by E. F. Benson
But much as the ball was talked about, she knew that Rudolf Villars and she were talked about more. Wherever people met together during the subsequent week — and just at this time of the year there was nowhere that they did not meet — the ball had to be mentioned, but like a corollary came the question, “Is he still devoted to her?” And the number of comments on that, the interpretations, the conjectures, the inferences, would have made any of those myriad women whose ideal is to be talked about in that kind of way satisfied to live or die happily ever afterwards. Unfortunately, Catherine Thurso did not claim kinship with such. It gave her not the smallest pleasure to know that a situation (or want of it) that concerned her should be the one thing that everybody else discussed as if it concerned them. Had she, when she met Villars again at the bazaar, only felt, “Can it be he? I should never have known him,” she would not have troubled her head about what anybody else might be saying. But she had not enjoyed that dispassionate attitude. Instead, something within her, independent of her own control, had said “Rudolf,” just as she had said it twelve years ago. Twelve years ago the volume of her emotional chronicles had been closed with a snap. Now that ambiguous book was reopened again on the very page at which it had been cut short. The vague girlish excitement, trouble and joy was presented to her notice again; but now it was presented, not in that dim light, but in the blaze and illumination of her womanhood. Passion had not been awake in her then, the potential fire still smouldered under the damped coals of immaturity; but now those had passed away, a fire was ready to spring up, a fire of retarded dawn, with the splendour of noonday waiting on it. Was it really so? Already she feared to ask herself that question, for fear of the answer to it.
The pretence of playing at being strangers, when at the bazaar she had called him “Your Excellency,” had broken down with singular completeness. That very night at her house he had established a footing of old friendship, to which, in bare justice, he was perfectly entitled. She could not defend herself against that, she could not resent it, even if she had wished to do so. Years ago he had loved her, and had asked her to marry him, and if that does not entitle a man to take the attitude of an old friend, when next relations of any sort are resumed, there is nothing in the world that does. Also — and this was no minor point — she had half accepted him, and then thrown him over. Neither by look nor word did he appear to cast that up against her now, and she could not, in response to his generosity, deny him the standing of a friend.
Yet though he had but claimed, tacitly, but by a right that she could not dispute, the privilege of friendship, she knew that he implied much more. She knew quite well that he still loved her. There was no question about it in her mind, and it disquieted her. But the love of other men had not disturbed the serenity of her own insouciance, and the fact that this man did told her that he was not as others.
It was characteristic of her and of the worldly wisdom with which she always ordered her life that she crammed into the week that followed her ball engagements which would ordinarily have taken even her ten days to get through. She had seen at once that a question of some importance would some time have to be answered, and having made up her mind what her answer would be, she also made it impossible for herself, as far as was in her power, to leave herself leisure for reconsidering it. She had, as has been said, no real moral code to refer it to. She had been born, as we must suppose many people are, without a moral sense, and her upbringing and environment had not generated it. She did not, for instance, refrain from stealing owing to the wickedness of so doing, but merely because it was mean and nasty, like going about with dirty gloves. And as regards other points, no sense of morality dictated her decision now. To put it baldly and blankly, as she did to herself, here was a man who had loved her twelve years ago, and, she felt certain, still loved her; while she, on her side, was stirred again as she was stirred twelve years ago. Only now she was Thurso’s wife.
Worldly wisdom, however, said much more than this to her. Her first impulse to treat him with formality was clearly mistaken. If she did not treat him with the friendliness that was so undoubtedly his due, the world would certainly say that she was cold to him in public only to be warm in private; and from the point of view of the world, the conclusion, though actually false, would surely be accredited. Obviously, the proper attitude, since he desired to be treated as a friend, was to do so. It was here that Thurso’s presence in London was desirable. The whole affair was delicate, and if he was somewhere in Caithness, where there might be typhoid or there might not, it gave the gossips far more excuse for raging furiously together. There was no doubt that she would see a good deal of Rudolf Villars during this month or two of London; her husband should, therefore, see a good deal of him too.
She had a charming place on the Thames, just below Maidenhead, left her by her mother, a low, rambling, creeper-covered house, with one foot in the river, one in the garden. Here she often entertained from Saturday till Monday, not with any mistaken notion that it was a rest, after the bustle and fatigue of London, to get into the tranquillity of Thames-side, but in order to bustle more than ever. London, it was true, was sufficiently busy, but in London one was not in evidence, anyhow, until eleven or so in the morning; and while in London, also, even if there were people in the house, they looked after themselves, and need only be given their beds and their food. But at Bray the bustle began earlier, since, as this was the country, everyone thought it necessary to play a round of golf, or row wildly on the Thames, before the day began at all; while nobody ever went to bed till nearly morning, since in the country nobody need get up. Thurso and Maud were going to motor down with her on Saturday afternoon, but as Maud had not appeared at the time appointed, it was to be taken for granted that she was doing other things, and would find her way down on her own account. Catherine, on the other hand, like most busy people, was punctual to the minute.
