“Think of him lying on the battlefield all the night through, silent, uncomplaining, heroic, bleeding his life’s blood, ready to die for his country.” Long quoted the most effective passage of his speech.
“I only did my duty,” said Mr. Porter-Smith.
“Do you know he might have been killed?” asked Major Long, with hushed voice.
“He behaved shamefully with the governess,” said Mrs. Porter-
Smith, after a pause. “I could never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. And then he tried to make me believe it was an accident. I shouldn’t have minded so much if he’d frankly confessed everything.”
“But there was nothing to confess,” said Porter-Smith.
“I shall never believe that.”
Then Major Long played his last card. “Have you no patriotism?” he cried indignantly. “Your husband fought for his country like a man; and you stay at home at ease. When you’re asked to do the smallest thing for your country, you refuse.”
And in reply to Mrs. Porter-Smith’s look of astonishment he added: “Don’t you see that if you won’t come down we shall lose the election? It means a dreadful blow to the Unionist cause; one can’t tell what effects it may have on the country. Of course the loss of a seat counts only two on a division, but the moral effect is incalculable. Do you take no interest in your country’s welfare?”
“I’m a Primrose Dame,” answered Mrs. Porter-Smith, with pardonable satisfaction.
“And yet you throw a seat into the hands of the Little Englanders! It’s your duty to sacrifice your private feelings. Surely your king and your country come before a wretched family difference?”
Major Long wiped his brow, overcome by his own eloquence. Mrs. Porter-Smith sat bolt upright, and a noble quiver passed through her as she saw herself in the character of a Roman matron.
“It shall never be said that I shrink from doing my duty,” she said at last. “If every one were as scrupulous as I, this difficulty wouldn’t have arisen.”
“You’ll come?” asked Long eagerly. The candidate himself wisely held his tongue.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Porter-Smith, with a freezing look at her husband. “But on the condition that John lays no claim to me afterwards. Until the election is over I will live in the same house with him: of course Mamma will come; but the day after I shall come back to town. What I do is for the sake of my country, and John isn’t to look upon it as a condonation of his behaviour. His conduct was scandalous, and I shall never forgive him.”
IV
Mrs. Porter-Smith aggressively read the papers during the journey, sitting, of course, as far from her husband as the size of the carriage permitted; and when they arrived eventually at the Unionist committee rooms they found the Rev. Septimus Cameron waiting to see the candidate.
“He has assured me,” said the agent, “that unless you give him full satisfaction he will make a complete explanation at the meeting to-night. He’s going to say that no honest man can decently vote for you.”
Porter-Smith muttered words of wrath in his moustache, but Major Long was jubilant.
“Come alone,” he said: “we’ll sit on him for all we’re worth.”
Porter-Smith went into the private room, and the reverend gentleman bowed coldly to him, resolutely keeping his hands behind his back. The candidate by now had regained his breezy good-humour.
“Well, Mr. Cameron, what’s all this I hear? You surely don’t believe every scandal that the Rads, invent!”
“I tried not to, Mr. Porter-Smith, but I’m afraid the evidence is overwhelming.”
“But here is my wife.” And Mrs. Porter-Smith, accompanied by her mother, was ushered in by Major Long.
Mrs. Porter-Smith stared coldly at Mr. Cameron in answer to his bow, and sat down. “I understand,” she said, “that certain reports have arisen concerning the relations between my husband and myself?”
The Rev. Septimus Cameron bowed.
“Well, I think it’s scandalous,” she said, her cheeks flushing brightly. “I adore my husband, and he’s the best man that ever lived, and I’m the last woman to suffer disloyalty. If he had done what you suggest, I would never speak to him again. Oh, it’s too cruel to sully the purity of our married life with such base insinuations.”
“That ought to satisfy you, Mr. Cameron,” said Major Long.
“And if you knew what I suffered when he went to South Africa, and I thought he might be killed!” Mrs. Porter-Smith’s voice broke, and she put her handkerchief to her eyes.
