Delphi Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (Illustrated)

by William Somerset Maugham

  Her only consolation in the fact that Lord Habart had been unable to will away a penny of his property was that at all events he had not enjoyed the spiteful pleasure of leaving it to a charity, and cutting her off with his blessing. She knew that such a form of humour would have thoroughly appealed to his limited intelligence.

  But her carriage was blocked in Piccadilly, and quite close was a man in a hansom, looking at her. She seemed to know the face, but for the moment could not recollect who the creature was; she had not decided whether she should bow when her horses moved on. Then she remembered.

  “Good Heavens, how lucky I was not to recognise him — he might have cut me!”

  She looked at herself hurriedly in the mirror and was pleased to see that, notwithstanding her past emotions, she did not appear at all discomposed. On getting home she telephoned at once for her brother.

  “It’s no good,” she cried. “I can’t get anything out of Smithson. It was absurd of you to make me go to him. He’s simply a vulgar beast.”

  “I told you it was no good going.”

  “You always say, T told you so’; you can never help bringing that in.... I want to know how I’m going to live?”

  It is rather a bore, when you have preyed all your life on society, that society should eventually turn upon you. In the five years of her widowhood Lady Habart had mortgaged her annuity, and for the last eighteen months had lived entirely on usurers and confiding tradesmen. She loathed them for wanting their money.

  “It’s some comfort that they’ll only get about sixpence in the pound,” she said. “I shall be even with them there.”

  It never occurred to Her that they had any legitimate cause for complaint against her.... She looked at her brother reading a paper.

  “I wish you wouldn’t read that odious sporting rag,” she remarked. “You never get the least good out of it — all the horses that you tell me to back come in nowhere, or break their legs or do anything but win.”

  She smelt her salts, then the bottle in which they were reminded her of the giver.

  “Oh, Guy, d’you know whom I saw to-day? Freddy Ramsden.”

  “He’s been in town some time.”

  “Why on earth didn’t you tell me?”

  Guy shrugged his shoulders. The fact was that Freddy Ramsden had been engaged to Lady Habart when she was nothing more than pretty Dolly Cherriton, and she had jilted him as soon as the late lamented Habart hove in sight. One does not by preference talk to women either of the lovers they have jilted or the husbands they have divorced.

  “Oh, of course I jilted him. He was only the younger son of a country squire with twopence halfpenny a year, and Habart had twenty thousand. I didn’t know it was all tied up in that ridiculous fashion.”

  “You’d have been better off if you had married Freddy,” said Guy.

  “Don’t be odiously moral, Guy, for Heaven’s sake! How could I know his eldest brother was going to die and leave him the estate; you do irritate me.... I’ve been frightfully unfortunate; it’s always the people I wanted to live who died, and those who might do me some good by dying simply live on forever.... I rather wish I hadn’t cut him. I really didn’t recognise him at first, he’s frightfully altered.”

  “You’d better marry him now,” said her brother.

  “My boots are so pointed,” he replied, “they rather amused me.”

  “Don’t be brutal, Guy; I can never forget poor Habart.”

  Guy lit a cigarette with a smile.

  “What are you sniggering for in that idiotic manner,” asked Lady Habart sharply. “One would think you had good teeth.”

  “You needn’t tell lies. I hate people who are not frank. You know quite well that I was awfully cut up when they brought poor Habart home on a stretcher. It was on the very day of the St. Olphert’s ball.”

  For a moment Lady Habart gave herself up to the painfulness of her recollections, then passed the cunning powder-puff over her nose.

  “I wore mourning for longer than any one I know,” she murmured, “and black doesn’t suit me a bit.... Is he still unmarried?”

  “Who — Freddy Ramsden?”

  “D’you think I’m talking of the Emperor of China?” replied the lady with asperity.

  “I say, Dolly, your temper to-day is angelic; no wonder Habart took to riding bolters.”

