by F. M. Mayor
‘Oh, certainly,’ said Kathy. ‘I love tippling. Only, why just now? Is it supposed I shall faint with horror at the sight of my beautiful face?’
‘I know it’s a most awful, terrible shock, dawling,’ said Nurse, not looking at Kathy. ‘But of course it’s very early days yet. The muscles must settle down – they had to be pulled about during your op., and really doctors can do anything nowadays.’
‘Just bring the rouge here, would you, Nurse?’ said Kathy.
With her peerless complexion she had always scorned cosmetics, but Mansfield could not have held up her head before the other maids, if her ‘lady’ had not had all the latest preparations on her toilet table. Kathy wanted rouge in a desperate attempt to ward off the doctor’s pity.
‘I know what you mean,’ said Nurse effusively, thankful to have skated past the terrible topic. ‘I always think it’s such a nice idea to put a teeny touch on for the doctor. And let me sprinkle your hanky with that lovely rose d’amour Mrs Van Vorst sent you yesterday. They say it’s simply “it” in Paris. All the nice people are using nothing else.’
‘Oh, Lord, no,’ said Kathy. ‘I hate stinks. You can keep it, Nurse, if you like, only don’t put it on when you come near me.’
‘Oh, ta,’ said Nurse. ‘Now let me make your bed comfy, and draw the blinds, shall I, and see if you can get a nice little rest before Dr Lovat comes.’
Kathy got no rest. She lay with her eyes wide open, staring at the cerise and grey eiderdown, English comfort was the note of the Nursing Home. She was buoyant by nature, but now she had little hope.
Dr Lovat looked more sleekly spruce and omnipotent than ever as he sat by her bedside.
‘Now, I’m going to have a little talk with you, Mrs Herbert. Nurse, I shan’t want you just now. I should like to tell you perfectly plainly about your operation. It has succeeded magnificently. I think we both feel – Dr Harding and I – that what we wanted done couldn’t have been done more thoroughly. But here you must follow me closely; there are certain other consequences, which have not been so favourable. This is not what we call a major operation, we apply that term to the abdominal operations, but it’s a tiresome business, very, very tricky. There are always risks attending it.’
‘I thought you said it was a little one, and there was nothing to bother about.’
‘There was absolutely no danger to life, but it was what I might call a big adventure, and in my opinion all the risks of the big adventure must be borne by the doctor. It must be sunshine and hope for the patient always. Now in a percentages of cases these severances of the muscles do occasionally take place. There is a most complicated network of the nerves and muscles in the particular part we were dealing with, I wish I could explain it to you more fully, but it is too long today. In spite of the greatest care a disturbance of Nature’s equilibrium sometimes occurs, and the delicate balance may be destroyed.’
‘It often happens, then?’
‘Not infrequently.’
‘Will it get right?’
‘Nature has very wonderful recuperative powers, Mrs Herbert,’ said he, shunting on to Nature what Nurse had shunted on to doctors. ‘I should advise doing nothing at all for the present. Leave it to her. Later you might consult my friend Dr Warden, he’s a very rising Harley Street man.’
‘Has anybody ever got well?’
‘I think we can hardly look for entire cure.’
‘I see.’
He did not notice the pause before Kathy spoke again. She was steeling herself to show nothing in his presence. He was occupied in earnest hope that his explanation might bamboozle her. ‘How soon can I travel? I’m due back home.’
He was posted in the gossip of the English set, and had known the very hour Kathy was to have gone with Captain Stokes.
‘Of course you must be anxious to be at home. And I want to get you back to the English spring. Spring in the English country, there’s absolutely nothing like it, that soft grey sky and the primroses. I always order it for my patients who have had any nervous tension, and the smallest operation is a strain, you must remember that. This air is too bracing, it irritates.’
The English doctors got rid of patients to the Riviera, the Riviera doctors sent the poor shuttlecocks back to England.
‘How soon can I start? Thursday or Friday?’
‘We mustn’t rush things too much; we must get you up and out first of all, but I promise you it shall be as soon as possible.’