“‘I could not love you, dear, so much, loved I not honour more,’” quoted Major Long.
Mrs. Porter-Smith’s sobs became audible, and the clergyman went up to the candidate and shook his hand. “Of course, after this there’s nothing more to be said,” he added. “I need not tell you how glad I am to find these charges untrue.”
Mrs. Porter-Smith removed her handkerchief. “I think it’s shameful that you should ever have believed them. You’re a clergyman, and you ought to set a better example.”
The others were aghast at this vehement little speech, for Mr. Cameron was influential and he was unused to reproof.
“Fanny, Fanny!” said Porter-Smith: “Mr. Cameron was only doing his duty. He acted from the highest motives.”
But Mr. Cameron was disposed to be magnanimous, even though he had proved himself to be in the wrong. “My dear lady, you’re quite right: I humbly beg your pardon and your husband’s. And since there have been rumours in the constituency, I will make it my business to-night at the meeting to give them the very strongest contradiction.”
Mrs. Porter-Smith rose and stretched out her hand, smiling. “I’ll forgive you,” she said, “and you must get my husband elected.”
“I’ll do my best.”
But immediately the clergyman had gone, Porter-Smith sprang forward gratefully. “You are a brick, Fanny!” he said.
Mrs. Porter-Smith drew herself to her full height. “You need not thank me,” she said icily. “I did it for my country.”
V
Mrs. Porter-Smith, vowing that the election did not in the least interest her, stayed reading a book at home while the count was being made. But presently she heard a great noise, and, springing to the window, saw her husband waving his hat from the carriage, which was drawn by a band of zealous supporters: cheer upon cheer rang through the air.
“He’s won,” she said to herself, and her heart began to beat rapidly. But, hearing the front door open, she quickly returned to her chair and began unconcernedly to read her book. Porter-Smith rushed in, wildly excited. “We’ve won, Fanny! We’ve won!”
“Have you?” she said coolly.
“Come to the balcony,” he cried.
He took her by the arm, notwithstanding her slight resistance, and they stepped out. They were met by rapturous cheers.
“Three cheers for Mrs. Porter-Smith!” cried some one, and the air was rent by the yells of enthusiasm.
Mrs. Porter-Smith bowed and smiled, and the beating of her heart became tumultuous; the excitement was gaming upon her, and, looking round to her husband, she found him gazing at her with manifest pleasure. The crowd withdrew at last, and the happy couple returned to the drawing-room.
“Why, where’s your mother, Fanny?” he asked. It was the first time he had found himself alone with her since the reunion.
Mrs. Porter-Smith hesitated a moment. “She’s gone up to town,” she said at last.
“Why?”
“She says — she says I’m a ridiculous fool.”
Porter-Smith began to laugh.
“I don’t see anything to laugh at,” remarked his wife. “I shall go up tomorrow. I suppose you’ll take a house in town now?”
“Yes; I thought of Grosvenor Square. Of course I shall have to entertain a great deal.”
Mrs. Porter-Smith glanced at him, but said nothing.
“There’s a very nice house in Grosvenor Square to be let now,” she murmured, aft
er a pause.
He was standing very close to her, and his eyes were fixed upon her with singular intensity.
“I suppose you wouldn’t come and play hostess sometimes, when I’m giving a function?” he asked.
“It’s quite out of the question,” she said, but very indecisively. She could not help thinking that it would be pleasant to give large parties in Grosvenor Square.
“I’m thinking of going to Paris for a fortnight to rest,” he said.
“Are you?” she replied. “I’ve been thinking of going to Paris to get some new things.”
“Of course I shan’t be able to do much. I’m rather exhausted after the election, and I’ve been so seedy lately.”
She turned her eyes on him again, and he approached a little closer.
“Were you very bad in South Africa?” she asked.
“I was bad because I hadn’t you with me,” he said.
“If you’d really cared for me you wouldn’t have gone.”
Her voice broke, and when her husband put his arm round her waist she had not strength to resist.
