“Your hands,” Doris whispered. “Oh, you mustn’t touch me. They give me electric shocks.”
Mr. Hutton adored her for the virgin imbecility of the words. How late in one’s existence one makes the discovery of one’s body!
“The electricity isn’t in me, it’s in you.” He kissed her again, whispering her name several times: Doris, Doris, Doris. The scientific appellation of the sea-mouse, he was thinking as he kissed the throat she offered him, white and extended like the throat of a victim awaiting the sacrificial knife. The sea-mouse was a sausage with iridescent fur: very peculiar. Or was Doris the sea-cucumber, which turns itself inside out in moments of alarm? He would really have to go to Naples again, just to see the aquarium. These sea creatures were fabulous.
“Oh, Teddy Bear!” (More zoology; but he was only a land animal. His poor little jokes!) “Teddy Bear, I’m so happy.”
“So am I,” said Mr. Hutton. Was it true?
“But I wish I knew if it were right. Tell me, Teddy Bear, is it right or wrong?”
“Ah, my dear, that’s just what I’ve been wondering for the last thirty years.”
“Be serious, Teddy Bear. I want to know if this is right; if it’s right that I should be here with you and that we should love one another, and that it should give me electric shocks when you touch me.”
“Right? Well, it’s certainly good that you should have electric shocks rather than sexual repressions. Read Freud; repressions are the devil.”
“Oh, you don’t help me. Why aren’t you ever serious? If only you knew how miserable I am sometimes, thinking it’s not right. Perhaps, you know, there is a hell, and all that. I don’t know what to do. Sometimes I think I ought to stop loving you,” she said sadly.
“But could you?” asked Mr. Hutton, confident in the powers of his seduction and his mustache.
“No, Teddy Bear, you know I couldn’t. But I could run away, I could hide from you. I could force myself not to come to you.”
“Silly little thing!”
“Oh, dear. I hope it isn’t wrong. And there are times when I don’t care if it is.”
Mr. Hutton was touched. He had a certain protective affection for this little creature. He laid his cheek against her hair and so, interlaced, they sat in silence, while the car, swaying and pitching a little as it hastened along, seemed to draw in the white road and the dusty hedges towards it.
“Goodbye, goodbye.”
The car moved on, gathered speed, vanished round a curve, and Doris was left standing by the sign-post at the crossroads, still dizzy and weak with the languor born of those kisses and the electrical touch of those gentle hands. She had to take a deep breath, to draw herself up deliberately, before she was strong enough to start her homeward walk. She had half a mile in which to invent the necessary lies.
Alone, Mr. Hutton suddenly found himself the prey of an appalling boredom.
* * *
—
Mrs. Hutton was lying on the sofa in her boudoir, playing Patience. In spite of the warmth of the July evening a wood fire was burning on the hearth. A black Pomeranian, extenuated by the heat and the fatigues of digestion, slept before the small blaze.
“Phew! Isn’t it rather hot in here?” Mr. Hutton asked as he entered.
“You know I have to keep warm, dear.” The voice seemed breaking on the verge of tears. “I get so shivery.”
“I hope you’re better this evening.”
“Not much, I’m afraid.”
The conversation stagnated. Mr. Hutton stood leaning his back against the mantelpiece. He looked down at the Pomeranian lying at his feet, and with the toe of his right boot he rolled the little dog over and rubbed its white-flecked chest and belly. The creature lay in an inert ecstasy. Mrs. Hutton continued to play Patience. Arrived at an impasse, she altered the position of one card, took back another, and went on playing. Her Patiences always came out.
“Dr. Libbard thinks I ought to go to Llandrindod Wells this summer.”
“Well, go, my dear.”
Mr. Hutton was thinking of the events of the afternoon: how they had driven, Doris and he, up to the hanging wood had left the car to wait for them under the shade of the trees, and walked together out into the sunshine of the chalkdown.
“I’m to drink the waters for my liver, and he thinks I ought to have massage and electric treatment, too.”
