by F. M. Mayor
Unmarried women often look on men with idealizing romance. The Redlands had, not a low, but a poor opinion of them as incapable, forgetful, tactless, capricious – rather the view of the Cranford ladies. They did not care for men’s society. This was fortunate, for, as is usual with spinster households, they saw few. Mrs Redland’s verdict was more lenient, so was Ella’s. She liked men and wished to penetrate into their domain; the sisters were content to remain as they were. A source of friction on Ella’s holiday was her desire to ask men to tea, when the sisters desired to be left to the less taxing society of their own sex.
None of them had the power or wished to enter into the inner mind of themselves or other people. For this Mary was thankful. She existed for them still as the quiet, slightly queer, little Mary Jocelyn they had known so many years ago. They just remembered Dora had mentioned Mary writing a book, and Mildred, the greatest joker, called her Mrs Humphrey Ward* once or twice. They did not want to know about her affairs. ‘How is your father?’ Mrs Redland said the first evening. ‘Dora gave us such a nice account of him when she stayed with you. How good he was to my dear husband.’
‘Yes, how is the dear old man ‘?’ said the daughters, who had a cordial respect for the older generation. Mrs Redland often said, ‘Please give your father my kindest, my very kindest regards when you write.’
‘And how are the boys?’ said Mildred. ‘The men, I ought to say. What glorious games of cricket we had with them.’ Otherwise it was talk of classes, cases, and clubs the whole day long.
Mary could not tell why the sharing in their busy, concentrated, narrow present cheered her so much. She felt as if it were the Redlands, not the air, that helped her. She gave them all grateful kisses when she left, to Mildred the warmest of all. Home had recovered its value. She was now not merely ready, but eager to begin her old life – the life before she met Mr Herbert. The Redlands talked her over; they recognized a certain change.
‘Mary Jocelyn is very nice, and she has lost that abrupt manner she had when she was a little girl. She has not much in her, but she is just the person for a clergyman’s daughter in the country. The Girls’ Club was a little much for her.’
19
How fared it meanwhile with Mr Herbert? After he had written his letter to Mary he awaited the answer with uncontrollable excitement. He tore it open; he read it through twice, and put it back in the envelope. He had not expected more. She would not have been the Mary he loved if she had written more. He did not know what he wanted, but if there could have been a word of forgiveness – of understanding – no, he would not even to himself desire it – of longing. But the restlessness to know, to hear more of her was unendurable. If he could see her for one second he would be satisfied. He supposed she despised him beyond forgiveness; he deserved it. She could not despise him more than he despised himself.
In this seething agitation he must write to Kathy. He had determined that it should not be put off a day longer. The task seemed more distasteful than ever. He forced himself to go to his drawer and take out Kathy’s love letters. There were not many, the engagement had been so short, and at her most emotional she was halting with a pen.
There was one in answer to his first, written after he came home to Lanchester, mad with joy.
‘I loved your letter. It was idiotic, the most idiotic ever written, I should think. Some day you’ll find me out, and then there’ll be a drop, and you’ll be awfully disappointed. You really had better understand, once for all, I’m absolutely nothing at all. Now I’ve warned you. It won’t be my fault.’
He gazed at her radiant photograph, the one he had shown Mary – it stood unnoticed on his study table. He remembered her face at the station. As she had said, it was not her fault, it was all his own. This did not make him love her the more.
As for going out to the Riviera now to restrain Kathy with the thought of his and Mary’s kiss weighing on him, he could not do it. Nor would he persuade Kathy to come back from pity for his accident. He did not mention it.
But he would do his best. With untold toil he wrote the following: ‘The garden and the dogs and cats and Taffy, who would like to take you out hunting, are all asking me when you are coming back. When you do, I will try to make you happier. You have a great deal to forgive. Will you bear with me and let me try to make amends?’ When he had written this he felt himself a hypocrite and a scoundrel.
The letter did not have a favourable result. Kathy flushed deeply, as she read it, and threw it over to Lesbia. ‘It’s awfully flattering to know one’s wanted so much,’ said she.
‘You won’t go back, Kathy, will you? It would be frightfully unsporting to throw up your part in the tableaux, not to mention Captain Stokes.’