He was as anxious as she for her return to England.
‘The pulse isn’t very satisfactory, Nurse,’ said he outside on the landing. ‘Of course it’s a bad shock for a smart handsome girl like her.’
‘I do think she’s the most awfully brave woman,’ said Nurse. ‘She was joking about it the moment after.’
‘Yes, she’s got no end of grit. Those kind of hunting people have. But I should watch her. Don’t leave her too much alone. Those windows are all right, I suppose? She can’t open them?’
Kathy did not mean to kill herself; it was against her ideas. But when she was alone, and Nurse out of earshot, she often said to herself, ‘God, do let me die.’
Many thoughts surged through her brain. Dr Lovat had, as it were, pronounced sentence of death; so much in life would be gone. Considering her future, she did not see that anything would be left but the bare routine of existing. One thing must be done, and that immediately. All intercourse with Captain Stokes was ended. ‘I’m not going to have any one ruin their career for a scarecrow,’ she reflected. In the shipwreck of everything she did not know whether Captain Stokes counted for much.
She wrote to him:
Dear Stocky – It’s off. I’m going home. I’ve had the op.; it’s been a bit of a frost. I don’t think you’d have liked it really. I’m not seeing any one, so will say goodbye now. This is the only intimation, as they say about funerals. No flowers, by request. Good luck.
KATHY.
When Captain Stokes read the letter, he felt the one thing in the world he wanted was Kathy. He rushed to the Nursing Home, and bribed and wheedled Nurse to let him see her. His distress moved her more than the bribe. She was afraid of Kathy, and called up all her impudence to announce, ‘Here’s a particular friend, who simply will see you, Mrs Herbert.’
He came in. When he saw her face, the bunch of roses he carried shook violently and almost dropped from his hands.
‘Good God’, he said, standing and looking in consternation at her, not coming near the bed. He did not know the expression of horror – almost repulsion – which came into his face at sight of her. She saw it, and cried out blackly, ‘I told you not to come; it’s infernal cheek of you. I suppose you bribed that rotten woman.’
‘I felt I must come just to – I brought these,’ he said, coming nearer and holding out the roses.
‘You can take your damned flowers, and as there isn’t a fire, you can just throw them out of window. No, there’s a catch, and you can’t. Give them here.’
She tore them to pieces, scratching her hands with the thorns as she did it.
‘I never thought –’ he said. ‘But you’ll be all right soon, Kath.’
‘No, I shan’t.’
‘Go to some first-rate man.’
‘What’s the use '?’
‘Is there anything that I can do for you?’
‘Nothing I know of, except clear out.’
‘You know how awfully I –’
‘Oh, drop it.’ ’
He was silent; at last he said, ‘Then you’re going back to England.’
‘I told you so in my letter.’
They were silent again. ‘I expect that’s the best thing to do.’
More silence.
‘I should think perhaps it isn’t much use my staying any longer,’ he said at length.
‘I should think perhaps it isn’t.’
‘Well, goodbye. This is simply too rotten – I had no idea –’
‘No, of course you hadn’t. Why should y
ou? Goodbye.’
He came near, and bent over the bed to kiss her.
‘No,’ she said passionately, putting up her hands. He went out of the room, glad it was over.
‘Nurse,’ said Kathy freezingly, ‘you can’t have understood that I said I would see no one. Please carry out my orders in future. I expect Mrs Hollings tomorrow, and my maid to pack my things the day after. You are not to let any one else up here.’
Kathy kept Lesbia at arm’s length also.
‘My poor, poor darling thing,’ said Lesbia hysterically, sincerely affected. ‘What a ghastly business.’
‘For God’s sake, don’t maul me, Lesbia. You know how I loathe it. And why should I be kissed now, of all times? Yes, it’s hopeless, and we won’t refer to it again.’
‘How perfectly and utterly scandalous, Kath. You really ought to bring an action, and get damages; you oughtn’t to pay him a farthing. You know I said all along that Frenchman would have been better. He’s so marvellous.’