“Well, she’s not here,” she said, as she stepped into the car, “and, really, we can’t wait, Thurso. Unless we start now, people will get there before we do, and that is never considered quite polite.”
“No, it’s as well to be in one’s house if one has asked people to stay in it,” he remarked, “though they probably get on beautifully without one.”
He got in after her, but stood for a moment with his hand on the door, as if wanting to give Maud another minute. Her eye happened to fall on it, and she saw it was trembling. The next moment he sat down, caught her eye, and looked away again, flushing a little. There was something aimlessly furtive about all this which was unlike him. But all this week she had been a little uneasy about him; he had seemed nervous, easily startled, uncertain of himself. And as they started, though caresses were not frequent between them, she laid her ungloved hand on his.
“Thurso, old boy,” she said, “are you well? There is nothing the matter with you?”
He started at her touch, and withdrew his hand.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but your rings are so cold. Yes, I am perfectly well. I don’t know why you ask.”
“Because you don’t look very well,” she said. “Maud told me you had had several very bad headaches up in the North.”
“I had; but this is rather ancient history, is it not? It has not occurred to you to inquire about them during the last ten days.”
“Maud only told me this morning,” she said.
“I have had no return of them since I came to town.”
The footman had got up by the chauffeur, and the big Napier car bubbled and whirred to itself a moment, and then slid noiselessly off, with rapid but smooth acceleration of its pace, over the dry street. It was checked for a moment at the corner into Piccadilly, poised like a hovering hawk, and then glided into the street. The road-way was very full, but, dancing elastically on its springs, it flicked in and out of the congested traffic with the precision of a fish steering its way between clumps of waving water-weed. It seemed, indeed, more like a sentient animal, a fine-mouthed horse, or so
me trained setter, than a machine, or as if intelligence and discernment, a brain that thought and calculated and obeyed, lived in that long painted bonnet, rather than merely pistons and cylinders and all the crack-named apparatus of its mechanism. It slackened its speed before one would have thought that any block in the traffic ahead was discernible, as if scenting the need from far off; it cut in and out of moving cabs and omnibuses, as if possessed of occult knowledge with regard to the pace they were going, and what lay invisible ahead of them; it foresaw impediments to its free movement that seemed as if they could not be foreseen, and conjectured openings that appeared inconjecturable. But all down Piccadilly, all down Knightsbridge, Thurso seemed unaccountably nervous. He could hardly sit still, but kept shifting and fidgeting in his seat, frowning and starting and grasping the side of the car, and once even calling out to the chauffeur, who, in fact, was one in a thousand for combined carefulness and speed, bidding him go more quietly through the jostle of traffic. This, again, was quite unlike him, though like what he had been for the last ten days, and his wife, seeming not to watch, watched him narrowly, but without comment. But when it came to his calling a warning to the inimitable Marcel, who would sooner have flayed all the skin off his own hands than let another vehicle scrape one grain of paint off the splash-board of his beloved car, she could not help protesting. Besides, it looked so silly to jump about like that.
“Dear Thurso,” she said, “what is the matter? He is driving perfectly carefully.”
Thurso frowned, still looking anxiously at the road in front, and spoke with unveiled irritation.
“He is driving recklessly, it seems to me,” he said. “As if it mattered whether we saved five minutes on the road. But women are never content till they’ve had some smash. That was simply the result of wanting to get in front of a cab now, instead of waiting two seconds.”
This, again, was quite unlike him. His tone and his words distinctly lacked courtesy, and “Hamlet” without the Prince was not less like the play than was Thurso when he forgot his manners like her husband. She was always ready to account for any failing, whether of omission or commission, by physical causes, and Thurso’s rudeness she unhesitatingly put down to his not feeling well. But in that case it would surely be better both for him and her if he did not continue a mode of progression that made him jumpy.
“If you are nervous,” she said, “let us cross the Park, and put you down at Paddington. You can take the train.”
“That is absurd,” he said shortly.
They went on in silence for a little, and Thurso made an immense effort to pull himself together, or, at any rate, the effort seemed to him to be immense. But he knew that lately the effort to do anything he did not feel inclined to do had been enormously increased. Those moments of quickened consciousness which were his seemed to make his brain in the intervals more lethargic, less able to give orders. He knew quite well that his nerves were out of order, and though it was true that, since coming to town, as he had just told his wife, he had had no return of his neuralgia, he had for the last ten days always silenced its threatenings, sometimes even before such threatening was really perceptible, by a liberal use of that divine drug which never failed. He believed, too, if he thought about it, that he was taking larger doses than those prescribed, and knew that he was intentionally absent-minded when he poured out his draught. Nor had he taken it only for anodynic purposes; more than once or twice — he could not say how many times, but certainly less than fifty — he had taken it for the pure pleasure of its effects. He knew he had begun to be dragged into the habit, as a man whose clothes are caught between revolving cogwheels is dragged in, unless by a superhuman effort he can break loose. It was not that he did not struggle against it, but he struggled with mental reservations. Two days ago, for instance, he had resolved not to touch it for forty-eight hours, promising himself, as a reward for his abstinence, a pleasant hour or two when he got down to Bray. After that, so he had planned, he would continue to break free from it by a carefully graduated course. His next treat should be three days afterwards; after that there should be abstention for four days. For he was rather frightened already at his previous indulgence, and at the greed with which he longed for it. During the last week in Scotland he had taken it every day, and sometimes twice. Sometimes he said to himself that it suited him. Perhaps he was abnormal, but it made him feel so well, so alive. Then, again, he would recognise the danger that lay in front of him, and vowed to set about the task of breaking from the habit. But it must be done by degrees; he already could make no larger resolve than that. But that he did resolve. The interval between his treats should become longer and longer, until he craved no more. Craved! How he craved now! It was that which made him so nervous and irritable. But he must have that one full dose when he got down to Bray. He had promised himself that, and he felt as if it were almost a duty to perform that promise.
