Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  The thing had happened so quickly that Marie could not have got out of the hammock or betrayed her presence before it was over. But she had just turned her head, half raising it, and saw. And Maud saw too.

  Next moment the others had passed behind an intervening bush, and once again there was silence but for the gentle whispering of the wind, and stillness but for the play of stencilled shadows on the grass. Marie still held Maud’s hand; she still lay in the hammock, only her head was a little raised.

  A minute perhaps passed thus, and neither moved. Then Marie raised herself and sat on the side of the hammock. Her hand still held that of the other.

  “You saw?” she said quietly to Maud.

  “Yes, my mother!”

  Marie unclasped her hand.

  “Maud, dear, go indoors and go to bed,” she said.

  “No, no!” whispered the girl. “What am I — Oh — oh!” and a long sobbing sigh rose in her throat.

  Marie got up.

  “Come, then, we will go together,” she said, in a voice which she heard to be perfectly calm and hard.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Maud.

  “If I knew I would tell you,” said Marie.

  The lights were still brilliant on the lawn, and as they passed behind the screen of bushes Arthur Naseby’s voice was still shrill. Marie found herself noticing and remembering details with the most accurate observation; it was here, at this bend in the path, that there would be a smell of syringa, and a little further on a dim scent of roses. Close to the house a cedar cast a curious pattern of shade; a square of bright light fell on the gravel path from the open drawing-room windows. It was no wonder she remembered, for a very short time had passed since she had been here. But everything not trivial was changed.

  In a very few minutes’ space they were together in Marie’s bedroom. As she went to the window to draw the blinds, she looked out for a moment. The tents were lit; there was Bridge in one, in another the servants had nearly finished laying supper. And looking, she made up her mind as to what she should do in the immediate future. She turned back into the room.

  “I shall drive up to London to-night,” she said, “if I can get a carriage. Is that possible?”

  “Please let me come with you,” said Maud.

  Marie thought a moment.

  “I do not think that is wise,” she said, as if discussing some detail of business.

  “It does not matter much what is wise and what is not,” said the girl. “If I may not come with you, I shall go by myself. I could not stop! Oh, could you, if you were me?”

  Marie’s face did not soften.

  “Very well,” she said. “It is better you should come with me than go alone. You will come to my house, of course. Please see if you can get a carriage to the station; there is a train, I know, about one o’clock. My maid shall follow in the morning. Meanwhile I must leave a note for her, and one — Go at once, dear,” she said to Maud.

  Marie wrote to her maid, telling her to follow in the morning, then drew another sheet from the writing-case, and paused. Finally; she wrote:

  “I saw by accident and unavoidably a private scene between you and your mistress. I have gone back to town. I shall do nothing whatever till I have seen you. I am going because I am not prepared to see you at once. Maud is with me.”

  She folded and directed this to her husband, leaving it in a prominent place on her writing-table. Then she took it up and went with it to his dressing-room next door. Afterwards, returning, she began packing a small bag. In the midst of this Maud came back.

  “There is a carriage ready,” she said. “I saw one myself just outside, and told it to wait. I shall be ready in ten minutes.”

  Outside supper had begun, and the servants were occupied. The hall was deserted when they came down, and, passing through, the two went out.

  Meantime the evening progressed on the garden side of the house with ever-increasing gaiety. Everybody’s characteristics, as happens so often at supper-parties which are sundered from the previous dinner only by a short interval of whiskies-and-sodas, became rather more accentuated than before; every one was at philharmonic pitch, at their best, or, at any rate, at their worst.

  Lady Ardingly was slightly drier and more staccato than usual, her husband sleepier; Arthur Naseby was shriller, Jack rather more impressively reticent; Andrew Brereton heavier, and his wife louder, larger, and coarser. She was flushed with triumph and other causes less metaphysical; to-night she seemed to herself at a bound to have vaulted again into the saddle of that willing animal the world, and a glorious gallop was assuredly hers. And Jack, who was certainly the man of the moment, was again in a comfortable little pannier on the off-side. At length Lady Ardingly rose.