“I thought you’d be glad,” he said.
“You knew I should be miserable. When I saw you had volunteered I knew you were pleased to have got rid of me.”
“You said you would never come back to me; or I shouldn’t have gone.”
“You might have given me time to change my mind.”
“Fanny!”
He put both arms round her now, and unreasonably she began to cry.
“Your behaviour was scandalous, wasn’t it?” she asked tearfully, as if she were no longer quite certain.
“Utterly!”
“Well, if you’ll confess that, I’ll confess that I behaved like a fool. When I’d got to Mamma’s I was ashamed to come back again; and you wouldn’t own that you were wrong.”
“Then you’ll forgive me everything?”
“I’m not sure that there was anything to forgive.” She raised her face, and when he kissed her she whispered: “You know it was quite true when I told old Cameron that I adored you, and you were the best man in the world.”
“We’ll never quarrel again, will we?”
“Never!”
And so far they haven’t; but then the election only took place the other day.
A POINT OF LAW
When I feel more than usually poor, (on a rainy day, for instance, when opulent stockbrokers roll swiftly in electric broughams, or when some friend in bleak March weather tells me he is starting that very night for Monte Carlo), I make my will; it gives me a peculiar satisfaction to leave my worldly goods, such as they are, to persons who will not in the least care to receive them, and I like the obsequious air of the clerk who blows my name up a tube to the family solicitor. It is an amusement which costs me nothing, for Mr. Addishaw, the senior partner in the eminently respectable firm of Addishaw, Jones, and Braham, knows my foible; he is aware also that a solicitor’s bill is the last I should ever pay, and I have warned him that if ever he sends it I will write a satiric story which shall hold him up to the ridicule of all his neighbours on Brixton Hill. What accounts he prepares after my demise do not in the smallest degree perturb me; my executors and he may fight it out between them.
One day, then, I walked down the Strand, feeling very wretched after a cheap luncheon in a crowded Italian restaurant (a crust of bread and a glass of water may be rendered appetizing by hunger and a keen sense of the romantic, but who can survey without despondency a cut off the joint, half cold and ill-cooked, and boiled potatoes?), and, jostled by hurrying persons, I meditated on the hollowness and the folly of the world. I felt certain that Mr. Addishaw at this hour would be disengaged, and it seemed an occasion upon which his services were eminently desirable; it would comfort me just then to prepare for the inevitable dissolution. I turned the corner and soon found myself at the handsome edifice, with its array of polished brass plates and its general look of prosperity, wherein the firm for many years had rented offices.
“Can I see Mr. Addishaw?” I inquired.
And in a moment I was shown upstairs into the sumptuous apartment which the good gentleman inhabited. He had evidently just lunched, and with him the meal had without doubt been satisfactory; for he sat in the arm-chair generally reserved for clients, toasting his toes at the cheerful fire, and with great content smoked his cigar. There was so much self-satisfaction about his red face that the mere sight of him cheered me; and the benevolence of his snowy whiskers impressed me more than ever before with a sense of his extreme worth.
“You look as if you read the Lessons in church every Sunday morning, Mr. Addishaw,” I said, when I shook hands with him. “I’ve come to make my will.”
“Ah, well,” he answered, “I have nothing to do for ten minutes. I don’t mind wasting a little time.”
“You must sit at your desk,” I insisted, “or I shan’t feel that I’m getting my money’s worth.”
Patiently he changed his seat, and with some elaboration I gave a list of all the bequests I wished to make.
“And now,” said I, “we come to my wines, spirits, and liqueurs.”
“Good gracious me!” he cried. “I didn’t know that you had started a cellar. You are becoming a man of substance. I will tell my wife to ask for your new book at Mudie’s.”
“Your generosity overwhelms me,” I retorted. “Some day, I venture to hope, you will go so far as to buy a second-hand copy of one of my works. But I have no cellar. The wine in my flat is kept in a cupboard along with the coats and hats, the electric meter, my priceless manuscripts, and several pairs of old boots. I have no wines, spirits, and liqueurs, but I wish to leave them to somebody, so that future generations may imagine that writers in the twentieth century lived as luxuriously as butchers and peers of the realm and mountebanks.”