  “I wish you’d answer my questions, instead of trying to say silly smart things. Can’t you see that I’m perfectly distracted? What am I to do? They’ll make me bankrupt, and I shall have to go and live in poky lodgings in the country on two hundred a year; and I sha’n’t see any one except a lot of disgusting country people. Fancy me drinking a dish of tea with the wife of the local doctor and having to go to church every Sunday.” She smelt her salts. “Why don’t you tell me if Freddy’s married?”

  “No, of course he isn’t.” He looked at his sister a little and said quietly: “Your only chance is to get married again. If you were engaged Smithson would let the matter stand over.”

  “It wasn’t my fault that I got into debt,” she said plaintively. “Decent people have to keep up appearances, and it’s simply impossible to do that without going bankrupt, unless you’re a soapboiler, or something equally horrible.”

  “My dear girl, I’m not reproaching you.”

  To reproach her was the last thing her brother would think of doing — but Lady Habart was in a quarrelsome mood.

  “Oh no, you’re not reproaching me in so many words,” she said, “but you look as if you thought I was to blame. I’d much sooner you said it outright than keep hinting at it, and looking at me like a dissenting minister. You look perfectly awful to-day; you’re as yellow as a Chinaman; you look as if you took too much to drink last night.”

  She began to cry, for she felt miserable, and the world was treating her very harshly.

  “You’re awfully unkind,” she said to her brother. Then, after a pause: “But it’s no good making myself look frightful. Haven’t you got anything to say?”

  She had an idea in her mind, but she had no wish to utter it, and waited for Guy to do so. The idea was Freddy Ramsden. But her brother appeared to have entirely forgotten her old lover, and again she inveighed against the stupidity of man.

  “I believe Freddy will come and call,” she said at last, driven for once into frankness; “I don’t think he could keep away.”

  Guy sprang up. “If you can get engaged to him before next Monday, you’re saved.”

  A flush came over Lady Habart’s face, and she clenched her pretty hand. “I can’t make him call. I don’t care if he hates me or loves me, if he’ll only come and see me.”

  “I don’t believe Freddy Ramsden is the sort of man to get over anything of that sort.”

  “He always used to say he’d love me forever,” she murmured pensively, “but then — so used I.”

  “He was terribly cut up when you — er, chucked him over for Habart.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t talk of it like that, you know I wasn’t to blame. I was a wretchedly innocent girl and he’d only got twopence halfpenny a year. You all insisted on my giving him up. Papa wouldn’t hear of it.... I was perfectly heart-broken.”

  Guy did not think his sister expressed the facts very exactly, but he was far too discreet to remind her of past events. She had a truly feminine way of putting on other people the blame of all her mistakes, of all her actions which seemed discreditable; and she invariably took to herself the whole credit of the good deeds with which she was at all connected. For much that she did was highly creditable to her sex and station; she was deeply interested in the reclaiming of bad characters, and her name was printed in large type on the prospectus of many charitable institutions. Now that certain ill-considered individuals are beginning to cast aspersions upon the press, suggesting (most unjustly, of course) that it is slanderous, narrow-minded, and stupid, that it panders to all the worst instincts of the mob — it must be counted for righteousness in Lady Habart that
she recognised its profound usefulness, and constantly sent to the papers details of her comings and goings, of the functions she gave, and the various deeds of mercy she performed.

  “It shows what sort of a chap Freddy is that he should have spent five years abroad,” said Guy after a pause.

  “It shows that, like all men, he’s very unoriginal. How absurd it is for a man to go and shoot things in the Rockies just because his engagement’s broken off. It’s such bad taste.”

  “What would you have him do?” asked Guy.

  “Announce it in the Morning Post and behave reasonably. They say women have no sense for comedy — men have only the sense for melodrama.”

  “I’m afraid I must go,” said Guy. “I’ve got to dine with some people, and I must get home to dress.”

  “Oh, but it’s not six yet!” replied Lady Habart.