  “I should like to stop here till morning,” she said, “and play Bridge. But it is already two, and we must get up to London. To whom can I give a lift? You are staying, I think, Jack. Who else?”

  Lady Devereux and Arthur Naseby, it appeared, had already arranged to drive up together in her motor-brougham; the others were all staying in the house. Gradually they drifted there, and on the lawn the lights were extinguished. “Giving the moon a chance at last,” as Arthur Naseby observed. As they crossed the lawn Jack saw that Marie’s room was still lit. Then the non-residents took their carriages, and the residents their bed-candles. Mildred and Jack were the last to go upstairs.

  “There is still a light in Marie’s room,” he said. “I will just go in and see how she is.”

  Mildred lingered outside, and he tapped gently, then entered. The draught between door and window blew the flame of the candle about. But inside the electric light burned steadily, only there was no one there.

  He came out again.

  “She is not there,” he said; “nor has she been to bed.”

  Mildred frowned.

  “She, perhaps, is with Maud,” she said. “I have not seen Maud all the evening.”

  The others had dispersed to their rooms, and while Mildred rustled down the passage to go to Maud, Jack remained where he was, in the doorway of Marie’s room, which communicated with his. Suddenly in the hall below he saw a light, and to his annoyance observed Mildred’s husband shuffling along in his slippers. He came to the bottom of the stairs, and slowly began to ascend. Simultaneously he heard the rustle of Mildred’s dress returning. He beckoned her silently into Marie’s room, and closed the door softly.

  “Well?” he said.

  “Maud is not there, either,” she whispered.

  “Are they out, do you think, in the garden?” said he. “Wait; she may be in my room.”

  He went to the door communicating and opened it. On the table was lying a note addressed to him; he took it up and read it. “Mildred!” he called out, and she appeared in the doorway. “I have found this,” he said, and handed it to her.

  Then whatever there was of good in the strong and brutal part of the woman came out. She read it without a tremor, and faced him again.

  “That is the worst of having scenes out of doors,” she said. “What next, Jack?”

  He put down his candle; his hand was not so steady as hers.

  “What next?” he cried. “It is gone; everything is gone, except you and I.”

  He took two rapid steps towards her, when both paused. Some one had tapped at his door, and, without speaking, he pointed to the half-open door into Marie’s room. Then he flung off his coat and waistcoat. Just then the tap was repeated.

  “Come in,” he said.

  Lord Brereton entered.

  “So sorry to disturb you,” he said, “but I must tell them what time you want breakfast. You merely said you wished to go early.”

  “Oh, half-past eight will do for me,” said Jack. “I can get up to town by ten, which is all I want.”

  Lord Brereton advanced very slowly and methodically across to the table.

  “My wife’s fan,” he said, taking it up.

  “She is with Marie,” said the other, not pa
using, “who I am afraid is very unwell. Mildred came in here just now to speak to me; I did not see she had forgotten it.”

  Even as he spoke he realized the utter futility of lying, when there was in the world the woman who had written that note which he held crumpled up in his hand. But his instinct was merely to gain time, just as a condemned criminal might wish his execution postponed.

  “I am sorry to hear that,” said Andrew. “I will leave the fan in my wife’s dressing-room. Good-night.”

  He went softly out, and Jack opened the other door. The sweat poured from his forehead, and a deadly sickness came over him. He put his bed-candle into Mildred’s hand.

  “No, nothing has happened yet,” he said. “I told him you were with Marie. You with Marie — there’s a grim humour about that, though I didn’t see it at the time. My God! we’ll have a fight for it yet!”

  Mildred looked at him.

  “Jack, you are ill; you look frightful,” she said.

  “Very possibly.” He paused a moment. “Mildred, you woman, you devil! — which are you?” he whispered. “My God! you have courage. Here am I, trembling; you are as steady as if you were talking to a stranger in a drawing-room full of people!”