‘No fear, I’m certainly going to stay, only I think husbands are so ripping.’
‘Well, my dear child, I did tell you, didn’t I? He never was meant for you. You and a padre, it was too priceless.’
Kathy might have said, ‘What about Jack being the man for you?’ but she would not hit Lesbia’s sore spot. ‘Nobody’s the man for anybody, or the woman for anybody,’ said she. ‘That’s all it comes to. Such is life. It’s le vie, as that Russian of yours with the infernal scent says. Let’s have an ice.’
When they had finished, she went to the hotel, and dashed off the following letter to Mr Herbert:
My Dear Boy – Sorry no prospect of return. Kiss the beasts for me. No need to blame yourself. I’m not cut out for a parson’s wife; that’s the little difficulty. What I’m cut out for is Monte. So long.
K.
When she had torn Mr Herbert’s letter into small fragments and hurled them out of window, she felt relieved. She went downstairs and screamed ‘Monte for ever and ever,’ rejoicing the heart of a crowd which had been discomposed at her naughty husband wanting her back.
She talked to some Frenchmen very fast and loud, and laughed more than was natural to her. They were fascinated, but thought her bien Anglaise, by which they meant outrageously noisy. And she was bien Anglaise, though not in their sense. She was suited to her own country and county, and everything in the anglicized cosmopolitan hotel was alien to her, except the food.
The gay brilliance of the landscape, the beauty of its outlines were wasted on her. She was fond of saying, ‘I can’t be bothered with scenery,’ but she loved twilight falling over the English fields, on the way back from hunting. It was connected in her mind with much she could not put into words. Such a twilight might have comforted her a little; the hard flaring sun and sea of the south were pitiless. How could she have shown his letter to Lesbia? She did not cry to relieve herself, as Mary might have done. She sat on a hard chair, dug her feet into the floor, and ground her teeth, ejaculating under her breath, for fear Lesbia or Mansfield might overhear, coming to the door, ‘You cad, you cad, you ass, you cad.’
She had often felt homesick, and had exclaimed, ‘Wasting all the best weeks of the year in this dusty hole.’ But now homesickness bound her down to the earth. She longed for small things – Bimbo’s licks, Taffy’s kisses; she longed for a cloudy sky and the meets. And her husband, if she could have recovered even one moment of what it had been in her first year of marriage! But that would never come back; now most certainly she knew it could never come back.
Her letters and others similar, written at long intervals, made it still harder for Mr Herbert not to think of Mary. He did not waste hours dreaming of her, he did his utmost not to think of her at all, but he lost his temper, and quarrelled with his church-wardens and brother clergy. He became a nuisance, and made difficulties in parish business; he did not smile on the children – that very sweet smile which lighted up his grave face. Superior members of the congregation murmured to one another, ‘How depressing the vicar was this morning again.’ He did not neglect his duties, but his flock saw the heart was wanting. His sciatica continued violent; his cook wrote privately to old Mrs Herbert asking her to come.
‘But why is Katherine not with yo
u?’ demanded the old lady, pink with indignation at Kathy’s modern behaviour.
‘She is not with me,’ replied Mr Herbert, ‘because it is her obvious duty to remain with her sister-in-law, whose health makes it necessary for her to winter in the Riviera.’
‘And what about your health, Robert?’
‘Oh, mine. Oh, a touch of sciatica shows a healthy system. No one ever dies of sciatica.’
In his heart he said, ‘I wish they did.’
‘I think it is most remiss of Katherine,’ said Mrs Herbert, looking at the photograph of Kathy as a sparsely-clothed Diana at a fancy ball. Kathy had sent it on purpose to annoy him that morning. ‘And she has time for all sorts of very uncomfortable amusements, I see.’
‘If Kathy and I are satisfied that her duty lies with her sister-in-law, surely that is sufficient. Kathy does not know of my sciatica, because I have not mentioned the fact to her, neither, I hope, will you. I shall be perfectly right in a few days. I have never been able to see that lamentations do any good to anybody, and I should be very much obliged if we could change the subject. Forgive my saying it, Mother, but the affair has nothing whatever to do with you.’