Meantime, whatever in his brain was lethargic and inert, some sense of cunning and precaution was always strong, and he knew that it was most important that Catherine should not think that there was anything wrong. So before the pause after his last rather snappish reply had made it impossible to refer back, he spoke again in a different tone.
“You must forgive me for speaking rudely just now,” he said, “and I am sure that Marcel is really careful. But I had the most dreadfully trying time up in Scotland, and those horrible headaches did not make things easier. As a matter of fact, I saw Dr. Symes when I was there, and he told me I was on edge. But he did not attach the least importance to it. He said the best thing I could do was to come down here and amuse myself, and forget all about the typhoid.”
That, again, was true as far as it went, but no further. Dr. Symes had said these things with regard to his neuralgia: he had not pronounced on the cure for it.
“But there’s no harm in seeing a doctor,” she said, “and telling him all you feel and all you do. Then he tells you to avoid curried prawns, and you pay only two guineas.”
He laughed.
“I have better uses for even so small a sum,” he said, while his mind said to itself: “Two guineas’ worth of laudanum! Two guineas’ worth of laudanum!”
“But it’s so much better to be told if there’s anything wrong,” she said, “and so nice to be told that there isn’t.”
“But I am sure of that, without being told,” said he.
The house at Bray was long and low and rambling, straggling down at one point to the very edge of the river, but for the most part standing in the middle of flower-beds and short-turfed lawn and stiff yew-hedges cut into fantastic shapes, which screened the customs of its inhabitants from the population in boats, so that the Sunday afternoon crowd could not, as in most of the river-side houses, see exactly who was there, what they had for tea, who smoked and slept, who read, and who played croquet. Indeed, had it not been for this impenetrable barrier of thick-set foliage, what they had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner would have been equally public property; for Lady Thurso had built a big open pavilion on the terrace just above the river, where, when the day was hot, her party took all their meals. Another pavilion nearer the house served as a drawing-room, card-room, or smoking-room, and on a fine Sunday nobody more than set foot in the house itself from breakfast till bed-time. A dozen guests or so were all that the house would hold, but if, as often happened, people proposed themselves when the sleeping accommodation was already commanded, it was possible to get beds for them at a neighbouring hotel. To-day, however, there was to be no sleeping out; it was doubtful, indeed, whether the house itself would be full. Maud was certainly coming; Count Villars, Alice Yardly, and her husband, were also certainties, as were Jim Raynham and Ruby Majendie, who had proposed to each other — Lady Thurso never could find out who “began” — on the night of her ball; and a couple of American cousins brought their number up to ten.
Catherine hardly knew whether or no she was glad that she had so small a party. For once, it is true, she would hav
e a fairly quiet Sunday; but, worried as she was, not only about this private emotional history of her own, but also (though she told herself this was causeless) about her husband, she was not sure whether it would not have been a greater rest to have plenty of superficial arrangements to make, and plenty of people who did not touch her inner life to amuse. She did not at all believe in thinking about things unless some practical step was to be the outcome of thought, in which case you got an instant dividend for your investment; but if thought was to end in nothing, your dividend was composed of worry only. However, even with these few people in the house, she could manage to keep herself fairly well occupied. The American cousins, too, a plain and elderly millionaire, very dyspeptic and intensely mournful, with his wife, who was young, voluble, and carried about with her pails, as it were, of gross and fulsome flattery, with which she industriously daubed everybody who was in the least worth daubing, would certainly want — especially in view of Thurso’s irritability — a little careful management. She almost wished she had not invited them, but she inherited from her mother that idea of American hospitality which makes all other hospitality appear niggardly in comparison, and did not consider she had done her duty by even the most undesirable cousins if she only asked them to dinner. “Cousins must be asked to stay, even if crossing-sweepers,” was the line on which she went. These particular cousins, she acknowledged to herself, were rather trying, but she acknowledged it to nobody else.
In spite of the desirability of arriving before your guests, Silas P. Morton and Theodosia, whom her husband always addressed in full as “Theodosia,” giving each syllable its due value, had arrived before them, and met them hospitably at the front-door.