Open quote
COME in, old boy!”
Bertha was lying on the sofa reading a large book. She didn’t put down either her little feet or the book when her young brother-in-law came in.
He also had a book in his pocket, which he took out. Then he produced a box in silver paper.
“For you,” he remarked, and then immediately cut the blue ribbon with a penknife and proceeded to begin the demolition of the chocolates.
“A present for me?” said Bertha.
“Yes,” he said, taking a second one rather quickly and glancing at the second row.
“I’m so glad you’ve got me the kind you like. I hope you’ve got those with the burnt almonds that you’re so particularly fond of?”
“Oh yes, rather!”
“Thanks. That was nice and thoughtful of you; I know they’re your favourite sort.”
“Yes, they are.”
“And what I always think is so nice about you, Clifford,” Bertha went on, “is that you’re so truly thoughtful. I mean, you never forget your own tastes. You really take trouble to get yourself any little thing you like. You put yourself out.”
“Oh—I——”
“Oh no, I’m not flattering you; I really mean it. You’re such a nice thoughtful boy. I’ve seen you take a lot of trouble, rather than deprive yourself of anything you cared for.”
“Oh, Bertha!”
“Are you going to stay long to-day?”
“Yes, I am,” said Clifford, taking up the book he had brought with him. “As long as I can.”
“Oh.”
“How long can I?”
“Till dinner, or till anyone turns up that I want to talk to.”
“Right-o! But you can send me into another room. I needn’t go home, need I?”
She laughed.
“Oh, you silly boy! Of course not.”
“I say, have you seen my report?” he asked gravely.
“Some of it. Your mother read out little bits.”
“Which little bits?” he asked rather anxiously.
“Oh, the worst of course!” said Bertha. “The purple patches! You’re a credit to the family, I don’t think!”
“She asked me who was my nicest little friend at school,” said Clifford.
“And what did you say?”
“I told her about Pickering. I say, Bertha, … can I bring Pickering here?”
“Of course you can.”
“May I give him a regular sort of invitation from you, then?”
“Yes, rather. Tell him that I and Percy ask him to come and live here from to-morrow morning for the rest of his natural life. Or, if that doesn’t seem cordial enough, we’ll adopt him as our only son.”
“Oh no! I think that’s too much.”
“Is it? Well, make it from to-morrow afternoon. Or perhaps we’d better not be effusive; it wouldn’t look well. So, instead of that, I’ll invite him to go to the Zoological Gardens on Sunday fortnight for an hour, and you and he can have buns and tea at your own expense there. That’s not too hospitable and gushing, is it?”
He laughed.
“You do look smart, Bertha!” he remarked. “Your shoes are always so frightfully right. I say, can’t you tell mother to wear the same sort of shoes? And tell her to look narrower, and not have such high collars.”
“My dear boy, your mother dresses beautifully,” said Bertha. “What do you want her to look like?”
“I should like her to look like some of those little cards on cigarette boxes, or like a picture post-card, if you want to know,” he admitted candidly.
“That’s absurd, Cliff.”
“But, Bertha, some of the fellows’ mothers do.”
“Remember your mother isPercy’smother, too.”
“Pickering’s mother doesn’t look much older than you,” he replied.
“Oh—what a horrid woman!”
He smiled. “Why do you call her a horrid woman? For not looking older than you?”
“Oh! tell her to mind her own business, and not go interfering with me. I shall look whatever age I choose without consulting her!” Bertha pretended to pout and be offended, and went on reading for a little while.
He took another chocolate and turned a page.
She did not ask to see the book.
“That’s what I call so jolly about you,” presently said Clifford. “When I come to see you, you don’t keep asking me questions, or giving me things, or advice, or anything. You do what you like, and I do what I like—I mean to say, we both do just what we like.”
“Yes; that’s the way to be pleasant companions,” said Bertha. “I go your way, and you go mine.”
“How’s Percy?” the boy asked presently.
“Percy’s the same as usual. Only I fancy he seems a little depressed.”
Presently Clifford looked up and said:
“Anyway, you’ll think it over, Bertha; and see what you decide to do about asking Pickering?”
“Rather!” said Bertha, turning a page absently. “He’s rather a wonderful chap, then?”
“Isn’t he!”
“What sort?”