He had never spoken so roughly to her; she trembled. Of course she knew Kathy’s duty was a fiction, he did not desire to deceive her. But what was he to tell her? He was the one to blame in the marriage. But Mrs Herbert, both as mother and woman, would lay all on the wife. He would be the victim, unless he told of Mary, and that would break his mother’s heart – a tough heart, but it could not have stood that.
He dreaded Kathy’s return above all things, but he was aggrieved that she would not come back, and he felt as sore at the photograph as Kathy hoped he would.
Mrs Herbert tried no more expostulation, but she wrote a letter to Kathy that night. Kathy read no more than the first sentence, made a face, and threw the letter away.
‘I wish we could hear that Mrs Hollings was stronger,’ said old Mrs Herbert to Dennis the parlour-maid. ‘Mrs Herbert doesn’t like to leave her, and the winds are very treacherous here still.’ ‘So they are, ’m. Anybody ought to be very careful, but I’m sorry Mrs Hollings isn’t getting on.’
Thus spoke Dennis, in deferential commiseration. Mrs Herbert considered servants very worthy people, always to be treated as children. Information might be infinitely cooked for them, especially of course discreditable information about the family. But Dennis knew much more than Mrs Herbert, for she had a letter from Mansfield in her pocket.
The style was modelled on the ladies’ papers and Kathy’s conversation. Mansfield had a passion for Kathy.
Dear Little Densykensy – I am having the time of my life here, or would have written before. Everything is a rush, so I haven’t had any old time. Poor old Lanchester, it seems too funny to think of it. We had a fancy dress dance at our hotel on Wednesday. Some of the dresses were the limit, but she looked a dream. She really is a darling. She has given me that awfully smart navy costume of hers with the gold buttons, and I look rather fetching in it. You always say your Babs has a good opinion of herself. We are a jolly crowd at the valets’ table. I don’t like the French girls; they’re very fast to my mind, but there’s an Italian, the chauffeur of an American millionaire, well, billionaire, they say, who’s a duck. The Cat (Lesbia) is as nosey as ever, but I pay no attention to her; I can’t bear her style. I suppose he’s as grumpy as usual. All the men here rave about her, particularly one. Kisses from
BABS.
In Mrs Herbert’s experience servants’ letters were grammatically incorrect, but irreproachably respectful. She had not conceived of their writing any others.
Lesbia had a little regretted her letter to Crab. Above all things, she wanted to stay on with Kathy to the end of the season. She wrote again to Mr Herbert, describing Kathy’s passion for a motor-bicycle. Mr Herbert, absorbed in his own difficult concerns, hardly noticed the letter. Kathy made no more references to Captain Stokes. What had been less than nothing when she wrote to Mr Herbert was now occupying her mind seriously.
Captain Stokes was rather worthless, one could see it in his expression. He would have repelled Mary, but was the perfect exemplar of what Kathy liked in masculine appearance. As she was the cynosure of the men’s eyes that season, he was the cynosure of the women’s. Each was gratified by the admiration of the other.
Kathy had more than once received compromising overtures from men. Mary imagined that there was a ring fence round wives, that they never heard love mentioned except by their husbands. Kathy had checked aspirants with a withering ‘Thanks awfully, but I’m not taking any.’ These overtures had neither repelled nor flattered her; she merely reflected, ‘Some men are like that.’
When Captain Stokes came with his overtures, he received at first the same answer. He persisted; she could easily have daunted his persistency, but after Mr Herbert’s letter she had begun to wonder. He wanted to be her secret lover. To that she would never consent, but at length he found she might be persuaded to leave her husband openly and go away with him. He said he was mad about her, but he was calm enough at times to remember that he had no private income. If they went away together, his career in the army would be ruined. At the same time, he wanted her so much that if those were the only terms on which he could have her, he would risk all. He loved her so far as he cared for anybody, but the excitement of subduing the impregnable fortress others were attacking in vain, counted perhaps for more than his love.
At length she answered, ‘I don’t know, perhaps.’ She never loved him, but was very much attracted to him; she thought that he loved her. At times she felt she preferred his love to Mr Herbert’s indifference.