  She laughed silently, with a horrible gusto of enjoyment, the sense of danger quickening, intoxicating her.

  “What does it matter?” she whispered. “What does anything matter?”

  CHAPTER XVI

  Marie was seated alone next morning on the veranda of her room overlooking the Park. She had breakfasted with Maud, and remembered to have talked sufficiently, at any rate, to avoid any awkward pauses about a thousand indifferent subjects, unable as yet to set her mind to that which inevitably lay in front of her. She had felt it impossible to talk out with a girl what she meant to do; it was impossible with that pale suffering face opposite to her, racked as it was with uncomprehended pain, to speak of that which loomed in both their minds as gigantic as a nightmare. Instead, a commonplace little entity, seated in some remote suburb of her brain, dictated commonplace to her tongue, and round her, for the time being, was the calm which is the result of intense emotion, identical in appearance with apathy, and distinguished also by the same fixity and accuracy of observation of trivialities. She had consented last night to take Maud with her, and did not for a moment wish to evade the responsibilities which morally attached to her for that. She would have to think and eventually act for both of them, but she could not even think for herself yet. Soon, she knew, this stunned apathy would leave her; her brain was already growing clearer from the effects of that momentary scene in the garden, which, like some drugged draught, had deprived it of the power of thought, almost of consciousness. At present Maud was not with her, for she had gone round to Grosvenor Square to get clothes which she needed, and Marie was alone.

  As yet she was almost incapable of thought; at least, only that commonplace denizen of her brain could think, and he but fed her with trivial impressions. It was he who had read the paper to her; he had even read her the list of the people at Lady Brereton’s Saturday-till-Monday party. As usual, it was all wrong; she and Jack, for instance, were not included in it, and as a matter of fact they had been there. They had also played a somewhat important part there, but naturally the Daily Advertiser knew nothing of that as yet. Yet she had only been there for one night, not the Saturday till Monday; then, she recollected, she had come up, been very drowsy in the train, and on arriving at Park Lane had gone straight to bed and slept dreamlessly. Once during the night, it is true, she had awoke, still drowsy, and had seen the first tired lift of the eyelids of the dawn through her window. Then, for no reason as it seemed now, she had suddenly begun to weep, and had wept long and silently till her pillow was wet. At what she had wept she had only now a dream-like recollection; but in some mysterious way Jack and she had been just married, a new life with its endless possibilities was in front of them. But all had been spoiled, and what had happened had happened. During the night that had seemed to her a matter exceedingly pathetic, worthy of sheer childish tears. But now, fully awake, she was again as hard and as cold as a stone. Then another figure intervened — Jim Spencer. He was coming to lunch, and she had not yet put him off. But he, too, stood separated from her by the same blank blind wall of indifference. She felt nothing, she thought nothing; images only presented themselves to her as external as pictures on a magic-lantern sheet.

  Maud had not yet been gone half an hour, when a man came in.

  “Lady Ardingly is here, my lady,” he said, “and wants to know if you can see her.”

  Marie suddenly woke up. She felt as if she had been dreaming that she was somewhere, and woke to find the dream exactly true.

  “Is she alone?” she asked, hardly knowing why she asked it.

  The man paused a moment.

  “Yes, my lady,” he said.

  She smiled, knowing she was right.

  “I will see her alone,” she said. “His lordship will come back later — Lord Alston, I mean.”

  Lady Ardingly appeared; her face was slightly more impressionist than usual, as the hour was early. Marie stood on the hearth-rug; it occurred to neither of them to shake hands.

  “Ah, my dear, it is terrible for you,” said Lady Ardingly. “It is quite terrible, and they all ought to be whipped. But” — and she looked at Marie— “but you are marvellous! Long ago something of the same kind happened to me, and I was in tears for days — swollen-eyed, all sorts of ghastly things. Please let me have a cigarette. I am terribly upset.”