“Whatsort?” cried Clifford, dropping his book. “Why, Bertha, I waswithhim,actually with him, when he went into the country post office and asked the woman if she would let him have small change for ten shillings, and he found he hadn’t the half-sovereign then, but would pay her when he didn’t see her again! And then he said if she wouldn’t do that, he’dlike to buy some stamps, and asked if she’d show him some to choose from. And then he said—I saw him do it—’I’ll take those two in the middle—I like the colour.’ When she said they were fivepence he said that was too expensive, and he couldn’t run to it. And then he wanted to buy some sweets—they sell everything at those country shops—and she wrapped some up for him, and then he said he hadn’t got a penny, and would she put it down to Lord Arthur’s account—that’s an uncle of his who didn’t know anything about it, and hadn’t got any account. And when she refused, fancy, Bertha! he asked if she’d take stamps, as she seemed fond of them, and when she said she would, he stamped twice on the floor and ran out of the shop, and I ran after him. Shewasangry!”
“He seems a useful boy.”
“Rather! His people are frightfully rich, you know,” went on Clifford. “When they tease him about it at school, he says he’s never allowed to use the same motor twice, and that they’re made of solid gold! He chaffs everybody.”
Clifford murmured on rather disjointedly, and Bertha read without listening much, occasionally making some remark, when the telephone rang.
Bertha had an extension on the little table next to her sofa.
“Shall I go?” asked Clifford.
“No. Just to the other end of the room.”
He obeyed, and fell into the depths of a fat arm-chair.
“That you, Nigel? How is it all going on? Madeline hasn’t heard from him lately—not for ages.”
“Quite so,” answered Nigel’s voice. “I’ve found out something I want you to know. It isn’t really serious—at least I’m pretty sure I can put it right, but I’d like to see you about it; it wouldn’t take you a moment.”
“But is it a thing that may make any difference?” she asked rather anxiously.
“No. Not if it’s taken in time,” he answered.
“Oh, can’t you ’phone about it, Nigel?”
“Not very well, my dear. It really wouldn’t take you a minute to hear about itviva voce.”
“But you can’t keep on calling every day!” cried Bertha, exasperated.
“Quite so. Couldn’t you go in for a few minutes to-morrow morning at the Grosvenor Gallery in Bond Street? Say at about eleven or twelve? I won’t keep you five minutes, I promise, and you can tell me if you approve of my plan.”
“Very well, I’ll do that. Quarter-past eleven,” added Bertha.
“Only one thing, Bertha, don’t tell anyone—not a soul.”
“Why not?”
“I’ll explain when I see you. But you mustn’t mention it. It’s nothing—two seconds.”
“Oh, all right! But why so many mysteries? You might just as well tell me now on the telephone.”
“I’m afraid I can’t; I have to show you a letter.”
“I suppose Rupert has been seeing Moona Chivvey again? Is that it?”
“Well, yes. But that’s not all. Not a word to Madeline! Isn’t it curious, Bertha, troubles about women are always the same. Eithertheywantyouto marrythem,ortheywon’t marryyou!”
“Oh, really? Good-bye.”
“How brilliant you’re looking, Bertha! You’ve got your hair done in that mysterious new way again.”
“How onearthcan you know through the telephone?”
“Why, easily. By your voice. You talk in a different way—to suit it.”
“Do I? How funny! Good-bye.”
Ten minutes later Percy came in.
He seemed pleased to see his young brother.
“What’s that book you’ve brought, Cliff?”
“It’s ‘The New Arabian Nights.’”
Percy laughed.
“Oh yes, I know—the copy I gave Bertha. Have you decided to let her have it back on mature consideration?”
“Oh, I say, Percy! Come off the roof, there’s a good chap,” said the boy, blushing a little.
“I think I shall have to take a holiday from chambers to-morrow,” Percy said. “Shall we take him out to lunch, Bertha?”
“By all means; or, at any rate, you take him, Percy.”
“Are you engaged in the morning?” he asked her very quickly.
“I ought to look in at my dressmaker’s for a minute,” she said, feeling angry with Nigel that he had made her promise to conceal even a few minutes of her day.
No more was said on the subject.
Presently, Percy went upstairs to his room and turned the key. He then took out of a drawer and placed in front of him, in their order, three rather curious-looking letters, written in typewriting on ordinary plain white notepaper. The first two, both of which began “Dear Mr. Kellynch,” were four pages long,and gave some information in somewhat mysterious terms. The third one had no beginning, and merely mentioned an hour and a place where, he was told, he would find his wife on the following morning, if he wished to do so, in the company of an individual with the initials N. H. The letter further advised him to go there and find her and take steps to put a stop to the proceedings which had been watched for some time by somebody who signed the letter “your true and reliable friend.”