Somewhat astonished at this harangue, Mr. Addishaw wrote as I desired; then a pale young clerk was sent for and together the legal gentlemen witnessed my signature.
“And now,” said I, “I will light a cigar to complete the illusion that I am a man of means, and bid you good afternoon.” Mr. Addishaw returned to his arm-chair by the fire and, feeling apparently very good-humoured, asked me to remain for a few minutes; he had taken the only comfortable seat in the room, but I drew up the writing-chair and sat down.
“Wills are odd things,” said Mr. Addishaw, in a meditative manner. “Only the other day I had to deal with the testament of the late Lord Justice Drysden; and it was so ill-composed that no one could make head or tail of it. But his eldest son happened to be a solicitor, and he said to the rest of the family: ‘I’m going to arrange this matter as I consider right, and if you don’t agree I’ll throw the whole thing into Chancery and you’ll none of you get a penny!’ The family were not too pleased, for their brother thought fit to order the affair in a manner not altogether disadvantageous to himself; but I advised them to submit. My father and my grandfather were solicitors before me, so I think I have law more or less in the blood; and I’ve always taught my children two things. I think if they know them they can’t come to much harm in the world.”
“And what are they?” I asked.
“Never tell a lie and never go to law.”
Mr. Addishaw rose slowly from his chair and went to the door.
“If anyone wishes to see me, Drayton, say that I shall be disengaged in a quarter of an hour,” he called to his clerk.
Then, with a little smile which sent his honest red face into a number of puckers, he took from a cupboard a bottle, well coated with dust, and two wine-glasses.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Well, I’m an old man,” he answered, “and I keep to some customs of the profession which these young sparks of to-day have given up. I always have a bottle of port in my room, and sometimes when I don’t feel very well I drink a glass or two.”
He poured out the wine and looked at it with a smile of infinite content. He lifted it to his nose and closed his eyes as thoug
h he were contemplating some pious mystery. He sipped it and then nodded to me three times with a look full of meaning.
“And yet there are total abstainers in the world!” he exclaimed.
He emptied the glass, sighed, refilled it, and sat down.
“Talking of wills, I said the last word in a matter this morning which has interested me a good deal; and, if you like, I will tell you the story, because it shows how sometimes by pure chance that ass, the law, may work so as to protect the innocent and punish the contriving.
“One of the oldest clients of my firm is the family of Daubernoon, North Country squires, who have held immense estates in Westmorland since the good old days of King Henry VIII. They were not a saving race, so that in personality they never left anything worth speaking of, but they always took care to keep the property unencumbered; and even now, when land is worth so little and the landlord finds it as difficult as the farmer to make both ends meet, their estates bring in the goodly income of six thousand a year.
“Roger Daubernoon, the late squire, injured his spine in a hunting accident, and it would have been a mercy if he had killed himself outright, since he lingered for twenty years, a cripple and an invalid who required incessant care. His wife died shortly afterwards and he was left with an only daughter, in whose charge he placed himself. A man used to an active, busy life, in illness he grew querulous and selfish, and it seemed to him quite natural that Kate Daubernoon, then a girl of twenty, should devote her life to his comfort. A skilful nurse, she became so necessary to him that he could not face the thought that one day she might leave him; he was devoured by the fear that she would marry, and he refused, pretexting his ill-health, to have visitors at the manor. He grew petulant and angry if to go to some party she abandoned him for a couple of hours, and finally Miss Daubernoon resigned herself to a cloistral life. Year in, year out, she remained in close attendance on her father, partly from affection, but more for duty’s sake; she looked after the house, walked by the squire’s bath-chair, read to him, and never once left home. She saw no one but the villagers, by whom for her charitable kindness she was adored, the parson and his wife, the doctor, and twice a year myself.
Delphi Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (Illustrated) Page 276