‘Look here,’ said he one day to a friend, Captain Battiscombe, to whom he had confided the excitement of the chase. ‘Congratulations.’ He threw him a note from Kathy. Captain Battiscombe read, ‘All right, I don’t mind. – KATHY.
‘I call it rather a freezing way of welcoming your passion,’ said he. He was a lazy, clever man, who bore with Captain Stokes because they had known one another all their lives. ‘Of course she may resemble the working-classes. I believe it’s their most eager form of acceptance.’
‘That’s Kath all over; she never gushes.’
‘Well, I hope when my time comes, whoever it is will be more cordial.’
‘Oh, she’ll warm up all right.’
‘I’m not so sure. Excuse pushing in – I haven’t personal experience of these affairs – but I think one wants a woman to be more demonstrative in your line of business than in an ordinary engagement. On the whole, she gains in an engagement, but here she gets nothing but you – no offence, you’re a prize, of course – and loses a good deal.’
‘Kathy’s cold. You can’t alter nature.’
‘You don’t think she’s taking you out of pique? I believe she’s still hankering after that parson husband. I heard her downing Lesbia one day, when she was attacking the husband, and it wasn’t promising for you. Why not go in for Lesbia? She’s quite good-looking, and her heart – what there is of it – is to let.’
‘I don’t want Lesbia,’ said Captain Stokes sulkily. ‘Who would?’ He went on more complacently, ‘Of course you don’t know Kath. She’s not much of a hand at letters, nor am I, but she can be all right when she likes.’
Kathy was sometimes stony, sometimes recklessly inviting. If she had cold fits, so had he. When they definitely decided to go away together, he had more than she. Once they postponed the day. They had meant to tell no one, but Lesbia could always scent out news. She persuaded Kathy to confide in her; then every one knew.
Kathy’s mind was distracted at the time with another matter. She had a swelling in her mouth. With the terror of some one who does not know what it is to be ill, she thought it was cancer. It deadened her longing for Mr Herbert and her delight in Captain Stokes. She told no one. After days of anxiety, she at last went for advice to a shark-like Dr Lovat, the smartest and most expensive of the cosmopolitan doctors t
hat frequented the big hotels. He declared she must have an immediate operation. ‘There is nothing whatever to be alarmed about, but there is a small local trouble, which we had better dispose of now, and then you’ll have no more bother with it. I’ll get you into a pleasant Nursing Home, which I find my patients are rather enthusiastic about. It will be a matter of three or four days or a week at most – quite a trifling thing.’
She and Captain Stokes raged with annoyance to one another. But both were relieved that the plan was again put off. They had a loving scene together before Kathy went to the home. What the local paper called ‘Mrs Herbert’s hosts of friends’ were assured by the bulletin that ‘The operation has been entirely successful. Progress satisfactory.’
But the second most expensive doctor, who had assisted at the operation, remarked to his confrère, ‘You’ve made a most infernal bungle of it, and I don’t quite see how you’re going to bluff it myself.’
‘I should like you to prepare the way tomorrow,’ said Dr Lovat to the fashionable nurse. ‘You will be careful to keep the atmosphere cheery and optimistic. I shall be coming rather later than usual.’
‘You’re getting on so splendidly, Mrs Herbert,’ said Nurse next day with her smart drawl, ‘that I believe I’m going to let you do your own hair. I’m on strike. Of course,’ she added, as she brought the hand glass, ‘you mustn’t be surprised after an operation of this sort – it often happens that – I mean people look rather different at first, just at first, till the muscles settle down. It’s nothing to worry about a bit.’
Though she said it was nothing to worry about, she felt her heart beating as she spoke. She nodded reassuringly and withdrew.
When Kathy looked at herself in the glass, she found her mouth was all twisted to one side. She could not believe her eyes. She tried to force her lips straight again and again and again – in vain. Then she ceased her efforts. She felt herself become very cold; she lay quite still, and made no sound. She had not even exclaimed when she first saw her reflection. For one thing she must be thankful, she had been left to face the shock alone. Nurse meanwhile listened trembling outside the door. After a discreet interval she knocked gently. ‘I’ve brought you just a little egg and brandy, Mrs Herbert; I want you to toss it off.’