The right thing to do, according to all unwritten laws of the conduct of a gentleman, would be to destroy such communications and at once forget them. To show them to her, Percy felt, would be degrading to himself and to such a woman as his wife, whom he now realised he placed on a pedestal. The idea of seeing the pedestal rock seemed to take the earth from under his feet. But not only that, he now felt that, though he hadn’t known it, he loved her, not with a mild, half-patronising affection, but with the maddening jealousy of a lover in the most passionate stage of love. A man placed in his position nearly always thinks that it is the idea of being deceived that hurts the most. Particularly when the object of suspicion is his wife. Now he knew it was not that; he couldforgive the deception; but he couldn’t bear to think that any other man could think of her from that point of view at all. And if he found that the mere facts stated in the three letters were true, even if the inferences suggested were utterly false, he had made up his mind what to do. He would go and see Nigel on the subject, forbid him the house, saying that too frequent visits had caused talk, and never mention the subject to Bertha. That was his present plan. Perhaps it would not be possible to carry it out, but that was his idea.
The fact that Bertha had been vague about her morning engagement—for it was really unlike her not to seem pleased at the idea of spending the whole day with him and the little brother—so agonised Percy that he pretended to have a headache and saw practically nothing of Bertha till the next day. He said then that he would go to chambers, meet Clifford at Prince’s and come home after lunch and take Bertha out somewhere. This was to leave her perfectly free, so that she need not alter any arrangements. He wished to see what she would do.
It was a glorious morning, and Percy felt rather mean and miserable and unlike the day as he left the house.
Bertha was already dressed, looking deliciously fresh and pink, and sparkling and fair as the sunshine. A second of acute physical jealousy made him remark rather bitterly before he left that her hat was a little bit striking, wasn’t it? Upon which she at once, in her good-tempered, amiable way (only too delighted that he should have noticed anything in her toilette even to object to it), plucked the white feather out of the black hat and put a little coat on over her dress, so as to look less noticeable.
At a quarter past eleven Percy paid his shilling at the gallery, walked in, looking slowly at the drawings on the walls in the narrow passage that led to the rooms.
The moment he reached the first door on the left-hand side, which was open, he saw through it, exactly opposite to him, seated on a sofa, Bertha, looking up and chattering to Nigel Hillier, who was looking down in a protecting manner, and listening with great interest to her conversation.
Neither of them saw him.
The pain of finding one part of the letter true was so startling and terrible that he dared not look another moment; a second more, and he might have made a scandal, perhaps for ever after to be regretted, and possibly entirely groundless.
He walked straight out of the gallery again, and drove to Sloane Street in a taxi. During the drive he felt extraordinary sensations. He remembered an occasion when he had been to a dentist as a little boy, and the strange new suffering it had caused him. Then he thought that when he got home, he would feel better. Instead of that the sight of the familiar house was unbearable agony; he could not endure to go into it; he drove back again to the club of which both he and Nigel were members, and where Nigel was generally to be found before lunch. There he tried to wait and master himself a little; it was peculiar torture to have left them there now. He felt he would like to go back to the gallery and at least spoil their morning. But that, his sound sense told him, would be a mistake. He would wait there till Nigel came in.
PERCY waited on and on, minute after minute, half-hour after half-hour, reading the morning papers, staring with apparent deep interest at the pictures in the weekly journals—rather depressing foreshortened snapshots of society at racecourses. These people, caught unawares, seemed to be all feet and parasols, or smiles and muffs. Then, feeling rather exhausted, he ordered a drink, and forgot it, and smoked a cigarette. When he saw anyone he knew, he put on an absent-minded air, and avoided the friend’s eye. He looked at his watch as if in sudden anxiety, and found that it was half-past one. This was the time he was to meet his little brother at Prince’s. He made inquiries and found that Nigel was expected to lunch at the club. It was horrible! He could not leave the boy at the restaurant waiting for him, and he was not up to the mark either, at the moment, for seeing Nigel Hillier; he felt as if the top of his headhad been smashed in. Yet his common-sense and reasoning power gradually prevailed over his emotion. And as he sat there, Percy changed his mind.