Hat in hand, Doris had stalked four blue butterflies that were dancing together round a scabious flower with a motion that was like the flickering of blue fire burst and scattered into whirling sparks; she had given chase, laughing and shouting.
“I’m sure it will do you good.”
“I was wondering if you’d come with me, dear.”
“But you know I’m going to Scotland at the end of the month.”
Mrs. Hutton looked up at him entreatingly. “It’s the journey,” she said. “The thought of it is such a nightmare. I don’t know if I can manage it. And you know I can’t sleep in hotels. And then there’s the luggage and all the worries. I can’t go alone.”
“But you won’t be alone. You’ll have your maid with you.” He spoke impatiently. The sick woman was usurping the place of the healthy one. He was being dragged back from the memory of the sunlit down and the quick, laughing girl, back to this unhealthy, overheated room and its complaining occupant.
“I don’t think I shall be able to go.”
“But you must, my dear, if the doctor tells you to. And, besides, a change will do you good.”
“I don’t think so.”
“But Libbard thinks so, and he knows what he’s talking about.”
“No, I can’t face it. I’m too weak. I can’t go alone.” Mrs. Hutton pulled a handkerchief out of her black silk bag, and put it to her eyes.
“Nonsense, my dear, you must make the effort.”
“I had rather be left in peace to die here.” She was crying in earnest now.
“O Lord! Now do be reasonable. Listen now, please.” Mrs. Hutton only sobbed more violently. “Oh, what is one to do?” He shrugged his shoulders and walked out of the room.
Mr. Hutton was aware that he had not behaved with proper patience; but he could not help it. Very early in his manhood he had discovered that not only did he not feel sympathy for the poor, the weak, the diseased, and deformed; he actually hated them. Once, as an undergraduate, he spent three days at a mission in the East End. He had returned, filled with a profound and ineradicable disgust. Instead of pitying, he loathed the unfortunate. It was not, he knew, a very comely emotion, and he had been ashamed of it at first. In the end he had decided that it was temperamental, inevitable, and had felt no further qualms. Emily had been healthy and beautiful when he married her. He had loved her then. But now—was it his fault that she was like this?
Mr. Hutton dined alone. Food and drink left him more benevolent than he had been before dinner. To make amends for his show of exasperation he went up to his wife’s room and offered to read to her. She was touched, gratefully accepted the offer, and Mr. Hutton, who was particularly proud of his accent, suggested a little light reading in French.
“French? I am so fond of French.” Mrs. Hutton spoke of the language of Racine as though it were a dish of green peas.
Mr. Hutton ran down to the library and returned with a yellow volume. He began reading. The effort of pronouncing perfectly absorbed his whole attention. But how good his accent was! The fact of its goodness seemed to improve the quality of the novel he was reading.
At the end of fifteen pages an unmistakable sound aroused him. He looked up; Mrs. Hutton had gone to sleep. He sat still for a little while, looking with a dispassionate curiosity at the sleeping face. Once it had been beautiful; once, long ago, the sight of it, the recollection of it, had moved him with an emotion profounder, perhaps, than any he had felt before or since. Now it w
as lined and cadaverous. The skin was stretched tightly over the cheekbones, across the bridge of the sharp, bird-like nose. The closed eyes were set in profound bone-rimmed sockets. The lamplight striking on the face from the side emphasized with light and shade its cavities and projections. It was the face of a dead Christ by Morales.
Le squelette était invisible
Au temps hereux de l’art paien.
He shivered a little, and tiptoed out.
On the following day Mrs. Hutton came down to luncheon. She had had some unpleasant palpitations during the night, but she was feeling better now. Besides, she wanted to do honor to her guest. Miss Spence listened to her complaints about Llandrindod Wells, and was loud in sympathy, lavish with advice. Whatever she said was always said with intensity. She leaned forward, aimed, so to speak, like a gun, and fired her words. Bang! the charge in her soul was ignited, the words whizzed forth at the narrow barrel of her mouth. She was a machine-gun riddling her hostess with sympathy. Mr. Hutton had undergone similar bombardments, mostly of a literary or philosophic character—bombardments of Maeterlinck, of Mrs. Besant, of Bergson, of William James. Today the missiles were medical. She talked about insomnia, she expatiated on the virtues of harmless drugs and beneficent specialists. Under the bombardment Mrs. Hutton opened out, like a flower in the sun.