  “I have a long way to get, they live at Dulwich.”

  “Oh! I shouldn’t have thought it was worth your while to know people who live in the suburbs. I thought in those parts they always dined in the middle of the day. Can’t you wire that you’re ill? You see that I’m not in a fit state to be left alone.”

  “Well, I hardly know the people.”

  “Oh, of course, I can’t expect you to show the least indulgence to me. If you’re going, go at once and let me have a little peace.”

  “If you really wish me to stay—”

  “No, I don’t! I shouldn’t dine with you in any case, I’m far too ill to sit up. I shall go to bed and have dinner in my room. I only thought it might be convenient to have you in the house in case I wanted anything.”

  Lady Habart looked at herself in the glass when her brother had gone. She felt sure Freddy Ramsden would come.... People said his father had fifteen thousand a year, and all that was his now; of course men’s incomes were always exaggerated. She knew that by sad experience in the case of her lamented husband; he had not half the fortune attributed to him; but then the Ramsdens were bankers, and Habart had been merely a landowner.

  “I wonder if he loves me still,” she said. There was a look in his eyes when he gazed at her that betokened something. But what was it? She did not care so long as he came, and she felt certain he would be unable to stay away. He had loved her too passionately to forget her; in those days she had been the mistress of his whole soul. He would have done anything for her sake, he adored her like a goddess... She brushed a little fluff off the end of her nose.

  “I hate new powder-puffs,” she muttered, “they always come off on you.”

  She arranged a wisp of hair at the back of her head and passed a hand over her ear. She knew her ears were not good, and covered as much of them as possible with her hair.

  “I wish I had really beautiful ears,” she said, looking at them for a moment; they were too large, the lobe was not detached from the face. She gave a little shudder and hid them again. She took up her book and began to read — but still her mind wandered.

  “If I can get engaged by Monday, I’m saved.” The thought seized her that he might be no longer free. “He’s the sort of man to fall in love with the typical creamy English girl. Thank God I was never that.”

  The butler opened the door, and even before his announcement, before she saw the incomer, she knew who it was.

  “Mr. Ramsden.”

  He was a big, broad-shouldered fellow, with grayish hair and a heavy moustache; he was deeply bronzed, and his swartness was emphasized by the whiteness of his collar. He wore his frock-coat a little uneasily, as if he were used to freer things. Lady Habart noticed at once that he gave as little attention to his clothes as when she had known him years before. He had always the look of the countryman, and mentally she decided that such a man should never go to places where he could not wear knickerbockers and a Norfolk jacket. He was the sort of man of whose gentility dowagers are not perfectly assured till they know he has a very handsome fortune; he was the sort of man whom everybody else would have called at once a thoroughly good sort.

  Ramsden came forward, and Lady Habart rose from her chair.

  “How nice of you to come and see me,” she said. “I felt sure you would.”

  “How strange,” he answered. “I felt sure you would not expect me.”

  His reply was a little disconcerting, but Lady Habart remembered that it was an old habit of his to say unnecessarily frank things, and ignored it.

  “Do have some tea,” she murmured. “Do you still take it without sugar?”

  The tea had stood some time, but Lady Habart supposed Freddy’s agitation such that he would not notice the difference.

  The very suddenness of Ramsden’s arrival upon her thoughts had a little embarrassed the charming woman, but she was recovering herself; she assumed her armour of bewitching glances and sugary smiles; she asked herself why he came and what were his sentiments. She watched him like a cat, but there was nothing in her exterior to betray the excitement of her mind; she was playing admirably the part of the accomplished hostess. It could not fail to strike him after his long sojourn in foreign lands.

  “Do you still take tea without sugar?” she repeated, as he watched her pour it out and did not reply.

  “It is very polite of you to remember,” he said dryly.

  “After so long?” she gave a little silvery laugh and turned upon him the light of her blue eyes. She knew how caressing they were. Years ago, their glance would have made his heart beat strangely.... “You’ve been away shooting, haven’t you?”