At first he had thought it would be cowardly to her to attack his wife on the subject; it was the man with whom he should quarrel. And now it seemed to him different. His point of view altered. It seemed only fair now to give Bertha herself a chance of explaining matters. Thinking of her fresh, frank expression that morning, and looking back, he began to have, by some sort of second sight, a vision of his own stupid injustice. No! he must have been wrong! Nigel may have been a scoundrel, or—anything—but it couldn’t be Bertha’s fault. She may have been imprudent, out of pure innocence; that was all.
He got up, and now he decided to take his brother out to lunch, and then go back and talk to Bertha.
During the noisy, crowded lunch at Prince’s, which entertained the boy so much that there was no necessity for the elder brother to talk, Percy came to a firm decision.
He would never tell Bertha anything at all about the anonymous letters.
He would tell her that he had seen her this morning at the gallery—as if by accident; but he would frankly admit a jealousy, even a suspicion of Nigel.
He would ask Bertha in so many words not to see Nigel again.
If she would agree to this, and if she were as affectionate as formerly, what did the rest matter? The letters must have been slanders; whocouldhave written them? But, after all, what did it matter? If Bertha consented to do as he asked, they were untrue, and that was everything. He and Bertha would drop Hillier, and he would put the whole horrible business behind him; he would wipe it out, and forget it. The mere thought of such joy made him tremble … it seemed too glorious to be real, and as they approached the house again he began to believe in it.
Clifford had thoroughly enjoyed himself. He felt quite grown-up as he parted with Percy at Sloane Street, and drove home, singing to himself the refrain of Pickering’s favourite song: “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck would chuck wood?”
“Percy, what is the matter?” Bertha asked anxiously, as she looked at him.
He had gone through a great deal that morning and looked rather worn out. … He spoke in a lower voice than usual.
“Look here, Bertha,” he said, “I have something to tell you.”
She waited, then, at a pause, said, rather pathetically:
“Oh, Percy, do tell me what it is? I’ve felt so worried about you lately. You seem to be changed. … I have felt very pained and hurt. Tell me what it is.”
Percy looked at her. She was looking sweet, anxious and sincere. She leant forward, holding out her little hand. … If this was not genuine, then nothing on earth ever could be!
“Tell me, Percy,” she repeated, looking up at him, as he stood by the fire, with that little movement of her fair head that he used to say was like a canary.
Percy looked down at her; all his imposingness, all his air of importance, and his occasional tinge of pompousness, had entirely vanished. He was simple, angry and unhappy.
“I found I hadn’t got to go to chambers early this morning after all, so I walked down Bond Street. I went into the Grosvenor Gallery. I saw you there. … It seemed very strange you hadn’t told me. Why didn’t you? Whydidn’t you? Bertha, don’t tell me anything that isn’t true!”
Her eyes sparkled. She stood up beaming radiant joy. She went to him impulsively; everything was all right; he was jealous!
“Oh, Percy! I can explain it all.”
Hastily, eagerly, impulsively, with the most obvious honesty and frankness, she told him of how Nigel had promised to help her with Madeline, of how he had planned with her to make Madeline happy; she told him of the variable and unaccountable conduct of Rupert Denison to Madeline, of his marked attention at one moment, his coldness at another. Foolishly, she had been led to believe that Nigel could make things all right. Now this morning Nigel had asked her to meet him to tell her that Rupert had been seen choosing hats for another girl. Bertha was in doubt whether she ought to tell Madeline, and make her try and cure her devotion. And Bertha had thought it all the kinder of Nigel because his brother, Charlie, was very much in love with her.
Percy stopped her in the middle of the story. He could take no sort of interest in it at present. He was much too happy and relieved; he was in the seventh heaven.
“Yes … yes … all right, dear. Only you oughtn’t to have made an appointment withhim. Only promise that never again—— You see, things can be misconstrued. And, anyhow, I don’t like to see you with Nigel Hillier. Frankly, I can’t stand it. You’ll make this sacrifice for me—if it is one, Bertha?”
He had quite decided to conceal all about the letters.
“Indeed, indeed I will; and I know I was wrong,” she said. “I mean it’s no good trying to help people too much. They must play their own game. You understand, don’t you? Nigel was only to show me a letter he had written inviting the other girl to lunch—to take her away from Rupert. But it’s all nonsense, and I’ll have nothing more to do with it.”
“Then that’s all right,” said Percy, sitting down, with a great sigh of relief.
“You didn’t really think for a moment, seriously, that I ever—that I didn’t—oh, you never stopped knowing how much I love you?” she asked, with tears in her eyes.
