was -incapable of having formulated so practical an idea for herself, and it -held for her a sense of unreality. “Anyhow, I couldn’t marry an old man -like that. I don’t even like him.” - -“Whoever you marry, young Elsie, you won’t stick to him,” said Irene -cynically. “And if you ask me, the quicker you get a husband the -better.” - -“That’s what mother says.” - -“She wasn’t born yesterday. Well, do as you like, of course, but -it’s the chance of a lifetime. I’m sure of that. Just hold out for a -month--tell him you couldn’t think of going anywhere with him--and see -if he doesn’t suggest your becoming the second Mrs. Williams.” - -“You’re mad, Ireen,” said Elsie, entirely without conviction. - -She was in reality very much impressed both by Irene’s worldly -wisdom and by the sudden realisation it had brought to her of the -possibilities latent in Mr. Williams’ admiration. - -She disliked having to work, and she knew that marriage was her only -escape from work. To be married very young would be a triumph, and she -thought with malicious satisfaction of how much she would enjoy asking -Aunt Gertie and Aunt Ada to visit her in her own house. - -“Well, good-night,” said Irene’s voice in her ear. “I’m going to sleep. -If you want to get over to your place early in the morning, don’t wake -me, that’s all.” - -“All right.” - -Elsie turned over, gave a fleeting thought to the memory of the man she -had met that evening, and fell asleep almost at once. - -The next morning, after huddling on her clothes, and washing her face -very hastily just before putting on her hat over her unbrushed hair, -Elsie crossed the street and went home. - -Mrs. Palmer was on the doorstep. - -She was very angry. - -“How dare you stay out all night like that, you good-for-nothing little -slut? I haven’t closed my eyes for wondering what’d happened to you. -Where have you been?” - -“At Ireen’s.” - -“Why didn’t you tell me you were going there?” - -“I never thought of it, till I got here and found the door locked.” - -“It wasn’t locked till nearly eleven o’clock, miss, and you could have -come in by the side door, as you very well knew. And what were you -doing out till eleven o’clock, I should like to know?” - -“Nothing,” said Elsie, beginning to cry. - -Her mother promptly boxed her ears. “Elsie Palmer, you’re nothing but -a liar, and you’ll break your widowed mother’s heart and bring her to -disgrace before you’re done. However you’ve managed to grow up what you -are, so particular as I’ve been with the two of you, is more than I can -understand. Tell me this directly minute, who you were with last night?” - -Elsie maintained a sullen silence, dodging as her mother aimed another -heavy blow at her. - -“I declare you’ll make me lose my temper with you!” said Mrs. Palmer -violently. “Answer me this instant.” - -“I went to the cinema.” - -“Who took you?” - -“That fellow in the office--that Leary boy.” - -“Why couldn’t you come in last night and say where you’d been, then? -The fact is, Elsie, you’re telling me a pack of lies, and I know -it perfectly well. You can’t take your mother in, let me tell you, -whatever you may think, I’m sure _I_ don’t know what to do with you. I -sometimes think you’d better go and live with your aunties; you’d find -Aunt Gertie strict enough, I can tell you.” - -Elsie knew this to be true, and was fiercely resolved never to put it -to the test. - -“What you want is a thorough good whipping,” said Mrs. Palmer, already -absent-minded and preoccupied with preparations for breakfast. “Put -that kettle on, Elsie, and be quick about it. And I give you fair -warning that the very next time I have to speak to you like this--(see -if that’s the girl at the door--it ought to be, by this time)--the very -next time, I’ll make you remember it in a way you won’t enjoy, my lady.” - -Mrs. Palmer’s active display of wrath was over, and Elsie knew that she -had nothing to do but to keep out of her mother’s way for the next few -days. - -She helped to get the breakfast ready in silence. She was too much used -to similar scenes to feel very much upset by this one; nevertheless it -influenced her in favour of acting upon Irene Tidmarsh’s advice. - -She knew very well that it would not be as easy to hoodwink Mrs. -Palmer over a week-end spent out of London as she had pretended to Mr. -Williams. Elsie was still afraid of her mother, and believed that she -might quite well carry out her threat of sending her daughter to live -with the two aunts. - -Her chief pang was at relinquishing the thought of the pink silk -underclothes, but she endeavoured to persuade herself that they -might still be hers, when she should be on the point of marrying Mr. -Williams. After all, it would be more satisfactory to own them on those -terms than to be obliged to put them away after two days into hiding, -in some place--and Elsie wondered ruefully what place--where they -should not be spied out by Geraldine. - -She went to the office as usual and was a good deal disconcerted when -Fred Leary announced that “the Old Man” had telephoned to say that he -was called away on business, and should not be back for two days. - -Elsie, rather afraid that her own determination might weaken, decided -to write to him, sending the letter to his home address. - -Her unformed, back-sloping hand, covered one side of a sheet of -notepaper that she bought in the luncheon hour. - - “DEAR MR. WILLIAMS, - - “One line to tell you that I have thought over your very kind - suggestion about a holiday, but do not feel that I can say yes to - same. Dear Mr. Williams, it is very kind of you, but I cannot feel it - would be _right_ of me to do as you ask, and so I must say no, hoping - you will not be vexed with me. I do want to be a good girl. So no - more, from - - “Your little friend, - “ELSIE.” - - - - -VIII - - -It took Elsie exactly three months to bring Mr. Williams to the point -predicted by Irene Tidmarsh. - -During that time she was quiet, and rather timid, scrupulously exact in -saying “sir” and very careful never to be heard laughing or chattering -with Fred Leary. - -Williams at first made no allusion to her note. When at last he spoke -of it, he did so very much in his ordinary manner. - -“I was sorry to get your little note the other day, Elsie, and to see -that you don’t quite trust me after all.” - -“Oh, but I do,” she stammered. - -He shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I’m afraid my little friend isn’t -quite as staunch as I fancied. It doesn’t matter. Perhaps some day -you’ll know me better.” - -“It wasn’t anything like that. It was just that I--I thought mother -wouldn’t like it,” simpered Elsie. “It didn’t seem to me to be quite -right.” - -“It would have been quite right, or I shouldn’t have asked you to do -it,” he replied firmly. “I’m a man of great experience, Elsie, a good -many years older than you are, and you may be quite sure that I should -never mislead you. But I see I made a mistake, you are not old enough -to have the courage to be unconventional.” - -He looked hard at her as he spoke, but Elsie’s vanity was not of the -sort to be wounded at the term of which he had made use. She merely -drooped her head and looked submissive. - -A month later he asked her, in thinly veiled terms, whether she had yet -changed her mind. - -“I shan’t ever change it,” Elsie declared. “I daresay I’ve sometimes -been rather silly, and not as careful as I ought, but I know very well -that it wouldn’t _do_ for me to act the way you suggest. Why, you’d -never respect me the same way again, if I did!” - -She felt that the last sentence was a masterpiece. Williams shrugged -his shoulders. - -“Come, Elsie, let’s understand one another. You’re not ignorant, a girl -like you must have had half a dozen men after her. And then what about -that doctor fellow--Woolley?” - -“What about him?” - -“That’s what I’m asking you. Something happened to cause the -unpleasantness between Mrs. Woolley and yourself, and I’ve a very -shrewd suspicion that I know what it was.” - -“Then I needn’t tell you,” said Elsie feebly. - -“That isn’t the way to speak.” - -His low voice was suddenly nasty, and she felt frightened. “I’m sorry.” - -“Yes. Don’t do it again, Elsie. How far did Woolley go? That’s what I -want to know.” - -“He--he frightened me. He tried to kiss me.” - -“And succeeded. Anything else?” - -“Mr. _Williams_!” - -He gazed at her stonily. “Well,” he said at last, “I’m half inclined to -believe you. How old are you?” - -“Seventeen.” - -“Seventeen!” he repeated after her, and his accent was covetous. “You -should be very innocent, at seventeen, Elsie--very innocent and very -pure. Now, my dear little late wife, when we were married, although she -was a good deal older than you are, knew nothing whatever. Her husband -had to teach her everything. That’s as it should be, Elsie.” - -A certain prurient relish of his own topic, in Williams’ manner, -affected Elsie disagreeably. Neither did she like his reference to Mrs. -Williams. - -She was glad that the conversation should at that point be interrupted -by the entrance of the austere Mr. Cleaver. - -Suspense was beginning to make her feel very irritable. She now -wanted Williams to propose marriage to her, but had begun to doubt his -ever doing so. He continued to look at her meaningly, and to lay his -rather desiccated hand from time to time on her shoulder, or upon the -thin fabric of her sleeve, with a lingering, caressing touch. Elsie, -however, had inspired too many men to such demonstrations to feel -elated by them, and her employer’s proximity roused in her little or no -physical response. - -One day, to her surprise, he brought her a present. - -“Open it, Elsie.” - -She eagerly lifted the lid of the small cardboard box. - -Inside was a large turquoise brooch, shaped like a swallow, with -outspread wings. - -She knew instantly that it had belonged to his dead wife, but the -knowledge did not lessen her pleasure at possessing a trinket that she -thought beautiful as well as valuable, nor her triumph that he should -wish to give it to her. - -“Oh, I say, how lovely! Do you really mean me to keep it?” - -“Yes, really,” Mr. Williams assured her solemnly. - -“But I couldn’t! It’s too lovely--I mean to say, really it is!” - -“No, it isn’t, Elsie. You must please put it on, and let me have the -pleasure of seeing you wear it.” - -“Put it on for me, then,” murmured Elsie, glancing up at him, and then -down again. - -He took the ornament from her with hands that fumbled. “Where?” - -“Just _here_.” - -She indicated the round neck of her transparent blouse, just below the -collar-bone. - -He stuck the pin in clumsily enough, and she stifled a little scream -as it pricked her, but remained passive under his slowly-moving, -dry-skinned fingers. - -“There! I’m sorry there isn’t a looking-glass, Elsie.” - -“Oh, I’ve got one! Don’t look, though!” - -She stooped, pulled up her skirt, revealing a plump calf, and in a -flash had pulled out a tiny combined mirror and powder-puff from the -top of her stocking. She had no other pocket. - -Williams did not utter a sound. He only kept his pale grey eyes fixed -gleamingly upon her. - -“Are you shocked?” Elsie giggled. “I didn’t ought to, I suppose, but -really it’s hard to know what else to do.” - -She peeped into the tiny looking-glass. “Isn’t it pretty!” - -“_You_ are,” said Williams awkwardly. “How are you going to thank me, -Elsie?” - -He always seemed to take pleasure in repeating her name. - -“How do you suppose?” - -“You know what I’d like.” - -He came nearer to her, and put his hands upon her shoulders. Although -Elsie was short, he was very little taller. - -She shut her eyes and put her head back, her exposed throat throbbing -visibly. She could feel his breath upon her face, when suddenly she -ducked her head, twisting out of his grasp, and cried wildly: - -“No, no! It isn’t right--I oughtn’t to let you! Oh, Mr. Williams, I’d -rather not have the brooch, though it’s lovely. But I can’t be a bad -girl!” - -He had taken a step backwards in his disconcerted amazement. “What on -earth----Why, Elsie, you don’t think there’s any harm in a kiss, do -you?” - -“I don’t know,” she muttered, half crying. “But you make me feel so--so -helpless, somehow, Mr. Williams.” - -Purest instinct was guiding her, but no subtlety of insight could have -better gauged the effect of her implication upon the little solicitor’s -vanity. - -He drew himself up, and expanded the narrow width of his chest. “You’re -not frightened of me, little girl, are you?” - -“I--I don’t know,” faltered Elsie. - -“I can assure you that you needn’t be. Why, I--I--I’m very fond of you, -surely you know that?” - -Elsie felt rather scornful of the lameness of his speech. She saw that -he was afraid of his own impulses, and the knowledge encouraged her. - -“Here, Mr. Williams,” she said rather tremulously, holding out the -turquoise brooch. - -He closed her hand over it. “Keep it. Are you fond of jewellery?” - -“Yes, very.” - -“It’s natural, at your age. I’d like to give you pretty things, Elsie, -but you mustn’t be such a little prude.” - -“Mother always told me that one shouldn’t take a present--not a -valuable present--from a man, without he was a relation or--or -else----” She stopped. - -“Or else what?” - -“He’d asked one to marry him,” half whispered Elsie. - -Williams recoiled so unmistakably that for a sickening instant she was -afraid of having gone too far. - -Genuine tears ran down her face, and she did not know what to say. - -“Don’t cry,” said the solicitor dryly. “I’d like you to keep the -brooch, and you can thank me in your own time, and your own way.” - -“Oh, how good you are!” - -She was relieved that he said no more to her that day. - -She wore the brooch on the following morning, and fingered it very -often. Williams eyed her complacently. - -She began to notice that he was taking some pains with his own -appearance, occasionally wearing a flower in his coat, and discarding -the crêpe band round his arm. She even suspected, from a certain smell -noticeable in the small office, that he was trying the effect of a -hair-dye upon his scanty strands of hair. Elsie mocked him inwardly, -but felt excited and hopeful. - -When Williams actually did ask her to marry him, Elsie’s head reeled -with the sudden knowledge of having achieved her end. He had offered to -take her for a walk one Sunday afternoon, and they were primly going -across the Green Park. - -To Elsie’s secret astonishment, he had neither put his arm round her -waist nor attempted to direct their steps towards a seat beneath one of -the more distant trees. He simply walked beside her, with short little -steps, every now and then jerking up his chin to pull at his tie, and -saying very little. - -Then, suddenly, it came. - -“Elsie, perhaps you don’t know that I’ve been thinking a great deal -about you lately.” He cleared his throat. “I--I’ve been glad to see -that you’re a very good girl. Perhaps you’ve not noticed one or two -little tests, as I may call them, that I’ve put you through. We lawyers -learn to be very cautious in dealing with human nature, you know. -And I’m free to admit that I thought very highly of you after--after -thinking it over--for the attitude you took up over that little trip we -were going to take together. Not, mind you, that you weren’t mistaken. -I should never, never have asked you to do anything that wasn’t -perfectly right and good. But your scruples, however unfounded, made a -very favourable impression on me.” - -He stopped and cleared his throat again. - -Intuition warned Elsie to say nothing. - -“A young girl can’t be too particular, Elsie. But I don’t want to give -up our plan--I want my little companion on holidays, as well as on work -days. Elsie,” said Mr. Williams impressively, “I want you to become my -little wife.” - -And as she remained speechless, taken aback in spite of all her -previous machinations, he repeated: - -“My dear, loving little wife.” - -“Oh, Mr. Williams!” - -“Call me Horace.” - -Elsie very nearly giggled. She felt sure that it would be quite -impossible ever to call Mr. Williams Horace. - -“Let’s sit down,” she suggested feebly. - -They found two little iron chairs, and Mr. Williams selected them -regardless of their proximity to the public path. - -When they sat down, Elsie, really giddy, leant back, but Mr. Williams -bent forward, not looking at her, and poking his stick, which was -between his knees, into the grass at their feet. - -“Of course, there is a certain difference in our ages,” he said, -speaking very carefully, “but I do not consider that that would offer -any very insuperable objection to a--a happy married life. And I shall -do my utmost to make you happy, Elsie. My house is sadly in want of a -mistress, and I shall look to you to make it bright again. You will -have a servant, of course, and I will make you an allowance for the -housekeeping, and, of course, I need hardly say that my dear little -wife will look to me for everything that concerns her own expenditure.” - -He glanced at her as though expecting her to be dazzled, as indeed she -was. - -It occurred to neither of them that Elsie’s acceptance of his proposal -was being tacitly taken for granted without a word from herself. She -wondered if he would mention Mrs. Williams, but he did not do so. - -He continued to talk to her of his house, and of the expensive -furniture that she would find in it, and of the fact that she would no -longer have to work. - -All these considerations appealed to Elsie herself very strongly, and -she listened to him willingly, although a sense of derision pervaded -her mind at the extraordinary aloofness that her future husband was -displaying. - -At last, however, he signed to a taxi as they were leaving the park, -and said that he would take her to have some tea. Almost automatically, -Elsie settled herself against him as soon as the taxi had begun to move. - -Rather stiffly, Williams passed his arm round her. His first kiss was -a self-conscious, almost furtive affair that Elsie received on her -upraised chin. - -Intensely irritated by his clumsiness, she threw herself on him with -sudden violence, and forced her mouth against his in a long, clinging -pressure. - - * * * * * - -Elsie Palmer was married to Horace Williams at a registrar’s office -rather less than a fortnight later. - -Williams had insisted both upon the early date and the quietness -of the wedding. He had refused to allow Elsie to tell her mother -of the marriage until it was accomplished, and a lurking fear of -him, and schoolgirl satisfaction in taking such a step upon her own -responsibility, combined to make her obedient. - -Irene Tidmarsh and a man whose name Elsie never learnt, but who -came with Mr. Williams, were witnesses to the marriage. Elsie was -principally conscious that she was looking plain, unaccountably pale -under a new cream-coloured hat and feather, and with her new shoes -hurting her feet. It also occurred to her that she would have preferred -a wedding in church, with wedding-cake and a party to follow it. - -She felt inclined to cry, especially when they came out of the dingy -office, after an astonishingly short time spent inside it, and found -that it was raining. - -“Where are we going to?” said Irene blankly. (“My goodness, Elsie, just -look at your ring! Doesn’t it look queer?) I suppose you’ll take a -taxi?” - -Mr. Williams showed no alacrity to fall in with the suggestion, but -after a dubious look round at the grey sky and rain-glistening pavement -he signed with his umbrella to a taxi-cab. - -“I suppose we’d better. Can I see you to your ’bus first, or do you -prefer the Tube?” he added to Irene. - -Both girls flushed, and looked at one another. - -“Aren’t you going to give us lunch, I should like to know?” murmured -Elsie. - -“I’m sure if I’m in the way, I’ll take myself off at once, and only -too pleased to do it,” said Irene, her voice very angry. “Please don’t -trouble to see me to the station, Mr. Williams.” - -“As you like,” he replied coolly, and held out his hand. “Good-bye, -Miss--er--Tidmarsh. I’m glad to have met you, and I hope we shall have -the pleasure of seeing you in Elsie’s new home one of these days.” - -“Oh yes, do come, Ireen!” cried the bride, forgetting her mortification -for a moment. “I’ll run in and see you one of these evenings, and we’ll -settle it.” - -“Get in, Elsie. You’re getting wet,” said Mr. Williams, and he pushed -her into the taxi and climbed in after her, leaving Irene Tidmarsh -walking away very quickly in the rain. - -“Well, I must say you might have been a bit more civil,” began Elsie, -and then, as she turned her head round to face him, the words died away -on her lips. - -“You didn’t think I was going to have a strange girl here, the first -minute alone with _my wife_, did you?” he said thickly. “You little -fool!” - -He caught hold of her roughly and kissed her with a vehemence that -startled her. For the first time, Elsie realised something of the -possessive rights that marriage with a man of Williams’ type would -mean. For a frantic instant she was held in the grip of that sense of -irrevocability that even the least imaginative can never wholly escape. - -Her panic only endured for a moment. - -“Don’t,” she began, as she felt that his embrace had pushed her -over-large hat unbecomingly to one side. She was entirely unwarmed by -passion, unattracted as she was by the man she had married, and chilled -and depressed besides in the raw atmosphere of a pouring wet day in -London. - -The first sound of her husband’s voice taught her her lesson. - -“There’s no ‘don’t’ about it now, Elsie. You remember that, if you -please. We’re man and wife now, and you’re _mine_ to do as I please -with.” - -His voice was at once bullying and gluttonous, and his dry, grasping -hands moved over her with a clutching tenacity that reminded her -sickeningly of a crab that she had once seen in the aquarium. - -Elsie was frightened as she had never in her life been frightened -before, and the measure of her terror was that she could not voice it. - -She remained absolutely silent, and as nearly as possible motionless, -beneath his unskilled caresses. Williams, however, hardly appeared to -notice her utter lack of responsiveness. He was evidently too much -absorbed in the sudden gratification of his own hitherto suppressed -desires. - -Presently Elsie said faintly: “Where are we going to?” - -“I thought you’d want some luncheon.” - -“I couldn’t touch a morsel,” Elsie declared, shuddering. “Couldn’t -you--couldn’t you take me home?” - -“Do you mean Hillbourne Terrace?” - -“Yes. I’ve got to tell mother some time to-day, and I’d rather get it -over.” - -“Very well,” Williams agreed, with a curious little smile on his thin -lips. “But you mustn’t think of it as being home now, you know, Elsie. -Your home is where I live--where you’re coming back with me to-night. -No more office for my little girl after to-day.” - -His short triumphant laugh woke no echo from her. - -“Do you want me to come in with you?” - -“Of course I do!” said Elsie indignantly. “Why, mother’ll be simply -furious! You don’t suppose I’m going to stand up to her all by myself, -do you?” - -“Why should she be furious, Elsie? You’ve not done anything disgraceful -in marrying me.” - -His voice was as quiet as ever, but his intonation told her that he was -offended. - -“I don’t mean that,” she explained confusedly. “Of course, mother knows -you, and all--it’s only the idea of me having gone and been and done it -all on my own hook; that’ll upset her for a bit. She’s always wanted to -make babies of us, me and Geraldine.” - -“You haven’t told your sister anything, have you?” - -“No fear. She’s a jealous thing, ever so spiteful, is Geraldine. -You’ll see, she’ll be as nasty as anything when she knows I’m -actually--actually----” - -Elsie stopped, giggling. - -“Actually what?” - -“You know very well.” - -“Say it.” - -“Actually married, then,” said Elsie, blushing a good deal and with -affected reluctance. - -When they arrived at Hillbourne Terrace, and the taxi drew up before -the familiar flight of steps, she began to feel very nervous. She -told herself that she was a married woman, and looked at her new -wedding-ring, but she did not feel in the least like a married woman, -nor independent of Mrs. Palmer’s anger. - -Elsie’s mother opened the door herself. “What on earth----Are you ill, -Elsie, coming home in a cab at this hour of the morning? Whatever next!” - -“Mr. Williams is here, Mother,” said Elsie, pushing her way into the -dining-room. - -Geraldine was there, a check apron, torn and greasy, tied round her -waist, and her hair still in curling-pins. - -She was placing clean forks and spoons all round the table. - -She looked at her sister with unfriendly surprise. Elsie had worn her -everyday clothes on leaving home that morning, and had changed at -Irene’s house. - -“Whatever are you dressed up like that for?” said Geraldine at once. - -“Wouldn’t you like to know?” - -“I’d like to know where you get the money to pay for your new hats,” -said Geraldine significantly. “First one thing, and then another--I -wonder you don’t sport a tiara, young Elsie.” - -“Perhaps I may, before I’ve done.” - -Elsie was not really thinking of what she was saying, but was rather -listening to a sound of voices in the hall outside that denoted a -conversation between Williams and Mrs. Palmer. - -She could not help hoping that he was breaking the news of their -marriage to her mother. Elsie still felt certain that Mrs. Palmer would -be very angry. It astonished her when her mother came into the room and -kissed her vehemently. - -“You sly young monkey, you! Geraldine, has this girl told you what -she’s done?” - -“What?” - -“Gone and got married! This morning!! To Mr. Horace Williams!!!” Mrs. -Palmer’s voice rose in a positively jubilant crescendo. - -“_Married!_” screamed Geraldine. Her face became scarlet, and then grey. - -“My little girl, married at seventeen!” said Mrs. Palmer with her head -on one side. - -She examined Elsie’s plump hand with its wedding-ring. - -Horace Williams stood by, quietly smiling. “Then you’re willing to -trust her to me, Mrs. Palmer? You’ll forgive us for taking you by -surprise, but you see, in all the circumstances, I could hardly--I -naturally preferred--something very quiet. But you and I will have a -little talk about business one of these days, and you’ll find that part -of it all in good order. Elsie will be provided for, whatever happens.” - -“So generous,” murmured Mrs. Palmer. - -She insisted upon their remaining to dinner, and sent out Nellie -Simmons for a bottle of wine. Elsie, now that she saw that her mother -looked upon her marriage with the elderly solicitor as a triumph, and -that Geraldine was madly jealous of her, became herself excited and -elated. - -Williams went to the office in the afternoon, but Elsie remained at -home and packed up all her things. - -She made her farewells quite cheerfully when Williams came to fetch -her, still thinking of her mother’s repeated congratulations and -praises. - -It came upon her as a shock, as they were driving away, when Williams -observed dryly: - -“That’s over, and now there’ll be no need for you to be over here very -often, Elsie, or _vice versa_. You must remember that _my_ house is -your only home, now.” - - - - -PART II - - - - -I - - -The European war affected Elsie Williams as much, or as little, as it -affected many other young women. She had been married a little over a -year in August 1914. - -She was vaguely alarmed, vaguely thrilled, moved to a great display of -emotional enthusiasm at the sight of a khaki uniform and at the sound -of a military band. - -Later on, she sang and hummed “Keep the Home Fires Burning,” -“Tipperary,” and “We _Don’t_ Want to Lose You, but we Think you _Ought_ -to Go,” and was voluble and indignant about the difficulties presented -by sugar rations and meat coupons. She resented the air raids over -London, and devoured the newspaper accounts of the damage done by them; -she listened to, and eagerly retailed, anecdotes such as that of the -Angels of Mons, or that of the Belgian child whose hands had been cut -off by German soldiers; and after a period in which she declared that -“everybody” would be ruined, she found herself in possession of more -money than ever before. - -Never before had so many clients presented themselves to Messrs. -Williams and Cleaver, and never before had there been so much money -about. Elsie bought herself a fur coat and a great many other things, -and went very often to the cinema, and sometimes to the theatre. She -very soon found, however, that Williams, when he could not take her out -himself, disliked her going with anybody else. - -He was willing enough that she should take Irene with her, or her -sister Geraldine, but if she went out with any man, Williams became -coldly, caustically angry, and sooner or later always found an -opportunity for quarrelling with him. - -Elsie was bored and angry, contemptuous of his jealousy, but far too -much afraid of him to rebel openly. - -She was more and more conscious of having made a mistake in her -marriage, but her regrets were resentful rather than profound, and her -facile nature found consolation in her own social advancement, her -comfortable suburban home, and her tyrannical dominion over a capped -and aproned maid. - -She very seldom went to Hillbourne Terrace, and had quarrelled with her -mother when Mrs. Palmer had suggested that it was time she had a baby. - -Elsie did not want to have a baby at all. She feared pain and -discomfort almost as much as she did the temporary eclipse of her good -looks, and the thought of a child that should be Horace Williams’s as -well as hers filled her with disgust. - -She only spoke of this openly to Irene, and Irene undertook the -purchase of certain drugs which she declared would render impossible -the calamity dreaded by her friend. Elsie thankfully accepted the -offer, and trusted implicitly to the efficacy of the bottles and -packages that Irene bought. - -Sometimes Horace declared that he wanted a son, and as time went on his -taunts became less veiled, but Elsie cared little for them so long as -she remained immune from the trial of motherhood. - -She spent her days idly, doing very little housework, sometimes making -or mending her own clothes, and often poring for a whole afternoon -over a novel from the circulating library, or an illustrated paper, -whilst she ate innumerable sweets out of little paper bags. She never -remembered anything about the books that she read thus, and sometimes -read the same one a second time without perceiving that she was doing -so until she had nearly finished it. - -After a time, Elsie became rather envious of the money that Irene -was making as a munitions worker, and the “good time” that Geraldine -enjoyed in the Government office where she had found a job. Elsie -seriously told her husband that she felt she must go and do some “war -work.” - -“You are not in the same position as an unmarried girl, Elsie. You have -other duties. These war jobs are for young women who have nothing else -to do.” - -“I don’t see that I’ve got so much to do.” - -“If you had children, you would understand that a woman’s sphere is in -her own home.” - -“But I haven’t got children,” said Elsie, half under her breath. - -“It’s early days to talk like that,” Williams retorted, and his glance -at her was malevolent. “One of these days you’ll have a baby, I hope, -like every other healthy married woman, and neither you nor I nor -anybody else can say how soon that day may come.” - -“Well, I suppose till it does come--_if_ it ever does-you’ve no -objection to me doing my bit in regard to this war?” - -“I don’t know. What is it you propose to do?” - -“Oh, get a job of some kind. Ireen says they’re asking for -shorthand-typists all over the place, and willing to pay for them, too. -I could get into one of these Government shows easily, or I could go in -the V.A.D.s or something, and take a job in a hospital.” - -“No,” said Williams decidedly. “No. Out of the question.” - -Elsie, who at home had, as a matter of course, surreptitiously -disobeyed every order or prohibition of her mother’s that ran counter -to her own wishes, knew already that she would not disobey her husband. - -She was afraid of him. - -On the rare occasions when she saw any of her own family, Elsie always -made a great display of her own grandeur and independence. She was -really proud of her little suburban villa, her white-and-gold china, -fumed oak “suite” of drawing-room furniture, “ruby” glasses and plated -cake basket. She was also proud of being Mrs. Williams, and of wearing -a wedding-ring. - -Geraldine came to see her once or twice, and then declared herself too -busy at the office to take the long tram journey, and as Elsie hardly -ever went to Hillbourne Terrace, they seldom met. But Irene Tidmarsh -came often to see Elsie. - -She came in the daytime, when Williams was at the office, and very -often she and Elsie went to the cinema together in the afternoon. Irene -seemed able to get free time whenever she liked, and she explained this -to Elsie by telling her that the superintendent at the works was a -great friend of hers. - -Elsie perfectly understood what this meant, and realised presently that -Irene was never available on Saturdays and Sundays. - -The war went on, and Mr. Williams made more and more money, and was -fairly generous to Elsie, although he never gave her an independent -income, but only occasional presents of cash, and instructions that all -her bills should be sent in to him. - -He did not rescind his command that she should not attempt any war -work, although, as the months lengthened into years, it seemed fairly -certain that there was to be no family to give Elsie occupation at home. - -At twenty-five, Elsie Williams, from sheer boredom, had lost a great -deal of the vitality that had characterised Elsie Palmer, and with it -a certain amount of her remarkable animal magnetism. She was still -attractive to men, but her own susceptibilities had become strangely -blunted and no casual promiscuity would now have power to stir her. - -She was aware that life had become uninteresting to her, and accepted -the fact with dull, bewildered, entirely unanalytical resentment. - -“I s’pose I’m growing middle-aged,” she said to Irene, giggling without -conviction. - -One day, more than a year after the Armistice in November 1918, Irene -Tidmarsh came to Elsie full of excitement. - -She had heard of a wonderful crystal-gazer, and wanted to visit her -with Elsie. - -Elsie was quite as much excited as Irene. “I’d better take off my -wedding-ring,” she said importantly. “They say they’ll get hold of any -clue, don’t they?” - -“This woman isn’t like that,” Irene declared. “She’s what they call a -psychic, really she is. This girl that told me about her, she said it -quite frightened her, the things the woman knew. All sorts of things -about her past, too.” - -“I’m not sure I’d like that,” said Elsie, giggling. “I know quite -enough about my past without wanting help. But I must say I’d like to -know what she’s got to say about the future. You know, I mean what’s -going to happen to me.” - -“Oh, well, you’re married, my dear. There’s not much else she can tell -you, except whether you’ll have boys or girls.” - -“Thank you!” Elsie exclaimed, tossing her head. “None of that truck for -me, thank you. Losing one’s figure and all!” - -“You’re right. Anyway, let’s come on, shall we?” - -“Come on. I say, Ireen, she’ll see us both together, won’t she?” - -“I hope so. I wouldn’t go in to her alone for anything. Swear you won’t -ever repeat anything she says about me, though.” - -“I swear. And you won’t either?” - -“No.” - -The crystal-gazer lived in a street off King’s Road, Chelsea, a long -way down. - -A little hunch-backed girl opened the door and asked them to go into -the waiting-room. This was a small, curtained recess off the tiny -hall, and contained two chairs and a rickety table covered with thin, -cheap-looking publications. There were several copies of a psychic -paper and various pamphlets that purported to deal with the occult. - -“I’m a bit nervous, aren’t you?” whispered Elsie. She fiddled with her -wedding-ring, and finally took it off and put it in her purse. When -the hunch-backed child appeared at the curtains, both girls screamed -slightly. - -“Madame Clara is ready for you,” announced the little girl, in a harsh, -monotonous voice. - -She led them up to the first floor, into a room that was carefully -darkened with blue curtains drawn across the windows. They could just -discern a black figure, stout and very upright, sitting on a large -chair in the middle of the room. A round stand set on a single slender -leg was beside her. - -Elsie clutched at Irene’s hand in a nervous spasm. - -The black figure bowed from the waist without rising. “Do you wish -me to see you both together, ladies?” Her voice was harsh and rather -raucous in tone. - -“Yes, please,” said Irene boldly. - -“You quite understand that the charge will be the same as for two -separate interviews?” - -“Yes.” - -The little girl advanced with a small beaded bag. “The fee is payable -in advance, if you please.” - -Elsie fumbled in her purse, and pulled out two ten-shilling notes. - -“Half a guinea each, if you please, ladies.” - -“Irene, have you got two sixpences?” Elsie whispered, agitated. - -Irene, by far the more collected of the two, produced a shilling, and -the little girl with the bag went away. - -“Will you two ladies be seated? One on either side of the table, -please--not next to one another.” - -Elsie made a despairing clutch at Irene’s hand again, but her friend -shook her head, and firmly took her place on the other side of Madame -Clara. - -Elsie sank into the remaining chair, and felt that she was trembling -violently. Her nervousness was partly pleasurable excitement, and -partly involuntary reaction to the atmosphere diffused by the dim, -shaded room and the autocratic solemnity of Madame Clara. - -A sweet, rather sickly smell was discernible. - -The silence affected Elsie so that she wanted to scream. - -Her eyes were by this time accustomed to the semi-darkness, and she -could see that Madame Clara was leaning forward, her loose sleeves -falling away from her fat, bare arms, her elbows resting on the little -table, and her hands over her eyes. - -Suddenly the woman drew herself upright, and turned towards Irene. - -“You, first. You have a stronger personality than your friend. It was -you who brought her here. Do you wish me to look into the crystal for -you?” - -“Yes, I do,” gasped Irene. - -Elsie wondered from where the crystal would appear, and then she -noticed the faint outline of a globe in front of the seer, on the -little stand. - -A thrill of superstitious awe ran through her. - -“Make your mind a blank as far as possible, please ... do not think of -the past, the present, or the future ... relax ... relax ... relax....” - -Madame Clara’s voice deepened, and she began to speak very slowly and -distinctly, leaning back in her chair, the crystal ball before her eyes. - -“Time is an arbitrary division made by man--the crystal will not always -show what is past and what is to come. For instance, I see illness -here--bodily suffering--but I do not know if it has visited you or is -still to come. It may even be the suffering of one near to you....” - -She paused for an instant, and Elsie just caught Irene’s smothered -exclamation of “Father!” - -“Hush, please,” said the seeress. “The shadow of sickness deepens--it -deepens into the blackness of death. A man--an old man--he is dying. -You will get money from him. Beware of those who seek to flatter -you. You are impressionable, but clear-sighted; impulsive, yet -self-controlled; reserved, but intensely passionate. I see marriage for -you in the future, but with a man somewhat older than yourself. I see -conflict....” She stopped again. - -“Perhaps the conflict is already over. You have certainly known -love--passion----” - -Elsie, from mingled nervousness and embarrassment, suddenly giggled. - -The clairvoyante raised an authoritative hand. “It is impossible for me -to go on if there are resistances,” she said angrily, in the voice that -she had used at first, ugly and rather hoarse. - -“Shut up, Elsie!” came sharply from Irene. - -Elsie ran her finger-nails into her palms in an endeavour to check the -nervous, spasmodic laughter that threatened to overcome her. - -“The current is broken,” said Madame Clara in an indignant voice. - -There was a silence. - -At last Elsie heard Irene say timidly: - -“Won’t you go on, madame?” - -“I’m exhausted,” said the medium in a fatigued voice. “You will have to -return to me another day--alone. All that I can say to you now, I have -said. Beware of opals, and of a red-haired man. Your lucky stone is the -turquoise--you should wear light blue, claret colour, and all shades of -yellow, and avoid pinks, reds and purple.” - -She stopped. - -Elsie, though awestruck, was also vaguely disappointed. It did not seem -to her that she had learnt a great deal about Irene, and the warnings -about colours and precious stones might have come out of any twopenny -booklet off a railway bookstall, such as “What Month Were You Born In?” -or “Character and Fortune Told by Handwriting.” - -Then she remembered that she herself had made Madame Clara angry by -laughing, and that the woman had said the current was broken. - -“Probably she’s furious,” Elsie thought, “and she won’t tell me as much -as she told Ireen. And she’s got our money, too. What a swindle!” - -“What about my friend?” said Irene Tidmarsh. Her voice sounded rather -sulky. - -“Your friend is a sceptic,” said the clairvoyante coldly. - -“No, really----” Elsie began. - -The woman turned towards her so abruptly that she was startled. - -She could discern an enormous pair of heavy-looking dark eyes gazing -into hers. - -“Make your mind a blank--relax,” said Madame Clara, her tone once more -a commanding one. - -Elsie moved uneasily in her chair and fixed her eyes on the crystal. -She could only see it faintly, a glassy spot of uncertain outline. - -The seeress bent forward, leaning over the transparent globe. After a -moment or two she began to speak, with the same voice and intonation -that she had made use of in speaking about Irene. - -“The crystal reflects all things, but Time is an arbitrary division -made by man--we do not always see what is past, and what is future.... -In your case, there is very little past--how young you are!--and -what there is, is all on one plane, the physical. You are magnetic, -extraordinarily magnetic. You have known men--you are married, if -not by man’s law, then by nature’s law--you will know other men. But -you are not awake--your mind is asleep. Nothing is awake but your -senses....” - -Elsie’s mouth was dry. She longed to stop the woman but a horrible -fascination kept her silent, tensely listening. - -“Now you are bored--satiated. You have repeated the same experience -again and again, young as you are, until it means nothing to you. You -have no outside interests--and you are ceaselessly craving for a new -emotion.” - -Abruptly the sibyl dropped on to a dark note. - -“It will come. I see love here--love that you have never known yet. -There will be jealousy, intrigue--letters will pass--beware of the -written word----_Ah!_” - -The exclamation was so sudden and so piercing that Elsie uttered a -stifled scream. But this time she was not rebuked. - -Madame Clara, all at once, was calling out shrilly in a hard voice, an -indescribable blend of horror and excitement in her tone: - -“Oh, God--what is it? Look--look, there in the crystal--what have you -done? There’s blood, and worse than blood! Oh, my God, what’s this? -It’s all over England--_you_--they’re talking about _you_----” - -Irene Tidmarsh screamed wildly, and Elsie realised that she had sprung -to her feet. She herself was utterly unable to move, wave after wave of -sick terror surging through her as the high, unrecognisable voice of -the clairvoyante screeched and ranted, and then broke horribly. - -“It’s blood! My God, get out of here! I won’t see any more--you’re all -over blood!...” - -A strange, strangled cry, that Elsie did not recognise as having come -from her own lips, broke across the obscurity, the room surged round -her, she tried to clutch at the table, and felt herself falling heavily. - -Elsie Williams had fainted. - -She came back to a dazed memory of physical nausea, bewilderment, and -resentment, as she felt herself being unskilfully pulled into a sitting -position. - -“Let go,” she muttered, “let me go....” - -“She’s coming round! For Heaven’s sake, Elsie ... here, try and get -hold of her....” - -She felt herself pulled and propelled to her feet, and even dragged a -few steps by inadequate supporters. - -Then she sank down again, invaded by a renewal of deadly sickness, -but she was conscious that they had somehow got her outside the dark, -scented room, and that the door had been slammed behind her. - -Very slowly her perceptions cleared, and she realised that Irene was -gripping her on one side, and the little hunch-backed girl holding a -futile hand beneath her elbow on the other. - -With an effort, Elsie raised her head. - -“Look here, old girl, are you better?” said Irene, low and urgently. “I -want to get out of here as quickly as possible. D’you think you can get -downstairs?” - -Elsie, without clearly knowing why, was conscious that she, too, wanted -to get away. - -She pulled herself to her feet, shuddering, and staggered down the -stairs, leaning heavily on Irene. - -“What happened?” - -“Oh, you just turned queer. Don’t think about it. Look here, we’d -better have a taxi, hadn’t we?” - -“Yes. I couldn’t walk a step, that’s certain. Why, my knees are shaking -under me.” - -“Go and get a taxi,” Irene commanded the hunch-backed child, who went -obediently away. - -Elsie sat down on the lowest stair and wiped her wet, cold face with -her handkerchief. - -“What made me go off like that, Ireen? That woman said something -beastly, didn’t she?” - -“Oh she’s mad, that’s what she is. She suddenly started ranting, and -you got frightened, I suppose--and no wonder. Never mind, you’ll soon -be home now.” - -It struck Elsie that Irene was looking at her in a strangely anxious -way, and that she was talking almost at random, as though to obliterate -the impression of what had passed at the _séance_. - -Elsie herself could not remember clearly, but there was a lurking -horror at the back of her mind. - -“What did she say?” she persisted feebly. - -“Here’s the taxi!” cried Irene, in intense relief. “Here, get in, -Elsie. Thank you,” she added to the child. “Don’t wait, I’ll tell the -man where to go.” - -She gave the driver Elsie’s address after the little girl had entered -the house again, and then climbed in beside her friend, drawing a long -breath. - -“Thank the Lord! We got away pretty quickly, didn’t we? Well, it’s -the last time I’ll meddle with anything of that kind, I swear. I say, -Elsie, had we better stop at a chemist’s and get you something?” - -“Yes--no. I don’t care. Ireen, I want to know what that woman said. It -was something awful about _me_, wasn’t it?” - -“She had a--kind of fit, I think. I don’t believe she knew what she was -saying--she just screamed out a pack of nonsense. And you gave a yell, -and went down like a log. I can tell you, you’ve pretty nearly scared -the life out of me, young Elsie.” - -Irene was indeed oddly white-faced and jerky. Her manner was as -unnatural as was her sudden volubility. - -Elsie, still feeling weak and giddy, leant her head back and closed her -eyes. She felt quite unable to make the effort of remembering what had -happened at the clairvoyante’s house, and was moreover instinctively -aware that the recollection, when it did come, would bring dismay and -terror. - -She and Irene Tidmarsh did not exchange a word until the taxi stopped. - -“Here we are. You’d better pay him, Elsie. I’ll take the Tube from the -corner, and get home in half an hour.” - -“Aren’t you coming in with me?” said Elsie, surprised. - -“I don’t think I will. I’d rather get straight home.” - -“Oh, do!” urged Elsie, half crying. She felt very much shaken. “I’m all -alone; Horace won’t be back till seven, and this has upset me properly. -Besides, I know I shall remember what it was that awful woman said in a -minute, and I’m frightened. You _must_ come in, Ireen.” - -“I can’t,” repeated Irene, inexorably. “I ... really, I’d rather not, -Elsie.” - -The door opened, and Irene turned rapidly and walked away down the -street. - -Elsie tottered into the house. - -“I’m ill,” she said abruptly to the servant. “I fainted while I was -out, and I feel like nothing on earth now. I shall go to bed.” - -“Yes, ’m. Shall I go for a doctor, ’m?” said the girl zealously. - -“No,” said Elsie sharply. “I don’t want a doctor. Telephone to Mr. -Williams at the office, Emma, and ask him to come home early. Say I’m -ill.” - -“Yes, ’m.” - -Elsie dragged herself upstairs and took off some of her clothes. She -was shivering violently, and presently pulled her blue cotton kimono -round her and slipped into bed. She lay there with closed eyes, -shuddering from time to time, until Emma brought up a cup of strong -tea. Elsie drank it avidly, lay down again and felt revived. Presently -she dozed. - -The opening of the door roused her. It was nearly dark, but she knew -that it must be her husband, who never knocked before entering their -joint bedroom. - -“What’s all this, Elsie?” - -“I felt rotten,” she said wearily. “Turn on the light, Horace.” - -He did so, and advanced towards the bed. His face wore an expression of -concern, and he walked on tiptoe. - -“I fainted while I was out with Ireen,” Elsie explained, “and I was -simply ages coming to. We came back in a cab, and I must say Ireen’s -awfully selfish. She wouldn’t come in with me, though she must have -seen I wasn’t fit to be left--just turned and walked off. I’m done with -her, after this.” - -“Where had you been?” enquired Williams quickly. - -“Oh, just out.” - -“Where to?” - -“I suppose you’ll call me a fool, if I say it was to see one of those -clairvoyante women, someone Ireen had heard of. It was all Ireen’s -doing--she persuaded me to go.” - -“Very silly of you both,” said the little solicitor coldly. “Did this -person upset you?” - -“Yes. She had a sort of fit, I think, and called out a whole lot of -nonsense, only I can’t remember what it was.” Elsie moved uneasily. - -“Where does she live?” - -“Why?” - -“She ought to be prosecuted for obtaining money under false pretences. -I suppose you gave her money?” - -“Oh yes.” - -“You’d better give me her name and address and I’ll see that she is -properly dealt with.” - -“I’d rather not.” - -Horace Williams shrugged his shoulders. “Well, you’d better get up and -come down to supper, hadn’t you? There’s no reason for lying in bed if -you’re not ill.” - -“All right,” Elsie agreed sullenly. - -Her husband never shouted at her or threatened her, but she was afraid -of him, and of a certain sinister dryness that characterised his manner -when he was displeased. - -The dryness was there now. - -Elsie spent the evening downstairs. Her husband read the newspaper, -and she turned over the pages of a fashion magazine listlessly. Her -thoughts, unwillingly enough, returned again and again to the scene in -the clairvoyante’s room, but still she could not remember the actual -words screamed out by Madame Clara before she had lost consciousness. -But she remembered quite well other words, that had preceded them. - -“You are magnetic ... extraordinarily magnetic.... You are not -awake--your mind is asleep.... Now, you are bored, satiated. You are -ceaselessly craving for a new emotion....” - -Elsie reflected how true this was. - -She glanced distastefully at her elderly husband. - -The bald patch glistened on the top of his head, and he was breathing -heavily as he read his newspaper. - -He had always been rather distasteful to her physically, and although -the continuous, degradingly inevitable proximity of married life in -a small suburban villa had hardened her into indifference, Elsie was -still averse from the more intimate aspects of marriage with him. - -She wished that she could fall in love, remembering that Madame Clara -had said: “I see love here--love that you have never known yet.” - -“That’s bunkum,” thought Elsie. “I’ve been in love heaps of times--I -was in love with that doctor fellow, Woolley. It doesn’t last, that’s -all.” - -She hardly ever met any men nowadays, as she resentfully reminded -herself. - -The husbands of her married friends were at work all day, and if she -occasionally met them at their wives’ card-parties, they did not -interest her very greatly. Most of the wives distrusted the husbands -and gave them no opportunity for flirtation with other women. And -Horace Williams himself was a jealous man, always suspicious, and never -allowed his young wife to go anywhere with any man but himself. - -Elsie had been for a long while in inward revolt against the dullness -of her life. She remembered with longing the old days of her girlhood, -when every walk had been the prelude to adventure, and the casual -kisses of unknown, or scarcely known, men had roused her to rapture. - -Nowadays, she knew very well that she would be less easily satisfied. -The apathy that had been creeping over her ever since her marriage -had to a certain extent lessened the force of the animal magnetism by -which she had been able to lure the senses of almost every man she met, -and for the first time she was beginning to have doubts of her own -attractiveness. - -Elsie gave a sigh that was almost a groan. - -Williams neither stirred nor raised his eyes. - -“I think I’ll retire to my little downy,” Elsie murmured, drearily -facetious. - -“It’s only a quarter past nine.” - -“Oh, well, we lead such a deliriously exciting life that I’d better get -some rest, hadn’t I?” she said ironically. “Just to make up for all the -late nights we have.” - -At last her husband put down the paper and looked coldly at her through -his pince-nez. “What is it you want, Elsie? I work hard all day at the -office, and you have plenty of time and money for amusing yourself in -the daytime--and a strange use you seem to make of them, judging by -to-day’s performance. What more do you want?” - -“I don’t know. We might go to the pictures sometimes, or to a play. I -hate not having anything to do.” - -“That’s the complaint of every woman who hasn’t got children.” - -“I can’t help it,” said Elsie angrily. - -He said nothing, but continued to fix his eyes upon her, with his most -disagreeable expression. - -“Good-night, Horace.” - -“I shall come up to bed before you’re asleep,” he said meaningly. - -She went out of the room. - -The thought crossed her mind, as it had often done before, that she had -made a frightful mistake in marrying Horace Williams. - -“I was only eighteen,” she thought, “I ought to have waited. Perhaps -he’ll die.” - -As she undressed, Elsie idly imagined a drama of which she herself -would, of course, be the heroine. - -Horace would be at the office, as usual, and a telephone message would -come through to say that he was ill--very ill indeed--he was dead. -Everyone would admire the young widow in her black, with her string of -pearl beads.... Horace would leave her quite a lot of money. Elsie knew -that he was rich, although he had never told her his income. She would -stay on in the villa, but people would come and see her--she would go -out and enjoy herself--enjoy life, once more.... - -Elsie sighed again as she got into bed. - -Bored and exhausted, she fell asleep almost at once, to dream vividly. - -In her dream, she stood outside a closed door, knowing that something -unspeakably horrid lay beyond it. Terror paralysed her. At last she -pushed at the door, but it would not yield more than an inch or two. -Something was behind it. She looked down and saw a dark stain spreading -round her feet, oozing from beneath the resistant door. - -Screaming and sweating, Elsie woke up, and as she did so the -remembrance came back to her in full of everything that the -clairvoyante had said that morning. - - - - -II - - -“Hallo, Elsie!” - -“Hallo, Geraldine!” - -“You’re quite a stranger, aren’t you? I think it’s about a year since -we had the honour of seeing your majesty last.” - -“Well, now I have come, aren’t you going to take the trouble to invite -me to come in?” asked Elsie good-humouredly. - -“There’s a visitor of mine in the drawing-room.” - -“Who is it? Aunt Ada?” - -“No, not Aunt Ada, Miss Smarty. It’s a friend of mine, I tell you, who -I knew at the office during the war.” - -“Well, you can introduce me to her, I suppose,” said Elsie carelessly. - -She noticed that Geraldine’s hair was not, as it generally was, in -curling-pins, and that she was wearing a new dress, of an unbecoming -shade of emerald green. Geraldine always went wrong over her clothes, -Elsie reflected complacently. She herself wore a new black picture hat, -and it was partly from the desire to show herself in it that she had -come to her old home. - -“Where’s mother?” - -“Out.” - -“What a mercy!” - -Elsie walked into the familiar drawing-room, feeling glad that she no -longer lived at Hillbourne Terrace, under her mother’s dominion, and -forced to share a bedroom with the fretful Geraldine. - -A young man of two- or three-and-twenty was sitting in the -drawing-room, and rose to his feet as Elsie and Geraldine came in. - -“This is my sister, Mrs. Horace Williams. Elsie, this is my friend, Mr. -Morrison,” said Geraldine with pride. - -Elsie was immediately conscious of a quickened interest. The young man -was of a type that appealed strongly to her; dark and tall, with very -brown eyes, and a wistful, ingenuous smile that was the more noticeable -because he was clean-shaven. - -When they shook hands, she was conscious of the slight, unmistakable -thrill of mutual magnetism. - -“I thought I was going to find a young lady in here, when Geraldine -told me she had a friend!” Elsie exclaimed, laughing. - -“Sorry I’m a disappointment,” Mr. Morrison replied, also laughing. - -“Oh, I didn’t say that. Only my sister doesn’t have gentlemen friends -as a rule,” Elsie declared innocently. - -Geraldine’s sallow face flushed. “You don’t know much about it, do -you, considering that we never see you nowadays. I’m not one for -talking much about my own affairs, either, so far as I’m aware. It’s a -misfortune, really, to be as reserved as I am. I often wish I wasn’t!” - -It was unprecedented, in Elsie’s experience, to hear Geraldine setting -forth a claim, however obliquely, to be considered interesting. Elsie -looked at her in astonishment. - -“She must be gone on this fellow,” she thought, and without the -slightest compunction she immediately put forth all her own powers to -attract Morrison’s notice and admiration to herself. - -The task proved to be as easy as it was congenial. In a very little -while, Elsie and young Morrison were talking and joking together, and -it was only an occasional, spasmodic, and quite evidently conscientious -effort from Morrison that from time to time caused Geraldine to be -included in the conversation. - -Morrison told Elsie that he travelled for a big firm of silk merchants -in the City, and was very little in London. - -“How did you and Geraldine meet, then? I thought you were in the same -office as her during the war,” said Elsie sharply. - -“Just for six months I was, and then I got this job in the place of -a man who’d joined up. I was under age for joining up myself, worse -luck,” said the youth. - -Then he must be younger than she was herself, Elsie reflected, -surprised. She felt oddly touched by the thought. - -She looked at Morrison, and found that he was looking at her with -admiration evident in his dark eyes. - -Elsie allowed her eyes to dwell for a second on his before she broke -the momentary silence. “What about tea, Geraldine?” - -“All right,” said her sister sulkily. “Where’s the hurry?” - -It was already half-past four, but Elsie guessed that Geraldine did not -want to go and fetch the tea and leave her alone with Morrison. - -“No hurry, I suppose,” she cried gaily, “but I’m a bit tired, that’s -all, and I thought I’d like a nice cup of tea. It’s a good long way to -come, and the Tube was pretty full.” - -“Where did you come from?” Morrison asked eagerly. - -She named the suburb. “You must come and look us up one day, Mr. -Morrison. My husband is a solicitor, and he’s always at home on -Saturdays and Sundays. The rest of the week I’m by myself and ever so -lonely,” sighed Elsie. - -“I’d love to come. I should--er--like to meet Mr. Williams,” said -Morrison solemnly. - -“Here’s Mother!” Geraldine announced sharply, as a door banged -downstairs. - -Mrs. Palmer came in, breathing heavily, her hands full of parcels. - -“Elsie! Dear me, this _is_ a surprise. Good afternoon, Mr. Morrison, -how are you? Quite well, thank you, but for Anno Domini, that’s all -that’s the matter with me.” She dropped into a chair. - -“Where’s tea?” - -“I’ll get it up,” said Geraldine. - -“Go and give her a hand,” Mrs. Palmer calmly directed young Morrison. -“My gurl is out. They’re all the same, nowadays--always out, never in.” - -“_I_ never have any trouble with servants,” Elsie murmured. - -She was annoyed that her mother should thus dismiss Morrison, and that -he should meekly prepare to obey her. - -He opened the door for Geraldine and went out behind her, and Elsie -heard her sister talking animatedly as they went downstairs. - -“What’s come over Geraldine?” she coldly enquired. - -“Why should anything have come over her, as you call it? Geraldine’s -a gurl like you are, I’d have you remember, and a very much better -one than you’ve ever been, to her widowed mother. You mind your own -business, Elsie.” - -“That’s a nice way to speak to me, when I haven’t been at home for I -don’t know how long.” - -“And whose fault has that been?” enquired Mrs. Palmer. “Not but what -I’m always pleased to see you, Elsie, as I’ve told you time and time -again, and Mr. Williams too--Horace, I should say--if he cares to come. -But don’t you go interfering with Geraldine’s friends.” - -“Is this fellow a friend of hers?” - -“Of course he is. They’ve been going together for some time now.” - -“I suppose she’s not engaged?” - -“No, she’s not engaged,” Mrs. Palmer reluctantly conceded. “But I’m -free to confess that I hope she will be. This Leslie Morrison is a nice -fellow, as steady as can be.” - -Elsie reflected that Leslie was a lovely name. - -“Now, Elsie,” said her mother warningly, “I know what you are, and I -give you fair notice that I won’t have any of your goings-on. You’ll -remember that you’re a married woman, if you please, and just behave -yourself. Any of your old tricks, my lady, and I shall drop the hint to -Horace. Him and me knew one another before ever he set eyes on you.” - -“All the more reason for not making mischief between us now. He’s -jealous enough as it is, making a fuss of anyone so much as looks the -same side of the room as I happen to be.” - -“I don’t blame him,” said Mrs. Palmer curtly. “You’re a caution, you -are, and always have been. I don’t mind telling you that I never was -more thankful in my life than to get you safely married. And don’t you -go casting sheep’s eyes at poor Geraldine’s fellow, for I tell you I -won’t have it.” - -Elsie laughed scornfully. She was secretly flattered at the alarm that -was conveyed by Mrs. Palmer’s reiterated cautions. - -“What should I want with a boy like him? He must be six years younger -than Geraldine, at the very least.” - -“Nothing of the kind. And if he was, it wouldn’t matter. It’s the first -time anyone has looked like business, where Geraldine’s concerned, and -with you off my hands I can afford to make things a bit easy for her. -She’s been a good daughter to me, has Geraldine,” said Mrs. Palmer with -a significant emphasis. - -“Well, I’m sure I don’t want to stand in her way,” Elsie declared -contemptuously. - -“Anyone less selfish than you are, Elsie, would offer to help things on -a bit. I can’t be for ever asking him here, and he’s not got the money -to take her out a great deal. Why don’t you get them to meet at your -place?” - -“Perhaps I will,” said Elsie slowly. - -She was rather silent during tea, mentally reviewing her mother’s -suggestion from various angles. - -Leslie Morrison definitely attracted her. She asked him how long he was -to remain in London. - -“Not long, Mrs. Williams. I’m doing Bristol and Gloucestershire next -week, and then I’m taking my holiday.” - -“Where are you going for that?” Mrs. Palmer enquired. - -“I haven’t made up my mind. Anywhere near the sea is good enough for -me.” - -“My husband and I are thinking of Torquay,” Elsie said. “We’ve been -wondering if you’d care to come along, Geraldine. I suppose Mother -wants to stew on in London, as per usual.” - -“That’s right,” Mrs. Palmer assented complacently. She looked at her -younger daughter with approval. It was the first time, actually, that -Elsie had ever invited Geraldine to spend a holiday with her. - -“Torquay is a first-rate place,” declared Leslie Morrison -enthusiastically. “I was there once on business, and I quite made up my -mind to return one day.” - -“Thanks very much, Elsie,” Geraldine said rather coldly. “It’s a long -journey, isn’t it, and I’m a wretched traveller, as you know.” - -“Please yourself. Horace wants a thorough change, and we’re sick of -Wales. We’ve been there every year ever since we were married.” - -“Come, I don’t suppose that makes much of a total, does it?” Morrison -gallantly remarked, looking at Elsie. - -“More than you’d think for, perhaps. I was caught young--eighteen, if -you want to know.” - -“Elsie,” said her mother abruptly, “have you been to see your aunties -lately?” - -She directed the conversation so that no more personalities were -possible, until Elsie rose and said good-bye. - -“Allow me,” said Morrison, as he helped her to put on her coat. - -Elsie fumbled for the sleeve-hole until she felt the guiding pressure -of his fingers on her arm. - -“Thanks ever so much. Well, good-bye, Mr. Morrison. Let me know if you -come up our way any time.” - -“I ... I hope you’re going to let me see you to your ’bus,” he said -rather awkwardly. - -“Really, there’s no need--I couldn’t think of troubling you.” - -Elsie took no pains to hide that her protest was a purely conventional -one. - -“Put on your hat, Geraldine, and go with them. A walk’ll do you good,” -urged Mrs. Palmer. - -But Geraldine, as she frequently did, had turned sulky. “I’ve got -something to do upstairs,” she muttered, and disappeared. - -It was exactly like Geraldine, Elsie thought, to cut off her nose just -to spite her face. Not that it could have made any difference if she -had succeeded in preventing that brief walk taken by Leslie Morrison -and Elsie Williams. - -Elsie knew, beyond any possibility of mistake, the very first moment at -which a spark from her own personality had lit the flame destined to -burn more or less fiercely in that of another. - -But this time she experienced an odd excitement that held in it -something new. - -She wondered, rather wistfully, whether this was because it was such -a long while since she had had any opportunity of talking to a man -other than her husband or one of his elderly married acquaintances. -Her conversation with Morrison did no more than skirt the edge -of personalities that were implied, rather than spoken. Yet when -they parted Elsie knew, and knew that Morrison knew, that each was -determined to see the other again. She travelled home in a dream, -and hardly heard her husband’s vexed enquiry as to the reason of her -lateness. - -Williams had always shown a very strong conviction that it was a wife’s -duty invariably to be at home in time to welcome her husband’s return -from business. - -“I’ve been to Hillbourne Terrace.” - -“H’m. You’ve made yourself very smart. That hat suits you, Elsie.” - -He so seldom paid a compliment that Elsie was astonished, and ran to -look at herself in the mirror over the dining-room sideboard. - -It was the hat, was it? - -Her full face was softly flushed, and her eyes looked bigger and darker -than usual. Elsie saw her own closed mouth break into an involuntary -smile as she gazed at her reflection. She went up to her room singing -softly. - -Two days later Leslie Morrison came to see her. - -“I hope you won’t think I’m taking a liberty. Knowing your people so -well, it seemed quite natural, like, to take advantage of your kind -invitation.” - -“That’s right,” Elsie encouraged him. - -She hardly knew what she was saying, but already their intercourse -seemed to be on a plane where conventional interchanges of words were -unnecessary. - -Although it was only the second time they had met, Morrison told her a -great deal about himself, and Elsie listened, with a growing, tremulous -tenderness. - -He went away before her husband came in, and Elsie underwent a -momentary, essentially superficial, reaction. - -“I’m getting soppy about that boy--that’s what I’m doing! Just -because he’s got a pair of eyes like--like I don’t know what. Him and -Geraldine! It’s too ridiculous. Why, he’s younger even than me.” - -She reflected that if Morrison, indeed, had been a year or two older, -he would certainly have kissed her by this time. But it was quite -evident to her that such an idea had never even crossed his mind. He -viewed her with obvious admiration, and with great respect. - -The next day Elsie bought a book of poems, about which Morrison had -told her. She read some of them, and it seemed to her that she had a -new understanding of a form of expression which had never made the -least appeal to her before. - -“I’m a fool!” Elsie told herself in astonishment, but with an ominous -sensation of strange, new emotions, softer than any she had yet known, -taking possession of her life. She felt that she would like to give -the book to Morrison as a present, but they had made no definite -arrangement for meeting again, and she could not bring herself to send -it by post. Restlessness possessed her. - -It was a relief when one evening her husband began to speak of their -summer holiday. - -“We can start on Tuesday, like we planned. Cleaver gets back on Monday -morning, and the sooner we get to the sea in this weather, the better. -It won’t last.” - -“It might. September can be a ripping month sometimes,” said Elsie -dreamily. - -“That’s your experience, is it? Well, it’s not mine. I only hope -we shan’t have a rainy spell as we did last year, and sit in an -everlasting sitting-room without so much as a book to look at.” - -Elsie shuddered at the recollection. She and Horace had quarrelled -incessantly throughout their last holiday. - -“Is your sister coming with us?” - -“Yes.” - -“Well, that’ll be better than nobody. She’ll be somebody for you to go -with to those picture-houses that you’re so fond of. But it’s a pity -that girl hasn’t got a sensible husband. We might get a decent game of -bridge, then.” - -“It’s a pity you haven’t got any men friends,” Elsie retorted. “I never -knew anybody like you for that.” - -Williams did not answer, but he turned upon his wife a look, peculiar -to himself, that always vaguely frightened her. It held not only utter -contempt, but something of quiet, unspecified menace. - -She hastily spoke again. “Geraldine’s got a--a young fellow that she -thinks is going with her now. A boy called Morrison.” - -“Is he coming to Torquay?” - -It was Horace Williams’ own matter-of-course tone in making the -suggestion that suddenly filled Elsie with a frantic determination to -see it carried out. - -“Yes, most likely he is. So you’ll get your bridge, I daresay, and -there’ll be somebody to take us to the pictures of an evening.” - -As Elsie said the words, her heart seemed to herself suddenly to leap -against her side, as though in anticipation of a joy almost too great -to be borne. - -She lay awake most of that night, revolving schemes by which Leslie -Morrison could be brought to Torquay without letting Williams know that -it was Elsie who had originated the idea. - -Although formerly she had been as much flattered as irritated by her -husband’s suspicious jealousy, it seemed to Elsie now to be of the -utmost importance that he should not look upon Morrison in any other -light than that of Geraldine’s friend. She wondered if she could induce -Geraldine herself to suggest that Morrison should come to Torquay, -but decided that it was unlikely. Finally, after a great deal of -deliberation, Elsie next day wrote a note to the young man: - - “DEAR MR. MORRISON, - - “If not otherwise engaged, we shall be pleased if you will come to - tea on Saturday afternoon. It will be the last time for some weeks we - shall be at home, as we go to Torquay on the Tuesday. My sister, Miss - Palmer, is coming with us. Why not join the party, as you say you - would like to visit Torquay again?!!! - - “Yours sincerely, - “E. WILLIAMS.” - -Elsie thought about this note incessantly after it was written and -posted, and awaited the reply with proportionate excitement. - -It came by return of post: - - “MY DEAR MRS. WILLIAMS, - - “Very many thanks indeed for your most kind invitation to tea. - Unfortunately I am not able to avail myself of it, as am already - engaged to go to Hillbourne Terrace. The suggestion about me going to - Torquay is simply great--that is, if you really meant it! I intend - talking it over with your sister when we meet on Saturday. - - “Believe me, with kind regards, - - “Yours very sincerely, - “LESLIE M. MORRISON.” - -Elsie came downstairs earlier than usual in order to conceal her letter -before Williams should ask to see it, as he invariably did with his -wife’s correspondence. - -She put it in her pocket, and kept it there all day. On Saturday she -wanted very much to go to Hillbourne Terrace, but Williams was at home, -and on such occasions he never expected his wife to go out except with -him. They spent the afternoon drearily enough, Williams reading the -newspaper, and Elsie pretending to sew, and in reality wholly occupied -with speculations as to how Geraldine would receive Leslie Morrison’s -suggestion. - -She felt pretty certain that Mrs. Palmer, at all events, would be in -favour of it. “If only he has the sense to make it sound as if it came -from him, and not from me!” thought Elsie. - -She had felt confident of receiving another letter from Morrison before -starting for Torquay, but to her dismay there was no word, either from -him or from Geraldine, and on the eve of departure she still did not -know whether or not her scheme had succeeded. For the first time, she -heartily wished that there had been a telephone in her mother’s house. - -On the morning of their journey the weather changed and became -suddenly sultry. The train was crowded and unbearably hot. - -Geraldine was to meet them at the station, and the fact that she -arrived late made Horace Williams angry, in his own unpleasant, silent -way. There was only one empty seat in the railway carriage, which -Elsie at once took, and Williams and Geraldine were forced to stand -in the corridor, already strewn with hand baggage and full of heated, -perspiring people. - -The train ran from London to Taunton without a stop, and at the end of -two hours Williams forced his way into the carriage and spoke quietly -to his wife. - -“Here, Elsie, give me your place for a little while. One of my boots is -hurting, and I can’t stand any longer. Go and take your turn for a bit.” - -Elsie joined Geraldine in the corridor without demur. There were -certain tones in Horace Williams’ voice that she had learnt to obey. -Geraldine, her face pallid and shiny with heat, her tight blue cloth -dress looking as though it constricted even her narrow chest and -shoulders, was sitting in an uncomfortable, crouching position on a -roll of rugs. - -Both she and Elsie had removed their hats, and while Elsie’s hair -dropped naturally into soft, flattened curls and rings, Geraldine’s -clung damply in straight, short wisps to her neck and forehead, and -she constantly raised her hand to push away, quite ineffectually, a -straggling end that immediately fell down again. - -“Hell, I call this,” she remarked shortly, as Elsie, stumbling over -bags and packages and the feet of other passengers, reached her side -and propped herself up against the side of the swaying train. - -“You’re a nice one to take on a holiday, I must say,” Elsie retorted, -but without acrimony. She felt that nothing would really matter if she -could once get the assurance that she craved. - -“Horace is in a foul temper. He never can stand the hot weather. I’m -sure I hope it’ll be cooler at the sea than what it is here. Have you -brought a new bathing costume, Geraldine?” - -“M’m. A blue one, with a decent skirt--not one of those horrible -skin-tight things you see in the picture papers. Improper, I call them.” - -“You couldn’t be improper if you tried,” said Elsie cryptically. -“Besides, there’ll be nobody to go in the water with you except me. -Horace never bathes--makes him turn green, or something.” - -She eyed her sister carefully as she spoke. Something in the wariness -of Geraldine’s return glance gave her a rising hope. - -“I’m sure I wish we were going to have someone we knew there. Horace -would be much easier to keep in a decent temper if he had another man -to go with sometimes.” - -Then Geraldine spoke. “That boy Leslie Morrison said something about -coming down one day this week, and spending part of his holiday at -Torquay. He was awfully keen I should go and stay with his mother, near -Bristol, too.” - -“Was he? Well, you could do that later,” said Elsie. She was -nearly breathless with triumph, but strove to make her voice sound -matter-of-fact. “But I hope to goodness he will come to Torquay. It’ll -make all the difference to Horace.” - -Geraldine sneered. “I daresay you think it’ll make all the difference -to you, too. It’s anything in trousers with you, old girl, whether the -fellow belongs to another girl or not. But I’m not afraid of anything -of that sort while Horace is about. He knows how to keep you in order, -as Mother said.” - -“I’ll thank you, and Mother too, to keep your opinion of me till it’s -asked for.” Elsie, however, spoke mechanically. - -She had immediately become obsessed by visions of herself and Morrison, -walking, swimming, sitting beside one another on the sands, or in the -intimate closeness and darkness of the picture palace.... - -“I’ll just tell you this, young Elsie. Leslie Morrison isn’t the sort -of fellow you’ve been used to--not like Johnnie Osborne, and that -truck. And as for carrying on with a married woman--why, he’d be -ashamed to think of such a thing.” - -Elsie smiled, and said nothing. She hardly heard what her sister was -saying. - -A hand laid upon her shoulder made her jump violently. - -“Are you in the moon, Elsie? I’ve been making signs to you for ten -minutes, I should think. It’s more than time we had our sandwiches,” -said Horace Williams querulously. - -“Oh, all right.” - -By tugging and pulling at piled-up packages, they succeeded in getting -hold of the basket in which Elsie had packed ham sandwiches, seed-cake, -and bananas. - -The train sped onwards.... - - - - -III - - -The Williamses and Geraldine stayed in a boarding-house that proudly -advertised itself as being situated “right on the front,” and young -Morrison had a room in an apartment house, much cheaper and more -remote, half-way up one of Torquay’s steepest hills. He arranged to -have all his meals except breakfast at the boarding-house. - -The weather was very hot, and sunny, and breathless. - -Elsie felt as though she had never lived before. Every morning she -came downstairs, her face sunburnt and glowing, but never unbecomingly -freckled, her open-necked, short-sleeved blouses and jumpers -indefinably smart and well put on, her undependable and essentially -variable good looks seeming always to increase. - -She was greatly admired in the boarding-house, and Williams for the -first time did not appear to resent this. - -He had suddenly become absorbed in a new and obscure digestive -complaint, and would discuss the subject endlessly with his neighbours -at meal-times. An elderly widow without any companion took a fancy to -Geraldine, and as she sometimes gave her presents of clothes, or took -her for a drive, Geraldine always sat next to her at the long table in -the dining-room, and listened to her with a fair pretence of amiability. - -Breakfast was a long, hot, abundant meal. The boarding-house knew its -_clientèle_ and catered for it according to the views of business men -who never allowed themselves to eat as much as they would have liked -on week-day mornings during all the rest of the year. Tea and coffee, -eggs and bacon, and fish and sausages were provided, toast and jam and -marmalade and potted meat. - -Elsie, who never ate anything but bread-and-butter with jam, and drank -innumerable cups of tea, at her own home, enjoyed the novel fare -because it was novel, and because she had not bought and ordered it -herself, and because she was living in a haze of happiness that made -everything enjoyable. - -The prophecy of the clairvoyante had come true. Elsie knew the love -that she had never yet known. - -Every morning they went down to the sands and met Leslie Morrison -there. They sat in deck chairs, and ate fruit from paper bags, and -listened to a pierrot entertainment. At midday Elsie and Geraldine ran -back to the boarding-house, undressed, and put on their bathing-suits, -and came back to find Morrison already in the water and Horace Williams -asleep in his deck-chair behind a newspaper. - -Elsie’s bathing-dress was blue, trimmed with white braid, and she wore -a rubber cap with a blue-and-red handkerchief knotted over it. Her bare -legs and arms and neck had tanned very slightly; Geraldine’s showed -scarlet patches of sunburn. - -As they joined Morrison in the water, both girls always screamed, -clinging to one another’s hands. But once the water was high above -their waists, Elsie, a naturally strong swimmer, struck out boldly, -consciously enjoying the cold water and the exercise of her muscles. -Geraldine, of poor physique and defective circulation, only bobbed up -and down in the shallows, still uttering staccato shrieks. - -At first, Elsie and Morrison would keep near her, swimming short -distances, and then returning, or splashing beside her in shallow -water, but sooner or later they would both strike out, swimming side by -side. They spoke very little. - -“I say, you swim simply splendidly, Mrs. Williams. Why, I’ve never seen -a girl swim as well as you do.” - -“D’you think so? It’s nice, isn’t it?” - -“It’s ripping. I’ve never had a holiday like this one--I mean, one that -I’ve enjoyed so much.” - -“Neither have I.” - -“I hadn’t looked forward to my holiday a bit this year. I never thought -it would be anything like this. I didn’t know that anything in the -world----” - -It was always Elsie who suggested that it was time to go back. - -“Geraldine’s gone out already. She turns a funny colour if she stays in -too long.” - -Once, when they were rather further out than usual, Elsie said that she -was getting tired. - -“Put your hand on my shoulder--I’ll help you. Yes, do.” - -“Oh no, I couldn’t.” - -“Yes, you must.” - -“Well, if you are sure you don’t mind....” - -“_Mind!_” - -His voice was very eloquent, and Elsie was abundantly satisfied. - -She laid her hand upon his shoulder, and kept it there after her feet -touched the sandy bottom once more and they were almost out of the -water. - -They raced to the bath-towel cloak that she had left under the wall, -and as she put it round her Elsie said, without looking at him and in a -peculiar tone: - -“Did you enjoy it?” - -“I loved it,” Morrison replied very low, and after a moment he added: - -“Better than any of our other bathes.” - -Elsie had never before conducted any one of her numerous love-affairs -in a key so reticent, and the very novelty of the experience rendered -it strange and precious. - -Subconsciously, they might both be waiting for the spoken word, but on -the surface each was supremely contented in the present. - -The presence of Geraldine did not disturb Elsie in the least. Geraldine -had been jealous of her intermittently ever since the days of their -earliest childhood, and her manifestations of temper were always -latent, rather than active. Elsie was used to them, and indifferent to -them. - -Besides, Leslie Morrison was always very nice to Geraldine. He -sat between the sisters at the entertainments to which they went -frequently, he gave chocolates and sweets to Geraldine oftener than to -Elsie, and he was always ready to talk of Geraldine’s favourite topic, -the old days in the office. - -Only his dark eyes sought Elsie’s face with increasing frequency, his -pleasant young voice altered slightly and indescribably when he found -himself alone with her. - -It seemed part of the magic of those enchanted days that Geraldine -should make no scene, Horace Williams appear to perceive nothing. - -On Sunday evening a band played in the public gardens. They decided to -go and hear it. - -Then Williams developed his mysterious symptoms, and refused to come -out. - -“You girls can go with Morrison. I shall take a glass of boiling water -with peppermint,” he declared, “and go to bed. I’m in agony.” - -“Would you like me to stay with you?” Elsie asked, her heart sinking. - -“No, no, go and enjoy yourself.” - -“Perhaps you’ll feel better in a bit, and come and join us,” she -suggested, and thankfully made her escape. - -The gardens were lit with Japanese lanterns and crowded with -holiday-makers. Pale frocks and scarves flickered oddly in and out of -the shadows and beyond the bright circle of glaring white light thrown -out from the raised and roofed circular platform of the bandstand. - -“No hope of chairs, I suppose,” said Geraldine disconsolately. “We’re -late, thanks to Horace. Just look at the people.” - -Morrison volunteered to try and find a seat, and they watched his tall -figure disappear into the throng of people. - -“I shall be sick if I have to stand for long, that’s certain,” declared -Geraldine. “I believe the sun was too hot for me this afternoon. My -head’s splitting.” - -“Take off your hat, why don’t you?” - -Elsie’s own hair was only covered with a blue motor veil, knotted at -either ear, and with floating ends. - -“My hair would be all over the place. I like to look tidy, thank you.” - -“Please yourself,” said Elsie indifferently. She was absorbed in -watching for the first glimpse of Morrison returning to them. - -When she caught sight of him, elbowing his way through the crowd, it -actually seemed to her as though the heart in her body leaped forward -to meet him. - -As usual, his eyes sought Elsie’s and held them for an instant before -he turned to Geraldine. - -“There’s one chair there. I’ve taken it, and a fellow is kindly keeping -it for me. I thought you and your sister could take it in turns to sit -down.” - -“I don’t know....” Geraldine began ungraciously. - -“It’s quite a good place, and nice-looking people on either side. The -chap that’s keeping it for us seemed very decent.” - -“Oh, go on, Geraldine!” said Elsie. “Hark, they are beginning again.” - -The band had struck into a selection from a popular musical comedy. - -Leslie Morrison put his arm beneath the girl’s elbow, and they moved -away, Geraldine still grumbling sub-audibly. - -Elsie, motionless, waited. - -Never before in her life had she known this ecstasy of anticipation, so -poignant as to be almost indistinguishable from pain. - -When Leslie came back to her, she thought that she must fall, and -instinctively caught at his arm for support. - -Without speaking, he drew her away from the ring of light, into the -deep shadow of a clump of trees. She stumbled against something in the -sudden obscurity, and discerned the low railing that separated the -ornamental shrubs and flower-beds from the crowded gravel paths. - -“Come,” said Leslie’s voice in her ear, hoarsely. They stepped together -over the little railing on to the grass. Another few steps, and they -were in an isolation as complete as though a curtain had fallen between -them and the seething mass of talking, laughing, swaying people in the -gardens. - -Even the sound of the band only reached them faintly as though from a -great distance. - -Leslie Morrison halted abruptly, and they faced one another, their eyes -already accustomed to the semi-darkness. - -By an impulse as inevitable as it was irresistible, they were in one -another’s arms. - -Neither spoke a word whilst that long throbbing embrace endured. - -Through Elsie’s whole being flashed the wordless conviction: “_This_ is -what I’ve been waiting for....” - -“Elsie,” whispered the man. “Elsie ... Elsie ... Elsie ... I love you!” - -“I love you,” she whispered back again. - -They stood clinging to one another, entwined, the hot summer darkness -encompassing them. - -“What shall we do?” Morrison murmured at last. “I have no right to say -a word to you, Elsie--I never meant to.” - -“What does it matter?” said Elsie recklessly. “Horace and I have never -been happy together. I ought never to have married him. It’s you I -belong to.” - -“My darling ... my sweetheart.” - -They kissed passionately, again and again. - -“What are we going to do?” - -Elsie pressed closer and closer against him. “Forget everything, as -long as this holiday lasts, except that we can be together. It’s been -so heavenly, Leslie! We can settle--something--later on, when it’s all -over.” - -“I can’t let you go back to that man again. It would drive me mad.” - -“Take me away with you,” she whispered. - -“Oh, if I could ... if I only could, little girl!” - -They spoke as lovers talk, ardently, and tenderly, and with long -silences. - -A sudden surging movement, and the distant sound of the National -Anthem, penetrated at last to them through the darkness. - -“It’s all over!” Morrison cried, aghast. “Your sister?...” - -“I’ll manage her,” said Elsie. “Leslie ... once more....” - -Her mouth found his, and then she tore herself out of his arms. - -“Come with me.” - -Rapidly Elsie found her way to the little pay-desk outside the -enclosure, in which the lights were already being extinguished. - -“She’s bound to come out this way.” - -They waited, Elsie’s eyes at first dazzled, striving to find her -sister’s form in the crowd. Every fibre of her being was acutely aware -of the presence of Leslie Morrison, standing just behind her, so that -her shoulder touched his breast. - -Without turning her head she put out her hand, and felt it clasped in -his and held tightly. - -Her senses swam, and it was Geraldine’s own voice that first warned her -of her sister’s approach. - -To her relief, Geraldine was talking to a strange young man. - -“Good-night,” she said amiably. - -“Good-night, and thanks so much for a pleasant evening,” he returned, -raising his soft hat. - -Elsie compelled herself to speak. “Have you met a friend?” she -enquired, with simulated interest. - -“Hallo! Where have you been, I should like to know? Isn’t it -funny?--that’s a fellow who was at our place for nearly a month during -the war. Belcher, his name is. He was the very one that kept the chair -for me. Did you two get seats somewhere else?” - -“Yes,” said Elsie swiftly. - -“It was good, wasn’t it--the band I mean? Horace has missed something -by staying at home.” - -Geraldine was evidently, and contrary to her wont, in high good humour. - -They walked back to the boarding-house, Leslie Morrison between the two -girls, Geraldine openly hanging on to his arm. His other hand was out -of sight in his pocket, Elsie’s warm, soft fingers locked in his. - -At the door they parted. - -“Good-night and sweet repose,” said Geraldine indifferently, but she -waited for her sister to precede her into the lighted house. - -Elsie moved in a dream. It startled her when Geraldine, looking -curiously at her under the glare of the electric light in the hall, -said suddenly: - -“What’s the matter with you, Elsie? You look moon-struck, and your -hair’s all over the place, half down your back.” - -“Is it?” Elsie put up her hands and pushed up the soft, loose mass -under her veil again. “I’m going to bed,” she said, in a voice that -sounded oddly in her own ears. “Tell Horace, will you? I’ve a splitting -head.” - -She felt an unutterable longing to be in the dark, and alone with her -new and overwhelming bliss. - -“You’re a nice one, I must say, leaving me alone all the evening, and -then dashing off upstairs the minute we get in. I should think Horace -would find something to say to you----” - -Elsie neither heard nor heeded. - -She ran upstairs and into the small double bedroom. It contained two -beds, and for the first time since their marriage she and Horace had -occupied separate ones. - -To-night Elsie felt that she could never be thankful enough for the -comparative solitude that would enable her to feel herself free again. - -She tore off her thin summer clothes, shook down her cloud of hair, -ran across the room in her nightdress to snap off the light, and then -almost threw herself into bed. - -In the blessed darkness, Elsie lay with hands clasped over her -throbbing heart, and relived every instant of the evening, thrilling to -a happiness so intense that she felt as though she must die of it. - -She was perfectly incapable just then of looking beyond the immediate -present and the glorious certainty of seeing Leslie Morrison again in -the morning. - -Although Elsie had been attracted, in a sensual and superficial manner, -by a number of men, she had never in her life loved before, and the -passion for Morrison that had suddenly swept into her life held all the -force of a long repressed element violently and unexpectedly liberated. - -Body, soul and spirit, she was obsessed almost to madness by this young -man, several years her junior, whom she had not known a month. - -When Horace Williams came up to bed it was nearly midnight, and Elsie, -her face half buried under the sheet, pretended to be asleep. - - - - -IV - - -The love-affair of Elsie Williams and Leslie Morrison swept on its -course, and in the early days of their madness neither of them paused -for an instant to count its possible cost. - -It seemed, indeed, as though Fate were deliberately simplifying their -way. - -Horace Williams appeared unable to give his attention to anything -beyond his newly-discovered digestive trouble, and remained -constantly indoors through the hottest and finest of the summer days, -experimenting upon himself with drugs, and studying tables of dietetic -values. He questioned Elsie very little as to her movements, taking it -for granted that she, Morrison, and Geraldine formed a trio. - -In point of fact, the youth whom Geraldine had met at the Sunday -evening concert, and whom she spoke of as Percy Belcher, now almost -always made a fourth in the party. - -Geraldine monopolised him eagerly, and openly showed her triumph at -feeling that she could now afford to relinquish Leslie Morrison. - -Elsie and Morrison went swimming together, and lay on the hot, -crowded sands, and dropped behind the others when they all went for -walks, and sat with locked hands and her cheek against his shoulder -in the stifling, thrilling darkness of the picture theatre, watching -together the representation of a love that was never anything but the -reflection of their own, the eternal triumph of a Man and a Woman, pale -representatives on the screen of Elsie Williams and Leslie Morrison. - -The golden fortnight drew to its close, and with the end of the Torquay -holiday, it suddenly seemed to Elsie as though the end of the world -must come. - -“What are we to do, Leslie?” she gasped. - -“I don’t know, darling,” he said miserably. - -“You’re going to be in town for a bit?” - -“For a little while. They’re sending me off again, pretty soon--abroad -this time.” - -“I can’t live without seeing you sometimes. Oh, Les, how can I go back -to the old life with Horace after _this_?” - -“Elsie,” said Morrison very low, “would he divorce you if----?” - -“Not a hope. It costs money, and he’s too mean. Besides, he’d never do -it if he thought I wanted it. He’s cruel, is Horace.” - -“Not to you?” - -“He doesn’t knock me about, if that’s what you mean--he knows I -wouldn’t stand it--but of course he doesn’t care for me, or for anybody -but himself. I was told he gave his first a rotten time--anyway, I -know she used to look wretched enough. You know there was a first Mrs. -Williams?” - -“No, I didn’t. Of course, I saw he was much older than you. Oh, Elsie, -whatever made you marry him?” - -“Oh, I was a fool and I thought I’d like to be married, and get away -from home. I didn’t know what it was going to be like, that’s certain. -Oh, Les, fancy if I was still Elsie Palmer, and you and me could get -married!” She gave a sob. - -“Don’t, sweetheart! I’d have asked for your promise, fast enough, if -you’d been free, but I couldn’t marry any girl till I’m earning a bit -more.” - -“Don’t you get a good screw, Leslie?” - -“Rotten. But I’m jolly lucky to be in a job at all these days, I -suppose.” - -“Lucky!” Elsie echoed the word drearily. “You and I aren’t amongst the -lucky ones, boy. I don’t see how things are ever going to come right -for us, without a miracle happens.” - -“He--Williams--may ... he may die.” - -“Not he!” said Elsie bitterly. “There’s nothing the matter with him. -All this talk about indigestion is stuff and nonsense--just fads he’s -got into his head. There’s nothing wrong with Horace. And it’s always -the ones who aren’t wanted that live on and on. But how am I going to -bear it, after this wonderful time we’ve been having?” She began to cry. - -“Elsie, don’t, darling! I’ll think of a way. There must be some way -out.” - -Leslie took her in his arms and she forgot everything else. - -On the last evening they all went to the theatre together, and it was -there, for the first time seeming awake to the situation, that Horace -Williams, sitting at the end of the row of stalls, suddenly leaned -across Geraldine and looked long and balefully at his wife. - -She felt herself changing colour. - -Morrison, however, observed nothing. He talked only to Elsie, looked -only at her during the interval, and whilst the play was in progress -and the lights in the theatre lowered, his hand sought and held hers. - -“Elsie, we can’t part like this. How can I see you alone?” - -“We can’t--not here. But Horace starts at the office again on -Wednesday, and he’s there all day. Come to the house.” - -“It means an age without seeing you. Elsie, can I write to you?” - -“Yes ... no....” She was startled. “Oh, Les, darling, I’d love your -letters!... But he’d see them. Wait a minute.” - -She thought rapidly. - -“Address them to the post-office--I’ll call there. He doesn’t know or -care what I do all day, so long as I’m always there in the evenings -when he gets back.” - -But Elsie was to find herself mistaken. Her husband, after their return -to the suburban villa, displayed a very unmistakable interest in her -movements during the hours of his absence at work. - -He obliged her to give him an account of her day, and took to ringing -her up on the telephone for no acknowledged reason, and always at a -different hour. - -At first, Elsie cared little. She and Leslie Morrison met daily, and -on one occasion spent the afternoon in the country together. Elsie -recklessly telephoned to her own house at seven o’clock that evening, -and said that she was with Irene Tidmarsh, and should not come home -that night. - -“You must,” said the hollow voice at the other end of the line. - -“I can’t. Her father’s awfully ill, and she’s afraid of being left.” - -“When shall you be home?” - -“To-morrow.” - -“I’ll come and fetch you.” - -“All right,” said Elsie boldly. “What time?” - -There was no answer. Williams had rung off. - -Elsie knew, beyond the possibility of mistake, that her husband -suspected her; but in the intense excitement that possessed her she was -conscious of nothing so much as of relief that a crisis should be at -hand. - -She spent the night with Leslie Morrison at a tiny hotel in Essex. - -Early next morning they travelled back to London, parting at Liverpool -Street station. - -“Let me know what happens directly you can, darling,” urged the man. - -“I’ll telephone. Anyway, come round as soon as you can get away. _He_ -won’t be in before seven.” - -“Good-bye, Elsie darling. I’ll never, never forget....” - -He left her, joining a hurrying throng of other young men wearing soft -hats and carrying little brown bags, nearly all of them hastening -towards the City. - -Elsie proceeded by train and tram to the house of Irene’s father. - -Her friend opened the door to her. “Hullo! I thought I should see you. -That hubby of yours is on the warpath.” - -“What’s happened?” - -“Oh, nothing, thanks to me! Come in, Elsie. Have you had breakfast?” - -“I’ve had some tea; I don’t want anything else. Tell me about Horace.” - -“Well, Horace, as you call him, saw fit to come round here at eleven -o’clock p.m. last night, and got me out of my virtuous downy by ringing -at the front door bell till I thought the house was on fire. He said -he’d ‘come for’ his wife, if you please!” - -“I know. I told him I was going to spend the night at your place,” said -Elsie calmly. “I suppose you didn’t happen to tumble to it, Ireen?” - -“I’ve not known you all these years for nothing, old girl,” said Irene, -grinning. “What do you take me for? I told him you were in bed and -asleep, and had been for hours.” - -“You’re a real sport, Ireen! How did he take it?” - -Irene pursed up her lips and shook her head. “He asked me to tell you -to ring him up first thing this morning. If you ask me, you’re in for -trouble. And p’r’aps now you’ll be so kind as to tell me what it all -means, and why on earth you couldn’t have given me fair warning before -saying you were here. It’s lucky for you I didn’t give the whole show -away on the spot.” - -Elsie, habitually ready to discuss any of her love-affairs with Irene, -had told her nothing about Leslie Morrison. But she saw now that a -degree of frankness was inevitable. - -Irene listened, sitting on the kitchen table, her shrewd, cynical gaze -fixed upon Elsie. “You’re for it, all right,” she observed dryly. “I -thought directly I saw you after you’d got back from Torquay that there -was something up. But I somehow didn’t think you’d go off the deep end -like that, Elsie. Why, you’re dotty about him!” - -“Yes,” said Elsie, “I am.” - -“And what do you suppose is going to happen?” - -Elsie groaned. “I wish to the Lord that Horace would do the decent -thing, or go West--and let me have a chance of happiness.” - -“He won’t,” said Irene. “Well, whatever you do, don’t make a fool of -yourself and run off with this fellow. It simply isn’t worth it, when -he hasn’t got a penny, and not very often when he has.” - -“If I thought Horace would divorce me it’d be different,” Elsie said. -She was not listening to Irene at all. “Though even then, I don’t know -what we would live on. Leslie hasn’t anything except his salary, and -that’s tiny, and I’m sure I couldn’t earn a penny if I tried. Mother -wouldn’t help me, either, if I did a thing like that.” - -“No more would anybody else. And surely to goodness, Elsie, you’d never -be such a fool. Think what it would mean to be disgraced, and have a -scandal.” - -“I wouldn’t mind that with him.” - -Irene groaned. “You are far gone! Well, the worse it is while it lasts, -the sooner it’s over. You’ll see sense again one of these days, I -suppose. Meanwhile, you’d better ’phone that husband of yours.” - -Elsie’s conversation with Williams over the telephone was brief. She -agreed to come home at midday, and neither made any reference to the -visit of Williams at eleven o’clock on the previous night. - -Elsie anticipated a scene with her husband, and felt indifferent to the -prospect. She had not enough imagination to work herself up in advance, -and, moreover, her faculties were entirely occupied with the blissful -expectation of seeing Morrison again that afternoon. - -He came some hours after she had arrived home. - -Elsie had done some shopping in the morning. With her husband’s money -she had bought a gold-nibbed fountain-pen for Leslie, and had paid for -copies of a photograph of herself. - -She had scarcely ever in her life before given anyone a present, and -Leslie Morrison’s ardent thanks, and rapture over the photograph, -caused her the most acute pleasure. - -“Darling, it’s lovely, and it’s just you! I shall always carry it about -with me, done up with your dear letters.” - -“Don’t keep my letters, Leslie,” said Elsie suddenly. - -“Why ever not?” - -A sudden recollection had come to her ... “_Beware of the written -word...._” - -The medium to whom Irene had once taken her had said that. She had also -said other things; had told Elsie that love would come to her.... -Perhaps she really knew.... - -“I’d rather you didn’t, really,” she said feebly. “Suppose--suppose -Horace ever got hold of them----” - -“How could he? Besides, Elsie darling, he’s got to know about us some -time. I wish you’d let me tell him now. I can’t go on like this; it’s -a low-down game coming to a man’s house without his knowledge and--and -making love to his wife.” - -“His wife!” said Elsie angrily. “Don’t call me that. I may be his wife -in law, but it’s you that I really belong to.” - -“Well, let me have it out with him then,” said Morrison earnestly. “We -don’t know, after all. He may be ready to do the decent thing, and set -you free.” - -“I don’t care if you do. I’m pretty sure he guesses.... Horace has -always been jealous, though he’s never had any cause before.” - -“He didn’t say anything at Torquay?” - -“No, it’s since we got back. He asked me once if you were engaged to -Geraldine, and I said no. And he asked if you meant to come and see -us here, and I told him most likely you would. He didn’t say anything -much, but he hates a man coming near the place, really.” - -“I’d far rather have it out with him,” young Morrison repeated. His -face was resolute, and he stood his ground when Elsie, starting -violently, exclaimed: - -“I believe that’s Horace now! I can hear his key in the door. He’s -never in at this hour as a rule--the skunk, he’s come to spy on me!” - -“Darling, it’s all right!” said Morrison. - -He put the photograph away in his breast-pocket with hands that -trembled slightly. Both fixed their eyes on the door as it opened upon -the figure of the little elderly solicitor. His face wore a no more -sardonic expression than was habitual with him, and Elsie could not -deduce from it whether or not he was surprised to see Leslie Morrison. - -Neither man made any movement towards shaking hands, but they -greeted one another conventionally, and talked a little, as though -indifferently, of the holiday at Torquay. - -Leslie asked whether Mr. Williams was any better in health, and the -solicitor replied coldly: - -“No, I am no better. I daresay my case would be a very interesting one, -from the point of view of a doctor. But I am not one to give up, and I -have no doubt that a great many people do not realise there is anything -the matter with me.” - -He turned his eyes upon Elsie for a moment as he spoke. - -At the same instant, the inevitable thought that had flashed through -her mind at his words caused Elsie to cast a lightning glance towards -Leslie Morrison. - -It was that glance that her husband intercepted. - - - - -V - - -They had another evening together before the storm broke. - -Morrison took Elsie to a dance. - -He issued his invitation boldly, in the presence of Williams, and to -Elsie’s secret astonishment, her husband made no objection to her -acceptance. - -She wanted terribly to buy a new dress for the dance, but dared not -risk a reminder to her husband, for fear he should suddenly forbid -her to go. Finally she decided to wear a black dress, covered with -black net, and with black net shoulder-straps. It was not new, but she -had seldom had any occasion for wearing it, and she had enough money -in hand for the housekeeping to enable her to buy a pair of black -artificial silk stockings and slim black satin shoes with high heels. - -Round her thick, light hair she tied a black velvet band with a spray -of forget-me-nots worked in blue silk across it, but instinct told her -to leave her full, beautiful throat unadorned by any of the few cheap -ornaments that she possessed. Her smooth skin showed a sort of golden -glow that merged imperceptibly into the warm pallor of her round arms -and the dimpled base of her neck. - -Elsie looked for a long while at herself in the glass, rubbed lip-salve -into her already scarlet mouth, and, despite the “Japanesey” effect of -lids that seemed half-closed, wondered at the brilliant light in her -own hazel-grey eyes. - -Leslie Morrison came for her, and they left the house together before -Williams arrived from the office. - -To both of them it was an unforgettable evening. - -Elsie, like all women of her type, was a born dancer. Nevertheless, -before the evening was half over, they had left the crowded hall for a -screened alcove in an upper gallery, where the reiterated refrain of -syncopated airs, and the wistful rhythm of valse-times, reached them -through the haze of ascending cigarette-smoke. - -It was three o’clock when they exchanged a last close, passionate -embrace and Elsie, pale, exhausted, with indescribably shining eyes, -crept upstairs to her room, undressed, and lay down noiselessly by the -side of her husband to relive the evening that she had spent with her -lover. - -Williams left the house next morning without waking her, but it was -that evening that the inevitable crisis came. - -The solicitor returned home nearly two hours before his usual time, and -found Leslie Morrison just preparing to enter the house. - -The two men went in together. - -Elsie started violently at the sight of her husband, and then laughed -artificially. “Hullo! It’s a case of Oh, what a surprise, isn’t it? -You’re back early, Horace.” - -“Yes,” said her husband. - -“I hope you’re not too tired after last night,” Morrison began. - -“Oh no, thanks! It was fine. Horace, I haven’t told you about the dance -yet. It’s a shame you weren’t there.” - -The moment she said the words, Elsie knew that she had made a mistake. - -“Yes,” Williams remarked quietly, “you’d have liked me to be there, -wouldn’t you? Well, let me inform you that you aren’t going to any more -dances for the present.” - -“Whatever do you mean, Horace?” - -“Morrison knows what I mean all right, and so do you, you little ----” -His low, snarling tone gave the effect of spitting the ugly word at her. - -Leslie Morrison sprang to his feet. “Look here, sir----” - -The solicitor held up his hand. “That’ll do. It’s not for you to adopt -that tone in speaking to me, you know. Please to remember that I’m -Elsie’s husband.” - -“Look here,” Morrison began again, “I’m perfectly ready to make a clean -breast of it. I do love Elsie. Her and me were just pals at first, and -then I suppose I didn’t exactly realise where I was drifting. But I’m -free to confess that I lost my head one--one evening a little while -ago--and I told her I loved her.” He glanced at Elsie, as though for a -further cue. - -“And of course she told you that she was a pure woman, and a loving -wife, and you must never speak like that again?” sneered Horace -Williams. - -“Elsie, don’t let him speak like that.... Tell him!” urged Morrison. - -“I don’t need any telling,” Williams retorted smoothly. “She thinks -she’s in love with you, of course.” - -“I am in love with Leslie,” said Elsie suddenly. “And if you did the -decent thing, Horace, you’d set me free to marry him. You and me have -never been happy together. I didn’t ever ought to have married you, but -I was a young fool.” - -“Understand this, the pair of you,” said the little solicitor clearly -and deliberately. “I shall never set you free, as you call it. You’ve -married me, and you’ve got to stay with me. As for you,” he turned to -Leslie Morrison, “you can leave my house. And understand clearly that I -won’t have you inside it again. And if I catch you speaking to my wife -again, or meeting her, or having anything whatsoever to do with her, -it’ll be the worse for you.” - -Morrison took a sudden step forward, his hands clenched, and Elsie -screamed, but Horace Williams stood his ground. - -“I’m well within my rights, and you know it,” he declared. “I could -horsewhip you, in fact, and if you were fool enough to bring a case for -assault it’d go against you. _Clear out!_ That’s my last word to you.” - -“Will you let Elsie have a divorce?” - -“No, I won’t.” - -“Will you let her have a legal separation, then? You’ve her own word -for it that she’s not happy with you. I’m not thinking of myself, -but you can’t have the cruelty to keep her tied to you when she’s -miserable. Let her have her freedom.” - -For all answer, Williams pointed to the door. The expression of his -face had not altered by a hair’s-breadth. - -Morrison turned to Elsie, white and tense. “Elsie, you hear what he -says. What d’you want me to do?” - -Elsie had lost her nerve. She began to cry hysterically. Instead of -answering Morrison’s appeal, she turned to her husband. - -“Why can’t you let us just be pals, Leslie and me?” she sobbed. “You -bring your horrid, mean jealousy into everything. I s’pose you don’t -grudge me having a friend of my own age, do you?” - -Leslie Morrison instantly and loyally followed her lead. “If Elsie is -kind enough to let me be her friend, and--and take her out every now -and then, and that sort of thing, I’m willing to forget what’s just -passed, and simply ask you as man to man if you’ve any objection to us -being, as she says, just pals,” he said steadily enough. - -“I have every objection. You young fool, Elsie has just said in so many -words that she’s in love with you. Did you mean that, Elsie, or did you -not?” - -Elsie sobbed more and more violently, and her voice rose to an -incoherent screech. “How do I know what I mean or don’t mean, when you -make a row like this? But I’ll tell you this much, anyway, it’s true -what he said; I’m wretched with you, and if you were half a man, you’d -set me free.” - -“There, that’s enough,” said Williams. “Going round and round in a -circle won’t help any of us, and you ought to know by this time, Elsie, -that I always mean what I say. You’ll please to remember what you were -when I married you--a little fool of a typist, without a penny, whose -mother kept a boarding-house and was only too glad of the money I gave -her. It doesn’t take a genius to say what would have happened to you if -you hadn’t found a man fool enough to marry you, either.” - -“Stop that!” Morrison shouted. - -The solicitor blinked at him quietly. “I’ve twice told you to get out -of my house,” he observed. “Don’t make me say it a third time. It’ll be -the worse, if you do--for Elsie.” - -“Are you threatening her, you--you brute, you?” - -“I object to your friendship with my wife. That’s all--and enough too. -Now go.” - -“Oh yes, go!” said Elsie suddenly, breaking into renewed sobs and -tears. “I can’t stand this. You’d better go, Leslie boy, really you -had. I shall do myself in, that’s all.” - -“Don’t talk like that----” the youth began frantically, but Williams -opened the door, and stood silently pointing to it. - -There was something strangely inexorable in his little, trivial figure -and sinister, passionless expression. - -“Elsie,” said Morrison brokenly, “if ever you want me, send for me. -I’ll come!” - -He went out of the room, and they heard him go down the stairs and let -himself out at the front door. - -“That’s the end of that,” said Williams in a quiet, satisfied voice. -“Stop that howling, Elsie. You didn’t really suppose that I didn’t know -what was going on?” - -She sobbed and would not answer. - -There was a long silence, and at last Elsie, face downwards on the -sofa, began to feel frightened and curious. She bore it as long as she -could, and then looked up. - -Her husband was gazing out of the window, in which a potted aspidistra -stood upon a wicker stand between soiled white curtains. - -At the slight movement that she made he turned his head. “Elsie, tell -me. Did you really mean what you said, that you’re in love with that -boy?” - -To her incredulous surprise, his voice had become hoarse and almost -maudlin. - -“You only said it to make me angry, didn’t you?” - -In a flash Elsie saw the wisdom of allowing him at least to pretend to -such a belief. “Perhaps I did,” she said slowly. “Anyway, it’s true -enough that we aren’t particularly happy together, and never have been. -And I meant what I said about a separation, right enough, Horace.” - -“You won’t get one,” said Williams, and his voice had become -vicious-sounding once more. “And remember what I’ve said--that fellow -is never to set foot in here again, and you and he are not to meet in -future.” - - * * * * * - -The following morning Elsie went to the High Street post-office and -found there the letter that she had expected. - - “MY OWN DARLING GIRLIE, - - “What is to be done? I can’t tell you, darling, what a hound I felt - to leave you all alone with that jealous brute yesterday and yet the - awful thing is that he has the right to you and I have none. Oh, - Elsie life is hard isn’t it darling? I wish I could take you away but - that cannot be and it is you that have to bear the brunt of it all - except that I am in hell knowing what you are going through all the - time. Perhaps that is not an expression I ought to use to you but you - must excuse it for I hardly know what I am writing. - - “One of our chaps has gone sick, and they are sending me to the North - instead of him which means we can’t meet again as I go off to-morrow. - But write to me darling and tell me what it is best to do now. Would - it simplify things if we were to be just friends and no more? - - “Cheer up, Elsie perhaps some day things may come right for us--who - knows? He may die; doesn’t he always say there is something wrong - with him? - - “A thousand kisses for you, dearie. I have your sweet photo with me - and love to look at it and re-read your wonderful letters. Write and - tell me everything, and what you think we had better do. Shall we be - able to meet when I come back at the end of the month? - - “No more at present, from - - “Your own true lover, Leslie, - “BOY.” - -To Elsie, Leslie Morrison’s love-letters were wonderful. - -She read and re-read this one, but when she had answered it, she burnt -it. - -Certain words of the clairvoyante, whom she had once visited with Irene -Tidmarsh, she had never been able to forget, and of late they had -haunted her anew. - -“_Beware of the written word...._” - -Elsie burnt all Morrison’s letters to her, and asked him to burn all -those that she wrote him. - -Gradually these letters that passed between them grew to be the most -important factor in her life. - -Elsie, who had detested writing, now desired nothing so much as to pour -out her soul on paper, and the limitations that she found imposed upon -her through lack of education and the power to express herself made her -angry. - -Again and again she asked Morrison in her letters to take her away, -and after a time his steadfast refusals bred in her mind the first -unbearable suspicion that her passion was the greater of the two. Her -letters became wilder and wilder. - -Sometimes she threatened suicide, or gave hysterical and entirely -imaginary descriptions of scenes with her husband; sometimes she -expressed a reckless desire for Horace’s death, or asked if she could -“give him something” unspecified. These phrases, to a large extent, -were meaningless, but Elsie frantically hoped by them to impress upon -Morrison the extent of her love for him. - -When he got back from the North of England they met surreptitiously. - -A certain café in a small street not far from Elsie’s home became their -rendezvous. Sometimes Morrison was able to get there in the middle of -the day, but generally he came at about five o’clock, and they had tea -together. Very occasionally they met early in the afternoon and went -out together. - -Each meeting was entirely inconclusive, save in exciting Elsie almost -to frenzy and reducing young Morrison to further depths of despondency. - -The months dragged on. Morrison was often away, and then he and Elsie -wrote to one another daily. She was entirely obsessed with the thought -of her lover, and hardly ever saw Irene Tidmarsh, or went to Hillbourne -Terrace. And all the while, Horace Williams said nothing. - -He and his wife did not quarrel; indeed, they hardly spoke to one -another, but the atmosphere between them, day by day, was becoming more -heavily charged with mutual hatred and apprehension. - - - - -VI - - -The tension under which Elsie now lived began at last to affect her -health. She slept badly, and was nervous as she had never been before. - -Williams watched her without comment--a sinister little figure. -Sometimes, utterly overwrought, Elsie tried to force a scene with him, -but she only once succeeded in making him evince anger. - -Strangely reckless, she suddenly suggested that Leslie Morrison should -be invited to lodge in their house, with no slightest expectation that -her husband would entertain such a scheme, but with a wild desire to -provoke him to a scene that should release some of her own pent-up -emotion. - -“He’s looking for rooms, Geraldine says,” she declared, “and we’ve a -bedroom to spare, and might as well use it.” - -Williams gazed at her incredulously. “Are you aware that I’ve shown -Morrison the door once already?” he asked at last. - -“Yes, I’m quite aware of that,” said Elsie, with insolence in her -voice. “I thought you might have got more sense now, that’s all.” - -“Listen to me, Elsie. I forbade you to speak to that fellow again--and -by God, if you’ve done so, I’ll see you never forget it!” His face was -livid and he spoke through his clenched teeth. - -“I’ll speak to whom I please.” - -“Have you been meeting Morrison?” - -“Why shouldn’t I?” - -Elsie felt a curious pleasure and relief in thus mocking at the furious -jealousy that was evident in her husband’s face and manner. - -“Answer my question.” - -She remained silent. - -“Are you and that fellow in love?” - -“I’ve answered that before. I told you months ago, when you first -started to insult me, that he was nothing to me.” - -“That wasn’t true then--and it isn’t now. Morrison’s in love with you, -damn him, and you’re in love with him!” - -“Am I?” - -Elsie laughed derisively in the new and uncomprehended realisation that -she was no longer afraid of Horace. - -“You little bitch!...” - -He caught her by the shoulders and suddenly flung her against the wall. - -Elsie screamed, but it was reflex action from the physical shock alone -that made her do so. She was neither frightened nor very much startled. -There was even an odd exhilaration for her in the sudden release of -those pent-up forces that had for so long vibrated tensely between -herself and her husband. - -However, her arm and shoulder were bruised, and her whole body -violently jarred. “You’re a coward!” she panted. “Hitting a woman!” - -“You drove me to it.... Elsie, get up!... I’m sorry I did that, but -you’re driving me mad. God, if I had that fellow here I’d wring the -life out of him!” - -“No, you wouldn’t,” Elsie taunted him. “He’s a great deal stronger than -you are--he’s a man, he is--you’d never dare to touch him. All you can -do is to knock a woman about.” - -“That’s a lie! I’ve never touched you before, though there’s many a man -in my place would have beaten you within an inch of your life. I didn’t -know what I was doing just now.” - -He took a step towards her, but Elsie pulled herself up from the floor -without appearing to notice the movement. She felt slightly giddy, and -her head ached. - -“Aren’t you going to--to forgive me? I oughtn’t to have hit you, I -acknowledge, but you’ve done everything to drive me to it. Elsie, swear -to me that there’s nothing now between you and Morrison.” - -“Oh, all right,” she said wearily. “I swear it.” She felt that she no -longer cared what happened in a sudden overwhelming fatigue. - -“I don’t believe you,” said Williams bitterly. - -Elsie shrugged her shoulders, and turned, moving stiffly, to leave the -room. - -“Are you--are you hurt?” - -“Yes, of course I am. My shoulder will be black and blue to-morrow, I -should think.” - -“Shall I get you anything?” Williams muttered, shamefaced. - -She made no answer. - -That afternoon Elsie rang up Leslie Morrison on the telephone after her -husband had gone out. “Is that you, Les?” - -“Yes. How’s yourself?” - -He had told her never to be prodigal of verbal endearments in their -telephone communications, and she knew that he was probably not alone, -but it struck her painfully that his tone was a purely casual one, such -as he might have used to anyone. - -“We’ve had an awful scene, boy.” - -“What--who?” - -“Him--Horace--and me. The same old thing, of course--jealousy. I stood -up to him, and told him I didn’t intend to put up with that sort of -treatment any longer, and I’d never give up anyone I--I liked.” - -“I say, Elsie, you were careful, weren’t you?” asked Morrison, his -voice grown anxious. - -“Yes, yes, darling, of course I was, for your sake. But Leslie--this is -what happened--he knocked me down.” - -There was a smothered exclamation that made her heart leap with sudden -exultation. Of course Leslie cared.... - -“Elsie--girlie--he didn’t! Are you hurt?” - -She could have laughed in pure joy at his sharply-anxious question. - -“Nothing bad. Shaken, of course, and I expect there’ll be a bad bruise, -but I can put up with worse than that, you know.” - -“You oughtn’t to have to! The hound! I’d like to.... Look here, can’t -we meet?” - -“Yes, yes!” she said eagerly. “What about tea? I’ll come to----” - -“The same place,” he interrupted quickly, and she understood that he -did not want her to mention the name of the tea-shop that had so often -served them as rendezvous. - -“What time?” - -“About half-past five. I shan’t get away any earlier.” - -“All right, darling. I’ll be there.” - -“Sure you’re all right?” - -“Yes, quite all right now,” Elsie declared, laughing happily. - -“I must go. See you later, then?” - -“Yes. Good-bye, boy.” - -The answering good-bye came to her faintly over the wires as the final -click warned her that he had hung up the receiver. - -Elsie looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. Only three o’clock--two -hours and a quarter before she could think of starting out. - -The telephone rang again, and Elsie, with a joyful hope that Morrison -had been unable to resist a further word, snatched at the instrument. - -“Hallo, hallo! Who’s there?” - -“I am--Horace,” said her husband’s flat, nasal voice. “Look here. How -would you like to go to the play to-night, Elsie?” - -“What!” said Elsie, disappointed at not hearing Leslie Morrison’s voice -again, and still dazed from the scene of the morning. - -“I said, how would you like to do a theatre to-night? I’ve got tickets -for ‘The Girl on the Pier’--good places--for to-night.” - -She understood at last that he was seeking to propitiate her, and to -make up for his violence. “I don’t mind. What time does it start?” - -“Half-past eight, but we’d better meet in town somewhere for some food. -I shan’t have time to come home first. What about the Corner House, -at about seven o’clock? That’ll give us plenty of time to go on to -Shaftesbury Avenue afterwards.” - -“All right. How many tickets have you got, Horace?” - -“Just the two. I thought you and I would go by ourselves and have a -jolly evening,” said the far-away voice rather tremulously. - -Elsie laughed drearily as she rang off. - -It seemed to her that the time dragged interminably until she could go -upstairs and dress herself for the evening’s outing. She meant to meet -Morrison first and then go on to the Corner House and wait there for -her husband. - -Elsie put on a dark blue coat and skirt, with a new pale blue jumper -of artificial silk, and a big black hat with a blue feather. Round her -neck she wore a small black fur. - -After her variable wont, she had suddenly recovered her looks, after -the sodden, stupefied ugliness that the morning’s unhappiness had -produced in her. Her eyes seemed more widely opened than usual, her -hair fell into thick curls and rings, and a soft, bright colour lay -under her oddly prominent cheek-bones. She rubbed lip-stick on to her -full, sulkily-cut mouth, and lavishly powdered her straight, beautiful -neck. The glow of excitement and gladness transformed her as she went -out to meet Morrison, slamming the door of the villa behind her. - -“Darling!” - -“My own dear little girl!” said Leslie, and held both her gloved hands -for a moment in his. “I haven’t been able to think of anything but what -you told me this afternoon. Are we going for a walk, or will you come -in?” - -“I’d like to come in and sit down,” said Elsie languidly. “Have you had -tea?” - -“No. I’ll order some.” - -“Not for me, boy. I’m meeting Horace for a meal in about an hour and a -half. We’re going to the theatre.” - -“Have you made it up, then?” - -“Oh, I suppose so! He telephoned and said he had these tickets. I -suppose he thought it’d make up, in a way.” - -They chose a corner table at the further end of the tea-shop, and Elsie -took off her coat and leant against it as it lay folded over the back -of her chair. - -“Where did he hurt you this morning?” said Morrison intently. - -She pulled up the loose sleeve of her silk jumper. “Look!” - -Her smooth, soft arm was already discoloured all round the elbow and up -to the shoulder. - -“It’s worse higher up, only I can’t get at it now to show you.” - -“_Damn_ him!” Leslie Morrison muttered between his teeth. - -His boyish face was black with an intensity of feeling that Elsie had -seldom seen there of late. It sent a rush of joyful reassurance all -through her. - -“Darling, I don’t care about anything while we’ve got each other.” - -“But it can’t go on, Elsie. He’s making your life miserable. Isn’t -there any hope of a divorce, or even a separation?” - -“He says he never will.” - -Elsie spoke slowly. She was revolving a possibility, that she had often -viewed before in her own mind. - -“Les, can’t we go away together? I don’t care what happens, or what -people think of me. I’d face anything, with you.” - -Even as she spoke, she knew--and one side of her was relieved to -know--that Morrison would negative the suggestion, as he had often done -before. - -“Out of the question, darling girl. Think what I’m getting--two -twenty-five a year and no particular prospect of a rise for years to -come. And look at what you’ve been used to!” - -“Not before I married.” - -“Times were different then. It was before the war. Living has gone up -five hundred per cent. since then, and it’ll be many a long year before -it comes down again. Why, Elsie, we couldn’t even live!” - -“I don’t know whether you think I’m living now!” she exclaimed -vehemently. “Existing, I call it. And we shall only be young once, -Leslie, and it seems so hard to waste it all.” - -He groaned, and they sat silent for a time, their hands locked together -beneath the table. - -“Would you be ready to--to end it all?” she asked suddenly. “I mean for -us to go out together, right out of life?” - -“Do you mean suicide?” - -“Yes--a suicide pact.” - -She fixed her eyes upon him, anxious to believe that he was startled, -and acutely touched, at the lengths to which her love could carry her. -The actual idea behind the word--that of suicide--conveyed very little -to her. Although she believed herself to be fully in earnest, Elsie -never seriously contemplated her own death, nor that of her lover. - -She had often thought of Williams’s death as the one possible solution -of their problem, but she had actually never really abandoned the -secret expectation that a way out would be found for herself and -Morrison that would secure their happiness. - -She had read of suicide-pacts, and seized upon the idea eagerly as one -more peg upon which to hang the proofs of her passion for Morrison, and -maintain his love, and his interest in herself, at the level of her own -ardour. Although never consciously owning it to herself, Elsie knew -that his love was a lesser one than hers. - -Leslie Morrison, now, did not make the passionate response for which -she had hoped. “Don’t talk like that. Oh, Elsie, it is hard, isn’t it? -And you don’t know what it’s like for me to think of that brute making -your life miserable. If only there was anything I could do!... I think -about it till I see red sometimes. Why doesn’t he die?” - -“Because we want him to, I suppose,” said Elsie, suddenly listless. -“He’s always talking about his health failing, and things like that, -but I don’t see any sign of it myself. Things will never come right for -us in this world, Leslie.” - -“Elsie, I’ll make him get a separation; I swear I will. It’s the only -possible thing. Then at least you’ll be free.” - -She noticed that he did not refer to the separation between herself and -her husband as to a means of furthering their own love. - -“Haven’t your people ever tried to get your freedom for you?” - -“Oh, I’ve nobody much, you know! Only mother and Geraldine, and the old -aunties. They don’t approve of me either--never did.” - -“Poor little girl, they don’t understand you!” - -“I don’t care while I’ve got you, Leslie.” - -They made love to one another, their voices low, until Morrison -reminded Elsie suddenly that it was late. - -“You’ll hardly get to the West End by seven now. I’m glad you’re going -to enjoy yourself to-night, anyway.” - -“I wish we were going together, Les, just you and I. That’s how it -ought to be. Are we going to meet to-morrow, dearest?” - -“Lunch here, can you? One o’clock. And meanwhile, darling, I’m going -to think hard what I can do to make things better for you. He’s got to -stop leading you this sort of life, anyway, and it’s up to me to find a -way of making him do so. When I think of his knocking you about....” - -The blood rushed into his face, and Elsie saw that he had clenched his -hand involuntarily. It was balm to her to realise that she still had -the power of exciting him to a frenzied anxiety on her account. - -“He’s hit me before now, you know,” she said suddenly, hardly -realising, and caring not at all, that she was not speaking the truth. - -“You never told me. I’ve sometimes wondered....” - -“I didn’t mean to say anything about it. I knew it would upset you.... -Never mind, darling, I don’t care.” - -“But I do. I tell you it’s driving me mad. Oh, what’s the good of -talking when one can’t do anything! Look here, darling, I’m not fit to -talk to you now--and besides, you’ll be frightfully late. I shall see -you to-morrow.” - -“One o’clock. Good-night, sweetheart. I wish it was you and me going to -this show to-night. Wouldn’t it be heaven!” - -“Indeed it would. But things may come right for us even yet, -darling--don’t give up hope. Good-bye.” - -“Good-bye!” she echoed. - -Elsie was late for her appointment with her husband, but he did not -complain. He seemed anxious to do everything in his power to conciliate -her, and it was characteristic of their relations together that, as -her fear of his sarcastic petulance vanished, so her contempt for him -increased. - -“I got dress-circle places,” said Williams impressively. “I know you -like them.” - -The piece, a musical comedy, amused her, and she was pleased at various -glances that were cast upon her by their neighbours in the theatre. -At the back of it all was a warm inward glow that pervaded all her -consciousness at the remembrance of Leslie Morrison’s championship of -her, his assurance that he would “think out a way.” - -Perhaps Leslie would make up his mind to take her away. She had asked -him to do so, and he had always refused. Elsie, with an ever-latent -fear that Morrison was already beginning to tire of an attachment that -to her was the one reality in life, told herself passionately that, -with him, she would care nothing for poverty. - -“It’s good, isn’t it?” said her husband’s nasal voice. - -“Rather. Topping!” - -For a minute or two she listened to the comedian on the stage, and was -genuinely amused by his facial contortions and wilful mispronunciations -of polysyllabic words. - -“He’s so silly, you can’t help laughing at him,” Elsie declared, wiping -her eyes. - -Then she drifted back again into the dream wherein she and Leslie -Morrison figured as sole protagonists, with complete and unexplained -elimination of Horace Williams. - -“Look who’s here, Elsie!” - -She started violently, convinced against all reason that she would see -Morrison. - -“Isn’t that your aunties?” - -“So it is,” said Elsie without enthusiasm. - -Aunt Ada and Aunt Gertie were making violent signs to her, and in the -interval Horace, still evidently bent upon doing everything possible to -please her, insisted upon going to speak to them, and suggested supper -after the play. - -“He is going it,” Elsie reflected dispassionately, not in the least -touched, but a good deal amazed at the lavishness of Horace’s amends. - -She was in reality very much bored by the company of the two aunts in -the little restaurant to which they eventually went. - -“Why don’t you go and see your poor mother, Elsie?” - -“I do see her, Aunt Gertie.” - -“Not very often, dear.” - -“As often as I’ve time for,” said Elsie curtly. - -“Geraldine’s not looking well,” Aunt Ada began next. - -“What happened to that young fellow she was supposed to be going with -last year?” - -Horace Williams called abruptly for his bill. “It’s after twelve, and -I’ve got to be at work to-morrow, if you ladies haven’t. All good -things must come to an end, you know.” - -“It’s been most pleasant, I’m sure,” said Aunt Gertie. - -And when Horace had gone to pay the account at the cash-desk, she added -sentimentally to Elsie: - -“It’s a real pleasure to have seen you and him together--and so happy.” - -“Thanks,” said Elsie sarcastically. “We’re as happy as the day is long, -of course.” - -“So you ought to be,” said Aunt Ada very sharply. - -They exchanged good-byes outside the restaurant, and Elsie and her -husband went by Tube to their own station. - -The long suburban road was almost deserted when they came out into it. - -“We’ll go by the Grove, of course,” said Elsie, indicating the narrow -alleyway that eventually merged into their own street, with a high -blank wall upon one side of it and the backs of a rather sordid row of -houses upon the other. - -A few leafless plane-trees showed above the top of the wall, and an -occasional tall lamp slightly relieved the gloom of the long, paved -passage-way. - -Their footsteps on the stones were clearly audible in the unusual -stillness that belonged both to the deserted locality and to the small -hours of the morning. - -“Who’s that?” said Horace so suddenly that Elsie jumped. - -Footsteps were hurrying behind them, and they both turned. With a -strange sense of foreknowledge, Elsie saw Leslie Morrison. - -The two men stopped dead as they came face to face with one another. -Elsie shrank back against the high yellow brick wall, her eyes fixed -upon Morrison’s ravaged face. - -“I couldn’t rest for thinking of it all. I know what happened to-day, -Williams,” he said in a high, strained voice. “It can’t go on. You’re -making Elsie’s life hell. Give her her freedom.” - -“Damn you! Who are you to interfere between man and wife?” said -Williams, low and fiercely. “I know what you want, both of you, but you -won’t have it. Elsie’s my wife, and I shan’t let her go.” - -“You’ve got to.” - -Horace Williams, looking full at the youth, who was shaking from head -to foot with excitement, gave his low, malevolent laugh. - -Almost at the same instant Elsie heard her own voice screaming, “Don’t -... don’t...!” and saw the flash of a knife as Morrison raised his arm -and struck again and again. - -Williams spun round as though to run, and his eyes, oddly -surprised-looking, glared, straight and unseeing, at Elsie. - -Leslie Morrison stabbed at him again in the back. - -“What have you done?” sobbed Elsie to Morrison. “Oh, go!” - -She saw Morrison dash away up the passage, and at the same moment -Horace Williams took a few steps forward. - -“Keep up--I’ll help you!” gasped Elsie. - -She thrust her arm beneath his elbow, dimly astonished and relieved to -find that he was walking, when he suddenly lurched heavily against her, -the upper part of his body sagging forward. Then he fell heavily and -lay motionless, blood trickling from his mouth. - -Elsie, utterly distraught, and her knees shaking under her, felt her -screams strangled in her throat. A distant figure showed at the near -end of the alley, and she flew, rather than ran, towards the stranger, -calling out in a high, sobbing voice for a doctor--for help. - -The woman, elderly and respectable-looking, asked what had happened. - -“I don’t know,” said Elsie. A blind horror was upon her, but instinct -warned her to make no definite statement of any kind. - -A nightmare confusion followed. The alleyway, from being a silent -and deserted spot, became clamorous with footsteps and voices. Elsie -dimly heard a tall man in evening clothes saying that he was a doctor, -and saw him kneel beside the blood-spattered form huddled upon the -pavement. It was he, and a stalwart policeman, who finally lifted that -which had been Horace Williams on to a hand-ambulance and took it away. - -Another man in police uniform took Elsie’s arm, giving her the support -that alone enabled her to move, and helped her to a taxi. - -She almost fell into it, weeping hysterically, and he took his place -beside her as a matter of course. In the sick, convulsed terror that -shook her, his stolid presence was an actual relief. She thought that -he was taking her home until he gently explained that she was coming -with him to the police-station. - -“We want to get this cleared up, you know, and you can help us by -telling us just what happened.” - -A new and more dreadful fear came over her. If Horace was dead someone -would be accused of having killed him. They might suspect her.... Elsie -felt as though she were going mad with the horror of it all. - -She began hysterically to scream and cry. - - - - -VII - - -It was still early in the day when Elsie’s mother came to her at the -police-station. Her fat face was white, stained and mottled with tears. - -“It seems too bad to be true,” she kept on repeating again and again. -“That’s what I said when I heard about poor Horace: too bad to be true. -And you in this dreadful place, Elsie, and such a state as you’re -in--and no wonder. The whole thing seems too bad to be true.” - -“Have they--found anything? Shall I be able to go home soon?” asked -Elsie. - -“I don’t know, dearie. They’ve got to find out who killed poor Horace, -you know. Elsie, you’ve always been a sensible girl. You must tell them -all you know, however dreadful to you it is to speak of such things. Or -I’ll tell them for you, if you’d rather just have it out with mother. -Didn’t you see anyone?” - -“Someone flew past, and as I turned to speak to Horace, I saw the blood -coming out of his mouth.” - -“Who was it flew past?” said Mrs. Palmer. - -“I don’t know. It all happened in a flash, like,” said Elsie. - -“You and Horace were happy together, weren’t you?” - -“Yes, always,” said Elsie stolidly. She had made up her mind not to say -anything else. - -“You didn’t quarrel?” - -“No, never.” - -“You’ll tell them that, won’t you, dearie? The police, I mean.” - -“It’s nothing to do with them,” said Elsie childishly. - -“Now don’t talk that way. That’s silly. You don’t seem to realise, my -lady, the sort of mess you’re in.” - -Mrs. Palmer’s voice rose to stridency as she let her fear and her -temper get the mastery of her attempt at caution. - -“My God, Elsie, can’t you see what it means? They may try you for -murder. Murder--the same as the horrid common people in the newspapers. -Who’s to know what happened--you and Horace in that empty street at -one o’clock in the morning, and he gets done in, and whatever you may -say--and mind you, I’ll back you up in it-they’ll get hold of the fact -that you and poor Horace didn’t hit it off together.” - -“We were quite happy together.” - -“That’s right,” said Mrs. Palmer approvingly. “You stick to that.” - -Then she began to cry. “To think it should have come to this! I that -have always held my head high--I don’t know what your aunts will say! -It’ll be an awful shock for them.” - -Elsie hardly heard what her mother was saying. Waves of physical -nausea kept on passing over her, and she was conscious of nothing but -thankfulness when an elderly woman in uniform came to her with a cup of -tea, and suggested that she should lie down and get some sleep. - -Elsie followed her, scarcely replying to Mrs. Palmer’s voluble farewell -and assurances of her own speedy return. - -She could not afterwards have told where it was that she was taken, -but a small, narrow bed awaited her, and she flung herself on to it -and fell almost at once into the trance-like sleep of utter bodily and -mental exhaustion. - -The same uniformed woman was waiting for her when she woke, after -several hours, and the sight of her brought back in a sick rush the -horrors of the morning. - -“Oh, I must go home!” cried Elsie. - -The woman took very little notice of her words, but she conducted her -to a lavatory and helped her to make her toilette. - -Cold water and the effects of sleep combined slightly to steady the -wretched Elsie. “I should like to go home at once, please,” she said, -in a voice that she tried in vain to render firm. - -“Yes. Well, I daresay your mother will take you away as soon as you’ve -answered a few questions,” said the woman indifferently and quietly. -“They want you downstairs first for a few minutes now.” - -“Is Mother there?” - -“She’s in the waiting-room. You’ll be able to see her afterwards.” - -“_Afterwards?_” - -Elsie’s agonised perceptions fastened upon that one word. She sought -with frantic and irrational intensity to pierce the veiled threat that -she felt it to convey. - -A man whom she knew to be a police-inspector appeared at an open door, -and the uniformed woman went away. - -“Now, Mrs. Williams, I’m afraid we must trouble you for a short -statement,” said the man pleasantly. “Will you follow me, if you -please?” - -He moved forward, and Elsie saw into the room that he had just left. - -Leslie Morrison was within it. - -As their eyes met, it seemed to Elsie that the last shreds of -self-control deserted her, and she screamed on a high and hideous note -words that came incoherently and frenziedly from some power outside -herself. - -“Leslie, Leslie! Oh, God, what shall I do? Why did you do it? I didn’t -ever mean you to do it.... I must tell the truth....” - -The inspector swung sharply round and gripped her by the arm. “Do you -realise what you’re saying? It is my duty to caution you that anything -you say now may be used in evidence against you.” - -Elsie burst into hysterical sobs and tears. - -The man pushed her gently into another room where another official and -a young man in plain clothes sat at a table with papers and pens in -front of them. - -The interrogatory that followed was conducted with grave suavity by the -senior official, but Elsie was conscious only of a horror of committing -herself. - -She said again and again that she and her husband had always been happy -together. - -It was a faint relief when at last they came to actual questions of -fact, and she could reply with direct statements to the enquiries as to -her movements on the previous evening. - -(O God, was it only last night that she and Horace had gone to the -theatre--only _this morning_ that they had started to walk home from -the Tube station?) - -“Mrs. Williams, I want you to tell me in your own words exactly what -happened in the alleyway just before your husband was struck.” - -Elsie realised with despair that she must say something. - -She was not imaginative, but almost without her own knowledge she had -evolved a sort of account by which, it seemed to her, confusedly, that -she might safeguard herself. - -“We were walking along,” she said in a trembling, almost inaudible -voice, “and there wasn’t anybody in sight, and suddenly someone rushed -up from behind and pushed me away from my husband. I was sort of dazed -for a moment--I think I must have been pushed against the wall--and -when I recovered I saw Horace--my husband--struggling with a man. Then -the man ran away.” - -“Did you see the man’s face?” - -“No,” said Elsie, with ashen lips. - -“But you know who it was?” - -“It was Leslie Morrison.” - -The room reeled before her eyes, and she made an ineffectual clutch at -a chair. - -Through a sort of thick fog she heard the official repeating in a low -tone: “It was the man known as Leslie Morrison.” - -Then she felt herself fall. - -Her mother was with her when she recovered consciousness, and the woman -who had attended to her before, and whom Mrs. Palmer now repeatedly and -volubly addressed as “Matron.” - -Elsie looked round her, but the officials were gone. With a groan she -let her head drop backwards again on to the rail of the chair in which -she found herself. - -“Come along now, don’t give way. You’re better now,” said the matron -briskly. “Don’t let yourself go, Mrs. Williams.” - -“Oh, Elsie, Elsie,” wailed Mrs. Palmer, “whatever will become of us? -Didn’t I always tell you----” - -“Give her an arm, Mrs. Palmer, and I’ll take her on the other side, and -we’ll get her into the other room. There’s a nice couch there, and she -can lie down a bit.” - -They half led, half dragged Elsie away, the matron exhorting her all -the time with impersonal, professional brightness to pull herself -together. - -She was conscious of thankfulness when the woman left her alone with -her mother, although leaving the door open behind her. - -Mrs. Palmer instantly bent forward and asked with avidity: “What did -you say to them, Elsie?” - -“Let me alone, Mother, for pity’s sake!” - -“How can I let you alone, as you call it, you unnatural girl? What a -way to speak to your own mother, on whom you’re bringing sorrow and -shame, and may bring worse yet, if you’re not careful! Now you tell me -this, Elsie Williams, directly this minute: Did you or did you not tell -them that you and Horace were on bad terms together?” - -“I said we were quite happy together----” - -“Stick to that,” said Mrs. Palmer significantly. “Did anyone know--any -neighbour or anybody--that you quarrelled? He never made a row, or -knocked you about, did he?” - -“Only the once,” Elsie said automatically. - -She pushed up her sleeve, then shuddered violently as she recalled -that she had last made use of that same gesture in the tea-shop with -Morrison. - -“My goodness, did Horace do that? You must have tried him pretty high, -_I_ know. How are you going to account for that bruise, young Elsie?” - -“Who’s to know about it?” - -“Oh, they’ll find out fast enough! They get to know about everything. -Look here, did you say that you’d been pushed against the wall by -whoever it was who did in poor Horace?” - -Elsie nodded, too much stunned even to wonder how her mother had become -possessed of this information. - -“Very well, then. Those bruises on your arm are where you fell against -that wall. Don’t forget. I shall say you showed them to me, and told me -about it.” - -“Say what--when?” Elsie asked stupidly. “I suppose all this’ll be over -before I’m quite mad, and they’ll let me go home to-day.” - -Her mother’s fat face puckered up suddenly, and she began to cry with -loud, gulping sobs. “I don’t know!” she wailed. “I don’t know.” - -“But what--what--for Heaven’s sake, Mother, stop that noise, and tell -me what they’re going to do. _What is it?_” almost shrieked Elsie, -striving to fight down the panic that threatened to overwhelm her. - -“Don’t you understand, you little fool? (God forgive me for speaking -like that!) Oh, Elsie, I’m afraid--I’m afraid they’ll--they’ll arrest -you--for murder!” - -“Don’t use that word!” almost screamed Elsie. - -“How can I help it? Murder’s what’s been done, and it lies between -you and that fellow Morrison. Elsie, how far have things gone between -you and him? But there, I needn’t ask. I know you.” Mrs. Palmer wept -convulsively. - -She remained with her daughter until late in the afternoon, and twice -during that time Elsie was summoned to a further interrogatory. She -learnt that Morrison’s knife had been found close to the alley, and -that he had been fetched from his office early in the day and taken -away by the police. - -It was after her mother had gone away, as the dusk was gathering, that -Elsie Williams and Leslie Morrison were charged together with the -wilful murder of Horace Williams. - - * * * * * - -“For God’s sake, Mrs. Williams, tell me the whole truth!” - -Elsie looked dumbly at Mr. Cleaver, too sick with fright to speak. - -“Do you understand that you’re in the most frightful danger?” - -A sound that just amounted to an interrogation forced its way between -her dry lips. - -“You know what the sentence is for anyone found guilty of wilful -murder?” - -Elsie screamed and shrank. - -Cleaver bent forward, deep dents coming and going at the corners of his -nostrils, his white face working with earnestness. She could see the -sweat shining upon his forehead. - -“Try and understand. You will be committed for trial for the murder of -your husband.” - -“But Leslie Morrison....” - -“He’s in the same boat. His one idea, it seems, is to shield you--to -pay the whole of the penalty himself.” - -“It was him who--who....” Elsie’s voice trailed away. - -“I know. But who inspired him to do it, Mrs. Williams? I tell you that -nothing but absolute frankness can give you a chance.” - -“Shall I be in the witness-box?” - -A bewildered idea that she could still make use of her charm to serve -her present cause made Elsie ask the question. - -“You will be in the dock,” said Cleaver grimly. “Understand that -everything--your life itself--depends upon your being absolutely -straightforward with me. Don’t conceal anything--don’t attempt to. I -tell you, it’s your one hope.” - -Elsie stared and stared at Mr. Cleaver. “I never meant Leslie to do -it!” she cried suddenly and wildly. - -“But you knew he was going to?” - -“No, no, no!” - -“Mrs. Williams, tell me the truth. You and Morrison were madly in love -with one another, and had been for over a year?” - -She nodded. - -“You knew that your husband would never, in any circumstances, set you -free?” - -“Yes. We asked him, begged him to. He--he was very cruel, Mr. Cleaver.” - -“You and Morrison would not face open scandal by going away together?” - -“It wasn’t that.” - -“What was it, then?” - -She hesitated, twisting her handkerchief round and round in her fingers. - -The solicitor moistened his lips with his tongue. “Your only hope, your -one and only hope in this world, Mrs. Williams, is to speak the truth. -I’m powerless to help you if you won’t be open. Don’t be afraid that -everything you say now will come out in the police-court; it won’t -necessarily be so at all--far from it. But I can judge of nothing -unless I know every single thing.” - -“I’ll tell you,” said Elsie, white to the lips. - -“Why would you and Morrison not have gone away together? Were you -afraid?” - -“We had no money.” - -“I see. Morrison’s pay was very small, and you had nothing but what -your husband gave you?” - -“Yes.” - -“Whereas if you were a widow, you had reason to suppose that Williams -would leave you comfortably provided for?” - -“Yes.” - -“Did it not occur to you, then, that his death would be a very -convenient solution of the whole problem?” - -“Oh yes! How could I help thinking that?” - -“You not only thought it, Mrs. Williams, you said it, and you wrote it.” - -“I never----” The denial sprang from her quite instinctively. - -Mr. Cleaver put up his hand authoritatively. “Wait! Do you remember -a conversation with a friend of yours, Miss Irene Tidmarsh, on the -eighteenth of last October, when you made use of the words, ‘I wish to -the Lord that Horace would do the decent thing or go West, and let me -have a chance of happiness’?” - -Elsie was terrified at the precision with which her very words were -quoted and the occasion known. “I can’t remember,” she gasped. - -“Mrs. Williams, you _must_ speak the truth. Remember that a great -deal is known already, and banish any idea of false shame from your -mind. This is a question of life and death to you: neither more nor -less. If I know the truth from you, I can advise you as to the line -you must take under cross-examination. Remember that it will be a -terrible ordeal for you, and it’s essential that you should be properly -prepared for it. And weight will be attached, without a doubt, to that -conversation of yours with Miss Tidmarsh.” - -“But how will they know about it?” she sobbed, forgetting her previous -denial. - -“Miss Tidmarsh will be called as a witness against you,” said Mr. -Cleaver gravely. “We’ve got to account for those words of yours -somehow, and what is more serious still--if anything could be more -serious--we’ve got to keep out of sight, if we can, those damning -letters of yours.” - -“What letters?” screamed Elsie, a new and unbearable horror clutching -at her. - -“The letters, Mrs. Williams, that you have repeatedly written to Leslie -Morrison during the past months.” - -“They’re burnt, they’re burnt!” shrieked Elsie. “He swore he’d burn -them!” - -“I wish to God he had, but he never did, Mrs. Williams. Those letters -may form the bulk of the evidence against you. You repeat in them, -again and again, that Williams ill-treated you, made you miserable, and -that you wish he was dead. In one of them occurs the words: ‘He’s ill -now, and taking sleeping draughts. One little mistake in pouring out -the mixture, Leslie, and you and I might be free! I’d do more than that -for our love’s sake, darling.’ Do you understand the awful weight that -those expressions and many, many similar ones would carry with a jury, -Mrs. Williams? We’ve got to put some construction on them other than -the obvious one, if we can’t get a ruling that they’re inadmissible as -evidence, which is what we shall try for. I want to make it very, very -clear to you. Everything depends on your co-operation. Are you fit to -listen to me?” - -Elsie was sobbing and writhing. - -“Have you any letters whatever from Morrison?” pursued the relentless -voice of the solicitor. - -“No.” - -“What have you done with them?” - -“I burnt them all.” - -He looked at her as though doubting her words. “Very few women burn -their love-letters, Mrs. Williams.” - -“I was afraid to keep them.” - -“For fear of your husband seeing them?” - -She hesitated. “Partly.” - -In Elsie’s mind was a piercing recollection of the haunting fear that -had obsessed her ever since the scene at the house of Madame Clara, the -medium. - -“_Beware of the written word...._” - -But she would not give that reason for having destroyed Morrison’s -letters to the solicitor. The strange, undying remnant of vanity that -finds a lurking-place upon the most apparently trivial and unlikely -ground held her back from the truth. - -Elsie Williams realised that Mr. Cleaver was in grimmest earnest when -he told her that only the absolute truth could possibly save her; she -was prepared to tell him the truth in spite of her deadly terror and -shame, but she could not bring herself to say that the reason why she -had destroyed the letters of Leslie Morrison was because she could -never forget the words spoken by the clairvoyante whom she had visited. - -“I burnt the letters because I had nowhere to keep them, and I was -afraid they might be found,” she repeated, her young face grey and -ravaged. - -It was the only particular in which she lied to Mr. Cleaver, and she -did so with blind and irrational persistence. - -After the hours that he spent with her, Elsie, physically exhausted, -and psychically strung to a pitch of tension that she had never known -in her life before, was left alone in her cell, face to face with her -own soul. - -At first, fragmentary recollections of the past forty-eight hours -obsessed her. She went over and over her conversations with the police -officials, her own replies to Mr. Cleaver, her mother’s hysterical -ejaculations. Then she thought of Leslie Morrison, who had backed -up her statements to the police, and who, when both were arrested -together, had only asked through white lips: “Why her? She was not -aware of my movements.” - -But since her own half-unconscious betrayal of him, Elsie’s feeling for -Morrison had undergone an extraordinary revulsion. - -It had all turned out so utterly unlike anything that they had ever -planned. It still seemed to Elsie that catastrophe had fallen, a bolt -from the blue, into the midst of their lives without warning. She -still felt that none of it could be true, that she must wake as from a -hideous dream. - -When had she had a hideous dream--something about Horace--something -like this? - -Dim associations of horror and bewilderment awoke slowly within her, -and brought to her the remembrance of her visit with Irene Tidmarsh -to the woman who had called herself “clairvoyante.” She had talked -in a deep, rather artificial voice about love and intrigue; she had -bade Elsie beware of the written word. And then all of a sudden the -atmosphere had altered, Madame Clara’s voice itself had altered, -horribly, and she had screamed out terrifying words and phrases. -“Blood, and worse than blood ... you’re all over blood! O, my God, -what’s this? It’s all over England--_you_--they’re talking about you.” - -Elsie understood. In a flash of searing, anguished intuition she -understood what would happen. - -With the appalling rapidity of a vision, there came to her the -realisation of all that would come to pass in the near future. - -She knew already that the police-court trial was the almost certain -preliminary to her committal and Morrison’s for trial at the Old -Bailey. _They would be tried for murder._ - -She and the man who had been her lover would stand in the dock together -as prisoners; lawyers would fight out questions concerning their past -relations; people would give evidence against them--evidence in their -favour; Elsie would in all probability hear her own letters to Leslie -Morrison read aloud in court.... - -It would be a sensational trial, such as she had often followed with -avidity in the newspapers. - -“_It’s all over England--they’re talking about you...._” - -But why ... why?... - -Elsie Williams’ instant of vision fled from her as suddenly as it had -come, and left her agonisedly and wildly rebellious, bewildered at the -vortex of terror and shame and misery into which it seemed to her that -she had suddenly, without volition of her own, been flung. - -She could not trace the imperceptibly-graduated stages that had brought -her to the pass where catastrophe became inevitable. To her, it seemed -that she had swiftly been hurled from security into deadly peril by -some agency as irresistible as it was malignant. - -Every now and then realisation came to her, when certain frightful -words sprang into frightful meaning, as they had never done before. - -“Murder....” - -“Conspiracy ... and incitement to murder....” - -“Principal in the second degree....” The police officials had made use -of that expression--so had Mr. Cleaver. - -Elsie’s mother had fetched Mr. Cleaver, and had wildly repeated, in -front of Elsie and the lawyer, that she would grudge no expense, not if -it cost her her last penny. - -“And the aunties will help, Elsie, they’ve been ever so good--anything -we can get together, says your Aunt Gertie, and her face the colour of -the tablecloth. Mr. Cleaver here will tell us the best man, if it--if -it comes to--to....” - -“You could scarcely do better than Sir Cambourne Trevor, Mrs. Palmer, -but his fee, I ought to warn you, is a thousand guineas.” - -“A thousand guineas!” Elsie and Mrs. Palmer had screamed together. - -And Mr. Cleaver, gaunt and haggard and grey-faced, had made answer: -“It’s her life that will be at stake.” - -From time to time, Elsie understood. She knew, at those moments, what -it all meant. There would be no more concealments, everything would be -dragged out into a publicity that could only bring with it dishonour -and shameful notoriety, and hatred, and execration. - -And she would have to live through it--to suffer through an ordeal -of vast, incredible magnitude, of which the climax--she knew it in a -prescience that mercifully could not endure--would come in the ghastly -dawn of a prison-yard, beneath the shadow of the scaffold.... - -Inexorable results would be suffered by herself, and she would never -know how it was that these things had become inevitable--had happened. - - _Dawlish_, 1923. - - - - -THE BOND OF UNION - - - - -THE BOND OF UNION - -(To A. P. D.) - - -A wide, cushioned seat runs round three sides of the deep fireplace in -Torry Delorian’s library for the admitted reason that Lady Pamela March -likes to face the room when she is talking. - -The room, of course, means the audience. Personally, I consider that -she could safely--I mean, without spoiling her picture of herself--make -use of the very word itself. It is so obviously the only one that -applies, when she sits there, smoking one cigarette after another, and -we sit there, smoking one cigarette after another, all listening to -Pamela, playing up to Pamela, and all more or less sexually attracted -by Pamela. - -The subconscious mind of Pamela projects on these occasions, I think, -something of this kind: - -=“_The girlish figure dominated the room. Magnetism vibrated in every -gesture of the slim hands, every glance from the brilliant eyes, every -modulation of the rather deep voice. She held them all, by sheer force -of personality. The peacock-blue folds of her dress, with its girdle of -barbaric, coloured stones...._”= - -The bit about the dress, of course, varies. Sometimes the folds -may be saffron-yellow, and the girdle opalescent, or there is no -girdle at all; and anyhow, in those particulars, the same effect -is never repeated twice. But I imagine that, like all women, she -makes a point to herself of the accoutrements, not realising that -the audience--almost altogether composed of men--attribute the -entire effect to the sheer, smooth slope of her shoulders, the -alluring curves of her mouth, the rich swell of her breasts beneath -semi-transparencies. - -The impression that inwardly she is projecting really does reflect -itself on to the minds of most people, I believe. - -It is only slightly distorted, even in my own version of it, which runs -something like this: - -=“_The girlish figure dominated the room. Animal magnetism vibrated -in every gesture_”= ... and so on--only leaving out the brilliancy of -the eyes and the deepness of the voice, both of them rather cheap -accessories to a pose that really is quite strong enough without -them--to the end: - -=“_She held them all, by sheer will-to-dominate._”= - -Pamela, being a brilliant talker, prefers always to talk personalities. - -Two nights ago, sitting on that cushioned rail that runs round the -fireplace, she recounted an adventure. - -“... Only it’s the spiritual adventure that I’m telling all of you. -Because you’ll understand. The other part was all obvious, the danger -and all that. You’ve probably seen it in the papers.” - -She was right. It had been lavishly paragraphed, with photograph inset. -Her _flair_ for publicity is unerring. - -“Darlings, how I loathe the Press--if I could only tell you! But the -other part of the affair was so utterly wonderful, that it’s swamped -everything else. It was like a revelation. - -“You know how essentially super-civilised I am? A man once wrote a poem -about my being like a piece of jade--hard, and brilliant, and polished, -and yet with the unfathomable subtlety and agelessness of the East. My -civilisation is partly temperamental, I suppose, and of course to a -certain extent the result of elaborate education--and then hereditary -as well. Look at Anthony. Could anyone have a more utterly civilised -parent, I ask you? Elma is less poised, of course, but mercifully -for me I’ve managed to inherit my mother’s physique and my father’s -mentality. Like a sensitised plate, isn’t it? It does mean isolation -of soul, and those terrible nerve-storms of mine, but in my heart of -hearts I know it’s worth it. - -“Only people are so ghastly. My friends have to rescue me.... You -remember what it was like, Torry, the night that woman assaulted me -at the Embassy, and talked, and talked, and talked. O Christ! it was -all about food, or flannel, or babies--something too utterly indecent, -I know. I sat there, helpless, martyred--and darling Torry came and -rescued me. I shall never forget it, Torry, you sweet, never. - -“Now this is what happened the other day. (Why do you allow me to be -discursive, dear people?) You know my car was held up by Sinn Feiners? -I, who adore everything lawless! But it was simply for being Anthony’s -daughter, of course. They hate him so. - -“You know how I drive for miles and miles, entirely alone, just so as -to feel the air in my face, and my hands--rather small, really, by -comparison--controlling that great swift machine. Well, I’d got to such -a lonely place that it was like finding God--when suddenly these men -appeared. - -“I wasn’t a bit frightened--I never am frightened--but it was horrible, -all the same. And I kept thinking of the people who’d be so sorry if I -were killed, and wondering who’d be the sorriest, and who’d remember -longest.” - -=(_She looked round the room, her dark brows raised in an expression -part whimsical, part pathetic._)= - -“All this isn’t the adventure, you know, though they took my jewels, -and tied me up to a bench on a sort of heath place. They tied me here, -and here.” - -She held out a slim ankle, and extended both wrists. - -“Dear hearts, don’t, don’t touch me! I’m so dreadfully on edge -to-night. Nothing to do with the adventure, though. That was altogether -beautiful. - -“You see there was another woman on the bench, to whom they’d done -exactly the same thing--only she’d been walking, not driving. They left -us together, and said they’d come back later and shoot us. Terrorism, -of course, but it would be such an ugly way of going out, wouldn’t it? - -“She and I looked at one another, tied to either end of that bench, -and in some way that I simply can’t describe, our spirits leapt -together. She, it turned out afterwards, recognised me at once--that’s -the worst of being too weak to refuse sittings when one’s pestered -by every photographer in London--but I hadn’t the least idea who she -was, and don’t care. Bright red hair, quite distinguished-looking, and -altogether rather lovely in a pallid, blanc-de-Ninon way, though no -actual physical charm. But I felt it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d -been a _déclassée_. By the way, what is a _déclassée_? - -“This still isn’t the adventure--besides, you know this part already, -all of you--but some of those ruffians came back again, and untied us, -and said we could find our own way home. They’d taken my car, needless -to say. I gave them one of my looks--the sort that means I’m really, -really angry, like when someone kisses me in a clumsy way, or spills -something on my frock--and the men melted, literally melted, away. Then -she and I began to walk, and this is really when the part that matters -started to happen. - -“Having come through this shattering episode, and found ourselves -unshot, and alive, it was almost like two disembodied spirits communing -together. We got into the realities straight away. It was far more -wonderful than if one of us had been a man, because then sex must have -come into it, but as it was, each of us laid her whole soul perfectly -bare, in the way one can never do to a man, if he loves one, for fear -it should kill his love, or if he doesn’t love one, for fear it should -make him think he does. - -“But as it was, each of us was perfectly fearless, and in a way -perfectly shameless. It was partly violent emotional reaction. You see, -we’d both thought we were facing death. - -“She told me that she was utterly miserable. Her husband was a brute, -and her lover had let her down. He’d fallen in love with a girl, a sort -of pure-eyed-baby person, and had just told this woman--who’d been -giving him everything, of course, for years--that he wanted to _se -ranger_ and get married. - -“She was nearly out of her mind, that woman. You see, she wasn’t young, -and then some skin treatment she’d been having hadn’t succeeded, and -was helping to break her up. She told me about that, too. Oh, there -was nothing she didn’t say, but she simply didn’t care, we were so -utterly intimate for that fleeting moment. Nobody else in the world -knew, she told me. She’d always tried to avoid scandal, and no one -had ever really known about her _liaison_ with this man. (Women _are_ -clever about love.) - -“And then I told her every single thing about myself--things that I’d -never dream of breathing in this room, nor you of believing, most -likely. Foul, filthy, hateful things about myself.... I know now why -Catholics go to confession. It releases so much. - -“Darlings, words can’t ever describe what it was like. I shall never -forget it, as long as I live, and neither will she. - -“We parted, of course, but we both knew that there was a link between -us that nothing could ever break, even though we never met again. It -was too utterly perfect and complete as it was.” - -There was a silence, and then someone said, suitably: “Wonderful -Pamela!” - -She smiled vaguely, shook her head, and then tragically clasped both -hands to her breast. “Please, a cocktail. I’m so tired. Oh, and what’s -the time? I’m dining with a man at eight, and he’s thrown over a most -important engagement to take me, and he’d be quite capable of getting -angry if I failed him. Sweet, no! Not a quarter past nine! Oh, please, -someone, a car, and take me to the little tiny, tiny French restaurant -in Wardour Street.” - -Lady Pamela waved away the cocktail, spilling it, prayed for another -one and drank it, and then wafted away on the wings of little -distressed exclamations and futile, effective gestures of farewell. - -That was two nights ago. - -This morning I was in Bond Street, and I saw Pamela March in her -father’s car, held up by a block in the traffic. - -On the other side of the narrow street another car with a solitary -woman in it passed slowly. I recognised the woman instantly from -Pamela’s description, for she had bright red hair, was quite -distinguished-looking, and altogether rather lovely in a pallid, -blanc-de-Ninon way, and radiated a marked degree of physical charm. - -The eyes of the two women who had been as disembodied spirits communing -together met in a long look. - -And the expression in each pair of eyes was momentarily identical, -and it was with the same effect of immutable determination that each -simultaneously administered and received the cut direct. - -_They knew...._ - - - - -LOST IN TRANSMISSION - - - - -LOST IN TRANSMISSION - - -I - -The Lambes were very rich. - -This was all the nicer for Mrs. Lambe, because once upon a time, not -so very long ago, when she was still Maude Gunning, she had been poor. -From the time she was eighteen to the time she was thirty, she had -taught music at the girls’ school in Carlorossa Road. She had gone -to and from her work four days a week all through term time by tram. -Fortunately, the tram took her almost from door to door. She was a bad -walker, owing to corns. - -During the school holidays Maude had always tried to find private -pupils, and as she and her father and mother were well known in the big -manufacturing town and its suburbs, and her successes at the L.R.C.M. -examinations were a subject of local pride, she had generally succeeded. - -And it was odd to think, as Mrs. Lambe quite often did think, that most -of the large, comfortable, expensive houses to which she had gone--with -a very keen appreciation, on autumn and winter afternoons, of the big -fire blazing in the pupil’s schoolroom or dining-room, as the case -might be--to think that these houses, for the most part, were less -large, comfortable, and expensive than the one of which she was now the -mistress. - -Edgar Lambe, when he first met Miss Maude Gunning at a tea-party, was -already a wealthy man, although not as rich as the demand for houses -that sprang up during the war afterwards made him. - -At the party, Maude played the piano, and played it very well. Mr. -Lambe, who was naturally musical, asked to be introduced to her. He had -never married, although he was forty years old, and he had recently -made up his mind to look for a wife. Maude attracted him, although she -was neither pretty nor very young. - -Three months after their first meeting they were married. - -Mr. Lambe bought the largest corner house in Victoria Avenue. - -It was, of course, wholly detached from its neighbours. There was a -carriage-sweep in the front, and a long, wide garden at the back, and a -high wall all round. There was a tennis-court, two greenhouses, and a -vegetable garden beyond the flower-garden. - -The inside of Melrose was even more magnificent than the outside, -and far more interesting to Mrs. Lambe, who was not very fond of -being out-of-doors, having had a great deal too much of it in her -tram-journeying days. But she had many ideas as to comfort and elegance -indoors, and Edgar was generous with money, and had a standard of his -own--and one that secretly rather scared her--as to the way in which a -house should be “run.” - -This standard of Edgar’s was principally applied to lighting, heating, -food and service. The house was fitted with electric light, of course, -and Edgar had had a separate boiler put in for the three bathrooms, so -that it was his favourite boast that if anyone wanted a bath in the -middle of the night, the water would still come out of the tap almost -boiling. There were radiators in all the rooms except the kitchen, -offices and servants’ bedrooms, and hot pipes in the linen-cupboard. - -It took Mrs. Lambe a little while to assimilate Edgar’s views as to -meals. She quite understood that these must be served punctually, and -that the plates must be hot--really hot--and that there must always be -a relay of fresh toast towards the end of breakfast; and of course late -dinner every night except Sunday, when it was cold supper. But she did -find it a little bit difficult, just at first, to realise that Edgar -disapproved strongly of twice-cooked meat. At her own home there had -been a weekly joint, which was hot on Sunday, cold on Monday, hashed -on Tuesday, and cottage-pie’d on Wednesday--and sometimes, if it had -been a larger joint than usual, curried on Thursday and turned into -rissoles on Friday. - -At Melrose, after one, or at the most two, appearances in the -dining-room, the beef disappeared into the kitchen and was finished -there, while a new joint, or a pair of fowls, took its place on the -upstairs _menu_. - -The amount of “butcher’s meat” that came into the house amazed and -disconcerted its mistress, until she found that her servants took it as -a matter of course, and that her husband continually praised her to his -friends as a good manager, and that the monthly bills--which at first -had appalled her--by no means exceeded the sum which he had himself -suggested that he should allow her for the housekeeping. - -By the time that Mrs. Lambe had a nursery, with two little girls in it, -and a nurse, and a nursery-maid to wait upon them, she took it quite as -a matter of course that there should be yet a third list of items to -consider in the ordering of meals--weekly chickens, and special dairy -produce, and a regular supply of white fish, for the nursery. This -question of food for the household was, of course, immensely important, -and she gave a great deal of conscientious thought to it, thankful -when the cook suggested a new variety of sweet for the dinner-parties -to which Edgar so much enjoyed inviting his business friends and their -families. - -On these occasions he himself selected the wines with the utmost care, -and instructed the two parlour-maids minutely and repeatedly in the -proper formula to be employed with each course. - -Mrs. Lambe was always relieved that this great responsibility did not -in any way rest upon her. A mistake, she felt, would be altogether -_too_ terrible. - -The parlour-maid and the waitress who always came in for the evening -when the Lambes entertained, never made mistakes. - -Mrs. Lambe was very “good” with servants, and never had any difficulty -in finding and keeping thoroughly satisfactory domestics. The little -girls’ nurse, who received far higher wages than any of them except the -cook, was the only one with whom there was sometimes a little trouble. - -She occasionally hinted that Ena and Evelyn were rather spoiled, and -inclined to come up to the nursery disposed to be fretful and out of -sorts after too much notice in the drawing-room, and far too many -expensive chocolates from the pink and blue and gilt boxes that were -always being given to them. - -Mr. Lambe was a lavish and indulgent father. He thought his -fair-haired, pretty little daughters wonderful, and took the greatest -delight in associating “Dad’s” return from the office with new toys or -“surprises” of sweetmeats. - -Mrs. Lambe never had the heart to disappoint him by suggesting that his -munificence was making the little girls rather critical and capricious, -even at six and four years old. Edgar only roared with appreciative -laughter when they told him, seriously and rather crossly, that they -always wanted the chocolates to come from Blakiston’s--which was the -best, and by far the most expensive, confectioner’s in the city. They -did not care for any other kind. - -Edgar repeated this story to a great many of his friends, who were -as much amused as he was himself at such an instance of early -discrimination. - -Mrs. Lambe was amused herself, and could not help thinking that Ena and -Evelyn were smart and original children. - -They were also very pretty; rather pallid, sharp-featured little -things, always beautifully dressed, exactly alike. Neither she nor -Edgar regretted in the very least that neither of them had been a boy. - -Every night Maude Lambe, who had been brought up to be thoroughly -religious, knelt at the side of her enormous bed, with its opulent -pink satin duvet, and humbly thanked God for all that He had given -her--Edgar and the children, and Edgar’s wealth and kindness, and her -beautiful, comfortable home. - -There was only one fly in the ointment--Aunt Tessie. - -Edgar had told her all about Aunt Tessie before they were married. He -had explained that she would live with him always, in spite of the -undeniable fact that she was Not like Other People, and that he would -never allow her to be sent away to an institution, whatever the other -Lambe relations might say. - -Aunt Tessie had been very good to him when he was a little boy, -and this Edgar never intended to forget. He had had a very unhappy -childhood, with a mother who drank and a stepfather who beat him. Aunt -Tessie, who had actually made a living for herself in those days out -of painting pictures, had done everything that she could do to induce -them to let little Edgar come and live with her, and when they would -not agree to that, she had still sent him presents and surreptitiously -given him pocket-money, and when he had been sent away to school, she -had come regularly and taken him out, and invited him to her flat -whenever she could. She was the only person who had ever shown him any -affection when he was a child, Edgar had once told his wife. - -Maude had been very much touched, and thought it noble of dear Edgar -to remember so faithfully, in his great prosperity, the good old aunt -who had long ceased to be able to paint even bad pictures, and who had -become terribly, almost dangerously, eccentric about ten years earlier. -Edgar had then immediately taken her to live with him, declaring Aunt -Tessie once and for all to be his charge. - -All this he had explained to his wife before they were married, and her -generous and even eager acquiescence had met him more than half-way. - -Maude, indeed, had been ready to accept Aunt Tessie as her charge, too. -She had felt nothing but a tender compassion for the probably frail, -half-childish invalid, towards whose garrulousness she would never -fail of kindly semi-attention, and to whose bodily weakness every care -should be extended. But Aunt Tessie had turned out not to be that sort -of invalid at all. - -To begin with, her physical health was robust and powerful. She was -only fifty-five, and her hair was not grey, but a strong, virulent -auburn. - -Her complexion was sanguine, her large, harshly-lined face suffused -with colour and disfigured by swelling, purplish veins. - -Her voice was very loud and hoarse, and she laughed with a sound like -a neigh. As for Aunt Tessie’s appetite, it was simply prodigious. -Even had expense been a serious consideration at Melrose, Mrs. Lambe -would never have grudged anyone a hearty meal--she had too often gone -semi-hungry herself for that--but really, Aunt Tessie, with her second -and third helping of beef, and her two glasses of claret, and her frank -eagerness for dessert chocolates, was not decent. - -She always had her meals in the dining-room, and it was really on -that account that Ena and Evelyn had their midday dinner upstairs, -and only came downstairs when the starched and mob-capped maids were -handing round coffee. Their mother would have liked them to come to the -dining-room for luncheon, at least on Sundays, but they both hated Aunt -Tessie, and made faces and laughed at each other when she uttered any -of her loud, inconsequent remarks, or pushed her food into her mouth -with her fingers. - -Maude, and even Edgar, had tried to persuade Aunt Tessie that it would -be more comfortable for her to have all her meals in the large upstairs -sitting-room that they had given her, but Aunt Tessie had been first -angry and then hurt. They wanted her out of the way, she said angrily, -they were ashamed of her, and did not like her to meet their friends. - -Mrs. Lambe could not help thinking that it was rather ungrateful -of Aunt Tessie to say this, after all that had been done for her. -However, they would not vex and disappoint the poor old lady, and so -she continued to appear downstairs, even when there was a party, and to -embarrass and disconcert everybody by her ineptitudes and her uncouth -manners at the dinner-table. - - -II - -By the time the Armistice was signed, Mr. Lambe had become richer than -ever. - -He entertained his friends even more often to dinner, and gave them -better wine, although it had always been so good before. He increased -Mrs. Lambe’s allowance for the housekeeping, and frequently gave her -presents of money to be spent upon herself or the little girls. He -would have given Aunt Tessie money too, but she had grown even queerer -in the course of the past year, and it was only too evident that what -had been called her “eccentricity” was now becoming something much more -serious. For the very first time, there was trouble with the maids. - -They did not like waiting on Miss Lambe. It was no wonder, either, poor -Mrs. Lambe was forced to admit. - -Aunt Tessie was untidy, even dirty, and as the housemaid once pertly -remarked, her bedroom only needed three gold balls over the door. She -kept things to eat upstairs, and scattered crumbs everywhere. - -The parlour-maid, speaking for herself and for the housemaid, declared -that it was quite impossible to do the proper work of the house and to -clear up after Miss Lambe as well. - -In another moment she would have given notice.... Mrs. Lambe could see -it coming. - -Hastily she sent for Emma, the little between-maid, and informed her -that in future she would have the sole care of Miss Lambe’s bedroom and -her sitting-room, and would wait upon her, instead of the housemaid. -She at the same time raised Emma’s wages by two pounds a year, for she -always tried to be very just. - -Emma was only seventeen, and a very childish little thing, and Mrs. -Lambe had not expected her to raise any objection to the new scheme; -but it was surprising, although satisfactory, to find that Emma seemed -to be actually pleased by it. - -She said “Yes’m,” a good many times, and smiled at her mistress as -though joyfully accepting a form of promotion. - -Mrs. Lambe was relieved, the parlour-maid and the housemaid did -not give notice, and even Aunt Tessie--very difficult to please -nowadays--appeared contented and satisfied. - -But she was getting worse all the time. - -It became more and more embarrassing when visitors came to Melrose. - -The old lady always found out when anyone was expected, and the more -people were coming the noisier and more excited she became. - -One dreadful Sunday there were guests for luncheon--two of Edgar’s -important clients, and little Ena’s godfather--a rich old bachelor -cousin--and two unmarried ladies, friends of Mrs. Lambe’s maiden days. -She was always very faithful to her friends. - -Aunt Tessie actually pranced downstairs and met some of these people -in the hall as they arrived, and greeted them boisterously, and so -incoherently that really they might almost have been excused for -thinking that she had been taking too much to drink. - -Mrs. Lambe, hastening downstairs from her own room, could hear it all, -although she could not see it, and it was thus that she afterwards -described it to Edgar. - -“So glad--so glad to see you!” shouted Aunt Tessie. “This fine -house--always open, and my nephew is so generous and hospitable. They -take advantage, sometimes--there are bad people about, very bad people. -Sometimes they make attempts ... one’s life isn’t as safe as it looks, -I can assure you....” - -She had thrown out such ridiculous and yet sinister hints once or twice -lately. But what _could_ the poor guests think of it all? - -They were very polite, and soon saw that the best thing to do was -to ignore Aunt Tessie as far as possible, and pretend not to hear -when she talked, and not to see when she shuffled about the room, -upsetting ornaments here and there, and every now and then whisking -round suddenly to look behind her as though she expected someone or -something to be following her. Once she shouted very loud, “Get out, I -tell you! I can _smell_ the poison from here!...” But after the first -involuntary, startled silence, everyone began simultaneously to talk -again, and very soon after that, luncheon was announced. - -Mrs. Lambe saw that her husband, talking to his principal guest and -smiling a great deal, kept on all the time turning an anxious eye -towards Aunt Tessie, and this emboldened her to do what she had never -done before. - -She put her hand on the old lady’s arm, and detained her whilst the -others were all going into the dining-room. - -“Dear auntie,” she said, speaking low and very gently, “I’m sure you’re -not well. You look so flushed and tired. All these people are really -too much for you. Do let Emma carry your lunch upstairs on a tray and -have it comfortably in your own room.” - -But it was of no use. - -Aunt Tessie, her looks and her manner stranger than ever, vociferated -an incoherent refusal, mixed up with something about Emma, to whom she -had taken a violent fancy. - -“A good girl--the only one you can trust. She never _plots against -people_!” Aunt Tessie shouted, nodding her head with wild emphasis, and -rolling her eyeballs round in their sockets. - -Mrs. Lambe could do nothing. She dared not let Aunt Tessie sit next to -any of the visitors, and of course she herself had to have one of the -important clients upon either side of her, but she made Ena and Evelyn, -who were lunching downstairs in honour of the godfather’s presence, -take their places one on each side of their extraordinary old relative. - -Evelyn, who was very little, began to whine and protest, but Mrs. Lambe -pretended not to hear. She knew that Evelyn’s attention was always very -easily distracted. She felt much more afraid of Ena, and her heart sank -when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Aunt Tessie officiously -trying to put Ena’s long curls away from her shoulders. - -The little girl’s fair, pretty face turned black with scowls in an -instant, and she twitched herself away from the big, heavy, mottled -hand fumbling clumsily at her neck, and sat with her back as nearly as -possible turned to Aunt Tessie. - -One couldn’t really blame the poor children for disliking her so -much, but it was very bad for them ... it made them naughty and -ill-mannered.... - -Poor Mrs. Lambe could only give half her attention to her guests, and -she saw that Edgar, too, underneath his geniality and his urgent and -repeated invitations that everyone should have more food and more wine, -was anxious and ill at ease. - -Every now and then Aunt Tessie’s strident tones rose above all the -other sounds in the big, hot dining-room. - -“Not any more--no. They put things into one’s food sometimes, and then -they think one doesn’t notice. But the one who waits on me--Emma, her -name is--she’s all right. You can trust her.” - -Aunt Tessie’s words, no less than her emphasis on Emma’s -trustworthiness, would of course be noticed, and bitterly resented, -by the other two servants, waiting deftly and quietly at the table. -But neither of them moved a muscle, even when she went on to something -worse. - -“Never put any confidence in upper servants,” declared Aunt Tessie, -leaning across the table and almost shouting. “They may be civil -enough, but they plot and plan behind people’s backs. There’s cases in -the newspapers very often ... it’s ... it’s murder, really, you know. -They call it accidental, but sometimes it’s poisoning. One can’t be too -auspicious--suspicious, I should say.” - -She paused to laugh vacantly at her own slip of the tongue, and to let -her eyes rove all over the table as though in search of something. - -Mr. Lambe clumsily wrenched at the conversation: “Talking about -newspaper reports, that was a curious case in Staffordshire....” - -The visitors seconded him gamely, and Aunt Tessie’s voice was overborne -and heard again only in snatches. - -Mrs. Lambe, however, was very much upset, and she ordered coffee to be -brought to the drawing-room so as to make a move as soon as possible. - -Things were a little better in the drawing-room. Ena and Evelyn were -soon screaming and romping round Ena’s godfather, and one of Maude’s -humble friends, perhaps feeling that she owed her something in return -for the splendid luncheon and lavish hospitality, sat in the bow-window -with Aunt Tessie and kept her away from the rest of the room. This was -a great relief, although it led to an uncomfortable moment when the -party was breaking up, and Aunt Tessie, vehemently taking leave of her -kind companion, actually caught up a little gilt trifle from Maude’s -knick-knack shelf and tried to press it upon her acceptance. - -Miss Mason was very tactful, pretending with rather an embarrassed look -to accept the impossible gift, and secretly slipping it on to a table -near the door as she went out. - -Aunt Tessie did not see, but Maude did. She was nearly crying by the -time it was all over and everyone had gone away. The children had been -sent upstairs again, and Aunt Tessie’s heavy footsteps had taken her to -her own part of the house. - -Curiously enough, she and Edgar hardly spoke to one another about the -disastrous subject, but Maude Lambe knew very well that he now, as well -as she, fully realised the discomfort and humiliation entailed upon the -whole household by his too-generous treatment of Aunt Tessie. - - -III - -Soon it was no longer possible to pretend that Aunt Tessie was not -getting worse and worse. Her constant, irrelevant allusions to plots, -and poisonings, and wicked people, had become a fixed delusion. - -She really thought that everyone at Melrose was conspiring against her -life, and she would allow no one, except Emma, to do anything for her. - -It was a mercy, Mrs. Lambe often told herself, that Emma was such a -good little thing. She was so willing, and never seemed to grudge the -time and trouble that she was obliged to spend over cleaning Aunt -Tessie’s apartments and tidying up after her. She would even listen, -respectfully and yet compassionately, to Aunt Tessie’s long, rambling -denunciations and accusations. - -“Poor old lady!” Maude once overheard Emma saying to another servant. -“She’s a lady just the same, for all she’s gone queer, and I behaves -towards her like I would to any other lady, that’s all.” - -“Funny kind of a lady that makes a face at a servant, as she did at me -this morning.” - -“She never done that to me, nor nothing the least like it,” said Emma -stoutly. - -It was only too true that Aunt Tessie was very rude to all the maids -except Emma, and sometimes to Edgar and Maude as well. As she grew -worse, she seemed to forget all their kindness and generosity, and to -look upon them as being her enemies. - -Mrs. Lambe would not let the little girls go near her any more, and -the nurse had orders to keep them away from Miss Lambe “until she grew -better.” - -Aunt Tessie, however, did not grow better. - -The doctor, an old friend of Edgar Lambe’s, advised them to have a -nurse for her, if they were still determined to keep her on at Melrose, -instead of sending her to one of the many excellent establishments that -he could have recommended. - -“Nothing in the least like an institution or--or asylum. Simply -a nursing home where Miss Lambe would have entire freedom and -every possible comfort, but would yet receive the constant medical -supervision that her unfortunate condition renders necessary.” - -But Edgar Lambe remained obstinate. Aunt Tessie had been very good to -him in the past, and he had always said that she should be his special -charge. He would not send her away to any nursing home, however highly -recommended. - -He was, however, quite willing that a professional nurse should be -installed at Melrose. The expense, he said, was nothing, if it would -make things easier for Maude and be of advantage to Aunt Tessie. - -The presence of Nurse Alberta certainly fulfilled both these -requirements. - -She was an intelligent, pleasant-looking woman of five- or -six-and-thirty, with none of the pretensions so often associated -with her class. She had meals with Aunt Tessie, in the latter’s big, -comfortable sitting-room, and slept in a little room adjoining hers. -Both of them were waited upon by Emma. - -Aunt Tessie nowadays made no difficulty about not coming to the -dining-room. Her crazy old mind had fastened upon the idea of poison, -and Emma and Nurse Alberta were the only people from whom she would -accept food or drink. - -The nurse told Emma, with whom she became quite friendly by dint of -constant association, that the “persecution mania” was a very common -symptom amongst those who were mentally deranged. - -“They always think that everybody’s against them,” she declared -cheerfully, “even those who do most for them. Look at this poor old -lady, for instance! She thinks Mr. and Mrs. Lambe are plotting against -her, and I’m sure they’re goodness itself to her, and have been for -years, I should think. No expense grudged, and everything done to make -her comfortable. Why, most people would have had an own mother sent -away by this time and put under restraint--and Miss Lambe is only an -aunt. No real relation at all, as you may say, to Mrs. Lambe. Really, I -do think Mrs. Lambe’s behaved wonderfully, and I’m sure she finds it a -strain.” - -Nurse Alberta was quite right. Mrs. Lambe did find the presence of Aunt -Tessie in the house a great strain, even now. - -In her heart, she was terribly afraid that the old aunt, who had so -rapidly passed from one distressing stage to another, might suddenly -become a real danger to those around her. - -She thought of Ena and Evelyn and shuddered. Very often, she woke in -the night and crept out to the landing, trembling, to listen at the -night-nursery door. - -One day, when Nurse Alberta had been in the house for some time, Mrs. -Lambe felt so wretched and so much unstrung by her state of now chronic -nervousness, that she detained the doctor after his habitual visit to -Aunt Tessie, and timidly spoke to him of her own symptoms. - -He listened very attentively, asked her several questions, and finally -made a suggestion which Mrs. Lambe saw at once ought to have occurred -to her earlier. - -She was going to have another child. - -It was over five years since Evelyn’s birth, and she had somehow never -expected to have any more babies, but both Mr. and Mrs. Lambe were -honestly pleased. - -They hoped for a son. - -It was this discovery that led to the modification of Edgar Lambe’s -views about Aunt Tessie. Obviously, the presence of the unfortunate old -lady subjected Maude to a continual strain that might easily become -more and more severe as time went on. - -The doctor, privately consulted by Mr. Lambe, admitted that in his -opinion it was not quite fair on Mrs. Lambe, in her condition, to keep -the aggressive, turbulent invalid in the house with her. And it wasn’t -as if Aunt Tessie herself really benefited by it, either. She was far -past appreciating any kindness or attention shown to her now. Her _idée -fixe_ was that everyone at Melrose excepting poor little Emma, the -maid, was plotting against her in some way, and seeking to poison her. - -Mr. Lambe listened, nodding his head, his red, heavy-jowled face -puckered with distress. It went against the grain with him to -invalidate the boast of years--that Aunt Tessie should always share his -home--and yet in his heart he felt that the doctor was right. - -Aunt Tessie was past minding or knowing, poor soul--and Maude and their -unborn son must come first. - -When once he had fairly made up his mind to it, Edgar Lambe could not -help feeling a certain relief. He, too, in his own way, had suffered on -those dreadful occasions when Aunt Tessie had insisted upon appearing -downstairs, and had made his friends and his family uncomfortable by -her strange, noisy eccentricity. Even nowadays his daily visit to her -room was a miserable affair. It gave her no pleasure now to see the -nephew for whom she had once done so much, and who had done so much for -her in return. She classed him with her imaginary enemies. - -It was very difficult for Edgar Lambe, who was not at all an -imaginative man, not to feel irrationally wounded by those wild -accusations of enmity. He could scarcely be brought to understand that -poor Aunt Tessie’s floods of foolish vituperation had, in themselves, -no meaning at all. - -“But she was always devoted to me,” he said, half resentfully and half -piteously. “I can’t make it out at all. You’d think that even now she’d -be able to--to distinguish a bit between me and the wretched cook or -charwoman. But no, she abuses us all alike, and seems to think we’re -all in league to do her in.” - -“It’s part of her illness, Mr. Lambe,” said Nurse Alberta soothingly. -“You know, she really is quite cracky, poor old lady.” - -The “arrangements,” as the doctor called them, were made as speedily -as possible, since they were naturally distressing to everybody, and -Mr. and Mrs. Lambe went themselves to see Aunt Tessie’s new quarters, -and to talk to the charming lady at the head of the establishment, and -get special permission for Nurse Alberta, to whom Aunt Tessie was used, -to take her there and remain with her for some time until she grew -accustomed to it all. - -“Fires in her room, of course, and any extras that she may fancy,” said -Mr. Lambe impressively. “Expense is of no consideration at all. I shall -send round a comfortable couch for the sitting-room this afternoon.” - -He did so, and Mrs. Lambe added two or three fat cushions, and a -decorated lampshade and waste-paper basket, such as she liked in her -own drawing-room. - -When Aunt Tessie was told that she was going away from Melrose for a -time, she was delighted. - -“Then I can relish my food again,” she said rather coarsely. - -“There’s never any knowing what they’re all up to here.” - -That remained her attitude up to the very last. She dumped them all -together as objects of her aggrieved resentment. Edgar, Maude, the two -little girls, the impassive, well-behaved servants. - -But when she said good-bye to Emma the night before she was to go away, -Aunt Tessie squeezed her hand hard, and gave her some money and several -ornaments and little trinkets from her own possessions. - -Soft-hearted Emma cried, and hurried away to the sitting-room to find -Nurse Alberta. “I just can’t bear to listen to her, poor old lady, -saying I’m the only one as never tried to do her a mischief,” she -sobbed. - -“You’re a silly girl to take on so,” said the nurse good-naturedly. -“Why, she’ll be ever so well looked after where she’s going, and -there’s good money being spent on her comforts, I can tell you, and Mr. -Lambe won’t let that be wasted. It isn’t like some poor looneys, that -get put away and not a soul of their own people ever goes near them to -see how they’re getting on. She’ll be kept an eye on, you may be very -sure, and it’ll be best for all parties to have her under another roof, -really it will.” - -“Oh yes, I know!” said Emma. - -“It isn’t even as if she wanted to stay, you know, Emma. She’s turned -dead against them, like cases of her sort often do. Look at the way she -spoke to you about your being the only one that didn’t want to poison -her, or some such rubbish.” - -There was a pause. - -“Nurse,” said Emma suddenly, “do mad people _know_ as they’re mad?” - -“They say not,” indifferently returned Nurse Alberta, biting a thread -off her piece of needlework. “Why, Emma?” - -“Because--well, me and Cook got to talking last night about poor Miss -Lambe, and--I can’t say it how I mean,” Emma rambled on confusedly, -“but Cook would have it that people as go off their heads--well, they -_are_ off their heads. They don’t look at anything like we do any -more--it’s sort of all upside down to them. But I didn’t think it was -like that--well, at any rate not with Miss Lambe.” - -“Why not?” said Nurse Alberta. - -She looked interested and Emma was encouraged. - -“I thought, perhaps,” she said timidly, “that the inside of her poor -mind is still like everybody’s else’s, in a way, only she can’t get the -thoughts to come out right. And I thought, perhaps, that when she said -all that about them wanting to poison her, it was only her--her mad -sort of way of saying that she’d felt, all along, they really wanted -her to go away. And that would be why she said I was the only person -that she was safe with. Because I never did want her to go away. The -master and mistress and the young ladies may have felt like that. Of -course, it’s been ever so trying for them, I know, having her here -like that--and the girls downstairs, they wanted her to go. But I never -did, and I wondered if perhaps that was what she sort of felt, only she -couldn’t explain it right, and so it came out that way--in all her talk -about being poisoned, and that.” - -Emma stopped and