‘He’d have done just the same,’ said Kathy fractiously. ‘If it’s to be, I’d sooner an Englishman did it than a beastly foreigner. Now about plans. I’m going home on Wednesday. I’ll come back to the hotel Monday, just to practise walking before the journey. You’ll stay on here, I expect?’
‘It seems beastly not to go with you, but you know it’s the Cotillon* at Princess Nicholas’s on Wednesday, and the Tales of Hofmann at the Casino. I don’t see that I could go with you very well.’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Don’t you think you’d better wait? It’s soon to travel.’
‘I shall be perfectly all right. If I wasn’t, it wouldn’t matter to me, or you either.’
‘Have you written to Captain Stokes, Kathy?’ asked Lesbia pryingly.
‘Is that any business of yours? Still there’s no reason I shouldn’t tell you – that’s off.’
‘Oh, it’s off. I wondered.’
When Kathy arrived at the hotel she found Lesbia had decked her room charmingly with bunches of stocks and lilacs. ‘Oh, Lesbia,’ she cried, ‘do clear all that stuff away. The smell’s putrid.’ And when Lesbia, hovering about, explained that she had arranged for Kathy’s meals to be served upstairs, Kathy answered, ‘What rot! They’ll think I’ve turned into a lunatic, and you’re my keeper. Of course I’m coming down. That’s the point of the hotel, otherwise I might have stayed at the Home.’
She faced looks, averted in kindness and embarrassment, sincere and insincere inquiries, and torturing sympathy with unflinching calmness, as well aware, as if it were addressed to her, of the ceaseless gossip going on about herself and her affairs.
It was only with Mansfield she allowed herself the indulgence of breaking down. ‘You silly ass,’ she said, patting Mansfield’s chic shoulder, while tears ran down her own cheeks. ‘Do stop, you’ll howl the ceiling down.’
In the two days before her journey Kathy and Lesbia quarrelled without ceasing.
‘I was wondering, dear,’ said Lesbia. ‘Don’t think me grabbing, but I simply don’t know how I shall manage that head-dress without Mansfield. She just makes it “it”; I can’t get the line. I don’t know what she does, and Myra’s woman is quite useless. I wonder if you could leave her behind. It really is a very simple journey, and you seem so awfully well, it’s splendid how you’ve picked up, and I know the Matthesons are going back on Wednesday. They’ll take care of you.’
‘Protect me from all the Frenchmen who will be so smitten with my charms,’ said Kathy bitterly. ‘I see. Yes, you can have Mansfield.’ '
She dreaded the journey inexpressibly, she who had never been afraid of anything. But she would not confess her weakness before Lesbia. She had once or twice in past days, she never would again.
Later she said to Lesbia, ‘Sorry, you can’t have Mansfield. She’s sure “Mother wouldn’t like her to be with a lady like Mrs Hollings.”’
‘How can you let her be so impertinent?’ said Lesbia crossly.
‘She wasn’t impertinent, she was most polite, and said, “Excuse me for mentioning it.”’
‘Such nonsense. Mansfield’s quite hot stuff herself. You should see her with all those waiters at the back there.’
‘Mansfield can do what she jolly well likes,’ said Kathy.
‘What Mansfield means I can’t think,’ said Lesbia. The dart went on rankling. ‘It’s so outrageous.’
‘How any one can care what any one else thinks,’ said Kathy. ‘And what Mansfield thinks.’
Her scorn was of a special, most withering quality. It made Lesbia burn with resentment. When the depths of her spite had been stirred, she was capable of anything. ‘And what about you?’ cried she. ‘It wasn’t as if it was only Stokes; you know you tried for Reggie and Lord Gresley, only they weren’t taking any. Now that I do call going the pace. Poor Crab doesn’t realize you’re only going back because nobody else would have you.’
‘What a lot you know, don’t you, Lesbia?’
‘I consider Crab ought to know.’
‘Hadn’t you better tell him, then?’
‘Look here, Kathy, I’m not going to be talked to as if I was dirt!’