Percy said that he had not exactly thought that. Also, he was not jealous—that was not the word—he merely wished her to promise never to see or speak to Nigel again as long as they lived, and never to recognise him if she met him: that was all. He was perfectly reasonable.
“It’s perhaps a little bit difficult in some ways, dearest. But I promise you faithfully to do my very, very best. And this I absolutely swear—I will never see him without your approving and knowing all about it. But as I shouldn’t exactly like him to think you thought anything—I mean—I think you must leave it a little to me—to my tact, to get rid of him; and trust me. And I want you to know that I shouldn’t care if I never saw him again. I don’t even like him. And I really don’t think he cares for me; I’m quite certain it’s your fancy.”
“Can you give me your word of honour that he never——”
“Never, by word or look,” answered Bertha.
“That’s all right,” said Percy.
Bertha sat on the arm of his chair and leant her head against his shoulder.
At that moment he thought he had never known what happiness was before.
Then she said:
“It’s all right now, then, Percy? That was all, and the cloud’s gone?”
“Quite, absolutely,” he answered, mentally tearing the letters into little bits.
Then she said:
“Percy, of course you never really thought … you never could think that I meant todeceive you in any way. … But supposing Nigel had had any treacherous ideas—let us say, supposing that Nigel, though he’s married, and all that—suppose you found out that he had liked me, and wanted to spoil our happiness? … I mean, suppose you found out that he had been making love to me? … What would you have done?”
“I should have killed him,” replied Percy. Could a man have said anything that would please a woman as much as this primitive assertion?
Bertha threw her arms round his neck. She was perfectly happy. He was in love with her.
BERTHA decided it was better to curtail Nigel’s visits and make them fewer gradually; she had quite convinced Percy of her sincerity, and he also had come to the conclusion that it would be foolish andinfra digto let the jealousy be suspected. He trusted her again now; and they were both deeply and intensely happy. Being ashamed of the letters, Percy said nothing about them; in a day or two he had come to the conclusion that he would leave it entirely to Bertha’s tact.
“All I ask is,” he said, “that you will see him as little and as seldom as you can, without making too much fuss about it, or letting him know what I thought.”
“And I promise to do that,” she said. “I long never to see him again. It’s only on account of Madeline I wanted to have one more little talk with him—about her and Rupert. After that I’ll manage without him, I assureyou. I swear not to give him anything more to do for me. But what I can’t understand, dear, is what put the idea into your head.”
“Never mind. You were seeing him too often. And, remember, I know that he was in love with you once and wanted to marry you.”
“But, dear boy, that was ten years ago, and he married somebody else.”
“Which he may regret by now. Well, I trust all to your tact, Bertha.”
“He’s coming to-day,” Bertha said. “And then I’m going to make him understand I no longer want his help.”
“Right.”
Percy went out, looking very happy. He did not forget to kiss her now, and he himself had sent the large basket of flowers that Nigel nearly fell over when he came in the afternoon.
“A new admirer?” asked Nigel.
“No, an old one. So you say that you met Rupert buying a hat for Miss Chivvey, and saw them the next day walking together, and she was wearing it.”
“Yes. And, as I told you, I thought this rather serious, so I wrote and invited the young lady to lunch with me.”
“Did she accept?”
“That is what I’ve come to tell you about to-day. She was engaged, but asked me to invite her another time.”
“Exactly. Now, Nigel, I want to tell you something. I think I’ve been doing wrong intriguing for Madeline, and it hasn’t been fair to her really. I’ve decided to tell her what you told me about Rupert, and then leave things to take their course. And I oughtn’t to countenance asking the other girl to lunch. It was horrid of me—I’m ashamed of myself, both on account of her and of Mary. Don’t do it; I’d rather not.”
Nigel looked up at her sharply.
“Do these sudden and violent scruples mean simply that you don’t want me any more?”
“A little,” she replied.
“I’ve noticed you’ve seemed very cold and unkind to me the last week or so,” he said. “You seem to be trying to change our relations.”
“I don’t see why we should have any relations,” answered Bertha. “After all, I know instinctively that Mary doesn’t like me.”
“What in heaven’s name does that matter?” he asked.
“A good deal to me.”
There was a moment’s silence.
Nigel looked surprised and more hurt than she would have expected. Then he said:
“All right, Bertha. I hope I can take a hint. I won’t bother you any more. I won’t try to help you in anything till you ask me.”
She was silent.