  “I’ve been in Africa,” he replied.

  “Yes, so Guy told me.” She mentally reviled her brother for telling her that Ramsden was in America: she might have made so awkward a slip. “That’s why you’re so brown,” she added with another smile. “But you haven’t changed a bit. You’re just the same Freddy Ramsden I used to know.”

  “Why did you cut me to-day?” he asked with what Lady Habart considered a rather disagreeable smile.

  “I thought you didn’t recognise me,” she replied promptly. “You looked at me in exactly the way people look when they’re wondering who on earth you are. And I should have felt so ridiculous if I’d bowed and you’d taken no notice.”

  He paused, looking at her somewhat critically. Lady Habart was pleased to think her frock fitted so perfectly, and she was sitting with her back to the light, so the closest scrutiny was supportable.

  “Are you very surprised that I should call on you, Lady Habart?” he asked.

  The lady’s heart gave a little beat; at last it was coming; she set all her nerves taut for the fray. The approaching battle exhilarated her; for all her delicate exterior, she was a fighting woman, and never felt herself living so intensely as when she had to martial the whole array of her wits against those of another.

  “Oh no; I’m not a bit surprised. I’m very pleased.”

  “I imagined that you would not greatly care to see me,” he answered. “One naturally dislikes the person one has treated vilely.”

  “I really don’t understand what you mean,” she cried, with a pretty expression of injured innocence.

  “If you remember that I take my tea without sugar, you can hardly have forgotten that — that once you were engaged to marry me.

  She vaguely thought it was rather bad taste in Freddy to put the matter so brusquely; but he was always rather abrupt. She looked down at the tips of her shoes as she had seen actresses look down on the stage when they were representing high-born damsels of three and twenty: that was her favourite age.

  “Are you still angry?” she asked in a low and effective voice — it should, perhaps, have been a little more husky.

  “Not in the slightest,” he answered, smiling.

  Lady Habart looked at him quickly — he seemed amused.

  “Why have you come here to-day if you don’t care for me any more?”

  “How do you know that I no longer care for you?”

  “If you did, you would still be angry.” She came to the conclusion tha
t a semblance of perfect frankness would be most useful.

  “One gets over things, you know,” he replied, with a shrug of the shoulders.

  “I’m sorry I made you suffer.” Her heart was beating, and she with difficulty repressed her delight; she knew she was acting the comedy perfectly — her voice and manner came to her without the smallest effort. Like every great actress, she almost felt the emotions she represented, and the pathos of her voice very nearly brought tears to her eyes. “I’m sorry I made you suffer.”

  “It was salutary,” he said, smiling, but she noticed that the smile was a little painful. “If you had not behaved as you did, I might have gone on loving you to the end of my life. And that, I feel, would have been the most intense degradation that I could suffer.”

  “You are hardly polite.”

  “Shall I go?”

  “No!”

  “Oh, I can’t be polite,” he cried. “I have suffered too much. D’you know that out in Africa in my solitude, for months I thought of you. I remembered every word you had ever said, every look of your eyes, and I saw that you were selfish, and cold-hearted, and cruel. At first I hated you with all the strength with which I’d loved you. But afterwards — afterwards, I saw how paltry and mean you were, and I only despised you. I longed to be face to face with you so that I might tell you how I loathed you.”

  “Is that why you came to-day?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  He rose to go, but she took no notice of his movement.

  “You don’t despise me one half so much as I despise myself.”

  He looked at her in silence, with a look of contempt upon his face.

  “D’you think I was happy after I married?”

  “You were a countess, and had twenty thousand a year. What more could you want?”

  “He puts things in such an inexpressibly vulgar way,” said Lady Habart mentally, while out loud she murmured: “You have a right to be hard upon me.”

  “You made me fall in love with you; and you know how passionately I adored you. You promised to marry me, and when you met Habart you threw me over without a thought but of yourself.”