Kathy laughed. ‘All right, I’ll depart, as I don’t seem very welcome.’
Lesbia went off and wrote letters abusing Kathy in a frenzy of rage.
Later she came to herself (what self there was to come to) and said, ‘I was a pig, Kath; I’m sorry.’
‘Oh no, you aren’t,’ said Kathy indifferently.
The two women had constantly bickered, but not often quarrelled, because of Kathy’s good-natured imperturbability. Now Kathy started quarrels; it was the only thing she seemed interested in.
That same evening Kathy said to Lesbia, ‘So you’ve been writing to Crab and Mrs Herbert.’
‘How do you know?’
‘You know how thick Mansfield is with André. She saw them in the office, of course.’
‘Why shouldn’t I write? I wanted to tell them how you were getting on.’
‘I see, and that’s why you get purple in the face when I mention it. You don’t go out of your way to write kind letters, do you?’ Lesbia became redder.
‘Oh, well,’ said Kathy. ‘It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters that I know of.’
With all the remorse she was capable of Lesbia regretted the letters, but it did not seem possible to write now and unsay all she had said.
Just before Kathy left she gave Lesbia a cheque for £50.
‘I shall only want twopence halfpenny for the future, so you may as well have it, and you can play the giddy goat to the end of the season.’
Nothing quelled Lesbia like Kathy’s generosity. It did not come from personal love to her. It rather dropped, not like the gentle rain, but like the sturdy shower beneath.
The tension of the two days at the hotel had been almost unendurable for Kathy.
‘You are not to come near me the whole night long,’ she said to Mansfield, when she had been arranged in her coupé lit.*
Mansfield heard her sobbing hour after hour, and wept herself in misery. Kathy cried till she was cold almost with the cold of death, and did not reject the hot tea and hot·water bottle Mansfield ventured to bring when the horrible chill dawn was coming. The only thing that supported her through the journey was the prospect of home and Crab. She felt it must be right when she got back; she had no idea why.
But when she reached London, she changed to terror at the thought of meeting him. She wanted to go to her Aunt – to a hotel – back to the Riviera – anything to avoid him. But the same feeling which made her never ride round by the road, or pick out the easiest jumps, forced her to go on to Lanchester.
20
It was just when Mary was setting out for Southsea that Mr Herbert received Kathy’s post card. ‘I shall be back some time this week. Don’t meet me, for I can’t say exactly which day. I’ll taxi from the junction.’
She arrived about six on a stormy, snowy evening. In spi
te of all desire to the contrary Mr Herbert’s feeling was one of ennui, annoyance, and dread. He heard the motor, and went to meet her. It was an open car, she had not been able to get a taxi. She sprang out, and ran past him. He followed her into the drawing-room. What he could observe of her face – it was muffled in a motor-veil – looked dead white; the jolly, merry expression in her eyes had changed to one almost of despair.
‘Take off those wet things down here,’ he said, ‘and come to the fire. You must be perished with the cold.’
‘Oh, I’m all right,’ she answered, turning her back on him.
‘Bring my things in here, Mansfield. No, you needn’t wait. I can manage. Go and get warm.’
He unfastened her coat and took off her boots; she supported herself with her hand on his shoulder, as he did it, but did not look at him.
‘Let me find your shoes, where are they?’
‘Oh, somewhere; no, not that thing – the little bag, I think.’ She knelt down before the fire without saying anything. He brought her shoes and put them on, and then began taking off her veil.
‘No, no, don’t bother,’ she said. ‘I’ll do that.’
She put up her hand, but before she could stop him he had got the veil off, and her mouth was revealed. She covered her face with her hands, but took them away at once, saying, ‘It doesn’t matter. You had to know, only I wanted to tell you something before you found out.’
She looked at him, and saw that he had become deadly pale. ‘Oh, don’t mind it so much,’ she cried.
‘What was it?’ he said breathlessly. ‘What has happened?’
‘I had an abscess or something, and they said I must have an operation – quite a slight one – and when I came to, I was like this, and the man said there was nothing more to be done.