Then he went on:
“Might I venture to ask whether you suspect I’ve been making the most of our plans for Madeline to see as much of you as I could?”
“Oh, I didn’t say that.”
“If you had, perhaps you would have been right,” he said, but seeing her annoyed expression he changed his tone, and said:
“No, my dear, truly I only wanted to do a good turn for you and your friend. It’s off now, that’s all. I sha’n’t interfere again.”
He stood up.
She hesitated for one moment.
“Do you think Rupert has not been sincere with Madeline?”
“I can’t say. I wouldn’t go so far as that. I think he varies—likes the contrast between the two. But if he decides to marry, I don’t think he’d propose to Miss Chivvey. Well, good-bye. I won’t call again till you ask me.”
Her look of obvious relief as she smilingly held out her hand piqued him into saying:
“I see you want your time to yourself more. Before I go, will you answer me one little question?”
“Of course I will.”
He still held her hand. She took it away.
“What is the question?”
“Who sent you those flowers, Bertha?”
“Have you any right to ask?”
“I think so—as an old friend. They’re compromisingly large, and there’s a strange mixture of orchids and forget-me-nots, roses and gardenias that I don’t quite like. It looks like somebody almost wildly lavish—not anxious to show off his taste, but sincerely throwing his whole soul into the basket.”
She laughed, pleased.
“Who sent you the flowers, Bertha?”
He was standing up by the door.
“Percy,” she answered.
“Oh!”
MADELINE had taken the gossip about Rupert and Miss Chivvey very bravely, but very seriously. It pained her terribly, but she was grateful to Bertha for telling her.
A fortnight passed, during which she heard nothing from Rupert, and then one morning, the day after a dance, she called to see Bertha.
Percy had had no more anonymous letters, and Nigel had remained away. He was deeply grateful, for he supposed Bertha had managed with perfect tact to stop the talk without giving herself away, or making him ridiculous.
Bertha had never looked happier in her life. She was sitting smiling to herself, apparently in a dream, when her friend came in.
“Bertha,” she said, “I have some news. I danced the tango with Nigel’s brother Charlie last night, and at the end—he really does dance divinely—what do you think happened? I had gone there perfectly miserable, for I hadseen and heard nothing of Mr. Denison except that one letter after the Ballet—and then Charlie proposed to me, and I accepted him, like in a book!”
Bertha took her hand.
“My dear Madeline, how delightful! This is what I’ve always wanted. It’s so utterly satisfactory in every way.”
“I know, and he is a darling boy. I was very frank with him, Bertha. I didn’t say I was in love with him, and he said he would teach me to be.”
“It’s frightfully satisfactory,” continued Bertha. “Tell me Madeline, what made you change like this?”
“Well, dear, I’ve been getting so unhappy: I feel Rupert has been simply playing with me. I heard the other day thattheywere dining out alone together—I mean Rupert and that girl. I don’t blame him, Bertha. It was I, in a sense, who threw myself at his head. I admired and liked him and gradually let myself go and get silly about him. But this last week I’ve been pulling myself together and seeing how hopeless it was, and just as I’d begun to conquer my feeling—to fight it down—then this nice dear boy, so frank and straightforward and sincere, came along, and—oh! I thought I should like it. To stop at home with motherafter my sort of disappointment seemed too flat and miserable: I couldn’t bear it. Now I shall have an object in life. But, Bertha,” continued Madeline, putting her head on her shoulder, “I’ve been absolutely frank, you know.”
“I guessed you would be; it was like you. But I hope you didn’t say too much to Charlie. It would be a pity to cloud his pleasure and spoil the sparkle of the fun. By the time you’re choosing carpets together and receiving your third cruet-stand you will have forgotten such a person as Rupert Denison exists—except as a man who played a sort of character-part in the curtain-raiser of your existence.”
“Well, I hope so. But I did tell Charlie I was not in love with him, and he said he would try to make me.”
“I only hope that you’re not doing it so that your mother should ask Rupert to the wedding? Not that I myself sha’n’t enjoy that.”
“Honestly, Bertha, I don’t think so. More than anything it’s because I want an object in life.”
“Here’s a letter from Nigel,” said Bertha. “I expect he’ll be making this an excuse to drop in again.”
“Yes; but you mustn’t tease Percy, because everything happened just as you wanted it to,” said Madeline. “I really was surprised at howsuddenly and determinedly Charlie began again. He had seemed almost to give me up. He dances the tango so beautifully; I think it all came through that. We got on so splendidly at tango teas. At any rate, but for that I shouldn’t have seen him so often.”