  Marie handed her the box, Lady Ardingly lit one. The little person in Marie’s brain told her that it smelt delicious. But the greater lobes were now beginning to work; the apathetic mist was clearing.

  “You have seen Jack?” she said. “He drove with you here, did he not?”

  “Yes, my dear. How quick of you to guess! Jack is distraught. But tell me, what did you see or hear? You had a bad headache; you were in your room. What else?”

  “I felt better. I went into the garden,” said Marie. “I saw — sufficient.”

  “Ah, what stupid fools!” ejaculated Lady Ardingly, not meaning to say anything of the kind.

  “Exactly — what stupid fools!” said Marie. “But not only that, you know.”

  “Of course, not only that,” said Lady Ardingly, annoyed at herself. “Now, Marie, Jack is here. He is waiting to know if you will see him. I will wait, too. I will sacrifice all the day, if between us we can make you see — if between us we can do any good. I ask you in common fairness to listen. There will be plenty of time for all sorts of decrees correspondent — I don’t know what they call them — afterwards. Now, which of us will you see first? Him or me?”

  Marie suddenly felt her throat muscles beyond control. She had no idea whether she was going to laugh or cry. Her will was to do neither. The effect was that she did both, and flung herself down on the sofa by the other.

  “There, there,” said Lady Ardingly, “that is right. I am not a tender woman, but I am sorry for you. It is all terrible. But the sun will rise to-morrow, and the Newmarket autumn meeting will take place, and Christmas Day will come in November — or December, is it not? Be quiet a moment.”

  But Marie’s hysterical outburst ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and she sat up again, drying her eyes. “Give me a minute,” she said.

  “As many as you wish,” said Lady Ardingly. “By the way, is that tall thing here, that daughter?”

  Marie began to laugh again, but checked herself.

  “Yes,” she said. “Maud saw what I saw. She came up with me last night.”

  “Do the servants know?” asked Lady Ardingly with some anxiety.

  “I think not. But my maid knows I went last night. I left a note for her saying so. She came here an hour ago.”

  “Tell her you will dismiss her if she says a word,” said Lady Ardingly.

  “She will not.”

  “You are certain?”

  “Perfectly.”
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  “Then, my dear, will you talk to Jack first, or to me?” said the other.

  “To Jack, if you can wait,” said Marie. “Yet I don’t know why I should keep you. I have got to talk to Jack. I promised him. And that is all, I think.”

  Lady Ardingly rose with alacrity.

  “Then talk to him now,” she said. “Afterwards, though perhaps you don’t want to talk to me, I want to talk to you. I will send him.”

  For a moment Marie was alone. The interval she employed in wheeling a chair up to the table where the cigarettes were. She sat herself in it, and on the moment Jack came in, and the two were face to face. He, like her, looked absolutely normal.

  “You told Lady Ardingly you wished to see me,” he said.

  “No; I told her I promised to see you.”

  She raised her eyes and looked at him. At that the chain was complete; her whole brain worked again. She felt, and knew what she felt.

  “I don’t know what good purpose is served by my seeing you,” she said; “but here we are. Last night you told Mildred you would come back to her, if she would have you. She assented. That is sufficient, is it not? If you like, I will go on.”

  “That is sufficient,” said Jack.

  “She is your mistress, in fact,” said Marie. “How long has that gone on?”

  “About five years,” said he.

  Marie drew a long breath, then got up.

  “How splendid!” she said. “And after five years you come back to your wife! You said that, too; you said you had attempted a renewal. So you had tired of her, and thought — Oh, my God!”

  “Yes, I suppose you may say I had tired of her,” said Jack. “That is your point of view. There is another.”

  “And what can that be?” asked Marie.

  “You may not believe it — but — —”

  “It is true, I may not believe it. What I know is that about a month ago you changed your behaviour to me. You began to pay me little attentions. Once you kissed me; once — —”

  Jack’s lips compressed a little.

  “You may not believe it,” he said again, “but what I tell you is true. You may say I tired of her. I say I fell in love — again — with you.”