Mr. Hutton looked on in silence. The spectacle of Janet Spence evoked in him an unfailing curiosity. He was not romantic enough to imagine that every face masked an interior physiognomy of beauty or strangeness, that every woman’s small talk was like a vapor hanging over mysterious gulfs. His wife, for example, and Doris; they were nothing more than what they seemed to be. But with Janet Spence it was somehow different. Here one could be sure that there was some kind of a queer face behind the Gioconda smile and the Roman eyebrows. The only question was: What exactly was there?
“But perhaps you won’t have to go to Llandrindod after all,” Miss Spence was saying. “If you get well quickly Dr. Libbard will let you off.”
“I only hope so. Indeed, I do really feel rather better today.”
Mr. Hutton felt ashamed. How much was it his own lack of sympathy that prevented her from feeling well every day? But he comforted himself by reflecting that it was only a case of feeling, not of being better. Sympathy does not mend a diseased liver.
“My dear, I wouldn’t eat those red currants if I were you,” he said, suddenly solicitous. “You know that Libbard has banned everything with skins and pips.”
“But I am so fond of them,” Mrs. Hutton protested, “and I feel so well today.”
“Don’t be a tyrant,” said Miss Spence, looking first at him and then at his wife. “Let the poor invalid have what she fancies; it will do her good.” She laid her hand on Mrs. Hutton’s arm and patted it affectionately.
“Thank you, my dear.” Mrs. Hutton helped herself to the stewed currants.
“Well, don’t blame me if they make you ill again.”
“Do I ever blame you, dear?”
“You have nothing to blame me for,” Mr. Hutton answered playfully. “I am the perfect husband.”
They sat in the garden after luncheon. From the island of shade under the old cypress tree they looked out across a flat expanse of lawn, in which the parterres of flowers shone with a metallic brilliance.
Mr. Hutton took a deep breath of the warm and fragrant air. “It’s good to be alive,” he said.
“Just to be alive,” his wife echoed, stretching one pale, knot-jointed hand into the sunlight.
A maid brought the coffee; the silver pots and the little blue cups were set on a folding table near the group of chairs.
“Oh, my medicine!” exclaimed Mrs. Hutton. “Run in and fetch it, Clara, will you? The white bottle on the sideboard.”
“I’ll go,” said Mr. Hutton. “I’ve got to fetch a cigar in any case.”
He ran in towards the house. On the threshold he turned round for an instant. The maid was walking back across the lawn. His wife was sitting up in her deck-chair, engaged in opening her white parasol. Miss Spence was bending over the table, pouring out the coffee. He passed into the cool obscurity of the house.
“Do you like sugar in your coffee?” Miss Spence inquired.
“Yes, please. Give me rather a lot. I’ll drink it after my medicine to take the taste away.”
Mrs. Hutton leaned back in her chair, lowering the sunshade over her eyes, so as to shut out from her vision the burning sky.
Behind her, Miss Spence was making a delicate clinking among the coffee cups.
“I’ve given you three large spoonfuls. That ought to take the taste away. And here comes the medicine.”
Mr. Hutton had reappeared, carrying a wine-glass, half-full of a pale liquid.
“It smells delicious,” he said, as he handed it to his wife.
“That’s only the flavoring.” She drank it off at a gulp, shuddered, and made a grimace. “Ugh, it’s so nasty. Give me my coffee.”
Miss Spence gave her the cup; she sipped at it. “You’ve made it like syrup. But it’s very nice, after that atrocious medicine.”
At half-past three Mrs. Hutton complained that she did not feel as well as she had done, and went indoors to lie down. Her husband would have said something about the red currants, but checked himself; the triumph of an “I told you so” was too cheaply won. Instead, he was sympathetic, and gave her his arm to the house.
“A rest will do you good,” he said. “By the way, I shan’t be back till after dinner.”
“But why? Where are you going?”
“I promised to go to Johnson’s this evening. We have to discuss the war memorial, you know.”
“Oh, I wish you weren’t going.” Mrs. Hutton was almost in tears. “Can’t you stay? I don’t like being alone in the house.”
“But, my dear, I promised—weeks ago.” It was a bother having to lie like this. “And now I must get back and look after Miss Spence.”
He kissed her on the forehead and went out again into the garden. Miss Spence received him aimed and intense.
“Your wife is dreadfully ill,” she fired off at him.
“I thought she cheered up so much when you came.”
“That was purely nervous, purely nervous. I was watching her closely. With a heart in that condition and her digestion wrecked—yes, wrecked—anything might happen.”
“Libbard doesn’t take so gloomy a view of poor Emily’s health.” Mr. Hutton held open the gate that led from the garden into the drive; Miss Spence’s car was standing by the front door.
“He’s only a country doctor. You ought to see a specialist.”
He could not refrain from laughing. “You have a macabre passion for specialists.”
Miss Spence held up her hand in protest. “I am serious. I think poor Emily is in a very bad state. Anything might happen—at any moment.”
He handed her into the car and shut the door. The chauffeur started the engine and climbed into his place.
“Shall I tell him to start?” He had no desire to continue the conversation.
Miss Spence leaned forward and shot a Gioconda in his direction. “Remember, I expect you to come and see me again soon.”
Mechanically he grinned, made a polite noise, and, as the car moved forward, waved his hand. He was happy to be alone.
A few minutes afterwards Mr. Hutton himself drove away. Doris was waiting at the crossroads. They dined together twenty miles from home, at a roadside hotel. It was one of those bad, expensive meals which are only cooked in country hotels frequented by motorists. It revolted Mr. Hutton, but Doris enjoyed it. She always enjoyed things. Mr. Hutton ordered a not very good brand of champagne. He was wishing he had spent the evening in his library.
When they started homewards Doris was a little tipsy and extremely affectionate. It was very dark inside the car,
but looking forward, past the motionless form of M’Nab, they could see a bright and narrow universe of forms and colors scooped out of the night by the electric head-lamps.
It was after eleven when Mr. Hutton reached home. Dr. Libbard met him in the hall. He was a small man with delicate hands and well-formed features that were almost feminine. His brown eyes were large and melancholy. He used to waste a great deal of time sitting at the bedside of his patients, looking sadness through those eyes and talking in a sad, low voice about nothing in particular. His person exhaled a pleasing odor, decidedly antiseptic but at the same time suave and discreetly delicious.
“Libbard?” said Mr. Hutton in surprise. “You here? Is my wife ill?”
“We tried to fetch you earlier,” the soft, melancholy voice replied. “It was thought you were at Mr. Johnson’s, but they had no news of you there.”
“No, I was detained. I had a breakdown,” Mr. Hutton answered irritably. It was tiresome to be caught out in a lie.
“Your wife wanted to see you urgently.”
“Well, I can go now.” Mr. Hutton moved towards the stairs. Dr. Libbard laid a hand on his arm. “I’m afraid it’s too late.”
“Too late?” He began fumbling with his watch; it wouldn’t come out of the pocket.
“Mrs. Hutton passed away half an hour ago.”
The voice remained even in its softness, the melancholy of the eyes did not deepen. Dr. Libbard spoke of death as he would speak of a local cricket match. All things were equally vain and equally deplorable.
Mr. Hutton found himself thinking of Janet Spence’s words. At any moment—at any moment. She had been extraordinarily right.
“What happened?” he asked.
Dr. Libbard explained. It was a heart failure brought on by a violent attack of nausea, caused in its turn by the eating of something of an irritant nature. Red currants? Mr. Hutton suggested. Very likely. It had been too much for the heart. There was chronic valvular disease: something had collapsed under the strain. It was all over; she could not have suffered much.
* * *
The Big Book of Reel Murders Page 184