“It’s a tango marriage,” said Bertha.
Bertha strongly suspected a little manœuvring of Nigel’s in the course of the last fortnight, but did not realise how much there had been of it. The day Bertha had practically said he was not to interfere any longer, Nigel thoroughly realised that Percy must be jealous. He was wildly annoyed at this, since it would be a great obstacle, besides proving Percy was in love, but he saw the urgency of falling in at once with her wish; not opposing it, being absolutely obedient to it. This was not the moment to push himself forward—to show his feelings. Tact and diplomacy must be used. Of course, he had not the faintest notion about Mary and her letters, but merely thought that a sudden relapse of conjugal affection on Percy’s side—confound him!—and an attack of unwonted jealousy had made Percy say something to Bertha to cause her coldness.
He remained away, but he thought of more than one plan to regain the old intimacy.
Quite unscrupulously he played several little tricks, at least he made several remarks about one to the other, to make the apparently hesitating Rupert more interested in Miss Chivvey and less so in Madeline, while he urged his brother Charlie on, and insisted on his continuing his court. The result was quicker than he had expected, and after a very little diplomacy Charlie had found Madeline willing to accept him. As Madeline was to Bertha just like a sister, it was natural that they should meet again now, and in this letter Nigel asked permission to call and have a chat.
Bertha agreed, for although she was slightly on her guard against the possibility of his wishing to flirt, she had not the faintest idea, as I have said, of Nigel’s determined resolve.
Nigel had been fairly unhappy of late. Caring very little for any of his other friends, and having thisidée fixeabout Bertha—which became much stronger at the opposition and the idea of Percy’s jealousy—he moped a good deal and had spent more time than usual with Mary. Nigel was one of those very rare men, who are becoming rarer and rarer, who, having passed the age of thirty-five, still regard love as the principal object of life. That Nigel did so was what made him so immensely popular with women as a rule. Women feel instinctivelywhen this is so, and the man who makes sport, ambition or art his first interest, and women, and romance in general, a mere secondary pleasure, is never regarded with nearly the same favour as the man who values women chiefly, even though that very man is naturally far less reliable in his affection and almost invariably deceives them. To be placed in the background of life is what the average woman dislikes the most; she would rather be of the first importance as a woman even if she knows she has many rivals.
Bertha was exceptional, in that she did not care for the Don Juan type of man, but was rather inclined to despise him. She would far rather have ambition, business, art, duty, any other object in life as her rival, than another woman.
Percy received no more of the singular typewritten letters. He kept those that he had locked up in a box. Mary had grown a little frightened at the apparent success of those she sent. She never heard anything about them, but she knew that Nigel had not been seeing Bertha since the note about the picture gallery. She began to be happier again. Nigel was a great deal more at home, though not more affectionate. And Mary was one of those women, by nomeans infrequent, who are fairly satisfied if they can, by hook or by crook, by any trick or any tyranny, keep the man they care for somehow under the same roof with them—if only his body is in the house, even if they know it is against his will, and that his soul is far away. She would far rather that his desire was elsewhere, if onlyhewere positively present—the one dread, really, being that he should be enjoying himself with anyone else. Mary preferred a thousand times a silent, sulky evening with Nigel going up to his room about the same time that she went to hers, than, as he used to be when they were first married, gay, affectionate and caressing to her, and then going out. She would gladly make him a kind of prisoner, even at the cost of making him almost dislike her, rather than give him his freedom—even to please him—a freedom which included the possibility of his seeing Bertha again.
Although she was unjust and mistaken in her facts, it was, of course, a correct instinct that made her aware that Bertha was the great attraction—the one real object of passion in Nigel’s life. But she was incapable of believing that Bertha did not care for him, that if she had she would never have flirted with the husband of another woman. Merely because Bertha was pretty and admired, Mary, with her strangenarrow-minded bitterness, took it for granted that it was impossible that she could be also a delicately scrupulous, generous, and high-minded creature. But just as passion will make one singularly quick-sighted, it can also make one dense and stupid. Considering that Mary was madly in love with her own husband, it was absurd she should suppose it impossible that Bertha should take the slightest interest in hers. Of course Mary had heard that they were very devoted—if she had not, what would have been the use of writing the letters?—but she chose to believe that it was only on the husband’s side, and that Bertha must of necessity be, of course, sly and deceitful. She hated Bertha violently, and yet she was by nature the kindest of women; only this one mania of hers completely altered her, and made her bitter, wild, hard and unscrupulous, stupid and clever, cowardly and reckless. A woman’s jealousy of another woman is always sufficiently dreadful, but when the object of jealousy is hers by legal right, when the sense of personal property is added to it, then it is one of the most terrible and unreasonable things in nature.