looked rather wistfully at the nurse. - -“You’ll think I’m balmy myself, talking like that. And I can’t explain -what I mean a bit well. It’s not as if I’d been educated like you----” - -“Oh, I don’t know,” said Nurse Alberta, smiling. “I think I understand -what you mean, Emma. According to your notion, the poor old lady feels -and thinks pretty much the same as we do, but she’s lost the trick of -communicating her feelings and her thoughts. They--they get lost in -transmission, so to say.” - -“You do put it well, Nurse!” said Emma admiringly. - -Nurse Alberta looked gratified. “I don’t know,” she said modestly. But -she was herself rather pleased by the sound of the phrase that she had -used, and could not resist repeating it. - -“It’s a bit far-fetched, perhaps, but there’s certainly something in -what you say, Emma,” she observed, biting off another thread. “Lost in -transmission--that’s the idea--lost in transmission!” - - - - -TIME WORKS WONDERS - - - - -TIME WORKS WONDERS - - -I - -“You funny little thing!” he said patronisingly. - -Adela resented the term violently, but because he was the only man who -had ever attempted to talk personalities with her, she accepted it -smilingly. - -“I must read some of those books of yours. Tell me what the names are.” - -“Oh, it doesn’t matter! Never mind about my books,” she said hurriedly. - -Adela could not imagine Willoughby reading anybody’s books, unless -definitely of that class which deals with a fictitious Secret Service -or the intrigues of an imaginary kingdom. - -Her own books were small masterpieces of psychology, subtly ironical. A -shudder, half-humorous, half-despairing, came over her at the idea of -Hal Willoughby, bored and mystified, ploughing his way through one of -her books. - -“Never mind about my books,” she repeated. “I’d rather you thought of -me as a girl than as a writer.” - -She felt wildly daring in so speaking, partly because she had called -herself a girl, although she was thirty, and partly because it was -the first time that she had ever attempted what she supposed to be a -flirtation. - -Her reputation for cleverness had always been so great and so terrible -that young men had never dared to approach her. - -She supposed that must be the reason for their aloofness, since she had -always been passably pretty; and even now, by artificial light, she -looked five years younger than she was. - -Her hair and her colouring were charming in a subdued and unvivid -way, her features straight and very clean-cut. She hardly realised -how much too thin were the lips of her tiny mouth, how intense and -over-prominent her large hazel eyes. - -“I never can imagine how anybody can write a book,” said Willoughby. - -Adela moved uneasily. She could tell what was coming. - -“Do you think of a plot first, or do you just make it up as you go -along?” - -“It all depends.” - -She made the meaningless reply that had so often served her before. - -“I should never know what to make the people say next. Aren’t -conversations awfully difficult?” - -“Sometimes.” - -“I suppose you are always on the look-out for people to put into your -books--under invented names, of course.” - -“I don’t think I am.” - -“Oh, but I expect you are! I expect really you sit there, taking it all -in, you know.” - -Why did people always think it necessary to talk to her like this? - -“You ought to write a play. They say it pays like fun.” - -“But, you see, I’m not a dramatist.” - -“Oh, rubbish! If you’re clever enough to write books, of course you -could write a play. I should, if I were you--really I should.” His -voice was charged with encouragement. - -“No, I couldn’t. Don’t let’s talk about that.” - -“Why not? I want to hear about these books of yours. I’ve never met a -literary lady before.” - -It was of no use. He would not talk to her as she was almost sure -that he would have talked to any other woman in the room, given those -distant sounds of music from the ballroom, that hazy moonlight above -the bench beneath the syringa-bushes. - -Adela grimly sacrificed her art, perjuring her soul away. “I expect -you think it’s very funny of me to write books,” she said, desperately -adapting her vocabulary to his own. “I really do it mostly--a good -deal--because it brings in money.” She tried to laugh, and hated -herself for the artificiality of the sound. - -“I suppose girls are always glad of extra pocket-money,” he assented -indifferently. - -A girl--that was how he thought of her. - -She was pleased at that, but she struggled for a more serious -recognition of her capabilities, too. “It’s not only pocket-money. I -can really get a living from my writing, though I’m always at home with -my mother. But I could be independent to-morrow if I liked.” - -“Oh, come now!” The words might have expressed remonstrance, -incredulity, astonishment. - -“The advance royalty--that’s the money the publishers give me in -advance--on my last book was two hundred pounds,” she said calmly. - -She had never gone away to work, never had to pay for her food or for -a roof over her head, never tried her strength or the strength of her -resources in the struggle for livelihood amongst unsupported women. - -Two hundred pounds for her year’s work was a large sum, with no calls -upon it. - -Willoughby repeated after her: “Two hundred pounds! I say! You don’t -expect me to believe you get that just for writing a story?” - -“Yes.” She was uncertain of the reason for his disbelief, and even -whether he really did disbelieve her. - -“But was it a serious book, or just a novel?” He really sounded -perplexed. - -“Oh, ‘just a novel’!” she said bitterly. - -“Good Lord! How many do you write in a year?” - -“That last one took me over a year. My first one I worked at, on and -off, for five years.” - -“I suppose it doesn’t matter to you, taking your time, but it would -be quite worth scribbling them off one after the other, if you can -get money like that without working for it, so to speak,” said Hal -Willoughby. - -He fingered his thick, fair moustache, and Adela looked up at him -furtively in the moonlight. - -He was very big and good-looking; and when she danced with him, and met -his full, bold gaze, Adela could almost forget about such conversations -between them as the present one. - -Besides, he had not always talked like this. Once he had pretended not -to know what colour her eyes were, and once he had told her about his -life in India. She wished intensely that the conversation now would -shift to some such topic. - -The moonlight and the heavy scent of the syringa seemed to mock her. - -“And what are your books about?” said Willoughby laboriously. “Love, -I suppose?” He broke into a roar of laughter. “Does the heroine fall -fainting into the hero’s arms in the last chapter, eh? That’s the -style, isn’t it?” - -Adela stood up, trembling. “I think I want to go in now, please. -The--the dance must be finished now.” - -He stood up also. “But I say! What’s the matter? You’re not ratty, -are you?” He pulled unceremoniously at the prim velvet ribbons that -hung from her waist. “Sit down again. Don’t you know I’m going away -to-morrow? You might be a little bit nice to me, I do think.” - -“I didn’t know you wanted me to be,” she said swiftly. - -He laughed, and pulled her on to the bench again. - -Adela’s mother, with whom she always lived, had told her very often -that men never really respected a woman who let them “take liberties.” -Adela, never before put to the test, recklessly determined to disregard -the parental axiom. - -When Willoughby caught hold of her chilly little ringless hand, she -made no movement of withdrawal. - -He looked down at her and laughed again. “What an odd little thing you -are! I don’t believe you’ve ever been kissed, have you?” - -She was silent. - -“Has anybody ever made love to you, now?” - -“Yes,” she said defiantly and untruly. - -He laughed quite openly, and declared, “I don’t believe it!” - -Still laughing, he put his hand under her chin, tilting up her face, -and kissed her. - - -II - -Hal Willoughby’s careless parting kiss remained the only one that Adela -was destined to receive. - -For ten years more she lived with her mother, and heard her say proudly -to other mothers, coming with the news of Mollie’s engagement, or -Dolly’s beautiful new baby: - -“Ah, I still keep my Adela, I’m glad to say. She’s almost too -fastidious, I sometimes think. She’s never made herself cheap with -anyone. And then there’s her writing, too.” - -Adela had slowly been making a name for herself, but her great success -only came after her mother’s death. A long novel, at which she had been -working for several years, made her reputation in the world of letters. - -She had inherited money from her mother, and her books brought her in -more. - -Adela was able to indulge in artistic necessities. - -It became imperative that she should retire, whenever she wanted -to write, to a Yorkshire moor with an atmosphere of ruggedness and -strength, and very few trees. - -So many journalists, so many fellow-writers, such a number of the -new-born coterie that “followed the Adela Alston method” had inquired -so earnestly in what peculiar setting Adela found it necessary to -enshrine her inspiration, that the need of the Yorkshire moor had -suddenly sprung, full-grown, into being. - -She built a two-roomed cottage, engaged a caretaker, and wrote in a -small summer-house, wearing knickerbockers and sandals, and smoking -violently. This was in the summer. In the winter, inspiration was -obliged to content itself with Hampstead, and Adela had to wear shoes -and stockings and a skirt. - -At forty she had gained greatly in assurance, and knew herself for the -leading spirit in a small group of intensely modern women writers, by -whom she was devoutly worshipped. - -Adela became accustomed to being the person who was listened to, in the -society of her fellows. - -They were not only interested in her work, but deeply, intensely -interested in herself. - -“You know almost too much of human nature, Adela. It’s not decent.” - -Adela enjoyed being told that. - -“I’ve seen all sorts in my time,” she said musingly. - -It would no longer have pleased her to be thought younger than she was. -On the contrary, she was apt to emphasise in herself the aspect of a -full maturity. - -“That last study of yours is simply magnificent. Dear, I don’t wonder -you’ve never chosen to marry. No man’s vanity could survive your -insight.” - -A newcomer to the group leant forward eagerly. Her characteristic was -lack of self-restraint, which she acclaimed in herself as fearlessness. - -“But you’ve known the great realities--you’ve known passion,” she urged -foolishly. “You could never write as you do, otherwise.” - -Adela gazed at her new disciple from under drooping eyelids. “I am not -ashamed of it,” she said quietly. “I am proud of it.” - -The girl nodded with grotesque, unconscious vehemence. - -The two other women-friends of Adela who were present, exchanged a -meaning look with one another. Each had heard Adela’s story before, -had shown loyal pride and understanding. There was no need of further -demonstration from them. Adela was looking at the girl. - -“There was one man in my life,” she said low and deeply. “There is -never more than one--that counts. And a woman who has never loved, -never been loved, never met her mate--has never lived.” - -The room was tensely silent. - -“It was more than ten years ago, and I have outlived the poignancy of -it. I have never seen him since--I never shall. But I make no secret of -having known fulfilment.” - -Her voice was low and rich with intense enjoyment of her own effect. - -“Even now, though, when all the storm and stress is long, long -past--it’s odd, but the scent of a syringa in bloom can still hurt me. -You see--I was swept right off my feet.” - -She paused before concluding with the words that she had unconsciously -learnt by heart, so significantly did they always round off her -retrospect. - -“I had waited for him all my life. He asked everything, and I -gave--everything.” - -“Ah!” - -“You splendid woman!” - -Adela leant back again, her large eyes gazing abstractedly into the -past, full of a brooding satisfaction. Her lips exhaled a sound that -was barely audible. - -“Hal Willoughby!” - - * * * * * - -Time works wonders. - - - - -THE GALLANT LITTLE LADY - - - - -THE GALLANT LITTLE LADY - - -I - -“I hope you are using all your influence to prevent the marriage?” said -Clyde, in the impersonal tone that he always adopted when speaking to -his wife of her only daughter. - -“Why, Charles? They’re madly in love.” - -“That is why,” said Sir Charles. - -“What do you mean?” - -Lady Clyde had not the slightest desire to know what her husband meant, -and had already made up her mind that she disagreed with it root and -branch, so she said, “What do you mean?” in a tone of indignation, and -not one of enquiry, and gave him no time to answer. - -“Richard is a gentleman, he’s earning a very good salary, and he adores -Rita. The only possible objection is their having to live in the East, -but everyone says the Malay States are quite healthy, and she’s very -strong, thank heaven. If she’s plucky enough to face it, I don’t see -how _we_ can object.” - -“My objection has nothing to do with their living in the Malay States. -It is simply concerned with the fact that they will have nothing -whatever to depend upon except Richard Lambourne’s salary. He is a -young man, he has saved nothing, and he has no expectations from -anybody.” - -“Rita has her own small income.” - -“It might keep them from starvation, certainly, but it wouldn’t be -enough for a family.” - -“No one expects it to be. Richard will save if he has a wife, -naturally, and he hopes to become a part owner of the rubber estate, -later on. After all, it’s very creditable for a man of his age to have -been made general manager already.” - -“Very.” - -“Then what have you against him?” - -“Nothing at all,” said Sir Charles mildly. - -“A minute ago you were telling me how you hoped I should use my -influence to prevent this marriage. If you have nothing against him, -why shouldn’t they marry?” - -“Perhaps I have ‘something against’ Rita, as you express it.” - -“Rita is only your step-daughter, Charles, and I know very well that -your own children----” - -“_Our_ own children----” - -“That they come first, and always have. But I have an unprejudiced -eye,” said Lady Clyde warmly, “and I don’t pretend that Rita isn’t -a greater deal cleverer, prettier, and more attractive than all the -others put together. And as for talking of having anything against her, -it’s the sheerest nonsense, as even you must know.” - -Sir Charles looked at his wife with an expression which she had long -ago summed up, not inaptly, as “Charles looking as though he couldn’t -decide if one were worth explaining the alphabet to or not.” On this -occasion, Sir Charles appeared to decide in favour of the modicum of -intelligence required. - -“My case is simply this, Catherine. If Richard Lambourne and Rita marry -now, they are entirely dependent upon Richard’s job. Say he loses it, -or loses his health--which amounts to the same thing--or falls off his -horse and breaks his neck, Rita may be left with a child, or children, -and nothing whatever to live on except a yearly sum which she has -hitherto spent upon her clothes, largely supplemented by presents from -you.” - -“As though Rita wouldn’t always have a welcome from me, and as though I -wouldn’t share my last crust with her!” - -“On the contrary, I should expect you to divide your last crust -into equal parts between Rita and your four other children,” said -Sir Charles with coldness. “But apart from last crusts, which is a -rhetorical way of speaking, you had better understand once and for all, -my dear Catherine, that my sons and daughter are not to be sacrificed -to Rita. If she marries this man, he must keep her. This house is her -home, and has been so for twenty years or so, but once she is married, -it ceases to be her home. I am sorry if I hurt your feelings, but if -Rita is to take the risk of marriage with a man who has nothing to -depend on but what he can earn for himself, she had better understand -exactly what she is doing. Personally, I consider her entirely unfitted -to take such a risk.” - -“She is more than ready to take any risk. You are perfectly incapable -of understanding Rita, Charles, and what a generous, ardent nature she -has. And she is very, very much in love, for the first time in her -life. You know as well as I do that plenty of people have wanted to -marry Rita, and I think it’s wonderful that she should have refused so -many offers, to give herself to a man who isn’t rich, simply because -she loves him.” - -“You look upon it as being decided, then?” - -“Of course I do. She is absolutely determined to marry him and go out -with him at once. I can’t refuse my consent--and I shan’t--and they’re -not dependent upon yours, Charles.” - -She looked at him with a rather nervous defiance, but Sir Charles said -with great calm: - -“Certainly they’re not. I shall therefore consider the subject closed, -so far as my objections go.” - -He kept his word, as he invariably did. - -The wedding of Rita and Richard took place six weeks later. - -Rita was little and very pretty, with big dark eyes, a pathetic baby -face, and, in rather quaint contrast, a very erect little figure and a -decided bearing. - -Unlike her stepfather, the majority of her friends and relations fully -realised the beautiful recklessness of Rita’s love-match. - -“A very gallant little lady!” said an old friend of Lady Clyde’s, and -she reversed an opinion which she had hitherto held as to his senility. -He used the same phrase, which had evidently caught his ancient fancy, -when the bride was making her farewells, and it oddly suited her -appearance, in a velvet dress and a three-cornered hat with a long -plume, vaguely recalling pictures of cavalier heroines. - -“So she’s marrying all for love, and going eight thousand miles away -from home!” said Rita’s aged admirer. “None of your mercenary, modern, -ideas there. A gallant little lady, I call her.” - - -II - -The same phrase was repeated, and by many people, when Rita and Richard -Lambourne came home again, three years later. The great rubber slump -had come, and Richard had lost his job. He said that he hoped to find -something to do in England. - -“Professional men of all classes are hoping exactly the same thing at -the present moment, all over the country,” said Sir Charles Clyde. - -The Lambournes stayed with the Clydes for a little while, then they and -their baby and their nurse moved into a tiny house on the outskirts of -a large neighbouring town, and then it was that such a number of people -took to making use of the apt descriptive phrase first employed when -Rita married. - -Many of them had known her in her girlhood, the spoilt and favoured -child of Lady Clyde, at home in her stepfather’s house. - -They could fully appreciate the contrast with her present position. - -Richard could not find any work, although he answered advertisements -and wrote to influential friends. He was not a strong man, and very -soon showed signs of great discouragement and anxiety. - -Rita, on the contrary, was always cheerful, and discussed the situation -very frankly, laughing merrily at her own struggle with unaccustomed -privations. - -“It’s so lucky I’ve got a little money that my own father left me. -By managing very, very carefully, we’re living on that. Poor Richard -hadn’t a penny beyond his salary, and now of course that’s all -gone--poor darling!” - -She was drolly confidential with her numerous friends. - -“It’s so funny to have to think before I take a second helping of -pudding, even, and yet I suppose I really ought to. But I don’t think -I’ve got a very large appetite, have I, Richard?” - -“No, you haven’t.” - -“What a good thing!” She laughed as she spoke, but Richard remained -unsmiling and miserable, and gradually it became evident to Rita’s -friends that one of Rita’s trials was her husband’s inability to face -their position with a gallant laugh, as she did. - -As time went on, and there appeared to be no hope of a salary for -Richard, she sent away the little girl’s nurse. - -“I think I ought to be able to manage. Lots of poor women have to, only -it’s a great pity I was brought up to play the piano, and dance, and -play tennis, instead of learning to cook. One somehow never thought of -it’s being necessary.” - -“It oughtn’t to be necessary now,” said Richard violently, “if you’d -married a fellow with money, or brains enough to make some.” - -“Why, I might have been a millionairess, if I’d married the first man -that ever proposed to me,” she said brightly. “Doesn’t it seem odd?” - -He made no answer. - -“D’you know, darling, I saw a really lovely jumper in Colson’s window -to-day. It was real old rose, the colour that suits me. It was one of -the sale things and marked down to half a guinea. I had a frightful -struggle--it is such ages since I had anything new. I wouldn’t even -let myself go into the shop, though I had to get some things for baby. -I went somewhere else. I felt I couldn’t bear to come out of Colson’s -without that jumper. It was so lovely--and really marvellously cheap. -It’s been haunting me ever since.” - -“Surely we can find half a guinea,” said Richard, his face flushing. - -“Richard!” She gave a little laughing scream. “Why, I work out every -penny of my income on paper before I spend it, and do you know what’s -left over for my clothes, when I’ve paid the wages and the rent, and -rates and taxes, and the housekeeping books? Just--exactly--five pounds -a year!” - -She held up five fingers, laughing. - -“I know.” - -“I can’t believe that I once spent five pounds a year, or thereabouts, -on gloves, but I suppose I did. I don’t really know how I could manage -now, if mummie didn’t still give me so many presents.” - -She looked at him with her head on one side, rather like a very pretty -squirrel. - -“I do manage rather well, don’t I, dear? I have to work pretty hard, -you know.” - -“Of course you manage well,” he said ungraciously. He hardly ever -encouraged her with praise nowadays, although she was doing wonders. -He only gave way to violent outbreaks of despair and self-reproach, -when she assured him that she could do without things that she had had -all her life, and that she wasn’t really so _very_ tired after two bad -nights with the baby. - -“Isn’t it lucky I’m so strong?” she sometimes asked her friends. “I do -a lot of the housework myself, you know, because we can only afford one -servant, of course, and she’s a rough sort of girl. It was so funny at -first, I couldn’t understand that class of servant at all. At home, -of course, the maids were all quite different. Ellen means very well, -really, though I’ve had to learn cooking, so as to do a certain amount -myself. Will you forgive me now, if I run to see that Richard’s supper -is all right--not burning?” - -She tripped away, still laughing, in spite of the tired lines that were -beginning to show beneath her sparkling dark eyes. - -“Rita is too wonderful, poor darling!” said Lady Clyde. “As she says -herself, she’s never in her life been used to poverty. And look at the -way she makes the best of things! You know they’re living on her tiny -little income, that she manages too wonderfully for words. You can’t -say _now_, Charles, as I remember you once did, that Rita, of all -people, wasn’t fitted to take the risk of poverty.” - -Whether Sir Charles could, or could not, have repeated his axiom, was -not destined to be made clear, for he said nothing at all. - -He did, however, make many attempts to find a job for Richard, and -went to see the originator of the phrase that described Richard’s -wife so well--“a gallant little lady”--who was connected with some -highly-remunerative business. - -The old man shook his head. - -“I’m on the point of retiring, Sir Charles. Times are bad, though I’ve -made my pile, but it was done by hard work at one job all my life. I’ll -see if there’s anything for your--stepson, is it?” - -“He is no relation of mine,” said Sir Charles very distinctly. “He -married my wife’s only daughter by her first husband. He is now obliged -to live upon her--very small--fortune.” - -“I’ve heard something of that. Poor little lady--she’s doing wonders, I -hear. Well, well, I’ll see if they’ve anything to offer the lad, but we -don’t want men without experience these days, you know. But I’d like to -do something, for the sake of that gallant little lady.” - - -III - -“Richard dear, I _would_ like to ask mummie and Sir Charles to -dinner--supper, I mean--one night. I’ve got a little cash in hand, so -I shouldn’t feel too extravagant. You know I got rather more than I -expected, for the sale of that old bracelet of mine.” - -Richard did know, because Rita had told him this already, quite -gleefully, although admitting that the bracelet had been a legacy from -a specially beloved grandmother, and that it cost her a pang to let it -go. - -“I loathe your selling your jewellery. It makes me feel such a cad -for having got you into this mess, though God knows I never foresaw -anything like this. Rita, _must_ you do these things?” - -She looked at him with a face of piteous, childlike surprise. “Oh, -aren’t you _at all_ pleased that we’ve got an extra pound or two, -Richard? I’m sure you’ve no idea what a difference it makes.” - -He groaned impatiently. - -“Of course, if you think I’ve no right to suggest entertaining -_any_body, even on a tiny scale, now we’re so poor, I won’t do it. It -was silly of me, I daresay, but I haven’t really properly got used -not to having an occasional little party, I suppose. It’s all right, -Richard darling. Never mind.” - -She smiled bravely. - -“Rita, I shall go mad if I can’t find a job, and take you out of this -sort of thing,” said Richard, and he began to pace up and down the -little room. - -When Lady Clyde and her husband did come to dinner, Rita told her -mother privately that poor darling Richard was becoming almost -hysterical sometimes. It did make things so much, much harder when one -was doing all one could to keep up under the strain, and be always -bright and ready to make the best of it. - -“No one can say you’re not doing that, my dearest child,” said her -mother. - -Tears of mingled admiration and compassion rose to her eyes when Rita -apologised gaily for the poverty of the fare, when she corrected -herself every time that she mentioned the word dinner instead of -supper, and when she laughingly excused herself for having to run away -and help with the washing-up, because the servant now was only a daily -one, and went home early. - -“It seemed so funny at first, mummy, and I was always ringing the bell -and expecting it to be answered, like when I used to ring for Cooper or -Ellis or Mary, at home. I really can’t believe that I had a maid all -for myself, just to do my hair and keep my clothes tidy, not so very -long ago.” - -“What a plucky little thing she is!” said her mother in a choked voice. - -She glanced resentfully at Richard, who sat silent, moody and haggard, -without endorsing her tribute to his wife in any way. - -He looked very ill, but Lady Clyde at the moment could only realise to -what straits he had brought Rita, and with what surly unresponsiveness -he seemed to confront her courageous acceptance of poverty. - -Lady Clyde asked her husband that night if he could not, as man to man, -give Richard Lambourne a hint that his ungracious attitude to his wife, -whilst living on her money, was the final crown of the wrongs that he -had done her. - -“I was going to suggest, personally, that you should give Rita a hint,” -said Sir Charles. - -“Rita! Why, when I think of that poor child’s gallantry----” - -“Exactly. My own impression is that a very little more of it will drive -Lambourne into a mad-house, or worse.” - -Sir Charles spoke in his usual level accents, and Lady Clyde did not -attempt to attach any meaning to his words. Neither did they recur to -her when Richard Lambourne disproved her assertion that he had placed -the crown upon the wrongs done to his wife, by the final ignominy of -suicide. - - * * * * * - -“Coward, coward!” sobbed Lady Clyde. “Can you deny that he was a -coward, Charles?” - -“No. Richard was a coward,” said Sir Charles gravely. - -“After all that poor little Rita had done!” - -“And said,” added Sir Charles, not flippantly, and half under his -breath. - -The old magnate who had admired Rita at her wedding made use of almost -the same words as Lady Clyde. - -“After all that his wife had done, and was doing, to quit like that, -and leave her to face the life he’d brought her to! What a _brute_!” - -A little while afterwards he proposed to Rita, diffident, in spite of -his wealth, because of the great difference in their ages. - -She accepted him, and this time it was Sir Charles, looking at the -bridegroom’s bald head and infirm gait beside the pretty bride at the -quiet wedding, who repeated to himself the old man’s catchword, with an -ironical emphasis of his own: - -“A _very_ gallant little lady.” - - - - -THE HOTEL CHILD - - - - -THE HOTEL CHILD - -(TO Y. DE LA P.) - - -I - -The first time that I saw her was in Rome. I was governess to the -children at the British Embassy, and every morning before breakfast I -took them out into the Borghese Gardens. - -They were very good, insignificant little children, and never gave -me any trouble. Whilst they played tame little games between the -grey-green olive trees, I used to watch the more amusing Italian -children in the Gardens, the biggest groups consisting of pupils from -the great white Convento dell’ Assunzione, on the corner of the Pincio. - -But the little girl in whom I took the greatest interest was always by -herself. An enormous grey limousine would leave her at the entrance -to the Gardens, and fetch her away again at the end of an hour. -Sometimes the limousine, which was always empty except for a liveried -chauffeur, appeared to have forgotten her, and then I was obliged to -take my children away, leaving her serious and solitary, and quite -undisconcerted, sitting on her bench. I judged her to be about eight -years old, and the child of rich people. Her white embroidered dresses, -far too elaborate, were expensive, and she always wore white shoes and -stockings. - -At first, her nationality puzzled me. Her quite straight hair was -black, cropped short round her beautifully shaped little head in a -fashion that was then very unusual, and her lashes were as long and -as black as those of any Roman-born child. But her grave eyes were -of a deep grey, and her skin, fine and colourless. Perhaps she was -scarcely pretty, but her poise, her erect gracefulness, above all, -her unmistakable air of breeding, made her remarkable. It was that -air of aristocracy that made me feel sure that, in spite of her -independence, she was not American. One gets to know, after seven years -spent in the best families. The American children are well-drilled, -well-dressed, well-behaved--sometimes--but they never achieve that look -of distinction. Some of the French ones have it, but then those are -the children of the old Catholic families, and so they are poor, and -generally badly dressed. On the whole, it is to be seen amongst the -English as often as anywhere--and then, it is almost always accompanied -by the expression that denotes, to an experienced governess, either -stupidity or adenoids--and sometimes, indeed, both. - -My little aristocrat of the Borghese Gardens spoke Italian perfectly. I -heard her greet the chauffeur when he came for her, and those were the -times when she was most childlike. The man very often let her take the -wheel, after he had started the car, and I used to watch, not without -misgivings, the great car sliding away, with the small erect figure -in the driving-seat, her straight black fringe blowing back from her -forehead, her tiny hands gripping the big wheel. - -My charges, it need hardly be said, might never speak to strange -children, but one day the unknown little girl restored to me a toy that -one of them had dropped the day before. - -“I found it, after you’d gone,” she said very politely and distinctly. - -I knew then that she must be English, at least in part. - -My children were playing at a distance, and after thanking her for -returning the plaything, I sat down on the stone bench that she had -made her own. - -After an instant’s hesitation, she sat down there, too. - -We entered into conversation. - -I asked whether she lived in Rome. - -“No. My papa is here on business for a little while, and then we are -going to Paris again.” - -“Your home is in Paris, then?” - -She looked rather puzzled. “I don’t know Paris well,” she observed -apologetically. “We were only there once before, when mama was with -us. It was a nice hotel, I thought, but noisy. This one--the Grand--is -better. Have you been much in Paris?” - -“Not since I was at school there. My French was acquired in Paris,” I -added, automatically. - -One says that kind of thing so often, to please the parents. - -“Mademoiselle aime parler francais, hein?” she enquired, with a little -smile. - -Her French was as perfect as her Italian, or her English; and it was -evidently natural to her to speak either language. - -“Are you English?” I could not refrain from asking her. - -“My papa is Italian--mama was half English, and half French.” - -Was? Then her mother must be dead. That would account for the empty -limousine, and the strange independence of the child. - -“Mama is in New York, now, we think,” she remarked. “I am to join her -when I am ten; that was arranged for, in the deed of separation.” - -“Separation?” said I. - -“There is no divorce in Italy,” said the little creature, shrugging her -shoulders. “Papa is a Catholic, though not, of course _pratiquant_. -They have been separated since I was seven.” - -“Then who--who----” I wanted to ask who looked after her, but such a -form of words seemed singularly inappropriate. “Who looks after your -papa’s house?” I found at last. - -“We are in hotels, most of the time, papa and I, and my maid, Carlotta, -but in the holidays--_les grandes vacances_--we go to the country -somewhere--_villegiatura_--and there is a lady then, always.” - -Her grave eyes looked at me. “A different one,” she explained, “each -time.” - -Her very complete understanding of the status held by the “ladies” was -implicit in her manner, but that struck me less poignantly than did her -philosophical acceptance of all that they stood for. - -The grey limousine came into sight, and she made an amiable little sign -to the chauffeur. - -“I must go now. It doesn’t _do_ to keep the _auto_ waiting.” - -In her grave little voice, was all the circumspection of the child that -has learnt to fend for itself, that knows by experience that it will -only be tolerated so long as it gives no trouble, runs counter to no -prejudices, is guilty of no indiscretions. - -“It has been so pleasant to talk to someone English. Good-bye Miss----?” - -Her little pause was exactly that of a grown-up person, before an -unknown or unremembered name. And what precocity of discernment had -told her that “Miss” was the suitable prefix? - -“Miss Arbell,” said I. “Tell me your name before you go.” - -“Laura di san Marzano.” - -She pronounced Laura in the Italian way--_Lah-o-ra_. - -When I held out my hand, she kissed it, as Italian children do, and -after she had climbed to the driving-seat, she waved to me, before -turning the grey car down the hill. - -I looked for her every morning after that, but she never came to the -Borghese Gardens again. - - -II - -The second time that I saw Laura di san Marzano was nearly four years -afterwards, in the hall of the Majestic Hotel, at Lucerne. - -I had thought of her, at intervals, and had no difficulty in -recognising her, in spite of the difference between eight years old and -twelve. - -She was tall and very slim, and the set of her dark head on her -straight shoulders was just the same. Her black hair now fell in a long -plait to her waist, but she still wore the straight, short fringe that -suited her du Maurier profile. - -It was late afternoon--tea-time, and the hall was full of people, and -noisy. - -Laura sat motionless, but somehow, one felt, very attentive, beside a -beautifully-gowned and jewelled and painted woman, who was talking to -half a dozen men. - -Mama? - -She looked very young to have a child of Laura’s age. - -Then I saw that Laura’s green silk frock was absurdly short, and made -in a babyish style, that matched the huge bow of green satin ribbon -unnecessarily fastened over one ear. - -My pupil, a nearly grown-up one, was late, and as I waited for her, I -watched Laura. - -Presently our eyes met. At once recognition leapt into hers, and she -smiled at me, and bowed. - -I returned the salutation--with infinitely less grace, as I knew in my -middle-class British self-consciousness--and wondered whether she would -come and speak to me. - -Later on she did so, when the group round mama was at its noisiest. - -“How do you do, Miss Arbell?” There was not the faintest hesitation -over my name. “I used to see you often in the Borghese Gardens, in -Rome, and once we talked together. I hope you remember?” - -“I remember very well,” said I, “but I am surprised at your doing so. -You were so very young then, and you must have met so many people -since.” - -“I never forget people,” said Laura simply. - -“You left Rome suddenly, didn’t you?” I continued. “I was there for -nearly a month after our meeting, but I never saw you in the gardens -again.” - -Laura shook her head slightly. - -“I can’t remember,” she admitted. “Very likely we left suddenly. One -does that so often. The management of the hotel becomes intolerable, or -tiresome acquaintances appear--and then the simplest thing is to pack -up and go elsewhere.” - -She spoke so evidently from experience that one could but accept her -strange, rootless, attitude as part of her natural equipment. - -We talked for a little while, and she told me, or I deduced, that since -the Roman days she had been a great deal in Paris--(“I adore the Opera -there, but the theatres not much”)--and then in New York, with mama. -She was to spend the next few years with mama. - -Where? - -Laura’s shoulders indicated the faintest of shrugs. Anywhere. Mama -liked New York as well as most places, but personally Laura thought -that the rooms in the hotels there were always too hot. They went to -London a good deal. Delightful--she smiled at me politely--but one -missed the sunshine. Her point of view, inevitably, was one of great -sophistication. It did not, to my mind, detract from her charm, which -had never been of a direct, childlike kind, but rather of a description -so subtle that amongst the many it might easily pass for mere oddity. - -“I hope we shall meet again,” she said to me, when a certain nervous -movement in the group of mama’s admirers had culminated in the -detachment of a tall, fair youth, who was coming now towards Laura -herself. - -“I am afraid that I leave here to-morrow. My pupil and I are on our way -to rejoin her parents in Italy.” - -“We may be gone ourselves to-morrow. I meant for later on--any time, -anywhere.” She smiled charmingly, but her unchildlike eyes remained -serious and rather weary. - -I heard the fair youth say something to her, with a burst of -meaningless laughter. She did not laugh in return, but her clear, -well-bred little voice was raised to a sympathetic tone of interest. - -“Mama likes an olive in hers, always, but for me I prefer a sweet -Martini--with _two_ cherries, if you please.” - - * * * * * - -I saw Laura twice again before leaving Lucerne, but we did not speak to -one another. - -The first time, at seven o’clock the evening of that same day, was in -one of the gigantic hotel corridors, on the first floor, where I was -waiting for the lift that was to take me to the fifth. - -The hotel hairdresser, in a white coat, with an immense head of curled -and discoloured yellow hair, stood before a shut bedroom door. It flew -open suddenly, and then closed sharply behind Laura di san Marzano. - -“Vous voila donc! Eh bien, il est trop tard.” - -Her voice was ice, her face scornful and unbelieving as she listened to -the man’s torrent of excuses for his tardiness. - -“Assez,” said Laura. “Madame est fort mécontente. Elle ne veut plus de -vous.” - -“Mademoiselle----” - -“C’est inutile. Madame se passera de vous.” - -And as the hairdresser turned away, grumbling and disconcerted, she -added superbly: - -“J’arrangerai la chose. Soyez exacte demain. Mais pour ce soir, c’est -moi qui coifferai madame.” - -Much later in the evening, when I had long ago despatched my pupil to -the bedroom opening out of mine, I returned for a moment to the hot and -strident lounge in order to make certain enquiries at the office. - -Mama was in a white wicker armchair, with crimson and orange cushions -overflowing upon either side of it, and showing up the elaborate waves -of her hair, as black as Laura’s own. The paint that I had seen on her -face earlier in the day was now concentrated into one scarlet curve -upon her mouth, her white lace dress was held up by narrow black velvet -straps cutting across the opulent creaminess of her shoulders, and the -electric light above her head had fastened upon the diamond butterfly -bows of her satin shoes, so that they winked and flashed right across -the hall. - -One hardly saw--certainly did not distinguish--the figures that -composed her numerous entourage, but the prevailing black and -whiteness, the glitter of continually raised small glasses, gave a -general impression of unrelieved masculinity. - -Laura sat beside her mother, on an upright chair. She was dressed in -rose colour, a frock even shorter than the green one that I had seen -before. Her straight hair had been somehow persuaded into a semblance -of long curls; the green silk bow over her left ear had been replaced -by a pink one with fringed ends. - -She did not see me. Her eyes, indeed, were glazed with fatigue, and -every now and then her head fell forwards and was jerked upwards again. - -The hall was unendurably hot with a breathless, artificial heat, and -the orchestra was playing an American rag-time that every now and then -succeeded in out-sounding the medley of raised voices and high-pitched -laughter and clinking glasses. - -It was long after eleven o’clock. - -As I looked at Laura, I saw that her slim, silk-clad legs were swinging -gently to and fro between the bars of the high-backed chair. Her feet, -in bronze-coloured dancing slippers, could not quite reach the floor. - -For the first time, I saw her as the child she really was--the -efficient, helpless, cosmopolitan, traditionless, hotel child. - - -III - -It is a far cry from the family of a British Ambassador--collectively -distinguished, if individually dull--and the blue wonders of Italy, to -an English Girls’ School and the grey horrors of an east coast town. - -The post that I filled temporarily at Lundeen School was not one that -I should have considered, but for personal and family reasons of -convenience. They are long since past, and matter nothing to the story. - -But it was at Lundeen School that I saw Laura di san Marzano for the -third and last time. - -It was the most inappropriate setting imaginable. - -She was left there by mama, in mid-term, because a continental doctor -had declared that she needed bracing air and companionship of her own -age, and also--this I learnt later, quite incidentally, from Laura -herself--because mama and a _cher ami_ had suddenly planned a visit to -Monte Carlo for the express purpose of visiting the Casino, to which -Laura, being under twenty-one, could not have been admitted. - -Laura, as the hotel child, had been pathetic, but her dignity had been -safeguarded, if not actually enhanced, by the kaleidescopic background -of her surroundings. - -At school, she was pitiful--and out of place. The girls, without ill -nature, despised her from the first. - -She arrived amongst them in the short, fanciful, ultra-picturesque -silk frocks and infantile bows of hair ribbon that I had seen her wear -abroad. Those unimaginative, untravelled English schoolgirls had seen -no one like her before, and what they did not know, by experience or -by tradition, they distrusted and disliked. - -Lundeen School made demands upon the pupils’ _physiques_, upon their -powers of conformity, and upon each one’s capacity for assimilating -wholesale a universally applied system. - -Laura di san Marzano had no chance at all. - -The child who “never forgot people” could not remember her -multiplication table, and although she spoke perfectly at least three -languages besides English, she had never learnt syntax, nor read a line -of any history. She had seen the Guitrys play in Paris--(and from her -crisp appreciations and criticisms I deduced that no finest _nuance_ of -their art had been lost upon her)--but she had memorized no standard -selections from the poets. And she did not know how to learn. - -No one, not even the head mistress, was very much disturbed by Laura’s -educational deficiencies, because it was so evident from the first that -her stay amongst us would only be a very temporary affair. - -Mama would certainly swoop down again, probably without warning, and -resume Laura as suddenly as she had discarded her. - -That was how mama always did things, one felt sure. - -Laura herself, although evidently aware of her shortcomings, accepted -them with a grave, but unexaggerated, regret. She seemed, quite without -arrogance, to know that, even educationally, there were other standards -than those of Lundeen, and that her connection with these latter was -after all merely transitory. - -What really distressed her, and shocked her too, I think, was the -attitude of the other girls. - -Compared with the hotel child, there was only one word that adequately -described these daughters of so many excellent English homes--and that -word was _uncivilised_. - -They played unbeautiful games violently, they spoke in hideous slang, -they were rudest when they intended to be most friendly. - -Towards Laura di san Marzano, indeed, they did not wish nor attempt to -display friendliness. They were simply contemptuous. - -And I saw that the hotel child minded that, both from pride and from -ultra-developed social instinct. - -My work was entirely amongst the elder girls, and I saw very little -of Laura during her brief stay, but towards the end of it, something -happened. The rumour arose and spread like wild-fire, even to reaching -the Common Room of the teaching staff, that Laura di san Marzano was in -disgrace with her fellows for cheating over an examination paper. - -The tradition of Lundeen was that of the public-school code. Cribbing -was permissible: ‘copying’ or peeping at the questions set for an -examination, was impossible. - -They were already prejudiced against her; the accusation was accepted -on the instant by her contemporaries. - -The Prefectorial system was in full force at Lundeen, and in any case, -I could not have made the affair my business. But it so happened that -I was present when Laura uttered what I believe to have been her one -and only specific denial of the charge against her. I came unexpectedly -into the room, and saw the semi-circle of self-righteous inexpressive, -young faces that confronted Laura, who stood, rather pale and with her -head held proudly high, and spoke very softly and clearly. - -“I didn’t cheat. Those who thought they saw me, made a mistake. You are -being very unjust and cruel, all of you.” - -She was looking the head of her class straight in the eyes as she -spoke, and the girl, giving her back look for look, made a sound that -unmistakably expressed contemptuous incredulity. - -“What is all this?” said I sharply. - -They were taken aback, all of them. There was an instant of confused -silence, and it was, after all, only the hotel child who possessed -enough of _savoir faire_ to reply to me. - -“Miss Arbell,” she said courteously, “it was a--a necessary -conversation. It is over now.” - -She crossed the length of the room, very composedly, and went out -quietly. - -Her ostracism, after that, was complete. It lasted for a week, and -then, just as one had always surmised would happen, mama, in sables and -violets, drove up in a blue Lanchester car, and said that she and Laura -(who looked so much stronger and better for the change) would at once -go straight to Paris, give themselves enough time to find some clothes, -and sail for New York the following week. - -The hotel child, her face radiant, came to find me and say good-bye to -me. She was incapable, for all mama’s imperious haste, of forgetting or -omitting the courtesy. - -“Do you actually leave this evening?” I asked her. - -Mama had been even more impetuous than I had anticipated. - -“Yes. I need never see any of _them_ again.” - -“It has been an experience, at least,” I reminded her. - -“Yes--but----” she shrugged her shoulders. - -“Expensively bought?” I suggested. And, since she was leaving, I -thought that I might add: “At least, my dear, you have kept your -colours flying. These last days have been very trying, I am afraid, but -you come out of them better than our friends of the Fourth Form, to my -thinking.” - -“Thank you,” said Laura. She looked at me with her grave, -straightforward eyes. - -“It would have been much easier, though, if only I really _hadn’t_ -cheated.” - - * * * * * - -There is a postscript to the story of the hotel child. A very few years -later I heard of her marriage to the Prince d’Armaillh’ac-Ambry, the -representative of the noblest, and one of the wealthiest, of French -families. I believe that they live almost entirely on his estates in -Brittany, and that the Princess interests herself personally in the -numerous peasantry around them. - -Her two children, a boy and a girl, are brought up in great simplicity, -and to the strictest and most orthodox Catholicism. - - - - -IMPASSE - - - - -IMPASSE - -(TO S.M.A.) - - -Two, three, five Dedicated Virgins. They stood before their Reverend -Mother, ponderous black folds of serge sweeping the boards round each -flat-soled pair of black list slippers. - -“The orphans must go to the dentist,” said Reverend Mother, mournfully, -yet with determination. “Here we are in a Protestant country. We must -adapt ourselves to the conditions of our exile. The orphans will have -to be taken to the dentist’s house.” - -The nuns looked at one another, and at Reverend Mother, and solemnly -nodded. - -It was an innovation, but if Reverend Mother said so, it must be right. - -“Sister Clara and Sister Dominic, you will take three orphans to the -dentist to-morrow.” - -Sister Clara drew herself up a little. Her throat swelled beneath the -white swathings that bound her head and neck, and her double chin -momentarily became three. - -“Yes, Mother dear,” she said proudly. - -Her Irish voice was rich and deep, compared with the thin, nasal tones -of the Frenchwomen. - -“Shall I order a cab for them, Mother?” - -That was Sister Caroline, the _sœur econome_. - -“No, no. They must walk ... holy poverty.... You will put on the heavy -travelling veils, Sisters, and the big cloaks, just the same as for a -journey.” - -The heat of that would be stifling, in this weather and on foot! An -unmortified thought.... Sister Clara stuck a pin in her sleeve. She -would remember to confess a slight yielding to sensuality of thought. - -There had been similar yieldings, once or twice, within the last year. - -“Yes, Mother dear. Sister Dominic’ll sit in the waiting-room with two -of the dear orphans, and I’ll be looking after the one that’s in with -the dentist. I’ll not take an eye off of her, on any pretext whatever. -I quite understand, Mother dear, that’s the way it’ll be. Make your -mind easy.” - -One had to be knowing, and careful, going out into the world. - -There was a sense of adventure in setting out, the additional veil -hanging swart, and straight, and heavy, pulling a little so that one’s -head jerked slightly backwards every now and then. - -Sister Dominic held a stout umbrella in one black-cotton-gloved -hand, whilst the other one grasped the wrist of the youngest orphan. -The other two orphans, obscured in blue serge and hard, dark, straw -hat-brims, each held on to a fold of Sister Clara’s habit. - -One thing, Reverend Mother had promised that the community should -recite the Litany of Loretto after office just as they did to ensure -anyone from the convent a safe journey. - -So they’d be protected, even scurrying, a row of five, holding on to -one another, across the streets, in front of those frightful honking -motor-cars, that looked like they’d take the heads off of you, give -them a chance. - -“This’ll be it, Dominic dear. No. 3.” - -A maid in a cap and apron to open the door--and the smartness of her! -All grey-and-white, and showing her shape the way a modest convent-bred -girl would never have done. - -And the waiting-room, with a carpet, and padded chairs, and a fine -pot-plant--putting worldly ideas into the orphans’ heads, as likely as -not. As for the pictures and books on the table.... - -“Don’t be casting your eyes about that way, children dear. Sit quiet -now. Dominic, the hats’ll have to come off of them, we may be sure of -that. We’ll pile them this way, on the chair, and you’ll keep an eye -on them, for fear someone else’ll be coming in and perhaps making off -with them. It’s not as though we were in a good Catholic country.” - -The hats of the orphans were stacked upon a chair, and Sister Dominic -sat upon the edge of another chair, facing them. She held her umbrella. - -“If he does well by the children, the sisters’ll go to him. The -Infirmarian says there’s some of them with teeth in a terrible state.” - -Sister Clara’s tongue sought familiar cavities, and her hand went to -the particular fold of serge sleeve in which were imbedded two large -pins, one of which was taken out at the end of meals, and replaced -after use in the exact same place, so as to save making a fresh hole. - -“If you’ll step this way, Sister----” - -Mother of Mercy! What a start she’d got! It was the man himself, and -smiling, too, standing holding the door open. Awfully young-looking, -with dark eyes that might have been Irish, and a queer white coat on -him. - -And the gentleness of him, when he’d got the orphan into that chair of -his! She’d only to stir, and him stopping the machine, and saying, with -that smile, that he was afraid it was hurting her. - -As if one didn’t go to the dentist to be hurt, and the pain to be -offered up for all Reverend Mother’s intentions! - -Look at the hands of him! - -She watched them, moving softly and skilfully. Presently he talked to -her, at first friendly, joking, little questions, then at more length, -telling about himself. He was a stranger in the town, too. - -“It’ll be the grand thing for you, if Reverend Mother sends the orphans -regularly. I’ll put in a good word for you,” she ventured, and he -looked at her, screwing-up his eyes, and laughing. - -She’d not spoken to any man, not counting the good holy priests which -was a different thing altogether, for many years. - -But if they were all like this, where would be the harm in them at all? -She’d make the orphans start a novena for his conversion to the Faith, -that very night. - -“Now the next child, please.” - -He spent half an hour on each orphan, and the last one, he said, would -have to come again. - -“I’ll be bringing her along.” - -He entered the appointment in a little book. - -“I’ve no secretary, you see, Sister--can’t afford one yet!” and then he -shook hands with her. “Good-bye.” - -The feel of his hand was just what she’d imagined it’d be, gentle, and -yet strong. There were funny little dark hairs all down the back of it -and along the wrist. And although it was such a hot day, the palm of -him was cool and dry. - -Sister Dominic spoke to her, humbly, on the way home. - -“Well, you’re a wonderful woman of the world, Sister Clara dear, -getting us all safe there and back and talking to the man just as -though it was the gardener at dear old Noisy-le-Grand. It won’t be so -hard, next time, if Reverend Mother sends us again.” - -Reverend Mother did send them again, with relays of orphans, and then -Sister Clara alone, with old Mother Seraphina who spoke no English and -whose cheap _râtelier_ appeared to need endless adjustments. - -And he was always kind, and he always smiled, with that screwing-up of -his eyes, and talked to Sister Clara. - -One day she said that she had toothache, and received Reverend Mother’s -leave to make an appointment for herself after Mother Seraphina’s -session. She had, for days, been devoured by an intense curiosity to -know what it would feel like to have those hands hovering about one’s -face. Once, he had had to put his arm right round the back of Mother -Seraphina’s old head.... - -“No, it’s not hurting me at all, at all.” She smiled up at him; a smile -that she felt to be beatific, half-hypnotised. - -“Would you like to see what I’ve been doing?” - -“I would.” - -“There--on the left--that big molar----” - -He put a little mirror into her hands. And she that hadn’t looked in a -glass, hardly, since the day of her final vows, twelve years ago! - -Gracious, what a colour she had! Plum-colour, that was her face. And -the smile that had felt beatific, looking foolish and uncertain, as -though she were ashamed of something. The glass turned dim as her heavy -breathing struck it. - -Would she perhaps have been breathing into his face that way all the -time, and she never thinking of such a thing? - -The face in the glass looked redder than ever. Mother of Mercy, this -weather! The heat of it! And the holy habit no less than five smelly -thicknesses of serge, and not wearing thin yet, though on the back of -her year in and year out. - -“That’s the last stopping, Sister. I shan’t have to trouble you again.” - -“Amn’t I to come to you any more then?” - -“It won’t be necessary. What I’ve done should last you for a long -while. But if you have pain, come to me at once. Any time.” - -What’d it be like, at all, not seeing him any more? Could it be that -she’d become inordinately attached, the way the Imitation said was so -wrong? And to a man, too. - -She was a wicked creature, not worthy of the holy vocation. - -“Is there nothing more needs doing?” - -“Nothing at all. You have excellent teeth, Sister. There’ll be no more -trouble, now those fillings are in.” - -The smile he gave her! So that one hardly heard what he was saying.... - -“If the Reverend Mother wants anyone else seen to, I shall be very -pleased to do what I can. Good-bye, Sister. I should like to have -persuaded you that there’s plenty of good work to be done outside, too. -Take a capable woman like yourself, now. It seems a shame you should be -shutting yourself up inside four walls. Why, you--you might have been -my secretary, if I could only afford to have one!” - -That was a grand laugh of his, it made one want to laugh too, only that -one might start crying somehow. - -It seemed there’d be nothing left to look forward to in the whole world -after the shake of the hand meaning good-bye. There was still that.... - -It was the queer way to feel entirely, and her forty years old. - -Touching the hand of him for the last time, and it strong and yet -gentle at one and the same time, quite different to the hand of any -woman.... - -It was over now, and one hurried away, scared that old Seraphina’d see -something strange in the face of one. - -“Will any more of the sisters be going to him, Mother Seraphina?” - -“No.” - -“Nor any of the dear children?” - -“No.” - - * * * * * - -Mother of Mercy, there was no sleeping in this heat! But it wasn’t the -heat. It was the way one was fretting and crying after what couldn’t -be. Though what for couldn’t it be, when he’d said himself that it was -a sin and a shame for the like of her to be shut up inside four walls, -and himself wanting a secretary and not able to pay one? There’d be -some glad enough to work for him without any pay. - -Day after day it went on, and night after night, till the pain in one’s -head was past bearing, and still there was no getting to sleep. - -The things one thought of! - -There was the door, giving right on to the street, and then only a bit -of a walk, and oneself knowing every step of the way, and then the -sight of him, and the feel of those hands of his--it was that would put -everything right, and take the spell off of one. - -On the hottest night of all, Sister Clara made up her mind. She’d break -her holy vows, that were already broken in the heart of her, and go -back into the world. - -In the morning she dressed and went downstairs. - -She’d not be taking anything with her. After Mass the nuns’d be going -to the refectory, and they’d not be missing her for awhile, and they -keeping the custody of the eyes the way the Holy Rule enjoined. - -Oh, it was the fine nun she was, to talk about the Holy Rule. - -The door was unlocked. Once outside on the pavement, there was nothing -to do but pull it to again. - -The slam of it! - -There’d be no getting in again now, without a great ringing of the -bell, and the portress coming to answer it, and the giving of scandal -to the whole of them. - -If it hadn’t been for that slam of the door.... - -The weather had broken. It wasn’t hot any more, but raw and chilly. - -The way he’d laugh, and look at you, so interested in any little thing -you said! It was wonderful. - -What time did people in the world get up and start their day? Later -than this, no doubt. But there’d be the waiting-room, where she’d sat -with Sister Dominic and the orphans that first time of all. (Maybe -she’d never set eyes on Dominic again.) - -What for did that maid of his take so long to come to the door? - -But it wasn’t the maid who opened the door at last. - -It was a person in a blue apron, with a man’s cap pulled down over her -eyes, and her sleeves rolled up, and a bucket with a mop in it at her -down-at-heel feet. - -“’E ain’t come yet. Won’t be ’ere, not for a hower, but if it’s the -toothache, you can come in and wait.” - -“Does he not live here, then?” - -“Ho no,’e don’t live ’ere. But ’e comes reg’lar, and ’e’ll be along -by-and-by. You go in and sit down. You won’t mind me going on with the -cleaning-up? Turned cold all of a sudden, ain’t it?” - -The rolled-back carpet in the waiting-room, the chairs piled, seat -against seat, round the walls, the broom that presently chased into all -the corners, made it seem colder. - -It grew colder and colder as the hour went by. - -That was the sound of a key in the lock outside. - -“’Morning, Mrs. Hatch. A nasty change in the weather, isn’t it?” - -Mumble, mumble, mumble. - -“Oh Lord, already!” - -He came into the room where Sister Clara shuddered and cowered inside -her folds of enveloping black serge. - -Look at the face of him! Different, somehow. - -You could see how he felt the sudden chilliness in the air, and he was -rubbing his hands together, hard. They were different, too--all mottled -with cold. - -“You in pain, Sister?” - -“I--I’ve come.” - -“M’m? I don’t attend to anyone till nine o’clock, you know, as a rule, -but if it’s a question of pain.... Well, what can I do for you? By the -look of you, it’s an abscess, isn’t it?” - - - - -THE APPEAL - - - - -THE APPEAL - - -This isn’t a story. It’s an attempt at reconstruction. Given my -knowledge of the principals--Mary Jarvis, and her mother, Mrs. St. -Luth--I think I can do it. - -Mary Jarvis was my mother, and Mrs. St. Luth, of course, my -grandmother. Thank god, I’m a modern and can look at them -impersonally--judge each on her own merits, as it were. - -My mother and my grandmother made scenes as other women make jumpers. -It was their form of self-expression. I imagine--although I never knew -for certain--that it was my father’s inability to maintain himself _à -la hauteur_, in the perennial melodrama that was my mother’s idea of -life, that led to my grandmother being invited to live with them. - -She came when I, their only child, had barely reached the stage of -exchanging my baby frills for first knickerbockers. (I am certain, -although I don’t remember it, that my mother wept and said she felt -that she had lost her baby for ever.) - -Already my parents were unhappy together. Mary--I call her so here for -convenience, but she would never have tolerated it in reality--Mary, -although really affectionate and impressionable, was fundamentally -insincere, with herself and with everybody else. She lived entirely on -the emotional plane, and when genuine emotions were not forthcoming -she faked them by instinct. Her mother, who belonged to the same -type, although with more strength of character, and far less capacity -for affection, had always played up to her. They had their violent -disputes and violent reconciliations--neither could have been happy -without--but they did respect one another’s poses. - -But my father never played up. - -He couldn’t. Worse still, if he could have done so, he wouldn’t--on -principle. - -Again I can’t remember, but I can imagine, almost to the point of -certainty, short and searing passages between my parents. - -“Robert, I want you not to ask me to play the piano to-night.” - -(He so seldom gave her an opening, that she had to force them.) - -“Off colour?” - -“It isn’t that. I heard to-day that Mrs. Thorndyke’s child is dead. -It--it upset me.” - -“But you didn’t know the child.” - -“I know Katherine Thorndyke.” - -“You’ve met her once or twice, I remember. And didn’t we hear that if -the poor child had lived, it must have been an idiot?” - -Probably, at that stage, my mother burst into tears. She’d been heading -for that, of course, although she didn’t know it consciously. But my -father did, and had made her aware that he did, in a rather brutal -fashion. - -That was the way they reacted on one another. - -It was better, after grandmother came. Curiously enough, my -father liked her, although she and Mary had so many of the same -characteristics. But I think he regarded her as a sort of lightning -conductor. - -For Mary herself, however, it was different. Like so many people who -manufacture continual unhappiness for themselves, she had a frantic -craving for happiness, and an irrational conviction that happiness was -her due. - -She told me herself, long afterwards, that she never had any thought of -infidelity towards my father, nor did she ever meet any man who could -or would have caused her to break her marriage vows. But--and this she -didn’t tell me, it’s part of the reconstruction--she was constantly -obsessed by a vague and romantic expectation of some such encounter. -I imagine that she could not believe the world to have been created -without a special application to her yearnings. - -And then undoubtedly the nervous wear and tear that she imposed -upon herself, and upon us all, told on her spirits. Her scenes with -grandmother, although they may have served as a safety-valve, were too -frequent. They may also have served to throw into painful contrast her -husband’s stolid opposition to any form of emotional stimulus. - -However that may be, grandmother had formed part of our household for -rather less than a year, when Mary suddenly ran away. - -It was, I suppose, the only dramatic thing that she could think of, in -a wet and dreary February, and I have no doubt at all that she did it -on impulse. That is to say, she gave herself time to write an immensely -long letter to my father--in which perhaps she set forth that view of -herself which he never gave her adequate opportunity for putting into -words--but she gave herself no time to pack up her things. She simply -took her dressing-case, and I am sure that that was mostly filled with -photographs in folding frames, and packets of letters tied up with -ribbon, and little manuals of devotion heavily underscored in several -places. - -Then she walked out of the house, and to the station, and eventually -got to Assisi. And they traced her there almost at once, partly because -she took no pains to cover up her tracks, and partly because my -grandmother--who understood the processes of her mind--found a copy of -a Life of St. Francis on the drawing-room sofa, face downwards, with -one page all blistered, as though tears had fallen upon it. - -My father, for his part, found the long letter that no doubt told him -how little he had understood a sensitive nature, and possibly to what -point their life together had become intolerable. - -And this had the strange effect of making him resolve, and declare -aloud, that nothing would induce him to try and get her back again. -There must have been a stormy scene between him and my grandmother, -who had all the conventionally moral instincts of her day, and was -genuinely shocked and disturbed at her daughter’s abrupt and violent -casting off of her obvious responsibilities. - -“For the child’s sake, at least, Robert ...” she must have repeated -many times. - -(Neither she nor my mother ever understood the futility of repeating, -again and again, words which had already failed of their appeal.) - -“A child whose mother can leave him, at four years old, is better -without her.” - -“It was madness, Robert, but you know she’s not a wicked woman--my poor -Mary. If you go and bring her back now, no one will ever know what has -happened, and you can start a new life together, and try again.” - -“It would be useless.” - -“Don’t, don’t say that.” The tears must have been pouring down her old -face by that time. “Oh, Robert, give her another chance. This will have -been a lesson to her--won’t you forgive her and take her back?” - -Well, in the end she prevailed to a certain extent--that is to say, -my father would not seek out the culprit himself, but he would allow -grandmother to do so, and if she brought Mary home again properly -repentant he would not refuse to receive her and give her the “chance” -of starting their married life afresh. “For the boy’s sake.” - -My grandmother must have repeated that phrase a hundred times at least, -and it was certainly her _pièce de resistance_ in the scene at Assisi -with Mary. - -I’ve had a version of that scene from each one of them, and on the -whole the accounts tally, although of course each viewed it--as they -viewed everything--exclusively from the personal angle. - -My mother saw only a young, beautiful, misunderstood woman, goaded to -frenzy in the grip of an uncongenial marriage, taking a desperate step -in search of freedom. And then, even stronger and more touching in her -relinquishment, finding the courage, for love of her child, to return -to the house of bondage. - -And my grandmother, with equal inevitability, saw only a sorrow-worn -woman, no longer young (but infinitely interesting), courageously -undertaking a solitary journey, on a mission that should restore -sanctity to a shattered home. And even as her urgent plea had shaken -Robert’s defences, so her eloquence, her boundless influence and -unfaltering understanding, must prevail with the slighter, more trivial -personality of her daughter. The achievement of persuading Mary to -return to her husband and child was, my grandmother told me, the -ultimate justification of her existence, in her own eyes. - -As a matter of fact, I doubt if she, any more than the rest of us, felt -her existence to be in any need of justification whatsoever--but she -was addicted to phrases, and this one at least served as an indication -to the magnitude of her effort. - -For Mary did not capitulate without a struggle. And it is in the -details of that struggle that my reconstruction work comes in, for -although each of the protagonists has quoted to me whole sentences, -and even speeches, of brilliant oratory from herself and inadequate -rejoinder from the other, I do not believe either of them. Accuracy, -with that type, can never co-exist with emotion--and emotion, real or -imaginary, is never absent. - -But this, I imagine, is more or less what took place in the -sitting-room of the tiny _albergo_ at Assisi: - -“I’ve come to fetch you home, my child. You shall never hear one word -of reproach--Robert only wants to begin again--a new life.” - -“Never, mother. It’s impossible. I’ve borne too much. I can’t ever go -back to it. I must live my own life.” - -(Probably Mary had been reading _The Doll’s House_. People were -discovering Ibsen in those days.) - -“Mary, it’s not five years since you and Robert were married, in the -little country church at home, by our dear old vicar, who held you at -the font when I took you, a tiny baby, to be christened.” - -It may have been at this stage that Mary began to cry. Anyway, I’m -certain that my grandmother did. Any allusions, however irrelevant, to -little country churches at home, and Mary as a tiny baby, were always -apt to bring the tears to her eyes--and I’m sure that neither of them -had thought for an instant of steadying their nerves by sitting down to -a solid meal. So that tears must have been easier, even, than usual. - -“Robert doesn’t understand me--he never will.” - -“Darling, don’t you remember your early days together? The little -things--little jokes, and allusions, and happinesses shared together? -Does one ever forget?” - -“_No._” - -Mary sobbed. “But I can’t go back to him.” - -I think that here, if my grandmother gave her a chance, she probably -did make one--or part of one--of the speeches that she long afterwards -quoted to me. - -She was intensely unhappy. Robert did not understand her, and she could -not live in an unsympathetic atmosphere. She should go mad. All that -she had ever asked of life was peace, beautiful surroundings, and the -ideal companion.... If she went back to Robert now, after having found -courage to make the break, it would be a repetition of the misery that -had broken her heart during the past three years. - -(The hearts of my mother and grandmother both suffered innumerable -breakages throughout their lives, neither of them ever seeming aware of -the physiological absurdity of the expression.) - -“It’s braver to stay away than to go back and try and patch up -something that can never be anything but a failure,” quavered Mary, -with a momentary flash of insight. - -But of course grandmother couldn’t leave it at that. She had the -justification of her own existence to think of, for one thing. I am -quite sure that a fortuitous street-musician, rendering “Santa Lucia” -or “Silver Threads Amongst the Gold” in the distance, would have broken -down Mary’s frail barrier of honest thought, and have materially -assisted my grandmother to her victory. Accessories were so absolutely -essentials, to them both. - -But so far as I know, grandmother had to win on points, as it were, and -received no extraneous help in the shape of sentimental appeals from -without. - -She made her supreme effort. - -“For the boy’s sake, Mary ... your little, little boy. Is he to be -motherless?” - -“Wouldn’t Robert let me have him?” - -“No, my dear. How could he? I myself--the mother that bore you, Mary--I -couldn’t think it right that a woman who had deliberately deserted her -husband and home should have the care of a little, innocent child.” - -“Oh, my baby!” - -She sobbed and cried, but she had not yet capitulated. Grandmother, -however, had gauged pretty accurately the force of the baby-_motif_. - -“Before I came away, on my long, lonely journey,” she said slowly, “I -went up to the nursery, to say good-bye to Bobbie. He had on his blue -overall--the one you embroidered for him last summer, Mary--was it only -last summer?--and he was playing with his engine, on the nursery floor, -his dear, round face was so solemn....” - -“Oh, don’t--don’t----” - -But grandmother, the tears streaming from her eyes, relentlessly -continued: “Darling, his big blue eyes looked up at me, and his little -voice asked: ‘_Where’s Mummie?_’” - -Did grandmother’s--even grandmother’s--conscience misgive her, at the -quotation? That it was verbally correct, I have no doubt--but what of -the intonation? - -My grandmother’s poignant rendering of “_Where’s Mummie?_” no doubt -contained all the pathetic appeal of bewildered and deserted childhood -throughout the ages.... - -But mine--the original “_Where’s Mummie?_...” I have no recollection of -it, of course, but I do remember myself at four years old--a stolid, -rather cynical child, utterly independent by temperament, and reacting -strongly even then against a perpetually emotional atmosphere. And -one knows the way in which small children utter those conventional -enquiries which they unconsciously know to be expected of them ... the -soft, impersonal indifference of the tone, the immediate re-absorption, -without waiting for a reply, in the engrossing occupation of the -moment.... - -Mary held out for a little while longer, but the heart went out of her -resistance after the pitiful sound of that “_Where’s Mummie?_” as my -grandmother rendered it. - -She gave in “for the boy’s sake.” - -And my grandmother had justified her existence. - -They travelled home together, and Mary averted anti-climax by quite a -real nervous breakdown, that overtook her after she got home, before my -father had had time to forgive her in so many words. - -So they began again--literally. - -It wasn’t, in fact, possible for them to be happy together, and -they never were so. I grew up in the midst of scenes, tears, and -intermittent periods of reconciliation. There was no stability about my -childhood; and no reality. Undoubtedly I was the victim--far more so -than my father, who presently sought and found consolation elsewhere, -or than Mary, whom he thus provided with a perfectly legitimate -grievance that lasted her until he died, fifteen years later. After -that, she was able gradually to forget that there had ever been -unhappiness between them, and to assume the identity of a heart-broken -widow. - -Mrs. St. Luth, my grandmother, lived to be very old. - -“But useless old woman though I am, God gave me the opportunity of -justifying my existence, when He let me bring a mother home to her -little child....” - -I wonder. - - * * * * * - -Thank god, I’m a modern. - - - - -THE FIRST STONE - - - - -THE FIRST STONE - -A PLAY IN ONE ACT - - -_Characters_: - - MRS. LLOYD-EVANS } _Members of the local Welfare - MRS. BALLANTYNE } Committee_ - MRS. AKERS } - MISS MILLER _Secretary to the Committee._ - - -SCENE - -_A committee-room on the top floor of a house in a small provincial -town. Back of the stage, centre, there is a door, opening inwards on -to the stage. To the right of the door, a few pegs are on the wall for -hanging coats, etc. Right of the stage, is a good-sized window, showing -distant views of chimney-pots outside. Left of the stage, a small -gas-fire burns. Near it, a table and chairs have been formally arranged -for the meeting._ - -_The whole atmosphere of the room is cold and dreary. Time: a winter -afternoon in 1917._ - -_Miss Miller discovered. She is cold and tired-looking, mechanically -arranging blotting-paper, etc. on the table._ - -_Mrs. Ballantyne enters. She is prosperous-looking and clad in warm -furs, and is out of breath from ascending the stairs._ - -MISS MILLER: Good afternoon, Mrs. Ballantyne. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE (_out of breath_): Good afternoon. Oh dear, those -stairs! I’m out of breath. - -MISS MILLER: They are trying, aren’t they? Four flights! - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: Oh, you oughtn’t to find them trying, at your age. -Tell me, have you any idea why we’ve all been asked to come here -to-day, Miss Miller? It’s not the day for our regular meeting, at all. - -MISS MILLER: No, I’ve got the notice for that all ready to send out as -usual. This is a special meeting that Mrs. Lloyd-Evans is calling. She -only sent me a note about it last night, telling me to get the room -ready. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: She wrote to me too, but she didn’t say what it was -all about. I suppose she’ll have written to Mrs. Akers, as well. - -MISS MILLER: Here they are. - -(_Enter Mrs. Lloyd-Evans and Mrs. Akers. Mrs. Lloyd-Evans is mysterious -and melancholy, and Mrs. Akers lively and full of undisguised -curiosity. Both wear heavy coats, furs, etc. They shake hands with Mrs. -Ballantyne, and nod and say how d’ye do to Miss Miller. Whilst they -talk they loosen or take off their wraps, and place them on the pegs -near the door._) - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS (_to Mrs. Ballantyne_): How d’ye do. We’re all a -little before our time, I think, but then as I always say, it’s -better to be too early than too late. (_This she says with an air of -originality._) - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: Of course, the minute I got your note I quite saw that -something must have happened, or you wouldn’t have asked us to come out -in this dreadful cold, _and_ up those awful stairs. I do think, when -we’re doing the whole of this Welfare Committee business gratuitously, -that they might have found us a room on the ground floor. Isn’t there -any hope of getting better premises? - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: They pretend that any accommodation is difficult to -find nowadays, but I should like to know why some building shouldn’t -be done? What I always say is, that there wouldn’t be half this -unemployment trouble, if people were given _work_. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE (_bored_): Yes, indeed. - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: It’s just Bolshevism, you know, all this talk of -unemployment. There’s always work for those who are willing to work. -Now I can’t help thinking it would put a stop to all this labour -unrest, if they could only send a few of the leaders to _Russia_, to -show them what Bolshevism has resulted in, there. - -Mrs. Ballantyne: Yes, of course. It really would be a lesson. (_She -is arranging her dress, etc., as she speaks, and tidying herself at a -little pocket-mirror._) - -MRS. AKERS (_seating herself, to Mrs. Lloyd-Evans_): Well, I’m all -agog to know what’s happened. Your note was most mysterious. What’s -been happening at the School? Really, the present generation is the -limit--always giving trouble. It seems to have come in with bobbed hair. - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: Girls are often very artful. - -MRS. AKERS: Well, we ought to be able to cope with the artfulness of -mere schoolgirls, surely. Now do let’s sit down and get to business. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE (_to Mrs. Lloyd-Evans_): As you see, I haven’t brought -my daughter. I’m sure it was very thoughtful of you to warn me in your -note, but I gather it means that we have something--painful--to discuss? - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: One hardly likes to put things into words--but your -Phyllis is a young girl, after all, and I always feel there ought to be -something _sacred_ about a young girl. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: I had to pretend to Phyllis that you wanted to speak -about some very dull question of finance. It was deceiving her, -perhaps, but I _do_ so agree with you about how one ought to treat -young girls as something _sacred_, as you say. So I told her the whole -thing was going to be very formal, and only members of the actual -Committee allowed to be present. I’m afraid it was rather in the nature -of a pious fraud. - -(_They all laugh, and draw slightly closer together_.) - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: Before we begin, I should like to say that this must -all be in absolute confidence. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE (_looking at Miss Miller_): Excuse me a moment. (_She -whispers to Mrs. Lloyd-Evans. The other ladies try to hear what is -said, and at the same time to look as though they were doing nothing of -the sort._) - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS (_aloud_): I am sure Miss Miller will be discreet. -Charity sometimes forces one to face very painful things, and one must -be brave and hear about various tragedies that one would far prefer -never to mention at all. (_Pause._) One hardly knows how to word -certain things. (_Pause._) - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: Really, if it’s anything of _that_ sort, I think we -ought to ask Miss Miller to leave us. (_Aside_): she’s only a girl. - -MRS. AKERS (_eagerly_): _That_ sort? What sort? - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: Well, you know what I mean. But I’m sure I hope I’m -mistaken. - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: I’m afraid you’re not, Mrs. Ballantyne. - -MRS. AKERS: Call a spade a spade. Is it the usual thing? - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: I should be sorry to call it the _usual_ thing. But -I’m afraid that’s what it is. - -MRS. AKERS: I’ve worked in a district, and my husband has a large -medical practice amongst poor people. I suppose some girl has got into -trouble? - -(_Mrs. Lloyd-Evans bows her head in assent, and once more all three -ladies draw their chairs closer together. Miss Miller covers her face -with her hands for a moment._) _From now onwards, the three ladies are -all much more animated, and full of barely-disguised enjoyment of a -subject which they all regard as a delicate one._ - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: We’re all married women here, and I think we can -discuss this better without Miss Miller. - -MISS MILLER (_quickly, and with suppressed agitation_): If it’s a -formal meeting, you’ll want the minutes entered. - -MRS. AKERS: Yes. She’d better stay. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE (_aside to Mrs. Akers_): I don’t agree. I’m the mother -of a girl myself, as you know, and to me girlhood is _sacred_. We have -a most painful subject to discuss. - -MISS MILLER: Please let me stay. I--I might help. - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: How could _you_ help, Miss Miller? And even if you -could, it would be most unsuitable in an unmarried girl like yourself. -Please wait in the next room until we call you to take down the results -of the conference. - -(_Exit Miss Miller, and shuts the door._) - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: I don’t know that I altogether like that girl. Rather -horrid of her to be so curious, wasn’t it? - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: Any young woman with a _nice_ mind would have been -only too thankful to be spared the embarrassment of staying in the -room while such a thing was being discussed. (_Her tone changes to -eagerness._) Well, this is too dreadful! Which of the girls is it? - -MRS. AKERS: I’m certain it’s one of those twins! They really are -pretty--you know what I mean, pretty _for_ that class. Which of them is -it? - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: It’s nothing to do with the twins. (Though I daresay -it’ll be them next--one never knows, when once this sort of thing -begins.) No, it’s the girl from London, the daughter of that widowed -Mrs. Smith who has been taking in washing in West Street. - -MRS. AKERS: Fanny! - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: That child! But she can’t be more than sixteen. - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: Fifteen. But one knows what London girls are, at any -age. - -MRS. AKERS: How did you find out? Is it absolutely certain? - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: Absolutely. It ought to have been found out months -ago, if the girl hadn’t been so artful. Even her mother says she had no -idea, till just the other day. - -MRS. AKERS (_decidedly_): That’s impossible. - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: She pitched a long yarn about the girl herself not -having known what was happening. They pretend it came to light by -accident, through something Fanny said to her mother, which made her -suspicious. - -MRS. AKERS (_eagerly_): What was that? If we’re to help at all, we’d -better know everything. - -(_Mrs. Lloyd-Evans whispers to her, and Mrs. Akers whispers in her turn -to Mrs. Ballantyne._) - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: And when do they expect---- - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: In three months’ time, actually. - -(_The members of the Committee, in silence, make rapid movements upon -their fingers, in evident calculation._) - -MRS. AKERS: Then it must have happened after they got down here, that’s -clear. - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: I think it’s much more likely it was in London. -There’d just be time. Londoners are always immoral. Besides, as I said -to her, _in our town these things don’t happen_. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: How did they take it? - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: The girl herself seems absolutely callous. I couldn’t -get a word out of her. The mother says she hasn’t been able to, either, -and she’s been trying to force her to tell her when it happened. The -grandmother was there, as well, and you know what an odious old woman -_she_ is. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if she’d been in the plot the -whole time. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: When did all this conversation take place, if I may -ask? - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: Only yesterday. I happened to go in there, and found -the mother in tears, so of course I got the whole story out of her. I -felt it was a question for the Welfare Committee--married women, like -ourselves--and I’ve done absolutely nothing, except ask Dr. Akers to -see the girl and make certain. - -MRS. AKERS: Well! He’s never said a word to _me_ about it. I must say, -he was out late last night and early this morning, but I do think he -ought to have given me a hint. - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: Gentlemen are so odd, about anything to do with -their business. I’ve often noticed it. One has to probe for _hours_, -sometimes, to get the simplest piece of information. - -MRS. AKERS: Look here, we shall have to settle something. Of course the -girl must go away. - -THE OTHERS: Of course. - -MRS. AKERS: The question is, where? - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: Surely some Sisterhood would take her in. - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: One doesn’t want to be hard on her. I told the mother -that we should discuss it all quietly amongst ourselves before settling -anything. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: _I_ think we ought to send for the girl, and see if -we can get anything out of her. Of course, it would be very trying -and dreadful, but I’m sure that’s what we ought to do. I, for one, -shouldn’t shrink from it. - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: You wouldn’t get a word out of her. They were all in -league together, it seemed to me. Thoroughly artful and determined to -stick together, I thought them, all three of them. - -MRS. AKERS: I can’t see why the grandmother should have any say in the -matter at all. Pray what has _she_ to do with it? - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: She talked a great deal of nonsense about wanting to -keep Fanny at home. As I said to her, if keeping Fanny at home results -in _this_ sort of thing, then the sooner Fanny goes away from home the -better. She was thoroughly nonplussed at that, as you may imagine, and -couldn’t answer anything at all, though of course she chattered away, -but I took not the slightest notice. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: But, Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, do you mean to say that they -won’t tell who the man is? - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: The girl won’t say a word. As I said to her myself, -it _must_ have been somebody in London before they came away, and it’s -no use telling me it happened here, because I simply shan’t believe it. - -MRS. AKERS: Well, what about a Home, or some other place where the girl -could go till it’s all over? It had better be as far away from here as -possible, of course. - -THE OTHER TWO AS BEFORE: Oh, of course. - -MRS. AKERS: I have two or three addresses of that kind--one place is -near London. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: The very thing. I’d gladly take her up myself, if -necessary. She’s very young and one doesn’t want to be hard on her. -What line are the mother and grandmother taking up? - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: The mother cried a good deal, and said how ashamed -she was that the girl should make such a return for all that’s been -done for them down here. People have been very kind about employing -her--I’ve sent washing there myself. (She charges less than the -steam-laundry.) She was thoroughly upset, and one could have managed -_her_ all right. It’s the grandmother that’s so impossible, and the -girl looks as though she could be thoroughly obstinate. I’m bound to -say she was looking very ill, so one didn’t want to frighten her. - -MRS. AKERS: Well, that doesn’t apply to the old woman. She must be -squashed. Leave the grandmother to me if necessary. If there’s any -difficulty about their letting Fanny go, I can say we shall inform -the police. These people are perfectly ignorant of the law, and would -probably believe anything. (_She laughs in a slightly shamefaced, -way._) After all, it’s for the girl’s own good. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: Certainly, and besides, for their own sake they want -to avoid exposure. The mother can be told that the Committee is taking -the whole expense and trouble off her hands, and she’ll be only too -thankful to let the girl go. She can come back when it’s all over, and -if they’re careful, people needn’t know anything about it. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: But what will happen--when---- - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: What? - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: What will be done with the--with the little---- - -MRS. AKERS: The _results_, you mean? - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: Oh, the baby. In these sad cases, one almost hopes -that it may not live, dreadful though it sounds to say such a thing. - -MRS. AKERS: My husband tells me that in his experience, illegitimate -children are often particularly strong and healthy infants. - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: God’s ways are not our ways. - -MRS. AKERS (_to Mrs. Ballantyne_): But in this case, of course, the -child will be taken away the minute it’s born, and the mother will -probably never set eyes on it at all. It’s taken to some Institution -where they look after it, and that gives the mother a chance of living -it down. Especially when she’s so young. - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: The grandmother said something about the baby, as she -called it, but of course I stopped that at once. They can hardly earn -enough to keep themselves, as it is, and if there was any question -of Fanny being allowed to keep the child, it would simply amount, as -I told her, to putting a premium upon immorality. Of course, if one -knew who the man was, pressure could be brought to bear on him, but I -don’t believe for an instant that it’s a case of the girl having been -seduced. She’s probably a thorough little bad lot. Quite likely she -doesn’t know who the father is. I’m told that some of these London -girls are frightfully--promiscuous. - -MRS. AKERS: I don’t know how to believe that--at fifteen! I’m afraid it -may have been somebody down here, you know. - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: Oh please don’t suggest such a thing. It’s the last -thing we want to have established. Just think of the talk! As it is, -if we don’t press the question, we can get the girl away quietly and -nothing be known about it. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: You think we shan’t get anything out of her? - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: Nothing, nor her mother either, according to her own -account. The old grandmother began some story about an assault having -perhaps been made on the girl, and she too frightened to tell; but as -I said, if that sort of thing was new to her, a girl’s first impulse -would be to rush to her mother with the story, and if she didn’t, it -only showed that she thought nothing of it. - -MRS. AKERS (_thoughtfully_): I wonder if _I_ could get anything out of -her? I’ve a very good mind to go home that way. One dreads having to -deal with this sort of sad case, but after all, it’s charity. I could -put the old grandmother into her place once and for all, as you say -she’s disposed to be tiresome, and make Fanny herself understand that -we only want to help her. After all, we’ve all read our Bible, I hope: -“Which amongst you shall cast the first stone?” - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: As the mother of a girl myself, I was wondering if _I_ -ought not to talk to Fanny, perhaps. Goodness knows, it’s a miserable -affair, but the world is what it is, and it’s no use _shrinking_ from -these things. - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS (_displeased_): As it was I who made this very sad and -perplexing discovery, I think I had better be the person to see the -business through. Naturally, one consults the Committee, but I can’t -help feeling that there had better be only one intermediary between the -Committee and the girl’s family. It’s more business-like, and one must -be business-like. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: Oh, certainly! - -MRS. AKERS: But this isn’t an official meeting, is it? We’ve had no -notes taken, or anything. And we haven’t passed any resolution. Now, I -should like to propose that I write to-night to St. Mary Magdalene’s -Home and try and arrange to get Fanny taken in there as soon as -possible, and kept till after the birth of the child. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: I second that. - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: Proposed and seconded. Those in favour--(_they each -lift up a hand_). Those against.... Carried unanimously, I think. - -MRS. AKERS: Now, is there anything more we can do? - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: I don’t think so. If there are any further -developments, I will let you know, of course. I mean, if one can get -any admission out of the girl, for instance. She seemed to me perfectly -stolid and bewildered, but one doesn’t want to risk upsetting her, -naturally. It would be extremely annoying if anything happened before -we can get her away. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: What did they say about her health? Is she all right? - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: Perfectly all right. Why shouldn’t she be--a young, -healthy girl like that! - -MRS. AKERS: After all, it’s nature. - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: I don’t call it nature at all, at fifteen. I call -it _sin_. (_Rises, and goes to put on her coat. The other two remain -seated._) - -MRS. BALLANTYNE (_shuddering_): Fifteen! Just think of it! My Phyllis -is only two years older. Thank heaven, I’ve been able to keep her as -innocent as a baby. She knows _nothing_--absolutely nothing. - -MRS. AKERS: Innocence is such a safeguard. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: What I shall tell her about this meeting, I really -don’t know. Unfortunately, she knew where I was coming, and I shall -have to invent something to tell her in case she asks any questions -about it, as she’s certain to do. Luckily, I think she trusts me -absolutely. - -MRS. AKERS: Come home to tea with me, dear Mrs. Ballantyne. It will -help to take both our minds off the whole sad subject. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: How very kind of you! I should love to. We must try -and forget all about it for the time being. - -MRS. AKERS: I can’t help wondering how Fanny could have managed to -deceive her mother for so long. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: I must say, I should have thought any woman with eyes -in her head---- - -MRS. AKERS: Yes, and besides, why didn’t the girl, if she was a -respectable girl, go _straight_ to her mother when---- - -(_Mrs. Akers and Mrs. Ballantyne, lean across the table, talking busily -about Fanny’s behaviour, both at once. Meanwhile Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, -who has now got her furs on, stands as though listening to some sound -outside the door, unnoticed by the other two. She tiptoes rapidly to -the door and flings it open. Miss Miller is crouching outside, having -evidently been listening. One side of her face is scarlet where it has -been pressed to the door, the other white. She rises awkwardly as the -door opens, but not before they have all seen her._) - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS: I _thought_ so! - -MISS MILLER (_wildly_): What did you think, Mrs. Lloyd-Evans? That I’ve -been listening at the door? So I have! That I’ve overheard all your -charitable plans for Fanny Smith and her illegitimate child? So I have! - -MRS. AKERS: You should be ashamed of yourself. - -MRS. BALLANTYNE: What’s the meaning of this? - -MISS MILLER: I’ll tell you. You said just now that the world is what it -is--there’s no use in shrinking from things--shrinking from them! Ha, -ha, ha! (_she laughs hysterically_). You’re a great deal more likely to -jump at them. But if you want to have my explanation, you shall have it. - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS (_pointing to the door_): Miss Miller, leave the room. - -(_Miss Miller looks at her, still laughing, then turns the key in the -door, shutting and locking it._) - -MISS MILLER: I shan’t leave the room, nor you either, till you’ve heard -what I’ve got to say. - -MRS. AKERS: Good heavens, she’s mad! - -MRS. LLOYD-EVANS (_advancing resolutely_): Give me that key this moment -(_putting out her hand for it_). - -(_Miss Miller, too quick for her, dashes to the window, throwing up the -sash, and flings out the key. During the rest of the scene she stands -with her back to the open window, while the three other women are -grouped together behind the table, at the further side of the room._) - -MISS MILLER (_her voice has grown cunning, and bitterly and vehemently -ironical both at once. She gives the impression of dementia_): _I_ -knew what you were going to talk about. _She_ (_pointing to Mrs. -Akers_) gave it away when she said it must be “the usual thing.” Of -course I listened, to hear what you’d do for Fanny--poor Fanny, who’s -going to bring a little baby into the world, and who’s been ill and -terrified and unhappy, all these months. And you (_to Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, -bitter mockery in her tone_) found it out, and you asked these other -kind, charitable, rich ladies to come and meet you here, so that you -could all talk it over, and make plans about Fanny. (_Suddenly and -viciously_): And oh, how you all _enjoyed_ it--didn’t you--telling each -other how painful it was, and how sad, and how you could hardly put it -into words! - -(_Fiercely_): Why, you nearly scratched one another’s eyes out for the -fun of going to Fanny’s mother, and “putting the old grandmother into -her place” and putting Fanny through the Third Degree, nagging and -nagging at her to _tell_, so that you could hear more shocking details, -and come and gloat over them. - -(_Mimicking_): “Oh, but we want to help her,” and “girlhood is so -_sacred_.” (_To Mrs. Ballantyne_): Yes, you said that several times, -didn’t you, you who are so thankful that your girl _trusts_ you--so -that when you cheat her and tell little lies for her own good, the poor -little fool swallows it. She won’t always swallow it, you know--she’ll -find you out one day. Just like I’ve found out, what charity means and -what’s done to girls who sin and get found out. I had to know, you see, -because--I’ve done what Fanny did---- - -(_The women cry out, below their breath._) - -MISS MILLER: You needn’t be frightened--it isn’t anyone down here. -That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it--that it may all end up tamely -after all, with a hasty marriage, and nothing left to talk about! -You’d like to hustle me away, like Fanny, to somewhere that will take -your money, and make you feel all nice and glowing and charitable--and -where they’ll “take away the baby, and the mother probably never sets -eyes on it at all.” To be allowed to keep it, would “put a premium on -immorality” wouldn’t it? Ha, ha, ha! I’ve been frightened all these -weeks, but I’m not frightened any more now. Something went snap inside -my head, I think, all in a minute, while I was listening to all of -you. I’d thought of appealing to you, you see--such kind ladies, all -given over to works of charity! If you’re the _charitable_ (_laughing -wildly_) what would _other_ people say? No, no, no--I’ll not be like -Fanny, I’ve thought of a better plan than any of yours! - -(_She springs on to the sill of the open window. Mrs. Akers cries “Stop -her!” and they dash forward, but the table impedes them, and Miss -Miller, still laughing, throws herself out._ - -_The curtain falls as Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, screaming, pulls at the locked -door, and the other two women throw themselves against the window and -look downwards._) - - -THE END - - -PRINTED BY THE ANCHOR PRESS, LTD., TIPTREE, ESSEX, ENGLAND. - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. - - The cover image for this eBook was created by the transcriber using - the original cover and is entered into the public domain. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MESSALINA OF THE SUBURBS *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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M. Delafield</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Messalina of the suburbs</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: E. M. Delafield</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 31, 2022 [eBook #69669]<br>Last updated: March 5, 2023</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MESSALINA OF THE SUBURBS ***</div> - -<div class="figcenter hide"><img src="images/coversmall.jpg" width="450" alt=""></div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h1>MESSALINA OF THE SUBURBS</h1> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_title.jpg" alt=""></div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<p><span class="xxlarge"><i>Messalina of the</i></span><br> -<span class="xxlarge"><i>Suburbs</i></span>   <span class="xlarge"><i> : :   : :   By</i></span><br> -<span class="xlarge"><i>E. M. DELAFIELD   : :</i></span></p> - -<p><i>Author of “Tension,” “The Optimist,” “A<br> -Reversion to Type,” etc.</i></p> - -<hr class="tiny"> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_titlelogo.jpg" alt=""></div> - -<p><span class="large"><i>LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO.<br> -PATERNOSTER ROW</i></span></p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="ph1">DEDICATED<br> - -TO<br> - -M. P. P.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Margaret</span>,</p> - -<p>We have so often agreed that causes are more -interesting than the most dramatic results, that I feel you -are the right person to receive the dedication of my story -about Elsie Palmer, in which I have tried to reconstruct -the psychological developments that led, by inexorable -degrees, to the catastrophe of murder. These things are -never “bolts from the blue” in reality, but merely sensational -accessories to the real issue, which lies on that more -subtle plane of thought where only personalities are deserving -of dissection.</p> - -<p>For what it is worth, I offer you an impression of Elsie -Palmer’s personality.</p> - -<p class="right">E. M. D.</p> - -<p><i>August, 1923.</i></p> -</div></div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2> -</div> - -<table> - -<tr><td class="tdr" colspan="2"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td>MESSALINA OF THE SUBURBS    </td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_11"> 11</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>THE BOND OF UNION</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_185"> 185</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>LOST IN TRANSMISSION</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_193"> 193</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>TIME WORKS WONDERS</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_213"> 213</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>THE GALLANT LITTLE LADY</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_223"> 223</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>THE HOTEL CHILD</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_235"> 235</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>IMPASSE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_249"> 249</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>THE APPEAL</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_259"> 259</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>THE FIRST STONE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_269"> 269</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="ph2">MESSALINA OF THE SUBURBS</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span> -<h2 class="nobreak">Messalina of the Suburbs</h2> - -<h3 class="nobreak">PART I</h3> -</div> - -<h4>I</h4> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Elsie</span>, I’ve told you before, I won’t have you going with -boys.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t, mother.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, you do. And don’t contradict. Surely to goodness -you’re aware by this time that it’s the heighth of bad -manners to contradict. I’ve taken trouble enough to try -and make a lady of you, I’m sure, and now all you can do is -to contradict your mother, and spend your time walking -the streets with boys.”</p> - -<p>“Mother, I never.”</p> - -<p>“Now don’t tell lies about it, Elsie. Mother knows -perfectly well when you’re telling a lie, and you don’t take -her in by crocodile tears either, my lady. Don’t let me -have to speak to you again about the same thing, that’s -all.”</p> - -<p>Elsie began to cry, automatically and without conviction. -“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, you do, miss. I mean Johnnie Osborne, and -Johnnie Osborne’s brother, and Stanley Begg and the rest -of them. Now, no more of it, Elsie. Go and give the gurl -a hand with washing up the tea-things, and hurry up.”</p> - -<p>Elsie went away, glad that it was so soon over. Sometimes -mother went on for ages. Thank the Lord she was -busy to-day, with two new paying guests coming in. As -she went past the drawing-room door Elsie looked in.</p> - -<p>“Hallo, little girl!”</p> - -<p>“Hallo, Mr. Roberts! Can’t stay, I’ve to go and help -the girl wash up or something.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>“You’ve been crying!”</p> - -<p>“I haven’t, then!” She went further into the room and -let him see the downward droop of her pouting mouth and -her wet eyelashes. She had not cried hard enough to make -her nose turn red.</p> - -<p>“I say, what a shame! What have they been doing to -you?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, nothing. Mother’s on the warpath, that’s all. -It isn’t anything.”</p> - -<p>“How rotten of her! Fancy scolding you! I thought -you were always good, Elsie.”</p> - -<p>“And who said you might call me Elsie, if you’ll kindly -answer me that, Mister Impertinence?”</p> - -<p>She shook her short, bobbing curls at him and laughed, -suddenly good-tempered.</p> - -<p>“You witch! Elsie, shall you miss me a tiny bit when -I’m gone?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’re going, are you?” She pretended to consider. -“Let me see, there’s a single gentleman coming, -who’ll have your room, and a married lady and gentleman -for the front bedroom. I don’t really suppose, Mr. Roberts, -there’ll be time to miss you much, with the house full like -that.” She looked innocently up at him.</p> - -<p>“Little devil!” he muttered between his teeth, causing -her to thrill slightly, although she maintained her pose of -artlessness without a visible tremor.</p> - -<p>“Who’s the bounder who’s going to have my room after -to-night?”</p> - -<p>“Mis-ter Roberts!” She affected a high key of indignation. -“He isn’t a bounder. You know very well that -mother’s awfully particular. She wouldn’t take anyone -without he was a perfect gentleman in <i>every</i> way. Now I -can’t wait another minute. I should get into an awful -row if mother caught me here.”</p> - -<p>“What’s the harm? Don’t run away, Elsie. Just -tell me this: are you coming to the pictures to-night—for -the last evening?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, are you going to take me and Geraldine? I don’t -suppose Geraldine’ll be able to—she’s ill.”</p> - -<p>“Can’t we go without her?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>“Mother wouldn’t let me.”</p> - -<p>“Well, look here, Elsie—come without telling anyone. -Do, just for the lark. I swear I’ll take the greatest care of -you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, how could I? Besides, mother’d want to know -where I was.”</p> - -<p>“Can’t you say you’re going somewhere with that -eternal friend of yours—that Irene Tidmarsh girl, or whatever -her name is?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll thank you to remember you’re speaking of a friend -of mine, Mr. Roberts. And the idea of suggesting I should -do such a thing as deceive my mother! Why, I’m surprised -at you!”</p> - -<p>“Don’t rot, Elsie. Say you’ll come. Slip out after -supper, and meet me at the bottom of the road. There’s -a jolly good programme on at the Palatial.”</p> - -<p>“I hope you’ll enjoy the pictures, Mr. Roberts,” said -Elsie demurely. She sidled backwards to the door.</p> - -<p>“I shall wait for you—eight o’clock sharp.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t catch cold waiting,” she mocked.</p> - -<p>“Look here, kid——”</p> - -<p>“That’s mother! She’ll skin me alive, if I give her half -a chance!” She flew out into the hall and down the passage -to the kitchen.</p> - -<p>The servant Nellie was there, and Elsie’s sister Geraldine.</p> - -<p>“Where’ve you been, Elsie?”</p> - -<p>“With mother. I didn’t know you were here; I -thought you were s’posed to be ill.”</p> - -<p>“So I am ill,” returned Geraldine bitterly. “But as -you were out, <i>someone</i> had to do some work.”</p> - -<p>Elsie looked critically at her sister. Geraldine did look -ill, sallow and with black rims round her eyes, but then she -had something altogether wrong with her digestion, and -often looked like that.</p> - -<p>“Bilious again?”</p> - -<p>“’M. I think it was that beastly pudding we had last -night. I’ve been awfully sick.”</p> - -<p>“Poor wretch!”</p> - -<p>Neither of them paid any attention to Nellie Simmons, -who went on plunging and clattering greasy spoons and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span> -plates about in the water that steamed from a chipped -enamel basin.</p> - -<p>“Can’t you take this rag, Elsie, and wipe a bit, and let -me get upstairs? I’m sure I’m going to be sick again.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose I must, then—poor me!”</p> - -<p>“Poor you, when you’ve been out since dinner! I should -like to know what for. If it was me, now——Oh, Lord, -my head!”</p> - -<p>“Well, go on upstairs again. Have you tried the new -medicine that Ireen’s aunt did the testimonial for?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, and I don’t believe it’s a bit better than any of -the others. I feel like nothing on earth. I say, where -were you all the afternoon?”</p> - -<p>“Curiosity killed the cat,” said Elsie, wiping the plates.</p> - -<p>“I’m sure I don’t want to know.”</p> - -<p>“That’s all right then, we’re both satisfied, because I -don’t mean to tell you.”</p> - -<p>Geraldine looked angrily at her sister and walked away, -her thin plait of dark hair flapping limply between her -angular, slouching shoulders.</p> - -<p>“What is there for supper to-night, Nellie?” said Elsie -presently.</p> - -<p>“The ’am.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, goodness, that old ham! Why can’t we ever have -anything <i>nice</i>, I should like to know! And I s’pose the cold -tart’s got to be finished up, and that beastly cold shape?”</p> - -<p>“That’s right,” Nellie said laconically.</p> - -<p>“Well, there’ll be no cooking to do, that’s one thing.”</p> - -<p>“<i>She</i> wants some soup put on, because of the new people, -but I’ve left it all ready. I’m off at six sharp, I can tell -you.”</p> - -<p>“What’s the hurry, Nellie?” asked Elsie amicably. -She saw that Nellie wanted to be asked, and she felt good-humoured -because there was no cooking to be done, and -she could lay the supper and ring the bell earlier than usual, -so as to be able to keep her appointment with Mr. Roberts.</p> - -<p>“I’ve got someone waiting for me, I ’ave,” Nellie said -importantly. “Couldn’t be kept waiting—oh dear, no!”</p> - -<p>Elsie looked at the ugly, white-faced Cockney woman, -whose teeth projected, decayed and broken, and round the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span> -corners of whose mouth and nostrils clung clusters of dry -pimples, and burst out laughing.</p> - -<p>“It’s true!” said Nellie, offended. “And I’m off now.”</p> - -<p>She went to dry her chapped hands on the limp and dingy -roller-towel that hung beside the cold-water tap.</p> - -<p>Elsie laughed again, partly to tease Nellie Simmons and -partly because it really amused her to think that her own -projected diversion with Mr. Roberts should be parodied by -this grotesque Nellie and some unknown, equally grotesque, -companion.</p> - -<p>Nellie pulled down her hat and coat from the peg on the -kitchen door, put them on and went away, although it was -quarter of an hour before her time. She knew well enough -that none of them would say anything, Elsie reflected. -Girls were too difficult to get hold of, when one took in -guests.</p> - -<p>As soon as the side door had slammed behind Nellie, -Elsie flew into the scullery. A broken piece of looking-glass -hung there, where she had nailed it up herself long -ago.</p> - -<p>She pulled down the thick, dust-coloured wave of hair -that fell from a boyish, left-hand parting, until it lay further -across her forehead, deepening the natural kink in it with -her fingers, and loosening the black ribbon bow that fell -over one ear. The soft, flopping curls fell to her shoulders -on either side of her full, childish face. She rubbed hard -at her cheeks for a moment, without producing very much -visible effect on their uniform pale pinkiness, starred all over -with tiny golden freckles. The gold was repeated in her -eyelashes and pale eyebrows, but Elsie’s eyes, to her eternal -regret, were neither blue nor brown. They were something -between a dark grey and a light green, and the clear blue -whites of them showed for a space between the iris and the -lower lid.</p> - -<p>Her nose was straight and short; her wide mouth, -habitually pouting, possessed a very full underlip and a -short, curving upper one. When she showed her teeth, they -were white and even, but rather far apart. The most -salient characteristic of her face was that its high cheek-bones, -and well-rounded cheeks, gave an odd impression of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span> -pushing against her underlids, so that her eyes very often -looked half shut, and small. Elsie saw this in herself, and -it made her furious. She called it “a Japanese doll -look.”</p> - -<p>She realised that her soft, rounded neck was really -beautiful, and was secretly proud of the opulent curves of -her figure; but to other girls she pretended that she -thought herself too fat, although in point of fact she wore -no stays.</p> - -<p>She thought with pride that she looked more like eighteen -than sixteen years old, although she was not, and knew that -she never would be, very tall.</p> - -<p>Dragging a black velveteen tam-o’-shanter from her -pocket, Elsie pulled it rakishly on over her curls, her fingers -quickly and skilfully pouching the worn material so that it -sagged over to one side. The hands with which she manipulated -the tam-o’-shanter were freckled too, like her face, -and of the same uniform soft pink. The fingers were short, -planted very far apart, and broad at the base and inclining -to curve backwards.</p> - -<p>She wiped them on the roller-towel, as Nellie Simmons had -done, only far more hurriedly, and then went quietly out -at the side door. It opened straight into a small blind -alley, and Elsie ran up it, and into the road at a corner -of which her home was situated. Turning her back on -No. 15, from which she had just emerged, she kept on the -same side of the road, hoping to escape observation even -if Mrs. Palmer were to look out of the window.</p> - -<p>Very soon, however, she was obliged to cross the road, -and then she rang the bell of a tall house that was the -counterpart of the one she lived in, and indeed of all the -other hundred and eighty yellow-and-red brick houses in -Hillbourne Terrace.</p> - -<p>Irene Tidmarsh opened the door, a lanky, big-eyed -creature, with two prominent front teeth and an immense -plait of ugly brown hair. Her arms and legs were thick and -shapeless.</p> - -<p>“Hallo, Elsie!”</p> - -<p>“Hallo, Ireen. Look here, I can’t stay. I only want -to ask you if you’ll swear we’ve been to the pictures together<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span> -to-night, if anyone ever asks. Quick! Be a sport, and -promise.”</p> - -<p>“What’s up?” Irene asked wearily.</p> - -<p>“Oh, only my fun. I don’t particularly want mother to -know about me going out to-night, that’s all. If I can -say I was with you if I’m asked, it’ll be all right, only -you’ll have to back me up if she doesn’t believe me.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, all right, I don’t care. You’re a caution, Elsie -Palmer—you and your made-up tales. Don’t see much -difference between them and downright lies, sometimes.”</p> - -<p>“Well, what am I to do? I can’t ever go anywhere, or -have any amusement, without mother and Geraldine wanting -to know all about it, and if I’ve been behaving myself, -and ’cetera and ’cetera.”</p> - -<p>“Who is it this time, Elsie?”</p> - -<p>“Only this fellow who’s leaving to-morrow, the one -that’s been P.G. with us such a time, you know.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Roberts?”</p> - -<p>“’M. Well, so long, dear. Thanks awfully and all -that. Ta-ta. Don’t forget.”</p> - -<p>“Ta-ta,” repeated Irene. “You’ll have to tell me all -about it on Sunday, mind.”</p> - -<p>“Awright.”</p> - -<p>Elsie turned and hurried homeward again, shrugging her -shoulders up to her ears as the wind whistled shrilly down -the street.</p> - -<p>It was September, and cold.</p> - -<p>When she was indoors again, she pulled off her tam-o’-shanter -and stuffed it once more into the pocket of her -serge skirt. Then she went upstairs to the room at the -top of the house that she shared with Geraldine.</p> - -<p>“I wish you’d knock.”</p> - -<p>“Whatever for? It’s my room as much as yours, isn’t -it?” Elsie said without acrimony.</p> - -<p>“Have you been washing up all this time?”</p> - -<p>“Nellie went off early.”</p> - -<p>“The slut! Whatever for? Did you tell mother?”</p> - -<p>“No. It wouldn’t be a bit of good. She won’t say -anything to Nellie just now, whatever she does, with these -new people just coming in.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>“Oh, my head!” groaned Geraldine, not attending.</p> - -<p>She lay on her bed, her white blouse crumpled, and a -machine-made knitted coat, of shrimp-pink wool, drawn -untidily over her shoulders. Her black Oxford shoes lay -on the mat between the two beds, and her black stockings -showed long darns and a hole in either heel.</p> - -<p>Elsie began to arrange her hair before the looking-glass -in a painted deal frame that stood on the deal chest-of-drawers. -Presently she pulled a little paper bag from one -of the drawers and began to suck sweets.</p> - -<p>“No good offering you any, I suppose?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t talk of such a thing. Elsie, I can’t come down -to supper to-night. Do be a dear and bring me up a cup -of tea—nice and strong. I’ve got a sort of craving for hot -tea when I’m like this, really I have.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t want much, do you, asking me to carry tea -up four flights of stairs? I’ll see what I can do.” Elsie -began to hum, in a small, rather tuneful little voice. She -let her skirt fall round her feet as she sang and pulled off her -blouse, revealing beautifully modelled breasts and shoulders. -Her arms were a little too short, but the line from breast-bone -to knee was unusually good, the legs plump and shapely, -with slender ankles and the instep well arched. She wore -serge knickerbockers and a flimsy under-bodice of yellow -cotton voile over a thick cotton chemise.</p> - -<p>“Are you going out <i>again</i>?” asked Geraldine in a -vexed, feeble voice.</p> - -<p>“I may go round and sit with Ireen for a bit, after supper. -I think she wants to go to the pictures, or something.”</p> - -<p>“How’s Mr. Tidmarsh?”</p> - -<p>“Going to die, I should think, by all accounts,” glibly -replied Elsie, although as a matter of fact she had forgotten -to make any enquiry for Irene’s father, who had for -months past been dying from some obscure and painful -internal growth.</p> - -<p>“Why doesn’t he go to a hospital?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t ask me. Ireen’s always begging him to, but -he won’t.”</p> - -<p>“Old people are awfully selfish, I think,” said Geraldine -thoughtfully.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>“Yes, aren’t they? Look, I’m going to put this -collar on my Sunday serge. That ought to smarten it up -a bit.”</p> - -<p>She pinned the cheap lace round the low-cut V at the -neck of an old navy-blue dress, and fastened it with a blue-stoned -brooch in the shape of a circle. Her throat rose up, -fresh and warm and youthful, from the new adornment.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it time I put my hair up, don’t you think?”</p> - -<p>“No. You’re only a kid. I didn’t put mine up till I -was eighteen. Mother wouldn’t let me.”</p> - -<p>Elsie dragged a thick grey pilot-cloth coat from behind -the curtain of faded red rep that hung across a row of pegs -and constituted the sisters’ wardrobe, caught up the black -tam-o’-shanter again and ran downstairs.</p> - -<p>All the time that she was laying the table in the dining-room, -which was next to the kitchen on the ground floor, -Elsie hummed to herself.</p> - -<p>The tablecloth was stained in several places, and she -arranged the Britannia-metal forks and spoons, the coarse, -heavy plates and the red glass water-jug so as to cover the -spots as much as possible. In the middle of the table -stood a thick fluted green glass with paper chrysanthemums -in it.</p> - -<p>Elsie added the cruet, two half-loaves of bread on a -wooden platter with “Bread” carved upon it in raised -letters, and put a small red glass beside each plate. Finally -she quickly pleated half a dozen coloured squares of -Japanese paper, and stuck one into each glass.</p> - -<p>“Mother!” she called.</p> - -<p>“What?” said Mrs. Palmer from the kitchen.</p> - -<p>“It’s ready laid.”</p> - -<p>“What are you in such a hurry for? Miss M. and Mr. -Williams haven’t turned up yet.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Roberts wants his supper early, I know.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve no business to know, then. Well, put the ham -on the table and the cold sweets, and he can go in when he -pleases. This is Liberty Hall, as I call it.”</p> - -<p>Elsie carried in the ham, placing the dish on the table -beside the carving-knife and fork that were raised upon a -“rest” of electro plate. The glass dishes containing a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span> -flabby pink decoction of cornflour, and the apple tart, with -several slices of pastry gone from the crust, she laid at the -other end of the table.</p> - -<p>“Supper’s in, Mr. Roberts,” she cried through the open -door of the drawing-room, but this time she did not go in, -and flew back to the kitchen before Mr. Roberts appeared.</p> - -<p>“Geraldine’s asking for tea, mother.”</p> - -<p>“There’s a kettle on. She can come and fetch it.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll take it up,” Elsie volunteered.</p> - -<p>“You’re very obliging, all of a sudden. I’m sure I -only wish you and your sister were more <i>like</i> sisters, the -way Aunt Ada and Aunt Gertie and Mother were. There -wasn’t any of this bickering between us girls that I hear -between you and Geraldine.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve made up for it later, then,” said Elsie pertly. -“The aunts never come here but they find fault with things, -and Aunt Ada cries, and I’m sure you and Aunt Gertie -go at it hammer and tongs.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you dare to speak to me like that, Elsie Palmer,” -said her mother abstractedly. (“Give me a spoon, there’s -a good gurl.”) “What you gurls are coming to, talking so -to your own mother, is more than I can say. What’s at -the bottom of all this talk about carrying tea to Geraldine? -What are you going to do about your own supper?”</p> - -<p>“Have it in here. I don’t want much, anyway. I’m -not hungry. Tea and bread-and-jam’ll do.”</p> - -<p>“Please yourself,” said Mrs. Palmer.</p> - -<p>She was a large, shapeless woman, slatternly and without -method, chronically aggrieved because she was a widow with -two daughters, obliged to support herself and them by -receiving boarders, whom she always spoke of as guests.</p> - -<p>“Where are these what-you-may-call-’ems—these -Williamses—coming from?” Elsie asked, while she was -jerking tea from the bottom of a cocoa-tin into a broken -earthenware tea-pot.</p> - -<p>“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,” said her -mother.</p> - -<p>She had no slightest reason to conceal the little she knew -of the new people who were coming, but it was her habit -to reply more or less in this fashion, semi-snubbing,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span> -semi-facetious, whenever either of her daughters asked a -question.</p> - -<p>“I’m sure I don’t want to know,” said Elsie, also from -habit.</p> - -<p>She made the tea, poured out two cups-full and took one -upstairs. As she had expected, the alarm clock on the wash-stand -showed it to be eight o’clock.</p> - -<p>Almost directly afterwards, she heard the front door slam.</p> - -<p>No. 15 was a narrow, high house, with very steep stairs, -but Elsie was used to them, although she grumbled at the -number of times she went up and down them, and she and -Geraldine and Mrs. Palmer all kept numerous articles of -toilet and clothing in the kitchen, so as to save journeys -backwards and forwards.</p> - -<p>She now went down once more, and sitting at a corner of -the newspaper-covered kitchen table, drank tea and ate -bread-and-jam deliberately.</p> - -<p>“That’s the bell!”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Palmer hoisted herself out of her chair, from which -she had been reading the headlines of an illustrated daily -paper, commenting on them half aloud with: “Fancy!... -Whatever is the world coming to, is what I say....”</p> - -<p>“That’ll be the Williamses, and about time too. You’ll -have to give me a hand upstairs with the boxes afterwards, -Elsie, but I’ll give ’em supper first.”</p> - -<p>She went out into the hall, and Elsie heard the sounds of -arrival, and her mother’s voice saying: “Good evening, -you’ve brought us some wet weather, I’m afraid.... You -mustn’t mind me joking, Mrs. Williams, it’s my way.... -Liberty Hall, you’ll find this....”</p> - -<p>Elsie ran to the back kitchen, donned the pilot-cloth -coat and the tam-o’-shanter, and slipped out through the -side door into the wet drizzle of a cold autumn evening.</p> - -<p>“Ooh!” She turned up the collar of the coat, and -pushed her gloveless hands deep into her pockets as she -hurried along the pavement. It shone wet and dark, -giving blurred reflections of the lamps overhead. Every -now and then a tram jerked and clanged its way along -the broad suburban road.</p> - -<p>Only a few shops were lit along the road. Most of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span> -buildings on either side were houses that displayed a brass -sign-plate on the door, or a card with “Apartments” in -one of the windows. Right at the end of the street, a -blur of bluish light streamed out from the Palatial Picture -House.</p> - -<p>“I thought you weren’t coming,” said young Roberts, -reproachfully. “It’s long after eight.” He wore a light -overcoat and he, also, had turned up his collar as a protection -against the rain.</p> - -<p>“I had to help mother, of course. And if you want to -know, I ought to be there now.” She laughed up at him -provocatively.</p> - -<p>“Come on in,” he said, pulling her hand through his arm.</p> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span> - -<h4>II</h4> -</div> -<p><span class="smcap">This</span> was Elsie’s real life.</p> - -<p>Although quite incapable of formulating the thought to -herself, she already knew instinctively that only in her -relations with some man could she find self-expression.</p> - -<p>In the course of the past two years she had gradually -discovered that she possessed a power over men that other -girls either did not possess at all, or in a very much lesser -degree. From the exercise of unconscious magnetism, she -had by imperceptible degrees passed to a breathless, intermittent -exploitation of her own attractiveness.</p> - -<p>She did not know why boys so often wished to kiss her, -nor why she was sometimes followed, or spoken to, in the -street, by men. At first she had thought that she must be -growing prettier, but her personal preference was for dark -eyes, a bright colour, and a slim, tall figure, and she honestly -did not admire her own appearance. Moreover, her looks -varied almost from day to day, and very often she seemed -plain. She had never received any instruction in questions -of sex, excepting whispered mis-information from -girls at school as to the origin of babies. The signs of -physical development that had come to her early were -either not commented upon except in half-disgusted, half-facetious -innuendo from Geraldine, or else dismissed by -Mrs. Palmer curtly:</p> - -<p>“Nice gurls don’t think about those things. I’m ashamed -of you, Elsie. You should try and be nice-minded, as -mother’s always told her gurls.”</p> - -<p>A sort of garbled knowledge came to her after a time, -knowledge that comprised the actual crude facts as to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span> -physical union between men and women, and explained -in part certain violent bodily reactions to which she had -been prone almost since childhood.</p> - -<p>She had not the least idea whether any other girl in the -world ever felt as she did, and was inclined to believe -herself unnatural and depraved.</p> - -<p>This thought hardly ever depressed her. She thought -that to remain technically “a good girl” was all that was -required of her, and admitted no further responsibility.</p> - -<p>Geraldine and she quarrelled incessantly. Geraldine, -with her poor physique and constant indispositions, was -angrily jealous of Elsie’s superb health and uninterrupted -preoccupation with her own affairs. She had only just -begun to suspect that Elsie was never without a masculine -admirer, and the knowledge, when it became a certainty, -would embitter the relations between them still further on -Geraldine’s side.</p> - -<p>On Elsie’s side there was no bitterness, only contempt -and unmalicious hostility. She disliked her elder sister, -but was incapable of the mental effort implied by hatred. -In the same way, she disliked her mother, almost without -knowing that she did so.</p> - -<p>Her home had always been ugly, sordid, and abounding -in passionless discord. Elsie’s real life, which was just -beginning to give her the romance and excitement for -which she craved, was lived entirely outside the walls of -No. 15, Hillbourne Terrace.</p> - -<p>To-night, as she entered the hot, dark, enervating atmosphere -of the cinema theatre, she thrilled in response to the -contrast with the street outside. When she heard the -loud, emphasised rhythm of a waltz coming from the piano -beneath the screen, little shivers of joy ran through her.</p> - -<p>A girl with a tiny electric torch indicated to them a row -of seats, and Elsie pushed her way along until the two -empty places at the very end of the row were reached. -It added the last drop to her cup of satisfaction that she -should have only the wall on one side of her. Human -proximity almost always roused her to a vague curiosity -and consciousness, that would have interfered with her full -enjoyment of the evening.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>She settled herself in the soft, comfortable seat, slipping -her arms from the sleeves of her coat, and leaning back -against it.</p> - -<p>Roberts dropped a small box into her lap as he sat down -beside her.</p> - -<p>“Thanks awfully,” she whispered.</p> - -<p>A film was showing, and Elsie became absorbed at once -in the presentment of it, although she had no idea of the -story. It came to an end very soon, and a Topical Budget -was shown. Elsie was less interested, and pulled the string -off her box of chocolates.</p> - -<p>“Have one?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t mind. Thanks.”</p> - -<p>“They’re awfully good.” She chewed and sucked blissfully.</p> - -<p>“Ooh! Look at that ship! Isn’t it funny?”</p> - -<p>“Makes you feel seasick to look at it, doesn’t it?” -whispered Roberts, and she giggled ecstatically.</p> - -<p>Words appeared on the screen.</p> - -<p>“‘Hearts and Crowns,’ featuring Lallie Carmichael.”</p> - -<p>“How lovely!” said Elsie.</p> - -<p>The story was complicated, and as most of the characters -were Russian, Elsie did not always remember whether Sergius -was the villain or the lawyer, and if Olga was the name of -the “vampire” or of the soubrette. But the beautiful -Lallie Carmichael was the heroine, and a clean-shaven -American the hero. Elsie watched them almost breathlessly, -and after a time it was she herself who was leaning -back in the crowded restaurant, in a very low dress, and -waving an ostrich-feather fan, torn between passion and -loyalty. The American hero assumed no definite personality, -other than that which his creator had endowed him. -The scenes that she liked best were those between the two -lovers, when they were shown alone together, and the -American made passionate love to the princess.</p> - -<p>At the end of the First Part, the lights went up.</p> - -<p>Elsie turned her shining eyes and rumpled curls towards -her escort.</p> - -<p>“It is good, isn’t it?” he said, with a critical air.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it good? Have another sweet?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>“Well, thanks, I don’t mind. Are you enjoying yourself, -kiddie?”</p> - -<p>“Awfully. I like pictures.”</p> - -<p>“What about me? Don’t you like me a little bit too, -Elsie, for bringing you?” His voice had become low and -husky.</p> - -<p>Still under the emotional influence of the story, the music, -and the relaxation produced by bodily warmth and comfort, -she looked at him, and saw, not the common, rather negligible -features of sandy-haired Mr. Roberts, but the bold, -handsome American hero of the film.</p> - -<p>“Of course I like you,” she said softly.</p> - -<p>“You won’t forget me when I’ve gone?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“You will, Elsie! You’ll let some other fellow take you -to the pictures, and you won’t give me another thought.”</p> - -<p>“Of course I shall, you silly! I shall always remember -you—you’ve been awfully sweet to me.”</p> - -<p>“Will you write to me?”</p> - -<p>“We’ll see about that.”</p> - -<p>“Promise.”</p> - -<p>“Promises are like pie-crusts, made to be broken.”</p> - -<p>“Yours wouldn’t be. I bet anything if you promised a -chap something, you’d stick to it. Now wouldn’t you?”</p> - -<p>“I daresay I should,” she murmured, flattered. “Mother -says I’ve always been a terrible one for keeping to what -I’ve once said. It’s the way I am, you know.”</p> - -<p>No fleeting suspicion crossed her mind that this was -anything but a true description of herself.</p> - -<p>“Elsie, do you know what I should like to do?”</p> - -<p>“What, Mr. Roberts?”</p> - -<p>“Call me Norman. I should like to make a hell of a -lot of money and come back and marry you.”</p> - -<p>“You shouldn’t use those words.”</p> - -<p>“I’m in earnest, Elsie.”</p> - -<p>“You’re making very free with my name, aren’t you?”</p> - -<p>“You don’t mind.”</p> - -<p>“No,” she whispered.</p> - -<p>“You’re a little darling.”</p> - -<p>The lights went out again, and his hand fumbled for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span> -hers in the darkness. Warm and unresisting it lay in his, -and presently returned pressure for pressure.</p> - -<p>The story on the screen began to threaten tragedy, and -Elsie’s body became tense with anxiety. She pressed her -shoulder hard against that of Roberts.</p> - -<p>He, too, leant towards her, and presently slipped one -arm round her waist. Instantly her senses were awake, -and although she continued to gaze at the screen, she was -in reality blissfully preoccupied only with his embrace, and -the sensations it aroused in her.</p> - -<p>Intensely desirous that he should not move away, she -relaxed her figure more and more, letting her head rest at -last against his shoulder. She began to wonder whether he -would kiss her, and to feel that she wanted him to do so. -As though she had communicated the thought to him, the -man beside her in the obscurity put his disengaged hand -under her chin and tilted her face to his.</p> - -<p>She did not resist, and he kissed her, first on her soft -cheek and then on her mouth.</p> - -<p>Elsie had been kissed before, roughly and teasingly by -boys, and once or twice, furtively, by an elderly lodger of -Mrs. Palmer’s, whose breath had smelt of whisky.</p> - -<p>But the kisses of this young commercial traveller were of -an entirely different quality to these, and the pleasure that -she took in them was new and startling to herself.</p> - -<p>“Elsie, d’you love me?” he whispered. “I love you. -I think you’re the sweetest little girl in the whole world.”</p> - -<p>Elsie liked the words vaguely, but she did not really want -him to talk, she wanted him to go on kissing her.</p> - -<p>“Say—‘I love you, Norman.’”</p> - -<p>“I won’t.”</p> - -<p>“You must. Why won’t you?”</p> - -<p>“It’s so soppy.”</p> - -<p>“Elsie!”</p> - -<p>She felt that the magnetic current between them had -been disturbed, and made an instinctive, nestling movement -against him.</p> - -<p>He kissed her again, two or three times.</p> - -<p>Reluctantly, Elsie forced herself to the realisation that -the film must soon come to an end, and the lights reappear.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span> -She looked at the screen again, and when the lovers, in -magnified presentment, exchanged a long embrace, responsive -vibrations shook her, and she felt all the elation of -conscious and recent initiation.</p> - -<p>The lights suddenly flashed out, a moment sooner than -she expected them, and she flung herself across into her -own seat, pressing the backs of her hands against her -flushed, burning cheeks and dazzled eyes.</p> - -<p>She knew that Norman Roberts was looking at her, but -she would not turn her head and meet his eyes, partly from -shyness, and partly from coquetry.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t this the end?” she said, knowing that it was not, -but speaking in order to relieve her sense of embarrassment.</p> - -<p>“No, it isn’t over till half-past ten; there’s another forty -minutes yet.” He consulted his wrist-watch elaborately. -“I expect they’ll have a comic to finish up with.”</p> - -<p>Elsie sensed constraint in him, too, and in sudden alarm -turned and faced him. As their eyes met, both of them -smiled and flushed, and Roberts slipped his arm under hers -and possessed himself of her hand again.</p> - -<p>“Did you like that?” he whispered, bending towards -her.</p> - -<p>“The picture?”</p> - -<p>“You know I don’t mean that.”</p> - -<p>She laughed and then nodded.</p> - -<p>“Elsie, tell me something truly. Has any other fellow -ever kissed you?”</p> - -<p>Her first impulse was to lie glibly. Then her natural, -instinctive understanding of the game on which they were -engaged, made her laugh teasingly.</p> - -<p>“That’s telling, Mr. Inquisitive.”</p> - -<p>“That means they have. I must say, Elsie, that considering -you’re only sixteen, I don’t call that very nice.”</p> - -<p>Elsie snatched away her hand. “I get quite enough of -that sort of thing at home, thank you, Mr. Norman Roberts, -<i>Es</i>quire. There’s no call for you to interfere in my concerns, -that I’m aware of.”</p> - -<p>His instant alarm gratified her, although she continued -to look offended, and to sit very upright in her chair.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>“Don’t be angry, Elsie. I didn’t mean to offend you, -honour bright. Make it up!”</p> - -<p>The pianist began some rattling dance-music and the -lights went out again.</p> - -<p>Elsie immediately relaxed her pose, feeling her heart beat -more quickly in mingled doubt and anticipation.</p> - -<p>The doubt was resolved almost within the instant. -Roberts pulled her towards him, bringing her face close to -his, and whispered:</p> - -<p>“Kiss and be friends!”</p> - -<p>All the while that the last film was showing, Elsie lay -almost in his arms, seeing nothing at all, conscious only of -feeling alive as she had never felt alive before.</p> - -<p>Even when it was all over and they rose to go, that sense -of awakened vitality throbbed within her, and made her -unaware of fatigue.</p> - -<p>“Follow me,” said Roberts authoritatively, and took his -place in front of her in the gangway. There he waited, -meekly and like everybody else, until the people in front -should have moved. But to Elsie there was masculinity -in the shelter of his narrow, drooping shoulders, as he stood -before her in his crumpled light overcoat, every now and then -shifting from one foot to the other.</p> - -<p>She followed him step by step, pulling her hair into place -under the tam-o’-shanter, and settling it at its customary -rakish angle.</p> - -<p>It was no longer raining, and a watery moon showed -through a haze.</p> - -<p>They dawdled as soon as they were out of the crowd, with -linked arms and clasped hands.</p> - -<p>“Swear you’ll write to me, Elsie.”</p> - -<p>“All right.”</p> - -<p>“Lordy, to think of all we might have done together -these three months I’ve been here, and I’ve never had more -than a word with you here and there!”</p> - -<p>“I was at school all the time, till last week.”</p> - -<p>“You aren’t going back to school again?”</p> - -<p>“No, that’s over, praise be! I’m supposed to be taking -up typing and shorthand, some time, though there’s plenty -for two of us to do at home, <i>I</i> should have said.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>The faint reverberations of a church clock striking came -to them.</p> - -<p>“Goodness, that’s never eleven o’clock striking! Well, -you will get me into a row and no mistake!”</p> - -<p>She began to run, but stopped under a lamp just before -No. 15 was in sight.</p> - -<p>He had kept pace with her high-heeled, uneven steps -easily, and stopped beside her.</p> - -<p>“Say good-night to me properly, then.”</p> - -<p>“How, properly? Good-night, Mr. Roberts, and thank -you ever so much. Oh, and <i>bonne voyage</i> to-morrow, in -case I don’t see you. Will that do?”</p> - -<p>“No, it won’t. I want a kiss.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t want much, do you?” she began half-heartedly, -and looking up and down the street as she spoke.</p> - -<p>It was empty but for themselves.</p> - -<p>Roberts caught hold of her and kissed her with violence. -Unresisting, Elsie put back her head and closed her eyes.</p> - -<p>“Kiss me—you <i>shall</i> kiss me,” he gasped.</p> - -<p>At the sense of constriction that came upon her with the -tightened grasp of his arms, Elsie gave a fluttering, strangled -scream and began to struggle.</p> - -<p>“Let me go! You’re hurting me!”</p> - -<p>He loosened his hold so abruptly that she nearly fell -down.</p> - -<p>She began to hurry towards home, moving with the ugly, -jerking gait peculiar to women who walk from the knees.</p> - -<p>“Shall I see you to-morrow before I go?” His voice -sounded oddly humble and crestfallen.</p> - -<p>“I’ll come to the drawing-room for a minute—no one’s -ever there in the mornings.”</p> - -<p>“What time, Elsie? I ought to be off at nine.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, before that some time, I expect. I say, you’ve got -your key, haven’t you?”</p> - -<p>A sharp misgiving assailed her as he began to fumble in -his pockets.</p> - -<p>“Yes, all right.” He put it into the lock.</p> - -<p>Elsie, relieved, stood on tiptoe and put her arms round -his neck. “Good-night, you dear,” she whispered. “Now -don’t begin again. Open the door and go in first, and if<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span> -the coast isn’t clear, just cough, and I’ll wait a bit. I’ll -see you to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>When he signed to her that the house was quiet, and that -she could safely enter, Elsie slipped past him like a shadow -while he felt about for matches, and flew upstairs. Her -mother slept in the back bedroom on the third floor, and -Elsie saw that her door was shut and that no streak of -light showed under it. Satisfied, she went up the next flight -of stairs to the bedroom.</p> - -<p>Geraldine, of course, was bound to know of her escapade, -but Geraldine would either believe, or pretend to believe, that -Elsie had been with Irene Tidmarsh, and the two Palmer girls -always combined with one another against the sentimentalised -tyranny that Mrs. Palmer called “a mother’s rights.”</p> - -<p>Geraldine was lying in bed, reading a paper novelette -by the light of a candle stuck into an empty medicine bottle -that stood on a chair beside her. She looked sallower than -ever now that she had undressed and put on a white flannelette -nightgown with a frill high at the neck and another one -at each wrist.</p> - -<p>Her lank hair was rolled up into steel waving-pins. It -was one of Geraldine’s grievances that she should be obliged -to go to bed in curlers every night, while Elsie’s light curls -lay loose and ruffled on her pillow. Sometimes, when they -were on friendly terms, she and Elsie would speculate -together as to how the difficulty could be overcome when -Geraldine married, and could no longer go to bed and wake -up “looking a sight.”</p> - -<p>She rolled over as Elsie cautiously opened the door. -“You’ve come at last, have you? How did you get in?”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Roberts let me in. He knew I’d be late to-night,” -said Elsie calmly, beginning to pull off her clothes.</p> - -<p>“You’ve got a nerve, I must say. Mother thinks you -were in bed ages ago. She came up after supper and said -you were in the kitchen. She was in the drawing-room -nearly all the evening, doing the polite to the Williamses.”</p> - -<p>“Did she find out that supper hadn’t been cleared -away?”</p> - -<p>“I suppose she didn’t, or she’d have been up here after -you. You’re in luck, young Elsie.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>“I shall have to go down and do it first thing to-morrow -before she’s down,” said Elsie, yawning.</p> - -<p>“Where have you been?”</p> - -<p>“Pictures.”</p> - -<p>“With Ireen?”</p> - -<p>“’M.”</p> - -<p>“I shall ask her what they were like, next time I see -her,” said Geraldine significantly.</p> - -<p>Elsie pulled the ribbon off her hair without untying it, -shuffled her clothes off on to the floor from beneath a -nightgown that was the counterpart of her sister’s, and -dabbed at her face with a sponge dipped in cold water. -She carefully parted her hair on the other side for the night, -and brushed it vigorously for some moments to promote -growth, but the worn bristles of her wooden-backed brush -were grey with dust and thick with ancient “combings.”</p> - -<p>At the bedside Elsie knelt down for a few seconds with -her face hidden in her hands, as she had always done, -muttered an unthinking formula, and got into bed.</p> - -<p>“You’re very sociable, I must say,” Geraldine exclaimed. -“Out half the night, and not a word to say when you do -come up!”</p> - -<p>“I thought you had a headache.”</p> - -<p>“A lot you care about my headache.”</p> - -<p>“I’m going to put the light out now.”</p> - -<p>“All right.”</p> - -<p>They had always shared a bedroom and never exchanged -formal good-nights.</p> - -<p>In the dark, a tremendous weariness suddenly came over -Elsie. She felt thankful to be in her warm, narrow bed, -and blissfully relived the evening’s experience.</p> - -<p>She found that she could thrill profoundly to the memory -of those ardent moments, and even the bodily lassitude -that overwhelmed her held a certain luxuriousness.</p> - -<p>Dimly, and without any conscious analysis, she felt that -for the first time in her sixteen years of life she had glimpsed -a reason why she should exist. It was for <i>this</i> that she had -been made.</p> - -<p>No thought of the future preoccupied her for a moment. -She did not even regret that Norman Roberts should be -going away next day.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>“I must get up in good time to-morrow, and get a word -with him in the drawing-room before he’s off,” was her -last waking thought.</p> - -<p>But she was sleeping profoundly, her head under the bedclothes, -when Mrs. Palmer’s customary bang at the door -sounded next morning soon after six o’clock.</p> - -<p>“Wake up, girls.”</p> - -<p>“Awright!” Geraldine shouted back sleepily. If one -or other of them did not call out in reply, Mrs. Palmer would -come into the room in her grey dressing-gown and vigorously -shake the bed-posts of either bed.</p> - -<p>They could hear her heelless slippers flapping away -again, and Elsie reluctantly roused herself.</p> - -<p>“I simply must clear that supper-table before mother -goes down,” she thought. Still half asleep, and yawning -without restraint, she put on her thick coat over her nightgown, -and ran downstairs with bare feet.</p> - -<p>The broken remains of supper, even to Elsie’s indifferent -eyes, looked horrible in the grim morning light.</p> - -<p>She huddled everything out on a tray, pushed it out of -sight in the back kitchen, and ran upstairs again, her teeth -chattering with cold.</p> - -<p>The still warm, tumbled bed was irresistible, and tearing -off her coat, Elsie buried herself in it once more.</p> - -<p>She slept through Geraldine’s sketchy, scrambled toilet -and muttered abuse of her sister’s laziness, and did not stir -even when her senior, as the most unpleasant thing she -could do, opened her window, which had been closed all -night, and let in the damp, raw, foggy morning air.</p> - -<p>Elsie did not stir again until the door was flung open and -Geraldine pulled the bedclothes off her roughly, and said -angrily:</p> - -<p>“Get up, you lazy little brute! I had to wash all the -beastly things you left over last night, and mother and I -had to do the breakfasts, and see that young Roberts off -and everything.”</p> - -<p>“Has Roberts gone?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, of course he has. It’s past nine, you lazy pig, -you——”</p> - -<p>“Oh,” said Elsie indifferently, stretching herself.</p> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span> - -<h4>III</h4> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">For</span> a little while after Norman Roberts had gone away, -Elsie was bored. She received a letter from him, reproaching -her for not having been downstairs on the morning of -his departure, and giving her an address in Liverpool. -He begged her to write to him, and the letter ended with -half a dozen pen-and-ink crosses.</p> - -<p>“<i>That’s for you, Elsie.</i>”</p> - -<p>Elsie, who hated writing, collected with some difficulty -a pen, ink, and a coloured picture postcard of the Houses -of Parliament.</p> - -<p>“Thanks for yours ever so much,” she wrote. “I -expect you’re having a fine old time in Liverpool. All here -send kind remembrances.”</p> - -<p>Then, because she could not think what else to put, she -filled in the remaining space on the card with two large -crosses. “From your’s sincerely, Elsie.”</p> - -<p>Roberts, after an interval, wrote once more, and this -letter Elsie did not answer at all. She was out nearly -every evening, walking, or lounging round the nearest -public park, with Irene Tidmarsh, Johnnie and Arthur -Osborne, and Stanley Begg.</p> - -<p>Arthur Osborne was nominally Irene’s “friend,” but he, -as well as Johnnie and Stanley, always wanted to walk with -Elsie, or to sit next her at the cinema, and their preference -elated her, although the eldest of the three, Arthur, was -only twenty, and not one of them was earning more than -from fifteen to twenty shillings a week.</p> - -<p>At last Irene and Elsie quarrelled about Arthur, and -Irene, furious, went to Mrs. Palmer.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>“It’s no more than my duty, Mrs. Palmer,” she virtuously -declared, “to let you know the way Elsie goes on. -The fellows may laugh and all that, but they don’t like it, -not really. I know my boy doesn’t, for one.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Palmer, on different grounds, was quite as angry as -Irene.</p> - -<p>She worked herself up, rehearsing to Geraldine all that -Irene had said, and a great deal that she alleged herself -to have replied, and she summoned her two unmarried -sisters, Aunt Ada and Aunt Gertie Cookson, to No. 15.</p> - -<p>“What I want,” she explained, “is to give the gurl a -<i>fright</i>. I’m not going to have her making herself cheap -with young rag-tag-and-bobtail like those Osborne boys. -Why, a pretty gurl like Elsie could get married, as easily as -not, to a fellow with money. Nice enough people come to -this house, I’m sure. It’s on account of the gurls, simply, -that I’ve always been so particular about references and -all. I’m sure many’s the time I could have had the house -full but for not liking the looks of one or two that were -ready to pay anything for a front bedroom. But I’ve -always said to myself, ‘No,’ I’ve said, ‘a mother’s first duty -is to her children,’ I’ve said, especially being in the position -of father and mother both, as you might say.”</p> - -<p>“I’m sure you’ve always been a wonderful mother, -Edie,” said Aunt Ada.</p> - -<p>“Well,” Mrs. Palmer conceded, mollified.</p> - -<p>When Geraldine came in with the tea-tray to the drawing-room -that Mrs. Palmer was for once able to use, because the -Williamses, her only guests, had a sitting-room of their -own, the aunts received her with marked favour.</p> - -<p>“Mother’s helpful girlie!” said Aunt Gertie, as Geraldine -put down the plate of bread-and-butter, the Madeira cake -on a glass cake stand, and another plate of rock-buns.</p> - -<p>“Where’s Elsie?” Mrs. Palmer asked significantly.</p> - -<p>“Cutting out in the kitchen.”</p> - -<p>“Tell her to come along up. She knows your aunties are -here.”</p> - -<p>“I told her to come, and she made use of a very vulgar -expression,” Geraldine spitefully declared.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what’s come over Elsie, I’m sure,” Mrs.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span> -Palmer declared helplessly. “She’s learnt all these low -tricks and manners from that friend of hers, that Ireen -Tidmarsh.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Palmer was very angry with Irene for her revelations, -although she was secretly rather enjoying her younger -daughter’s notoriety.</p> - -<p>“Get that naughty gurl up from the kitchen directly,” -she commanded Geraldine. “No—wait a minute, I’ll -go myself.”</p> - -<p>With extraordinary agility she heaved her considerable -bulk out of her low chair and left the room.</p> - -<p>“And what have you been doing with yourself lately?” -Aunt Gertie enquired of Geraldine.</p> - -<p>She was stout and elderly-looking, with a mouth over-crowded -by large teeth. She was older than Mrs. Palmer, -and Aunt Ada was some years younger than either, and wore, -with a sort of permanent smirk, the remains of an ash-blond -prettiness. They were just able, in 1913, to live in the -house at Wimbledon that their father had left them, on -their joint income.</p> - -<p>“There’s always heaps to do in the house, I’m sure, Aunt -Gertie,” said Geraldine vaguely. “And I’m not strong -enough to go to work anywhere, really I’m not. Now Elsie’s -different. She could do quite well in the shorthand-typing, -but she’s bone idle—that’s what she is. Or there’s -dressmaking—Elsie’s clever with her needle, that I will -say for her.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Palmer came back with Elsie behind her. The girl -reluctantly laid her face for a moment against each of the -withered ones that bumped towards her in conventional -greeting.</p> - -<p>“Hallo, Aunt Gertie. Hallo, Aunt Ada,” she said lifelessly.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Palmer began to pour out the tea, and whilst they -ate and drank elegantly, the conversation was allowed to take -its course without any reference to the real point at issue.</p> - -<p>“What are these Williamses like, that have got the -downstairs sitting-room, Edie?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, they <i>are</i> nice people,” said Mrs. Palmer enthusiastically. -“A solicitor, he is, and only just waiting to find a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span> -house. I believe they’ve ever such a lot of furniture in -store. They lived at Putney before, but it didn’t suit -Mrs. Williams. She’s delicate.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Palmer raised her eyebrows and glanced meaningly -at the aunts.</p> - -<p>Aunt Ada gazed eagerly back at her.</p> - -<p>“Go and get some more bread-and-butter, Elsie,” commanded -Mrs. Palmer, and when the girl had left the room -she nodded at Aunt Ada.</p> - -<p>“You know, Mrs. Williams isn’t very strong just now. -She’s been unlucky before, too—twice, I fancy.”</p> - -<p>“But when? Surely you aren’t going to have anything -like that <i>here</i>?”</p> - -<p>“Oh dear, no! I told her it was out of the question, and -she quite understood. It isn’t till April, and they hope to -move into their new house after Christmas. <i>She</i> must be -about fifteen years younger than <i>he</i> is, I imagine.”</p> - -<p>“How strange!” said Aunt Gertie.</p> - -<p>Both she and Aunt Ada were always intensely interested -in any detail about anybody, whether known or unknown -to them personally.</p> - -<p>“Rather remarkable, isn’t it, that there should be an -event on the way——” Aunt Ada began.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Palmer frowned heavily at her as Elsie came back -into the room. “It’s ever so long since we’ve seen you, as -I was just saying,” she remarked in a loud and artificial -voice, making Elsie wish that she had waited outside the -door and listened. She thought that they must have been -talking about her.</p> - -<p>After tea was over, they did talk about her. Mrs. -Palmer began: “You can let Geraldine take the tea-things, -Elsie. It won’t be the first time, lately, she’s done your -share of helping your poor mother as well as her own.”</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry to hear that,” from Aunt Gertie.</p> - -<p>“Geraldine’s health isn’t as strong as yours, either. -She looks to me as though she might go into consumption, -if you want to know,” said Aunt Ada.</p> - -<p>They looked at Elsie, and she looked sulkily back at them.</p> - -<p>It was one of the days on which she was at her plainest. -Her face looked fat and heavy, the high cheek-bones actually<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span> -seemed to be pushing her lower lids upwards until her -eyes appeared as mere slits. Her mouth was closed sullenly.</p> - -<p>“Elsie’s not been a good gurl lately, and she knows it -very well. Her own mother doesn’t seem to have any -influence with her, so perhaps ...” said Mrs. Palmer to -her sisters, but looking at her child, “perhaps you’ll see -what you can do. It’s not a thing I like to talk about, -ever, but we know very well what happens to a gurl who -spends her time larking about the streets with fellows. -To think that a child of mine——”</p> - -<p>“What do you do it <i>for</i>, Elsie?” enquired Aunt Gertie, -in a practical tone, as though only such shrewdness as hers -could have seized at once upon this vital point.</p> - -<p>“Do what?”</p> - -<p>“What your poor mother says.”</p> - -<p>“She hasn’t said anything, yet.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t prevaricate with me, you bad gurl, you,” said -Mrs. Palmer sharply. “You know very well what I mean, -and so do others. The tales that get carried to me about -your goings-on! First one fellow, and then another, and -even running after a whipper-snapper that’s already going -with another gurl!”</p> - -<p>“This is a bit of Ireen’s work, I suppose,” said Elsie. -“I can’t help it if her boy’s sick of her already, can I? -I’m sure I don’t care anything about Arthur Osborne, or -any of them, for that matter.”</p> - -<p>The implication that Elsie Palmer, at sixteen and a half, -could afford to distinguish between her admirers, obscurely -infuriated the spinster Aunt Ada.</p> - -<p>She began to tremble with wrath, and white dents -appeared at the corners of her mouth and nostrils. “You’re -not the first gurl whose talked that way, and ended by -disgracing herself and her family,” she cried shrilly. “If -I were your mother, I’d give you a sound whipping, I -declare to goodness I would.”</p> - -<p>Elsie shot a vicious look at her aunt out of the corners -of her slanting eyes. “Are the grapes sour, Aunt Ada?” -she asked insolently.</p> - -<p>Aunt Ada turned white. “D’you hear that, Edie?” -she gasped.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>“Yes, I do,” said Mrs. Palmer vigorously, “and I’m -not going to put up with it, not for a single instant. Elsie -Palmer, you beg your auntie’s pardon directly minute.”</p> - -<p>“I won’t.”</p> - -<p>The vast figure of Mrs. Palmer in her Sunday black frock -upreared itself and stood, weighty and menacing, over her -child. She had never hit either of her daughters since -childhood, but neither of them had ever openly defied her.</p> - -<p>“Do as I say.”</p> - -<p>“N-no.”</p> - -<p>Elsie’s voice quavered, and she burst into tears. Mrs. -Palmer let out a sigh of relief. She knew that she had won.</p> - -<p>“Do—as—I—say.”</p> - -<p>“I’m sure I’m very sorry, Aunt Ada, if I said what I -didn’t ought.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t what you said, dear,” said Aunt Ada untruthfully. -“It was the way you said it.”</p> - -<p>There was a silence.</p> - -<p>Then Mrs. Palmer pursued her advantage. “You may -as well understand, Elsie, that this isn’t going on. I haven’t -got the time, nor yet the strength, to go chasing after you -all day long. I know well enough you’re not to be trusted—out -of the house the minute my back’s the other way—and -coming in at all hours, and always a tale of some sort -to account for where you’ve been. So, my lady, you’ve -got to make up your mind to a different state of things. -What’s it to be: a job as a typewriter, or apprenticed to -the millinery? Your kind Aunt Gertie’s got a friend in the -business, and she’s offered to speak for you.”</p> - -<p>“I’d rather the typing,” said Elsie sullenly.</p> - -<p>“Then you’ll come with me and see about a post to-morrow -morning as ever is,” said Mrs. Palmer. “It’s your -own doing. You could have stayed at home like a lady, -helping Mother and Geraldine, if you’d cared to. But I’m -not going to have any gurl of mine getting herself a name -the way you’ve been doing.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose I can go now?”</p> - -<p>“You can go if you want to,” said Mrs. Palmer, flushed -with victory. “And mind and remember what I’ve said, -for I mean every word of it.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>It was only too evident that she did, and Elsie went out -of the room crying angrily. She did not really mind the -idea of becoming a typist in an office or a shop in the very -least, but she hated having been humiliated in front of her -aunts and Geraldine.</p> - -<p>As she went upstairs, sobbing, she met Mrs. Williams -coming down. She was a gentle, unhealthy-looking woman -of about thirty, so thin that her clothes always looked as -though they might drop off her bending, angular body.</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter, dear?”</p> - -<p>“It’s nothing.”</p> - -<p>“Come into the sitting-room, won’t you, and rest a -minute?”</p> - -<p>“Well, I don’t mind.”</p> - -<p>Elsie reflected that there would probably be a fire in the -sitting-room, and in her own room it was cold, and she knew -that the bed was still unmade.</p> - -<p>She followed Mrs. Williams into the sitting-room, where -Mr. Williams sat reading a Sunday illustrated paper.</p> - -<p>“Horace, this poor child is quite upset. Give her a -seat, dear.”</p> - -<p>“It’s all right,” said Elsie, confused.</p> - -<p>She had only seen Mr. Williams half a dozen times. He -always breakfasted and went out early, and Elsie, of late, -had eaten her supper in the kitchen. They had met at meal-times -on Sundays, but she had never spoken to him, and -thought him elderly and uninteresting.</p> - -<p>Mr. Williams was indeed forty-three years old, desiccated -and inclined to baldness, a small, rather paunchy man.</p> - -<p>His little, hard grey eyes gleamed on Elsie now from -behind his pince-nez.</p> - -<p>“No bad news, I hope?” His voice was dry, and rather -formal, with great precision of utterance.</p> - -<p>His wife put her emaciated hand on the girl’s shoulder. -“Two heads are better than one, as they say. Horace and -I would be glad to help you, if we can.”</p> - -<p>“It is silly to be upset, like,” said Elsie, sniffing. “Mother -and I had a few words, that’s all, and I’m to get hold of a job. -I’m sure I don’t know why I’m crying. I shall be glad -enough to get out of this place for a bit.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span>“Hush, dear! That isn’t a nice way to speak of your -home, now is it? But about this job, now. Horace and I -might be able to help you there.”</p> - -<p>She hesitated and looked at her husband. “What about -the Woolleys, dear?”</p> - -<p>“Yes—ye-es.”</p> - -<p>“These are some new acquaintances of ours, and they’ve -a lovely house at Hampstead, but Mrs. Woolley isn’t any -too strong, and I know she’s looking out for someone to help -her with the children and all. It wouldn’t be going to -service—nothing at all like that, of course; I know you -wouldn’t think of that, dear—but just be one of the family -at this lovely house of theirs.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t in the country, is it?” Elsie asked suspiciously.</p> - -<p>“Oh no, dear, Hampstead I said. Only three-quarters -of an hour by ’bus from town. Don’t you like the country?”</p> - -<p>“Too dead-alive.”</p> - -<p>“Well, these people that I’m telling you about, this -Doctor and Mrs. Woolley, they’re youngish married people, -and most pleasant. Aren’t they, Horace? And they’ve -two sweet kiddies—a boy and a girl. Don’t you think -you’d like me to speak to Mrs. Woolley, now, dear?”</p> - -<p>Elsie was not sure. She felt that Mrs. Williams was -going too fast. “I don’t know,” she said ungraciously.</p> - -<p>“She’s right,” said Mr. Williams. “We mustn’t be -in too great a hurry. Write to your friend Mrs. Woolley -by all means, my dear, and let this young lady think it over, -and have a talk with her mother and sister. She may not -care to live away from home altogether.”</p> - -<p>“Horace is always so business-like,” said Mrs. Williams -admiringly. “I expect he’s right, dear. But you’d like me -to write, just to see if there’s any chance, now wouldn’t you?”</p> - -<p>“What should I have to do there?”</p> - -<p>“Why, just help look after the kiddies. I’m sure you -love children, now don’t you?—and perhaps make a dainty -cake or two for afternoon tea, if Mrs. Woolley’s busy, or do -a bit of sewing for her—and keep the doctor amused in the -evening if she has to go up early.”</p> - -<p>It was the last item that decided Elsie. “I don’t mind,” -she said in her usual formula of acceptance.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>Mrs. Williams was delighted. “I’m going to write off -this very evening,” she exclaimed enthusiastically. -“Horace and I have to go out now, but I shan’t forget. -It’ll be a lovely chance for you, dear.”</p> - -<p>Elsie rather enjoyed telling her mother and Geraldine -that evening that “Mrs. Williams was wild” to secure her -services for a lady friend of hers, who had a lovely house at -Hampstead.</p> - -<p>“This Mrs. Woolley is delicate, and she wants a young -lady to help her. Of course, there’s a servant for the work -of the house.”</p> - -<p>“If she’s counting on you to help her, the same as you’ve -helped your poor mother since you left school, she’s got a -disappointment in store,” said Mrs. Palmer grimly. “I -don’t know that I’d let you go, even if you get the chance.”</p> - -<p>In the end, Geraldine, who wanted the top bedroom to -herself, and who thought that Elsie, and the problem of -Elsie’s behaviour, were occupying too much attention, -persuaded Mrs. Palmer that it would never do to offend the -Williamses.</p> - -<p>“Besides,” she argued, “it’ll be one less to feed here, -and we can easily move her bed into the second-floor back -room and use it, if we want to put up an extra gentleman -any time.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Palmer gave in, contingent on a personal interview -with Mrs. Woolley.</p> - -<p>This was arranged through Mrs. Williams. She one day -ushered into the dining-room of No. 15 a large, showily-dressed -woman, who might have been any age between -thirty-eight and forty-five.</p> - -<p>Her rings, and her light, smart dress impressed Elsie, -and her suggestion of paying twenty-five pounds a year for -Elsie’s services satisfied Mrs. Palmer.</p> - -<p>“My hubby’s a frightfully busy man,” Mrs. Woolley -remarked. “He isn’t at home a great deal, but he likes me -to do everything on the most liberal scale—always has -done—and he said to me, ‘Amy, you’re not strong,’ he -said, ‘even if you have a high colour’—so many people are -deceived by that, Mrs. Palmer—‘and you’ve got to have -help. Someone who can be a bit of a companion to you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span> -when I’m out on my rounds or busy in the surgery, and who -you can trust with Gladys and Sonnie.’”</p> - -<p>“I’m sure Elsie would like to help you, Mrs. Woolley, -and you’ll find her to be trusted,” Mrs. Palmer replied -firmly. “I’ve always brought up my gurls to be useful, -even if they <i>are</i> ladies.”</p> - -<p>“She looks young,” said Mrs. Woolley critically.</p> - -<p>“She’ll put her hair up before she comes to you. It may -be a mother’s weakness, Mrs. Woolley, but I’m free to -confess that Elsie’s my baby, and I’ve let her keep her curls -down perhaps longer than I should.”</p> - -<p>Elsie remained demure beneath what she perfectly -recognised as a form of self-hypnotism, rather than conscious -humbug, on the part of her mother.</p> - -<p>There was at least no sentimentality in her leave-taking -a week later.</p> - -<p>“Good-bye, Elsie, and mind and not be up to any of -your tricks, now. Mother’ll expect you on Sunday next.”</p> - -<p>“Good-bye, Mother,” said Elsie indifferently.</p> - -<p>She had that morning washed her hair, which made it -very soft and fluffy, and had pinned it up in half a dozen fat -little sausages at the back of her head. She was preoccupied -with her own appearance, and with the knowledge -that the newly-revealed back of her neck was white and -pretty. She wore a blue serge coat and skirt, a low-cut blouse -of very pale pink figured voile, black shoes and stockings, -and a dashing little hat, round and brimless, with a big black -bow that she had herself added to it on the previous night.</p> - -<p>In the Tube railway, a man in the seat opposite to -her stared at her very hard. Elsie looked away, but kept -on turning her eyes furtively towards him, without moving -her head. Every time that she did this, their eyes met.</p> - -<p>The man was young, with bold eyes and a wide mouth. -Presently he smiled at her.</p> - -<p>Elsie immediately looked down at the toes of her new -black shoes, moving them this way and that as though to -catch the light reflected in their polish.</p> - -<p>At Belsize Park Station she got out, carrying her suitcase.</p> - -<p>As she passed the youth in the corner, she glanced at him -again, then stepped out of the train and went up the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span> -platform without looking behind her. Although there was a -crowd on the platform and in the lift, and although she never -looked round, Elsie could tell that he was following her.</p> - -<p>The feeling that this gave her, half fearful and half -delighted, was an agreeable titilation to her vanity. She -had experienced it before, just as she had often been followed -in the street before, but it never lost its flavour. -When she was in the street, she began to walk steadily -along, gazing straight in front of her.</p> - -<p>She heard steps on the pavement just behind her, and -then the young man of the train accosted her, raising his -hat as he spoke:</p> - -<p>“Aren’t you going to give me the pleasure of your -acquaintance?” he suavely enquired.</p> - -<p>His voice was very polite, and his eyes looked faintly -amused.</p> - -<p>“Oh!” Elsie cried in a startled tone. “I don’t think -I know you, do I?”</p> - -<p>“All the more reason to begin now. Mayn’t I carry that -bag for you?”</p> - -<p>He took it and they walked on together.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you can tell me where Mortimer Crescent is,” -Elsie said primly.</p> - -<p>“It will be my proudest privilege to escort you there,” -he replied in mock bombastic tones.</p> - -<p>It was a form of persiflage well known to Elsie, and she -laughed in reply. “You <i>are</i> silly, aren’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Not at all. Now if you called me cheeky, perhaps....”</p> - -<p>“I’ll call you cheeky fast enough. A regular Cheeky -Charlie, by the look of you!”</p> - -<p>“I think I was born cheeky,” he agreed complacently. -“D’you know what first made me want to talk to you?”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“That pink thing you’ve got on with all the ribbon -showing through it.”</p> - -<p>He put out his hand and, with a familiar gesture, touched -the front of her blouse just below her collar-bone.</p> - -<p>“You mustn’t,” said Elsie, startled.</p> - -<p>“Why not?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t allow liberties.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>“We’ll have to settle what liberties are, miss. Come for -a walk this evening and we can talk about it.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I couldn’t! I’m just going into a new job.”</p> - -<p>She purposely used the word “new,” because she wanted -him to think her experienced and grown-up.</p> - -<p>“What can a kiddie like you do?”</p> - -<p>“Why, I’m private secretary to a duke, didn’t you know -that?”</p> - -<p>“Lucky duke! Where does he live?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, that’d be telling. This isn’t Mortimer Crescent?”</p> - -<p>“It is, very much so indeed, begging your pardon for -contradicting a lady.”</p> - -<p>“Well, don’t come any further,” begged Elsie. “Ta-ta, -and thanks for carrying the bag.”</p> - -<p>“When do I see you again?”</p> - -<p>“I dunno! Never, I should think.”</p> - -<p>“Seven o’clock to-night?”</p> - -<p>“No, I can’t, really.”</p> - -<p>“To-morrow, then? I’ll be outside the Belsize Park -station, and we’ll go on the razzle-dazzle together. I’d -like to show you a bit of life. Seven o’clock, mind.”</p> - -<p>“You and your seven o’clock! You’ll be somewhere -with your young lady, I know.”</p> - -<p>“Haven’t got one.”</p> - -<p>“Wouldn’t she have you?” scoffed Elsie. “No -accounting for tastes, is there?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll make you pay for this to-morrow night, you little -witch—see if I don’t!”</p> - -<p>Elsie had caught hold of her suitcase, and began to walk -away from him.</p> - -<p>“Which number are you going to?”</p> - -<p>“Eight.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll ring the bell for you.”</p> - -<p>He did so, rather to her fright and vexation. She urged -him in low tones to go away, but he continued to stand -beside her on the doorstep, laughing at her annoyance, -until a capped and aproned maid opened the door.</p> - -<p>Then he lifted his hat, said “Good-night” very politely, -and went away.</p> - -<p>She never saw him again.</p> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span> - -<h4>IV</h4> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Elsie</span> found the life at 8, Mortimer Crescent, a pleasant -contrast to that of her own home.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Woolley herself never came downstairs before -half-past nine or ten o’clock, and then she was very -often only partly dressed, wearing a stained and rumpled -silk kimono and a dirty lace-and-ribbon-trimmed boudoir -cap. Elsie’s only duty in the morning was to keep the -two children quiet while their mother slept. This she -achieved by the simple expedient of letting them go to -bed so late at night that they lay like little logs far on into -the morning.</p> - -<p>Elsie shared a bedroom with Gladys, and Sonnie’s cot -was in a dressing-room opening into theirs.</p> - -<p>The children were rather pallid and unwholesome, never -quite free from colds or coughs, and seeming too spiritless -even to be naughty. They went to a kindergarten school -from eleven to four o’clock every day, and Elsie took them -there and fetched them away again.</p> - -<p>During the daytime she was supposed to dust the -dining-room, drawing-room, and Mrs. Woolley’s bedroom, -but she soon found out that no accumulation of dust, -cigarette ends, or actual dirt would ever be noticed by the -mistress of the house.</p> - -<p>There was a general servant, who was inclined to resent -Elsie’s presence in the house, and who left very soon after -her arrival. Another one came, and was sent away at the -end of a week’s trial because Mrs. Woolley said she was -impertinent, and after an uncomfortable interim, during -which Elsie nominally “did” the cooking, and they lived -upon tinned goods and pressed beef, there came a short-lived -succession of maids who never stayed.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>At first, Doctor Woolley was seldom seen by Elsie. He -went out early, and both he and his wife were out nearly -every night.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Woolley told Elsie that they adored the theatre. -Elsie, who adored it too, had on these occasions, after -putting the two children to bed, to remain sulkily behind -while Dr. and Mrs. Woolley, after an early meal, walked -away together to the Underground station. Sometimes -Dr. Woolley was sent for, and could not go, and Mrs. -Woolley rang up one of her friends on the telephone—always -another woman—and took her instead. One -evening after this had happened, the doctor returned -unexpectedly early, just as Elsie had finished putting -Gladys and Sonnie to bed.</p> - -<p>She was coming downstairs, some needlework in her -hands, as the doctor slammed the hall door behind him. -Instantly the prospect of a dreary evening, probably to be -spent in sucking sweets and surreptitiously looking over -everything on Mrs. Woolley’s untidy writing-table, disappeared.</p> - -<p>“Hallo! And how was you to-morrow, Miss Elsie?” -cried the doctor genially.</p> - -<p>He was a stout, middle-aged man, jocose and very often -foul-mouthed, with nicotine stains on his fingers and -grease spots on his waistcoat.</p> - -<p>He affected a manner of speech that Elsie found intensely -amusing.</p> - -<p>“You and I all on our ownie own, eh? Where’s the -missus?—and the kids?”</p> - -<p>“The children are in bed, and Mrs. Woolley’s gone to the -play with Miss Smith, Doctor.”</p> - -<p>“And haven’t you got a drink of cocoa and a bit of bread -for a poor man, kind lady?”</p> - -<p>Elsie burst out laughing. “You’re so silly, I can’t help -laughing!”</p> - -<p>“‘Silly,’ says she, quite the lady. ‘How’s that?’ says -I; to which she says, ‘Not at all,’ says she, and the same to -you and many of them,” was the doctor’s reply.</p> - -<p>Elsie giggled wildly.</p> - -<p>“Come along now, tell that slut in the kitchen to stir her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span> -stumps and bring some food to the dining-room. Have you -had your supper yet?”</p> - -<p>“No, Doctor.”</p> - -<p>“Then you and I will make a party-carry, otherwise a -<i>tête-à-tête</i>, otherwise a night of it. Run along and I’ll get -out something that will make your hair curl.”</p> - -<p>Elsie had heard this formula before, and understood -that the doctor would unlock the door of the tiny wine-cellar -and bring out a bottle.</p> - -<p>She told the maid to bring supper for Doctor Woolley -to the dining-room, but she herself carried in her own plate -and cup and saucer, knowing that Florrie was quite aware -she had already eaten her evening meal with Mrs. Woolley.</p> - -<p>The doctor was drawing the cork out of a bottle as she -came into the room. The electric light was turned on, and -the small dining-room, with drawn red curtains, and the -gas-fire burning, was bright and hot.</p> - -<p>The doctor ate heavily of cold meat and pickles, prodding -with a fork amongst the mixed contents of the glass -jar until he had annexed all the pickled onions that it -contained.</p> - -<p>He made Elsie sit down and eat too, but he made no demur -to her assurance that she wasn’t hungry and only wanted -some cake and a cup of cocoa.</p> - -<p>At first the doctor gave all his attention to the food and -warmth of which he stood in need, and Elsie felt self-conscious, -and as though she were out of place.</p> - -<p>She ceased to answer his occasional facetious interjections, -and threw herself back in her chair, gazing down at her own -clasped hands.</p> - -<p>Gradually the atmosphere of the room altered, and -Elsie’s instinct told her that the current of magnetism that -had never failed her yet was awakening its inevitable -response in the man opposite.</p> - -<p>At once she felt confident again, and at her ease.</p> - -<p>“I say, why didn’t the missus take you to the theatre -when she found I was busy?” he queried suddenly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose she never thought of -such a thing.”</p> - -<p>“Wanted someone nearer her own age, eh? You won’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span> -find the ladies running after someone younger and prettier -than themselves, you know. Too much of a contrast.”</p> - -<p>Elsie laughed self-consciously.</p> - -<p>“All the better for me, eh? I’m not often allowed to -get you all to myself like this, eh? Ah, when I was a -gay young bacheldore things was different, they was.”</p> - -<p>Elsie laughed again, this time in spontaneous tribute to -the humour of wilful mis-pronunciation.</p> - -<p>“Now, what about this bottle that you made me get out, -eh? Where are the glasses?”</p> - -<p>He found two in the cupboard of the carved walnut -sideboard, and poured a liberal allowance of port from the -bottle into each.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I couldn’t, Doctor! You must excuse me, really -you must. I simply couldn’t.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, couldn’t you, really, awfully, truly couldn’t?” he -mimicked in exaggerated falsetto. “Well, you’ve got to—so -that’s <i>that</i>!”</p> - -<p>“Who says so?”</p> - -<p>“I say so. I. <i>Moi.</i> ‘<i>Je</i>,’ replies I, knowing the language. -Come along now, be a good girl.”</p> - -<p>He laid his big coarse hand on hers, and at the contact -the familiar thrill of sensuous excitement and pleasure ran -through her.</p> - -<p>“Are you going to drink it?” he said masterfully.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I suppose I must try it. I’ve never tasted wine -before,” Elsie added truthfully.</p> - -<p>“High time you began, then.”</p> - -<p>He went back to his place, and drank in long gulps, first -saying:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="first">“Our hands have met—our lips not yet—</div> -<div class="verse">Here’s hoping!”</div> -</div></div> - -<p>Elsie sipped at her glass, choked, and put it down again. -“How beastly!” she said, shuddering.</p> - -<p>“You’ll get used to it.”</p> - -<p>“No, I shan’t, because I’m not going to touch the horrid -stuff again.”</p> - -<p>“We’ll see about that.”</p> - -<p>He came round beside her again, and held her with one -arm while he tried to force the glass to her lips.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>Elsie turned her head aside, struggling and laughing.</p> - -<p>“You young monkey!” said the doctor, and forced her -face upwards with his free hand.</p> - -<p>His breath was in her face, and his inflamed eyes gazing -into hers. Instinctively Elsie ceased to struggle and closed -her eyes.</p> - -<p>He kissed her mouth violently. “God! You haven’t -got much to learn. Who’s been teaching you?” he asked -her roughly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you oughtn’t to have done that,” said Elsie feebly.</p> - -<p>“Rubbish! You know I’ve been thinking of nothing -else since you’ve been here.”</p> - -<p>He sat down and pulled her on to his knee. “Now tell -me all about it,” he commanded. His manner was no -longer facetious, and he had dropped his jocosities of -speech.</p> - -<p>“Let me go,” said Elsie.</p> - -<p>“Sit still.”</p> - -<p>“Suppose someone were to come in?”</p> - -<p>“No one will.”</p> - -<p>She wriggled a little, half-heartedly, and he gripped her -more firmly round the waist. The scene degenerated into -a sort of scrambling orgy of animalism.</p> - -<p>Elsie, although she was frightened, was also exhilarated -at the evidence that she possessed power over a man—and -a married man—so much older than herself.</p> - -<p>She knew that if at any moment he became unmanageable, -she had only to threaten to call the servant, and she -fully intended to do so as a last resort. But in the meanwhile -there was an odd and breathless fascination in feeling -that she stood so close to a peril in which lay all the lurking -excitement of the unknown.</p> - -<p>A sudden wail from the room overhead startled them both.</p> - -<p>“That’s Sonnie!” gasped Elsie.</p> - -<p>“Oh, blast the kid!”</p> - -<p>But he let her go and she flew upstairs, glad, and yet -disappointed, at her release.</p> - -<p>She dismissed Sonnie’s nightmare with sharp injunctions -not to be silly, tucked him up and decided to go to her own -room and not to return downstairs.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>“That’ll show him,” she murmured, simulating to herself -a conventional indignation.</p> - -<p>In reality, she was intensely excited, and she had been -tossing about her bed restlessly for nearly an hour before -reaction overtook her, and she became prey to a strange, -baffled feeling of having been cheated of the climax due to so -emotional an episode.</p> - -<p>When at last Elsie slept, it was after she had heard Mrs. -Woolley come in and the doctor bolt the hall door and both -of them go upstairs to their bedroom, on the other side of -the landing.</p> - -<p>Every day now held the potentialities of amorous adventure.</p> - -<p>Sometimes Elsie did not see the doctor all day long, -sometimes they met in the evenings, with Mrs. Woolley -present, and he talked in the old facetious style, watching -Elsie furtively as she giggled in response.</p> - -<p>He very often made excuses for passing things to her at -meals, so that their hands touched, and he pressed her foot -under the table with his big one, or rubbed it up and down -her ankle.</p> - -<p>There were moments, however, when they were alone -together, and then he pulled her to him and kissed her -roughly all over her face and neck, pushing her abruptly -away at the first possibility of interruption. Once or twice, -at the imminent risk of being discovered, he had snatched -hasty and provocative kisses from her lips in a chance -encounter on the stairs, or even behind the shelter of an -open door.</p> - -<p>The perpetual fear of detection, no less than the tantalising -incompleteness of their relations, was a strain upon -Elsie’s nerves, and she was keyed up to a pitch of unusual -sensitiveness when the inevitable crisis came.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Woolley, in a new blue dress that looked too tight -under the arms, had taken the children to a party.</p> - -<p>The maid Florrie was out for the afternoon. Elsie, -restless and on edge, terribly wanted an excuse to go down -to the surgery. At last she found one, and after listening at -the door to make certain that no belated patient was with -the doctor, she knocked.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>“Come in!”</p> - -<p>He was sitting at the writing-table, rapidly turning over -the leaves of a big book.</p> - -<p>“Elsie!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, if you please, Doctor,” she minced, “they’ve all -gone out, and Mrs. Woolley left a message to say if you -<i>could</i> go and fetch her and the children from 85, Lower -Park Avenue, about seven o’clock——”</p> - -<p>“Stow it, Elsie! D’you mean to say you and I are the -only people left in the place? Where’s that damned slut -in the kitchen, eh?”</p> - -<p>“It’s Florrie’s afternoon out, Doctor, but——”</p> - -<p>“Florrie be damned! Look here, Elsie, this sort of -thing can’t go on.”</p> - -<p>She backed until she stood against the wall, feeling the -warm blood surge into her face and looking at him through -half-closed eyelids.</p> - -<p>“What sort of thing?”</p> - -<p>“You know very well what I mean. Look at me. -D’you think I’m a man?”</p> - -<p>He thrust out his chest and doubled up his arms, standing -with his legs wide apart. In spite of his grossness and -unwholesome fat, Elsie thrilled to the suggestion of his -masculine strength.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she murmured.</p> - -<p>“Well, I tell you no man’s going to stand what you’re -making me stand. Elsie, you little devil! Don’t you know -you’re driving me mad? God, if I could tell you the sort -of dreams I get at night, now!”</p> - -<p>“About me?” she asked curiously.</p> - -<p>“Shut up!” His voice was savage, and she suddenly -saw sweat glistening on his upper lip and round his nose.</p> - -<p>Elsie decided to begin to cry. “It frightens me when -you shout at me like that. Perhaps I’d better go,” she said -sobbingly.</p> - -<p>“No, no, no! I say, what a brute I am! Come here and -be comforted, little girl.”</p> - -<p>He sat down heavily in the revolving chair before the -writing-table and held out his hand.</p> - -<p>Elsie advanced slowly, without looking at him, until she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span> -came within reach of his arm. Then he caught hold of her -and drew her on to his knee, gripping her tightly until -her weight sank against his shoulder.</p> - -<p>“Let me kiss all the tears away. What a hound I am -to make you cry! Was’ums very mis’mis?”</p> - -<p>He petted and soothed her, kissing the back of her neck -and her dust-coloured curls, murmuring absurd, infantile -phrases.</p> - -<p>Presently he whispered: “D’you love me?”</p> - -<p>Elsie laughed and would not answer, and he struggled -with her playfully, pulling her about, and grasping at her -with his big hands.</p> - -<p>After the horse-play, she put both arms round his neck -and lay still.</p> - -<p>“I want to know something,” said Doctor Woolley slowly.</p> - -<p>“What’s that?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you know more than a good little girl ought to -know?”</p> - -<p>“What about?”</p> - -<p>“About—life. About being kissed, for instance. I’m -not the first, my girl, not by a long, long way. You’re the -sort that begins early, <i>I</i> know.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve a nerve!” Elsie ejaculated, not knowing what -to say.</p> - -<p>“Well, it’s true what I’m saying, isn’t it? I mean, -you’ve let fellows kiss you?”</p> - -<p>“Just boys, perhaps.”</p> - -<p>“Hasn’t anyone taught you anything besides kissing, -eh?”</p> - -<p>“Of course not! What do you take me for, I’d like to -know? Mother brought up me and my sister like ladies, -let me tell you. Besides, I don’t know what you’re driving -at, I’m sure.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, you do.”</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t.”</p> - -<p>“Then I’ll show you.”</p> - -<p>“No!” screamed Elsie in a sudden, only half-assumed, -panic.</p> - -<p>She sprang up, but he pulled her back again.</p> - -<p>“You silly little fool! You don’t suppose I’d really say<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span> -or do anything to frighten you, do you? Why, you’re -much too precious.”</p> - -<p>He kissed her again and again.</p> - -<p>“Tell me one thing, though. You did know what I -meant, didn’t you?”</p> - -<p>“I suppose so.”</p> - -<p>“Of course you did! A girl like you couldn’t help -knowing. My God, I wish I’d known you ten years ago. -I wasn’t married then.”</p> - -<p>“You oughtn’t to talk like that.”</p> - -<p>“Why not? It’s true. Amy’s as cold as ice—not a -real woman at all. And she’s as jealous as the devil. -I’ve always wondered why she let anyone like you come into -the house at all. It’s a miracle she hasn’t spotted us yet.”</p> - -<p>“It’d be all up with me being here if she did,” said -Elsie shrewdly.</p> - -<p>“If you go, I swear I’ll go with you,” said Doctor -Woolley, but he said it without conviction, and Elsie knew -it. “Can’t do without you, little one, at any price, now. -But you’ve got to be even sweeter than you’ve been to me -yet.”</p> - -<p>Elsie shivered a little, excited and disturbed, and in part -genuinely shocked.</p> - -<p>“When will you, Elsie?”</p> - -<p>His breath on her neck was hot and hurried.</p> - -<p>She jumped off his knee. “Oh, look, it’s getting on for -half-past six! You’ll have to be off.”</p> - -<p>“Come back! You haven’t told me what I want to -know yet.” He grabbed at her dress.</p> - -<p>“Listen!” cried Elsie.</p> - -<p>In the second during which he turned, arrested, she -slipped out of the room.</p> - -<p>Her heart was beating very fast, and her face burning.</p> - -<p>She half expected him to follow her, but he did not do so; -and she was partly relieved and partly disappointed.</p> - -<p>She saw him again at supper, which the Woolleys always -called dinner, and the consciousness between them caused -a singular constraint to pervade the atmosphere. Mrs. -Woolley, for the first time, seemed to be aware of it, and -every now and then turned sharp, bulging brown eyes from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span> -her husband to Elsie, compressing her thin lips until they -formed a mere hard line in her red face.</p> - -<p>When the meal was finished, she told Elsie to go upstairs -and fetch one of her evening dresses. “I want to see if I -can’t smarten it up a bit,” she explained. “I’m in rags, not -fit to be seen.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll stand you a new frock, Amy,” said the doctor -suddenly. “How much d’you want, eh?”</p> - -<p>“Oh! Why, whatever’s up, Herbert? I’m sure it’s ages -since I’ve had a thing, and I’d be only too delighted——”</p> - -<p>She broke off.</p> - -<p>“Run up, Elsie, will you? The primrose dress, with the -black lace, in the left-hand corner of my wardrobe....”</p> - -<p>Elsie went, envious of the new dress, and at the same time -thinking mockingly of Mrs. Woolley’s mottled skin and the -lines that ran from her heavy nostrils to her sagging chin. -Dresses and jewellery ought to be for girls who were young -and pretty, not married women, plain and stout, like Mrs. -Woolley. When Elsie came down again the doctor had gone, -and Mrs. Woolley was in high good humour.</p> - -<p>“I’ll get some tulle to-morrow, Elsie, and we can freshen -it up round the neck and sleeves. You’d better rip off all -this old stuff. And look here—you’re handy with your -fingers—you can take the lace off and put it on that old -navy blouse of mine, that’s got no collar. You know the -one I mean ... you can drape it a bit....”</p> - -<p>Elsie assented rather sulkily.</p> - -<p>“Doctor Woolley’s so generous,” said Mrs. Woolley complacently. -“He’s for ever giving me things, me and the -children. If you knew more of the world, Elsie, you’d -realise how lucky a woman is when she gets a hubby like -mine who’s never so much as looked at another woman since -he married. Some men aren’t like that, I can tell you. -The tales I could let out, if I cared to, that I’ve heard -from some! But if Doctor Woolley’s manner sometimes puts -ideas into people’s heads, why, they’ve only themselves -to blame is what I always say. He wouldn’t give a thought -to anyone but me, not really.”</p> - -<p>She looked full at Elsie as she spoke, and Elsie stared -back at her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>The girl was puzzled and angry, not feeling certain that -she knew whether Mrs. Woolley really believed her own -words, or was using them to convey an oblique warning.</p> - -<p>“If she really imagines that, she must be a fool,” thought -Elsie contemptuously, only to veer round uneasily a moment -later to the conviction that Mrs. Woolley had been talking -<i>at</i> her.</p> - -<p>It was the latter unpleasant belief that prevailed, without -possibility of mistake, in the course of the next few days. -Whenever the doctor was in the house, Mrs. Woolley made a -point of remaining at his side, and during the hours when -he was in the surgery she kept Elsie employed with the -children, every now and then coming to look in on her -with excuses that were always transparently flimsy.</p> - -<p>The tension in the atmosphere pervaded the whole house.</p> - -<p>At last one afternoon, when Gladys and Sonnie were at -school, and Mrs. Woolley in the drawing-room with an -unexpected caller, Elsie and the doctor met upon the -stairs.</p> - -<p>She knew that she was looking her worst, strained and -overwrought, and with the odd Japanese aspect of her -eyes and cheek-bones intensified. Even her hair felt limp -and unresilient.</p> - -<p>She looked at the doctor rather piteously, envisaging -to herself her own unprepossessing appearance, and wishing -that she had at least powdered her face recently.</p> - -<p>“Where’s Amy?”</p> - -<p>“In the drawing-room, with a lady visitor.”</p> - -<p>“Thank God! I’ve been hag-ridden for the last week. -What the devil’s up, Elsie?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” she murmured. “At least, I know Mrs. -Woolley’s been horrid to me lately, that’s all.”</p> - -<p>“She has, has she?” he muttered furiously. “Here—come -in here.”</p> - -<p>He drew her into the shelter of the nearest doorway.</p> - -<p>“Elsie, I’m mad about you. This sort of thing can’t -go on—it’s simply hell.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, hush, someone’ll hear....”</p> - -<p>“I don’t care who hears!” But he lowered his voice. -“I haven’t had a kiss from you for days—quick<i>!</i>”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>Their lips met.</p> - -<p>“You dear little girl! Is she being a beast to you?”</p> - -<p>Elsie, in his embrace, started violently. “<i>Someone -coming upstairs!</i>” she hissed.</p> - -<p>He stood motionless to listen, waited a second too long, -and then sharply shut the door.</p> - -<p>“Florrie!” Elsie whispered in a frightened voice. -“Did she see us?”</p> - -<p>“No, no—not a chance. Or, if she did, she only saw me. -She won’t think anything of that.”</p> - -<p>“She’s gone upstairs—I must go.”</p> - -<p>“No, don’t. I tell you it’s all right. Hang it, Elsie, -when am I going to get a word with you again?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know. I think I shall go home again.” -She was half crying.</p> - -<p>“Elsie, d’you know Amy’s going out to-morrow night? -She’s going to see her friend, that Williams woman, who’s -ill.”</p> - -<p>“What, the one that was at mother’s place?”</p> - -<p>“Yes—yes—but they’re in their own house now. It’ll -take her all the evening to get there and back, pretty nearly.”</p> - -<p>“She won’t go.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, she will. I shall tell her I’m going off to a case at -Roehampton or somewhere, and that I shan’t be back till -late.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t. It simply isn’t safe.”</p> - -<p>“It’s quite safe, you little fool. You and me have got -to come to an understanding, I can’t stand this life another -minute. Look here, we’ll go out somewhere together.”</p> - -<p>“No, no! That’d be much worse. Sonnie always wakes -up, and he’ll scream himself into a fit if I’m not there, and -then Florrie would know——”</p> - -<p>“I forgot the kids. Elsie—Gladys sleeps in your room -doesn’t she?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Elsie, suddenly flushing scarlet.</p> - -<p>He laughed abruptly, scanning her face with hungry eyes. -“I’ll have a fire in the surgery. We’ll go down there. -Florrie knows better than to put her foot inside it,” said -Doctor Woolley significantly.</p> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span> - -<h4>V</h4> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was two days later.</p> - -<p>Florrie and Mrs. Woolley were talking in the kitchen. -Elsie hung about in the diminutive passage, trying -desperately to hear what they were saying. An awful -intuition gripped her that they were talking of her.</p> - -<p>Florrie’s voice was indistinct, almost inaudible, but -snatched phrases rose occasionally from the angry monotone -that was Mrs. Woolley’s.</p> - -<p>“... My innocent children ... turn my back ... -the gutter ... don’t you talk to me ... the gutter ... -out of the gutter....”</p> - -<p>Elsie tried wildly to persuade herself that Mrs. Woolley -was abusing Florrie. Sometimes she lost her temper with -her servants, and shouted at them.</p> - -<p>On the evening that Mrs. Woolley had gone to see her -friend Mrs. Williams, who was reported very ill, Elsie, in -her best frock, had boldly gone into the surgery, where a fire -blazed, and there was a sofa newly piled with cushions. -On the table had been placed a bottle and glasses and a -dish of biscuits. Doctor Woolley had locked the door -behind her, in spite of Elsie’s half-meant protests, but at -first he had been entirely jovial, using catch-phrases that -had made her laugh, and drinking heartily.</p> - -<p>She herself had begun to feel rather affronted and puzzled -at his aloofness, before it suddenly came to an end.</p> - -<p>The remembrance of her own surrender rather bewildered -Elsie. She had never consciously made up her mind to it, -but the doctor’s urgency, her own physical susceptibility, -and an underlying, violent curiosity had proved far too<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span> -strong for her feeble defences, based on timidity and on -the recollection of certain unexplained, and less-than-half-understood, -arbitrary axioms laid down during her childhood -by her mother.</p> - -<p>She supposed that that one half-hour in the surgery had -made “a bad girl” of her, but the aspect of the case that -really preoccupied her was her terror that Mrs. Woolley -should have found it out.</p> - -<p>She felt sick with fright as the kitchen door opened, and, -turning round, pretended to be looking for something in -the housemaid’s closet under the stairs.</p> - -<p>She heard Mrs. Woolley brush past her and go into -the drawing-room, slamming the door violently behind -her.</p> - -<p>Elsie, her knees shaking, went upstairs to fetch Gladys -and Sonnie and take them to their kindergarten.</p> - -<p>She dawdled on the way back, being unwilling to go into -the house again, and alternately hoping and dreading that -the doctor would be at home for the midday meal.</p> - -<p>At one o’clock, however, Mrs. Woolley and Elsie sat down -without him.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Woolley did not speak to Elsie. She kept on looking -at her, and then looking away again. Her hard face was -inscrutable, but Elsie noticed that her hands, manipulating -her knife and fork, shook slightly. The doctor came in -before the meal was over, jaunty and talkative.</p> - -<p>“Hallo! Is this Wednesday, or Piccadilly, or what? -Which I mean to say is, has the cold meat stage been passed -and the rice pudding come on, or contrarywise?”</p> - -<p>Elsie burst into nervous laughter, the strident sound of -which caused the doctor to glance at her sharply, and Mrs. -Woolley said:</p> - -<p>“Nonsense, Herbert! The way you talk, sometimes! -The girl has got your meat and vegetables keeping hot in -the oven, and I’m sure you haven’t seen rice pudding at the -table for a fortnight. There’s a nice piece of cheese on the -side, too.”</p> - -<p>The doctor ate in silence, voraciously, as he always did, -and his wife presently said in a thin, vicious voice:</p> - -<p>“Of course, you’ve nothing to say to your wife, Herbert.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span> -It’s easy enough to talk and be amusing with strangers, -isn’t it?—but I suppose it isn’t worth while in your own -home.”</p> - -<p>“What’s up, Amy?” he growled. He did not look at -Elsie, who found herself fixing apprehensive eyes on him, -although she knew it was a betrayal.</p> - -<p>“Why should anything be up, as you call it? But as -it isn’t very amusing for me to sit here all day while you eat, -and as I happen to be rather busy, strange though it may -seem, I think I’ll ask you to excuse me.”</p> - -<p>She turned her head towards Elsie, but spoke without -looking at her. “I’ll thank you to come and find that -paper pattern for Gladys’s smock. The child isn’t fit to be -seen.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Woolley pushed Elsie out of the room in front of her, -making it obvious that she meant her to have no opportunity -of exchanging a look with the doctor.</p> - -<p>Throughout the afternoon she never let the girl out of -her sight until Elsie had actually left the house to go and -fetch the two children from school.</p> - -<p>It was abundantly evident that a crisis impended. The -atmospheric tension affected everyone in the house, and -Elsie, her nerves on edge, became frantic.</p> - -<p>She said, immediately after supper, that she was tired, -and should go to bed, and Mrs. Woolley laughed, shortly and -sarcastically.</p> - -<p>Elsie went up to her room and cried hysterically on her -bed until Gladys woke and began to whine enquiries.</p> - -<p>It seemed impossible, to Elsie’s inexperience, that the -horrors of that day should repeat themselves, but the next -one was Sunday, and brought its own miseries.</p> - -<p>The doctor, who did not go to church as a rule, announced -his intention of accompanying his family, and they set out, -a constrained procession: Gladys, in tight black boots and -with fair hair crimped round her shoulders, holding her -father’s hand, Mrs. Woolley, walking just a little faster -than was comfortable for Sonnie’s short legs, clutching the -boy’s hand, and Elsie slouching a pace or two behind, cold -and wretched.</p> - -<p>At the bottom of the Crescent they met an elderly couple<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span> -who often came to see them, and whom Elsie knew well by -name as Mr. and Mrs. Loman.</p> - -<p>The encounter broke up the procession, and caused a -readjustment of places. Mrs. Woolley was at once claimed -by the sallow, spectacled Mrs. Loman, and the children, -with shrill acclamations, ran to her husband, Sonnie’s -godfather and the purveyor of many small treats and -presents.</p> - -<p>The doctor, after a loud and boisterous greeting, boldly -joined Elsie, and both of them dropped behind the others.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’ve wanted so to speak to you!” gasped Elsie.</p> - -<p>“Shut up—don’t make a fuss now, there’s a good girl. -Keep a cheery face on you, for God’s sake, or we shall give -the show away worse than we’ve done already.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Woolley turned round. “Herbert, Mrs. Loman -is just saying that she hasn’t set eyes on you for ages. -Come and give an account of yourself.”</p> - -<p>She spoke in a thin, artificial voice, but her eyes blazed -a command at him.</p> - -<p>The doctor stared back at her, insolent security in his -manner. “Thankee, Amy, but I wouldn’t interrupt a -ladies’ confab. for the world. Go on about your sky-blue-purple -Sunday-go-to-meeting costumes, and I’ll keep -Elsie company.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Loman laughed and the doctor grinned back at her.</p> - -<p>White patches had appeared on the mottled surface of -Mrs. Woolley’s face, but she made no rejoinder.</p> - -<p>Doctor Woolley turned to Elsie again, the merriment -dropping from his manner. “That’ll shut her up for a -bit,” he said between his teeth. “Has she been giving you -gyp, Elsie?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it’s been awful. I’m certain she’s found out.”</p> - -<p>“How?”</p> - -<p>“That Florrie, I suppose.”</p> - -<p>“Damn Florrie and her mischief-making! Well, kiddie, -the fat’s in the fire. I’m afraid there’s only one thing for -it.”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“Why—why, my dear child, don’t you see for yourself—you’ll -have to clear out of here. No use waiting for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span> -Amy to make a bloody row, now is there? If you simply -say you’re going home again, she won’t have a leg to -stand on. And if it wasn’t for—for the kids, I’d go with -you.”</p> - -<p>“You wouldn’t,” said Elsie bitterly. “I may be a bit -green, but I’m not green enough to swallow that.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t talk like that,” said Doctor Woolley. He -slipped his hand under her arm, and at the contact, jaded -and miserable as she was, her pulses leapt. His fingers -squeezed her arm.</p> - -<p>“We’ve had some happy times together, little girl, eh?” -he murmured in a sentimental voice. “And don’t you see -that when you’re on your own again we can meet ever so -much more freely. I want—you know what I want, don’t -you, Elsie?”</p> - -<p>She did not respond. “What <i>I</i> want, is to know what’ll -happen to me if I go back to mother and say I’ve left Mrs. -Woolley. You don’t suppose she, and my sister and my -aunts, aren’t going to ask what’s happened, do you?”</p> - -<p>“Well, you can tell them something,” said the doctor -impatiently. “A clever girl like you, Elsie, surely you can -think of something. Besides, everybody knows that a -pretty girl doesn’t always hit it off with a woman older -than herself. There’s nothing wonderful in that. Damnation, -they’re stopping!”</p> - -<p>“Here we are,” said Elsie.</p> - -<p>He withdrew his arm hastily from hers after a final -pressure.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Woolley and her friend were already standing at -the church steps, and both of them fixed their eyes on -Elsie and the doctor as they came up. Elsie saw Mrs. -Woolley touch the other woman’s elbow, and guessed at, -rather than heard, the words coming from between her -teeth:</p> - -<p>“Look at that, now—<i>look at that</i>.”</p> - -<p>On Mrs. Loman’s face was an expression of mingled -eagerness, curiosity, and disgust. It was evident that -Mrs. Woolley had spoken freely of her wrongs.</p> - -<p>Elsie spent her time in church in wondering whether it -would yet be possible to blunt Mrs. Woolley’s suspicions,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span> -or whether she dared face her mother with a made-up -story to account for her return.</p> - -<p>She was still young enough to have a furtive dread that -her mother must be omniscient in her regard, and she was -afraid that Mrs. Palmer would somehow guess at her lapse -and tax her with it.</p> - -<p>Elsie had very often lied to her mother before, but not -with any conspicuous success, and she felt just now strangely -shaken and unnerved, physically and morally.</p> - -<p>When they came out of church, the Lomans hospitably -pressed their friends to return with them, share the hot -Sunday dinner, and spend the afternoon. The children -were specifically included, but Mrs. Loman glanced -in Elsie’s direction, and then looked back at Mrs. Woolley, -raising her eyebrows.</p> - -<p>“You’d better go and see your mother this afternoon,” -said Mrs. Woolley coldly. “Go home first and tell -Florrie we shall be out, and she can lock up the house and -go out for a bit herself. Tell her she must be back by five.”</p> - -<p>“All right,” said Elsie lifelessly.</p> - -<p>She turned on her heel, when a sudden shout stopped her.</p> - -<p>“Post those letters of mine, will you?” said Doctor -Woolley very loudly. “You’ll find them in”—he came -nearer to her—“<i>wait in till I come</i>,” he muttered almost -inaudibly, and rejoined his wife before Elsie had taken in -the meaning of his words. It came to her afterwards, and -the renewed sense of intrigue very slightly relieved the dull -misery pervading her.</p> - -<p>At No. 8, Mortimer Crescent, the hot joint was taken out -of the oven and left to grow cold, but Florrie had made a -Yorkshire pudding, and she and Elsie ate it for their dinner, -and added pickles and bread and cheese and cake to the meal. -Very soon afterwards, Florrie announced that she was going -off at once.</p> - -<p>“So am I,” said Elsie. “I told <i>her</i> I’d lock up the house. -Mind you’re in by five.”</p> - -<p>“That’s as it may be,” haughtily said Florrie, with a -venomous glance. Elsie felt far too tired to quarrel with -the maid, as she had often done before, and when Florrie -was actually gone she went upstairs and lay down on her bed.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span> -It was nearly three o’clock before a cautious sound from -below betrayed the return of the doctor.</p> - -<p>Elsie rose and automatically glanced at herself in the -looking-glass. One side of her face was flushed, her eyes -looked small and swollen-lidded, and her hair was disordered. -She dabbed powder on her face and pulled her -wave of hair further down over her forehead before going -downstairs.</p> - -<p>The doctor was hanging up his hat on the crowded hooks -that lined one side of the wall in the tiny entrance lobby.</p> - -<p>“Coast clear?”</p> - -<p>Elsie nodded.</p> - -<p>“Sure?”</p> - -<p>“Absolutely.” She held out the key of the house door. -“I’ve locked up at the back.”</p> - -<p>“Then I’ll lock up at the front,” said Doctor Woolley, -and did so.</p> - -<p>“My God, we’re in a bloody mess,” he began, turning -round and facing Elsie.</p> - -<p>Desperate, she ran forward and threw herself into his -arms, instinctively seeking the only reassurance she knew, -that of physical contact.</p> - -<p>The doctor suddenly buried his face in her hair, then -forced her face upwards and kissed her passionately.</p> - -<p>They clung to one another.</p> - -<p>At last he released his clasp, only keeping one arm round -her waist.</p> - -<p>“Where can we go? We’ll have to settle something, and -Lord knows when I shall get another chance of speaking to -you, with that hell-cat on the warpath. I’ve had the -deuce and all of a time getting here now, and we must both -clear out of the place before she and the kids get back. -Put on your hat and coat, old girl, and come along.”</p> - -<p>“Where to?”</p> - -<p>“Where I take you,” said the doctor brusquely.</p> - -<p>When she came down again, he hurried her out of the -house, locking the door again behind them, and putting -the key under the scraper, where it was always looked for -on Sunday.</p> - -<p>“Taxi!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>The doctor hailed a passing taxi and made Elsie get into it.</p> - -<p>He gave the address of a hotel in a street of which she -had never heard.</p> - -<p>“Where are we going to?”</p> - -<p>“Somewhere where I can talk to you.”</p> - -<p>He passed his arm round her again, and she made no -pretence of resistance, but lay against him, letting him -play with her hand and occasionally bend his head down to -kiss her lips.</p> - -<p>Elsie had slept very little for the past three nights; -she had shed tears, and she had been subject to a continual -nervous strain. By the time that the taxi stopped she was -almost dozing, and it was in a half-dazed state that she -followed Dr. Woolley into the dingy hall of a high building -and, after a very short parley with a stout man in evening -dress, to an upstairs sitting-room.</p> - -<p>She asked nothing better than to sink on to the narrow -couch in a corner of the room and let herself be petted and -caressed, but after a time her wearied senses awoke, and -told her that the man beside her was becoming restive and -excited.</p> - -<p>“Look here, Elsie,” he said finally, “you’re a beguiling -little witch, you are—but we’ve got to come down to hard -facts. I’m going to order you a pick-me-up, and have one -myself, and then we can talk about what’s to be done next. -I’ve got to be home again, worse luck, by seven o’clock. -I’m supposed to have had an urgent call to Amy’s friend, -Mrs. Williams. She’s ill enough, poor soul, in all conscience, -and I’ll have to go there before I go home. Now -then, what’ll you have?”</p> - -<p>“Tea,” said Elsie.</p> - -<p>He laughed. “Women are all alike! You can have -your tea—poisonous stuff, tincture of tannin—and I’ll -order what I think’s good for you to go with it. Wait here -till I come back.”</p> - -<p>He went out, and Elsie, already revived and stimulated, -flew to the spotted and discoloured looking-glass, and took -out her pocket-comb to rearrange her curls.</p> - -<p>She actually enjoyed the hot, strong tea when it came, -and her spirits suddenly rose to a boisterous pitch.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>They both laughed loudly at the faces that Elsie made -over the bottle that the doctor had obtained, and from which -he repeatedly helped himself and her, and although they -kept on telling one another that they must talk seriously, -their hilarity kept on increasing. At last he began to make -violent love to her, and Elsie responded coquettishly, -luring him on by glance and gesture, while her tongue -uttered glib and meaningless protests. Very soon, her -flimsy defences gave way altogether, and she had ceded -to him everything that he asked.</p> - -<p>Then the inevitable reaction overtook her, and she cried, -and called herself a wicked girl, and finally sank limply into -a corner of the taxi that Dr. Woolley had summoned to the -door of the hotel.</p> - -<p>He got in beside her. “Buck up, little girl!” he cried -urgently. “You’ll be at No. 8 in no time, and we don’t -want Amy asking awkward questions. Look here, I’ll put -you down at the corner of the Crescent, and you can walk -to the house. The air’ll do you good, and besides, we can’t -be seen together. I’m off to that wretched Williams woman, -and I’m not going to be in till late.”</p> - -<p>Elsie continued to sob.</p> - -<p>“Come, come, come—pull yourself to pieces,” Doctor -Woolley tried to make her laugh. “We’ve not settled -anything, but we’ve had our time together. Ah, a little -love is a great thing in a world like this one, Elsie. Thank -you for being so sweet to me, little girl.”</p> - -<p>He kissed her hastily, with a perfunctoriness of which she -was aware.</p> - -<p>When the taxi stopped in the main thoroughfare, a little -way before the turning into Mortimer Crescent, he almost -shoved her on to the pavement.</p> - -<p>“Don’t forget—you’ve been out ever since dinner-time, -and you imagine me to have been in the buzzim of my -family enjoying back chat with the old Lomans. Don’t -say anything about that, though, unless you’re asked. -Tell the man to drive like blazes now, will you?”</p> - -<p>Elsie mechanically obeyed.</p> - -<p>Then she dragged herself to No. 8. Her ring was -answered by Florrie.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>The little servant girl was grinning maliciously. “She’s -in the d—’s own temper and all, and you’re going to catch -it hot and strong for leaving her to put the children to -bed.”</p> - -<p>“Mind your own business, Florrie,” said Elsie, pushing -past her.</p> - -<p>She affected not to hear the single word that the servant -flung at her back, but it made her wince.</p> - -<p>In the bedroom she found Gladys already in bed, wide -awake.</p> - -<p>“Mother put us to bed. She was awfully cross, and -she slapped Sonnie twice and me once.”</p> - -<p>“What for?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, because I whined, she said. And she slapped -Sonnie when he told her about Dadda being so funny with -you. You didn’t know we <i>saw</i> one day,” giggled Gladys.</p> - -<p>“Saw what?”</p> - -<p>“One day when Dadda kissed you and Sonnie and I saw, -over the banisters, and we laughed, but you didn’t hear -us.”</p> - -<p>“You little viper!” muttered Elsie between her teeth. -“I’d like to kill you, I would.”</p> - -<p>Gladys alternately giggled and whined, and Elsie was -quite unable to distinguish whether the child was really -malicious or simply amused by something to which she -attached no meaning.</p> - -<p>“Anyway, if she’s told her mother, it’s all up,” thought -Elsie.</p> - -<p>She saw that there was nothing for it but to leave Mortimer -Crescent, and spent a miserable night wondering what to -say to her mother and sister.</p> - -<p>At midnight she heard the sound of the doctor’s key in -the front door and his heavy foot on the stairs. He paused -outside her door for some seconds, then she heard him go -into his wife’s room.</p> - -<p>Elsie tossed about in her narrow bed. Her present -dilemma frightened her, and she had a vague, irrational idea -that some awful and horrible penalty always descended sooner -or later upon girls who had done as she had done. These -fears, and her lack of any vivid imagination, had dulled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span> -her emotional susceptibilities, and she scarcely felt regret -at the thought of no longer seeing the doctor. He now -stood to her for the symbol of an assuaged desire, the -fulfilment of which had brought about her present -miseries. Nevertheless, at the back of her consciousness -was latent the conviction that never again would she be -satisfied with the clumsy demonstrations and meaningless -contacts of her intercourse with the boys and youths whom -she had known at home.</p> - -<p>It seemed to her next morning that she was wholly ugly. -Her complexion looked sodden and her eyes were nearly -invisible. Her mouth, in some odd way, seemed to have -swollen. No one could have called her pretty, and to -anyone who had seen her in good looks she would have been -almost unrecognisable. Mrs. Woolley, coming downstairs -at ten o’clock, eyed her with a malignant satisfaction.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps,” she said, “you won’t be altogether surprised -to hear that I’m going to make some changes. You’d -better pack your box, and go home to your mother, I -think.”</p> - -<p>“I was going to tell you that I couldn’t stay on here any -longer,” said Elsie swiftly. “The ways of the house aren’t -what I’ve been used to, Mrs. Woolley.”</p> - -<p>In a flash, Mrs. Woolley had turned nasty, and Elsie had -seen her own unwisdom.</p> - -<p>“Oh, aren’t they indeed? Perhaps you’d be so kind as -to tell me what you are used to—or shall <i>I</i> tell <i>you</i>?”</p> - -<p>Then she suddenly raised her voice almost to a scream and -poured out a torrent of abuse and invective, and the two -children crept in from the hall and began to cry, and to make -faces at Elsie, and demonstrations of hitting her with their -little hands, and the servant Florrie held the door half -open, so that she might see and hear it all.</p> - -<p>Elsie screamed back again at Mrs. Woolley, but she had -neither the fluency nor the determination of the older -woman, and she was unable to prevent herself from bursting -into tears and sobs.</p> - -<p>Finally Mrs. Woolley drove her out of the room, standing -at the foot of the stairs while Elsie ran up to pull on her -best hat and coat, and forbidding the children to follow her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>“Don’t go near her, my pets—she’s a wicked girl, that’s -what she is—not fit to be in the same house as innocent -little children. Now then, out you go, miss, before I send -for the police.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll go,” said Elsie, shaking from head to foot, “and -I’ll never set foot in your filthy house again. And I’ll -send for my trunk and for every penny you owe me, and I’ll -have the law on you for insinuations on my character.”</p> - -<p>Then she dashed out of the house and into the street.</p> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span></p> - -<h4>VI</h4> - -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Elsie’s</span> return home caused far less sensation than she had -feared. Mrs. Palmer, indeed, was very angry, but principally -at Elsie’s folly in having come away without her trunk -or the money due to her.</p> - -<p>When a week had elapsed, and nothing had come from -Mortimer Crescent, Mrs. Palmer declared her intention of -going to a solicitor.</p> - -<p>“However you could be such a fool, young Elsie—and I -don’t half understand what happened, even now. What -was the row about?”</p> - -<p>Elsie had decided upon a half-truth. “Oh, she was a -jealous old fool, and couldn’t bear her hubby to look the -same side of the room as anyone else. That’s all it was, -really. She spoke to me very rudely, I consider—in fact -she was decidedly insulting—so I simply up and said: -‘Mrs. Woolley,’ I said, ‘that’s not the way I’m accustomed -to be spoken to,’ I said, ‘and what’s more I won’t stand it.’ -Quite quietly, I said it, looking her very straight in the -face. ‘I won’t stand it,’ I said, quite quietly. That did -for her. She didn’t know how to take it at all. But, of -course, I wasn’t going to stay in the house a moment after -that, and I simply walked straight upstairs and put on my -things and left her there. She knows what I think of her, -though.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, and she knows what she thinks of you,” remarked -Mrs. Palmer shrewdly, “and it probably isn’t so far out, -either. She may be jealous as you say—those fleshy women -often are, when their figures come to be a perpetual worry, so -to speak—but there’s no smoke without a fire, and I know<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span> -you, Elsie Palmer. I suppose this doctor fellow was for -ever giving you sweets and wanting to take you out at -nights, and sit next you in the ’bus coming home, with his -wife on the other side of him as like as not. You were a -young fool, let me tell you, to lose a good place like that for -a man who can’t be any use to you. What you want to -look out for is a husband. I shan’t have a minute’s peace -about you till you’re married.”</p> - -<p>“Why?” asked Elsie, rather gratified, and very curious.</p> - -<p>“Never you mind why. Because Mother says so, and -that’s enough. Now you can get on your hat and come -with me to Mr. Williams’ office and see what he can do to -get this trunk of yours away from that woman. She’s no -lady, as I saw plainly the very first time I ever laid eyes -on her.”</p> - -<p>On the way to the City, Mrs. Palmer questioned Elsie -rather half-heartedly. “You’ve not been a bad girl in -any way while you’ve been away from Mother, have you?”</p> - -<p>“No, of course not. I don’t know what you mean,” -Elsie declared, sick with sudden fright.</p> - -<p>“I should hope you didn’t. Because mind, Elsie, any -gurl of mine who disgraced herself wouldn’t get any help -from <i>me</i>. And though I don’t object to a bit of fun while -a gurl’s young, skylarking may lead to other things. I hope -there’s no need for me to speak any plainer. I’ve brought -you gurls up innocent, and I intend you shall remain so. -Not that Geraldine’s ever given me a moment’s worry.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Geraldine!” Elsie was profoundly relieved at -seeing an opportunity for changing the subject indirectly. -“She’s a sheep.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve no call to speak like that of your elder sister, -miss. I wish you were half as steady as she is. She’s the -one to help her widowed mother, for all she has such poor -health.”</p> - -<p>“What do you suppose is the matter with her, Mother?”</p> - -<p>“Bile,” said Mrs. Palmer laconically. “Your father -was the same, but it doesn’t matter so much in a man.”</p> - -<p>“Why ever not?”</p> - -<p>“It doesn’t interfere with his prospects. Now I often -think Geraldine won’t ever get a husband, simply because<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span> -of the bad colour she sometimes goes, and the way her breath -smells. She can’t help it, poor gurl.”</p> - -<p>Elsie felt contemptuous, rather than compassionate. -When they came to the office, a very young clerk, who stared -hard at Elsie, explained that Mr. Williams was away. He -had suffered a family bereavement.</p> - -<p>“His wife?” gasped Mrs. Palmer, greatly excited.</p> - -<p>“I am sorry to say that Mrs. Williams died yesterday -morning. Mr. Williams was not at the office, and a telephone -message came through later to the head clerk, giving -the melancholy intelligence. I believe Mrs. Williams had -been ill for some time.”</p> - -<p>“Why, goodness me, we knew her ever so well, my -daughter and I! They stayed with us in the autumn.... -Elsie, fancy poor Mrs. Williams dying!”</p> - -<p>“Fancy!”</p> - -<p>“Would you care to see the head clerk, Mr. Cleaver, -madam?” said the youth politely, still gazing at Elsie.</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes, I think I’d better. He may be able to tell us -something more, Elsie,” cried Mrs. Palmer gloatingly.</p> - -<p>But when the clerk had gone away to see whether Mr. -Cleaver was disengaged, Mrs. Palmer remarked to her -daughter:</p> - -<p>“Not that he’ll be able to say much, naturally not. -It’s an awkward subject to enter on at all with a gentleman, -poor Mrs. Williams being in the condition she was.”</p> - -<p>“I heard Doctor Woolley say she was very ill.”</p> - -<p>“It’s a funny thing, Elsie, but many a time I’ve felt -a presentiment like. I’ve looked at Mrs. Williams, and -seen death in her face. And that Nellie Simmons, she told -me she’d had a most peculiar dream about Mrs. Williams -one night. Saw her lying all over blood, she said, and it -quite scared her. I knew then what it meant, though I -told Nellie not to be a silly gurl. But dreams can’t lie, -as they say, not if they’re a certain sort.”</p> - -<p>Elsie shuddered, as a thrill of superstitious terror went -through her. Dreams played a large part in her life, and -Mrs. Palmer had always shown her children that she -“believed in dreams,” especially in those of a <i>macabre</i> nature.</p> - -<p>The young clerk came back, and took them into a small<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span> -room where a bald-headed, pale-faced man sat at a writing-table. -Mrs. Palmer’s delicacy ran no risk of affront from -him, for he was monosyllabic on the subject of Mrs. -Williams’ death, and only said that Mr. Williams would -not be back until the following week.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Palmer, looking disappointed, launched into a -voluble story of Elsie’s trunk and its non-return.</p> - -<p>Mr. Cleaver said that the firm would write a letter to Mrs. -Woolley that evening. He seemed disinclined to enlarge -on that, or any other subject.</p> - -<p>“It’s been a great worry, as you can imagine,” Mrs. -Palmer said, reluctant to terminate an interview which was -anyhow to cost her money. “However the girl could have -been so silly, I don’t know. But we mustn’t look for old -heads on young shoulders, I suppose.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose not.”</p> - -<p>For the first time, Mr. Cleaver glanced at Elsie as though -he really saw her. “Your young lady will be looking for -another post, no doubt?”</p> - -<p>“By-and-by,” said Mrs. Palmer with a sudden languor. -“I’m afraid if I had my way, Mr. Cleaver, I’d keep both -my girlies at home with their mother. And this one’s my -baby, too. I really only let her go to that Mrs. Woolley -to oblige poor Mrs. Williams, who was a dear friend of mine. -My daughter has been trained for the shorthand-typing, -really, haven’t you, Elsie?”</p> - -<p>“’M.”</p> - -<p>“I see. Well, Mrs. Palmer, the letter shall go off to-night, -and I am very much mistaken if the lady does -not——”</p> - -<p>“Don’t call her a lady, Mr. Cleaver. She’s no——”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Palmer had said all this before, and Mr. Cleaver held -open the door for her, and compelled her to pass through it -before she had time to say it all over again.</p> - -<p>Elsie and Mrs. Palmer were in the omnibus that was to -take them back to their own suburb very much earlier than -they had expected to be.</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you what, we’ll stop at the corner shop and -have a wreath sent in time for the funeral. I’ve got some -money on me,” said Mrs. Palmer.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>They chose a wreath and were given a black-edged card -upon which Mrs. Palmer inscribed the address of Mr. -Williams and: “With true sympathy and every kind -thought from Mrs. Gerald Palmer, Miss Palmer and Miss -Elsie Palmer.”</p> - -<p>“I’d meant to say a few very sharp words to them about -introducing <i>that</i> Mrs. Woolley to me, and persuading me to -let you go to her, but of course, it’ll have to be let drop now. -I daresay poor Mrs. Williams was taken in by the woman -herself.”</p> - -<p>For two or three days Elsie lounged about at home, obliged -by her mother to help in the house, but spending as much time -as she could with Irene Tidmarsh, whose old father was still -living, although suffering from incurable disease. Sometimes -when Elsie and Irene were gossiping in the dining-room, -they would hear the old man roaring with pain overhead, -and then Irene would run up to him, administer a drug, -and come down again looking rather white. A desiccated -spinster aunt made occasional appearances, and took -Irene’s place whilst Irene went to the cinema with Elsie. -But Irene never mentioned Arthur Osborne, and Elsie -saw neither him nor his brother.</p> - -<p>She told herself that she did not care, and that she was -sick of men and their beastly ways.</p> - -<p>She one evening repeated this sentiment to Geraldine, -whom she suspected of disbelieving her version of the quarrel -with Mrs. Woolley.</p> - -<p>“So you say. I s’pose that’s because there isn’t anyone -after you. If that Begg boy turned up again, or Johnnie -Osborne or any of them, you’d sing quite a different song.”</p> - -<p>“You’re jealous,” said Elsie candidly.</p> - -<p>Her sister laughed shrilly. “That’s a good one, young -Elsie. Me jealous of a kid like you! I should like to know -what for? Why, you’re not even pretty.”</p> - -<p>The taunt enraged Elsie, because she knew that it was -true, and that she was not really pretty. What she did not -yet realise was that she would always be able to make men -think her so.</p> - -<p>“Your trunk’s come, Elsie,” Mrs. Palmer screamed at -the door. “Carter Paterson brought it, carriage to pay, of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span> -<i>course</i>. You’d better see there’s nothing missing out of it.”</p> - -<p>Elsie made a perfunctory examination, noticing nothing -but that there was a letter lying just under the newspaper -spread over her untidily packed belongings.</p> - -<p>“It’s all right.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Palmer had gone back into the kitchen again, and -Elsie, who did not care what Geraldine thought of her, -pulled out the note and read it. It was from Doctor -Woolley, as she had expected.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>“<span class="smcap">My Own Dear Little Girlie</span>,</p> - -<p>“What a rotten world it is, kiddie, and what a -shame you being turned away like that. Believe me, dear -little girlie, if I had been at home it would never have -happened. Now, Elsie, you and I have had a very nice -friendship, and I know you will understand what I mean if -I say that it must come to an end <i>for the present</i>. Burn this -letter, dear, won’t you, and don’t answer it on any account. -The letters that come for me to this house are not safe from -interference, so you see what trouble it might make. With -all best wishes for your future, and thanking you for your -sweet friendship, which I shall never forget,</p> - -<p class="right">“Yours,    <br> - -“H.”</p> -</div> - -<p>“The cad!” said Elsie disgustedly.</p> - -<p>She had not really expected Doctor Woolley to write to -her at all, although there had been in her mind a vague -anticipation of seeing him again very soon. But the letter, -with its perfunctory endearments and cautionary injunctions, -suddenly made it clear to her that the whole episode -of their relationship was at an end.</p> - -<p>“The swine,” said Elsie, although without violent -emotion of any kind.</p> - -<p>She felt that life, for the moment, was meaningless, but -rather from the familiar and sordid surroundings of her -home, and from her own listlessness and fatigue, than from -the defection of Doctor Woolley.</p> - -<p>It failed to excite her when a letter arrived for Mrs. -Palmer, from the office of Mr. Williams and written by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span> -himself, saying how much he regretted that Mrs. Woolley, -the merest acquaintance of his dear late wife, should have -failed to make Miss Elsie happy in her house. If Miss Elsie -desired to find an appointment in the clerical line, as he -understood, then Mr. Williams would be most happy to -make a suggestion. Could Mrs. Palmer, with Miss Elsie, -make it convenient to call at the office any afternoon that -week?</p> - -<p>“He may want to take you into his own office, Elsie, as -like as not. He’d feel he ought to do something, I expect, -considering they sent you to those people, those Woolleys, -as they call themselves, in the first place.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not sure I want to go into an office, Mother.”</p> - -<p>“Now look here, Elsie, let me and you understand one -another,” said Mrs. Palmer with great determination. -“I’ve had enough of your wants and don’t wants, my lady. -One word more, and you’ll get a smack-bottom just exactly -as you got when you were in pinafores, and don’t you -forget it. If you think you’re going to live at home, no -more use in the house than a sick headache, and wasting -your time running round with God-knows-who, then I can -tell you you’ve never made a bigger mistake in your life. -Off you pop this directly minute, and get on your hat, and -come with me to Mr. Williams. If he’s heard of a job for -you, we’ll get it settled at once.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose,” said Geraldine bitterly, “I’ll have to see -to the teas and everything else, while you’re out. It seems -to me it’s always Elsie that’s being thought about, and sent -here, and taken there, and the rest of it.”</p> - -<p>“More shame for her,” said Mrs. Palmer sombrely. -“I declare to goodness I don’t know how I’m to face your -aunties next time they come here, unless there’s something -been settled about Elsie. I’m sick and tired of being told -I spoil that girl.”</p> - -<p>“Whatever job she gets, she’ll be home in a month,” -said Geraldine.</p> - -<p>“She’ll get something she won’t relish from me if she -is,” Mrs. Palmer retorted. She pinned on her hat and -pulled a pair of shiny black kid gloves out of a drawer in the -kitchen dresser.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>Elsie, rather sulky and unwilling, was obliged to follow -her mother once more to the dingy office, but it cheered -her to see the pleased, furtive smile on the face of the young -clerk who had admitted them before. It was very evident -that he had not forgotten her. Elsie thought more about -him than about the desiccated, wooden-faced little solicitor, -with the crêpe band round his arm, who responded to all -Mrs. Palmer’s voluble condolence with solemn little bows -and monosyllables.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Palmer was evidently disappointed at extracting -from him no details about his wife’s illness and death, and -at last she turned the subject and began to speak of Elsie’s -qualifications as a typist.</p> - -<p>“You see, Mr. Williams, I always felt it was waste, her -going to be a kind of mother’s help to that Mrs. Woolley. -‘It’s not what you’ve been trained for, my dear,’ I said, ‘but -still, if you want to, you shall try it for a bit.’ I’ve always -been a one to let my girlies try their own wings, Mr. Williams. -‘The old home nest is waiting for you when you’re -tired of it,’ is what I always say. You’ve heard mother -tell you that many and many a time, haven’t you, -Elsie?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Elsie, bored.</p> - -<p>She had often heard her mother make the like statements, -in order to impress strangers, and she had no objection -to backing her up, since it was far less trouble to do so -than to have a “row” afterwards.</p> - -<p>Mr. Williams bowed again. “I am sorry that Miss -Elsie was exposed to unpleasantness of any sort, through an -introduction of mine, and I may add that I entirely agree -with you, Mrs. Palmer, in thinking that the—the domestic -duties embarked upon were quite unworthy of her. Now, -I am in want of a confidential clerk in this office.”</p> - -<p>Elsie saw her mother’s eyes glistening behind the coarse -fibre of her mended veil, and felt that her fate was sealed.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Mr. Williams?”</p> - -<p>“If I could persuade you to allow Miss Elsie to come to -me.... Nine to six, and twenty-five shillings a week to -begin with. Her duties would be light, simply to take down, -type, and file my personal letters.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>“It would be a very good beginning for her,” said Mrs. -Palmer, firmly, but with no undue enthusiasm. Elsie knew -that her mother’s mind was quite made up, but that she -did not want to seem eager in the eyes of Mr. Williams.</p> - -<p>“You’d like to give it a trial, Elsie?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t mind,” said Elsie. She met the eyes of Mr. -Williams and managed to smile at him, and for an instant -it seemed to her that an answering pin-point of light appeared -behind the pince-nez.</p> - -<p>“It would be quite usual,” said Mr. Williams gravely, -“for me to give you a short test. Take this pencil and -paper, please, and take this down.”</p> - -<p>He handed Elsie a shorthand pad and a pencil. She took -down in shorthand the brief business letter that he dictated -to her, and then, more nervously, read it aloud, -stumbling over the pronunciation of one or two words, and -once substituting one word for another, of which the shorthand -outlines were similar, without any perception of the -bearing of either upon the context.</p> - -<p>Mr. Williams corrected her. “It’s always the same,” he -told Mrs. Palmer in a low, rather melancholy voice. “These -young people are wonderfully clever at taking dictation—eighty -words a minute, a hundred words a minute—but -you can’t depend upon them to transcribe correctly.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Palmer looked offended. “I’m sure Elsie will tell -you that she wasn’t doing herself justice, Mr. Williams. I’m -sure she’s as accurate as anybody, when she’s not nervous. -But if you think she won’t do the work well enough, of -course....”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Palmer’s lips were drawn together, and her intonation -had become acidulated.</p> - -<p>“Not at all,” said Mr. Williams quietly, “not at all. -You misunderstand my meaning altogether. I have no -doubt that Miss Elsie will suit me very well indeed, when -she has fallen into my little routine. What about next -week?”</p> - -<p>“Very well,” Mrs. Palmer answered swiftly. “I’ll let -her come to you on Monday morning, Mr. Williams, and -I’m very much obliged to you for thinking of us. It’ll -be a relief to me to know Elsie is in a good post. You see,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span> -I’m in the position of both father and mother to my girlies, -and this one’s my baby, as I always say——”</p> - -<p>As Mr. Williams opened the door for them he said: “I -hope that little affair about the trunk was satisfactorily -concluded? It was perhaps a shade awkward, having the -letter written from this office, in view of the fact that we -were personally acquainted with the parties—but my head -clerk, Mr. Cleaver, could hardly be expected to appreciate -that.... A very worthy man indeed, and an able one, -but the finer shades are rather beyond him. Good morning, -Mrs. Palmer—good morning, Miss Elsie. Nine o’clock on -Monday morning, then.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Palmer went away in high spirits, and commented to -Elsie and to Geraldine so enthusiastically upon Elsie’s good -fortune, that she began to believe in it herself.</p> - -<p>“Are there any other girls there?” Geraldine asked.</p> - -<p>And Elsie said quickly, “Oh dear, no! Both the other -clerks are men.”</p> - -<p>She began to think that perhaps after all the hours -spent in the office might not be without amusement.</p> - -<p>Besides, all sorts of people came to see a solicitor.</p> - -<p>Elsie spent the week-end in cutting out and making for -herself a blue crêpe blouse, which she intended to wear on -Monday morning. She also made a pair of black alpaca -sleeves, with elastic at the wrist and at the elbow, to be -drawn on over the blouse while she was working.</p> - -<p>She put the sleeves, her shorthand pad and pencil, a -powder-puff, mirror, pocket-comb, and a paper-covered -novel in a small attaché case on Monday morning, pulled -on the rakish black velvet tam-o’-shanter, and went off to -Mr. Williams’ office.</p> - -<p>Her first day there was marked by two discoveries: -that Mr. Williams expected to be called “sir” in office -hours, and that the name of the youth who shared with her -a small outer room where clients waited, or left messages, -was Fred Leary.</p> - -<p>A high partition of match-boarding separated the waiting-room -from an inner office where Mr. Cleaver sat. And if -Elsie and Fred Leary spoke more than a very few words to -one another, Mr. Cleaver would tap imperatively against<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span> -the wood with a ruler. He was also apt to walk noiselessly -round the partition and stand there, silently watching Elsie, -if the sound of her typewriter ceased for any undue length -of time.</p> - -<p>She learnt from Fred Leary that there had never been a -female typist in the office before, and that Mr. Cleaver had -been greatly opposed to the introduction of one.</p> - -<p>“The Old Man always gets his way in the end, though,” -said Fred Leary, alluding to Mr. Williams.</p> - -<p>“I knew him before,” Elsie asserted, to give herself -importance. “Him and his wife were in our house for a -bit. I knew Mrs. Williams too.”</p> - -<p>“They said he led her a life,” remarked Leary.</p> - -<p>“What sort of way?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I couldn’t tell a kid like you.”</p> - -<p>“What rubbish! As though I didn’t know as much as -you, any day.”</p> - -<p>He laughed loudly. “Girls always think they know -everything, but they don’t—not unless some fellow has——”</p> - -<p>The sharp tap of Mr. Cleaver’s pencil sounded against -the matchboard, and silenced them.</p> - -<p>The fact that their conversations had to be more or less -clandestine added zest to them, and although Elsie was not -in any way attracted by young Leary, who was spotty and -unwholesome-looking, she several times went to a cinema with -him on Saturday afternoons, and once to a football match. -After the latter entertainment, however, they quarrelled.</p> - -<p>Elsie had disliked the mud, the cold, the noise, the standing -about and the crowds. She had been bored by Leary’s -enthusiasm, which was utterly incomprehensible to her, -and secretly annoyed because, of the multitude of men -surrounding her, not one had paid any attention to her, or -to anything but the game and the players.</p> - -<p>“I wasn’t struck on that outing of yours,” she remarked -critically to her escort the following Monday morning. -“Another time we’ll give the football matches a miss, -thank you.”</p> - -<p>Leary’s admiration for Elsie, however, was less strong -than his desire to see a league match, and he offended her -by going by himself to the entertainment that she despised.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>Elsie resented his defection less for his own sake than -for that of the excitement that she could only experience -through flirtation, and without which she found her life -unbearably tedious.</p> - -<p>She had been in the office nearly three months when Mr. -Williams asked her suddenly if she liked the work there.</p> - -<p>“I don’t mind it,” said Elsie.</p> - -<p>She was in reality perfectly indifferent to it, and merely -went through the day’s routine without active dislike, as -without intelligence.</p> - -<p>“Now that you are used to our ways,” said Mr. Williams -deliberately, “I think you had better remove your table into -my room. The sound of your machine will not disturb -me in the least, and if clients desire a private interview, -you can retire.”</p> - -<p>Elsie looked up, astonished, and met her employer’s -eyes.</p> - -<p>His face was impassive as ever, but there was a faint, -covetous gleam in his fish-like eyes.</p> - -<p>Elsie, at once repelled and fascinated, gazed back at him, -and felt her heart beginning to beat faster with a nervous -and yet pleasurable anticipation.</p> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span> - -<h4>VII</h4> -</div> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">When</span> do you want to take your holiday, Elsie?”</p> - -<p>“I’m not particular.”</p> - -<p>“Your mother will want you to get a breath of sea-air, -I suppose.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” said Elsie. “Mother’s not awfully -struck on going away.”</p> - -<p>It was late July, and between Elsie and her employer -a curious, secret relationship had been established, at -present only symbolised by occasional furtive touches of -his hand on her neck or her dress, and a continual exchange -of glances, steady and compelling on Williams’s side, and -responded to by Elsie almost against her own will.</p> - -<p>Her typewriting table had been moved into his office, -and she sat there nearly all day.</p> - -<p>He spoke to her very little, but she was now always -intensely conscious of his presence, and of her own effect -upon him.</p> - -<p>At first she did not understand to what his questions -about the holidays were leading.</p> - -<p>Next day, he spoke about them again.</p> - -<p>“Shouldn’t you like to go to Brighton—some place like -that?”</p> - -<p>“Rather.”</p> - -<p>“I often run down there myself from Saturday to -Monday.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Williams looked at her more attentively than ever, -and Elsie felt the blood creep up into her face. She knew -that she blushed easily and deeply, and that men enjoyed -seeing her blush.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>“That hasn’t got anything to do with me,” she stammered, -at once excited and confused.</p> - -<p>“Hasn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Williams!”</p> - -<p>He glanced cautiously at the door, and then lowered his -voice. “Look here, my dear child, I’m old enough to be -your father and—and my dear late wife took quite a fancy -to you. Surely you and I understand one another well -enough to take a little holiday jaunt together without anyone -but our two selves being any the wiser.”</p> - -<p>Elsie had not really expected the suggestion, and she -was startled, but also triumphant.</p> - -<p>“Whatever do you mean, Mr. Williams?”</p> - -<p>He smiled, a small, thin-lipped smile, that held a -suggestion of cynical mockery at her transparent -pretence.</p> - -<p>“Only what I say. I’m a poor, lonely fellow, with a -little bit of money and no one to spend it on, and if I go -to a nice hotel for the week-end I want someone to keep -me company. Think over it, Elsie. You quite understand -that I’m not asking anything of you—you’re as safe with -me as if I were your father. Just a pretty face opposite -me at meals, and a smartly dressed little companion to take -out for a walk on the front or to the theatre on Saturday -night—that’s all I want.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I daresay,” said Elsie.</p> - -<p>His face stiffened, and she felt immediately that she had -made a mistake.</p> - -<p>“It’s awfully kind of you to think of such a thing, Mr. -Williams, but I really couldn’t dream of it. Why, I don’t -know what mother would think——”</p> - -<p>“Of course, it’s a very conventional world,” said Mr. -Williams gravely. “You and I would know well enough -that our little adventure was most innocent, but we don’t -want anyone to think or say otherwise. So I propose, -Elsie, that we should keep it to ourselves. I presume it -would be easy to tell your mother that you were staying -with a friend?”</p> - -<p>“Well—there’s Ireen Tidmarsh, a young lady I often go -with. I could say I was going to her.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>“Just so. After all, you’re of an age to manage your -own affairs.”</p> - -<p>Elsie swelled with gratified vanity. She loved to be told -that she was grown up.</p> - -<p>“Well, what about the August Bank Holiday week-end? -I could meet you at the booking office at Victoria Station -on the Saturday, and we could travel back together on the -Tuesday morning. I’d like to show you something of life, -Elsie.”</p> - -<p>He moistened his lips with his tongue as he spoke the -words.</p> - -<p>Elsie wished desperately that she could feel attracted by -him, as she had been by Doctor Woolley. But Mr. -Williams, physically, rather revolted her.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I couldn’t!” she repeated faintly.</p> - -<p>He was very patient. “No expense, of course. And if -you’d like a new hat or an evening frock, Elsie, or a pretty -set of those silk things that girls wear underneath, why, I -hope you’ll let me have the privilege of providing them. -You can choose what you like and bring me the bill—only go -to a West End shop. Nothing shoddy.”</p> - -<p>Elsie was breathless at his munificence, and she longed -wildly for the evening dress, and the silk underwear. -Pale pink crêpe....</p> - -<p>Perhaps it would be worth it.</p> - -<p>“I’m sure you wouldn’t ask me to do anything that -wasn’t perfectly right, Mr. Williams,” she said demurely.</p> - -<p>“I am glad you feel that. I’m glad you trust me,” he -solemnly replied.</p> - -<p>“Of course I do.”</p> - -<p>“Then that’s our secret. We need take no one into our -confidence, Elsie, you understand. The arrangement is a -perfectly innocent and natural little pleasure that you and -I are going to share, but people are very often coarse-minded -and censorious, and I would not wish to expose either of us -to unpleasant comments. You’ll remember that, and keep -it to yourself?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes,” said Elsie.</p> - -<p>That night as she was going to bed, she critically examined -her own underwear. Her chemise and drawers were coarse,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span> -she wore no stays, and the garters that held up her transparent -lisle-thread stockings were plain bands of grimy white -elastic. Her short petticoat was white, with a torn flounce, -and only the camisole, which showed beneath her transparent -blouses, was trimmed with imitation Valenciennes -lace and threaded with papery blue ribbons.</p> - -<p>“What you doing, Elsie?” grumbled Geraldine from -her bed. “Get into bed, do; I want to go to sleep.”</p> - -<p>“Have you seen those things they sell in sets, Geraldine, -in some of the High Street shops? Sort of silk combinations -and a princess petticoat and nightgown, all to match -like?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve seen them advertised at sale times, in the illustrateds, -and beastly indecent they are, too. Why, you can -see right through that stuff they’re made of.”</p> - -<p>Elsie became very thoughtful.</p> - -<p>Her sister’s words had brought before her mind’s eye an -involuntary picture that both startled and repelled her.</p> - -<p>“Anyway, the prices are something wicked. What’s -up, young Elsie?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing. I heard something to-day that set me -wondering, that’s all.”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, some girl that wanted a pink silk rig-out, that’s -all.”</p> - -<p>“You must have some queer friends. No decent girl -would wear those things—only tarts do, unless it’s fine -ladies that aren’t any better than they should be, from -what the Society papers say.”</p> - -<p>Geraldine, in her curling-pins and her thick nightgown, -looked rigidly virtuous. “Get into bed, do.”</p> - -<p>“It’s too hot,” sighed Elsie.</p> - -<p>The room was like a furnace, but neither of them would -have dreamed of opening the window after dark.</p> - -<p>Elsie tossed and turned about for a long while, unable -to sleep. She visualised herself in new clothes, in evening -dress, which she had never worn, and she thought of the -excitement of staying in a big hotel where there would very -likely be a band in the evenings and, of course, late dinner -every night.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span>If only it had been anyone but Mr. Williams! But then, -he was the only rich man she knew.</p> - -<p>“It’s a shame,” thought Elsie, “that I shouldn’t have -opportunities of meeting other men like him, only different. -I wish I’d gone in for manicure—I’d have met all -sorts then.”</p> - -<p>For a moment she wondered whether her friendship with -Williams might not lead to his introducing her to his -wealthy friends, but she was shrewd enough to perceive that -his first preoccupation would be to keep their connection -secret, and that he was of far too cautious a temperament -to risk her meeting with men younger and more attractive -than himself.</p> - -<p>Her last waking thought was of the silk set of underclothes, -cool and lovely and transparent against her -skin.</p> - -<p>The following morning Mr. Williams behaved exactly -as usual, and made no reference whatever to his suggestion -of a holiday. Elsie, rather anxious and affronted, took -advantage of a late call from a client to leave the office at -six o’clock exactly, without returning into her employer’s -room to announce her departure as she usually did.</p> - -<p>On her way to the crowded Tube station she was followed -and accosted by a strange man. This adventure had -become a common one to Elsie, but a certain recklessness -pervaded her that evening, and when he urged her to come -and sit in the park, under the cool of the trees, she went with -him. He was a man of thirty-five or so, with a miserable, -haunted, disease-ravaged face, and he began almost at -once to pour out to her a long story of his wife’s treachery, -of which he had just made the discovery.</p> - -<p>“I’ve never looked at another girl,” he kept on saying. -“I’ve never spoken to one the way I’ve spoken to you -to-night. But you remind me of her, in a way, and I -knew you’d be all right, and sorry for a poor devil who’s -been fooled.”</p> - -<p>Elsie hardly listened to him, but she let him put his arm -round her waist, and as his caresses became more violent -and eager, she again felt that instinctive conviction that it -was to such an end that she had been created. These<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span> -physical contacts only, brought her to the fullness of self-expression. -At last she realised that her companion was -muttering a request that he might go home with her.</p> - -<p>“What do you take me for?” Elsie asked furiously. -“I’m a respectable girl, I am.”</p> - -<p>He became maudlin and begged her to forgive him, and -she sank back again into his embrace, appeased at once.</p> - -<p>At last, when the park gates were closing, she roused -herself and insisted that if he wanted to go on talking to her -they must go somewhere and have supper.</p> - -<p>The man seemed too dazed and wretched to understand -her, but when Elsie, rendered prudent by certain previous -experiences, asked whether he had any money, he drew -out a handful of loose silver.</p> - -<p>“That’s all right, then,” she said, relieved, and took him -to a cheap and very popular restaurant.</p> - -<p>Elsie drank cocoa and ate sweet cakes, and her escort, -leaning heavily on the marble-topped table, continued his -low, maundering recitation of self-pity.</p> - -<p>She had very little idea of what he was talking about.</p> - -<p>She liked the restaurant and enjoyed her cakes, and the -occasional contact between herself and the unknown man -satisfied her for the time being.</p> - -<p>When they left the restaurant, Elsie directed him to the -omnibus that would take her nearest to her own suburb, -and they climbed to the top of it, and sat in close proximity -on the narrow seat all through the long drive.</p> - -<p>It was with real difficulty that she tore herself away in -the end, physically roused to a pitch that rapidly amounted -to torment. She was frightened and disgusted by her own -sensations, but much less so than she had been in the days of -her technical innocence, before she had known Doctor -Woolley. She decided that she would go to Brighton with -Mr. Williams.</p> - -<p>And she would buy the silk underclothes—pink silk—and -a real evening dress, cut low, that should reveal her -shoulders and the full contour of her bust, and perhaps he -would give her enough money for a string of imitation -pearl beads as well.</p> - -<p>“After all, he can afford to be generous,” Elsie thought<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span> -complacently. “An old man like him! I expect I’m a -fool to look at him, really.”</p> - -<p>She meant that her attraction for men was sufficiently -potent to ensure her ability to cast her spell wherever she -chose, but common sense reminded her that the number of -men within her immediate sphere was limited. Even men -who followed her, or addressed her casually in the street, -were mostly of the bank-clerk type, and of her own actual -acquaintance scarcely one reached the level of the professional -class to which Williams belonged.</p> - -<p>At Hillbourne Terrace, Elsie found the front door locked, -and realised that it must be late. She understood what -had happened. Mrs. Palmer, angry at her daughter’s -tardiness, had probably decided to give her a fright, and -was waiting in her dressing-gown, angry and tired, for -Elsie to try the side door.</p> - -<p>“I just won’t, then,” muttered Elsie angrily. “I’ll -jolly well go to Ireen.”</p> - -<p>She had seen a light in the house opposite as she came -up the street, and it would not be the first time that she -had called on Irene Tidmarsh for hospitality.</p> - -<p>Her friend opened the door in person, and Elsie explained -her position, giving, however, no specific reason for her -lateness.</p> - -<p>“Come in,” said Irene indifferently. “You can sleep with -me if you want to. I often thank God I’ve no mother.”</p> - -<p>The two girls went up to Irene’s large, untidy bedroom -in the front of the house, and began to undress, and Elsie -was unable to resist the topic of the pink silk underclothes -that obsessed her imagination.</p> - -<p>“Geraldine says only tarts wear them.”</p> - -<p>“What does she know about it?” Irene enquired. -“Ladies of title wear them—that Lady Dorothy Anvers, -that’s always being photographed, she goes in for black -silk nightgowns—<i>black</i>, if you please!”</p> - -<p>“I’d rather have pink, a great deal. I think black’d -be hideous.”</p> - -<p>“Depends on one’s skin, I suppose,” said the sallow -Irene thoughtfully. “Who wants to give you a silk -nightie, young Elsie?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>Elsie deliberated. She was not usually communicative -about her own affairs, but the notice of her employer had -gratified her vanity, and she very much desired to boast of -it to someone. Irene, at least, would be safe, and she sometimes -offered shrewd pieces of advice that were not the -outcome of experience, of which, by comparison with Elsie -herself, she had little, but of a natural acumen.</p> - -<p>Elsie, when the gas had been turned out, and the two -girls were lying in Irene’s bed, after extracting giggling -oaths of secrecy, recounted to Irene the whole story of her -adventure with Mr. Williams. She represented herself as -still entirely undecided as to the sincerity of his assurance -that their relationship was to be purely friendly.</p> - -<p>“Rats!” was Irene’s unvarnished comment. “It isn’t -very likely the old fool would have told you to get silk -nighties and things unless he meant to see them himself. -But I wouldn’t do it, Elsie. It’s too risky.”</p> - -<p>“Why, who’s to find out? It isn’t as if his wife was -alive,” said Elsie, with a recollection of the household in -Mortimer Crescent.</p> - -<p>“I don’t mean that at all. But it’s a beastly risk for -you. He’s your boss, after all. Suppose he gives you the -sack, once this week-end business is over? Men are like -that—they get sick of a girl directly they’ve had their fun, -and then they don’t want to be for ever reminded of it.”</p> - -<p>“It’s quite as likely he’d be for ever pestering me to go -with him again,” Elsie declared, not at all desirous of -supposing that her attractions could be provocative of such -speedy satiety. “And even if he did sack me, there are -plenty of other jobs going.”</p> - -<p>“You young fool! Don’t you see what I mean? -Suppose he landed you with a baby?”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” Elsie was startled.</p> - -<p>Like a great many other girls of her class and upbringing, -although she possessed a wide and garbled knowledge of -sex, she was singularly unable to trace the links between -cause and effect. “A baby,” in this connection, was to her -nothing but an isolated catastrophe, that she had never -particularly connected with the physical relations between -a man and a girl.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>“It couldn’t, Ireen.”</p> - -<p>“Why not? Of course it could happen. A girl I -know got caught, only luckily she had some sense, and went -to one of these doctors that can stop it for you——”</p> - -<p>“Can they?”</p> - -<p>“Some can,” said the well-informed Irene. “But mind -you, it’s an expensive business, and a jolly dangerous one. -Why, the doctor can be had up for doing it, I believe. So -don’t you go and get yourself into any mess of that sort, -now.”</p> - -<p>“I should think not,” murmured Elsie.</p> - -<p>“How old did you say this fellow, this Williams, -was?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. About forty or forty-five, or something -like that. He was years older than his wife, and she wasn’t -a chicken.”</p> - -<p>“And she’s dead, is she?”</p> - -<p>“Of course she is. I told you all about that ages ago.”</p> - -<p>“I know. Look here, Elsie, I’ve an idea. Why don’t -you marry this fellow?”</p> - -<p>“Ireen Tidmarsh, are you dotty or what?”</p> - -<p>“I’m giving you jolly good advice, and you’ll be a young -fool if you don’t take it. He’s rich, and you’d have a -splendid position, and after a year or two you’d probably -find yourself free to go your own way. He wouldn’t live -for ever, either.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t,” said Elsie.</p> - -<p>“Well, it’s true. You can bet he’s on the look-out for -a second wife already—widowers of that age always are.”</p> - -<p>“He wouldn’t think of marrying me.”</p> - -<p>“Only because he can get what he wants without,” said -Irene curtly. “You show him he can’t, and set him thinking -a bit. If he’s half as keen on you as you say he is, -anyway, the idea’s bound to cross his mind.”</p> - -<p>Elsie was rather bewildered, and disposed to be incredulous. -She was incapable of having formulated so practical -an idea for herself, and it held for her a sense of unreality. -“Anyhow, I couldn’t marry an old man like that. I don’t -even like him.”</p> - -<p>“Whoever you marry, young Elsie, you won’t stick to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span> -him,” said Irene cynically. “And if you ask me, the -quicker you get a husband the better.”</p> - -<p>“That’s what mother says.”</p> - -<p>“She wasn’t born yesterday. Well, do as you like, of -course, but it’s the chance of a lifetime. I’m sure of that. -Just hold out for a month—tell him you couldn’t think of -going anywhere with him—and see if he doesn’t suggest -your becoming the second Mrs. Williams.”</p> - -<p>“You’re mad, Ireen,” said Elsie, entirely without conviction.</p> - -<p>She was in reality very much impressed both by Irene’s -worldly wisdom and by the sudden realisation it had -brought to her of the possibilities latent in Mr. Williams’ -admiration.</p> - -<p>She disliked having to work, and she knew that marriage -was her only escape from work. To be married very young -would be a triumph, and she thought with malicious satisfaction -of how much she would enjoy asking Aunt Gertie and -Aunt Ada to visit her in her own house.</p> - -<p>“Well, good-night,” said Irene’s voice in her ear. “I’m -going to sleep. If you want to get over to your place early -in the morning, don’t wake me, that’s all.”</p> - -<p>“All right.”</p> - -<p>Elsie turned over, gave a fleeting thought to the memory -of the man she had met that evening, and fell asleep -almost at once.</p> - -<p>The next morning, after huddling on her clothes, and -washing her face very hastily just before putting on her hat -over her unbrushed hair, Elsie crossed the street and went -home.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Palmer was on the doorstep.</p> - -<p>She was very angry.</p> - -<p>“How dare you stay out all night like that, you good-for-nothing -little slut? I haven’t closed my eyes for wondering -what’d happened to you. Where have you been?”</p> - -<p>“At Ireen’s.”</p> - -<p>“Why didn’t you tell me you were going there?”</p> - -<p>“I never thought of it, till I got here and found the door -locked.”</p> - -<p>“It wasn’t locked till nearly eleven o’clock, miss, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span> -you could have come in by the side door, as you very well -knew. And what were you doing out till eleven o’clock, -I should like to know?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing,” said Elsie, beginning to cry.</p> - -<p>Her mother promptly boxed her ears. “Elsie Palmer, -you’re nothing but a liar, and you’ll break your widowed -mother’s heart and bring her to disgrace before you’re -done. However you’ve managed to grow up what you are, -so particular as I’ve been with the two of you, is more than -I can understand. Tell me this directly minute, who you -were with last night?”</p> - -<p>Elsie maintained a sullen silence, dodging as her mother -aimed another heavy blow at her.</p> - -<p>“I declare you’ll make me lose my temper with you!” -said Mrs. Palmer violently. “Answer me this instant.”</p> - -<p>“I went to the cinema.”</p> - -<p>“Who took you?”</p> - -<p>“That fellow in the office—that Leary boy.”</p> - -<p>“Why couldn’t you come in last night and say where -you’d been, then? The fact is, Elsie, you’re telling me a -pack of lies, and I know it perfectly well. You can’t take -your mother in, let me tell you, whatever you may think, -I’m sure <i>I</i> don’t know what to do with you. I sometimes -think you’d better go and live with your aunties; you’d find -Aunt Gertie strict enough, I can tell you.”</p> - -<p>Elsie knew this to be true, and was fiercely resolved never -to put it to the test.</p> - -<p>“What you want is a thorough good whipping,” said -Mrs. Palmer, already absent-minded and preoccupied with -preparations for breakfast. “Put that kettle on, Elsie, and -be quick about it. And I give you fair warning that the -very next time I have to speak to you like this—(see if that’s -the girl at the door—it ought to be, by this time)—the very -next time, I’ll make you remember it in a way you won’t -enjoy, my lady.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Palmer’s active display of wrath was over, and Elsie -knew that she had nothing to do but to keep out of her -mother’s way for the next few days.</p> - -<p>She helped to get the breakfast ready in silence. She was -too much used to similar scenes to feel very much upset by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span> -this one; nevertheless it influenced her in favour of acting -upon Irene Tidmarsh’s advice.</p> - -<p>She knew very well that it would not be as easy to hoodwink -Mrs. Palmer over a week-end spent out of London as -she had pretended to Mr. Williams. Elsie was still afraid -of her mother, and believed that she might quite well -carry out her threat of sending her daughter to live with the -two aunts.</p> - -<p>Her chief pang was at relinquishing the thought of the -pink silk underclothes, but she endeavoured to persuade -herself that they might still be hers, when she should be on -the point of marrying Mr. Williams. After all, it would be -more satisfactory to own them on those terms than to be -obliged to put them away after two days into hiding, in -some place—and Elsie wondered ruefully what place—where -they should not be spied out by Geraldine.</p> - -<p>She went to the office as usual and was a good deal disconcerted -when Fred Leary announced that “the Old Man” -had telephoned to say that he was called away on business, -and should not be back for two days.</p> - -<p>Elsie, rather afraid that her own determination might -weaken, decided to write to him, sending the letter to his -home address.</p> - -<p>Her unformed, back-sloping hand, covered one side of -a sheet of notepaper that she bought in the luncheon hour.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>“<span class="smcap">Dear Mr. Williams</span>,</p> - -<p>“One line to tell you that I have thought over -your very kind suggestion about a holiday, but do not feel -that I can say yes to same. Dear Mr. Williams, it is very -kind of you, but I cannot feel it would be <i>right</i> of me to do -as you ask, and so I must say no, hoping you will not be -vexed with me. I do want to be a good girl. So no more, -from</p> - -<p class="right">“Your little friend,        <br> -“<span class="smcap">Elsie</span>.”</p> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span> - -<h4>VIII</h4> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">It</span> took Elsie exactly three months to bring Mr. Williams -to the point predicted by Irene Tidmarsh.</p> - -<p>During that time she was quiet, and rather timid, -scrupulously exact in saying “sir” and very careful never -to be heard laughing or chattering with Fred Leary.</p> - -<p>Williams at first made no allusion to her note. When at -last he spoke of it, he did so very much in his ordinary -manner.</p> - -<p>“I was sorry to get your little note the other day, Elsie, -and to see that you don’t quite trust me after all.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but I do,” she stammered.</p> - -<p>He shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I’m afraid my -little friend isn’t quite as staunch as I fancied. It doesn’t -matter. Perhaps some day you’ll know me better.”</p> - -<p>“It wasn’t anything like that. It was just that I—I -thought mother wouldn’t like it,” simpered Elsie. “It -didn’t seem to me to be quite right.”</p> - -<p>“It would have been quite right, or I shouldn’t have -asked you to do it,” he replied firmly. “I’m a man of -great experience, Elsie, a good many years older than you -are, and you may be quite sure that I should never mislead -you. But I see I made a mistake, you are not old enough to -have the courage to be unconventional.”</p> - -<p>He looked hard at her as he spoke, but Elsie’s vanity was -not of the sort to be wounded at the term of which he had -made use. She merely drooped her head and looked -submissive.</p> - -<p>A month later he asked her, in thinly veiled terms, -whether she had yet changed her mind.</p> - -<p>“I shan’t ever change it,” Elsie declared. “I daresay<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span> -I’ve sometimes been rather silly, and not as careful as I -ought, but I know very well that it wouldn’t <i>do</i> for me to -act the way you suggest. Why, you’d never respect me the -same way again, if I did!”</p> - -<p>She felt that the last sentence was a masterpiece. -Williams shrugged his shoulders.</p> - -<p>“Come, Elsie, let’s understand one another. You’re -not ignorant, a girl like you must have had half a dozen -men after her. And then what about that doctor fellow—Woolley?”</p> - -<p>“What about him?”</p> - -<p>“That’s what I’m asking you. Something happened -to cause the unpleasantness between Mrs. Woolley and -yourself, and I’ve a very shrewd suspicion that I know what -it was.”</p> - -<p>“Then I needn’t tell you,” said Elsie feebly.</p> - -<p>“That isn’t the way to speak.”</p> - -<p>His low voice was suddenly nasty, and she felt frightened. -“I’m sorry.”</p> - -<p>“Yes. Don’t do it again, Elsie. How far did Woolley -go? That’s what I want to know.”</p> - -<p>“He—he frightened me. He tried to kiss me.”</p> - -<p>“And succeeded. Anything else?”</p> - -<p>“Mr. <i>Williams</i>!”</p> - -<p>He gazed at her stonily. “Well,” he said at last, -“I’m half inclined to believe you. How old are you?”</p> - -<p>“Seventeen.”</p> - -<p>“Seventeen!” he repeated after her, and his accent was -covetous. “You should be very innocent, at seventeen, -Elsie—very innocent and very pure. Now, my dear little -late wife, when we were married, although she was a -good deal older than you are, knew nothing whatever. -Her husband had to teach her everything. That’s as it -should be, Elsie.”</p> - -<p>A certain prurient relish of his own topic, in Williams’ -manner, affected Elsie disagreeably. Neither did she like -his reference to Mrs. Williams.</p> - -<p>She was glad that the conversation should at that point -be interrupted by the entrance of the austere Mr. Cleaver.</p> - -<p>Suspense was beginning to make her feel very irritable.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span> -She now wanted Williams to propose marriage to her, but -had begun to doubt his ever doing so. He continued to -look at her meaningly, and to lay his rather desiccated -hand from time to time on her shoulder, or upon the thin -fabric of her sleeve, with a lingering, caressing touch. -Elsie, however, had inspired too many men to such demonstrations -to feel elated by them, and her employer’s proximity -roused in her little or no physical response.</p> - -<p>One day, to her surprise, he brought her a present.</p> - -<p>“Open it, Elsie.”</p> - -<p>She eagerly lifted the lid of the small cardboard box.</p> - -<p>Inside was a large turquoise brooch, shaped like a swallow, -with outspread wings.</p> - -<p>She knew instantly that it had belonged to his dead wife, -but the knowledge did not lessen her pleasure at possessing -a trinket that she thought beautiful as well as valuable, -nor her triumph that he should wish to give it to her.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I say, how lovely! Do you really mean me to -keep it?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, really,” Mr. Williams assured her solemnly.</p> - -<p>“But I couldn’t! It’s too lovely—I mean to say, really -it is!”</p> - -<p>“No, it isn’t, Elsie. You must please put it on, and let -me have the pleasure of seeing you wear it.”</p> - -<p>“Put it on for me, then,” murmured Elsie, glancing up -at him, and then down again.</p> - -<p>He took the ornament from her with hands that fumbled. -“Where?”</p> - -<p>“Just <i>here</i>.”</p> - -<p>She indicated the round neck of her transparent blouse, -just below the collar-bone.</p> - -<p>He stuck the pin in clumsily enough, and she stifled a -little scream as it pricked her, but remained passive under -his slowly-moving, dry-skinned fingers.</p> - -<p>“There! I’m sorry there isn’t a looking-glass, Elsie.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’ve got one! Don’t look, though!”</p> - -<p>She stooped, pulled up her skirt, revealing a plump calf, -and in a flash had pulled out a tiny combined mirror and -powder-puff from the top of her stocking. She had no -other pocket.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>Williams did not utter a sound. He only kept his pale -grey eyes fixed gleamingly upon her.</p> - -<p>“Are you shocked?” Elsie giggled. “I didn’t ought -to, I suppose, but really it’s hard to know what else to do.”</p> - -<p>She peeped into the tiny looking-glass. “Isn’t it pretty!”</p> - -<p>“<i>You</i> are,” said Williams awkwardly. “How are you -going to thank me, Elsie?”</p> - -<p>He always seemed to take pleasure in repeating her -name.</p> - -<p>“How do you suppose?”</p> - -<p>“You know what I’d like.”</p> - -<p>He came nearer to her, and put his hands upon her -shoulders. Although Elsie was short, he was very little -taller.</p> - -<p>She shut her eyes and put her head back, her exposed -throat throbbing visibly. She could feel his breath upon -her face, when suddenly she ducked her head, twisting out -of his grasp, and cried wildly:</p> - -<p>“No, no! It isn’t right—I oughtn’t to let you! Oh, -Mr. Williams, I’d rather not have the brooch, though it’s -lovely. But I can’t be a bad girl!”</p> - -<p>He had taken a step backwards in his disconcerted -amazement. “What on earth——Why, Elsie, you don’t -think there’s any harm in a kiss, do you?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” she muttered, half crying. “But you -make me feel so—so helpless, somehow, Mr. Williams.”</p> - -<p>Purest instinct was guiding her, but no subtlety of -insight could have better gauged the effect of her implication -upon the little solicitor’s vanity.</p> - -<p>He drew himself up, and expanded the narrow width of -his chest. “You’re not frightened of me, little girl, are -you?”</p> - -<p>“I—I don’t know,” faltered Elsie.</p> - -<p>“I can assure you that you needn’t be. Why, I—I—I’m -very fond of you, surely you know that?”</p> - -<p>Elsie felt rather scornful of the lameness of his speech. -She saw that he was afraid of his own impulses, and the -knowledge encouraged her.</p> - -<p>“Here, Mr. Williams,” she said rather tremulously, -holding out the turquoise brooch.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>He closed her hand over it. “Keep it. Are you fond -of jewellery?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, very.”</p> - -<p>“It’s natural, at your age. I’d like to give you pretty -things, Elsie, but you mustn’t be such a little prude.”</p> - -<p>“Mother always told me that one shouldn’t take a -present—not a valuable present—from a man, without he -was a relation or—or else——” She stopped.</p> - -<p>“Or else what?”</p> - -<p>“He’d asked one to marry him,” half whispered Elsie.</p> - -<p>Williams recoiled so unmistakably that for a sickening -instant she was afraid of having gone too far.</p> - -<p>Genuine tears ran down her face, and she did not know -what to say.</p> - -<p>“Don’t cry,” said the solicitor dryly. “I’d like you to -keep the brooch, and you can thank me in your own time, -and your own way.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, how good you are!”</p> - -<p>She was relieved that he said no more to her that day.</p> - -<p>She wore the brooch on the following morning, and -fingered it very often. Williams eyed her complacently.</p> - -<p>She began to notice that he was taking some pains with -his own appearance, occasionally wearing a flower in his -coat, and discarding the crêpe band round his arm. -She even suspected, from a certain smell noticeable in the -small office, that he was trying the effect of a hair-dye upon -his scanty strands of hair. Elsie mocked him inwardly, but -felt excited and hopeful.</p> - -<p>When Williams actually did ask her to marry him, Elsie’s -head reeled with the sudden knowledge of having achieved -her end. He had offered to take her for a walk one Sunday -afternoon, and they were primly going across the Green -Park.</p> - -<p>To Elsie’s secret astonishment, he had neither put his -arm round her waist nor attempted to direct their steps -towards a seat beneath one of the more distant trees. He -simply walked beside her, with short little steps, every now -and then jerking up his chin to pull at his tie, and saying -very little.</p> - -<p>Then, suddenly, it came.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>“Elsie, perhaps you don’t know that I’ve been thinking -a great deal about you lately.” He cleared his throat. -“I—I’ve been glad to see that you’re a very good girl. -Perhaps you’ve not noticed one or two little tests, as I may -call them, that I’ve put you through. We lawyers learn -to be very cautious in dealing with human nature, you know. -And I’m free to admit that I thought very highly of you -after—after thinking it over—for the attitude you took -up over that little trip we were going to take together. Not, -mind you, that you weren’t mistaken. I should never, -never have asked you to do anything that wasn’t perfectly -right and good. But your scruples, however unfounded, -made a very favourable impression on me.”</p> - -<p>He stopped and cleared his throat again.</p> - -<p>Intuition warned Elsie to say nothing.</p> - -<p>“A young girl can’t be too particular, Elsie. But I -don’t want to give up our plan—I want my little companion -on holidays, as well as on work days. Elsie,” said -Mr. Williams impressively, “I want you to become my -little wife.”</p> - -<p>And as she remained speechless, taken aback in spite of -all her previous machinations, he repeated:</p> - -<p>“My dear, loving little wife.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mr. Williams!”</p> - -<p>“Call me Horace.”</p> - -<p>Elsie very nearly giggled. She felt sure that it would be -quite impossible ever to call Mr. Williams Horace.</p> - -<p>“Let’s sit down,” she suggested feebly.</p> - -<p>They found two little iron chairs, and Mr. Williams -selected them regardless of their proximity to the public -path.</p> - -<p>When they sat down, Elsie, really giddy, leant back, but -Mr. Williams bent forward, not looking at her, and poking -his stick, which was between his knees, into the grass at -their feet.</p> - -<p>“Of course, there is a certain difference in our ages,” -he said, speaking very carefully, “but I do not consider -that that would offer any very insuperable objection to a—a -happy married life. And I shall do my utmost to make -you happy, Elsie. My house is sadly in want of a mistress,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span> -and I shall look to you to make it bright again. You will -have a servant, of course, and I will make you an allowance -for the housekeeping, and, of course, I need hardly say that -my dear little wife will look to me for everything that -concerns her own expenditure.”</p> - -<p>He glanced at her as though expecting her to be dazzled, -as indeed she was.</p> - -<p>It occurred to neither of them that Elsie’s acceptance of -his proposal was being tacitly taken for granted without a -word from herself. She wondered if he would mention -Mrs. Williams, but he did not do so.</p> - -<p>He continued to talk to her of his house, and of the -expensive furniture that she would find in it, and of the -fact that she would no longer have to work.</p> - -<p>All these considerations appealed to Elsie herself very -strongly, and she listened to him willingly, although a -sense of derision pervaded her mind at the extraordinary -aloofness that her future husband was displaying.</p> - -<p>At last, however, he signed to a taxi as they were leaving -the park, and said that he would take her to have some tea. -Almost automatically, Elsie settled herself against him as -soon as the taxi had begun to move.</p> - -<p>Rather stiffly, Williams passed his arm round her. His -first kiss was a self-conscious, almost furtive affair that -Elsie received on her upraised chin.</p> - -<p>Intensely irritated by his clumsiness, she threw herself -on him with sudden violence, and forced her mouth against -his in a long, clinging pressure.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>Elsie Palmer was married to Horace Williams at a -registrar’s office rather less than a fortnight later.</p> - -<p>Williams had insisted both upon the early date and the -quietness of the wedding. He had refused to allow Elsie -to tell her mother of the marriage until it was accomplished, -and a lurking fear of him, and schoolgirl satisfaction in -taking such a step upon her own responsibility, combined -to make her obedient.</p> - -<p>Irene Tidmarsh and a man whose name Elsie never learnt, -but who came with Mr. Williams, were witnesses to the -marriage. Elsie was principally conscious that she was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span> -looking plain, unaccountably pale under a new cream-coloured -hat and feather, and with her new shoes hurting -her feet. It also occurred to her that she would have -preferred a wedding in church, with wedding-cake and a -party to follow it.</p> - -<p>She felt inclined to cry, especially when they came out of -the dingy office, after an astonishingly short time spent -inside it, and found that it was raining.</p> - -<p>“Where are we going to?” said Irene blankly. (“My -goodness, Elsie, just look at your ring! Doesn’t it look -queer?) I suppose you’ll take a taxi?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Williams showed no alacrity to fall in with the suggestion, -but after a dubious look round at the grey sky and -rain-glistening pavement he signed with his umbrella to -a taxi-cab.</p> - -<p>“I suppose we’d better. Can I see you to your ’bus -first, or do you prefer the Tube?” he added to Irene.</p> - -<p>Both girls flushed, and looked at one another.</p> - -<p>“Aren’t you going to give us lunch, I should like to -know?” murmured Elsie.</p> - -<p>“I’m sure if I’m in the way, I’ll take myself off at once, -and only too pleased to do it,” said Irene, her voice very -angry. “Please don’t trouble to see me to the station, -Mr. Williams.”</p> - -<p>“As you like,” he replied coolly, and held out his hand. -“Good-bye, Miss—er—Tidmarsh. I’m glad to have met -you, and I hope we shall have the pleasure of seeing you -in Elsie’s new home one of these days.”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes, do come, Ireen!” cried the bride, forgetting -her mortification for a moment. “I’ll run in and see you -one of these evenings, and we’ll settle it.”</p> - -<p>“Get in, Elsie. You’re getting wet,” said Mr. Williams, and -he pushed her into the taxi and climbed in after her, leaving -Irene Tidmarsh walking away very quickly in the rain.</p> - -<p>“Well, I must say you might have been a bit more civil,” -began Elsie, and then, as she turned her head round to -face him, the words died away on her lips.</p> - -<p>“You didn’t think I was going to have a strange girl -here, the first minute alone with <i>my wife</i>, did you?” he -said thickly. “You little fool!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>He caught hold of her roughly and kissed her with a -vehemence that startled her. For the first time, Elsie -realised something of the possessive rights that marriage -with a man of Williams’ type would mean. For a frantic -instant she was held in the grip of that sense of irrevocability -that even the least imaginative can never wholly -escape.</p> - -<p>Her panic only endured for a moment.</p> - -<p>“Don’t,” she began, as she felt that his embrace had -pushed her over-large hat unbecomingly to one side. She -was entirely unwarmed by passion, unattracted as she was -by the man she had married, and chilled and depressed -besides in the raw atmosphere of a pouring wet day in -London.</p> - -<p>The first sound of her husband’s voice taught her her -lesson.</p> - -<p>“There’s no ‘don’t’ about it now, Elsie. You remember -that, if you please. We’re man and wife now, and you’re -<i>mine</i> to do as I please with.”</p> - -<p>His voice was at once bullying and gluttonous, and his -dry, grasping hands moved over her with a clutching tenacity -that reminded her sickeningly of a crab that she had -once seen in the aquarium.</p> - -<p>Elsie was frightened as she had never in her life been -frightened before, and the measure of her terror was that -she could not voice it.</p> - -<p>She remained absolutely silent, and as nearly as possible -motionless, beneath his unskilled caresses. Williams, -however, hardly appeared to notice her utter lack of -responsiveness. He was evidently too much absorbed in the -sudden gratification of his own hitherto suppressed desires.</p> - -<p>Presently Elsie said faintly: “Where are we going to?”</p> - -<p>“I thought you’d want some luncheon.”</p> - -<p>“I couldn’t touch a morsel,” Elsie declared, shuddering. -“Couldn’t you—couldn’t you take me home?”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean Hillbourne Terrace?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. I’ve got to tell mother some time to-day, and -I’d rather get it over.”</p> - -<p>“Very well,” Williams agreed, with a curious little smile -on his thin lips. “But you mustn’t think of it as being<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span> -home now, you know, Elsie. Your home is where I live—where -you’re coming back with me to-night. No more -office for my little girl after to-day.”</p> - -<p>His short triumphant laugh woke no echo from her.</p> - -<p>“Do you want me to come in with you?”</p> - -<p>“Of course I do!” said Elsie indignantly. “Why, -mother’ll be simply furious! You don’t suppose I’m going -to stand up to her all by myself, do you?”</p> - -<p>“Why should she be furious, Elsie? You’ve not done -anything disgraceful in marrying me.”</p> - -<p>His voice was as quiet as ever, but his intonation told -her that he was offended.</p> - -<p>“I don’t mean that,” she explained confusedly. “Of -course, mother knows you, and all—it’s only the idea of -me having gone and been and done it all on my own hook; -that’ll upset her for a bit. She’s always wanted to make -babies of us, me and Geraldine.”</p> - -<p>“You haven’t told your sister anything, have you?”</p> - -<p>“No fear. She’s a jealous thing, ever so spiteful, is -Geraldine. You’ll see, she’ll be as nasty as anything when -she knows I’m actually—actually——”</p> - -<p>Elsie stopped, giggling.</p> - -<p>“Actually what?”</p> - -<p>“You know very well.”</p> - -<p>“Say it.”</p> - -<p>“Actually married, then,” said Elsie, blushing a good -deal and with affected reluctance.</p> - -<p>When they arrived at Hillbourne Terrace, and the taxi -drew up before the familiar flight of steps, she began to feel -very nervous. She told herself that she was a married -woman, and looked at her new wedding-ring, but she did -not feel in the least like a married woman, nor independent -of Mrs. Palmer’s anger.</p> - -<p>Elsie’s mother opened the door herself. “What on -earth——Are you ill, Elsie, coming home in a cab at this -hour of the morning? Whatever next!”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Williams is here, Mother,” said Elsie, pushing her -way into the dining-room.</p> - -<p>Geraldine was there, a check apron, torn and greasy, tied -round her waist, and her hair still in curling-pins.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>She was placing clean forks and spoons all round the table.</p> - -<p>She looked at her sister with unfriendly surprise. Elsie -had worn her everyday clothes on leaving home that -morning, and had changed at Irene’s house.</p> - -<p>“Whatever are you dressed up like that for?” said -Geraldine at once.</p> - -<p>“Wouldn’t you like to know?”</p> - -<p>“I’d like to know where you get the money to pay for -your new hats,” said Geraldine significantly. “First one -thing, and then another—I wonder you don’t sport a tiara, -young Elsie.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps I may, before I’ve done.”</p> - -<p>Elsie was not really thinking of what she was saying, but -was rather listening to a sound of voices in the hall outside -that denoted a conversation between Williams and Mrs. -Palmer.</p> - -<p>She could not help hoping that he was breaking the news -of their marriage to her mother. Elsie still felt certain -that Mrs. Palmer would be very angry. It astonished her -when her mother came into the room and kissed her -vehemently.</p> - -<p>“You sly young monkey, you! Geraldine, has this -girl told you what she’s done?”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“Gone and got married! This morning!! To Mr. -Horace Williams!!!” Mrs. Palmer’s voice rose in a -positively jubilant crescendo.</p> - -<p>“<i>Married!</i>” screamed Geraldine. Her face became -scarlet, and then grey.</p> - -<p>“My little girl, married at seventeen!” said Mrs. -Palmer with her head on one side.</p> - -<p>She examined Elsie’s plump hand with its wedding-ring.</p> - -<p>Horace Williams stood by, quietly smiling. “Then -you’re willing to trust her to me, Mrs. Palmer? You’ll -forgive us for taking you by surprise, but you see, in all -the circumstances, I could hardly—I naturally preferred—something -very quiet. But you and I will have a little -talk about business one of these days, and you’ll find that -part of it all in good order. Elsie will be provided for, -whatever happens.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>“So generous,” murmured Mrs. Palmer.</p> - -<p>She insisted upon their remaining to dinner, and sent -out Nellie Simmons for a bottle of wine. Elsie, now that -she saw that her mother looked upon her marriage with the -elderly solicitor as a triumph, and that Geraldine was madly -jealous of her, became herself excited and elated.</p> - -<p>Williams went to the office in the afternoon, but Elsie -remained at home and packed up all her things.</p> - -<p>She made her farewells quite cheerfully when Williams -came to fetch her, still thinking of her mother’s repeated -congratulations and praises.</p> - -<p>It came upon her as a shock, as they were driving away, -when Williams observed dryly:</p> - -<p>“That’s over, and now there’ll be no need for you to be -over here very often, Elsie, or <i>vice versa</i>. You must -remember that <i>my</i> house is your only home, now.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">PART II</h3> - -<h4>I</h4> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> European war affected Elsie Williams as much, or as -little, as it affected many other young women. She had -been married a little over a year in August 1914.</p> - -<p>She was vaguely alarmed, vaguely thrilled, moved to a -great display of emotional enthusiasm at the sight of a -khaki uniform and at the sound of a military band.</p> - -<p>Later on, she sang and hummed “Keep the Home Fires -Burning,” “Tipperary,” and “We <i>Don’t</i> Want to Lose You, -but we Think you <i>Ought</i> to Go,” and was voluble and -indignant about the difficulties presented by sugar rations -and meat coupons. She resented the air raids over London, -and devoured the newspaper accounts of the damage done -by them; she listened to, and eagerly retailed, anecdotes -such as that of the Angels of Mons, or that of the Belgian -child whose hands had been cut off by German soldiers; -and after a period in which she declared that “everybody” -would be ruined, she found herself in possession of more -money than ever before.</p> - -<p>Never before had so many clients presented themselves -to Messrs. Williams and Cleaver, and never before had there -been so much money about. Elsie bought herself a fur -coat and a great many other things, and went very often -to the cinema, and sometimes to the theatre. She very -soon found, however, that Williams, when he could not take -her out himself, disliked her going with anybody else.</p> - -<p>He was willing enough that she should take Irene with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span> -her, or her sister Geraldine, but if she went out with any -man, Williams became coldly, caustically angry, and sooner -or later always found an opportunity for quarrelling with -him.</p> - -<p>Elsie was bored and angry, contemptuous of his jealousy, -but far too much afraid of him to rebel openly.</p> - -<p>She was more and more conscious of having made a -mistake in her marriage, but her regrets were resentful -rather than profound, and her facile nature found consolation -in her own social advancement, her comfortable -suburban home, and her tyrannical dominion over a capped -and aproned maid.</p> - -<p>She very seldom went to Hillbourne Terrace, and had -quarrelled with her mother when Mrs. Palmer had suggested -that it was time she had a baby.</p> - -<p>Elsie did not want to have a baby at all. She feared -pain and discomfort almost as much as she did the temporary -eclipse of her good looks, and the thought of a child that -should be Horace Williams’s as well as hers filled her with -disgust.</p> - -<p>She only spoke of this openly to Irene, and Irene undertook -the purchase of certain drugs which she declared would -render impossible the calamity dreaded by her friend. Elsie -thankfully accepted the offer, and trusted implicitly to the -efficacy of the bottles and packages that Irene bought.</p> - -<p>Sometimes Horace declared that he wanted a son, and as -time went on his taunts became less veiled, but Elsie cared -little for them so long as she remained immune from the -trial of motherhood.</p> - -<p>She spent her days idly, doing very little housework, -sometimes making or mending her own clothes, and often -poring for a whole afternoon over a novel from the circulating -library, or an illustrated paper, whilst she ate innumerable -sweets out of little paper bags. She never remembered -anything about the books that she read thus, and -sometimes read the same one a second time without perceiving -that she was doing so until she had nearly finished it.</p> - -<p>After a time, Elsie became rather envious of the money -that Irene was making as a munitions worker, and the -“good time” that Geraldine enjoyed in the Government<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span> -office where she had found a job. Elsie seriously told her -husband that she felt she must go and do some “war -work.”</p> - -<p>“You are not in the same position as an unmarried -girl, Elsie. You have other duties. These war jobs are -for young women who have nothing else to do.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see that I’ve got so much to do.”</p> - -<p>“If you had children, you would understand that a -woman’s sphere is in her own home.”</p> - -<p>“But I haven’t got children,” said Elsie, half under her -breath.</p> - -<p>“It’s early days to talk like that,” Williams retorted, and -his glance at her was malevolent. “One of these days you’ll -have a baby, I hope, like every other healthy married -woman, and neither you nor I nor anybody else can say -how soon that day may come.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I suppose till it does come—<i>if</i> it ever does-you’ve -no objection to me doing my bit in regard to this -war?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. What is it you propose to do?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, get a job of some kind. Ireen says they’re asking -for shorthand-typists all over the place, and willing to pay -for them, too. I could get into one of these Government -shows easily, or I could go in the V.A.D.s or something, -and take a job in a hospital.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Williams decidedly. “No. Out of the -question.”</p> - -<p>Elsie, who at home had, as a matter of course, surreptitiously -disobeyed every order or prohibition of her mother’s -that ran counter to her own wishes, knew already that she -would not disobey her husband.</p> - -<p>She was afraid of him.</p> - -<p>On the rare occasions when she saw any of her own -family, Elsie always made a great display of her own -grandeur and independence. She was really proud of her -little suburban villa, her white-and-gold china, fumed oak -“suite” of drawing-room furniture, “ruby” glasses and -plated cake basket. She was also proud of being Mrs. -Williams, and of wearing a wedding-ring.</p> - -<p>Geraldine came to see her once or twice, and then declared<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span> -herself too busy at the office to take the long tram journey, -and as Elsie hardly ever went to Hillbourne Terrace, they -seldom met. But Irene Tidmarsh came often to see Elsie.</p> - -<p>She came in the daytime, when Williams was at the office, -and very often she and Elsie went to the cinema together -in the afternoon. Irene seemed able to get free time whenever -she liked, and she explained this to Elsie by telling -her that the superintendent at the works was a great friend -of hers.</p> - -<p>Elsie perfectly understood what this meant, and realised -presently that Irene was never available on Saturdays and -Sundays.</p> - -<p>The war went on, and Mr. Williams made more and more -money, and was fairly generous to Elsie, although he never -gave her an independent income, but only occasional -presents of cash, and instructions that all her bills should be -sent in to him.</p> - -<p>He did not rescind his command that she should not -attempt any war work, although, as the months lengthened -into years, it seemed fairly certain that there was to be no -family to give Elsie occupation at home.</p> - -<p>At twenty-five, Elsie Williams, from sheer boredom, had -lost a great deal of the vitality that had characterised -Elsie Palmer, and with it a certain amount of her remarkable -animal magnetism. She was still attractive to men, but -her own susceptibilities had become strangely blunted and -no casual promiscuity would now have power to stir her.</p> - -<p>She was aware that life had become uninteresting to her, -and accepted the fact with dull, bewildered, entirely -unanalytical resentment.</p> - -<p>“I s’pose I’m growing middle-aged,” she said to Irene, -giggling without conviction.</p> - -<p>One day, more than a year after the Armistice in November -1918, Irene Tidmarsh came to Elsie full of excitement.</p> - -<p>She had heard of a wonderful crystal-gazer, and wanted -to visit her with Elsie.</p> - -<p>Elsie was quite as much excited as Irene. “I’d better -take off my wedding-ring,” she said importantly. “They -say they’ll get hold of any clue, don’t they?”</p> - -<p>“This woman isn’t like that,” Irene declared. “She’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span> -what they call a psychic, really she is. This girl that told -me about her, she said it quite frightened her, the things the -woman knew. All sorts of things about her past, too.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not sure I’d like that,” said Elsie, giggling. “I -know quite enough about my past without wanting help. -But I must say I’d like to know what she’s got to say about -the future. You know, I mean what’s going to happen to -me.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, well, you’re married, my dear. There’s not much -else she can tell you, except whether you’ll have boys or -girls.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you!” Elsie exclaimed, tossing her head. -“None of that truck for me, thank you. Losing one’s -figure and all!”</p> - -<p>“You’re right. Anyway, let’s come on, shall we?”</p> - -<p>“Come on. I say, Ireen, she’ll see us both together, -won’t she?”</p> - -<p>“I hope so. I wouldn’t go in to her alone for anything. -Swear you won’t ever repeat anything she says about me, -though.”</p> - -<p>“I swear. And you won’t either?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>The crystal-gazer lived in a street off King’s Road, -Chelsea, a long way down.</p> - -<p>A little hunch-backed girl opened the door and asked -them to go into the waiting-room. This was a small, -curtained recess off the tiny hall, and contained two chairs -and a rickety table covered with thin, cheap-looking -publications. There were several copies of a psychic paper -and various pamphlets that purported to deal with the -occult.</p> - -<p>“I’m a bit nervous, aren’t you?” whispered Elsie. -She fiddled with her wedding-ring, and finally took it off -and put it in her purse. When the hunch-backed child -appeared at the curtains, both girls screamed slightly.</p> - -<p>“Madame Clara is ready for you,” announced the little -girl, in a harsh, monotonous voice.</p> - -<p>She led them up to the first floor, into a room that was -carefully darkened with blue curtains drawn across the -windows. They could just discern a black figure, stout<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span> -and very upright, sitting on a large chair in the middle of -the room. A round stand set on a single slender leg was -beside her.</p> - -<p>Elsie clutched at Irene’s hand in a nervous spasm.</p> - -<p>The black figure bowed from the waist without rising. -“Do you wish me to see you both together, ladies?” -Her voice was harsh and rather raucous in tone.</p> - -<p>“Yes, please,” said Irene boldly.</p> - -<p>“You quite understand that the charge will be the same -as for two separate interviews?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>The little girl advanced with a small beaded bag. “The -fee is payable in advance, if you please.”</p> - -<p>Elsie fumbled in her purse, and pulled out two ten-shilling -notes.</p> - -<p>“Half a guinea each, if you please, ladies.”</p> - -<p>“Irene, have you got two sixpences?” Elsie whispered, -agitated.</p> - -<p>Irene, by far the more collected of the two, produced a -shilling, and the little girl with the bag went away.</p> - -<p>“Will you two ladies be seated? One on either side of -the table, please—not next to one another.”</p> - -<p>Elsie made a despairing clutch at Irene’s hand again, -but her friend shook her head, and firmly took her place on -the other side of Madame Clara.</p> - -<p>Elsie sank into the remaining chair, and felt that she was -trembling violently. Her nervousness was partly pleasurable -excitement, and partly involuntary reaction to the -atmosphere diffused by the dim, shaded room and the autocratic -solemnity of Madame Clara.</p> - -<p>A sweet, rather sickly smell was discernible.</p> - -<p>The silence affected Elsie so that she wanted to scream.</p> - -<p>Her eyes were by this time accustomed to the semi-darkness, -and she could see that Madame Clara was leaning -forward, her loose sleeves falling away from her fat, bare -arms, her elbows resting on the little table, and her hands -over her eyes.</p> - -<p>Suddenly the woman drew herself upright, and turned -towards Irene.</p> - -<p>“You, first. You have a stronger personality than your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span> -friend. It was you who brought her here. Do you wish -me to look into the crystal for you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I do,” gasped Irene.</p> - -<p>Elsie wondered from where the crystal would appear, -and then she noticed the faint outline of a globe in front of -the seer, on the little stand.</p> - -<p>A thrill of superstitious awe ran through her.</p> - -<p>“Make your mind a blank as far as possible, please ... -do not think of the past, the present, or the future ... -relax ... relax ... relax....”</p> - -<p>Madame Clara’s voice deepened, and she began to speak -very slowly and distinctly, leaning back in her chair, the -crystal ball before her eyes.</p> - -<p>“Time is an arbitrary division made by man—the crystal -will not always show what is past and what is to come. -For instance, I see illness here—bodily suffering—but I -do not know if it has visited you or is still to come. It -may even be the suffering of one near to you....”</p> - -<p>She paused for an instant, and Elsie just caught Irene’s -smothered exclamation of “Father!”</p> - -<p>“Hush, please,” said the seeress. “The shadow of sickness -deepens—it deepens into the blackness of death. A -man—an old man—he is dying. You will get money from -him. Beware of those who seek to flatter you. You are -impressionable, but clear-sighted; impulsive, yet self-controlled; -reserved, but intensely passionate. I see -marriage for you in the future, but with a man somewhat -older than yourself. I see conflict....” She stopped again.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps the conflict is already over. You have certainly -known love—passion——”</p> - -<p>Elsie, from mingled nervousness and embarrassment, -suddenly giggled.</p> - -<p>The clairvoyante raised an authoritative hand. “It is -impossible for me to go on if there are resistances,” she -said angrily, in the voice that she had used at first, ugly and -rather hoarse.</p> - -<p>“Shut up, Elsie!” came sharply from Irene.</p> - -<p>Elsie ran her finger-nails into her palms in an endeavour -to check the nervous, spasmodic laughter that threatened -to overcome her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>“The current is broken,” said Madame Clara in an indignant -voice.</p> - -<p>There was a silence.</p> - -<p>At last Elsie heard Irene say timidly:</p> - -<p>“Won’t you go on, madame?”</p> - -<p>“I’m exhausted,” said the medium in a fatigued voice. -“You will have to return to me another day—alone. All -that I can say to you now, I have said. Beware of opals, -and of a red-haired man. Your lucky stone is the turquoise—you -should wear light blue, claret colour, and all shades of -yellow, and avoid pinks, reds and purple.”</p> - -<p>She stopped.</p> - -<p>Elsie, though awestruck, was also vaguely disappointed. -It did not seem to her that she had learnt a great deal about -Irene, and the warnings about colours and precious stones -might have come out of any twopenny booklet off a railway -bookstall, such as “What Month Were You Born In?” -or “Character and Fortune Told by Handwriting.”</p> - -<p>Then she remembered that she herself had made Madame -Clara angry by laughing, and that the woman had said the -current was broken.</p> - -<p>“Probably she’s furious,” Elsie thought, “and she -won’t tell me as much as she told Ireen. And she’s got our -money, too. What a swindle!”</p> - -<p>“What about my friend?” said Irene Tidmarsh. Her -voice sounded rather sulky.</p> - -<p>“Your friend is a sceptic,” said the clairvoyante -coldly.</p> - -<p>“No, really——” Elsie began.</p> - -<p>The woman turned towards her so abruptly that she was -startled.</p> - -<p>She could discern an enormous pair of heavy-looking -dark eyes gazing into hers.</p> - -<p>“Make your mind a blank—relax,” said Madame Clara, -her tone once more a commanding one.</p> - -<p>Elsie moved uneasily in her chair and fixed her eyes on -the crystal. She could only see it faintly, a glassy spot of -uncertain outline.</p> - -<p>The seeress bent forward, leaning over the transparent -globe. After a moment or two she began to speak, with the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span> -same voice and intonation that she had made use of in -speaking about Irene.</p> - -<p>“The crystal reflects all things, but Time is an arbitrary -division made by man—we do not always see what is past, -and what is future.... In your case, there is very little -past—how young you are!—and what there is, is all on one -plane, the physical. You are magnetic, extraordinarily -magnetic. You have known men—you are married, if not -by man’s law, then by nature’s law—you will know other -men. But you are not awake—your mind is asleep. Nothing -is awake but your senses....”</p> - -<p>Elsie’s mouth was dry. She longed to stop the woman -but a horrible fascination kept her silent, tensely -listening.</p> - -<p>“Now you are bored—satiated. You have repeated the -same experience again and again, young as you are, until -it means nothing to you. You have no outside interests—and -you are ceaselessly craving for a new emotion.”</p> - -<p>Abruptly the sibyl dropped on to a dark note.</p> - -<p>“It will come. I see love here—love that you have never -known yet. There will be jealousy, intrigue—letters will -pass—beware of the written word——<i>Ah!</i>”</p> - -<p>The exclamation was so sudden and so piercing that -Elsie uttered a stifled scream. But this time she was not -rebuked.</p> - -<p>Madame Clara, all at once, was calling out shrilly in a -hard voice, an indescribable blend of horror and excitement -in her tone:</p> - -<p>“Oh, God—what is it? Look—look, there in the crystal—what -have you done? There’s blood, and worse than -blood! Oh, my God, what’s this? It’s all over England—<i>you</i>—they’re -talking about <i>you</i>——”</p> - -<p>Irene Tidmarsh screamed wildly, and Elsie realised that -she had sprung to her feet. She herself was utterly unable -to move, wave after wave of sick terror surging through -her as the high, unrecognisable voice of the clairvoyante -screeched and ranted, and then broke horribly.</p> - -<p>“It’s blood! My God, get out of here! I won’t see any -more—you’re all over blood!...”</p> - -<p>A strange, strangled cry, that Elsie did not recognise<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span> -as having come from her own lips, broke across the obscurity, -the room surged round her, she tried to clutch at -the table, and felt herself falling heavily.</p> - -<p>Elsie Williams had fainted.</p> - -<p>She came back to a dazed memory of physical nausea, -bewilderment, and resentment, as she felt herself being -unskilfully pulled into a sitting position.</p> - -<p>“Let go,” she muttered, “let me go....”</p> - -<p>“She’s coming round! For Heaven’s sake, Elsie ... -here, try and get hold of her....”</p> - -<p>She felt herself pulled and propelled to her feet, and even -dragged a few steps by inadequate supporters.</p> - -<p>Then she sank down again, invaded by a renewal of -deadly sickness, but she was conscious that they had somehow -got her outside the dark, scented room, and that the -door had been slammed behind her.</p> - -<p>Very slowly her perceptions cleared, and she realised that -Irene was gripping her on one side, and the little hunch-backed -girl holding a futile hand beneath her elbow on the -other.</p> - -<p>With an effort, Elsie raised her head.</p> - -<p>“Look here, old girl, are you better?” said Irene, low -and urgently. “I want to get out of here as quickly as -possible. D’you think you can get downstairs?”</p> - -<p>Elsie, without clearly knowing why, was conscious that -she, too, wanted to get away.</p> - -<p>She pulled herself to her feet, shuddering, and staggered -down the stairs, leaning heavily on Irene.</p> - -<p>“What happened?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you just turned queer. Don’t think about it. -Look here, we’d better have a taxi, hadn’t we?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. I couldn’t walk a step, that’s certain. Why, -my knees are shaking under me.”</p> - -<p>“Go and get a taxi,” Irene commanded the hunch-backed -child, who went obediently away.</p> - -<p>Elsie sat down on the lowest stair and wiped her wet, -cold face with her handkerchief.</p> - -<p>“What made me go off like that, Ireen? That woman -said something beastly, didn’t she?”</p> - -<p>“Oh she’s mad, that’s what she is. She suddenly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span> -started ranting, and you got frightened, I suppose—and no -wonder. Never mind, you’ll soon be home now.”</p> - -<p>It struck Elsie that Irene was looking at her in a strangely -anxious way, and that she was talking almost at random, -as though to obliterate the impression of what had passed -at the <i>séance</i>.</p> - -<p>Elsie herself could not remember clearly, but there was -a lurking horror at the back of her mind.</p> - -<p>“What did she say?” she persisted feebly.</p> - -<p>“Here’s the taxi!” cried Irene, in intense relief. “Here, -get in, Elsie. Thank you,” she added to the child. “Don’t -wait, I’ll tell the man where to go.”</p> - -<p>She gave the driver Elsie’s address after the little girl had -entered the house again, and then climbed in beside her -friend, drawing a long breath.</p> - -<p>“Thank the Lord! We got away pretty quickly, didn’t -we? Well, it’s the last time I’ll meddle with anything of -that kind, I swear. I say, Elsie, had we better stop at a -chemist’s and get you something?”</p> - -<p>“Yes—no. I don’t care. Ireen, I want to know what -that woman said. It was something awful about <i>me</i>, -wasn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“She had a—kind of fit, I think. I don’t believe she -knew what she was saying—she just screamed out a pack -of nonsense. And you gave a yell, and went down like a -log. I can tell you, you’ve pretty nearly scared the life out -of me, young Elsie.”</p> - -<p>Irene was indeed oddly white-faced and jerky. Her -manner was as unnatural as was her sudden volubility.</p> - -<p>Elsie, still feeling weak and giddy, leant her head back and -closed her eyes. She felt quite unable to make the effort of -remembering what had happened at the clairvoyante’s -house, and was moreover instinctively aware that the -recollection, when it did come, would bring dismay and -terror.</p> - -<p>She and Irene Tidmarsh did not exchange a word until -the taxi stopped.</p> - -<p>“Here we are. You’d better pay him, Elsie. I’ll -take the Tube from the corner, and get home in half an -hour.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>“Aren’t you coming in with me?” said Elsie, surprised.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think I will. I’d rather get straight -home.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, do!” urged Elsie, half crying. She felt very much -shaken. “I’m all alone; Horace won’t be back till seven, -and this has upset me properly. Besides, I know I shall -remember what it was that awful woman said in a minute, -and I’m frightened. You <i>must</i> come in, Ireen.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t,” repeated Irene, inexorably. “I ... really, -I’d rather not, Elsie.”</p> - -<p>The door opened, and Irene turned rapidly and walked -away down the street.</p> - -<p>Elsie tottered into the house.</p> - -<p>“I’m ill,” she said abruptly to the servant. “I fainted -while I was out, and I feel like nothing on earth now. I -shall go to bed.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, ’m. Shall I go for a doctor, ’m?” said the girl -zealously.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Elsie sharply. “I don’t want a doctor. -Telephone to Mr. Williams at the office, Emma, and ask -him to come home early. Say I’m ill.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, ’m.”</p> - -<p>Elsie dragged herself upstairs and took off some of her -clothes. She was shivering violently, and presently pulled -her blue cotton kimono round her and slipped into bed. -She lay there with closed eyes, shuddering from time to time, -until Emma brought up a cup of strong tea. Elsie drank it -avidly, lay down again and felt revived. Presently she -dozed.</p> - -<p>The opening of the door roused her. It was nearly dark, -but she knew that it must be her husband, who never -knocked before entering their joint bedroom.</p> - -<p>“What’s all this, Elsie?”</p> - -<p>“I felt rotten,” she said wearily. “Turn on the light, -Horace.”</p> - -<p>He did so, and advanced towards the bed. His face -wore an expression of concern, and he walked on tiptoe.</p> - -<p>“I fainted while I was out with Ireen,” Elsie explained, -“and I was simply ages coming to. We came back in a -cab, and I must say Ireen’s awfully selfish. She wouldn’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span> -come in with me, though she must have seen I wasn’t fit to -be left—just turned and walked off. I’m done with her, -after this.”</p> - -<p>“Where had you been?” enquired Williams quickly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, just out.”</p> - -<p>“Where to?”</p> - -<p>“I suppose you’ll call me a fool, if I say it was to see one -of those clairvoyante women, someone Ireen had heard -of. It was all Ireen’s doing—she persuaded me to go.”</p> - -<p>“Very silly of you both,” said the little solicitor coldly. -“Did this person upset you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. She had a sort of fit, I think, and called out a -whole lot of nonsense, only I can’t remember what it was.” -Elsie moved uneasily.</p> - -<p>“Where does she live?”</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“She ought to be prosecuted for obtaining money under -false pretences. I suppose you gave her money?”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes.”</p> - -<p>“You’d better give me her name and address and I’ll -see that she is properly dealt with.”</p> - -<p>“I’d rather not.”</p> - -<p>Horace Williams shrugged his shoulders. “Well, you’d -better get up and come down to supper, hadn’t you? -There’s no reason for lying in bed if you’re not ill.”</p> - -<p>“All right,” Elsie agreed sullenly.</p> - -<p>Her husband never shouted at her or threatened her, but -she was afraid of him, and of a certain sinister dryness that -characterised his manner when he was displeased.</p> - -<p>The dryness was there now.</p> - -<p>Elsie spent the evening downstairs. Her husband read -the newspaper, and she turned over the pages of a fashion -magazine listlessly. Her thoughts, unwillingly enough, -returned again and again to the scene in the clairvoyante’s -room, but still she could not remember the actual words -screamed out by Madame Clara before she had lost consciousness. -But she remembered quite well other words, -that had preceded them.</p> - -<p>“You are magnetic ... extraordinarily magnetic.... -You are not awake—your mind is asleep.... Now, you are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span> -bored, satiated. You are ceaselessly craving for a new -emotion....”</p> - -<p>Elsie reflected how true this was.</p> - -<p>She glanced distastefully at her elderly husband.</p> - -<p>The bald patch glistened on the top of his head, and he was -breathing heavily as he read his newspaper.</p> - -<p>He had always been rather distasteful to her physically, -and although the continuous, degradingly inevitable -proximity of married life in a small suburban villa had -hardened her into indifference, Elsie was still averse from -the more intimate aspects of marriage with him.</p> - -<p>She wished that she could fall in love, remembering that -Madame Clara had said: “I see love here—love that you -have never known yet.”</p> - -<p>“That’s bunkum,” thought Elsie. “I’ve been in love -heaps of times—I was in love with that doctor fellow, -Woolley. It doesn’t last, that’s all.”</p> - -<p>She hardly ever met any men nowadays, as she resentfully -reminded herself.</p> - -<p>The husbands of her married friends were at work all -day, and if she occasionally met them at their wives’ -card-parties, they did not interest her very greatly. -Most of the wives distrusted the husbands and gave them -no opportunity for flirtation with other women. And -Horace Williams himself was a jealous man, always suspicious, -and never allowed his young wife to go anywhere -with any man but himself.</p> - -<p>Elsie had been for a long while in inward revolt against -the dullness of her life. She remembered with longing the -old days of her girlhood, when every walk had been the -prelude to adventure, and the casual kisses of unknown, or -scarcely known, men had roused her to rapture.</p> - -<p>Nowadays, she knew very well that she would be less -easily satisfied. The apathy that had been creeping over -her ever since her marriage had to a certain extent lessened -the force of the animal magnetism by which she had been -able to lure the senses of almost every man she met, and for -the first time she was beginning to have doubts of her own -attractiveness.</p> - -<p>Elsie gave a sigh that was almost a groan.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span>Williams neither stirred nor raised his eyes.</p> - -<p>“I think I’ll retire to my little downy,” Elsie murmured, -drearily facetious.</p> - -<p>“It’s only a quarter past nine.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, well, we lead such a deliriously exciting life that -I’d better get some rest, hadn’t I?” she said ironically. -“Just to make up for all the late nights we have.”</p> - -<p>At last her husband put down the paper and looked coldly -at her through his pince-nez. “What is it you want, Elsie? -I work hard all day at the office, and you have plenty of -time and money for amusing yourself in the daytime—and -a strange use you seem to make of them, judging by to-day’s -performance. What more do you want?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. We might go to the pictures sometimes, -or to a play. I hate not having anything to do.”</p> - -<p>“That’s the complaint of every woman who hasn’t got -children.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t help it,” said Elsie angrily.</p> - -<p>He said nothing, but continued to fix his eyes upon her, -with his most disagreeable expression.</p> - -<p>“Good-night, Horace.”</p> - -<p>“I shall come up to bed before you’re asleep,” he said -meaningly.</p> - -<p>She went out of the room.</p> - -<p>The thought crossed her mind, as it had often done before, -that she had made a frightful mistake in marrying Horace -Williams.</p> - -<p>“I was only eighteen,” she thought, “I ought to have -waited. Perhaps he’ll die.”</p> - -<p>As she undressed, Elsie idly imagined a drama of which -she herself would, of course, be the heroine.</p> - -<p>Horace would be at the office, as usual, and a telephone -message would come through to say that he was ill—very ill -indeed—he was dead. Everyone would admire the -young widow in her black, with her string of pearl -beads.... Horace would leave her quite a lot of money. -Elsie knew that he was rich, although he had never told her -his income. She would stay on in the villa, but people would -come and see her—she would go out and enjoy herself—enjoy -life, once more....</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>Elsie sighed again as she got into bed.</p> - -<p>Bored and exhausted, she fell asleep almost at once, to -dream vividly.</p> - -<p>In her dream, she stood outside a closed door, knowing -that something unspeakably horrid lay beyond it. Terror -paralysed her. At last she pushed at the door, but it would -not yield more than an inch or two. Something was behind -it. She looked down and saw a dark stain spreading round -her feet, oozing from beneath the resistant door.</p> - -<p>Screaming and sweating, Elsie woke up, and as she did so -the remembrance came back to her in full of everything -that the clairvoyante had said that morning.</p> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span> - -<h4>II</h4> -</div> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Hallo</span>, Elsie!”</p> - -<p>“Hallo, Geraldine!”</p> - -<p>“You’re quite a stranger, aren’t you? I think it’s -about a year since we had the honour of seeing your majesty -last.”</p> - -<p>“Well, now I have come, aren’t you going to take the -trouble to invite me to come in?” asked Elsie good-humouredly.</p> - -<p>“There’s a visitor of mine in the drawing-room.”</p> - -<p>“Who is it? Aunt Ada?”</p> - -<p>“No, not Aunt Ada, Miss Smarty. It’s a friend of mine, -I tell you, who I knew at the office during the war.”</p> - -<p>“Well, you can introduce me to her, I suppose,” said -Elsie carelessly.</p> - -<p>She noticed that Geraldine’s hair was not, as it generally -was, in curling-pins, and that she was wearing a new dress, -of an unbecoming shade of emerald green. Geraldine -always went wrong over her clothes, Elsie reflected complacently. -She herself wore a new black picture hat, and -it was partly from the desire to show herself in it that she -had come to her old home.</p> - -<p>“Where’s mother?”</p> - -<p>“Out.”</p> - -<p>“What a mercy!”</p> - -<p>Elsie walked into the familiar drawing-room, feeling glad -that she no longer lived at Hillbourne Terrace, under her -mother’s dominion, and forced to share a bedroom with the -fretful Geraldine.</p> - -<p>A young man of two- or three-and-twenty was sitting in -the drawing-room, and rose to his feet as Elsie and Geraldine -came in.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span>“This is my sister, Mrs. Horace Williams. Elsie, this is -my friend, Mr. Morrison,” said Geraldine with pride.</p> - -<p>Elsie was immediately conscious of a quickened interest. -The young man was of a type that appealed strongly to -her; dark and tall, with very brown eyes, and a wistful, -ingenuous smile that was the more noticeable because he -was clean-shaven.</p> - -<p>When they shook hands, she was conscious of the slight, -unmistakable thrill of mutual magnetism.</p> - -<p>“I thought I was going to find a young lady in here, -when Geraldine told me she had a friend!” Elsie exclaimed, -laughing.</p> - -<p>“Sorry I’m a disappointment,” Mr. Morrison replied, -also laughing.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I didn’t say that. Only my sister doesn’t have -gentlemen friends as a rule,” Elsie declared innocently.</p> - -<p>Geraldine’s sallow face flushed. “You don’t know much -about it, do you, considering that we never see you nowadays. -I’m not one for talking much about my own affairs, either, -so far as I’m aware. It’s a misfortune, really, to be as -reserved as I am. I often wish I wasn’t!”</p> - -<p>It was unprecedented, in Elsie’s experience, to hear -Geraldine setting forth a claim, however obliquely, to be -considered interesting. Elsie looked at her in astonishment.</p> - -<p>“She must be gone on this fellow,” she thought, and -without the slightest compunction she immediately put -forth all her own powers to attract Morrison’s notice and -admiration to herself.</p> - -<p>The task proved to be as easy as it was congenial. In -a very little while, Elsie and young Morrison were talking -and joking together, and it was only an occasional, -spasmodic, and quite evidently conscientious effort from -Morrison that from time to time caused Geraldine to be -included in the conversation.</p> - -<p>Morrison told Elsie that he travelled for a big firm of silk -merchants in the City, and was very little in London.</p> - -<p>“How did you and Geraldine meet, then? I thought -you were in the same office as her during the war,” said -Elsie sharply.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span>“Just for six months I was, and then I got this job in the -place of a man who’d joined up. I was under age for -joining up myself, worse luck,” said the youth.</p> - -<p>Then he must be younger than she was herself, Elsie -reflected, surprised. She felt oddly touched by the thought.</p> - -<p>She looked at Morrison, and found that he was looking -at her with admiration evident in his dark eyes.</p> - -<p>Elsie allowed her eyes to dwell for a second on his before -she broke the momentary silence. “What about tea, -Geraldine?”</p> - -<p>“All right,” said her sister sulkily. “Where’s the -hurry?”</p> - -<p>It was already half-past four, but Elsie guessed that -Geraldine did not want to go and fetch the tea and leave -her alone with Morrison.</p> - -<p>“No hurry, I suppose,” she cried gaily, “but I’m a bit -tired, that’s all, and I thought I’d like a nice cup of tea. -It’s a good long way to come, and the Tube was pretty full.”</p> - -<p>“Where did you come from?” Morrison asked eagerly.</p> - -<p>She named the suburb. “You must come and look us -up one day, Mr. Morrison. My husband is a solicitor, and -he’s always at home on Saturdays and Sundays. The -rest of the week I’m by myself and ever so lonely,” sighed -Elsie.</p> - -<p>“I’d love to come. I should—er—like to meet Mr. -Williams,” said Morrison solemnly.</p> - -<p>“Here’s Mother!” Geraldine announced sharply, as a -door banged downstairs.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Palmer came in, breathing heavily, her hands full of -parcels.</p> - -<p>“Elsie! Dear me, this <i>is</i> a surprise. Good afternoon, Mr. -Morrison, how are you? Quite well, thank you, but for -Anno Domini, that’s all that’s the matter with me.” She -dropped into a chair.</p> - -<p>“Where’s tea?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll get it up,” said Geraldine.</p> - -<p>“Go and give her a hand,” Mrs. Palmer calmly directed -young Morrison. “My gurl is out. They’re all the same, -nowadays—always out, never in.”</p> - -<p>“<i>I</i> never have any trouble with servants,” Elsie murmured.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span>She was annoyed that her mother should thus dismiss -Morrison, and that he should meekly prepare to obey her.</p> - -<p>He opened the door for Geraldine and went out behind her, -and Elsie heard her sister talking animatedly as they went -downstairs.</p> - -<p>“What’s come over Geraldine?” she coldly enquired.</p> - -<p>“Why should anything have come over her, as you call -it? Geraldine’s a gurl like you are, I’d have you remember, -and a very much better one than you’ve ever been, to her -widowed mother. You mind your own business, Elsie.”</p> - -<p>“That’s a nice way to speak to me, when I haven’t been -at home for I don’t know how long.”</p> - -<p>“And whose fault has that been?” enquired Mrs. Palmer. -“Not but what I’m always pleased to see you, Elsie, as -I’ve told you time and time again, and Mr. Williams too—Horace, -I should say—if he cares to come. But don’t you -go interfering with Geraldine’s friends.”</p> - -<p>“Is this fellow a friend of hers?”</p> - -<p>“Of course he is. They’ve been going together for some -time now.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose she’s not engaged?”</p> - -<p>“No, she’s not engaged,” Mrs. Palmer reluctantly conceded. -“But I’m free to confess that I hope she will be. -This Leslie Morrison is a nice fellow, as steady as can be.”</p> - -<p>Elsie reflected that Leslie was a lovely name.</p> - -<p>“Now, Elsie,” said her mother warningly, “I know what -you are, and I give you fair notice that I won’t have any of -your goings-on. You’ll remember that you’re a married -woman, if you please, and just behave yourself. Any of -your old tricks, my lady, and I shall drop the hint to Horace. -Him and me knew one another before ever he set eyes on -you.”</p> - -<p>“All the more reason for not making mischief between us -now. He’s jealous enough as it is, making a fuss of anyone -so much as looks the same side of the room as I happen -to be.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t blame him,” said Mrs. Palmer curtly. “You’re -a caution, you are, and always have been. I don’t mind -telling you that I never was more thankful in my life than -to get you safely married. And don’t you go casting sheep’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span> -eyes at poor Geraldine’s fellow, for I tell you I won’t have -it.”</p> - -<p>Elsie laughed scornfully. She was secretly flattered at -the alarm that was conveyed by Mrs. Palmer’s reiterated -cautions.</p> - -<p>“What should I want with a boy like him? He must be -six years younger than Geraldine, at the very least.”</p> - -<p>“Nothing of the kind. And if he was, it wouldn’t -matter. It’s the first time anyone has looked like business, -where Geraldine’s concerned, and with you off my hands I -can afford to make things a bit easy for her. She’s been a -good daughter to me, has Geraldine,” said Mrs. Palmer with -a significant emphasis.</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m sure I don’t want to stand in her way,” -Elsie declared contemptuously.</p> - -<p>“Anyone less selfish than you are, Elsie, would offer to -help things on a bit. I can’t be for ever asking him here, and -he’s not got the money to take her out a great deal. Why -don’t you get them to meet at your place?”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps I will,” said Elsie slowly.</p> - -<p>She was rather silent during tea, mentally reviewing her -mother’s suggestion from various angles.</p> - -<p>Leslie Morrison definitely attracted her. She asked him -how long he was to remain in London.</p> - -<p>“Not long, Mrs. Williams. I’m doing Bristol and -Gloucestershire next week, and then I’m taking my holiday.”</p> - -<p>“Where are you going for that?” Mrs. Palmer enquired.</p> - -<p>“I haven’t made up my mind. Anywhere near the sea -is good enough for me.”</p> - -<p>“My husband and I are thinking of Torquay,” Elsie said. -“We’ve been wondering if you’d care to come along, -Geraldine. I suppose Mother wants to stew on in London, -as per usual.”</p> - -<p>“That’s right,” Mrs. Palmer assented complacently. -She looked at her younger daughter with approval. It was -the first time, actually, that Elsie had ever invited Geraldine -to spend a holiday with her.</p> - -<p>“Torquay is a first-rate place,” declared Leslie Morrison -enthusiastically. “I was there once on business, and I -quite made up my mind to return one day.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span>“Thanks very much, Elsie,” Geraldine said rather coldly. -“It’s a long journey, isn’t it, and I’m a wretched traveller, -as you know.”</p> - -<p>“Please yourself. Horace wants a thorough change, and -we’re sick of Wales. We’ve been there every year ever -since we were married.”</p> - -<p>“Come, I don’t suppose that makes much of a total, -does it?” Morrison gallantly remarked, looking at -Elsie.</p> - -<p>“More than you’d think for, perhaps. I was caught -young—eighteen, if you want to know.”</p> - -<p>“Elsie,” said her mother abruptly, “have you been to -see your aunties lately?”</p> - -<p>She directed the conversation so that no more personalities -were possible, until Elsie rose and said good-bye.</p> - -<p>“Allow me,” said Morrison, as he helped her to put on -her coat.</p> - -<p>Elsie fumbled for the sleeve-hole until she felt the guiding -pressure of his fingers on her arm.</p> - -<p>“Thanks ever so much. Well, good-bye, Mr. Morrison. -Let me know if you come up our way any time.”</p> - -<p>“I ... I hope you’re going to let me see you to your -’bus,” he said rather awkwardly.</p> - -<p>“Really, there’s no need—I couldn’t think of troubling -you.”</p> - -<p>Elsie took no pains to hide that her protest was a purely -conventional one.</p> - -<p>“Put on your hat, Geraldine, and go with them. A -walk’ll do you good,” urged Mrs. Palmer.</p> - -<p>But Geraldine, as she frequently did, had turned sulky. -“I’ve got something to do upstairs,” she muttered, and -disappeared.</p> - -<p>It was exactly like Geraldine, Elsie thought, to cut off -her nose just to spite her face. Not that it could have made -any difference if she had succeeded in preventing that brief -walk taken by Leslie Morrison and Elsie Williams.</p> - -<p>Elsie knew, beyond any possibility of mistake, the very -first moment at which a spark from her own personality had -lit the flame destined to burn more or less fiercely in that of -another.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>But this time she experienced an odd excitement that -held in it something new.</p> - -<p>She wondered, rather wistfully, whether this was because -it was such a long while since she had had any opportunity -of talking to a man other than her husband or one of his -elderly married acquaintances. Her conversation with -Morrison did no more than skirt the edge of personalities -that were implied, rather than spoken. Yet when they parted -Elsie knew, and knew that Morrison knew, that each was -determined to see the other again. She travelled home -in a dream, and hardly heard her husband’s vexed enquiry -as to the reason of her lateness.</p> - -<p>Williams had always shown a very strong conviction that -it was a wife’s duty invariably to be at home in time to -welcome her husband’s return from business.</p> - -<p>“I’ve been to Hillbourne Terrace.”</p> - -<p>“H’m. You’ve made yourself very smart. That hat -suits you, Elsie.”</p> - -<p>He so seldom paid a compliment that Elsie was astonished, -and ran to look at herself in the mirror over the dining-room -sideboard.</p> - -<p>It was the hat, was it?</p> - -<p>Her full face was softly flushed, and her eyes looked -bigger and darker than usual. Elsie saw her own closed -mouth break into an involuntary smile as she gazed at her -reflection. She went up to her room singing softly.</p> - -<p>Two days later Leslie Morrison came to see her.</p> - -<p>“I hope you won’t think I’m taking a liberty. Knowing -your people so well, it seemed quite natural, like, to take -advantage of your kind invitation.”</p> - -<p>“That’s right,” Elsie encouraged him.</p> - -<p>She hardly knew what she was saying, but already their -intercourse seemed to be on a plane where conventional -interchanges of words were unnecessary.</p> - -<p>Although it was only the second time they had met, -Morrison told her a great deal about himself, and Elsie -listened, with a growing, tremulous tenderness.</p> - -<p>He went away before her husband came in, and Elsie -underwent a momentary, essentially superficial, reaction.</p> - -<p>“I’m getting soppy about that boy—that’s what I’m<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span> -doing! Just because he’s got a pair of eyes like—like I -don’t know what. Him and Geraldine! It’s too ridiculous. -Why, he’s younger even than me.”</p> - -<p>She reflected that if Morrison, indeed, had been a year or -two older, he would certainly have kissed her by this time. -But it was quite evident to her that such an idea had never -even crossed his mind. He viewed her with obvious admiration, -and with great respect.</p> - -<p>The next day Elsie bought a book of poems, about which -Morrison had told her. She read some of them, and it seemed -to her that she had a new understanding of a form of expression -which had never made the least appeal to her before.</p> - -<p>“I’m a fool!” Elsie told herself in astonishment, but -with an ominous sensation of strange, new emotions, softer -than any she had yet known, taking possession of her life. -She felt that she would like to give the book to Morrison as -a present, but they had made no definite arrangement for -meeting again, and she could not bring herself to send it -by post. Restlessness possessed her.</p> - -<p>It was a relief when one evening her husband began to -speak of their summer holiday.</p> - -<p>“We can start on Tuesday, like we planned. Cleaver -gets back on Monday morning, and the sooner we get to the -sea in this weather, the better. It won’t last.”</p> - -<p>“It might. September can be a ripping month sometimes,” -said Elsie dreamily.</p> - -<p>“That’s your experience, is it? Well, it’s not mine. I -only hope we shan’t have a rainy spell as we did last year, -and sit in an everlasting sitting-room without so much as a -book to look at.”</p> - -<p>Elsie shuddered at the recollection. She and Horace had -quarrelled incessantly throughout their last holiday.</p> - -<p>“Is your sister coming with us?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Well, that’ll be better than nobody. She’ll be somebody -for you to go with to those picture-houses that you’re -so fond of. But it’s a pity that girl hasn’t got a sensible -husband. We might get a decent game of bridge, then.”</p> - -<p>“It’s a pity you haven’t got any men friends,” Elsie -retorted. “I never knew anybody like you for that.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span>Williams did not answer, but he turned upon his wife a -look, peculiar to himself, that always vaguely frightened -her. It held not only utter contempt, but something of -quiet, unspecified menace.</p> - -<p>She hastily spoke again. “Geraldine’s got a—a young -fellow that she thinks is going with her now. A boy -called Morrison.”</p> - -<p>“Is he coming to Torquay?”</p> - -<p>It was Horace Williams’ own matter-of-course tone in -making the suggestion that suddenly filled Elsie with a -frantic determination to see it carried out.</p> - -<p>“Yes, most likely he is. So you’ll get your bridge, I -daresay, and there’ll be somebody to take us to the pictures -of an evening.”</p> - -<p>As Elsie said the words, her heart seemed to herself -suddenly to leap against her side, as though in anticipation -of a joy almost too great to be borne.</p> - -<p>She lay awake most of that night, revolving schemes by -which Leslie Morrison could be brought to Torquay without -letting Williams know that it was Elsie who had -originated the idea.</p> - -<p>Although formerly she had been as much flattered as -irritated by her husband’s suspicious jealousy, it seemed to -Elsie now to be of the utmost importance that he should not -look upon Morrison in any other light than that of Geraldine’s -friend. She wondered if she could induce Geraldine -herself to suggest that Morrison should come to Torquay, -but decided that it was unlikely. Finally, after a great -deal of deliberation, Elsie next day wrote a note to the -young man:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>“<span class="smcap">Dear Mr. Morrison</span>,</p> - -<p>“If not otherwise engaged, we shall be pleased if -you will come to tea on Saturday afternoon. It will be -the last time for some weeks we shall be at home, as we go -to Torquay on the Tuesday. My sister, Miss Palmer, is -coming with us. Why not join the party, as you say you -would like to visit Torquay again?!!!</p> - -<p class="right">“Yours sincerely,        <br> - -“<span class="smcap">E. Williams</span>.”</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span>Elsie thought about this note incessantly after it was -written and posted, and awaited the reply with proportionate -excitement.</p> - -<p>It came by return of post:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>“<span class="smcap">My Dear Mrs. Williams</span>,</p> - -<p>“Very many thanks indeed for your most kind -invitation to tea. Unfortunately I am not able to avail -myself of it, as am already engaged to go to Hillbourne -Terrace. The suggestion about me going to Torquay is -simply great—that is, if you really meant it! I intend -talking it over with your sister when we meet on Saturday.</p> - -<p>“Believe me, with kind regards,</p> - -<p class="right">“Yours very sincerely,        <br> - -“<span class="smcap">Leslie M. Morrison</span>.”</p> -</div> - -<p>Elsie came downstairs earlier than usual in order to -conceal her letter before Williams should ask to see it, as -he invariably did with his wife’s correspondence.</p> - -<p>She put it in her pocket, and kept it there all day. On -Saturday she wanted very much to go to Hillbourne Terrace, -but Williams was at home, and on such occasions he never -expected his wife to go out except with him. They spent -the afternoon drearily enough, Williams reading the newspaper, -and Elsie pretending to sew, and in reality wholly -occupied with speculations as to how Geraldine would -receive Leslie Morrison’s suggestion.</p> - -<p>She felt pretty certain that Mrs. Palmer, at all events, -would be in favour of it. “If only he has the sense to make -it sound as if it came from him, and not from me!” thought -Elsie.</p> - -<p>She had felt confident of receiving another letter from -Morrison before starting for Torquay, but to her dismay -there was no word, either from him or from Geraldine, and -on the eve of departure she still did not know whether or -not her scheme had succeeded. For the first time, she -heartily wished that there had been a telephone in her -mother’s house.</p> - -<p>On the morning of their journey the weather changed and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span> -became suddenly sultry. The train was crowded and -unbearably hot.</p> - -<p>Geraldine was to meet them at the station, and the fact -that she arrived late made Horace Williams angry, in his -own unpleasant, silent way. There was only one empty -seat in the railway carriage, which Elsie at once took, and -Williams and Geraldine were forced to stand in the -corridor, already strewn with hand baggage and full of -heated, perspiring people.</p> - -<p>The train ran from London to Taunton without a stop, -and at the end of two hours Williams forced his way into -the carriage and spoke quietly to his wife.</p> - -<p>“Here, Elsie, give me your place for a little while. One -of my boots is hurting, and I can’t stand any longer. Go -and take your turn for a bit.”</p> - -<p>Elsie joined Geraldine in the corridor without demur. -There were certain tones in Horace Williams’ voice that -she had learnt to obey. Geraldine, her face pallid and -shiny with heat, her tight blue cloth dress looking as though -it constricted even her narrow chest and shoulders, was -sitting in an uncomfortable, crouching position on a roll of -rugs.</p> - -<p>Both she and Elsie had removed their hats, and while -Elsie’s hair dropped naturally into soft, flattened curls and -rings, Geraldine’s clung damply in straight, short wisps to -her neck and forehead, and she constantly raised her hand -to push away, quite ineffectually, a straggling end that -immediately fell down again.</p> - -<p>“Hell, I call this,” she remarked shortly, as Elsie, -stumbling over bags and packages and the feet of other -passengers, reached her side and propped herself up against -the side of the swaying train.</p> - -<p>“You’re a nice one to take on a holiday, I must say,” -Elsie retorted, but without acrimony. She felt that -nothing would really matter if she could once get the -assurance that she craved.</p> - -<p>“Horace is in a foul temper. He never can stand the -hot weather. I’m sure I hope it’ll be cooler at the sea than -what it is here. Have you brought a new bathing costume, -Geraldine?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span>“M’m. A blue one, with a decent skirt—not one of -those horrible skin-tight things you see in the picture papers. -Improper, I call them.”</p> - -<p>“You couldn’t be improper if you tried,” said Elsie -cryptically. “Besides, there’ll be nobody to go in the -water with you except me. Horace never bathes—makes -him turn green, or something.”</p> - -<p>She eyed her sister carefully as she spoke. Something -in the wariness of Geraldine’s return glance gave her a rising -hope.</p> - -<p>“I’m sure I wish we were going to have someone we knew -there. Horace would be much easier to keep in a decent -temper if he had another man to go with sometimes.”</p> - -<p>Then Geraldine spoke. “That boy Leslie Morrison said -something about coming down one day this week, and -spending part of his holiday at Torquay. He was awfully -keen I should go and stay with his mother, near Bristol, -too.”</p> - -<p>“Was he? Well, you could do that later,” said Elsie. -She was nearly breathless with triumph, but strove to make -her voice sound matter-of-fact. “But I hope to goodness -he will come to Torquay. It’ll make all the difference to -Horace.”</p> - -<p>Geraldine sneered. “I daresay you think it’ll make all -the difference to you, too. It’s anything in trousers with -you, old girl, whether the fellow belongs to another girl -or not. But I’m not afraid of anything of that sort while -Horace is about. He knows how to keep you in order, as -Mother said.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll thank you, and Mother too, to keep your opinion of -me till it’s asked for.” Elsie, however, spoke mechanically.</p> - -<p>She had immediately become obsessed by visions of -herself and Morrison, walking, swimming, sitting beside one -another on the sands, or in the intimate closeness and -darkness of the picture palace....</p> - -<p>“I’ll just tell you this, young Elsie. Leslie Morrison -isn’t the sort of fellow you’ve been used to—not like -Johnnie Osborne, and that truck. And as for carrying on -with a married woman—why, he’d be ashamed to think of -such a thing.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span>Elsie smiled, and said nothing. She hardly heard what -her sister was saying.</p> - -<p>A hand laid upon her shoulder made her jump violently.</p> - -<p>“Are you in the moon, Elsie? I’ve been making signs -to you for ten minutes, I should think. It’s more than time -we had our sandwiches,” said Horace Williams querulously.</p> - -<p>“Oh, all right.”</p> - -<p>By tugging and pulling at piled-up packages, they -succeeded in getting hold of the basket in which Elsie had -packed ham sandwiches, seed-cake, and bananas.</p> - -<p>The train sped onwards....</p> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span> - -<h4>III</h4> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Williamses and Geraldine stayed in a boarding-house -that proudly advertised itself as being situated “right on the -front,” and young Morrison had a room in an apartment -house, much cheaper and more remote, half-way up one of -Torquay’s steepest hills. He arranged to have all his meals -except breakfast at the boarding-house.</p> - -<p>The weather was very hot, and sunny, and breathless.</p> - -<p>Elsie felt as though she had never lived before. Every -morning she came downstairs, her face sunburnt and glowing, -but never unbecomingly freckled, her open-necked, -short-sleeved blouses and jumpers indefinably smart and -well put on, her undependable and essentially variable good -looks seeming always to increase.</p> - -<p>She was greatly admired in the boarding-house, and -Williams for the first time did not appear to resent this.</p> - -<p>He had suddenly become absorbed in a new and obscure -digestive complaint, and would discuss the subject endlessly -with his neighbours at meal-times. An elderly -widow without any companion took a fancy to Geraldine, -and as she sometimes gave her presents of clothes, or -took her for a drive, Geraldine always sat next to her at the -long table in the dining-room, and listened to her with a -fair pretence of amiability.</p> - -<p>Breakfast was a long, hot, abundant meal. The boarding-house -knew its <i>clientèle</i> and catered for it according to the -views of business men who never allowed themselves to eat -as much as they would have liked on week-day mornings -during all the rest of the year. Tea and coffee, eggs and -bacon, and fish and sausages were provided, toast and jam -and marmalade and potted meat.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>Elsie, who never ate anything but bread-and-butter with -jam, and drank innumerable cups of tea, at her own home, -enjoyed the novel fare because it was novel, and because she -had not bought and ordered it herself, and because she -was living in a haze of happiness that made everything -enjoyable.</p> - -<p>The prophecy of the clairvoyante had come true. Elsie -knew the love that she had never yet known.</p> - -<p>Every morning they went down to the sands and met -Leslie Morrison there. They sat in deck chairs, and ate -fruit from paper bags, and listened to a pierrot entertainment. -At midday Elsie and Geraldine ran back to the -boarding-house, undressed, and put on their bathing-suits, -and came back to find Morrison already in the water and -Horace Williams asleep in his deck-chair behind a newspaper.</p> - -<p>Elsie’s bathing-dress was blue, trimmed with white -braid, and she wore a rubber cap with a blue-and-red -handkerchief knotted over it. Her bare legs and arms and -neck had tanned very slightly; Geraldine’s showed scarlet -patches of sunburn.</p> - -<p>As they joined Morrison in the water, both girls always -screamed, clinging to one another’s hands. But once the -water was high above their waists, Elsie, a naturally -strong swimmer, struck out boldly, consciously enjoying the -cold water and the exercise of her muscles. Geraldine, of -poor physique and defective circulation, only bobbed up -and down in the shallows, still uttering staccato shrieks.</p> - -<p>At first, Elsie and Morrison would keep near her, swimming -short distances, and then returning, or splashing beside her -in shallow water, but sooner or later they would both strike -out, swimming side by side. They spoke very little.</p> - -<p>“I say, you swim simply splendidly, Mrs. Williams. -Why, I’ve never seen a girl swim as well as you do.”</p> - -<p>“D’you think so? It’s nice, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“It’s ripping. I’ve never had a holiday like this one—I -mean, one that I’ve enjoyed so much.”</p> - -<p>“Neither have I.”</p> - -<p>“I hadn’t looked forward to my holiday a bit this year. -I never thought it would be anything like this. I didn’t -know that anything in the world——”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span>It was always Elsie who suggested that it was time to go -back.</p> - -<p>“Geraldine’s gone out already. She turns a funny -colour if she stays in too long.”</p> - -<p>Once, when they were rather further out than usual, -Elsie said that she was getting tired.</p> - -<p>“Put your hand on my shoulder—I’ll help you. Yes, do.”</p> - -<p>“Oh no, I couldn’t.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, you must.”</p> - -<p>“Well, if you are sure you don’t mind....”</p> - -<p>“<i>Mind!</i>”</p> - -<p>His voice was very eloquent, and Elsie was abundantly -satisfied.</p> - -<p>She laid her hand upon his shoulder, and kept it there -after her feet touched the sandy bottom once more and -they were almost out of the water.</p> - -<p>They raced to the bath-towel cloak that she had left -under the wall, and as she put it round her Elsie said, without -looking at him and in a peculiar tone:</p> - -<p>“Did you enjoy it?”</p> - -<p>“I loved it,” Morrison replied very low, and after a -moment he added:</p> - -<p>“Better than any of our other bathes.”</p> - -<p>Elsie had never before conducted any one of her numerous -love-affairs in a key so reticent, and the very novelty of the -experience rendered it strange and precious.</p> - -<p>Subconsciously, they might both be waiting for the spoken -word, but on the surface each was supremely contented in -the present.</p> - -<p>The presence of Geraldine did not disturb Elsie in the -least. Geraldine had been jealous of her intermittently -ever since the days of their earliest childhood, and her -manifestations of temper were always latent, rather than -active. Elsie was used to them, and indifferent to them.</p> - -<p>Besides, Leslie Morrison was always very nice to Geraldine. -He sat between the sisters at the entertainments to -which they went frequently, he gave chocolates and sweets -to Geraldine oftener than to Elsie, and he was always ready -to talk of Geraldine’s favourite topic, the old days in the -office.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span>Only his dark eyes sought Elsie’s face with increasing -frequency, his pleasant young voice altered slightly and -indescribably when he found himself alone with her.</p> - -<p>It seemed part of the magic of those enchanted days -that Geraldine should make no scene, Horace Williams -appear to perceive nothing.</p> - -<p>On Sunday evening a band played in the public gardens. -They decided to go and hear it.</p> - -<p>Then Williams developed his mysterious symptoms, and -refused to come out.</p> - -<p>“You girls can go with Morrison. I shall take a glass of -boiling water with peppermint,” he declared, “and go to -bed. I’m in agony.”</p> - -<p>“Would you like me to stay with you?” Elsie asked, her -heart sinking.</p> - -<p>“No, no, go and enjoy yourself.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you’ll feel better in a bit, and come and join -us,” she suggested, and thankfully made her escape.</p> - -<p>The gardens were lit with Japanese lanterns and crowded -with holiday-makers. Pale frocks and scarves flickered oddly -in and out of the shadows and beyond the bright circle of -glaring white light thrown out from the raised and roofed -circular platform of the bandstand.</p> - -<p>“No hope of chairs, I suppose,” said Geraldine disconsolately. -“We’re late, thanks to Horace. Just look -at the people.”</p> - -<p>Morrison volunteered to try and find a seat, and they -watched his tall figure disappear into the throng of people.</p> - -<p>“I shall be sick if I have to stand for long, that’s -certain,” declared Geraldine. “I believe the sun was too -hot for me this afternoon. My head’s splitting.”</p> - -<p>“Take off your hat, why don’t you?”</p> - -<p>Elsie’s own hair was only covered with a blue motor -veil, knotted at either ear, and with floating ends.</p> - -<p>“My hair would be all over the place. I like to look -tidy, thank you.”</p> - -<p>“Please yourself,” said Elsie indifferently. She was -absorbed in watching for the first glimpse of Morrison returning -to them.</p> - -<p>When she caught sight of him, elbowing his way through<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span> -the crowd, it actually seemed to her as though the heart in -her body leaped forward to meet him.</p> - -<p>As usual, his eyes sought Elsie’s and held them for an -instant before he turned to Geraldine.</p> - -<p>“There’s one chair there. I’ve taken it, and a fellow is -kindly keeping it for me. I thought you and your sister -could take it in turns to sit down.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know....” Geraldine began ungraciously.</p> - -<p>“It’s quite a good place, and nice-looking people on -either side. The chap that’s keeping it for us seemed very -decent.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, go on, Geraldine!” said Elsie. “Hark, they are -beginning again.”</p> - -<p>The band had struck into a selection from a popular -musical comedy.</p> - -<p>Leslie Morrison put his arm beneath the girl’s elbow, and -they moved away, Geraldine still grumbling sub-audibly.</p> - -<p>Elsie, motionless, waited.</p> - -<p>Never before in her life had she known this ecstasy of -anticipation, so poignant as to be almost indistinguishable -from pain.</p> - -<p>When Leslie came back to her, she thought that she must -fall, and instinctively caught at his arm for support.</p> - -<p>Without speaking, he drew her away from the ring -of light, into the deep shadow of a clump of trees. She -stumbled against something in the sudden obscurity, and -discerned the low railing that separated the ornamental -shrubs and flower-beds from the crowded gravel paths.</p> - -<p>“Come,” said Leslie’s voice in her ear, hoarsely. They -stepped together over the little railing on to the grass. -Another few steps, and they were in an isolation as complete -as though a curtain had fallen between them and the -seething mass of talking, laughing, swaying people in the -gardens.</p> - -<p>Even the sound of the band only reached them faintly -as though from a great distance.</p> - -<p>Leslie Morrison halted abruptly, and they faced one -another, their eyes already accustomed to the semi-darkness.</p> - -<p>By an impulse as inevitable as it was irresistible, they -were in one another’s arms.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span>Neither spoke a word whilst that long throbbing embrace -endured.</p> - -<p>Through Elsie’s whole being flashed the wordless conviction: -“<i>This</i> is what I’ve been waiting for....”</p> - -<p>“Elsie,” whispered the man. “Elsie ... Elsie ... -Elsie ... I love you!”</p> - -<p>“I love you,” she whispered back again.</p> - -<p>They stood clinging to one another, entwined, the hot -summer darkness encompassing them.</p> - -<p>“What shall we do?” Morrison murmured at last. “I -have no right to say a word to you, Elsie—I never meant to.”</p> - -<p>“What does it matter?” said Elsie recklessly. “Horace -and I have never been happy together. I ought never to -have married him. It’s you I belong to.”</p> - -<p>“My darling ... my sweetheart.”</p> - -<p>They kissed passionately, again and again.</p> - -<p>“What are we going to do?”</p> - -<p>Elsie pressed closer and closer against him. “Forget -everything, as long as this holiday lasts, except that we -can be together. It’s been so heavenly, Leslie! We can -settle—something—later on, when it’s all over.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t let you go back to that man again. It would -drive me mad.”</p> - -<p>“Take me away with you,” she whispered.</p> - -<p>“Oh, if I could ... if I only could, little girl!”</p> - -<p>They spoke as lovers talk, ardently, and tenderly, and -with long silences.</p> - -<p>A sudden surging movement, and the distant sound of -the National Anthem, penetrated at last to them through -the darkness.</p> - -<p>“It’s all over!” Morrison cried, aghast. “Your -sister?...”</p> - -<p>“I’ll manage her,” said Elsie. “Leslie ... once -more....”</p> - -<p>Her mouth found his, and then she tore herself out of -his arms.</p> - -<p>“Come with me.”</p> - -<p>Rapidly Elsie found her way to the little pay-desk outside -the enclosure, in which the lights were already being -extinguished.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>“She’s bound to come out this way.”</p> - -<p>They waited, Elsie’s eyes at first dazzled, striving to find -her sister’s form in the crowd. Every fibre of her being was -acutely aware of the presence of Leslie Morrison, standing -just behind her, so that her shoulder touched his breast.</p> - -<p>Without turning her head she put out her hand, and felt -it clasped in his and held tightly.</p> - -<p>Her senses swam, and it was Geraldine’s own voice that -first warned her of her sister’s approach.</p> - -<p>To her relief, Geraldine was talking to a strange young -man.</p> - -<p>“Good-night,” she said amiably.</p> - -<p>“Good-night, and thanks so much for a pleasant evening,” -he returned, raising his soft hat.</p> - -<p>Elsie compelled herself to speak. “Have you met a -friend?” she enquired, with simulated interest.</p> - -<p>“Hallo! Where have you been, I should like to know? -Isn’t it funny?—that’s a fellow who was at our place for -nearly a month during the war. Belcher, his name is. He -was the very one that kept the chair for me. Did you -two get seats somewhere else?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Elsie swiftly.</p> - -<p>“It was good, wasn’t it—the band I mean? Horace has -missed something by staying at home.”</p> - -<p>Geraldine was evidently, and contrary to her wont, in -high good humour.</p> - -<p>They walked back to the boarding-house, Leslie Morrison -between the two girls, Geraldine openly hanging on to his -arm. His other hand was out of sight in his pocket, Elsie’s -warm, soft fingers locked in his.</p> - -<p>At the door they parted.</p> - -<p>“Good-night and sweet repose,” said Geraldine indifferently, -but she waited for her sister to precede her into -the lighted house.</p> - -<p>Elsie moved in a dream. It startled her when Geraldine, -looking curiously at her under the glare of the electric light -in the hall, said suddenly:</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter with you, Elsie? You look moon-struck, -and your hair’s all over the place, half down your -back.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span>“Is it?” Elsie put up her hands and pushed up the -soft, loose mass under her veil again. “I’m going to bed,” -she said, in a voice that sounded oddly in her own ears. -“Tell Horace, will you? I’ve a splitting head.”</p> - -<p>She felt an unutterable longing to be in the dark, and alone -with her new and overwhelming bliss.</p> - -<p>“You’re a nice one, I must say, leaving me alone all the -evening, and then dashing off upstairs the minute we get in. -I should think Horace would find something to say to -you——”</p> - -<p>Elsie neither heard nor heeded.</p> - -<p>She ran upstairs and into the small double bedroom. -It contained two beds, and for the first time since their -marriage she and Horace had occupied separate ones.</p> - -<p>To-night Elsie felt that she could never be thankful -enough for the comparative solitude that would enable her -to feel herself free again.</p> - -<p>She tore off her thin summer clothes, shook down her -cloud of hair, ran across the room in her nightdress to snap -off the light, and then almost threw herself into bed.</p> - -<p>In the blessed darkness, Elsie lay with hands clasped over -her throbbing heart, and relived every instant of the evening, -thrilling to a happiness so intense that she felt as though she -must die of it.</p> - -<p>She was perfectly incapable just then of looking beyond -the immediate present and the glorious certainty of seeing -Leslie Morrison again in the morning.</p> - -<p>Although Elsie had been attracted, in a sensual and -superficial manner, by a number of men, she had never in -her life loved before, and the passion for Morrison that had -suddenly swept into her life held all the force of a long -repressed element violently and unexpectedly liberated.</p> - -<p>Body, soul and spirit, she was obsessed almost to madness -by this young man, several years her junior, whom she had -not known a month.</p> - -<p>When Horace Williams came up to bed it was nearly -midnight, and Elsie, her face half buried under the sheet, -pretended to be asleep.</p> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span> - -<h4>IV</h4> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> love-affair of Elsie Williams and Leslie Morrison swept -on its course, and in the early days of their madness neither -of them paused for an instant to count its possible cost.</p> - -<p>It seemed, indeed, as though Fate were deliberately -simplifying their way.</p> - -<p>Horace Williams appeared unable to give his attention -to anything beyond his newly-discovered digestive trouble, -and remained constantly indoors through the hottest and -finest of the summer days, experimenting upon himself -with drugs, and studying tables of dietetic values. He -questioned Elsie very little as to her movements, taking -it for granted that she, Morrison, and Geraldine formed -a trio.</p> - -<p>In point of fact, the youth whom Geraldine had met at -the Sunday evening concert, and whom she spoke of as -Percy Belcher, now almost always made a fourth in the -party.</p> - -<p>Geraldine monopolised him eagerly, and openly showed -her triumph at feeling that she could now afford to relinquish -Leslie Morrison.</p> - -<p>Elsie and Morrison went swimming together, and -lay on the hot, crowded sands, and dropped behind the -others when they all went for walks, and sat with locked -hands and her cheek against his shoulder in the stifling, -thrilling darkness of the picture theatre, watching together -the representation of a love that was never anything but -the reflection of their own, the eternal triumph of a Man -and a Woman, pale representatives on the screen of Elsie -Williams and Leslie Morrison.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span>The golden fortnight drew to its close, and with the end -of the Torquay holiday, it suddenly seemed to Elsie as -though the end of the world must come.</p> - -<p>“What are we to do, Leslie?” she gasped.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know, darling,” he said miserably.</p> - -<p>“You’re going to be in town for a bit?”</p> - -<p>“For a little while. They’re sending me off again, -pretty soon—abroad this time.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t live without seeing you sometimes. Oh, Les, -how can I go back to the old life with Horace after <i>this</i>?”</p> - -<p>“Elsie,” said Morrison very low, “would he divorce -you if——?”</p> - -<p>“Not a hope. It costs money, and he’s too mean. -Besides, he’d never do it if he thought I wanted it. He’s -cruel, is Horace.”</p> - -<p>“Not to you?”</p> - -<p>“He doesn’t knock me about, if that’s what you mean—he -knows I wouldn’t stand it—but of course he doesn’t -care for me, or for anybody but himself. I was told he -gave his first a rotten time—anyway, I know she used to -look wretched enough. You know there was a first Mrs. -Williams?”</p> - -<p>“No, I didn’t. Of course, I saw he was much older -than you. Oh, Elsie, whatever made you marry him?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I was a fool and I thought I’d like to be married, -and get away from home. I didn’t know what it was -going to be like, that’s certain. Oh, Les, fancy if I was -still Elsie Palmer, and you and me could get married!” -She gave a sob.</p> - -<p>“Don’t, sweetheart! I’d have asked for your promise, -fast enough, if you’d been free, but I couldn’t marry any -girl till I’m earning a bit more.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you get a good screw, Leslie?”</p> - -<p>“Rotten. But I’m jolly lucky to be in a job at all these -days, I suppose.”</p> - -<p>“Lucky!” Elsie echoed the word drearily. “You -and I aren’t amongst the lucky ones, boy. I don’t see -how things are ever going to come right for us, without a -miracle happens.”</p> - -<p>“He—Williams—may ... he may die.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span>“Not he!” said Elsie bitterly. “There’s nothing the -matter with him. All this talk about indigestion is stuff -and nonsense—just fads he’s got into his head. There’s -nothing wrong with Horace. And it’s always the ones -who aren’t wanted that live on and on. But how am I -going to bear it, after this wonderful time we’ve been -having?” She began to cry.</p> - -<p>“Elsie, don’t, darling! I’ll think of a way. There -must be some way out.”</p> - -<p>Leslie took her in his arms and she forgot everything -else.</p> - -<p>On the last evening they all went to the theatre together, -and it was there, for the first time seeming awake to the -situation, that Horace Williams, sitting at the end of the -row of stalls, suddenly leaned across Geraldine and looked -long and balefully at his wife.</p> - -<p>She felt herself changing colour.</p> - -<p>Morrison, however, observed nothing. He talked only -to Elsie, looked only at her during the interval, and -whilst the play was in progress and the lights in the theatre -lowered, his hand sought and held hers.</p> - -<p>“Elsie, we can’t part like this. How can I see you -alone?”</p> - -<p>“We can’t—not here. But Horace starts at the office -again on Wednesday, and he’s there all day. Come to the -house.”</p> - -<p>“It means an age without seeing you. Elsie, can I -write to you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes ... no....” She was startled. “Oh, Les, -darling, I’d love your letters!... But he’d see them. -Wait a minute.”</p> - -<p>She thought rapidly.</p> - -<p>“Address them to the post-office—I’ll call there. He -doesn’t know or care what I do all day, so long as I’m -always there in the evenings when he gets back.”</p> - -<p>But Elsie was to find herself mistaken. Her husband, -after their return to the suburban villa, displayed a very -unmistakable interest in her movements during the hours -of his absence at work.</p> - -<p>He obliged her to give him an account of her day, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span> -took to ringing her up on the telephone for no acknowledged -reason, and always at a different hour.</p> - -<p>At first, Elsie cared little. She and Leslie Morrison met -daily, and on one occasion spent the afternoon in the -country together. Elsie recklessly telephoned to her own -house at seven o’clock that evening, and said that she was -with Irene Tidmarsh, and should not come home that night.</p> - -<p>“You must,” said the hollow voice at the other end -of the line.</p> - -<p>“I can’t. Her father’s awfully ill, and she’s afraid of -being left.”</p> - -<p>“When shall you be home?”</p> - -<p>“To-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll come and fetch you.”</p> - -<p>“All right,” said Elsie boldly. “What time?”</p> - -<p>There was no answer. Williams had rung off.</p> - -<p>Elsie knew, beyond the possibility of mistake, that her -husband suspected her; but in the intense excitement -that possessed her she was conscious of nothing so much -as of relief that a crisis should be at hand.</p> - -<p>She spent the night with Leslie Morrison at a tiny hotel -in Essex.</p> - -<p>Early next morning they travelled back to London, -parting at Liverpool Street station.</p> - -<p>“Let me know what happens directly you can, darling,” -urged the man.</p> - -<p>“I’ll telephone. Anyway, come round as soon as you -can get away. <i>He</i> won’t be in before seven.”</p> - -<p>“Good-bye, Elsie darling. I’ll never, never forget....”</p> - -<p>He left her, joining a hurrying throng of other young men -wearing soft hats and carrying little brown bags, nearly all -of them hastening towards the City.</p> - -<p>Elsie proceeded by train and tram to the house of Irene’s -father.</p> - -<p>Her friend opened the door to her. “Hullo! I thought -I should see you. That hubby of yours is on the warpath.”</p> - -<p>“What’s happened?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, nothing, thanks to me! Come in, Elsie. Have -you had breakfast?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>“I’ve had some tea; I don’t want anything else. Tell -me about Horace.”</p> - -<p>“Well, Horace, as you call him, saw fit to come round -here at eleven o’clock p.m. last night, and got me out of -my virtuous downy by ringing at the front door bell till -I thought the house was on fire. He said he’d ‘come for’ -his wife, if you please!”</p> - -<p>“I know. I told him I was going to spend the night at -your place,” said Elsie calmly. “I suppose you didn’t -happen to tumble to it, Ireen?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve not known you all these years for nothing, old -girl,” said Irene, grinning. “What do you take me for? -I told him you were in bed and asleep, and had been for -hours.”</p> - -<p>“You’re a real sport, Ireen! How did he take it?”</p> - -<p>Irene pursed up her lips and shook her head. “He -asked me to tell you to ring him up first thing this morning. -If you ask me, you’re in for trouble. And p’r’aps now you’ll -be so kind as to tell me what it all means, and why on -earth you couldn’t have given me fair warning before -saying you were here. It’s lucky for you I didn’t give the -whole show away on the spot.”</p> - -<p>Elsie, habitually ready to discuss any of her love-affairs -with Irene, had told her nothing about Leslie Morrison. -But she saw now that a degree of frankness was inevitable.</p> - -<p>Irene listened, sitting on the kitchen table, her shrewd, -cynical gaze fixed upon Elsie. “You’re for it, all right,” -she observed dryly. “I thought directly I saw you after -you’d got back from Torquay that there was something -up. But I somehow didn’t think you’d go off the deep end -like that, Elsie. Why, you’re dotty about him!”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Elsie, “I am.”</p> - -<p>“And what do you suppose is going to happen?”</p> - -<p>Elsie groaned. “I wish to the Lord that Horace would -do the decent thing, or go West—and let me have a chance -of happiness.”</p> - -<p>“He won’t,” said Irene. “Well, whatever you do, -don’t make a fool of yourself and run off with this fellow. -It simply isn’t worth it, when he hasn’t got a penny, and -not very often when he has.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span>“If I thought Horace would divorce me it’d be different,” -Elsie said. She was not listening to Irene at all. “Though -even then, I don’t know what we would live on. Leslie -hasn’t anything except his salary, and that’s tiny, and I’m -sure I couldn’t earn a penny if I tried. Mother wouldn’t -help me, either, if I did a thing like that.”</p> - -<p>“No more would anybody else. And surely to goodness, -Elsie, you’d never be such a fool. Think what it would -mean to be disgraced, and have a scandal.”</p> - -<p>“I wouldn’t mind that with him.”</p> - -<p>Irene groaned. “You are far gone! Well, the worse -it is while it lasts, the sooner it’s over. You’ll see sense -again one of these days, I suppose. Meanwhile, you’d -better ’phone that husband of yours.”</p> - -<p>Elsie’s conversation with Williams over the telephone -was brief. She agreed to come home at midday, and -neither made any reference to the visit of Williams at -eleven o’clock on the previous night.</p> - -<p>Elsie anticipated a scene with her husband, and felt -indifferent to the prospect. She had not enough imagination -to work herself up in advance, and, moreover, her -faculties were entirely occupied with the blissful expectation -of seeing Morrison again that afternoon.</p> - -<p>He came some hours after she had arrived home.</p> - -<p>Elsie had done some shopping in the morning. With -her husband’s money she had bought a gold-nibbed fountain-pen -for Leslie, and had paid for copies of a photograph -of herself.</p> - -<p>She had scarcely ever in her life before given anyone a -present, and Leslie Morrison’s ardent thanks, and rapture -over the photograph, caused her the most acute pleasure.</p> - -<p>“Darling, it’s lovely, and it’s just you! I shall -always carry it about with me, done up with your dear -letters.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t keep my letters, Leslie,” said Elsie suddenly.</p> - -<p>“Why ever not?”</p> - -<p>A sudden recollection had come to her ... “<i>Beware of -the written word....</i>”</p> - -<p>The medium to whom Irene had once taken her had -said that. She had also said other things; had told Elsie<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span> -that love would come to her.... Perhaps she really -knew....</p> - -<p>“I’d rather you didn’t, really,” she said feebly. “Suppose—suppose -Horace ever got hold of them——”</p> - -<p>“How could he? Besides, Elsie darling, he’s got to -know about us some time. I wish you’d let me tell him -now. I can’t go on like this; it’s a low-down game coming -to a man’s house without his knowledge and—and making -love to his wife.”</p> - -<p>“His wife!” said Elsie angrily. “Don’t call me that. -I may be his wife in law, but it’s you that I really belong -to.”</p> - -<p>“Well, let me have it out with him then,” said Morrison -earnestly. “We don’t know, after all. He may be ready -to do the decent thing, and set you free.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t care if you do. I’m pretty sure he guesses.... -Horace has always been jealous, though he’s never had -any cause before.”</p> - -<p>“He didn’t say anything at Torquay?”</p> - -<p>“No, it’s since we got back. He asked me once if you -were engaged to Geraldine, and I said no. And he asked -if you meant to come and see us here, and I told him -most likely you would. He didn’t say anything much, -but he hates a man coming near the place, really.”</p> - -<p>“I’d far rather have it out with him,” young Morrison -repeated. His face was resolute, and he stood his ground -when Elsie, starting violently, exclaimed:</p> - -<p>“I believe that’s Horace now! I can hear his key in -the door. He’s never in at this hour as a rule—the skunk, -he’s come to spy on me!”</p> - -<p>“Darling, it’s all right!” said Morrison.</p> - -<p>He put the photograph away in his breast-pocket with -hands that trembled slightly. Both fixed their eyes on -the door as it opened upon the figure of the little elderly -solicitor. His face wore a no more sardonic expression -than was habitual with him, and Elsie could not deduce -from it whether or not he was surprised to see Leslie -Morrison.</p> - -<p>Neither man made any movement towards shaking -hands, but they greeted one another conventionally, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span> -talked a little, as though indifferently, of the holiday at -Torquay.</p> - -<p>Leslie asked whether Mr. Williams was any better in -health, and the solicitor replied coldly:</p> - -<p>“No, I am no better. I daresay my case would be a -very interesting one, from the point of view of a doctor. -But I am not one to give up, and I have no doubt that a -great many people do not realise there is anything the -matter with me.”</p> - -<p>He turned his eyes upon Elsie for a moment as he spoke.</p> - -<p>At the same instant, the inevitable thought that had -flashed through her mind at his words caused Elsie to -cast a lightning glance towards Leslie Morrison.</p> - -<p>It was that glance that her husband intercepted.</p> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span> - -<h4>V</h4> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">They</span> had another evening together before the storm -broke.</p> - -<p>Morrison took Elsie to a dance.</p> - -<p>He issued his invitation boldly, in the presence of -Williams, and to Elsie’s secret astonishment, her husband -made no objection to her acceptance.</p> - -<p>She wanted terribly to buy a new dress for the dance, -but dared not risk a reminder to her husband, for fear he -should suddenly forbid her to go. Finally she decided to -wear a black dress, covered with black net, and with black -net shoulder-straps. It was not new, but she had seldom -had any occasion for wearing it, and she had enough money -in hand for the housekeeping to enable her to buy a pair -of black artificial silk stockings and slim black satin shoes -with high heels.</p> - -<p>Round her thick, light hair she tied a black velvet band -with a spray of forget-me-nots worked in blue silk across -it, but instinct told her to leave her full, beautiful throat -unadorned by any of the few cheap ornaments that she -possessed. Her smooth skin showed a sort of golden glow -that merged imperceptibly into the warm pallor of her -round arms and the dimpled base of her neck.</p> - -<p>Elsie looked for a long while at herself in the glass, -rubbed lip-salve into her already scarlet mouth, and, -despite the “Japanesey” effect of lids that seemed half-closed, -wondered at the brilliant light in her own hazel-grey -eyes.</p> - -<p>Leslie Morrison came for her, and they left the house -together before Williams arrived from the office.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span>To both of them it was an unforgettable evening.</p> - -<p>Elsie, like all women of her type, was a born dancer. -Nevertheless, before the evening was half over, they had -left the crowded hall for a screened alcove in an upper -gallery, where the reiterated refrain of syncopated airs, and -the wistful rhythm of valse-times, reached them through -the haze of ascending cigarette-smoke.</p> - -<p>It was three o’clock when they exchanged a last close, -passionate embrace and Elsie, pale, exhausted, with -indescribably shining eyes, crept upstairs to her room, -undressed, and lay down noiselessly by the side of her -husband to relive the evening that she had spent with -her lover.</p> - -<p>Williams left the house next morning without waking -her, but it was that evening that the inevitable crisis came.</p> - -<p>The solicitor returned home nearly two hours before -his usual time, and found Leslie Morrison just preparing -to enter the house.</p> - -<p>The two men went in together.</p> - -<p>Elsie started violently at the sight of her husband, and -then laughed artificially. “Hullo! It’s a case of Oh, -what a surprise, isn’t it? You’re back early, Horace.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said her husband.</p> - -<p>“I hope you’re not too tired after last night,” Morrison -began.</p> - -<p>“Oh no, thanks! It was fine. Horace, I haven’t told -you about the dance yet. It’s a shame you weren’t there.”</p> - -<p>The moment she said the words, Elsie knew that she -had made a mistake.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” Williams remarked quietly, “you’d have liked -me to be there, wouldn’t you? Well, let me inform you -that you aren’t going to any more dances for the present.”</p> - -<p>“Whatever do you mean, Horace?”</p> - -<p>“Morrison knows what I mean all right, and so do you, -you little ——” His low, snarling tone gave the effect -of spitting the ugly word at her.</p> - -<p>Leslie Morrison sprang to his feet. “Look here, sir——”</p> - -<p>The solicitor held up his hand. “That’ll do. It’s not -for you to adopt that tone in speaking to me, you know. -Please to remember that I’m Elsie’s husband.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span>“Look here,” Morrison began again, “I’m perfectly -ready to make a clean breast of it. I do love Elsie. Her -and me were just pals at first, and then I suppose I didn’t -exactly realise where I was drifting. But I’m free to confess -that I lost my head one—one evening a little while ago—and -I told her I loved her.” He glanced at Elsie, as -though for a further cue.</p> - -<p>“And of course she told you that she was a pure woman, -and a loving wife, and you must never speak like that -again?” sneered Horace Williams.</p> - -<p>“Elsie, don’t let him speak like that.... Tell him!” -urged Morrison.</p> - -<p>“I don’t need any telling,” Williams retorted smoothly. -“She thinks she’s in love with you, of course.”</p> - -<p>“I am in love with Leslie,” said Elsie suddenly. “And -if you did the decent thing, Horace, you’d set me free to -marry him. You and me have never been happy together. -I didn’t ever ought to have married you, but I was a -young fool.”</p> - -<p>“Understand this, the pair of you,” said the little -solicitor clearly and deliberately. “I shall never set you -free, as you call it. You’ve married me, and you’ve got -to stay with me. As for you,” he turned to Leslie Morrison, -“you can leave my house. And understand clearly that -I won’t have you inside it again. And if I catch you -speaking to my wife again, or meeting her, or having anything -whatsoever to do with her, it’ll be the worse for you.”</p> - -<p>Morrison took a sudden step forward, his hands clenched, -and Elsie screamed, but Horace Williams stood his ground.</p> - -<p>“I’m well within my rights, and you know it,” he -declared. “I could horsewhip you, in fact, and if you -were fool enough to bring a case for assault it’d go against -you. <i>Clear out!</i> That’s my last word to you.”</p> - -<p>“Will you let Elsie have a divorce?”</p> - -<p>“No, I won’t.”</p> - -<p>“Will you let her have a legal separation, then? You’ve -her own word for it that she’s not happy with you. I’m -not thinking of myself, but you can’t have the cruelty to -keep her tied to you when she’s miserable. Let her have -her freedom.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span>For all answer, Williams pointed to the door. The -expression of his face had not altered by a hair’s-breadth.</p> - -<p>Morrison turned to Elsie, white and tense. “Elsie, you -hear what he says. What d’you want me to do?”</p> - -<p>Elsie had lost her nerve. She began to cry hysterically. -Instead of answering Morrison’s appeal, she turned to her -husband.</p> - -<p>“Why can’t you let us just be pals, Leslie and me?” -she sobbed. “You bring your horrid, mean jealousy into -everything. I s’pose you don’t grudge me having a friend -of my own age, do you?”</p> - -<p>Leslie Morrison instantly and loyally followed her lead. -“If Elsie is kind enough to let me be her friend, and—and -take her out every now and then, and that sort of -thing, I’m willing to forget what’s just passed, and simply -ask you as man to man if you’ve any objection to us being, -as she says, just pals,” he said steadily enough.</p> - -<p>“I have every objection. You young fool, Elsie has -just said in so many words that she’s in love with you. -Did you mean that, Elsie, or did you not?”</p> - -<p>Elsie sobbed more and more violently, and her voice -rose to an incoherent screech. “How do I know what I -mean or don’t mean, when you make a row like this? -But I’ll tell you this much, anyway, it’s true what he said; -I’m wretched with you, and if you were half a man, you’d -set me free.”</p> - -<p>“There, that’s enough,” said Williams. “Going round -and round in a circle won’t help any of us, and you ought -to know by this time, Elsie, that I always mean what I -say. You’ll please to remember what you were when I -married you—a little fool of a typist, without a penny, -whose mother kept a boarding-house and was only too -glad of the money I gave her. It doesn’t take a genius -to say what would have happened to you if you hadn’t -found a man fool enough to marry you, either.”</p> - -<p>“Stop that!” Morrison shouted.</p> - -<p>The solicitor blinked at him quietly. “I’ve twice told -you to get out of my house,” he observed. “Don’t make -me say it a third time. It’ll be the worse, if you do—for -Elsie.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span>“Are you threatening her, you—you brute, you?”</p> - -<p>“I object to your friendship with my wife. That’s all—and -enough too. Now go.”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes, go!” said Elsie suddenly, breaking into -renewed sobs and tears. “I can’t stand this. You’d -better go, Leslie boy, really you had. I shall do myself in, -that’s all.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t talk like that——” the youth began frantically, -but Williams opened the door, and stood silently pointing -to it.</p> - -<p>There was something strangely inexorable in his little, -trivial figure and sinister, passionless expression.</p> - -<p>“Elsie,” said Morrison brokenly, “if ever you want me, -send for me. I’ll come!”</p> - -<p>He went out of the room, and they heard him go down -the stairs and let himself out at the front door.</p> - -<p>“That’s the end of that,” said Williams in a quiet, -satisfied voice. “Stop that howling, Elsie. You didn’t -really suppose that I didn’t know what was going on?”</p> - -<p>She sobbed and would not answer.</p> - -<p>There was a long silence, and at last Elsie, face downwards -on the sofa, began to feel frightened and curious. -She bore it as long as she could, and then looked up.</p> - -<p>Her husband was gazing out of the window, in which a -potted aspidistra stood upon a wicker stand between -soiled white curtains.</p> - -<p>At the slight movement that she made he turned his -head. “Elsie, tell me. Did you really mean what you -said, that you’re in love with that boy?”</p> - -<p>To her incredulous surprise, his voice had become -hoarse and almost maudlin.</p> - -<p>“You only said it to make me angry, didn’t you?”</p> - -<p>In a flash Elsie saw the wisdom of allowing him at least -to pretend to such a belief. “Perhaps I did,” she said -slowly. “Anyway, it’s true enough that we aren’t particularly -happy together, and never have been. And I -meant what I said about a separation, right enough, -Horace.”</p> - -<p>“You won’t get one,” said Williams, and his voice had -become vicious-sounding once more. “And remember<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span> -what I’ve said—that fellow is never to set foot in here -again, and you and he are not to meet in future.”</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>The following morning Elsie went to the High Street -post-office and found there the letter that she had expected.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>“<span class="smcap">My Own Darling Girlie</span>,</p> - -<p>“What is to be done? I can’t tell you, darling, -what a hound I felt to leave you all alone with that jealous -brute yesterday and yet the awful thing is that he has the -right to you and I have none. Oh, Elsie life is hard isn’t -it darling? I wish I could take you away but that cannot -be and it is you that have to bear the brunt of it all -except that I am in hell knowing what you are going through -all the time. Perhaps that is not an expression I ought to -use to you but you must excuse it for I hardly know -what I am writing.</p> - -<p>“One of our chaps has gone sick, and they are sending -me to the North instead of him which means we can’t -meet again as I go off to-morrow. But write to me -darling and tell me what it is best to do now. Would it -simplify things if we were to be just friends and no more?</p> - -<p>“Cheer up, Elsie perhaps some day things may come -right for us—who knows? He may die; doesn’t he always -say there is something wrong with him?</p> - -<p>“A thousand kisses for you, dearie. I have your sweet -photo with me and love to look at it and re-read your -wonderful letters. Write and tell me everything, and what -you think we had better do. Shall we be able to meet -when I come back at the end of the month?</p> - -<p>“No more at present, from</p> - -<p class="right">“Your own true lover, Leslie,         <br> -“<span class="smcap">Boy</span>.”</p> -</div> - -<p>To Elsie, Leslie Morrison’s love-letters were wonderful.</p> - -<p>She read and re-read this one, but when she had answered -it, she burnt it.</p> - -<p>Certain words of the clairvoyante, whom she had once -visited with Irene Tidmarsh, she had never been able to -forget, and of late they had haunted her anew.</p> - -<p>“<i>Beware of the written word....</i>”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span>Elsie burnt all Morrison’s letters to her, and asked him -to burn all those that she wrote him.</p> - -<p>Gradually these letters that passed between them grew -to be the most important factor in her life.</p> - -<p>Elsie, who had detested writing, now desired nothing so -much as to pour out her soul on paper, and the limitations -that she found imposed upon her through lack of education -and the power to express herself made her angry.</p> - -<p>Again and again she asked Morrison in her letters to -take her away, and after a time his steadfast refusals bred -in her mind the first unbearable suspicion that her passion -was the greater of the two. Her letters became wilder -and wilder.</p> - -<p>Sometimes she threatened suicide, or gave hysterical -and entirely imaginary descriptions of scenes with her -husband; sometimes she expressed a reckless desire for -Horace’s death, or asked if she could “give him something” -unspecified. These phrases, to a large extent, were -meaningless, but Elsie frantically hoped by them to -impress upon Morrison the extent of her love for him.</p> - -<p>When he got back from the North of England they met -surreptitiously.</p> - -<p>A certain café in a small street not far from Elsie’s home -became their rendezvous. Sometimes Morrison was able -to get there in the middle of the day, but generally he -came at about five o’clock, and they had tea together. -Very occasionally they met early in the afternoon and went -out together.</p> - -<p>Each meeting was entirely inconclusive, save in exciting -Elsie almost to frenzy and reducing young Morrison to -further depths of despondency.</p> - -<p>The months dragged on. Morrison was often away, -and then he and Elsie wrote to one another daily. She -was entirely obsessed with the thought of her lover, and -hardly ever saw Irene Tidmarsh, or went to Hillbourne -Terrace. And all the while, Horace Williams said nothing.</p> - -<p>He and his wife did not quarrel; indeed, they hardly -spoke to one another, but the atmosphere between them, -day by day, was becoming more heavily charged with -mutual hatred and apprehension.</p> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span> - -<h4>VI</h4> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> tension under which Elsie now lived began at last to -affect her health. She slept badly, and was nervous as -she had never been before.</p> - -<p>Williams watched her without comment—a sinister little -figure. Sometimes, utterly overwrought, Elsie tried to -force a scene with him, but she only once succeeded in -making him evince anger.</p> - -<p>Strangely reckless, she suddenly suggested that Leslie -Morrison should be invited to lodge in their house, with no -slightest expectation that her husband would entertain -such a scheme, but with a wild desire to provoke him to a -scene that should release some of her own pent-up emotion.</p> - -<p>“He’s looking for rooms, Geraldine says,” she declared, -“and we’ve a bedroom to spare, and might as well use it.”</p> - -<p>Williams gazed at her incredulously. “Are you aware -that I’ve shown Morrison the door once already?” he -asked at last.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I’m quite aware of that,” said Elsie, with insolence -in her voice. “I thought you might have got more sense -now, that’s all.”</p> - -<p>“Listen to me, Elsie. I forbade you to speak to that -fellow again—and by God, if you’ve done so, I’ll see you -never forget it!” His face was livid and he spoke through -his clenched teeth.</p> - -<p>“I’ll speak to whom I please.”</p> - -<p>“Have you been meeting Morrison?”</p> - -<p>“Why shouldn’t I?”</p> - -<p>Elsie felt a curious pleasure and relief in thus mocking -at the furious jealousy that was evident in her husband’s -face and manner.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span>“Answer my question.”</p> - -<p>She remained silent.</p> - -<p>“Are you and that fellow in love?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve answered that before. I told you months ago, when -you first started to insult me, that he was nothing to me.”</p> - -<p>“That wasn’t true then—and it isn’t now. Morrison’s -in love with you, damn him, and you’re in love with him!”</p> - -<p>“Am I?”</p> - -<p>Elsie laughed derisively in the new and uncomprehended -realisation that she was no longer afraid of Horace.</p> - -<p>“You little bitch!...”</p> - -<p>He caught her by the shoulders and suddenly flung her -against the wall.</p> - -<p>Elsie screamed, but it was reflex action from the physical -shock alone that made her do so. She was neither -frightened nor very much startled. There was even an -odd exhilaration for her in the sudden release of those -pent-up forces that had for so long vibrated tensely between -herself and her husband.</p> - -<p>However, her arm and shoulder were bruised, and her -whole body violently jarred. “You’re a coward!” she -panted. “Hitting a woman!”</p> - -<p>“You drove me to it.... Elsie, get up!... I’m -sorry I did that, but you’re driving me mad. God, if I -had that fellow here I’d wring the life out of him!”</p> - -<p>“No, you wouldn’t,” Elsie taunted him. “He’s a -great deal stronger than you are—he’s a man, he is—you’d -never dare to touch him. All you can do is to knock -a woman about.”</p> - -<p>“That’s a lie! I’ve never touched you before, though -there’s many a man in my place would have beaten you -within an inch of your life. I didn’t know what I was -doing just now.”</p> - -<p>He took a step towards her, but Elsie pulled herself up -from the floor without appearing to notice the movement. -She felt slightly giddy, and her head ached.</p> - -<p>“Aren’t you going to—to forgive me? I oughtn’t to -have hit you, I acknowledge, but you’ve done everything -to drive me to it. Elsie, swear to me that there’s nothing -now between you and Morrison.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span>“Oh, all right,” she said wearily. “I swear it.” She -felt that she no longer cared what happened in a sudden -overwhelming fatigue.</p> - -<p>“I don’t believe you,” said Williams bitterly.</p> - -<p>Elsie shrugged her shoulders, and turned, moving -stiffly, to leave the room.</p> - -<p>“Are you—are you hurt?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, of course I am. My shoulder will be black and -blue to-morrow, I should think.”</p> - -<p>“Shall I get you anything?” Williams muttered, -shamefaced.</p> - -<p>She made no answer.</p> - -<p>That afternoon Elsie rang up Leslie Morrison on the telephone -after her husband had gone out. “Is that you, Les?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. How’s yourself?”</p> - -<p>He had told her never to be prodigal of verbal endearments -in their telephone communications, and she knew -that he was probably not alone, but it struck her painfully -that his tone was a purely casual one, such as he might -have used to anyone.</p> - -<p>“We’ve had an awful scene, boy.”</p> - -<p>“What—who?”</p> - -<p>“Him—Horace—and me. The same old thing, of course—jealousy. -I stood up to him, and told him I didn’t -intend to put up with that sort of treatment any longer, -and I’d never give up anyone I—I liked.”</p> - -<p>“I say, Elsie, you were careful, weren’t you?” asked -Morrison, his voice grown anxious.</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes, darling, of course I was, for your sake. But -Leslie—this is what happened—he knocked me down.”</p> - -<p>There was a smothered exclamation that made her heart -leap with sudden exultation. Of course Leslie cared....</p> - -<p>“Elsie—girlie—he didn’t! Are you hurt?”</p> - -<p>She could have laughed in pure joy at his sharply-anxious -question.</p> - -<p>“Nothing bad. Shaken, of course, and I expect there’ll -be a bad bruise, but I can put up with worse than that, -you know.”</p> - -<p>“You oughtn’t to have to! The hound! I’d like to.... -Look here, can’t we meet?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>“Yes, yes!” she said eagerly. “What about tea? -I’ll come to——”</p> - -<p>“The same place,” he interrupted quickly, and she -understood that he did not want her to mention the name -of the tea-shop that had so often served them as rendezvous.</p> - -<p>“What time?”</p> - -<p>“About half-past five. I shan’t get away any earlier.”</p> - -<p>“All right, darling. I’ll be there.”</p> - -<p>“Sure you’re all right?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, quite all right now,” Elsie declared, laughing -happily.</p> - -<p>“I must go. See you later, then?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. Good-bye, boy.”</p> - -<p>The answering good-bye came to her faintly over the -wires as the final click warned her that he had hung up -the receiver.</p> - -<p>Elsie looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. Only three -o’clock—two hours and a quarter before she could think -of starting out.</p> - -<p>The telephone rang again, and Elsie, with a joyful hope -that Morrison had been unable to resist a further word, -snatched at the instrument.</p> - -<p>“Hallo, hallo! Who’s there?”</p> - -<p>“I am—Horace,” said her husband’s flat, nasal voice. -“Look here. How would you like to go to the play to-night, -Elsie?”</p> - -<p>“What!” said Elsie, disappointed at not hearing Leslie -Morrison’s voice again, and still dazed from the scene of -the morning.</p> - -<p>“I said, how would you like to do a theatre to-night? -I’ve got tickets for ‘The Girl on the Pier’—good places—for -to-night.”</p> - -<p>She understood at last that he was seeking to propitiate -her, and to make up for his violence. “I don’t mind. -What time does it start?”</p> - -<p>“Half-past eight, but we’d better meet in town somewhere -for some food. I shan’t have time to come home -first. What about the Corner House, at about seven -o’clock? That’ll give us plenty of time to go on to Shaftesbury -Avenue afterwards.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span>“All right. How many tickets have you got, Horace?”</p> - -<p>“Just the two. I thought you and I would go by -ourselves and have a jolly evening,” said the far-away -voice rather tremulously.</p> - -<p>Elsie laughed drearily as she rang off.</p> - -<p>It seemed to her that the time dragged interminably -until she could go upstairs and dress herself for the evening’s -outing. She meant to meet Morrison first and then go on -to the Corner House and wait there for her husband.</p> - -<p>Elsie put on a dark blue coat and skirt, with a new pale -blue jumper of artificial silk, and a big black hat with a -blue feather. Round her neck she wore a small black fur.</p> - -<p>After her variable wont, she had suddenly recovered her -looks, after the sodden, stupefied ugliness that the morning’s -unhappiness had produced in her. Her eyes seemed more -widely opened than usual, her hair fell into thick curls and -rings, and a soft, bright colour lay under her oddly prominent -cheek-bones. She rubbed lip-stick on to her full, -sulkily-cut mouth, and lavishly powdered her straight, -beautiful neck. The glow of excitement and gladness -transformed her as she went out to meet Morrison, slamming -the door of the villa behind her.</p> - -<p>“Darling!”</p> - -<p>“My own dear little girl!” said Leslie, and held both -her gloved hands for a moment in his. “I haven’t been -able to think of anything but what you told me this afternoon. -Are we going for a walk, or will you come in?”</p> - -<p>“I’d like to come in and sit down,” said Elsie languidly. -“Have you had tea?”</p> - -<p>“No. I’ll order some.”</p> - -<p>“Not for me, boy. I’m meeting Horace for a meal in -about an hour and a half. We’re going to the theatre.”</p> - -<p>“Have you made it up, then?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I suppose so! He telephoned and said he had these -tickets. I suppose he thought it’d make up, in a way.”</p> - -<p>They chose a corner table at the further end of the tea-shop, -and Elsie took off her coat and leant against it as it -lay folded over the back of her chair.</p> - -<p>“Where did he hurt you this morning?” said Morrison -intently.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span>She pulled up the loose sleeve of her silk jumper. -“Look!”</p> - -<p>Her smooth, soft arm was already discoloured all round -the elbow and up to the shoulder.</p> - -<p>“It’s worse higher up, only I can’t get at it now to -show you.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Damn</i> him!” Leslie Morrison muttered between his -teeth.</p> - -<p>His boyish face was black with an intensity of feeling -that Elsie had seldom seen there of late. It sent a rush -of joyful reassurance all through her.</p> - -<p>“Darling, I don’t care about anything while we’ve got -each other.”</p> - -<p>“But it can’t go on, Elsie. He’s making your life -miserable. Isn’t there any hope of a divorce, or even a -separation?”</p> - -<p>“He says he never will.”</p> - -<p>Elsie spoke slowly. She was revolving a possibility, -that she had often viewed before in her own mind.</p> - -<p>“Les, can’t we go away together? I don’t care what -happens, or what people think of me. I’d face anything, -with you.”</p> - -<p>Even as she spoke, she knew—and one side of her was -relieved to know—that Morrison would negative the -suggestion, as he had often done before.</p> - -<p>“Out of the question, darling girl. Think what I’m -getting—two twenty-five a year and no particular prospect -of a rise for years to come. And look at what you’ve been -used to!”</p> - -<p>“Not before I married.”</p> - -<p>“Times were different then. It was before the war. -Living has gone up five hundred per cent. since then, and -it’ll be many a long year before it comes down again. -Why, Elsie, we couldn’t even live!”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know whether you think I’m living now!” -she exclaimed vehemently. “Existing, I call it. And we -shall only be young once, Leslie, and it seems so hard to -waste it all.”</p> - -<p>He groaned, and they sat silent for a time, their hands -locked together beneath the table.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span>“Would you be ready to—to end it all?” she asked -suddenly. “I mean for us to go out together, right out -of life?”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean suicide?”</p> - -<p>“Yes—a suicide pact.”</p> - -<p>She fixed her eyes upon him, anxious to believe that he -was startled, and acutely touched, at the lengths to which -her love could carry her. The actual idea behind the -word—that of suicide—conveyed very little to her. Although -she believed herself to be fully in earnest, Elsie -never seriously contemplated her own death, nor that of -her lover.</p> - -<p>She had often thought of Williams’s death as the one -possible solution of their problem, but she had actually -never really abandoned the secret expectation that a way -out would be found for herself and Morrison that would -secure their happiness.</p> - -<p>She had read of suicide-pacts, and seized upon the idea -eagerly as one more peg upon which to hang the proofs of -her passion for Morrison, and maintain his love, and his -interest in herself, at the level of her own ardour. Although -never consciously owning it to herself, Elsie knew -that his love was a lesser one than hers.</p> - -<p>Leslie Morrison, now, did not make the passionate -response for which she had hoped. “Don’t talk like that. -Oh, Elsie, it is hard, isn’t it? And you don’t know what -it’s like for me to think of that brute making your life -miserable. If only there was anything I could do!... -I think about it till I see red sometimes. Why doesn’t -he die?”</p> - -<p>“Because we want him to, I suppose,” said Elsie, -suddenly listless. “He’s always talking about his health -failing, and things like that, but I don’t see any sign of it -myself. Things will never come right for us in this world, -Leslie.”</p> - -<p>“Elsie, I’ll make him get a separation; I swear I will. -It’s the only possible thing. Then at least you’ll be free.”</p> - -<p>She noticed that he did not refer to the separation -between herself and her husband as to a means of furthering -their own love.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span>“Haven’t your people ever tried to get your freedom -for you?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’ve nobody much, you know! Only mother and -Geraldine, and the old aunties. They don’t approve of -me either—never did.”</p> - -<p>“Poor little girl, they don’t understand you!”</p> - -<p>“I don’t care while I’ve got you, Leslie.”</p> - -<p>They made love to one another, their voices low, until -Morrison reminded Elsie suddenly that it was late.</p> - -<p>“You’ll hardly get to the West End by seven now. I’m -glad you’re going to enjoy yourself to-night, anyway.”</p> - -<p>“I wish we were going together, Les, just you and I. -That’s how it ought to be. Are we going to meet to-morrow, -dearest?”</p> - -<p>“Lunch here, can you? One o’clock. And meanwhile, -darling, I’m going to think hard what I can do to -make things better for you. He’s got to stop leading you -this sort of life, anyway, and it’s up to me to find a way of -making him do so. When I think of his knocking you -about....”</p> - -<p>The blood rushed into his face, and Elsie saw that he -had clenched his hand involuntarily. It was balm to her -to realise that she still had the power of exciting him to a -frenzied anxiety on her account.</p> - -<p>“He’s hit me before now, you know,” she said suddenly, -hardly realising, and caring not at all, that she was not -speaking the truth.</p> - -<p>“You never told me. I’ve sometimes wondered....”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t mean to say anything about it. I knew it -would upset you.... Never mind, darling, I don’t -care.”</p> - -<p>“But I do. I tell you it’s driving me mad. Oh, what’s -the good of talking when one can’t do anything! Look -here, darling, I’m not fit to talk to you now—and besides, -you’ll be frightfully late. I shall see you to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“One o’clock. Good-night, sweetheart. I wish it was -you and me going to this show to-night. Wouldn’t it be -heaven!”</p> - -<p>“Indeed it would. But things may come right for us -even yet, darling—don’t give up hope. Good-bye.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span>“Good-bye!” she echoed.</p> - -<p>Elsie was late for her appointment with her husband, -but he did not complain. He seemed anxious to do everything -in his power to conciliate her, and it was characteristic -of their relations together that, as her fear of his sarcastic -petulance vanished, so her contempt for him increased.</p> - -<p>“I got dress-circle places,” said Williams impressively. -“I know you like them.”</p> - -<p>The piece, a musical comedy, amused her, and she was -pleased at various glances that were cast upon her by their -neighbours in the theatre. At the back of it all was a -warm inward glow that pervaded all her consciousness at -the remembrance of Leslie Morrison’s championship of her, -his assurance that he would “think out a way.”</p> - -<p>Perhaps Leslie would make up his mind to take her -away. She had asked him to do so, and he had always -refused. Elsie, with an ever-latent fear that Morrison was -already beginning to tire of an attachment that to her was -the one reality in life, told herself passionately that, with -him, she would care nothing for poverty.</p> - -<p>“It’s good, isn’t it?” said her husband’s nasal voice.</p> - -<p>“Rather. Topping!”</p> - -<p>For a minute or two she listened to the comedian on the -stage, and was genuinely amused by his facial contortions -and wilful mispronunciations of polysyllabic words.</p> - -<p>“He’s so silly, you can’t help laughing at him,” Elsie -declared, wiping her eyes.</p> - -<p>Then she drifted back again into the dream wherein she -and Leslie Morrison figured as sole protagonists, with -complete and unexplained elimination of Horace Williams.</p> - -<p>“Look who’s here, Elsie!”</p> - -<p>She started violently, convinced against all reason that -she would see Morrison.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t that your aunties?”</p> - -<p>“So it is,” said Elsie without enthusiasm.</p> - -<p>Aunt Ada and Aunt Gertie were making violent signs to -her, and in the interval Horace, still evidently bent upon -doing everything possible to please her, insisted upon going -to speak to them, and suggested supper after the play.</p> - -<p>“He is going it,” Elsie reflected dispassionately, not in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span> -the least touched, but a good deal amazed at the lavishness -of Horace’s amends.</p> - -<p>She was in reality very much bored by the company of -the two aunts in the little restaurant to which they eventually -went.</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you go and see your poor mother, Elsie?”</p> - -<p>“I do see her, Aunt Gertie.”</p> - -<p>“Not very often, dear.”</p> - -<p>“As often as I’ve time for,” said Elsie curtly.</p> - -<p>“Geraldine’s not looking well,” Aunt Ada began next.</p> - -<p>“What happened to that young fellow she was supposed -to be going with last year?”</p> - -<p>Horace Williams called abruptly for his bill. “It’s after -twelve, and I’ve got to be at work to-morrow, if you -ladies haven’t. All good things must come to an end, -you know.”</p> - -<p>“It’s been most pleasant, I’m sure,” said Aunt Gertie.</p> - -<p>And when Horace had gone to pay the account at the -cash-desk, she added sentimentally to Elsie:</p> - -<p>“It’s a real pleasure to have seen you and him together—and -so happy.”</p> - -<p>“Thanks,” said Elsie sarcastically. “We’re as happy -as the day is long, of course.”</p> - -<p>“So you ought to be,” said Aunt Ada very sharply.</p> - -<p>They exchanged good-byes outside the restaurant, and -Elsie and her husband went by Tube to their own station.</p> - -<p>The long suburban road was almost deserted when they -came out into it.</p> - -<p>“We’ll go by the Grove, of course,” said Elsie, indicating -the narrow alleyway that eventually merged into their own -street, with a high blank wall upon one side of it and the -backs of a rather sordid row of houses upon the other.</p> - -<p>A few leafless plane-trees showed above the top of the -wall, and an occasional tall lamp slightly relieved the -gloom of the long, paved passage-way.</p> - -<p>Their footsteps on the stones were clearly audible in the -unusual stillness that belonged both to the deserted -locality and to the small hours of the morning.</p> - -<p>“Who’s that?” said Horace so suddenly that Elsie -jumped.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>Footsteps were hurrying behind them, and they both -turned. With a strange sense of foreknowledge, Elsie saw -Leslie Morrison.</p> - -<p>The two men stopped dead as they came face to face -with one another. Elsie shrank back against the high -yellow brick wall, her eyes fixed upon Morrison’s ravaged -face.</p> - -<p>“I couldn’t rest for thinking of it all. I know what -happened to-day, Williams,” he said in a high, strained -voice. “It can’t go on. You’re making Elsie’s life hell. -Give her her freedom.”</p> - -<p>“Damn you! Who are you to interfere between man -and wife?” said Williams, low and fiercely. “I know -what you want, both of you, but you won’t have it. Elsie’s -my wife, and I shan’t let her go.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve got to.”</p> - -<p>Horace Williams, looking full at the youth, who was -shaking from head to foot with excitement, gave his low, -malevolent laugh.</p> - -<p>Almost at the same instant Elsie heard her own voice -screaming, “Don’t ... don’t...!” and saw the flash -of a knife as Morrison raised his arm and struck again and -again.</p> - -<p>Williams spun round as though to run, and his eyes, -oddly surprised-looking, glared, straight and unseeing, at -Elsie.</p> - -<p>Leslie Morrison stabbed at him again in the back.</p> - -<p>“What have you done?” sobbed Elsie to Morrison. -“Oh, go!”</p> - -<p>She saw Morrison dash away up the passage, and at the -same moment Horace Williams took a few steps forward.</p> - -<p>“Keep up—I’ll help you!” gasped Elsie.</p> - -<p>She thrust her arm beneath his elbow, dimly astonished -and relieved to find that he was walking, when he suddenly -lurched heavily against her, the upper part of his body -sagging forward. Then he fell heavily and lay motionless, -blood trickling from his mouth.</p> - -<p>Elsie, utterly distraught, and her knees shaking under -her, felt her screams strangled in her throat. A distant -figure showed at the near end of the alley, and she flew,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span> -rather than ran, towards the stranger, calling out in a -high, sobbing voice for a doctor—for help.</p> - -<p>The woman, elderly and respectable-looking, asked what -had happened.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” said Elsie. A blind horror was upon -her, but instinct warned her to make no definite statement -of any kind.</p> - -<p>A nightmare confusion followed. The alleyway, from -being a silent and deserted spot, became clamorous with -footsteps and voices. Elsie dimly heard a tall man in -evening clothes saying that he was a doctor, and saw him -kneel beside the blood-spattered form huddled upon the -pavement. It was he, and a stalwart policeman, who finally -lifted that which had been Horace Williams on to a hand-ambulance -and took it away.</p> - -<p>Another man in police uniform took Elsie’s arm, giving -her the support that alone enabled her to move, and helped -her to a taxi.</p> - -<p>She almost fell into it, weeping hysterically, and he -took his place beside her as a matter of course. In the -sick, convulsed terror that shook her, his stolid presence was -an actual relief. She thought that he was taking her -home until he gently explained that she was coming with -him to the police-station.</p> - -<p>“We want to get this cleared up, you know, and you -can help us by telling us just what happened.”</p> - -<p>A new and more dreadful fear came over her. If -Horace was dead someone would be accused of having -killed him. They might suspect her.... Elsie felt as -though she were going mad with the horror of it all.</p> - -<p>She began hysterically to scream and cry.</p> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span> - -<h4>VII</h4> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was still early in the day when Elsie’s mother came to -her at the police-station. Her fat face was white, stained -and mottled with tears.</p> - -<p>“It seems too bad to be true,” she kept on repeating -again and again. “That’s what I said when I heard about -poor Horace: too bad to be true. And you in this dreadful -place, Elsie, and such a state as you’re in—and no wonder. -The whole thing seems too bad to be true.”</p> - -<p>“Have they—found anything? Shall I be able to go -home soon?” asked Elsie.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know, dearie. They’ve got to find out who -killed poor Horace, you know. Elsie, you’ve always been -a sensible girl. You must tell them all you know, however -dreadful to you it is to speak of such things. Or I’ll tell -them for you, if you’d rather just have it out with mother. -Didn’t you see anyone?”</p> - -<p>“Someone flew past, and as I turned to speak to Horace, -I saw the blood coming out of his mouth.”</p> - -<p>“Who was it flew past?” said Mrs. Palmer.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. It all happened in a flash, like,” said -Elsie.</p> - -<p>“You and Horace were happy together, weren’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, always,” said Elsie stolidly. She had made up -her mind not to say anything else.</p> - -<p>“You didn’t quarrel?”</p> - -<p>“No, never.”</p> - -<p>“You’ll tell them that, won’t you, dearie? The police, -I mean.”</p> - -<p>“It’s nothing to do with them,” said Elsie childishly.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span>“Now don’t talk that way. That’s silly. You don’t -seem to realise, my lady, the sort of mess you’re in.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Palmer’s voice rose to stridency as she let her fear -and her temper get the mastery of her attempt at caution.</p> - -<p>“My God, Elsie, can’t you see what it means? They -may try you for murder. Murder—the same as the horrid -common people in the newspapers. Who’s to know what -happened—you and Horace in that empty street at one -o’clock in the morning, and he gets done in, and whatever -you may say—and mind you, I’ll back you up in it-they’ll -get hold of the fact that you and poor Horace -didn’t hit it off together.”</p> - -<p>“We were quite happy together.”</p> - -<p>“That’s right,” said Mrs. Palmer approvingly. “You -stick to that.”</p> - -<p>Then she began to cry. “To think it should have come to -this! I that have always held my head high—I don’t know -what your aunts will say! It’ll be an awful shock for them.”</p> - -<p>Elsie hardly heard what her mother was saying. Waves -of physical nausea kept on passing over her, and she was -conscious of nothing but thankfulness when an elderly -woman in uniform came to her with a cup of tea, and -suggested that she should lie down and get some sleep.</p> - -<p>Elsie followed her, scarcely replying to Mrs. Palmer’s -voluble farewell and assurances of her own speedy return.</p> - -<p>She could not afterwards have told where it was that -she was taken, but a small, narrow bed awaited her, and -she flung herself on to it and fell almost at once into the -trance-like sleep of utter bodily and mental exhaustion.</p> - -<p>The same uniformed woman was waiting for her when -she woke, after several hours, and the sight of her brought -back in a sick rush the horrors of the morning.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I must go home!” cried Elsie.</p> - -<p>The woman took very little notice of her words, but she -conducted her to a lavatory and helped her to make her -toilette.</p> - -<p>Cold water and the effects of sleep combined slightly to -steady the wretched Elsie. “I should like to go home at -once, please,” she said, in a voice that she tried in vain to -render firm.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span>“Yes. Well, I daresay your mother will take you away -as soon as you’ve answered a few questions,” said the -woman indifferently and quietly. “They want you -downstairs first for a few minutes now.”</p> - -<p>“Is Mother there?”</p> - -<p>“She’s in the waiting-room. You’ll be able to see her -afterwards.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Afterwards?</i>”</p> - -<p>Elsie’s agonised perceptions fastened upon that one -word. She sought with frantic and irrational intensity to -pierce the veiled threat that she felt it to convey.</p> - -<p>A man whom she knew to be a police-inspector appeared -at an open door, and the uniformed woman went away.</p> - -<p>“Now, Mrs. Williams, I’m afraid we must trouble you -for a short statement,” said the man pleasantly. “Will -you follow me, if you please?”</p> - -<p>He moved forward, and Elsie saw into the room that he -had just left.</p> - -<p>Leslie Morrison was within it.</p> - -<p>As their eyes met, it seemed to Elsie that the last shreds -of self-control deserted her, and she screamed on a high -and hideous note words that came incoherently and -frenziedly from some power outside herself.</p> - -<p>“Leslie, Leslie! Oh, God, what shall I do? Why did -you do it? I didn’t ever mean you to do it.... I must -tell the truth....”</p> - -<p>The inspector swung sharply round and gripped her by -the arm. “Do you realise what you’re saying? It is my -duty to caution you that anything you say now may be -used in evidence against you.”</p> - -<p>Elsie burst into hysterical sobs and tears.</p> - -<p>The man pushed her gently into another room where -another official and a young man in plain clothes sat at a -table with papers and pens in front of them.</p> - -<p>The interrogatory that followed was conducted with -grave suavity by the senior official, but Elsie was conscious -only of a horror of committing herself.</p> - -<p>She said again and again that she and her husband had -always been happy together.</p> - -<p>It was a faint relief when at last they came to actual<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span> -questions of fact, and she could reply with direct statements -to the enquiries as to her movements on the previous -evening.</p> - -<p>(O God, was it only last night that she and Horace had -gone to the theatre—only <i>this morning</i> that they had -started to walk home from the Tube station?)</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Williams, I want you to tell me in your own -words exactly what happened in the alleyway just before -your husband was struck.”</p> - -<p>Elsie realised with despair that she must say something.</p> - -<p>She was not imaginative, but almost without her own -knowledge she had evolved a sort of account by which, it -seemed to her, confusedly, that she might safeguard herself.</p> - -<p>“We were walking along,” she said in a trembling, -almost inaudible voice, “and there wasn’t anybody in sight, -and suddenly someone rushed up from behind and pushed -me away from my husband. I was sort of dazed for a -moment—I think I must have been pushed against the -wall—and when I recovered I saw Horace—my husband—struggling -with a man. Then the man ran away.”</p> - -<p>“Did you see the man’s face?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Elsie, with ashen lips.</p> - -<p>“But you know who it was?”</p> - -<p>“It was Leslie Morrison.”</p> - -<p>The room reeled before her eyes, and she made an ineffectual -clutch at a chair.</p> - -<p>Through a sort of thick fog she heard the official repeating -in a low tone: “It was the man known as Leslie -Morrison.”</p> - -<p>Then she felt herself fall.</p> - -<p>Her mother was with her when she recovered consciousness, -and the woman who had attended to her before, and -whom Mrs. Palmer now repeatedly and volubly addressed -as “Matron.”</p> - -<p>Elsie looked round her, but the officials were gone. -With a groan she let her head drop backwards again on to -the rail of the chair in which she found herself.</p> - -<p>“Come along now, don’t give way. You’re better now,” -said the matron briskly. “Don’t let yourself go, Mrs. -Williams.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span>“Oh, Elsie, Elsie,” wailed Mrs. Palmer, “whatever will -become of us? Didn’t I always tell you——”</p> - -<p>“Give her an arm, Mrs. Palmer, and I’ll take her on the -other side, and we’ll get her into the other room. There’s -a nice couch there, and she can lie down a bit.”</p> - -<p>They half led, half dragged Elsie away, the matron -exhorting her all the time with impersonal, professional -brightness to pull herself together.</p> - -<p>She was conscious of thankfulness when the woman left -her alone with her mother, although leaving the door open -behind her.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Palmer instantly bent forward and asked with -avidity: “What did you say to them, Elsie?”</p> - -<p>“Let me alone, Mother, for pity’s sake!”</p> - -<p>“How can I let you alone, as you call it, you unnatural -girl? What a way to speak to your own mother, on -whom you’re bringing sorrow and shame, and may bring -worse yet, if you’re not careful! Now you tell me this, -Elsie Williams, directly this minute: Did you or did you not -tell them that you and Horace were on bad terms -together?”</p> - -<p>“I said we were quite happy together——”</p> - -<p>“Stick to that,” said Mrs. Palmer significantly. “Did -anyone know—any neighbour or anybody—that you -quarrelled? He never made a row, or knocked you -about, did he?”</p> - -<p>“Only the once,” Elsie said automatically.</p> - -<p>She pushed up her sleeve, then shuddered violently as -she recalled that she had last made use of that same gesture -in the tea-shop with Morrison.</p> - -<p>“My goodness, did Horace do that? You must have -tried him pretty high, <i>I</i> know. How are you going to -account for that bruise, young Elsie?”</p> - -<p>“Who’s to know about it?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, they’ll find out fast enough! They get to know -about everything. Look here, did you say that you’d -been pushed against the wall by whoever it was who did -in poor Horace?”</p> - -<p>Elsie nodded, too much stunned even to wonder how her -mother had become possessed of this information.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span>“Very well, then. Those bruises on your arm are -where you fell against that wall. Don’t forget. I shall -say you showed them to me, and told me about it.”</p> - -<p>“Say what—when?” Elsie asked stupidly. “I suppose -all this’ll be over before I’m quite mad, and they’ll let me -go home to-day.”</p> - -<p>Her mother’s fat face puckered up suddenly, and she -began to cry with loud, gulping sobs. “I don’t know!” -she wailed. “I don’t know.”</p> - -<p>“But what—what—for Heaven’s sake, Mother, stop that -noise, and tell me what they’re going to do. <i>What is it?</i>” -almost shrieked Elsie, striving to fight down the panic that -threatened to overwhelm her.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you understand, you little fool? (God forgive -me for speaking like that!) Oh, Elsie, I’m afraid—I’m -afraid they’ll—they’ll arrest you—for murder!”</p> - -<p>“Don’t use that word!” almost screamed Elsie.</p> - -<p>“How can I help it? Murder’s what’s been done, and -it lies between you and that fellow Morrison. Elsie, how -far have things gone between you and him? But there, I -needn’t ask. I know you.” Mrs. Palmer wept convulsively.</p> - -<p>She remained with her daughter until late in the afternoon, -and twice during that time Elsie was summoned to -a further interrogatory. She learnt that Morrison’s knife -had been found close to the alley, and that he had been -fetched from his office early in the day and taken away -by the police.</p> - -<p>It was after her mother had gone away, as the dusk was -gathering, that Elsie Williams and Leslie Morrison were -charged together with the wilful murder of Horace -Williams.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>“For God’s sake, Mrs. Williams, tell me the whole -truth!”</p> - -<p>Elsie looked dumbly at Mr. Cleaver, too sick with fright -to speak.</p> - -<p>“Do you understand that you’re in the most frightful -danger?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>A sound that just amounted to an interrogation forced -its way between her dry lips.</p> - -<p>“You know what the sentence is for anyone found guilty -of wilful murder?”</p> - -<p>Elsie screamed and shrank.</p> - -<p>Cleaver bent forward, deep dents coming and going at -the corners of his nostrils, his white face working with -earnestness. She could see the sweat shining upon his -forehead.</p> - -<p>“Try and understand. You will be committed for -trial for the murder of your husband.”</p> - -<p>“But Leslie Morrison....”</p> - -<p>“He’s in the same boat. His one idea, it seems, is to -shield you—to pay the whole of the penalty himself.”</p> - -<p>“It was him who—who....” Elsie’s voice trailed -away.</p> - -<p>“I know. But who inspired him to do it, Mrs. Williams? -I tell you that nothing but absolute frankness can -give you a chance.”</p> - -<p>“Shall I be in the witness-box?”</p> - -<p>A bewildered idea that she could still make use of her -charm to serve her present cause made Elsie ask the -question.</p> - -<p>“You will be in the dock,” said Cleaver grimly. “Understand -that everything—your life itself—depends upon -your being absolutely straightforward with me. Don’t -conceal anything—don’t attempt to. I tell you, it’s your -one hope.”</p> - -<p>Elsie stared and stared at Mr. Cleaver. “I never meant -Leslie to do it!” she cried suddenly and wildly.</p> - -<p>“But you knew he was going to?”</p> - -<p>“No, no, no!”</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Williams, tell me the truth. You and Morrison -were madly in love with one another, and had been for -over a year?”</p> - -<p>She nodded.</p> - -<p>“You knew that your husband would never, in any -circumstances, set you free?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. We asked him, begged him to. He—he was -very cruel, Mr. Cleaver.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span>“You and Morrison would not face open scandal by -going away together?”</p> - -<p>“It wasn’t that.”</p> - -<p>“What was it, then?”</p> - -<p>She hesitated, twisting her handkerchief round and -round in her fingers.</p> - -<p>The solicitor moistened his lips with his tongue. “Your -only hope, your one and only hope in this world, Mrs. -Williams, is to speak the truth. I’m powerless to help -you if you won’t be open. Don’t be afraid that everything -you say now will come out in the police-court; it won’t -necessarily be so at all—far from it. But I can judge of -nothing unless I know every single thing.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you,” said Elsie, white to the lips.</p> - -<p>“Why would you and Morrison not have gone away -together? Were you afraid?”</p> - -<p>“We had no money.”</p> - -<p>“I see. Morrison’s pay was very small, and you had -nothing but what your husband gave you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Whereas if you were a widow, you had reason to suppose -that Williams would leave you comfortably provided for?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Did it not occur to you, then, that his death would be -a very convenient solution of the whole problem?”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes! How could I help thinking that?”</p> - -<p>“You not only thought it, Mrs. Williams, you said it, -and you wrote it.”</p> - -<p>“I never——” The denial sprang from her quite -instinctively.</p> - -<p>Mr. Cleaver put up his hand authoritatively. “Wait! -Do you remember a conversation with a friend of yours, -Miss Irene Tidmarsh, on the eighteenth of last October, -when you made use of the words, ‘I wish to the Lord that -Horace would do the decent thing or go West, and let me -have a chance of happiness’?”</p> - -<p>Elsie was terrified at the precision with which her very -words were quoted and the occasion known. “I can’t -remember,” she gasped.</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Williams, you <i>must</i> speak the truth. Remember<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span> -that a great deal is known already, and banish any idea of -false shame from your mind. This is a question of life and -death to you: neither more nor less. If I know the truth -from you, I can advise you as to the line you must take -under cross-examination. Remember that it will be a -terrible ordeal for you, and it’s essential that you should -be properly prepared for it. And weight will be attached, -without a doubt, to that conversation of yours with Miss -Tidmarsh.”</p> - -<p>“But how will they know about it?” she sobbed, forgetting -her previous denial.</p> - -<p>“Miss Tidmarsh will be called as a witness against -you,” said Mr. Cleaver gravely. “We’ve got to account -for those words of yours somehow, and what is more serious -still—if anything could be more serious—we’ve got to -keep out of sight, if we can, those damning letters of -yours.”</p> - -<p>“What letters?” screamed Elsie, a new and unbearable -horror clutching at her.</p> - -<p>“The letters, Mrs. Williams, that you have repeatedly -written to Leslie Morrison during the past months.”</p> - -<p>“They’re burnt, they’re burnt!” shrieked Elsie. “He -swore he’d burn them!”</p> - -<p>“I wish to God he had, but he never did, Mrs. Williams. -Those letters may form the bulk of the evidence against -you. You repeat in them, again and again, that Williams -ill-treated you, made you miserable, and that you wish he -was dead. In one of them occurs the words: ‘He’s ill -now, and taking sleeping draughts. One little mistake in -pouring out the mixture, Leslie, and you and I might be -free! I’d do more than that for our love’s sake, darling.’ -Do you understand the awful weight that those -expressions and many, many similar ones would carry with -a jury, Mrs. Williams? We’ve got to put some construction -on them other than the obvious one, if we can’t -get a ruling that they’re inadmissible as evidence, which is -what we shall try for. I want to make it very, very clear -to you. Everything depends on your co-operation. Are -you fit to listen to me?”</p> - -<p>Elsie was sobbing and writhing.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span>“Have you any letters whatever from Morrison?” -pursued the relentless voice of the solicitor.</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“What have you done with them?”</p> - -<p>“I burnt them all.”</p> - -<p>He looked at her as though doubting her words. “Very -few women burn their love-letters, Mrs. Williams.”</p> - -<p>“I was afraid to keep them.”</p> - -<p>“For fear of your husband seeing them?”</p> - -<p>She hesitated. “Partly.”</p> - -<p>In Elsie’s mind was a piercing recollection of the haunting -fear that had obsessed her ever since the scene at the house -of Madame Clara, the medium.</p> - -<p>“<i>Beware of the written word....</i>”</p> - -<p>But she would not give that reason for having destroyed -Morrison’s letters to the solicitor. The strange, undying -remnant of vanity that finds a lurking-place upon the -most apparently trivial and unlikely ground held her back -from the truth.</p> - -<p>Elsie Williams realised that Mr. Cleaver was in grimmest -earnest when he told her that only the absolute truth could -possibly save her; she was prepared to tell him the truth -in spite of her deadly terror and shame, but she could not -bring herself to say that the reason why she had destroyed -the letters of Leslie Morrison was because she could never -forget the words spoken by the clairvoyante whom she had -visited.</p> - -<p>“I burnt the letters because I had nowhere to keep -them, and I was afraid they might be found,” she repeated, -her young face grey and ravaged.</p> - -<p>It was the only particular in which she lied to Mr. Cleaver, -and she did so with blind and irrational persistence.</p> - -<p>After the hours that he spent with her, Elsie, physically -exhausted, and psychically strung to a pitch of tension -that she had never known in her life before, was left alone -in her cell, face to face with her own soul.</p> - -<p>At first, fragmentary recollections of the past forty-eight -hours obsessed her. She went over and over her conversations -with the police officials, her own replies to Mr. -Cleaver, her mother’s hysterical ejaculations. Then she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span> -thought of Leslie Morrison, who had backed up her statements -to the police, and who, when both were arrested -together, had only asked through white lips: “Why -her? She was not aware of my movements.”</p> - -<p>But since her own half-unconscious betrayal of him, -Elsie’s feeling for Morrison had undergone an extraordinary -revulsion.</p> - -<p>It had all turned out so utterly unlike anything that they -had ever planned. It still seemed to Elsie that catastrophe -had fallen, a bolt from the blue, into the midst of their -lives without warning. She still felt that none of it could -be true, that she must wake as from a hideous dream.</p> - -<p>When had she had a hideous dream—something about -Horace—something like this?</p> - -<p>Dim associations of horror and bewilderment awoke -slowly within her, and brought to her the remembrance of -her visit with Irene Tidmarsh to the woman who had -called herself “clairvoyante.” She had talked in a deep, -rather artificial voice about love and intrigue; she had -bade Elsie beware of the written word. And then all of a -sudden the atmosphere had altered, Madame Clara’s voice -itself had altered, horribly, and she had screamed out -terrifying words and phrases. “Blood, and worse than -blood ... you’re all over blood! O, my God, what’s this? -It’s all over England—<i>you</i>—they’re talking about you.”</p> - -<p>Elsie understood. In a flash of searing, anguished -intuition she understood what would happen.</p> - -<p>With the appalling rapidity of a vision, there came to -her the realisation of all that would come to pass in the -near future.</p> - -<p>She knew already that the police-court trial was the -almost certain preliminary to her committal and Morrison’s -for trial at the Old Bailey. <i>They would be tried for -murder.</i></p> - -<p>She and the man who had been her lover would stand in -the dock together as prisoners; lawyers would fight out -questions concerning their past relations; people would -give evidence against them—evidence in their favour; -Elsie would in all probability hear her own letters to Leslie -Morrison read aloud in court....</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span>It would be a sensational trial, such as she had often -followed with avidity in the newspapers.</p> - -<p>“<i>It’s all over England—they’re talking about you....</i>”</p> - -<p>But why ... why?...</p> - -<p>Elsie Williams’ instant of vision fled from her as suddenly -as it had come, and left her agonisedly and wildly -rebellious, bewildered at the vortex of terror and shame and -misery into which it seemed to her that she had suddenly, -without volition of her own, been flung.</p> - -<p>She could not trace the imperceptibly-graduated stages -that had brought her to the pass where catastrophe became -inevitable. To her, it seemed that she had swiftly been -hurled from security into deadly peril by some agency as -irresistible as it was malignant.</p> - -<p>Every now and then realisation came to her, when -certain frightful words sprang into frightful meaning, as -they had never done before.</p> - -<p>“Murder....”</p> - -<p>“Conspiracy ... and incitement to murder....”</p> - -<p>“Principal in the second degree....” The police -officials had made use of that expression—so had Mr. -Cleaver.</p> - -<p>Elsie’s mother had fetched Mr. Cleaver, and had wildly -repeated, in front of Elsie and the lawyer, that she would -grudge no expense, not if it cost her her last penny.</p> - -<p>“And the aunties will help, Elsie, they’ve been ever so -good—anything we can get together, says your Aunt -Gertie, and her face the colour of the tablecloth. Mr. -Cleaver here will tell us the best man, if it—if it comes to—to....”</p> - -<p>“You could scarcely do better than Sir Cambourne -Trevor, Mrs. Palmer, but his fee, I ought to warn you, is a -thousand guineas.”</p> - -<p>“A thousand guineas!” Elsie and Mrs. Palmer had -screamed together.</p> - -<p>And Mr. Cleaver, gaunt and haggard and grey-faced, had -made answer: “It’s her life that will be at stake.”</p> - -<p>From time to time, Elsie understood. She knew, at -those moments, what it all meant. There would be no -more concealments, everything would be dragged out into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span> -a publicity that could only bring with it dishonour and -shameful notoriety, and hatred, and execration.</p> - -<p>And she would have to live through it—to suffer through -an ordeal of vast, incredible magnitude, of which the -climax—she knew it in a prescience that mercifully could -not endure—would come in the ghastly dawn of a prison-yard, -beneath the shadow of the scaffold....</p> - -<p>Inexorable results would be suffered by herself, and she -would never know how it was that these things had become -inevitable—had happened.</p> - -<p><i>Dawlish</i>, 1923.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span> -<p class="ph2">THE BOND OF UNION</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span></p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span> -<h2 class="nobreak">THE BOND OF UNION</h2> -<p class="ph1">(To A. P. D.)</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">A wide</span>, cushioned seat runs round three sides of the deep -fireplace in Torry Delorian’s library for the admitted -reason that Lady Pamela March likes to face the room -when she is talking.</p> - -<p>The room, of course, means the audience. Personally, -I consider that she could safely—I mean, without spoiling -her picture of herself—make use of the very word itself. -It is so obviously the only one that applies, when she sits -there, smoking one cigarette after another, and we sit -there, smoking one cigarette after another, all listening to -Pamela, playing up to Pamela, and all more or less sexually -attracted by Pamela.</p> - -<p>The subconscious mind of Pamela projects on these -occasions, I think, something of this kind:</p> - -<p><b>“<i>The girlish figure dominated the room. Magnetism -vibrated in every gesture of the slim hands, every glance from -the brilliant eyes, every modulation of the rather deep voice. -She held them all, by sheer force of personality. The -peacock-blue folds of her dress, with its girdle of barbaric, -coloured stones....</i>”</b></p> - -<p>The bit about the dress, of course, varies. Sometimes -the folds may be saffron-yellow, and the girdle opalescent, -or there is no girdle at all; and anyhow, in those particulars, -the same effect is never repeated twice. But I -imagine that, like all women, she makes a point to herself -of the accoutrements, not realising that the audience—almost -altogether composed of men—attribute the entire -effect to the sheer, smooth slope of her shoulders, the -alluring curves of her mouth, the rich swell of her breasts -beneath semi-transparencies.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span>The impression that inwardly she is projecting really -does reflect itself on to the minds of most people, I believe.</p> - -<p>It is only slightly distorted, even in my own version of -it, which runs something like this:</p> - -<p><b>“<i>The girlish figure dominated the room. Animal -magnetism vibrated in every gesture</i>”</b> ... and so on—only -leaving out the brilliancy of the eyes and the deepness -of the voice, both of them rather cheap accessories to -a pose that really is quite strong enough without them—to -the end:</p> - -<p><b>“<i>She held them all, by sheer will-to-dominate.</i>”</b></p> - -<p>Pamela, being a brilliant talker, prefers always to talk -personalities.</p> - -<p>Two nights ago, sitting on that cushioned rail that runs -round the fireplace, she recounted an adventure.</p> - -<p>“... Only it’s the spiritual adventure that I’m telling -all of you. Because you’ll understand. The other part -was all obvious, the danger and all that. You’ve probably -seen it in the papers.”</p> - -<p>She was right. It had been lavishly paragraphed, with -photograph inset. Her <i>flair</i> for publicity is unerring.</p> - -<p>“Darlings, how I loathe the Press—if I could only tell -you! But the other part of the affair was so utterly -wonderful, that it’s swamped everything else. It was like -a revelation.</p> - -<p>“You know how essentially super-civilised I am? A -man once wrote a poem about my being like a piece of -jade—hard, and brilliant, and polished, and yet with the -unfathomable subtlety and agelessness of the East. My -civilisation is partly temperamental, I suppose, and of -course to a certain extent the result of elaborate education—and -then hereditary as well. Look at Anthony. Could -anyone have a more utterly civilised parent, I ask you? -Elma is less poised, of course, but mercifully for me I’ve -managed to inherit my mother’s physique and my father’s -mentality. Like a sensitised plate, isn’t it? It does mean -isolation of soul, and those terrible nerve-storms of mine, -but in my heart of hearts I know it’s worth it.</p> - -<p>“Only people are so ghastly. My friends have to -rescue me.... You remember what it was like, Torry,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span> -the night that woman assaulted me at the Embassy, and -talked, and talked, and talked. O Christ! it was all about -food, or flannel, or babies—something too utterly indecent, -I know. I sat there, helpless, martyred—and darling -Torry came and rescued me. I shall never forget it, Torry, -you sweet, never.</p> - -<p>“Now this is what happened the other day. (Why do -you allow me to be discursive, dear people?) You know -my car was held up by Sinn Feiners? I, who adore everything -lawless! But it was simply for being Anthony’s -daughter, of course. They hate him so.</p> - -<p>“You know how I drive for miles and miles, entirely -alone, just so as to feel the air in my face, and my hands—rather -small, really, by comparison—controlling that -great swift machine. Well, I’d got to such a lonely place -that it was like finding God—when suddenly these men -appeared.</p> - -<p>“I wasn’t a bit frightened—I never am frightened—but -it was horrible, all the same. And I kept thinking of -the people who’d be so sorry if I were killed, and wondering -who’d be the sorriest, and who’d remember longest.”</p> - -<p><b>(<i>She looked round the room, her dark brows raised in an -expression part whimsical, part pathetic.</i>)</b></p> - -<p>“All this isn’t the adventure, you know, though they -took my jewels, and tied me up to a bench on a sort of -heath place. They tied me here, and here.”</p> - -<p>She held out a slim ankle, and extended both wrists.</p> - -<p>“Dear hearts, don’t, don’t touch me! I’m so dreadfully -on edge to-night. Nothing to do with the adventure, -though. That was altogether beautiful.</p> - -<p>“You see there was another woman on the bench, to -whom they’d done exactly the same thing—only she’d -been walking, not driving. They left us together, and said -they’d come back later and shoot us. Terrorism, of course, -but it would be such an ugly way of going out, wouldn’t -it?</p> - -<p>“She and I looked at one another, tied to either end of -that bench, and in some way that I simply can’t describe, -our spirits leapt together. She, it turned out afterwards, -recognised me at once—that’s the worst of being too weak<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span> -to refuse sittings when one’s pestered by every photographer -in London—but I hadn’t the least idea who she was, and -don’t care. Bright red hair, quite distinguished-looking, -and altogether rather lovely in a pallid, blanc-de-Ninon -way, though no actual physical charm. But I felt it -wouldn’t have mattered if she’d been a <i>déclassée</i>. By the -way, what is a <i>déclassée</i>?</p> - -<p>“This still isn’t the adventure—besides, you know this -part already, all of you—but some of those ruffians came -back again, and untied us, and said we could find our own -way home. They’d taken my car, needless to say. I gave -them one of my looks—the sort that means I’m really, -really angry, like when someone kisses me in a clumsy -way, or spills something on my frock—and the men melted, -literally melted, away. Then she and I began to walk, -and this is really when the part that matters started to -happen.</p> - -<p>“Having come through this shattering episode, and -found ourselves unshot, and alive, it was almost like two -disembodied spirits communing together. We got into -the realities straight away. It was far more wonderful -than if one of us had been a man, because then sex must -have come into it, but as it was, each of us laid her whole -soul perfectly bare, in the way one can never do to a man, -if he loves one, for fear it should kill his love, or if he -doesn’t love one, for fear it should make him think he does.</p> - -<p>“But as it was, each of us was perfectly fearless, and -in a way perfectly shameless. It was partly violent -emotional reaction. You see, we’d both thought we were -facing death.</p> - -<p>“She told me that she was utterly miserable. Her -husband was a brute, and her lover had let her down. -He’d fallen in love with a girl, a sort of pure-eyed-baby -person, and had just told this woman—who’d been giving -him everything, of course, for years—that he wanted to <i>se -ranger</i> and get married.</p> - -<p>“She was nearly out of her mind, that woman. You -see, she wasn’t young, and then some skin treatment she’d -been having hadn’t succeeded, and was helping to break -her up. She told me about that, too. Oh, there was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span> -nothing she didn’t say, but she simply didn’t care, we were -so utterly intimate for that fleeting moment. Nobody -else in the world knew, she told me. She’d always tried -to avoid scandal, and no one had ever really known about -her <i>liaison</i> with this man. (Women <i>are</i> clever about -love.)</p> - -<p>“And then I told her every single thing about myself—things -that I’d never dream of breathing in this room, -nor you of believing, most likely. Foul, filthy, hateful -things about myself.... I know now why Catholics go -to confession. It releases so much.</p> - -<p>“Darlings, words can’t ever describe what it was like. -I shall never forget it, as long as I live, and neither will she.</p> - -<p>“We parted, of course, but we both knew that there -was a link between us that nothing could ever break, even -though we never met again. It was too utterly perfect -and complete as it was.”</p> - -<p>There was a silence, and then someone said, suitably: -“Wonderful Pamela!”</p> - -<p>She smiled vaguely, shook her head, and then tragically -clasped both hands to her breast. “Please, a cocktail. -I’m so tired. Oh, and what’s the time? I’m dining with -a man at eight, and he’s thrown over a most important -engagement to take me, and he’d be quite capable of -getting angry if I failed him. Sweet, no! Not a quarter -past nine! Oh, please, someone, a car, and take me to -the little tiny, tiny French restaurant in Wardour Street.”</p> - -<p>Lady Pamela waved away the cocktail, spilling it, -prayed for another one and drank it, and then wafted away -on the wings of little distressed exclamations and futile, -effective gestures of farewell.</p> - -<p>That was two nights ago.</p> - -<p>This morning I was in Bond Street, and I saw Pamela -March in her father’s car, held up by a block in the traffic.</p> - -<p>On the other side of the narrow street another car with a -solitary woman in it passed slowly. I recognised the -woman instantly from Pamela’s description, for she had -bright red hair, was quite distinguished-looking, and -altogether rather lovely in a pallid, blanc-de-Ninon way, -and radiated a marked degree of physical charm.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span>The eyes of the two women who had been as disembodied -spirits communing together met in a long look.</p> - -<p>And the expression in each pair of eyes was momentarily -identical, and it was with the same effect of immutable -determination that each simultaneously administered and -received the cut direct.</p> - -<p><i>They knew....</i></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span></p> -<p class="ph2">LOST IN TRANSMISSION</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span></p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span> -<h2 class="nobreak">LOST IN TRANSMISSION</h2> -</div> - -<h3 class="nobreak">I</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Lambes were very rich.</p> - -<p>This was all the nicer for Mrs. Lambe, because once -upon a time, not so very long ago, when she was still Maude -Gunning, she had been poor. From the time she was -eighteen to the time she was thirty, she had taught music -at the girls’ school in Carlorossa Road. She had gone to -and from her work four days a week all through term -time by tram. Fortunately, the tram took her almost -from door to door. She was a bad walker, owing to corns.</p> - -<p>During the school holidays Maude had always tried to -find private pupils, and as she and her father and mother -were well known in the big manufacturing town and its -suburbs, and her successes at the L.R.C.M. examinations -were a subject of local pride, she had generally succeeded.</p> - -<p>And it was odd to think, as Mrs. Lambe quite often did -think, that most of the large, comfortable, expensive houses -to which she had gone—with a very keen appreciation, on -autumn and winter afternoons, of the big fire blazing in -the pupil’s schoolroom or dining-room, as the case might -be—to think that these houses, for the most part, were -less large, comfortable, and expensive than the one of which -she was now the mistress.</p> - -<p>Edgar Lambe, when he first met Miss Maude Gunning -at a tea-party, was already a wealthy man, although not -as rich as the demand for houses that sprang up during -the war afterwards made him.</p> - -<p>At the party, Maude played the piano, and played it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span> -very well. Mr. Lambe, who was naturally musical, asked -to be introduced to her. He had never married, -although he was forty years old, and he had recently -made up his mind to look for a wife. Maude attracted -him, although she was neither pretty nor very -young.</p> - -<p>Three months after their first meeting they were married.</p> - -<p>Mr. Lambe bought the largest corner house in Victoria -Avenue.</p> - -<p>It was, of course, wholly detached from its neighbours. -There was a carriage-sweep in the front, and a long, wide -garden at the back, and a high wall all round. There was -a tennis-court, two greenhouses, and a vegetable garden -beyond the flower-garden.</p> - -<p>The inside of Melrose was even more magnificent than -the outside, and far more interesting to Mrs. Lambe, who -was not very fond of being out-of-doors, having had a -great deal too much of it in her tram-journeying days. -But she had many ideas as to comfort and elegance indoors, -and Edgar was generous with money, and had a standard -of his own—and one that secretly rather scared her—as to -the way in which a house should be “run.”</p> - -<p>This standard of Edgar’s was principally applied to -lighting, heating, food and service. The house was fitted -with electric light, of course, and Edgar had had a separate -boiler put in for the three bathrooms, so that it was his -favourite boast that if anyone wanted a bath in the middle -of the night, the water would still come out of the tap -almost boiling. There were radiators in all the rooms -except the kitchen, offices and servants’ bedrooms, and -hot pipes in the linen-cupboard.</p> - -<p>It took Mrs. Lambe a little while to assimilate Edgar’s -views as to meals. She quite understood that these must -be served punctually, and that the plates must be hot—really -hot—and that there must always be a relay of fresh -toast towards the end of breakfast; and of course late -dinner every night except Sunday, when it was cold supper. -But she did find it a little bit difficult, just at first, to realise -that Edgar disapproved strongly of twice-cooked meat. -At her own home there had been a weekly joint, which was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span> -hot on Sunday, cold on Monday, hashed on Tuesday, and -cottage-pie’d on Wednesday—and sometimes, if it had -been a larger joint than usual, curried on Thursday and -turned into rissoles on Friday.</p> - -<p>At Melrose, after one, or at the most two, appearances -in the dining-room, the beef disappeared into the kitchen -and was finished there, while a new joint, or a pair of fowls, -took its place on the upstairs <i>menu</i>.</p> - -<p>The amount of “butcher’s meat” that came into the -house amazed and disconcerted its mistress, until she -found that her servants took it as a matter of course, and -that her husband continually praised her to his friends as a -good manager, and that the monthly bills—which at first -had appalled her—by no means exceeded the sum which -he had himself suggested that he should allow her for the -housekeeping.</p> - -<p>By the time that Mrs. Lambe had a nursery, with two -little girls in it, and a nurse, and a nursery-maid to wait -upon them, she took it quite as a matter of course that -there should be yet a third list of items to consider in the -ordering of meals—weekly chickens, and special dairy -produce, and a regular supply of white fish, for the nursery. -This question of food for the household was, of course, -immensely important, and she gave a great deal of conscientious -thought to it, thankful when the cook suggested -a new variety of sweet for the dinner-parties to which -Edgar so much enjoyed inviting his business friends and -their families.</p> - -<p>On these occasions he himself selected the wines with -the utmost care, and instructed the two parlour-maids -minutely and repeatedly in the proper formula to be -employed with each course.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lambe was always relieved that this great responsibility -did not in any way rest upon her. A mistake, she -felt, would be altogether <i>too</i> terrible.</p> - -<p>The parlour-maid and the waitress who always came in -for the evening when the Lambes entertained, never made -mistakes.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lambe was very “good” with servants, and never -had any difficulty in finding and keeping thoroughly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span> -satisfactory domestics. The little girls’ nurse, who received -far higher wages than any of them except the cook, was the -only one with whom there was sometimes a little trouble.</p> - -<p>She occasionally hinted that Ena and Evelyn were rather -spoiled, and inclined to come up to the nursery disposed -to be fretful and out of sorts after too much notice in the -drawing-room, and far too many expensive chocolates from -the pink and blue and gilt boxes that were always being -given to them.</p> - -<p>Mr. Lambe was a lavish and indulgent father. He -thought his fair-haired, pretty little daughters wonderful, -and took the greatest delight in associating “Dad’s” return -from the office with new toys or “surprises” of sweetmeats.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lambe never had the heart to disappoint him by -suggesting that his munificence was making the little -girls rather critical and capricious, even at six and four -years old. Edgar only roared with appreciative laughter -when they told him, seriously and rather crossly, that they -always wanted the chocolates to come from Blakiston’s—which -was the best, and by far the most expensive, confectioner’s -in the city. They did not care for any other -kind.</p> - -<p>Edgar repeated this story to a great many of his friends, -who were as much amused as he was himself at such an -instance of early discrimination.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lambe was amused herself, and could not help -thinking that Ena and Evelyn were smart and original -children.</p> - -<p>They were also very pretty; rather pallid, sharp-featured -little things, always beautifully dressed, exactly -alike. Neither she nor Edgar regretted in the very least -that neither of them had been a boy.</p> - -<p>Every night Maude Lambe, who had been brought up -to be thoroughly religious, knelt at the side of her enormous -bed, with its opulent pink satin duvet, and humbly thanked -God for all that He had given her—Edgar and the children, -and Edgar’s wealth and kindness, and her beautiful, comfortable -home.</p> - -<p>There was only one fly in the ointment—Aunt Tessie.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span>Edgar had told her all about Aunt Tessie before they -were married. He had explained that she would live with -him always, in spite of the undeniable fact that she was -Not like Other People, and that he would never allow her -to be sent away to an institution, whatever the other -Lambe relations might say.</p> - -<p>Aunt Tessie had been very good to him when he was a -little boy, and this Edgar never intended to forget. He -had had a very unhappy childhood, with a mother who -drank and a stepfather who beat him. Aunt Tessie, who -had actually made a living for herself in those days out of -painting pictures, had done everything that she could do -to induce them to let little Edgar come and live with her, -and when they would not agree to that, she had still sent -him presents and surreptitiously given him pocket-money, -and when he had been sent away to school, she had come -regularly and taken him out, and invited him to her flat -whenever she could. She was the only person who had -ever shown him any affection when he was a child, Edgar -had once told his wife.</p> - -<p>Maude had been very much touched, and thought it -noble of dear Edgar to remember so faithfully, in his -great prosperity, the good old aunt who had long ceased to -be able to paint even bad pictures, and who had become -terribly, almost dangerously, eccentric about ten years -earlier. Edgar had then immediately taken her to live with -him, declaring Aunt Tessie once and for all to be his charge.</p> - -<p>All this he had explained to his wife before they were -married, and her generous and even eager acquiescence had -met him more than half-way.</p> - -<p>Maude, indeed, had been ready to accept Aunt Tessie -as her charge, too. She had felt nothing but a tender compassion -for the probably frail, half-childish invalid, towards -whose garrulousness she would never fail of kindly semi-attention, -and to whose bodily weakness every care should -be extended. But Aunt Tessie had turned out not to be -that sort of invalid at all.</p> - -<p>To begin with, her physical health was robust and -powerful. She was only fifty-five, and her hair was not -grey, but a strong, virulent auburn.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span>Her complexion was sanguine, her large, harshly-lined -face suffused with colour and disfigured by swelling, -purplish veins.</p> - -<p>Her voice was very loud and hoarse, and she laughed -with a sound like a neigh. As for Aunt Tessie’s appetite, -it was simply prodigious. Even had expense been a -serious consideration at Melrose, Mrs. Lambe would never -have grudged anyone a hearty meal—she had too often -gone semi-hungry herself for that—but really, Aunt -Tessie, with her second and third helping of beef, and her -two glasses of claret, and her frank eagerness for dessert -chocolates, was not decent.</p> - -<p>She always had her meals in the dining-room, and it was -really on that account that Ena and Evelyn had their -midday dinner upstairs, and only came downstairs when -the starched and mob-capped maids were handing round -coffee. Their mother would have liked them to come to -the dining-room for luncheon, at least on Sundays, but they -both hated Aunt Tessie, and made faces and laughed at -each other when she uttered any of her loud, inconsequent -remarks, or pushed her food into her mouth with her fingers.</p> - -<p>Maude, and even Edgar, had tried to persuade Aunt -Tessie that it would be more comfortable for her to have -all her meals in the large upstairs sitting-room that they -had given her, but Aunt Tessie had been first angry and -then hurt. They wanted her out of the way, she said -angrily, they were ashamed of her, and did not like her to -meet their friends.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lambe could not help thinking that it was rather -ungrateful of Aunt Tessie to say this, after all that had -been done for her. However, they would not vex and -disappoint the poor old lady, and so she continued to -appear downstairs, even when there was a party, and to -embarrass and disconcert everybody by her ineptitudes and -her uncouth manners at the dinner-table.</p> - -<h3 class="nobreak">II</h3> - -<p>By the time the Armistice was signed, Mr. Lambe had -become richer than ever.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>He entertained his friends even more often to dinner, -and gave them better wine, although it had always been -so good before. He increased Mrs. Lambe’s allowance for -the housekeeping, and frequently gave her presents of -money to be spent upon herself or the little girls. He -would have given Aunt Tessie money too, but she had -grown even queerer in the course of the past year, and -it was only too evident that what had been called her -“eccentricity” was now becoming something much more -serious. For the very first time, there was trouble with -the maids.</p> - -<p>They did not like waiting on Miss Lambe. It was no -wonder, either, poor Mrs. Lambe was forced to admit.</p> - -<p>Aunt Tessie was untidy, even dirty, and as the housemaid -once pertly remarked, her bedroom only needed -three gold balls over the door. She kept things to eat -upstairs, and scattered crumbs everywhere.</p> - -<p>The parlour-maid, speaking for herself and for the housemaid, -declared that it was quite impossible to do the proper -work of the house and to clear up after Miss Lambe as well.</p> - -<p>In another moment she would have given notice.... -Mrs. Lambe could see it coming.</p> - -<p>Hastily she sent for Emma, the little between-maid, and -informed her that in future she would have the sole care -of Miss Lambe’s bedroom and her sitting-room, and would -wait upon her, instead of the housemaid. She at the same -time raised Emma’s wages by two pounds a year, for she -always tried to be very just.</p> - -<p>Emma was only seventeen, and a very childish little -thing, and Mrs. Lambe had not expected her to raise any -objection to the new scheme; but it was surprising, -although satisfactory, to find that Emma seemed to be -actually pleased by it.</p> - -<p>She said “Yes’m,” a good many times, and smiled at -her mistress as though joyfully accepting a form of promotion.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lambe was relieved, the parlour-maid and the -housemaid did not give notice, and even Aunt Tessie—very -difficult to please nowadays—appeared contented and -satisfied.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span>But she was getting worse all the time.</p> - -<p>It became more and more embarrassing when visitors -came to Melrose.</p> - -<p>The old lady always found out when anyone was expected, -and the more people were coming the noisier and -more excited she became.</p> - -<p>One dreadful Sunday there were guests for luncheon—two -of Edgar’s important clients, and little Ena’s godfather—a -rich old bachelor cousin—and two unmarried -ladies, friends of Mrs. Lambe’s maiden days. She was -always very faithful to her friends.</p> - -<p>Aunt Tessie actually pranced downstairs and met some -of these people in the hall as they arrived, and greeted -them boisterously, and so incoherently that really they -might almost have been excused for thinking that she had -been taking too much to drink.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lambe, hastening downstairs from her own room, -could hear it all, although she could not see it, and it was -thus that she afterwards described it to Edgar.</p> - -<p>“So glad—so glad to see you!” shouted Aunt Tessie. -“This fine house—always open, and my nephew is so -generous and hospitable. They take advantage, sometimes—there -are bad people about, very bad people. -Sometimes they make attempts ... one’s life isn’t as -safe as it looks, I can assure you....”</p> - -<p>She had thrown out such ridiculous and yet sinister -hints once or twice lately. But what <i>could</i> the poor guests -think of it all?</p> - -<p>They were very polite, and soon saw that the best thing -to do was to ignore Aunt Tessie as far as possible, and -pretend not to hear when she talked, and not to see when -she shuffled about the room, upsetting ornaments here -and there, and every now and then whisking round suddenly -to look behind her as though she expected someone or -something to be following her. Once she shouted very -loud, “Get out, I tell you! I can <i>smell</i> the poison from -here!...” But after the first involuntary, startled -silence, everyone began simultaneously to talk again, and -very soon after that, luncheon was announced.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lambe saw that her husband, talking to his principal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span> -guest and smiling a great deal, kept on all the time -turning an anxious eye towards Aunt Tessie, and this -emboldened her to do what she had never done before.</p> - -<p>She put her hand on the old lady’s arm, and detained -her whilst the others were all going into the dining-room.</p> - -<p>“Dear auntie,” she said, speaking low and very gently, -“I’m sure you’re not well. You look so flushed and tired. -All these people are really too much for you. Do let -Emma carry your lunch upstairs on a tray and have it -comfortably in your own room.”</p> - -<p>But it was of no use.</p> - -<p>Aunt Tessie, her looks and her manner stranger than -ever, vociferated an incoherent refusal, mixed up with something -about Emma, to whom she had taken a violent fancy.</p> - -<p>“A good girl—the only one you can trust. She never -<i>plots against people</i>!” Aunt Tessie shouted, nodding her -head with wild emphasis, and rolling her eyeballs round in -their sockets.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lambe could do nothing. She dared not let Aunt -Tessie sit next to any of the visitors, and of course she -herself had to have one of the important clients upon either -side of her, but she made Ena and Evelyn, who were -lunching downstairs in honour of the godfather’s presence, -take their places one on each side of their extraordinary -old relative.</p> - -<p>Evelyn, who was very little, began to whine and protest, -but Mrs. Lambe pretended not to hear. She knew that -Evelyn’s attention was always very easily distracted. She -felt much more afraid of Ena, and her heart sank when, -out of the corner of her eye, she saw Aunt Tessie officiously -trying to put Ena’s long curls away from her shoulders.</p> - -<p>The little girl’s fair, pretty face turned black with -scowls in an instant, and she twitched herself away from -the big, heavy, mottled hand fumbling clumsily at her -neck, and sat with her back as nearly as possible turned to -Aunt Tessie.</p> - -<p>One couldn’t really blame the poor children for disliking -her so much, but it was very bad for them ... it made -them naughty and ill-mannered....</p> - -<p>Poor Mrs. Lambe could only give half her attention to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span> -her guests, and she saw that Edgar, too, underneath his -geniality and his urgent and repeated invitations that -everyone should have more food and more wine, was -anxious and ill at ease.</p> - -<p>Every now and then Aunt Tessie’s strident tones rose -above all the other sounds in the big, hot dining-room.</p> - -<p>“Not any more—no. They put things into one’s -food sometimes, and then they think one doesn’t notice. -But the one who waits on me—Emma, her name is—she’s -all right. You can trust her.”</p> - -<p>Aunt Tessie’s words, no less than her emphasis on Emma’s -trustworthiness, would of course be noticed, and bitterly -resented, by the other two servants, waiting deftly and -quietly at the table. But neither of them moved a muscle, -even when she went on to something worse.</p> - -<p>“Never put any confidence in upper servants,” declared -Aunt Tessie, leaning across the table and almost shouting. -“They may be civil enough, but they plot and plan behind -people’s backs. There’s cases in the newspapers very -often ... it’s ... it’s murder, really, you know. They -call it accidental, but sometimes it’s poisoning. One can’t -be too auspicious—suspicious, I should say.”</p> - -<p>She paused to laugh vacantly at her own slip of the -tongue, and to let her eyes rove all over the table as -though in search of something.</p> - -<p>Mr. Lambe clumsily wrenched at the conversation: -“Talking about newspaper reports, that was a curious -case in Staffordshire....”</p> - -<p>The visitors seconded him gamely, and Aunt Tessie’s -voice was overborne and heard again only in snatches.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lambe, however, was very much upset, and she -ordered coffee to be brought to the drawing-room so as to -make a move as soon as possible.</p> - -<p>Things were a little better in the drawing-room. Ena and -Evelyn were soon screaming and romping round Ena’s -godfather, and one of Maude’s humble friends, perhaps -feeling that she owed her something in return for the -splendid luncheon and lavish hospitality, sat in the bow-window -with Aunt Tessie and kept her away from the rest -of the room. This was a great relief, although it led to an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span> -uncomfortable moment when the party was breaking up, -and Aunt Tessie, vehemently taking leave of her kind -companion, actually caught up a little gilt trifle from -Maude’s knick-knack shelf and tried to press it upon her -acceptance.</p> - -<p>Miss Mason was very tactful, pretending with rather an -embarrassed look to accept the impossible gift, and secretly -slipping it on to a table near the door as she went out.</p> - -<p>Aunt Tessie did not see, but Maude did. She was nearly -crying by the time it was all over and everyone had gone -away. The children had been sent upstairs again, and -Aunt Tessie’s heavy footsteps had taken her to her own -part of the house.</p> - -<p>Curiously enough, she and Edgar hardly spoke to one -another about the disastrous subject, but Maude Lambe -knew very well that he now, as well as she, fully realised -the discomfort and humiliation entailed upon the whole -household by his too-generous treatment of Aunt Tessie.</p> - -<h3 class="nobreak">III</h3> - -<p>Soon it was no longer possible to pretend that Aunt Tessie -was not getting worse and worse. Her constant, irrelevant -allusions to plots, and poisonings, and wicked people, had -become a fixed delusion.</p> - -<p>She really thought that everyone at Melrose was conspiring -against her life, and she would allow no one, except -Emma, to do anything for her.</p> - -<p>It was a mercy, Mrs. Lambe often told herself, that -Emma was such a good little thing. She was so willing, -and never seemed to grudge the time and trouble that she -was obliged to spend over cleaning Aunt Tessie’s apartments -and tidying up after her. She would even listen, -respectfully and yet compassionately, to Aunt Tessie’s long, -rambling denunciations and accusations.</p> - -<p>“Poor old lady!” Maude once overheard Emma saying -to another servant. “She’s a lady just the same, for all -she’s gone queer, and I behaves towards her like I would -to any other lady, that’s all.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span>“Funny kind of a lady that makes a face at a servant, -as she did at me this morning.”</p> - -<p>“She never done that to me, nor nothing the least like -it,” said Emma stoutly.</p> - -<p>It was only too true that Aunt Tessie was very rude to -all the maids except Emma, and sometimes to Edgar and -Maude as well. As she grew worse, she seemed to forget -all their kindness and generosity, and to look upon them -as being her enemies.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lambe would not let the little girls go near her -any more, and the nurse had orders to keep them away -from Miss Lambe “until she grew better.”</p> - -<p>Aunt Tessie, however, did not grow better.</p> - -<p>The doctor, an old friend of Edgar Lambe’s, advised -them to have a nurse for her, if they were still determined -to keep her on at Melrose, instead of sending her to one of -the many excellent establishments that he could have -recommended.</p> - -<p>“Nothing in the least like an institution or—or asylum. -Simply a nursing home where Miss Lambe would have -entire freedom and every possible comfort, but would yet -receive the constant medical supervision that her unfortunate -condition renders necessary.”</p> - -<p>But Edgar Lambe remained obstinate. Aunt Tessie -had been very good to him in the past, and he had always -said that she should be his special charge. He would not -send her away to any nursing home, however highly -recommended.</p> - -<p>He was, however, quite willing that a professional nurse -should be installed at Melrose. The expense, he said, was -nothing, if it would make things easier for Maude and be -of advantage to Aunt Tessie.</p> - -<p>The presence of Nurse Alberta certainly fulfilled both -these requirements.</p> - -<p>She was an intelligent, pleasant-looking woman of five- -or six-and-thirty, with none of the pretensions so often -associated with her class. She had meals with Aunt -Tessie, in the latter’s big, comfortable sitting-room, and -slept in a little room adjoining hers. Both of them were -waited upon by Emma.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span>Aunt Tessie nowadays made no difficulty about not -coming to the dining-room. Her crazy old mind had -fastened upon the idea of poison, and Emma and Nurse -Alberta were the only people from whom she would accept -food or drink.</p> - -<p>The nurse told Emma, with whom she became quite -friendly by dint of constant association, that the “persecution -mania” was a very common symptom amongst those -who were mentally deranged.</p> - -<p>“They always think that everybody’s against them,” she -declared cheerfully, “even those who do most for them. -Look at this poor old lady, for instance! She thinks Mr. -and Mrs. Lambe are plotting against her, and I’m sure -they’re goodness itself to her, and have been for years, I -should think. No expense grudged, and everything done -to make her comfortable. Why, most people would have -had an own mother sent away by this time and put under -restraint—and Miss Lambe is only an aunt. No real -relation at all, as you may say, to Mrs. Lambe. Really, I -do think Mrs. Lambe’s behaved wonderfully, and I’m sure -she finds it a strain.”</p> - -<p>Nurse Alberta was quite right. Mrs. Lambe did find -the presence of Aunt Tessie in the house a great strain, -even now.</p> - -<p>In her heart, she was terribly afraid that the old aunt, -who had so rapidly passed from one distressing stage to -another, might suddenly become a real danger to those -around her.</p> - -<p>She thought of Ena and Evelyn and shuddered. Very -often, she woke in the night and crept out to the landing, -trembling, to listen at the night-nursery door.</p> - -<p>One day, when Nurse Alberta had been in the house for -some time, Mrs. Lambe felt so wretched and so much unstrung -by her state of now chronic nervousness, that she -detained the doctor after his habitual visit to Aunt Tessie, -and timidly spoke to him of her own symptoms.</p> - -<p>He listened very attentively, asked her several questions, -and finally made a suggestion which Mrs. Lambe saw at -once ought to have occurred to her earlier.</p> - -<p>She was going to have another child.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span>It was over five years since Evelyn’s birth, and she had -somehow never expected to have any more babies, but both -Mr. and Mrs. Lambe were honestly pleased.</p> - -<p>They hoped for a son.</p> - -<p>It was this discovery that led to the modification of -Edgar Lambe’s views about Aunt Tessie. Obviously, the -presence of the unfortunate old lady subjected Maude to a -continual strain that might easily become more and more -severe as time went on.</p> - -<p>The doctor, privately consulted by Mr. Lambe, admitted -that in his opinion it was not quite fair on Mrs. Lambe, in -her condition, to keep the aggressive, turbulent invalid in -the house with her. And it wasn’t as if Aunt Tessie herself -really benefited by it, either. She was far past appreciating -any kindness or attention shown to her now. Her -<i>idée fixe</i> was that everyone at Melrose excepting poor little -Emma, the maid, was plotting against her in some way, -and seeking to poison her.</p> - -<p>Mr. Lambe listened, nodding his head, his red, heavy-jowled -face puckered with distress. It went against the -grain with him to invalidate the boast of years—that -Aunt Tessie should always share his home—and yet in his -heart he felt that the doctor was right.</p> - -<p>Aunt Tessie was past minding or knowing, poor soul—and -Maude and their unborn son must come first.</p> - -<p>When once he had fairly made up his mind to it, Edgar -Lambe could not help feeling a certain relief. He, too, in -his own way, had suffered on those dreadful occasions -when Aunt Tessie had insisted upon appearing downstairs, -and had made his friends and his family uncomfortable by -her strange, noisy eccentricity. Even nowadays his daily -visit to her room was a miserable affair. It gave her no -pleasure now to see the nephew for whom she had once -done so much, and who had done so much for her in return. -She classed him with her imaginary enemies.</p> - -<p>It was very difficult for Edgar Lambe, who was not at -all an imaginative man, not to feel irrationally wounded -by those wild accusations of enmity. He could scarcely -be brought to understand that poor Aunt Tessie’s floods of -foolish vituperation had, in themselves, no meaning at all.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span>“But she was always devoted to me,” he said, half -resentfully and half piteously. “I can’t make it out at all. -You’d think that even now she’d be able to—to distinguish -a bit between me and the wretched cook or charwoman. -But no, she abuses us all alike, and seems to think we’re -all in league to do her in.”</p> - -<p>“It’s part of her illness, Mr. Lambe,” said Nurse Alberta -soothingly. “You know, she really is quite cracky, poor -old lady.”</p> - -<p>The “arrangements,” as the doctor called them, were -made as speedily as possible, since they were naturally -distressing to everybody, and Mr. and Mrs. Lambe went -themselves to see Aunt Tessie’s new quarters, and to talk -to the charming lady at the head of the establishment, and -get special permission for Nurse Alberta, to whom Aunt -Tessie was used, to take her there and remain with her for -some time until she grew accustomed to it all.</p> - -<p>“Fires in her room, of course, and any extras that she -may fancy,” said Mr. Lambe impressively. “Expense is -of no consideration at all. I shall send round a comfortable -couch for the sitting-room this afternoon.”</p> - -<p>He did so, and Mrs. Lambe added two or three fat -cushions, and a decorated lampshade and waste-paper -basket, such as she liked in her own drawing-room.</p> - -<p>When Aunt Tessie was told that she was going away -from Melrose for a time, she was delighted.</p> - -<p>“Then I can relish my food again,” she said rather coarsely.</p> - -<p>“There’s never any knowing what they’re all up to here.”</p> - -<p>That remained her attitude up to the very last. She -dumped them all together as objects of her aggrieved -resentment. Edgar, Maude, the two little girls, the impassive, -well-behaved servants.</p> - -<p>But when she said good-bye to Emma the night before -she was to go away, Aunt Tessie squeezed her hand hard, -and gave her some money and several ornaments and -little trinkets from her own possessions.</p> - -<p>Soft-hearted Emma cried, and hurried away to the -sitting-room to find Nurse Alberta. “I just can’t bear to -listen to her, poor old lady, saying I’m the only one as -never tried to do her a mischief,” she sobbed.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span>“You’re a silly girl to take on so,” said the nurse good-naturedly. -“Why, she’ll be ever so well looked after where -she’s going, and there’s good money being spent on her -comforts, I can tell you, and Mr. Lambe won’t let that be -wasted. It isn’t like some poor looneys, that get put away -and not a soul of their own people ever goes near them to -see how they’re getting on. She’ll be kept an eye on, -you may be very sure, and it’ll be best for all parties to -have her under another roof, really it will.”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes, I know!” said Emma.</p> - -<p>“It isn’t even as if she wanted to stay, you know, -Emma. She’s turned dead against them, like cases of her -sort often do. Look at the way she spoke to you about -your being the only one that didn’t want to poison her, or -some such rubbish.”</p> - -<p>There was a pause.</p> - -<p>“Nurse,” said Emma suddenly, “do mad people <i>know</i> -as they’re mad?”</p> - -<p>“They say not,” indifferently returned Nurse Alberta, -biting a thread off her piece of needlework. “Why, -Emma?”</p> - -<p>“Because—well, me and Cook got to talking last night -about poor Miss Lambe, and—I can’t say it how I mean,” -Emma rambled on confusedly, “but Cook would have it -that people as go off their heads—well, they <i>are</i> off their -heads. They don’t look at anything like we do any more—it’s -sort of all upside down to them. But I didn’t think -it was like that—well, at any rate not with Miss Lambe.”</p> - -<p>“Why not?” said Nurse Alberta.</p> - -<p>She looked interested and Emma was encouraged.</p> - -<p>“I thought, perhaps,” she said timidly, “that the inside -of her poor mind is still like everybody’s else’s, in a way, -only she can’t get the thoughts to come out right. And I -thought, perhaps, that when she said all that about them -wanting to poison her, it was only her—her mad sort of -way of saying that she’d felt, all along, they really wanted -her to go away. And that would be why she said I was -the only person that she was safe with. Because I never -did want her to go away. The master and mistress and -the young ladies may have felt like that. Of course, it’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span> -been ever so trying for them, I know, having her here like -that—and the girls downstairs, they wanted her to go. -But I never did, and I wondered if perhaps that was what -she sort of felt, only she couldn’t explain it right, and so -it came out that way—in all her talk about being poisoned, -and that.”</p> - -<p>Emma stopped and looked rather wistfully at the nurse.</p> - -<p>“You’ll think I’m balmy myself, talking like that. And -I can’t explain what I mean a bit well. It’s not as if I’d -been educated like you——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” said Nurse Alberta, smiling. “I -think I understand what you mean, Emma. According to -your notion, the poor old lady feels and thinks pretty much -the same as we do, but she’s lost the trick of communicating -her feelings and her thoughts. They—they get lost in -transmission, so to say.”</p> - -<p>“You do put it well, Nurse!” said Emma admiringly.</p> - -<p>Nurse Alberta looked gratified. “I don’t know,” she -said modestly. But she was herself rather pleased by the -sound of the phrase that she had used, and could not -resist repeating it.</p> - -<p>“It’s a bit far-fetched, perhaps, but there’s certainly -something in what you say, Emma,” she observed, biting -off another thread. “Lost in transmission—that’s the idea—lost -in transmission!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span> - -<p class="ph2">TIME WORKS WONDERS</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span></p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span> -<h2 class="nobreak">TIME WORKS WONDERS</h2> -</div> - -<h3 class="nobreak">I</h3> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">You</span> funny little thing!” he said patronisingly.</p> - -<p>Adela resented the term violently, but because he was -the only man who had ever attempted to talk personalities -with her, she accepted it smilingly.</p> - -<p>“I must read some of those books of yours. Tell me -what the names are.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it doesn’t matter! Never mind about my books,” -she said hurriedly.</p> - -<p>Adela could not imagine Willoughby reading anybody’s -books, unless definitely of that class which deals with a -fictitious Secret Service or the intrigues of an imaginary -kingdom.</p> - -<p>Her own books were small masterpieces of psychology, -subtly ironical. A shudder, half-humorous, half-despairing, -came over her at the idea of Hal Willoughby, bored -and mystified, ploughing his way through one of her books.</p> - -<p>“Never mind about my books,” she repeated. “I’d -rather you thought of me as a girl than as a writer.”</p> - -<p>She felt wildly daring in so speaking, partly because she -had called herself a girl, although she was thirty, and -partly because it was the first time that she had ever -attempted what she supposed to be a flirtation.</p> - -<p>Her reputation for cleverness had always been so great -and so terrible that young men had never dared to approach -her.</p> - -<p>She supposed that must be the reason for their aloofness, -since she had always been passably pretty; and even<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span> -now, by artificial light, she looked five years younger -than she was.</p> - -<p>Her hair and her colouring were charming in a subdued -and unvivid way, her features straight and very clean-cut. -She hardly realised how much too thin were the lips of -her tiny mouth, how intense and over-prominent her large -hazel eyes.</p> - -<p>“I never can imagine how anybody can write a book,” -said Willoughby.</p> - -<p>Adela moved uneasily. She could tell what was coming.</p> - -<p>“Do you think of a plot first, or do you just make it -up as you go along?”</p> - -<p>“It all depends.”</p> - -<p>She made the meaningless reply that had so often served -her before.</p> - -<p>“I should never know what to make the people say -next. Aren’t conversations awfully difficult?”</p> - -<p>“Sometimes.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose you are always on the look-out for people -to put into your books—under invented names, of course.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think I am.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but I expect you are! I expect really you sit -there, taking it all in, you know.”</p> - -<p>Why did people always think it necessary to talk to -her like this?</p> - -<p>“You ought to write a play. They say it pays like -fun.”</p> - -<p>“But, you see, I’m not a dramatist.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, rubbish! If you’re clever enough to write books, -of course you could write a play. I should, if I were you—really -I should.” His voice was charged with encouragement.</p> - -<p>“No, I couldn’t. Don’t let’s talk about that.”</p> - -<p>“Why not? I want to hear about these books of yours. -I’ve never met a literary lady before.”</p> - -<p>It was of no use. He would not talk to her as she was -almost sure that he would have talked to any other woman -in the room, given those distant sounds of music from the -ballroom, that hazy moonlight above the bench beneath -the syringa-bushes.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span>Adela grimly sacrificed her art, perjuring her soul away. -“I expect you think it’s very funny of me to write books,” -she said, desperately adapting her vocabulary to his own. -“I really do it mostly—a good deal—because it brings in -money.” She tried to laugh, and hated herself for the -artificiality of the sound.</p> - -<p>“I suppose girls are always glad of extra pocket-money,” -he assented indifferently.</p> - -<p>A girl—that was how he thought of her.</p> - -<p>She was pleased at that, but she struggled for a more -serious recognition of her capabilities, too. “It’s not only -pocket-money. I can really get a living from my writing, -though I’m always at home with my mother. But I -could be independent to-morrow if I liked.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, come now!” The words might have expressed -remonstrance, incredulity, astonishment.</p> - -<p>“The advance royalty—that’s the money the publishers -give me in advance—on my last book was two hundred -pounds,” she said calmly.</p> - -<p>She had never gone away to work, never had to pay for -her food or for a roof over her head, never tried her strength -or the strength of her resources in the struggle for livelihood -amongst unsupported women.</p> - -<p>Two hundred pounds for her year’s work was a large sum, -with no calls upon it.</p> - -<p>Willoughby repeated after her: “Two hundred pounds! -I say! You don’t expect me to believe you get that just -for writing a story?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.” She was uncertain of the reason for his disbelief, -and even whether he really did disbelieve her.</p> - -<p>“But was it a serious book, or just a novel?” He really -sounded perplexed.</p> - -<p>“Oh, ‘just a novel’!” she said bitterly.</p> - -<p>“Good Lord! How many do you write in a year?”</p> - -<p>“That last one took me over a year. My first one I -worked at, on and off, for five years.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose it doesn’t matter to you, taking your time, -but it would be quite worth scribbling them off one after -the other, if you can get money like that without working -for it, so to speak,” said Hal Willoughby.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span>He fingered his thick, fair moustache, and Adela looked -up at him furtively in the moonlight.</p> - -<p>He was very big and good-looking; and when she -danced with him, and met his full, bold gaze, Adela could -almost forget about such conversations between them as -the present one.</p> - -<p>Besides, he had not always talked like this. Once he -had pretended not to know what colour her eyes were, -and once he had told her about his life in India. She -wished intensely that the conversation now would shift -to some such topic.</p> - -<p>The moonlight and the heavy scent of the syringa seemed -to mock her.</p> - -<p>“And what are your books about?” said Willoughby -laboriously. “Love, I suppose?” He broke into a roar -of laughter. “Does the heroine fall fainting into the -hero’s arms in the last chapter, eh? That’s the style, -isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>Adela stood up, trembling. “I think I want to go in -now, please. The—the dance must be finished now.”</p> - -<p>He stood up also. “But I say! What’s the matter? -You’re not ratty, are you?” He pulled unceremoniously -at the prim velvet ribbons that hung from her waist. “Sit -down again. Don’t you know I’m going away to-morrow? -You might be a little bit nice to me, I do think.”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t know you wanted me to be,” she said swiftly.</p> - -<p>He laughed, and pulled her on to the bench again.</p> - -<p>Adela’s mother, with whom she always lived, had told -her very often that men never really respected a woman -who let them “take liberties.” Adela, never before put -to the test, recklessly determined to disregard the parental -axiom.</p> - -<p>When Willoughby caught hold of her chilly little ringless -hand, she made no movement of withdrawal.</p> - -<p>He looked down at her and laughed again. “What an -odd little thing you are! I don’t believe you’ve ever been -kissed, have you?”</p> - -<p>She was silent.</p> - -<p>“Has anybody ever made love to you, now?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said defiantly and untruly.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span>He laughed quite openly, and declared, “I don’t believe -it!”</p> - -<p>Still laughing, he put his hand under her chin, tilting -up her face, and kissed her.</p> - -<h3 class="nobreak">II</h3> - -<p>Hal Willoughby’s careless parting kiss remained the -only one that Adela was destined to receive.</p> - -<p>For ten years more she lived with her mother, and -heard her say proudly to other mothers, coming with the -news of Mollie’s engagement, or Dolly’s beautiful new baby:</p> - -<p>“Ah, I still keep my Adela, I’m glad to say. She’s -almost too fastidious, I sometimes think. She’s never -made herself cheap with anyone. And then there’s her -writing, too.”</p> - -<p>Adela had slowly been making a name for herself, but -her great success only came after her mother’s death. A -long novel, at which she had been working for several years, -made her reputation in the world of letters.</p> - -<p>She had inherited money from her mother, and her -books brought her in more.</p> - -<p>Adela was able to indulge in artistic necessities.</p> - -<p>It became imperative that she should retire, whenever -she wanted to write, to a Yorkshire moor with an atmosphere -of ruggedness and strength, and very few trees.</p> - -<p>So many journalists, so many fellow-writers, such a -number of the new-born coterie that “followed the Adela -Alston method” had inquired so earnestly in what peculiar -setting Adela found it necessary to enshrine her inspiration, -that the need of the Yorkshire moor had suddenly sprung, -full-grown, into being.</p> - -<p>She built a two-roomed cottage, engaged a caretaker, and -wrote in a small summer-house, wearing knickerbockers and -sandals, and smoking violently. This was in the summer. -In the winter, inspiration was obliged to content itself -with Hampstead, and Adela had to wear shoes and stockings -and a skirt.</p> - -<p>At forty she had gained greatly in assurance, and knew -herself for the leading spirit in a small group of intensely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span> -modern women writers, by whom she was devoutly worshipped.</p> - -<p>Adela became accustomed to being the person who was -listened to, in the society of her fellows.</p> - -<p>They were not only interested in her work, but deeply, -intensely interested in herself.</p> - -<p>“You know almost too much of human nature, Adela. -It’s not decent.”</p> - -<p>Adela enjoyed being told that.</p> - -<p>“I’ve seen all sorts in my time,” she said musingly.</p> - -<p>It would no longer have pleased her to be thought younger -than she was. On the contrary, she was apt to emphasise -in herself the aspect of a full maturity.</p> - -<p>“That last study of yours is simply magnificent. Dear, -I don’t wonder you’ve never chosen to marry. No man’s -vanity could survive your insight.”</p> - -<p>A newcomer to the group leant forward eagerly. Her -characteristic was lack of self-restraint, which she acclaimed -in herself as fearlessness.</p> - -<p>“But you’ve known the great realities—you’ve known -passion,” she urged foolishly. “You could never write -as you do, otherwise.”</p> - -<p>Adela gazed at her new disciple from under drooping -eyelids. “I am not ashamed of it,” she said quietly. -“I am proud of it.”</p> - -<p>The girl nodded with grotesque, unconscious vehemence.</p> - -<p>The two other women-friends of Adela who were present, -exchanged a meaning look with one another. Each had -heard Adela’s story before, had shown loyal pride and -understanding. There was no need of further demonstration -from them. Adela was looking at the girl.</p> - -<p>“There was one man in my life,” she said low and -deeply. “There is never more than one—that counts. -And a woman who has never loved, never been loved, -never met her mate—has never lived.”</p> - -<p>The room was tensely silent.</p> - -<p>“It was more than ten years ago, and I have outlived -the poignancy of it. I have never seen him since—I -never shall. But I make no secret of having known -fulfilment.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span>Her voice was low and rich with intense enjoyment of -her own effect.</p> - -<p>“Even now, though, when all the storm and stress is -long, long past—it’s odd, but the scent of a syringa in -bloom can still hurt me. You see—I was swept right off -my feet.”</p> - -<p>She paused before concluding with the words that she -had unconsciously learnt by heart, so significantly did they -always round off her retrospect.</p> - -<p>“I had waited for him all my life. He asked everything, -and I gave—everything.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!”</p> - -<p>“You splendid woman!”</p> - -<p>Adela leant back again, her large eyes gazing abstractedly -into the past, full of a brooding satisfaction. Her lips -exhaled a sound that was barely audible.</p> - -<p>“Hal Willoughby!”</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>Time works wonders.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span> -<p class="ph2">THE GALLANT LITTLE LADY</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span></p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span> -<h2 class="nobreak">THE GALLANT LITTLE LADY</h2> -</div> - -<h3 class="nobreak">I</h3> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">I hope</span> you are using all your influence to prevent the -marriage?” said Clyde, in the impersonal tone that he -always adopted when speaking to his wife of her only -daughter.</p> - -<p>“Why, Charles? They’re madly in love.”</p> - -<p>“That is why,” said Sir Charles.</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?”</p> - -<p>Lady Clyde had not the slightest desire to know what -her husband meant, and had already made up her mind that -she disagreed with it root and branch, so she said, “What -do you mean?” in a tone of indignation, and not one of -enquiry, and gave him no time to answer.</p> - -<p>“Richard is a gentleman, he’s earning a very good -salary, and he adores Rita. The only possible objection -is their having to live in the East, but everyone says the -Malay States are quite healthy, and she’s very strong, -thank heaven. If she’s plucky enough to face it, I don’t see -how <i>we</i> can object.”</p> - -<p>“My objection has nothing to do with their living in -the Malay States. It is simply concerned with the fact -that they will have nothing whatever to depend upon -except Richard Lambourne’s salary. He is a young man, -he has saved nothing, and he has no expectations from -anybody.”</p> - -<p>“Rita has her own small income.”</p> - -<p>“It might keep them from starvation, certainly, but it -wouldn’t be enough for a family.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span>“No one expects it to be. Richard will save if he has a -wife, naturally, and he hopes to become a part owner of the -rubber estate, later on. After all, it’s very creditable for a -man of his age to have been made general manager already.”</p> - -<p>“Very.”</p> - -<p>“Then what have you against him?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing at all,” said Sir Charles mildly.</p> - -<p>“A minute ago you were telling me how you hoped I -should use my influence to prevent this marriage. If you -have nothing against him, why shouldn’t they marry?”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps I have ‘something against’ Rita, as you -express it.”</p> - -<p>“Rita is only your step-daughter, Charles, and I know -very well that your own children——”</p> - -<p>“<i>Our</i> own children——”</p> - -<p>“That they come first, and always have. But I have -an unprejudiced eye,” said Lady Clyde warmly, “and I -don’t pretend that Rita isn’t a greater deal cleverer, prettier, -and more attractive than all the others put together. And -as for talking of having anything against her, it’s the -sheerest nonsense, as even you must know.”</p> - -<p>Sir Charles looked at his wife with an expression which -she had long ago summed up, not inaptly, as “Charles -looking as though he couldn’t decide if one were worth -explaining the alphabet to or not.” On this occasion, -Sir Charles appeared to decide in favour of the modicum -of intelligence required.</p> - -<p>“My case is simply this, Catherine. If Richard -Lambourne and Rita marry now, they are entirely dependent -upon Richard’s job. Say he loses it, or loses his health—which -amounts to the same thing—or falls off his horse -and breaks his neck, Rita may be left with a child, or -children, and nothing whatever to live on except a yearly -sum which she has hitherto spent upon her clothes, largely -supplemented by presents from you.”</p> - -<p>“As though Rita wouldn’t always have a welcome from -me, and as though I wouldn’t share my last crust with her!”</p> - -<p>“On the contrary, I should expect you to divide your -last crust into equal parts between Rita and your four other -children,” said Sir Charles with coldness. “But apart from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span> -last crusts, which is a rhetorical way of speaking, you had -better understand once and for all, my dear Catherine, that -my sons and daughter are not to be sacrificed to Rita. If -she marries this man, he must keep her. This house is her -home, and has been so for twenty years or so, but once she -is married, it ceases to be her home. I am sorry if I hurt -your feelings, but if Rita is to take the risk of marriage with -a man who has nothing to depend on but what he can earn -for himself, she had better understand exactly what she is -doing. Personally, I consider her entirely unfitted to take -such a risk.”</p> - -<p>“She is more than ready to take any risk. You are -perfectly incapable of understanding Rita, Charles, and what -a generous, ardent nature she has. And she is very, very -much in love, for the first time in her life. You know as -well as I do that plenty of people have wanted to marry -Rita, and I think it’s wonderful that she should have -refused so many offers, to give herself to a man who isn’t -rich, simply because she loves him.”</p> - -<p>“You look upon it as being decided, then?”</p> - -<p>“Of course I do. She is absolutely determined to -marry him and go out with him at once. I can’t refuse my -consent—and I shan’t—and they’re not dependent upon -yours, Charles.”</p> - -<p>She looked at him with a rather nervous defiance, but -Sir Charles said with great calm:</p> - -<p>“Certainly they’re not. I shall therefore consider the -subject closed, so far as my objections go.”</p> - -<p>He kept his word, as he invariably did.</p> - -<p>The wedding of Rita and Richard took place six weeks -later.</p> - -<p>Rita was little and very pretty, with big dark eyes, -a pathetic baby face, and, in rather quaint contrast, a very -erect little figure and a decided bearing.</p> - -<p>Unlike her stepfather, the majority of her friends and -relations fully realised the beautiful recklessness of Rita’s -love-match.</p> - -<p>“A very gallant little lady!” said an old friend of Lady -Clyde’s, and she reversed an opinion which she had hitherto -held as to his senility. He used the same phrase, which -had evidently caught his ancient fancy, when the bride was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span> -making her farewells, and it oddly suited her appearance, -in a velvet dress and a three-cornered hat with a long plume, -vaguely recalling pictures of cavalier heroines.</p> - -<p>“So she’s marrying all for love, and going eight thousand -miles away from home!” said Rita’s aged admirer. “None -of your mercenary, modern, ideas there. A gallant little -lady, I call her.”</p> - -<h3 class="nobreak">II</h3> - -<p>The same phrase was repeated, and by many people, when -Rita and Richard Lambourne came home again, three years -later. The great rubber slump had come, and Richard had -lost his job. He said that he hoped to find something to -do in England.</p> - -<p>“Professional men of all classes are hoping exactly -the same thing at the present moment, all over the country,” -said Sir Charles Clyde.</p> - -<p>The Lambournes stayed with the Clydes for a little while, -then they and their baby and their nurse moved into a tiny -house on the outskirts of a large neighbouring town, and -then it was that such a number of people took to making -use of the apt descriptive phrase first employed when Rita -married.</p> - -<p>Many of them had known her in her girlhood, the spoilt -and favoured child of Lady Clyde, at home in her stepfather’s -house.</p> - -<p>They could fully appreciate the contrast with her present -position.</p> - -<p>Richard could not find any work, although he answered -advertisements and wrote to influential friends. He was -not a strong man, and very soon showed signs of great -discouragement and anxiety.</p> - -<p>Rita, on the contrary, was always cheerful, and discussed -the situation very frankly, laughing merrily at her own -struggle with unaccustomed privations.</p> - -<p>“It’s so lucky I’ve got a little money that my own father -left me. By managing very, very carefully, we’re living -on that. Poor Richard hadn’t a penny beyond his salary, -and now of course that’s all gone—poor darling!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>She was drolly confidential with her numerous friends.</p> - -<p>“It’s so funny to have to think before I take a second -helping of pudding, even, and yet I suppose I really ought -to. But I don’t think I’ve got a very large appetite, have -I, Richard?”</p> - -<p>“No, you haven’t.”</p> - -<p>“What a good thing!” She laughed as she spoke, -but Richard remained unsmiling and miserable, and gradually -it became evident to Rita’s friends that one of Rita’s -trials was her husband’s inability to face their position -with a gallant laugh, as she did.</p> - -<p>As time went on, and there appeared to be no hope of a -salary for Richard, she sent away the little girl’s nurse.</p> - -<p>“I think I ought to be able to manage. Lots of poor -women have to, only it’s a great pity I was brought up to -play the piano, and dance, and play tennis, instead of -learning to cook. One somehow never thought of it’s -being necessary.”</p> - -<p>“It oughtn’t to be necessary now,” said Richard -violently, “if you’d married a fellow with money, or brains -enough to make some.”</p> - -<p>“Why, I might have been a millionairess, if I’d married -the first man that ever proposed to me,” she said brightly. -“Doesn’t it seem odd?”</p> - -<p>He made no answer.</p> - -<p>“D’you know, darling, I saw a really lovely jumper in -Colson’s window to-day. It was real old rose, the colour -that suits me. It was one of the sale things and marked -down to half a guinea. I had a frightful struggle—it is -such ages since I had anything new. I wouldn’t even let -myself go into the shop, though I had to get some things -for baby. I went somewhere else. I felt I couldn’t bear -to come out of Colson’s without that jumper. It was -so lovely—and really marvellously cheap. It’s been -haunting me ever since.”</p> - -<p>“Surely we can find half a guinea,” said Richard, his -face flushing.</p> - -<p>“Richard!” She gave a little laughing scream. “Why, -I work out every penny of my income on paper before I -spend it, and do you know what’s left over for my clothes,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span> -when I’ve paid the wages and the rent, and rates and -taxes, and the housekeeping books? Just—exactly—five -pounds a year!”</p> - -<p>She held up five fingers, laughing.</p> - -<p>“I know.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t believe that I once spent five pounds a year, -or thereabouts, on gloves, but I suppose I did. I don’t -really know how I could manage now, if mummie didn’t -still give me so many presents.”</p> - -<p>She looked at him with her head on one side, rather like -a very pretty squirrel.</p> - -<p>“I do manage rather well, don’t I, dear? I have to -work pretty hard, you know.”</p> - -<p>“Of course you manage well,” he said ungraciously. -He hardly ever encouraged her with praise nowadays, -although she was doing wonders. He only gave way to -violent outbreaks of despair and self-reproach, when she -assured him that she could do without things that she had -had all her life, and that she wasn’t really so <i>very</i> tired after -two bad nights with the baby.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it lucky I’m so strong?” she sometimes asked -her friends. “I do a lot of the housework myself, you -know, because we can only afford one servant, of course, -and she’s a rough sort of girl. It was so funny at first, I -couldn’t understand that class of servant at all. At home, -of course, the maids were all quite different. Ellen means -very well, really, though I’ve had to learn cooking, so as to -do a certain amount myself. Will you forgive me now, if -I run to see that Richard’s supper is all right—not burning?”</p> - -<p>She tripped away, still laughing, in spite of the tired lines -that were beginning to show beneath her sparkling dark -eyes.</p> - -<p>“Rita is too wonderful, poor darling!” said Lady -Clyde. “As she says herself, she’s never in her life been -used to poverty. And look at the way she makes the best -of things! You know they’re living on her tiny little income, -that she manages too wonderfully for words. You -can’t say <i>now</i>, Charles, as I remember you once did, that -Rita, of all people, wasn’t fitted to take the risk of poverty.”</p> - -<p>Whether Sir Charles could, or could not, have repeated<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span> -his axiom, was not destined to be made clear, for he said -nothing at all.</p> - -<p>He did, however, make many attempts to find a job for -Richard, and went to see the originator of the phrase that -described Richard’s wife so well—“a gallant little lady”—who -was connected with some highly-remunerative business.</p> - -<p>The old man shook his head.</p> - -<p>“I’m on the point of retiring, Sir Charles. Times are -bad, though I’ve made my pile, but it was done by hard work -at one job all my life. I’ll see if there’s anything for your—stepson, -is it?”</p> - -<p>“He is no relation of mine,” said Sir Charles very distinctly. -“He married my wife’s only daughter by her -first husband. He is now obliged to live upon her—very -small—fortune.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve heard something of that. Poor little lady—she’s -doing wonders, I hear. Well, well, I’ll see if they’ve anything -to offer the lad, but we don’t want men without experience -these days, you know. But I’d like to do something, -for the sake of that gallant little lady.”</p> - -<h3 class="nobreak">III</h3> - -<p>“Richard dear, I <i>would</i> like to ask mummie and Sir -Charles to dinner—supper, I mean—one night. I’ve got a -little cash in hand, so I shouldn’t feel too extravagant. You -know I got rather more than I expected, for the sale of that -old bracelet of mine.”</p> - -<p>Richard did know, because Rita had told him this already, -quite gleefully, although admitting that the bracelet had -been a legacy from a specially beloved grandmother, and -that it cost her a pang to let it go.</p> - -<p>“I loathe your selling your jewellery. It makes me feel -such a cad for having got you into this mess, though God -knows I never foresaw anything like this. Rita, <i>must</i> -you do these things?”</p> - -<p>She looked at him with a face of piteous, childlike surprise. -“Oh, aren’t you <i>at all</i> pleased that we’ve got an -extra pound or two, Richard? I’m sure you’ve no idea -what a difference it makes.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span>He groaned impatiently.</p> - -<p>“Of course, if you think I’ve no right to suggest entertaining -<i>any</i>body, even on a tiny scale, now we’re so poor, -I won’t do it. It was silly of me, I daresay, but I haven’t -really properly got used not to having an occasional little -party, I suppose. It’s all right, Richard darling. Never -mind.”</p> - -<p>She smiled bravely.</p> - -<p>“Rita, I shall go mad if I can’t find a job, and take you -out of this sort of thing,” said Richard, and he began to -pace up and down the little room.</p> - -<p>When Lady Clyde and her husband did come to dinner, -Rita told her mother privately that poor darling Richard -was becoming almost hysterical sometimes. It did make -things so much, much harder when one was doing all one -could to keep up under the strain, and be always bright -and ready to make the best of it.</p> - -<p>“No one can say you’re not doing that, my dearest child,” -said her mother.</p> - -<p>Tears of mingled admiration and compassion rose to her -eyes when Rita apologised gaily for the poverty of the -fare, when she corrected herself every time that she mentioned -the word dinner instead of supper, and when she -laughingly excused herself for having to run away and help -with the washing-up, because the servant now was only a -daily one, and went home early.</p> - -<p>“It seemed so funny at first, mummy, and I was always -ringing the bell and expecting it to be answered, like when -I used to ring for Cooper or Ellis or Mary, at home. I really -can’t believe that I had a maid all for myself, just to do my -hair and keep my clothes tidy, not so very long ago.”</p> - -<p>“What a plucky little thing she is!” said her mother in -a choked voice.</p> - -<p>She glanced resentfully at Richard, who sat silent, -moody and haggard, without endorsing her tribute to his -wife in any way.</p> - -<p>He looked very ill, but Lady Clyde at the moment -could only realise to what straits he had brought Rita, and -with what surly unresponsiveness he seemed to confront -her courageous acceptance of poverty.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span>Lady Clyde asked her husband that night if he could not, -as man to man, give Richard Lambourne a hint that his -ungracious attitude to his wife, whilst living on her money, -was the final crown of the wrongs that he had done her.</p> - -<p>“I was going to suggest, personally, that you should -give Rita a hint,” said Sir Charles.</p> - -<p>“Rita! Why, when I think of that poor child’s gallantry——”</p> - -<p>“Exactly. My own impression is that a very little more -of it will drive Lambourne into a mad-house, or worse.”</p> - -<p>Sir Charles spoke in his usual level accents, and Lady -Clyde did not attempt to attach any meaning to his words. -Neither did they recur to her when Richard Lambourne -disproved her assertion that he had placed the crown upon -the wrongs done to his wife, by the final ignominy of -suicide.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>“Coward, coward!” sobbed Lady Clyde. “Can you -deny that he was a coward, Charles?”</p> - -<p>“No. Richard was a coward,” said Sir Charles gravely.</p> - -<p>“After all that poor little Rita had done!”</p> - -<p>“And said,” added Sir Charles, not flippantly, and half -under his breath.</p> - -<p>The old magnate who had admired Rita at her wedding -made use of almost the same words as Lady Clyde.</p> - -<p>“After all that his wife had done, and was doing, to quit -like that, and leave her to face the life he’d brought her -to! What a <i>brute</i>!”</p> - -<p>A little while afterwards he proposed to Rita, diffident, -in spite of his wealth, because of the great difference in -their ages.</p> - -<p>She accepted him, and this time it was Sir Charles, looking -at the bridegroom’s bald head and infirm gait beside the -pretty bride at the quiet wedding, who repeated to himself -the old man’s catchword, with an ironical emphasis of his -own:</p> - -<p>“A <i>very</i> gallant little lady.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span> -<p class="ph2">THE HOTEL CHILD</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span></p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span> -<h2 class="nobreak">THE HOTEL CHILD</h2> - -<p class="ph1">(<span class="smcap">To Y. de la P.</span>)</p> -</div> - -<h3 class="nobreak">I</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> first time that I saw her was in Rome. I was -governess to the children at the British Embassy, and -every morning before breakfast I took them out into the -Borghese Gardens.</p> - -<p>They were very good, insignificant little children, and -never gave me any trouble. Whilst they played tame little -games between the grey-green olive trees, I used to watch -the more amusing Italian children in the Gardens, the -biggest groups consisting of pupils from the great white -Convento dell’ Assunzione, on the corner of the Pincio.</p> - -<p>But the little girl in whom I took the greatest interest -was always by herself. An enormous grey limousine would -leave her at the entrance to the Gardens, and fetch her away -again at the end of an hour. Sometimes the limousine, -which was always empty except for a liveried chauffeur, -appeared to have forgotten her, and then I was obliged to -take my children away, leaving her serious and solitary, and -quite undisconcerted, sitting on her bench. I judged -her to be about eight years old, and the child of rich people. -Her white embroidered dresses, far too elaborate, were -expensive, and she always wore white shoes and stockings.</p> - -<p>At first, her nationality puzzled me. Her quite straight -hair was black, cropped short round her beautifully shaped -little head in a fashion that was then very unusual, and her -lashes were as long and as black as those of any Roman-born -child. But her grave eyes were of a deep grey, and -her skin, fine and colourless. Perhaps she was scarcely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span> -pretty, but her poise, her erect gracefulness, above all, her -unmistakable air of breeding, made her remarkable. It -was that air of aristocracy that made me feel sure that, in -spite of her independence, she was not American. One gets -to know, after seven years spent in the best families. -The American children are well-drilled, well-dressed, well-behaved—sometimes—but -they never achieve that look of -distinction. Some of the French ones have it, but then -those are the children of the old Catholic families, and so -they are poor, and generally badly dressed. On the whole, -it is to be seen amongst the English as often as anywhere—and -then, it is almost always accompanied by the expression -that denotes, to an experienced governess, either stupidity -or adenoids—and sometimes, indeed, both.</p> - -<p>My little aristocrat of the Borghese Gardens spoke -Italian perfectly. I heard her greet the chauffeur when he -came for her, and those were the times when she was most -childlike. The man very often let her take the wheel, -after he had started the car, and I used to watch, not -without misgivings, the great car sliding away, with the -small erect figure in the driving-seat, her straight black -fringe blowing back from her forehead, her tiny hands -gripping the big wheel.</p> - -<p>My charges, it need hardly be said, might never speak to -strange children, but one day the unknown little girl -restored to me a toy that one of them had dropped the day -before.</p> - -<p>“I found it, after you’d gone,” she said very politely and -distinctly.</p> - -<p>I knew then that she must be English, at least in part.</p> - -<p>My children were playing at a distance, and after thanking -her for returning the plaything, I sat down on the stone -bench that she had made her own.</p> - -<p>After an instant’s hesitation, she sat down there, too.</p> - -<p>We entered into conversation.</p> - -<p>I asked whether she lived in Rome.</p> - -<p>“No. My papa is here on business for a little while, -and then we are going to Paris again.”</p> - -<p>“Your home is in Paris, then?”</p> - -<p>She looked rather puzzled. “I don’t know Paris well,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span> -she observed apologetically. “We were only there once -before, when mama was with us. It was a nice hotel, I -thought, but noisy. This one—the Grand—is better. -Have you been much in Paris?”</p> - -<p>“Not since I was at school there. My French was acquired -in Paris,” I added, automatically.</p> - -<p>One says that kind of thing so often, to please the -parents.</p> - -<p>“Mademoiselle aime parler francais, hein?” she enquired, -with a little smile.</p> - -<p>Her French was as perfect as her Italian, or her English; -and it was evidently natural to her to speak either language.</p> - -<p>“Are you English?” I could not refrain from asking her.</p> - -<p>“My papa is Italian—mama was half English, and half -French.”</p> - -<p>Was? Then her mother must be dead. That would -account for the empty limousine, and the strange independence -of the child.</p> - -<p>“Mama is in New York, now, we think,” she remarked. -“I am to join her when I am ten; that was arranged for, -in the deed of separation.”</p> - -<p>“Separation?” said I.</p> - -<p>“There is no divorce in Italy,” said the little creature, -shrugging her shoulders. “Papa is a Catholic, though not, -of course <i>pratiquant</i>. They have been separated since I -was seven.”</p> - -<p>“Then who—who——” I wanted to ask who looked after -her, but such a form of words seemed singularly inappropriate. -“Who looks after your papa’s house?” I found -at last.</p> - -<p>“We are in hotels, most of the time, papa and I, and -my maid, Carlotta, but in the holidays—<i>les grandes vacances</i>—we -go to the country somewhere—<i>villegiatura</i>—and there -is a lady then, always.”</p> - -<p>Her grave eyes looked at me. “A different one,” she -explained, “each time.”</p> - -<p>Her very complete understanding of the status held by -the “ladies” was implicit in her manner, but that struck -me less poignantly than did her philosophical acceptance -of all that they stood for.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span>The grey limousine came into sight, and she made an -amiable little sign to the chauffeur.</p> - -<p>“I must go now. It doesn’t <i>do</i> to keep the <i>auto</i> waiting.”</p> - -<p>In her grave little voice, was all the circumspection of -the child that has learnt to fend for itself, that knows by -experience that it will only be tolerated so long as it gives -no trouble, runs counter to no prejudices, is guilty of no -indiscretions.</p> - -<p>“It has been so pleasant to talk to someone English. -Good-bye Miss——?”</p> - -<p>Her little pause was exactly that of a grown-up person, -before an unknown or unremembered name. And what -precocity of discernment had told her that “Miss” was -the suitable prefix?</p> - -<p>“Miss Arbell,” said I. “Tell me your name before -you go.”</p> - -<p>“Laura di san Marzano.”</p> - -<p>She pronounced Laura in the Italian way—<i>Lah-o-ra</i>.</p> - -<p>When I held out my hand, she kissed it, as Italian children -do, and after she had climbed to the driving-seat, she waved -to me, before turning the grey car down the hill.</p> - -<p>I looked for her every morning after that, but she never -came to the Borghese Gardens again.</p> - -<h3 class="nobreak">II</h3> - -<p>The second time that I saw Laura di san Marzano was -nearly four years afterwards, in the hall of the Majestic -Hotel, at Lucerne.</p> - -<p>I had thought of her, at intervals, and had no difficulty -in recognising her, in spite of the difference between eight -years old and twelve.</p> - -<p>She was tall and very slim, and the set of her dark head -on her straight shoulders was just the same. Her black -hair now fell in a long plait to her waist, but she still wore -the straight, short fringe that suited her du Maurier profile.</p> - -<p>It was late afternoon—tea-time, and the hall was full -of people, and noisy.</p> - -<p>Laura sat motionless, but somehow, one felt, very<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span> -attentive, beside a beautifully-gowned and jewelled and -painted woman, who was talking to half a dozen men.</p> - -<p>Mama?</p> - -<p>She looked very young to have a child of Laura’s age.</p> - -<p>Then I saw that Laura’s green silk frock was absurdly -short, and made in a babyish style, that matched the huge -bow of green satin ribbon unnecessarily fastened over one -ear.</p> - -<p>My pupil, a nearly grown-up one, was late, and as I waited -for her, I watched Laura.</p> - -<p>Presently our eyes met. At once recognition leapt into -hers, and she smiled at me, and bowed.</p> - -<p>I returned the salutation—with infinitely less grace, as -I knew in my middle-class British self-consciousness—and -wondered whether she would come and speak to me.</p> - -<p>Later on she did so, when the group round mama was at -its noisiest.</p> - -<p>“How do you do, Miss Arbell?” There was not the -faintest hesitation over my name. “I used to see you -often in the Borghese Gardens, in Rome, and once we talked -together. I hope you remember?”</p> - -<p>“I remember very well,” said I, “but I am surprised at -your doing so. You were so very young then, and you must -have met so many people since.”</p> - -<p>“I never forget people,” said Laura simply.</p> - -<p>“You left Rome suddenly, didn’t you?” I continued. -“I was there for nearly a month after our meeting, but I -never saw you in the gardens again.”</p> - -<p>Laura shook her head slightly.</p> - -<p>“I can’t remember,” she admitted. “Very likely we -left suddenly. One does that so often. The management -of the hotel becomes intolerable, or tiresome acquaintances -appear—and then the simplest thing is to pack up and go -elsewhere.”</p> - -<p>She spoke so evidently from experience that one could -but accept her strange, rootless, attitude as part of her -natural equipment.</p> - -<p>We talked for a little while, and she told me, or I deduced, -that since the Roman days she had been a great deal in -Paris—(“I adore the Opera there, but the theatres not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span> -much”)—and then in New York, with mama. She was to -spend the next few years with mama.</p> - -<p>Where?</p> - -<p>Laura’s shoulders indicated the faintest of shrugs. -Anywhere. Mama liked New York as well as most places, -but personally Laura thought that the rooms in the hotels -there were always too hot. They went to London a good -deal. Delightful—she smiled at me politely—but one -missed the sunshine. Her point of view, inevitably, was -one of great sophistication. It did not, to my mind, detract -from her charm, which had never been of a direct, -childlike kind, but rather of a description so subtle that -amongst the many it might easily pass for mere oddity.</p> - -<p>“I hope we shall meet again,” she said to me, when a -certain nervous movement in the group of mama’s admirers -had culminated in the detachment of a tall, fair youth, who -was coming now towards Laura herself.</p> - -<p>“I am afraid that I leave here to-morrow. My pupil and -I are on our way to rejoin her parents in Italy.”</p> - -<p>“We may be gone ourselves to-morrow. I meant for -later on—any time, anywhere.” She smiled charmingly, -but her unchildlike eyes remained serious and rather -weary.</p> - -<p>I heard the fair youth say something to her, with a burst -of meaningless laughter. She did not laugh in return, -but her clear, well-bred little voice was raised to a -sympathetic tone of interest.</p> - -<p>“Mama likes an olive in hers, always, but for me I prefer -a sweet Martini—with <i>two</i> cherries, if you please.”</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>I saw Laura twice again before leaving Lucerne, but we -did not speak to one another.</p> - -<p>The first time, at seven o’clock the evening of that same -day, was in one of the gigantic hotel corridors, on the first -floor, where I was waiting for the lift that was to take me -to the fifth.</p> - -<p>The hotel hairdresser, in a white coat, with an immense -head of curled and discoloured yellow hair, stood before a -shut bedroom door. It flew open suddenly, and then closed -sharply behind Laura di san Marzano.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span>“Vous voila donc! Eh bien, il est trop tard.”</p> - -<p>Her voice was ice, her face scornful and unbelieving as -she listened to the man’s torrent of excuses for his tardiness.</p> - -<p>“Assez,” said Laura. “Madame est fort mécontente. -Elle ne veut plus de vous.”</p> - -<p>“Mademoiselle——”</p> - -<p>“C’est inutile. Madame se passera de vous.”</p> - -<p>And as the hairdresser turned away, grumbling and -disconcerted, she added superbly:</p> - -<p>“J’arrangerai la chose. Soyez exacte demain. Mais -pour ce soir, c’est moi qui coifferai madame.”</p> - -<p>Much later in the evening, when I had long ago despatched -my pupil to the bedroom opening out of mine, I -returned for a moment to the hot and strident lounge in -order to make certain enquiries at the office.</p> - -<p>Mama was in a white wicker armchair, with crimson and -orange cushions overflowing upon either side of it, and -showing up the elaborate waves of her hair, as black as -Laura’s own. The paint that I had seen on her face earlier -in the day was now concentrated into one scarlet curve -upon her mouth, her white lace dress was held up by narrow -black velvet straps cutting across the opulent creaminess of -her shoulders, and the electric light above her head had -fastened upon the diamond butterfly bows of her satin -shoes, so that they winked and flashed right across the hall.</p> - -<p>One hardly saw—certainly did not distinguish—the -figures that composed her numerous entourage, but the -prevailing black and whiteness, the glitter of continually -raised small glasses, gave a general impression of unrelieved -masculinity.</p> - -<p>Laura sat beside her mother, on an upright chair. She -was dressed in rose colour, a frock even shorter than the -green one that I had seen before. Her straight hair had -been somehow persuaded into a semblance of long curls; -the green silk bow over her left ear had been replaced by a -pink one with fringed ends.</p> - -<p>She did not see me. Her eyes, indeed, were glazed with -fatigue, and every now and then her head fell forwards and -was jerked upwards again.</p> - -<p>The hall was unendurably hot with a breathless, artificial<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span> -heat, and the orchestra was playing an American rag-time -that every now and then succeeded in out-sounding the -medley of raised voices and high-pitched laughter and -clinking glasses.</p> - -<p>It was long after eleven o’clock.</p> - -<p>As I looked at Laura, I saw that her slim, silk-clad legs -were swinging gently to and fro between the bars of the -high-backed chair. Her feet, in bronze-coloured dancing -slippers, could not quite reach the floor.</p> - -<p>For the first time, I saw her as the child she really was—the -efficient, helpless, cosmopolitan, traditionless, hotel child.</p> - -<h3 class="nobreak">III</h3> - -<p>It is a far cry from the family of a British Ambassador—collectively -distinguished, if individually dull—and the -blue wonders of Italy, to an English Girls’ School and the -grey horrors of an east coast town.</p> - -<p>The post that I filled temporarily at Lundeen School -was not one that I should have considered, but for personal -and family reasons of convenience. They are long -since past, and matter nothing to the story.</p> - -<p>But it was at Lundeen School that I saw Laura di san -Marzano for the third and last time.</p> - -<p>It was the most inappropriate setting imaginable.</p> - -<p>She was left there by mama, in mid-term, because a -continental doctor had declared that she needed bracing air -and companionship of her own age, and also—this I learnt -later, quite incidentally, from Laura herself—because mama -and a <i>cher ami</i> had suddenly planned a visit to Monte Carlo -for the express purpose of visiting the Casino, to which Laura, -being under twenty-one, could not have been admitted.</p> - -<p>Laura, as the hotel child, had been pathetic, but her -dignity had been safeguarded, if not actually enhanced, -by the kaleidescopic background of her surroundings.</p> - -<p>At school, she was pitiful—and out of place. The girls, -without ill nature, despised her from the first.</p> - -<p>She arrived amongst them in the short, fanciful, ultra-picturesque -silk frocks and infantile bows of hair ribbon -that I had seen her wear abroad. Those unimaginative, -untravelled English schoolgirls had seen no one like her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span> -before, and what they did not know, by experience or by -tradition, they distrusted and disliked.</p> - -<p>Lundeen School made demands upon the pupils’ -<i>physiques</i>, upon their powers of conformity, and upon each -one’s capacity for assimilating wholesale a universally -applied system.</p> - -<p>Laura di san Marzano had no chance at all.</p> - -<p>The child who “never forgot people” could not remember -her multiplication table, and although she spoke perfectly -at least three languages besides English, she had never -learnt syntax, nor read a line of any history. She had seen -the Guitrys play in Paris—(and from her crisp appreciations -and criticisms I deduced that no finest <i>nuance</i> of their art had -been lost upon her)—but she had memorized no standard selections -from the poets. And she did not know how to learn.</p> - -<p>No one, not even the head mistress, was very much disturbed -by Laura’s educational deficiencies, because it was -so evident from the first that her stay amongst us would -only be a very temporary affair.</p> - -<p>Mama would certainly swoop down again, probably -without warning, and resume Laura as suddenly as she had -discarded her.</p> - -<p>That was how mama always did things, one felt sure.</p> - -<p>Laura herself, although evidently aware of her shortcomings, -accepted them with a grave, but unexaggerated, -regret. She seemed, quite without arrogance, to know that, -even educationally, there were other standards than those -of Lundeen, and that her connection with these latter was -after all merely transitory.</p> - -<p>What really distressed her, and shocked her too, I think, -was the attitude of the other girls.</p> - -<p>Compared with the hotel child, there was only one word -that adequately described these daughters of so many -excellent English homes—and that word was <i>uncivilised</i>.</p> - -<p>They played unbeautiful games violently, they spoke in -hideous slang, they were rudest when they intended to be -most friendly.</p> - -<p>Towards Laura di san Marzano, indeed, they did not wish -nor attempt to display friendliness. They were simply -contemptuous.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span>And I saw that the hotel child minded that, both from -pride and from ultra-developed social instinct.</p> - -<p>My work was entirely amongst the elder girls, and I saw -very little of Laura during her brief stay, but towards the -end of it, something happened. The rumour arose and -spread like wild-fire, even to reaching the Common Room of -the teaching staff, that Laura di san Marzano was in -disgrace with her fellows for cheating over an examination -paper.</p> - -<p>The tradition of Lundeen was that of the public-school -code. Cribbing was permissible: ‘copying’ or peeping -at the questions set for an examination, was impossible.</p> - -<p>They were already prejudiced against her; the accusation -was accepted on the instant by her contemporaries.</p> - -<p>The Prefectorial system was in full force at Lundeen, and -in any case, I could not have made the affair my business. -But it so happened that I was present when Laura uttered -what I believe to have been her one and only specific denial -of the charge against her. I came unexpectedly into the -room, and saw the semi-circle of self-righteous inexpressive, -young faces that confronted Laura, who stood, rather pale -and with her head held proudly high, and spoke very softly -and clearly.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t cheat. Those who thought they saw me, made -a mistake. You are being very unjust and cruel, all of -you.”</p> - -<p>She was looking the head of her class straight in the eyes -as she spoke, and the girl, giving her back look for look, -made a sound that unmistakably expressed contemptuous -incredulity.</p> - -<p>“What is all this?” said I sharply.</p> - -<p>They were taken aback, all of them. There was an -instant of confused silence, and it was, after all, only the -hotel child who possessed enough of <i>savoir faire</i> to reply to -me.</p> - -<p>“Miss Arbell,” she said courteously, “it was a—a -necessary conversation. It is over now.”</p> - -<p>She crossed the length of the room, very composedly, -and went out quietly.</p> - -<p>Her ostracism, after that, was complete. It lasted for a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span> -week, and then, just as one had always surmised would -happen, mama, in sables and violets, drove up in a blue -Lanchester car, and said that she and Laura (who looked so -much stronger and better for the change) would at once -go straight to Paris, give themselves enough time to find -some clothes, and sail for New York the following week.</p> - -<p>The hotel child, her face radiant, came to find me and -say good-bye to me. She was incapable, for all mama’s -imperious haste, of forgetting or omitting the courtesy.</p> - -<p>“Do you actually leave this evening?” I asked her.</p> - -<p>Mama had been even more impetuous than I had -anticipated.</p> - -<p>“Yes. I need never see any of <i>them</i> again.”</p> - -<p>“It has been an experience, at least,” I reminded her.</p> - -<p>“Yes—but——” she shrugged her shoulders.</p> - -<p>“Expensively bought?” I suggested. And, since she was -leaving, I thought that I might add: “At least, my dear, -you have kept your colours flying. These last days have -been very trying, I am afraid, but you come out of them -better than our friends of the Fourth Form, to my thinking.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you,” said Laura. She looked at me with her -grave, straightforward eyes.</p> - -<p>“It would have been much easier, though, if only I really -<i>hadn’t</i> cheated.”</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>There is a postscript to the story of the hotel child. A -very few years later I heard of her marriage to the Prince -d’Armaillh’ac-Ambry, the representative of the noblest, -and one of the wealthiest, of French families. I believe -that they live almost entirely on his estates in Brittany, -and that the Princess interests herself personally in the -numerous peasantry around them.</p> - -<p>Her two children, a boy and a girl, are brought up in -great simplicity, and to the strictest and most orthodox -Catholicism.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span> -<p class="ph2">IMPASSE</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span></p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span> -<h2 class="nobreak">IMPASSE</h2> - -<p class="ph1">(<span class="smcap">To S.M.A.</span>)</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Two</span>, three, five Dedicated Virgins. They stood before -their Reverend Mother, ponderous black folds of serge -sweeping the boards round each flat-soled pair of black list -slippers.</p> - -<p>“The orphans must go to the dentist,” said Reverend -Mother, mournfully, yet with determination. “Here we -are in a Protestant country. We must adapt ourselves -to the conditions of our exile. The orphans will have -to be taken to the dentist’s house.”</p> - -<p>The nuns looked at one another, and at Reverend -Mother, and solemnly nodded.</p> - -<p>It was an innovation, but if Reverend Mother said so, it -must be right.</p> - -<p>“Sister Clara and Sister Dominic, you will take three -orphans to the dentist to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>Sister Clara drew herself up a little. Her throat swelled -beneath the white swathings that bound her head and neck, -and her double chin momentarily became three.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Mother dear,” she said proudly.</p> - -<p>Her Irish voice was rich and deep, compared with the -thin, nasal tones of the Frenchwomen.</p> - -<p>“Shall I order a cab for them, Mother?”</p> - -<p>That was Sister Caroline, the <i>sœur econome</i>.</p> - -<p>“No, no. They must walk ... holy poverty.... -You will put on the heavy travelling veils, Sisters, and the -big cloaks, just the same as for a journey.”</p> - -<p>The heat of that would be stifling, in this weather and -on foot! An unmortified thought.... Sister Clara stuck -a pin in her sleeve. She would remember to confess a -slight yielding to sensuality of thought.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span>There had been similar yieldings, once or twice, within -the last year.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Mother dear. Sister Dominic’ll sit in the waiting-room -with two of the dear orphans, and I’ll be looking after -the one that’s in with the dentist. I’ll not take an eye off -of her, on any pretext whatever. I quite understand, -Mother dear, that’s the way it’ll be. Make your mind -easy.”</p> - -<p>One had to be knowing, and careful, going out into the -world.</p> - -<p>There was a sense of adventure in setting out, the -additional veil hanging swart, and straight, and heavy, -pulling a little so that one’s head jerked slightly backwards -every now and then.</p> - -<p>Sister Dominic held a stout umbrella in one black-cotton-gloved -hand, whilst the other one grasped the wrist of the -youngest orphan. The other two orphans, obscured in -blue serge and hard, dark, straw hat-brims, each held on -to a fold of Sister Clara’s habit.</p> - -<p>One thing, Reverend Mother had promised that the -community should recite the Litany of Loretto after office -just as they did to ensure anyone from the convent a safe -journey.</p> - -<p>So they’d be protected, even scurrying, a row of five, -holding on to one another, across the streets, in front of -those frightful honking motor-cars, that looked like they’d -take the heads off of you, give them a chance.</p> - -<p>“This’ll be it, Dominic dear. No. 3.”</p> - -<p>A maid in a cap and apron to open the door—and the -smartness of her! All grey-and-white, and showing her -shape the way a modest convent-bred girl would never -have done.</p> - -<p>And the waiting-room, with a carpet, and padded chairs, -and a fine pot-plant—putting worldly ideas into the orphans’ -heads, as likely as not. As for the pictures and books on -the table....</p> - -<p>“Don’t be casting your eyes about that way, children -dear. Sit quiet now. Dominic, the hats’ll have to come off -of them, we may be sure of that. We’ll pile them this way, -on the chair, and you’ll keep an eye on them, for fear<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span> -someone else’ll be coming in and perhaps making off with -them. It’s not as though we were in a good Catholic -country.”</p> - -<p>The hats of the orphans were stacked upon a chair, and -Sister Dominic sat upon the edge of another chair, facing -them. She held her umbrella.</p> - -<p>“If he does well by the children, the sisters’ll go to him. -The Infirmarian says there’s some of them with teeth in -a terrible state.”</p> - -<p>Sister Clara’s tongue sought familiar cavities, and her -hand went to the particular fold of serge sleeve in which -were imbedded two large pins, one of which was taken out -at the end of meals, and replaced after use in the exact same -place, so as to save making a fresh hole.</p> - -<p>“If you’ll step this way, Sister——”</p> - -<p>Mother of Mercy! What a start she’d got! It was the -man himself, and smiling, too, standing holding the door -open. Awfully young-looking, with dark eyes that might -have been Irish, and a queer white coat on him.</p> - -<p>And the gentleness of him, when he’d got the orphan into -that chair of his! She’d only to stir, and him stopping -the machine, and saying, with that smile, that he was afraid -it was hurting her.</p> - -<p>As if one didn’t go to the dentist to be hurt, and the -pain to be offered up for all Reverend Mother’s intentions!</p> - -<p>Look at the hands of him!</p> - -<p>She watched them, moving softly and skilfully. Presently -he talked to her, at first friendly, joking, little -questions, then at more length, telling about himself. He -was a stranger in the town, too.</p> - -<p>“It’ll be the grand thing for you, if Reverend Mother -sends the orphans regularly. I’ll put in a good word for -you,” she ventured, and he looked at her, screwing-up his -eyes, and laughing.</p> - -<p>She’d not spoken to any man, not counting the good -holy priests which was a different thing altogether, for -many years.</p> - -<p>But if they were all like this, where would be the harm -in them at all? She’d make the orphans start a novena -for his conversion to the Faith, that very night.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span>“Now the next child, please.”</p> - -<p>He spent half an hour on each orphan, and the last one, -he said, would have to come again.</p> - -<p>“I’ll be bringing her along.”</p> - -<p>He entered the appointment in a little book.</p> - -<p>“I’ve no secretary, you see, Sister—can’t afford one -yet!” and then he shook hands with her. “Good-bye.”</p> - -<p>The feel of his hand was just what she’d imagined it’d be, -gentle, and yet strong. There were funny little dark hairs -all down the back of it and along the wrist. And although -it was such a hot day, the palm of him was cool and dry.</p> - -<p>Sister Dominic spoke to her, humbly, on the way home.</p> - -<p>“Well, you’re a wonderful woman of the world, Sister -Clara dear, getting us all safe there and back and talking -to the man just as though it was the gardener at dear old -Noisy-le-Grand. It won’t be so hard, next time, if Reverend -Mother sends us again.”</p> - -<p>Reverend Mother did send them again, with relays of -orphans, and then Sister Clara alone, with old Mother -Seraphina who spoke no English and whose cheap <i>râtelier</i> -appeared to need endless adjustments.</p> - -<p>And he was always kind, and he always smiled, with that -screwing-up of his eyes, and talked to Sister Clara.</p> - -<p>One day she said that she had toothache, and received -Reverend Mother’s leave to make an appointment for -herself after Mother Seraphina’s session. She had, for -days, been devoured by an intense curiosity to know what -it would feel like to have those hands hovering about one’s -face. Once, he had had to put his arm right round the -back of Mother Seraphina’s old head....</p> - -<p>“No, it’s not hurting me at all, at all.” She smiled up -at him; a smile that she felt to be beatific, half-hypnotised.</p> - -<p>“Would you like to see what I’ve been doing?”</p> - -<p>“I would.”</p> - -<p>“There—on the left—that big molar——”</p> - -<p>He put a little mirror into her hands. And she that -hadn’t looked in a glass, hardly, since the day of her final -vows, twelve years ago!</p> - -<p>Gracious, what a colour she had! Plum-colour, that -was her face. And the smile that had felt beatific, looking<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span> -foolish and uncertain, as though she were ashamed of something. -The glass turned dim as her heavy breathing struck -it.</p> - -<p>Would she perhaps have been breathing into his face -that way all the time, and she never thinking of such a -thing?</p> - -<p>The face in the glass looked redder than ever. Mother -of Mercy, this weather! The heat of it! And the holy -habit no less than five smelly thicknesses of serge, and -not wearing thin yet, though on the back of her year in -and year out.</p> - -<p>“That’s the last stopping, Sister. I shan’t have to -trouble you again.”</p> - -<p>“Amn’t I to come to you any more then?”</p> - -<p>“It won’t be necessary. What I’ve done should last -you for a long while. But if you have pain, come to me at -once. Any time.”</p> - -<p>What’d it be like, at all, not seeing him any more? -Could it be that she’d become inordinately attached, the -way the Imitation said was so wrong? And to a man, -too.</p> - -<p>She was a wicked creature, not worthy of the holy -vocation.</p> - -<p>“Is there nothing more needs doing?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing at all. You have excellent teeth, Sister. -There’ll be no more trouble, now those fillings are in.”</p> - -<p>The smile he gave her! So that one hardly heard what -he was saying....</p> - -<p>“If the Reverend Mother wants anyone else seen to, I -shall be very pleased to do what I can. Good-bye, Sister. -I should like to have persuaded you that there’s plenty of -good work to be done outside, too. Take a capable woman -like yourself, now. It seems a shame you should be shutting -yourself up inside four walls. Why, you—you might -have been my secretary, if I could only afford to have one!”</p> - -<p>That was a grand laugh of his, it made one want to laugh -too, only that one might start crying somehow.</p> - -<p>It seemed there’d be nothing left to look forward to in -the whole world after the shake of the hand meaning -good-bye. There was still that....</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span>It was the queer way to feel entirely, and her forty years -old.</p> - -<p>Touching the hand of him for the last time, and it strong -and yet gentle at one and the same time, quite different -to the hand of any woman....</p> - -<p>It was over now, and one hurried away, scared that old -Seraphina’d see something strange in the face of one.</p> - -<p>“Will any more of the sisters be going to him, Mother -Seraphina?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Nor any of the dear children?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>Mother of Mercy, there was no sleeping in this heat! -But it wasn’t the heat. It was the way one was fretting -and crying after what couldn’t be. Though what for -couldn’t it be, when he’d said himself that it was a sin -and a shame for the like of her to be shut up inside four -walls, and himself wanting a secretary and not able to pay -one? There’d be some glad enough to work for him without -any pay.</p> - -<p>Day after day it went on, and night after night, till the -pain in one’s head was past bearing, and still there was no -getting to sleep.</p> - -<p>The things one thought of!</p> - -<p>There was the door, giving right on to the street, and then -only a bit of a walk, and oneself knowing every step of the -way, and then the sight of him, and the feel of those hands -of his—it was that would put everything right, and take the -spell off of one.</p> - -<p>On the hottest night of all, Sister Clara made up her -mind. She’d break her holy vows, that were already broken -in the heart of her, and go back into the world.</p> - -<p>In the morning she dressed and went downstairs.</p> - -<p>She’d not be taking anything with her. After Mass the -nuns’d be going to the refectory, and they’d not be missing -her for awhile, and they keeping the custody of the eyes the -way the Holy Rule enjoined.</p> - -<p>Oh, it was the fine nun she was, to talk about the Holy -Rule.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span>The door was unlocked. Once outside on the pavement, -there was nothing to do but pull it to again.</p> - -<p>The slam of it!</p> - -<p>There’d be no getting in again now, without a great -ringing of the bell, and the portress coming to answer it, -and the giving of scandal to the whole of them.</p> - -<p>If it hadn’t been for that slam of the door....</p> - -<p>The weather had broken. It wasn’t hot any more, but -raw and chilly.</p> - -<p>The way he’d laugh, and look at you, so interested in any -little thing you said! It was wonderful.</p> - -<p>What time did people in the world get up and start their -day? Later than this, no doubt. But there’d be the -waiting-room, where she’d sat with Sister Dominic and the -orphans that first time of all. (Maybe she’d never set -eyes on Dominic again.)</p> - -<p>What for did that maid of his take so long to come to -the door?</p> - -<p>But it wasn’t the maid who opened the door at last.</p> - -<p>It was a person in a blue apron, with a man’s cap pulled -down over her eyes, and her sleeves rolled up, and a bucket -with a mop in it at her down-at-heel feet.</p> - -<p>“’E ain’t come yet. Won’t be ’ere, not for a hower, -but if it’s the toothache, you can come in and wait.”</p> - -<p>“Does he not live here, then?”</p> - -<p>“Ho no,’e don’t live ’ere. But ’e comes reg’lar, and -’e’ll be along by-and-by. You go in and sit down. You -won’t mind me going on with the cleaning-up? Turned -cold all of a sudden, ain’t it?”</p> - -<p>The rolled-back carpet in the waiting-room, the chairs -piled, seat against seat, round the walls, the broom that -presently chased into all the corners, made it seem colder.</p> - -<p>It grew colder and colder as the hour went by.</p> - -<p>That was the sound of a key in the lock outside.</p> - -<p>“’Morning, Mrs. Hatch. A nasty change in the weather, -isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>Mumble, mumble, mumble.</p> - -<p>“Oh Lord, already!”</p> - -<p>He came into the room where Sister Clara shuddered and -cowered inside her folds of enveloping black serge.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span>Look at the face of him! Different, somehow.</p> - -<p>You could see how he felt the sudden chilliness in the air, -and he was rubbing his hands together, hard. They were -different, too—all mottled with cold.</p> - -<p>“You in pain, Sister?”</p> - -<p>“I—I’ve come.”</p> - -<p>“M’m? I don’t attend to anyone till nine o’clock, you -know, as a rule, but if it’s a question of pain.... Well, -what can I do for you? By the look of you, it’s an abscess, -isn’t it?”</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span> -<p class="ph2">THE APPEAL</p> -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span> -<h2 class="nobreak">THE APPEAL</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">This</span> isn’t a story. It’s an attempt at reconstruction. -Given my knowledge of the principals—Mary Jarvis, and -her mother, Mrs. St. Luth—I think I can do it.</p> - -<p>Mary Jarvis was my mother, and Mrs. St. Luth, of -course, my grandmother. Thank god, I’m a modern and -can look at them impersonally—judge each on her own -merits, as it were.</p> - -<p>My mother and my grandmother made scenes as other -women make jumpers. It was their form of self-expression. -I imagine—although I never knew for certain—that it was -my father’s inability to maintain himself <i>à la hauteur</i>, in -the perennial melodrama that was my mother’s idea of -life, that led to my grandmother being invited to live with -them.</p> - -<p>She came when I, their only child, had barely reached -the stage of exchanging my baby frills for first knickerbockers. -(I am certain, although I don’t remember it, -that my mother wept and said she felt that she had lost -her baby for ever.)</p> - -<p>Already my parents were unhappy together. Mary—I -call her so here for convenience, but she would never -have tolerated it in reality—Mary, although really affectionate -and impressionable, was fundamentally insincere, -with herself and with everybody else. She lived entirely -on the emotional plane, and when genuine emotions were -not forthcoming she faked them by instinct. Her mother, -who belonged to the same type, although with more strength -of character, and far less capacity for affection, had always -played up to her. They had their violent disputes and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span> -violent reconciliations—neither could have been happy -without—but they did respect one another’s poses.</p> - -<p>But my father never played up.</p> - -<p>He couldn’t. Worse still, if he could have done so, he -wouldn’t—on principle.</p> - -<p>Again I can’t remember, but I can imagine, almost to -the point of certainty, short and searing passages between -my parents.</p> - -<p>“Robert, I want you not to ask me to play the piano -to-night.”</p> - -<p>(He so seldom gave her an opening, that she had to force -them.)</p> - -<p>“Off colour?”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t that. I heard to-day that Mrs. Thorndyke’s -child is dead. It—it upset me.”</p> - -<p>“But you didn’t know the child.”</p> - -<p>“I know Katherine Thorndyke.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve met her once or twice, I remember. And -didn’t we hear that if the poor child had lived, it must have -been an idiot?”</p> - -<p>Probably, at that stage, my mother burst into tears. -She’d been heading for that, of course, although she didn’t -know it consciously. But my father did, and had made her -aware that he did, in a rather brutal fashion.</p> - -<p>That was the way they reacted on one another.</p> - -<p>It was better, after grandmother came. Curiously -enough, my father liked her, although she and Mary had so -many of the same characteristics. But I think he regarded -her as a sort of lightning conductor.</p> - -<p>For Mary herself, however, it was different. Like so -many people who manufacture continual unhappiness for -themselves, she had a frantic craving for happiness, and an -irrational conviction that happiness was her due.</p> - -<p>She told me herself, long afterwards, that she never had -any thought of infidelity towards my father, nor did she ever -meet any man who could or would have caused her to -break her marriage vows. But—and this she didn’t tell -me, it’s part of the reconstruction—she was constantly -obsessed by a vague and romantic expectation of some such -encounter. I imagine that she could not believe the world<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span> -to have been created without a special application to her -yearnings.</p> - -<p>And then undoubtedly the nervous wear and tear that -she imposed upon herself, and upon us all, told on her -spirits. Her scenes with grandmother, although they may -have served as a safety-valve, were too frequent. They -may also have served to throw into painful contrast her -husband’s stolid opposition to any form of emotional -stimulus.</p> - -<p>However that may be, grandmother had formed part of -our household for rather less than a year, when Mary -suddenly ran away.</p> - -<p>It was, I suppose, the only dramatic thing that she could -think of, in a wet and dreary February, and I have no -doubt at all that she did it on impulse. That is to say, she -gave herself time to write an immensely long letter to my -father—in which perhaps she set forth that view of herself -which he never gave her adequate opportunity for putting -into words—but she gave herself no time to pack up her -things. She simply took her dressing-case, and I am sure -that that was mostly filled with photographs in folding -frames, and packets of letters tied up with ribbon, and -little manuals of devotion heavily underscored in several -places.</p> - -<p>Then she walked out of the house, and to the station, and -eventually got to Assisi. And they traced her there almost -at once, partly because she took no pains to cover up her -tracks, and partly because my grandmother—who understood -the processes of her mind—found a copy of a Life of -St. Francis on the drawing-room sofa, face downwards, -with one page all blistered, as though tears had fallen upon -it.</p> - -<p>My father, for his part, found the long letter that no -doubt told him how little he had understood a sensitive -nature, and possibly to what point their life together had -become intolerable.</p> - -<p>And this had the strange effect of making him resolve, -and declare aloud, that nothing would induce him to try -and get her back again. There must have been a stormy -scene between him and my grandmother, who had all the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span> -conventionally moral instincts of her day, and was genuinely -shocked and disturbed at her daughter’s abrupt and violent -casting off of her obvious responsibilities.</p> - -<p>“For the child’s sake, at least, Robert ...” she must -have repeated many times.</p> - -<p>(Neither she nor my mother ever understood the futility -of repeating, again and again, words which had already -failed of their appeal.)</p> - -<p>“A child whose mother can leave him, at four years old, -is better without her.”</p> - -<p>“It was madness, Robert, but you know she’s not a -wicked woman—my poor Mary. If you go and bring her -back now, no one will ever know what has happened, and -you can start a new life together, and try again.”</p> - -<p>“It would be useless.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t, don’t say that.” The tears must have been -pouring down her old face by that time. “Oh, Robert, -give her another chance. This will have been a lesson -to her—won’t you forgive her and take her back?”</p> - -<p>Well, in the end she prevailed to a certain extent—that -is to say, my father would not seek out the culprit himself, -but he would allow grandmother to do so, and if she -brought Mary home again properly repentant he would -not refuse to receive her and give her the “chance” of -starting their married life afresh. “For the boy’s sake.”</p> - -<p>My grandmother must have repeated that phrase a -hundred times at least, and it was certainly her <i>pièce de -resistance</i> in the scene at Assisi with Mary.</p> - -<p>I’ve had a version of that scene from each one of them, -and on the whole the accounts tally, although of course -each viewed it—as they viewed everything—exclusively -from the personal angle.</p> - -<p>My mother saw only a young, beautiful, misunderstood -woman, goaded to frenzy in the grip of an uncongenial -marriage, taking a desperate step in search of freedom. -And then, even stronger and more touching in her relinquishment, -finding the courage, for love of her child, to -return to the house of bondage.</p> - -<p>And my grandmother, with equal inevitability, saw only -a sorrow-worn woman, no longer young (but infinitely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span> -interesting), courageously undertaking a solitary journey, -on a mission that should restore sanctity to a shattered -home. And even as her urgent plea had shaken Robert’s -defences, so her eloquence, her boundless influence and -unfaltering understanding, must prevail with the slighter, -more trivial personality of her daughter. The achievement -of persuading Mary to return to her husband and child -was, my grandmother told me, the ultimate justification of -her existence, in her own eyes.</p> - -<p>As a matter of fact, I doubt if she, any more than the -rest of us, felt her existence to be in any need of justification -whatsoever—but she was addicted to phrases, and -this one at least served as an indication to the magnitude -of her effort.</p> - -<p>For Mary did not capitulate without a struggle. And -it is in the details of that struggle that my reconstruction -work comes in, for although each of the protagonists has -quoted to me whole sentences, and even speeches, of -brilliant oratory from herself and inadequate rejoinder -from the other, I do not believe either of them. Accuracy, -with that type, can never co-exist with emotion—and -emotion, real or imaginary, is never absent.</p> - -<p>But this, I imagine, is more or less what took place in -the sitting-room of the tiny <i>albergo</i> at Assisi:</p> - -<p>“I’ve come to fetch you home, my child. You shall -never hear one word of reproach—Robert only wants to -begin again—a new life.”</p> - -<p>“Never, mother. It’s impossible. I’ve borne too -much. I can’t ever go back to it. I must live my own life.”</p> - -<p>(Probably Mary had been reading <i>The Doll’s House</i>. -People were discovering Ibsen in those days.)</p> - -<p>“Mary, it’s not five years since you and Robert were -married, in the little country church at home, by our dear -old vicar, who held you at the font when I took you, a -tiny baby, to be christened.”</p> - -<p>It may have been at this stage that Mary began to cry. -Anyway, I’m certain that my grandmother did. Any -allusions, however irrelevant, to little country churches at -home, and Mary as a tiny baby, were always apt to bring -the tears to her eyes—and I’m sure that neither of them<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span> -had thought for an instant of steadying their nerves by -sitting down to a solid meal. So that tears must have -been easier, even, than usual.</p> - -<p>“Robert doesn’t understand me—he never will.”</p> - -<p>“Darling, don’t you remember your early days together? -The little things—little jokes, and allusions, and happinesses -shared together? Does one ever forget?”</p> - -<p>“<i>No.</i>”</p> - -<p>Mary sobbed. “But I can’t go back to him.”</p> - -<p>I think that here, if my grandmother gave her a chance, -she probably did make one—or part of one—of the speeches -that she long afterwards quoted to me.</p> - -<p>She was intensely unhappy. Robert did not understand -her, and she could not live in an unsympathetic -atmosphere. She should go mad. All that she had ever -asked of life was peace, beautiful surroundings, and the -ideal companion.... If she went back to Robert now, -after having found courage to make the break, it would -be a repetition of the misery that had broken her heart during -the past three years.</p> - -<p>(The hearts of my mother and grandmother both suffered -innumerable breakages throughout their lives, neither of -them ever seeming aware of the physiological absurdity -of the expression.)</p> - -<p>“It’s braver to stay away than to go back and try and -patch up something that can never be anything but a -failure,” quavered Mary, with a momentary flash of insight.</p> - -<p>But of course grandmother couldn’t leave it at that. -She had the justification of her own existence to think of, -for one thing. I am quite sure that a fortuitous street-musician, -rendering “Santa Lucia” or “Silver Threads -Amongst the Gold” in the distance, would have broken -down Mary’s frail barrier of honest thought, and have -materially assisted my grandmother to her victory. Accessories -were so absolutely essentials, to them both.</p> - -<p>But so far as I know, grandmother had to win on points, -as it were, and received no extraneous help in the shape -of sentimental appeals from without.</p> - -<p>She made her supreme effort.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span>“For the boy’s sake, Mary ... your little, little boy. -Is he to be motherless?”</p> - -<p>“Wouldn’t Robert let me have him?”</p> - -<p>“No, my dear. How could he? I myself—the mother -that bore you, Mary—I couldn’t think it right that a woman -who had deliberately deserted her husband and home -should have the care of a little, innocent child.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, my baby!”</p> - -<p>She sobbed and cried, but she had not yet capitulated. -Grandmother, however, had gauged pretty accurately the -force of the baby-<i>motif</i>.</p> - -<p>“Before I came away, on my long, lonely journey,” she -said slowly, “I went up to the nursery, to say good-bye to -Bobbie. He had on his blue overall—the one you embroidered -for him last summer, Mary—was it only last -summer?—and he was playing with his engine, on the -nursery floor, his dear, round face was so solemn....”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t—don’t——”</p> - -<p>But grandmother, the tears streaming from her eyes, -relentlessly continued: “Darling, his big blue eyes looked -up at me, and his little voice asked: ‘<i>Where’s Mummie?</i>’”</p> - -<p>Did grandmother’s—even grandmother’s—conscience -misgive her, at the quotation? That it was verbally -correct, I have no doubt—but what of the intonation?</p> - -<p>My grandmother’s poignant rendering of “<i>Where’s -Mummie?</i>” no doubt contained all the pathetic appeal of -bewildered and deserted childhood throughout the ages....</p> - -<p>But mine—the original “<i>Where’s Mummie?</i>...” I have -no recollection of it, of course, but I do remember myself -at four years old—a stolid, rather cynical child, utterly -independent by temperament, and reacting strongly even -then against a perpetually emotional atmosphere. And one -knows the way in which small children utter those conventional -enquiries which they unconsciously know to be -expected of them ... the soft, impersonal indifference of -the tone, the immediate re-absorption, without waiting for -a reply, in the engrossing occupation of the moment....</p> - -<p>Mary held out for a little while longer, but the heart -went out of her resistance after the pitiful sound of that -“<i>Where’s Mummie?</i>” as my grandmother rendered it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span>She gave in “for the boy’s sake.”</p> - -<p>And my grandmother had justified her existence.</p> - -<p>They travelled home together, and Mary averted anti-climax -by quite a real nervous breakdown, that overtook -her after she got home, before my father had had time to -forgive her in so many words.</p> - -<p>So they began again—literally.</p> - -<p>It wasn’t, in fact, possible for them to be happy together, -and they never were so. I grew up in the midst of scenes, -tears, and intermittent periods of reconciliation. There -was no stability about my childhood; and no reality. -Undoubtedly I was the victim—far more so than my father, -who presently sought and found consolation elsewhere, or -than Mary, whom he thus provided with a perfectly legitimate -grievance that lasted her until he died, fifteen years -later. After that, she was able gradually to forget that -there had ever been unhappiness between them, and to -assume the identity of a heart-broken widow.</p> - -<p>Mrs. St. Luth, my grandmother, lived to be very old.</p> - -<p>“But useless old woman though I am, God gave me the -opportunity of justifying my existence, when He let me -bring a mother home to her little child....”</p> - -<p>I wonder.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>Thank god, I’m a modern.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span> -<p class="ph2">THE FIRST STONE</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span></p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span> -<h2 class="nobreak">THE FIRST STONE</h2> - -<p class="ph1"><span class="smcap">A Play in One Act</span></p> -</div> - -<p class="center"><i>Characters</i>:</p> - -<table> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span></td><td class="tdc" rowspan="3"><img src="images/bracket.jpg" alt=""></td><td class="mid" rowspan="3"> <i>Members of the local Welfare<br> Committee</i></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span> </td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Miss Miller</span></td><td> </td> <td> <i>Secretary to the Committee.</i> </td></tr> -</table> - -<hr class="tiny2"> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Scene</span></p> - -<p><i>A committee-room on the top floor of a house in a -small provincial town. Back of the stage, centre, there -is a door, opening inwards on to the stage. To the right -of the door, a few pegs are on the wall for hanging coats, -etc. Right of the stage, is a good-sized window, showing -distant views of chimney-pots outside. Left of the stage, -a small gas-fire burns. Near it, a table and chairs have -been formally arranged for the meeting.</i></p> - -<p><i>The whole atmosphere of the room is cold and dreary. -Time: a winter afternoon in 1917.</i></p> - -<p><i>Miss Miller discovered. She is cold and tired-looking, -mechanically arranging blotting-paper, etc. on the table.</i></p> - -<p><i>Mrs. Ballantyne enters. She is prosperous-looking -and clad in warm furs, and is out of breath from ascending -the stairs.</i></p> -</div> -<hr class="tiny2"> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span><span class="smcap">Miss Miller</span>: Good afternoon, Mrs. Ballantyne.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span> (<i>out of breath</i>): Good afternoon. Oh -dear, those stairs! I’m out of -breath.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Miller</span>: They are trying, aren’t they? -Four flights!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: Oh, you oughtn’t to find them -trying, at your age. Tell me, -have you any idea why we’ve all -been asked to come here to-day, -Miss Miller? It’s not the day -for our regular meeting, at all.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Miller</span>: No, I’ve got the notice for that -all ready to send out as usual. -This is a special meeting that Mrs. -Lloyd-Evans is calling. She only -sent me a note about it last night, -telling me to get the room ready.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: She wrote to me too, but she -didn’t say what it was all about. -I suppose she’ll have written to -Mrs. Akers, as well.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Miller</span>: Here they are.</p> - -<p>(<i>Enter Mrs. Lloyd-Evans and -Mrs. Akers. Mrs. Lloyd-Evans is -mysterious and melancholy, and -Mrs. Akers lively and full of undisguised -curiosity. Both wear -heavy coats, furs, etc. They shake -hands with Mrs. Ballantyne, and -nod and say how d’ye do to Miss -Miller. Whilst they talk they -loosen or take off their wraps, and -place them on the pegs near the door.</i>)</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span> (<i>to Mrs. Ballantyne</i>): How d’ye do. -We’re all a little before our time, -I think, but then as I always say,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span> -it’s better to be too early than too -late. (<i>This she says with an air -of originality.</i>)</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: Of course, the minute I got your -note I quite saw that something -must have happened, or you -wouldn’t have asked us to come -out in this dreadful cold, <i>and</i> up -those awful stairs. I do think, -when we’re doing the whole of -this Welfare Committee business -gratuitously, that they might have -found us a room on the ground -floor. Isn’t there any hope of -getting better premises?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: They pretend that any accommodation -is difficult to find nowadays, -but I should like to know why -some building shouldn’t be done? -What I always say is, that there -wouldn’t be half this unemployment -trouble, if people were given -<i>work</i>.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span> (<i>bored</i>): Yes, indeed.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: It’s just Bolshevism, you know, -all this talk of unemployment. -There’s always work for those -who are willing to work. Now I -can’t help thinking it would -put a stop to all this labour unrest, -if they could only send a few of the -leaders to <i>Russia</i>, to show them -what Bolshevism has resulted in, -there.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Ballantyne: Yes, of course. It really would -be a lesson. (<i>She is arranging -her dress, etc., as she speaks, and -tidying herself at a little pocket-mirror.</i>)</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span> (<i>seating herself, to Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</i>): Well, I’m -all agog to know what’s happened. -Your note was most mysterious. -What’s been happening at the -School? Really, the present -generation is the limit—always -giving trouble. It seems to have -come in with bobbed hair.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: Girls are often very artful.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: Well, we ought to be able to cope -with the artfulness of mere schoolgirls, -surely. Now do let’s sit -down and get to business.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span> (<i>to Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</i>): As you see, -I haven’t brought my daughter. -I’m sure it was very thoughtful -of you to warn me in your note, -but I gather it means that we have -something—painful—to discuss?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: One hardly likes to put things -into words—but your Phyllis is a -young girl, after all, and I always -feel there ought to be something -<i>sacred</i> about a young girl.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: I had to pretend to Phyllis that -you wanted to speak about some -very dull question of finance. It -was deceiving her, perhaps, but I -<i>do</i> so agree with you about how -one ought to treat young girls as -something <i>sacred</i>, as you say. -So I told her the whole thing was -going to be very formal, and only -members of the actual Committee -allowed to be present. I’m afraid -it was rather in the nature of a -pious fraud.</p> - -<p>(<i>They all laugh, and draw slightly -closer together</i>.)</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: Before we begin, I should like -to say that this must all be in -absolute confidence.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span> (<i>looking at Miss Miller</i>): Excuse me -a moment. (<i>She whispers to Mrs. -Lloyd-Evans. The other ladies -try to hear what is said, and at -the same time to look as though -they were doing nothing of the sort.</i>)</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span> (<i>aloud</i>): I am sure Miss Miller will be -discreet. Charity sometimes forces -one to face very painful things, and -one must be brave and hear about -various tragedies that one would -far prefer never to mention at all. -(<i>Pause.</i>) One hardly knows how -to word certain things. (<i>Pause.</i>)</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: Really, if it’s anything of <i>that</i> -sort, I think we ought to ask Miss -Miller to leave us. (<i>Aside</i>): she’s -only a girl.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span> (<i>eagerly</i>): <i>That</i> sort? What sort?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: Well, you know what I mean. -But I’m sure I hope I’m mistaken.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: I’m afraid you’re not, Mrs. Ballantyne.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: Call a spade a spade. Is it the -usual thing?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: I should be sorry to call it the -<i>usual</i> thing. But I’m afraid that’s -what it is.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: I’ve worked in a district, and -my husband has a large medical -practice amongst poor people. -I suppose some girl has got into -trouble?</p> - -<p>(<i>Mrs. Lloyd-Evans bows her head -in assent, and once more all three<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span> -ladies draw their chairs closer together. -Miss Miller covers her face -with her hands for a moment.</i>) <i>From -now onwards, the three ladies are -all much more animated, and full -of barely-disguised enjoyment of a -subject which they all regard as a -delicate one.</i></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: We’re all married women here, -and I think we can discuss this -better without Miss Miller.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Miller</span> (<i>quickly, and with suppressed agitation</i>): If -it’s a formal meeting, you’ll want -the minutes entered.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: Yes. She’d better stay.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span> (<i>aside to Mrs. Akers</i>): I don’t agree. -I’m the mother of a girl myself, -as you know, and to me girlhood -is <i>sacred</i>. We have a most painful -subject to discuss.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Miller:</span> Please let me stay. I—I might -help.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: How could <i>you</i> help, Miss Miller? -And even if you could, it would be -most unsuitable in an unmarried -girl like yourself. Please wait in -the next room until we call you to -take down the results of the -conference.</p> - -<p>(<i>Exit Miss Miller, and shuts the -door.</i>)</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: I don’t know that I altogether -like that girl. Rather horrid of -her to be so curious, wasn’t it?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: Any young woman with a <i>nice</i> -mind would have been only too -thankful to be spared the embarrassment -of staying in the room while<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span> -such a thing was being discussed. -(<i>Her tone changes to eagerness.</i>) -Well, this is too dreadful! Which -of the girls is it?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: I’m certain it’s one of those -twins! They really are pretty—you -know what I mean, pretty <i>for</i> -that class. Which of them is it?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: It’s nothing to do with the twins. -(Though I daresay it’ll be them -next—one never knows, when -once this sort of thing begins.) -No, it’s the girl from London, the -daughter of that widowed Mrs. -Smith who has been taking in -washing in West Street.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: Fanny!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: That child! But she can’t be -more than sixteen.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: Fifteen. But one knows what -London girls are, at any age.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: How did you find out? Is it -absolutely certain?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: Absolutely. It ought to have -been found out months ago, if -the girl hadn’t been so artful. -Even her mother says she had no -idea, till just the other day.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span> (<i>decidedly</i>): That’s impossible.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: She pitched a long yarn about -the girl herself not having known -what was happening. They pretend -it came to light by accident, -through something Fanny said to -her mother, which made her -suspicious.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span> (<i>eagerly</i>): What was that? If we’re to -help at all, we’d better know -everything.</p> - -<p>(<i>Mrs. Lloyd-Evans whispers to -her, and Mrs. Akers whispers in -her turn to Mrs. Ballantyne.</i>)</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: And when do they expect——</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: In three months’ time, actually.</p> - -<p>(<i>The members of the Committee, -in silence, make rapid movements -upon their fingers, in evident calculation.</i>)</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: Then it must have happened -after they got down here, that’s -clear.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: I think it’s much more likely -it was in London. There’d just -be time. Londoners are always -immoral. Besides, as I said to her, -<i>in our town these things don’t -happen</i>.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: How did they take it?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: The girl herself seems absolutely -callous. I couldn’t get a word out -of her. The mother says she -hasn’t been able to, either, and -she’s been trying to force her to -tell her when it happened. The -grandmother was there, as well, -and you know what an odious old -woman <i>she</i> is. I shouldn’t be at -all surprised if she’d been in the -plot the whole time.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: When did all this conversation -take place, if I may ask?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: Only yesterday. I happened -to go in there, and found the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span> -mother in tears, so of course I got -the whole story out of her. I -felt it was a question for the -Welfare Committee—married -women, like ourselves—and I’ve -done absolutely nothing, except -ask Dr. Akers to see the girl and -make certain.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: Well! He’s never said a word -to <i>me</i> about it. I must say, he -was out late last night and early -this morning, but I do think he -ought to have given me a hint.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: Gentlemen are so odd, about -anything to do with their business. -I’ve often noticed it. One -has to probe for <i>hours</i>, sometimes, -to get the simplest piece of information.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: Look here, we shall have to -settle something. Of course the -girl must go away.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">The Others</span>: Of course.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: The question is, where?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: Surely some Sisterhood would -take her in.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: One doesn’t want to be hard on -her. I told the mother that we -should discuss it all quietly -amongst ourselves before settling -anything.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: <i>I</i> think we ought to send for the -girl, and see if we can get anything -out of her. Of course, it would be -very trying and dreadful, but I’m -sure that’s what we ought to do. -I, for one, shouldn’t shrink from -it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: You wouldn’t get a word out of -her. They were all in league -together, it seemed to me. -Thoroughly artful and determined -to stick together, I thought them, -all three of them.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: I can’t see why the grandmother -should have any say in the matter -at all. Pray what has <i>she</i> to do -with it?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: She talked a great deal of nonsense -about wanting to keep -Fanny at home. As I said to her, -if keeping Fanny at home results -in <i>this</i> sort of thing, then the -sooner Fanny goes away from home -the better. She was thoroughly -nonplussed at that, as you may -imagine, and couldn’t answer anything -at all, though of course she -chattered away, but I took not the -slightest notice.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: But, Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, do you -mean to say that they won’t tell -who the man is?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: The girl won’t say a word. As I -said to her myself, it <i>must</i> have -been somebody in London before -they came away, and it’s no use -telling me it happened here, because -I simply shan’t believe it.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: Well, what about a Home, or -some other place where the girl -could go till it’s all over? It had -better be as far away from here -as possible, of course.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">The other two as before</span>: Oh, of course.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: I have two or three addresses -of that kind—one place is near -London.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: The very thing. I’d gladly -take her up myself, if necessary. -She’s very young and one doesn’t -want to be hard on her. What -line are the mother and grandmother -taking up?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: The mother cried a good deal, -and said how ashamed she was -that the girl should make such -a return for all that’s been done -for them down here. People have -been very kind about employing -her—I’ve sent washing there myself. -(She charges less than the -steam-laundry.) She was thoroughly -upset, and one could have -managed <i>her</i> all right. It’s the -grandmother that’s so impossible, -and the girl looks as though she -could be thoroughly obstinate. -I’m bound to say she was looking -very ill, so one didn’t want to -frighten her.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: Well, that doesn’t apply to the -old woman. She must be squashed. -Leave the grandmother to me if -necessary. If there’s any difficulty -about their letting Fanny -go, I can say we shall inform the -police. These people are perfectly -ignorant of the law, and would -probably believe anything. (<i>She -laughs in a slightly shamefaced, -way.</i>) After all, it’s for the girl’s -own good.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: Certainly, and besides, for their -own sake they want to avoid -exposure. The mother can be -told that the Committee is taking -the whole expense and trouble off -her hands, and she’ll be only too -thankful to let the girl go. She -can come back when it’s all over, -and if they’re careful, people -needn’t know anything about it.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: But what will happen—when——</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: What?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: What will be done with the—with -the little——</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: The <i>results</i>, you mean?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: Oh, the baby. In these sad -cases, one almost hopes that it -may not live, dreadful though it -sounds to say such a thing.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: My husband tells me that in -his experience, illegitimate children -are often particularly strong -and healthy infants.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: God’s ways are not our ways.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span> (<i>to Mrs. Ballantyne</i>): But in this case, -of course, the child will be taken -away the minute it’s born, and -the mother will probably never -set eyes on it at all. It’s taken -to some Institution where they -look after it, and that gives the -mother a chance of living it down. -Especially when she’s so young.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: The grandmother said something -about the baby, as she -called it, but of course I stopped -that at once. They can hardly -earn enough to keep themselves, -as it is, and if there was any<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span> -question of Fanny being allowed -to keep the child, it would simply -amount, as I told her, to putting a -premium upon immorality. Of -course, if one knew who the man -was, pressure could be brought to -bear on him, but I don’t believe -for an instant that it’s a case of the -girl having been seduced. She’s -probably a thorough little bad lot. -Quite likely she doesn’t know who -the father is. I’m told that some -of these London girls are frightfully—promiscuous.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: I don’t know how to believe -that—at fifteen! I’m afraid it -may have been somebody down -here, you know.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: Oh please don’t suggest such a -thing. It’s the last thing we -want to have established. Just -think of the talk! As it is, if we -don’t press the question, we can -get the girl away quietly and -nothing be known about it.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: You think we shan’t get anything -out of her?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: Nothing, nor her mother either, -according to her own account. -The old grandmother began some -story about an assault having -perhaps been made on the girl, -and she too frightened to tell; -but as I said, if that sort of thing -was new to her, a girl’s first -impulse would be to rush to her -mother with the story, and if she -didn’t, it only showed that she -thought nothing of it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span> (<i>thoughtfully</i>): I wonder if <i>I</i> could get anything -out of her? I’ve a very -good mind to go home that way. -One dreads having to deal with -this sort of sad case, but after -all, it’s charity. I could put -the old grandmother into her -place once and for all, as you say -she’s disposed to be tiresome, and -make Fanny herself understand -that we only want to help her. -After all, we’ve all read our Bible, -I hope: “Which amongst you -shall cast the first stone?”</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: As the mother of a girl myself, I -was wondering if <i>I</i> ought not to -talk to Fanny, perhaps. Goodness -knows, it’s a miserable affair, -but the world is what it is, -and it’s no use <i>shrinking</i> from these -things.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span> (<i>displeased</i>): As it was I who made -this very sad and perplexing discovery, -I think I had better be the -person to see the business through. -Naturally, one consults the Committee, -but I can’t help feeling -that there had better be only one -intermediary between the Committee -and the girl’s family. -It’s more business-like, and one -must be business-like.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: Oh, certainly!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: But this isn’t an official meeting, -is it? We’ve had no notes taken, -or anything. And we haven’t -passed any resolution. Now, I -should like to propose that I write -to-night to St. Mary Magdalene’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span> -Home and try and arrange to get -Fanny taken in there as soon as -possible, and kept till after the -birth of the child.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: I second that.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: Proposed and seconded. Those -in favour—(<i>they each lift up a -hand</i>). Those against.... Carried -unanimously, I think.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: Now, is there anything more we -can do?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: I don’t think so. If there are -any further developments, I will -let you know, of course. I mean, -if one can get any admission out of -the girl, for instance. She seemed -to me perfectly stolid and bewildered, -but one doesn’t want to risk -upsetting her, naturally. It would -be extremely annoying if anything -happened before we can get -her away.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: What did they say about her -health? Is she all right?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: Perfectly all right. Why -shouldn’t she be—a young, -healthy girl like that!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: After all, it’s nature.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: I don’t call it nature at all, -at fifteen. I call it <i>sin</i>. (<i>Rises, -and goes to put on her coat. The -other two remain seated.</i>)</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span> (<i>shuddering</i>): Fifteen! Just think -of it! My Phyllis is only two -years older. Thank heaven, I’ve -been able to keep her as innocent -as a baby. She knows -<i>nothing</i>—absolutely nothing.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: Innocence is such a safeguard.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: What I shall tell her about this -meeting, I really don’t know. Unfortunately, -she knew where I -was coming, and I shall have to -invent something to tell her in -case she asks any questions about -it, as she’s certain to do. Luckily, -I think she trusts me absolutely.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: Come home to tea with me, dear -Mrs. Ballantyne. It will help -to take both our minds off the -whole sad subject.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: How very kind of you! I should -love to. We must try and forget -all about it for the time being.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: I can’t help wondering how -Fanny could have managed to -deceive her mother for so long.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: I must say, I should have -thought any woman with eyes in -her head——</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: Yes, and besides, why didn’t -the girl, if she was a respectable -girl, go <i>straight</i> to her mother -when——</p> - -<p>(<i>Mrs. Akers and Mrs. Ballantyne, -lean across the table, talking -busily about Fanny’s behaviour, -both at once. Meanwhile Mrs. -Lloyd-Evans, who has now got her -furs on, stands as though listening -to some sound outside the door, -unnoticed by the other two. She -tiptoes rapidly to the door and -flings it open. Miss Miller is -crouching outside, having evidently -been listening. One side of her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span> -face is scarlet where it has been -pressed to the door, the other white. -She rises awkwardly as the door -opens, but not before they have all -seen her.</i>)</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span>: I <i>thought</i> so!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Miller</span> (<i>wildly</i>): What did you think, Mrs. Lloyd-Evans? -That I’ve been listening -at the door? So I have! -That I’ve overheard all your -charitable plans for Fanny Smith -and her illegitimate child? So I -have!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: You should be ashamed of -yourself.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Ballantyne</span>: What’s the meaning of this?</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Miller</span>: I’ll tell you. You said just now -that the world is what it is—there’s -no use in shrinking from things—shrinking -from them! Ha, ha, -ha! (<i>she laughs hysterically</i>). -You’re a great deal more likely -to jump at them. But if you -want to have my explanation, you -shall have it.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span> (<i>pointing to the door</i>): Miss Miller, -leave the room.</p> - -<p>(<i>Miss Miller looks at her, still -laughing, then turns the key in the -door, shutting and locking it.</i>)</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Miller</span>: I shan’t leave the room, nor -you either, till you’ve heard -what I’ve got to say.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Akers</span>: Good heavens, she’s mad!</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lloyd-Evans</span> (<i>advancing resolutely</i>): Give me that -key this moment (<i>putting out -her hand for it</i>).</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span>(<i>Miss Miller, too quick for her, -dashes to the window, throwing up -the sash, and flings out the key. -During the rest of the scene she -stands with her back to the open -window, while the three other -women are grouped together behind -the table, at the further side of the -room.</i>)</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Miller</span> (<i>her voice has grown cunning, and bitterly -and vehemently ironical both at -once. She gives the impression -of dementia</i>): <i>I</i> knew what you -were going to talk about. <i>She</i> -(<i>pointing to Mrs. Akers</i>) gave -it away when she said it must be -“the usual thing.” Of course I -listened, to hear what you’d do -for Fanny—poor Fanny, who’s -going to bring a little baby into -the world, and who’s been ill and -terrified and unhappy, all these -months. And you (<i>to Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, -bitter mockery in her -tone</i>) found it out, and you asked -these other kind, charitable, rich -ladies to come and meet you here, -so that you could all talk it over, -and make plans about Fanny. -(<i>Suddenly and viciously</i>): And oh, -how you all <i>enjoyed</i> it—didn’t you—telling -each other how painful -it was, and how sad, and how you -could hardly put it into words!</p> - -<p>(<i>Fiercely</i>): Why, you nearly -scratched one another’s eyes out -for the fun of going to Fanny’s -mother, and “putting the old -grandmother into her place” and -putting Fanny through the Third<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span> -Degree, nagging and nagging at her -to <i>tell</i>, so that you could hear more -shocking details, and come and -gloat over them.</p> - -<p>(<i>Mimicking</i>): “Oh, but we want -to help her,” and “girlhood is so -<i>sacred</i>.” (<i>To Mrs. Ballantyne</i>): -Yes, you said that several times, -didn’t you, you who are so thankful -that your girl <i>trusts</i> you—so that -when you cheat her and tell little -lies for her own good, the poor -little fool swallows it. She won’t -always swallow it, you know—she’ll -find you out one day. Just -like I’ve found out, what charity -means and what’s done to girls who -sin and get found out. I had to -know, you see, because—I’ve done -what Fanny did——</p> - -<p>(<i>The women cry out, below their -breath.</i>)</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Miss Miller</span>: You needn’t be frightened—it -isn’t anyone down here. That’s -what you’re afraid of, isn’t it—that -it may all end up tamely after -all, with a hasty marriage, and -nothing left to talk about! You’d -like to hustle me away, like Fanny, -to somewhere that will take your -money, and make you feel all nice -and glowing and charitable—and -where they’ll “take away the -baby, and the mother probably -never sets eyes on it at all.” To -be allowed to keep it, would “put -a premium on immorality” -wouldn’t it? Ha, ha, ha! I’ve -been frightened all these weeks, -but I’m not frightened any more<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span> -now. Something went snap inside -my head, I think, all in a minute, -while I was listening to all of you. -I’d thought of appealing to you, -you see—such kind ladies, all -given over to works of charity! -If you’re the <i>charitable</i> (<i>laughing -wildly</i>) what would <i>other</i> people -say? No, no, no—I’ll not be -like Fanny, I’ve thought of a -better plan than any of yours!</p> - -<p>(<i>She springs on to the sill of the -open window. Mrs. Akers cries -“Stop her!” and they dash forward, -but the table impedes them, -and Miss Miller, still laughing, -throws herself out.</i></p> - -<p><i>The curtain falls as Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, -screaming, pulls at the -locked door, and the other two -women throw themselves against the -window and look downwards.</i>)</p> - -<p class="center">THE END</p> - -<hr class="tb"> -<p class="center">PRINTED BY THE ANCHOR PRESS, LTD., TIPTREE, ESSEX, ENGLAND.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="transnote"> -<p class="ph1">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:</p> - -<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.</p> - -<p>Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.</p> - -<p>Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.</p> - -<p>The cover image for this eBook was created by the transcriber using the original cover and is entered into the public domain.</p> -</div></div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MESSALINA OF THE SUBURBS ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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