BERTHA was sitting with her little brother-in-law. She was to give him half-an-hour, after which she expected a visit from Nigel.
“What on earth is it, old boy?”
She saw he had some rather untidy papers in his hand and was looking extremely self-conscious, so she spoke kindly and encouragingly.
“Well, I daresay you noticed, Bertha, in my report, that history was very good.”
“I think I did,” she said gravely. “If I recollect right the report said: ‘History nearly up to the level of the form.’”
“Oh, I say, was that all? Gracious! Well, anyhow, I’ve read a lot of history, and I’m fearfully keen about it. And, I say, my idea was, you see, I thought I’d write a historical play.”
“Oh! what a splendid idea!” cried Bertha, jumping up, looking very pleased, but serious. “Have you got it there, Cliff?”
“Yes. Well, as a matter of fact, I have got a bit of it here.”
“Are you going to let me read it?”
“Well, I don’t think you can,” he answered rather naïvely. “It’s not quite clean enough; but I’ll read a bit of it to you, if you don’t mind. Er—you see—it’s about Mary.”
“Which Mary?”
“Oh, Bertha! what a question! As if I’d write about William and Mary, or—er—er—I beg your pardon—I mean the other Mary. No, Mary, Queen of Scots, is the only one who’s any good for a play.”
“Well, go on, Clifford.”
“Well, it’s a little about”—he spoke in a low, gruff voice—“at least partly about hawking. You know, the thing historical people used to do—on their wrists.”
“Oh yes, I know, I know! I beg your pardon, Clifford.”
“With birds, you know,” he went on. “Oh, and I wanted to ask you, what time of the yeardopeople hawk?”
“What time of the year? Oh, well, I should think almost any time, pretty well, whenever they liked, or whenever it was the fashion.”
“I see.” He made a note. “Well, I hope you won’t be fearfully bored, Bertha.”
“I say, Cliff, don’t apologise so much. Get on with it.”
“Well, you see, it’s a scene at a country inn to begin with.”
“Ah, I see. Yes, it would be,” she murmured.
“At a country inn, and this is how it begins. It’s at a country inn, you see. ‘Scene: a country inn. The mistress of the inn, a buxom-looking woman of middle age, is being busy about the inn. It is a country inn. She is making up the fire, polishing tankards, etc., drawing ale, etc. On extreme L. of stage is seated, near a tankard, a youth of some nineteen summers, who is sitting facing the audience, chin dropped, and apparently wrapped in thought.’”
“Excuse me a moment, old chap, but that sounds as if his chin was wrapped in thought.”
“So it does; I’ll change that. Thanks awfully for telling me, Bertha.”
“Not at all, dear.”
“But it is frightfully decent of you.”
“All right. Get on.”
“‘At the back of the stage R. are seated two men; one of some eight and twenty summers the other of some six and twenty years old. They are seated in the corners of the stage and in apparently earnest conversation.’ (Now the dialogue begins, Bertha, listen):
“‘Youth:Are you there, mistress? Is my ale nigh on ready? Zounds, I’m mighty thirsty, I am.’
“‘Mistress:Ay, ay, great Scot! here’s your ale. You can’t expect to be served before the quality.’”
“What did Pickering think of this?” interrupted Bertha.
“Pickering! Oh! I wouldn’t show it to a chap like that. At any rate, not unless you think it’s all right, Bertha.”
“Why, my dear boy, you’d better tell me the plot, I think, before you read me any more.”
“Mr. Nigel Hillier,” announced the servant.
Nigel sprang brightly in (just a little agitated though he managed to hide it), Bertha took her toes off the sofa, Clifford took up his play and shoved it into his pocket with a slight scowl.
THE day after Madeline’s engagement two letters were handed to her. One in Charlie’s handwriting, short and affectionate; full of the exuberance of the newly affianced, touchingly happy. The other one she opened, feeling somewhat moved, as she recognised the handwriting of Rupert Denison. To her utter astonishment she found it was four sheets of his exquisite little handwriting, and it began thus: