Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (684 page)

‘There’s a good girl!’ said he.  ‘Now we’ll have some tea, and I’ll give you a small lecture while we do so.’

‘You are a nice one to give lectures.’

‘Oh, there’s no such preacher as a converted sinner.’

‘You really are converted then?’

‘Rather.  Two lumps, if I remember right.  You ought to do this, not I.  No milk, and very strong - how you keep your complexion I can’t imagine.  But you do keep it; my word, you do!  Now please don’t look so crossly at me.’

Her flushed cheeks and resentful eyes had drawn forth the remonstrance.

‘You
are
changed,’ she said, with surprise as well as anger in her voice.

‘Why, of course I am.  I am married.’

‘For that matter Charlie Scott is married.’

‘Don’t give Charlie Scott away.’

‘I think I give myself away.  So you have lost all your love for me.  I thought it was to last for ever.’

‘Now, do be sensible, Violet.’

‘Sensible!  How I loathe that word!  A man only uses it when he is going to do something cold-blooded and mean.  It is always the beginning of the end.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘I want you to be my own Frankie - just the same as before.  Ah do, Franck - don’t leave me!  You know I would give any of them up for you.  And you have a good influence over me - you have really!  You call’t think how hard I am with other people.  Ask Charlie Scott.  He will tell you.  I’ve been so different since I have lost sight of you.  Now, Frankie, don’t be horrid to me!  Kiss and be nice!’  Again her soft warm hand was upon his, and the faint sweet smell of violets went to his blood like wine.  He jumped up, lit another cigarette, and paced about the room.

‘You shan’t have a cigarette, Frankie.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you said once it helped you to control yourself.  I don’t want you to control yourself.  I want you to feel as I feel.’

‘Do sit down, like a good girl!’

‘Cigarette out!’

‘Don’t be absurd, Violet!’

‘Come, out with it, sir.’

‘No, no, leave it alone!’

She had snatched it from his lips and thrown it into the grate.

‘What is the use of that?  I have a case full.’

‘They shall all follow the first.’

‘Well, then, I won’t smoke.’

‘I’ll see that you don’t.’

‘Well, what the better are you for that?’

‘Now, be nice.’

‘Go back to your chair and have some more tea.’

‘Oh, bother the tea!’

‘Well, I won’t speak to you unless you sit down and behave yourself.’

‘There now!  Speak away.’

‘Look here, dear Violet, you must not talk about this any more.  Some things are possible and some are impossible.  This is absolutely, finally impossible.  We can never go back upon the past.  It is finished and done with.’

‘Then what did you come here for?’

‘To bid you good-bye.’

‘A Platonic good-bye.’

‘Of course.’

‘In a private room at Mariani’s.’

‘Why not?’

She laughed bitterly.

‘You were always a little mad, Frankie.’

He leaned earnestly over the table.

‘Look here, Violet, the chances are that we shall never meet again.’

‘It takes two to say that.’

‘Well, I mean that after to-day I should not meet you again.  If you were not quite what you are it would be easier.  But as it is I find it a little too much of a test.  No, don’t mistake me or think that I am weakening.  That is impossible.  But all the same I don’t want to go through it again.’

‘So sorry if I have upset you.’

He disregarded her irony.

‘We have been very good friends, Violet.  Why should we part as enemies?’

‘Why should we part at all?’

‘We won’t go back over that.  Now do please look facts in the face and help me to do the right thing, for it would be so much easier if you would help me.  If you were a very good and kind girl you would shake my hand, like any other old pal, and wish me joy of my marriage.  You know that I should do so if I knew that you were going to be married.’

But the lady was not to be so easily appeased.  She took her tea in silence or answered his remarks with monosyllables, while the occasional flash of her dark eyes as she raised them was like the distant lightning which heralds the storm.  Suddenly, with a swift rustle of skirts, she was between the door and his chair.

‘Now, Frankie, we have had about enough of this nonsense,’ said she.  ‘Don’t imagine that you are going to get out of this thing so easily.  I’ve got you, and I’ll keep you.’

He faced round in his chair and looked helplessly at her with a hand upon each knee.

‘O Lord!  Don’t begin it all over again,’ said he.

‘No, I won’t,’ she answered with an angry laugh.  ‘I’ll try another line this time, Master Frank.  I’m not the sort of woman who lets a thing go easily when once I have set my heart upon it.  I won’t try coaxing any longer - ‘

‘So glad,’ he murmured.

‘You may say what you like, but you can’t do it, my boy.  I knew you before she did, and I’ll keep you, or else I’ll make such a row that you will be sorry that you ever put my back up.  It’s all very fine to sit there and preach, but it won’t do, Frankie.  You can’t slip out of things as easily as all that.’

‘Why should you turn nasty like this, Violet?  What do you think you will gain by it?’

‘I mean to gain
you
.  I like you, Frankie.  I’m not sure that I don’t really love you - real, real love, you know.  Any way, I don’t intend to let you go, and if you go against my will I give you my word that I shall make it pretty sultry for you down at Woking.’

He stared moodily into his teacup.

‘Besides, what rot it all is!’ she continued, laying her hand upon his shoulder.  ‘When did you begin to ride the high moral horse?  You were just as cheerful as the rest of them when last I saw you.  You speak as if a man ceased to live just because he is married.  What has changed you?’

‘I’ll tell you what has changed me,’ said he, looking up.  ‘My wife has changed me.’

‘Oh, bother your wife!’

A look which was new to her came over his face.

‘Stop that!’ said he sharply.

‘Oh, no harm!  How has your wife made this wonderful change?’

His mood softened as his thoughts flew back to Woking.

‘By her own goodness - the atmosphere that she makes round her.  If you knew how wholesome she was, how delicate in her most intimate thoughts, how fresh and how sweet and how pure, you would understand that the thought of being false to her is horrible.  When I think of her as she sat at breakfast this morning, so loving and so innocent - ‘

He would have been more discreet if he had been less eloquent.  The lady’s temper suddenly overflowed.

‘Innocent!’ she cried.  ‘As innocent as I am.’

He sprang to his feet with eyes which were more angry than her own.

‘Hold your tongue!  How dare you talk against my wife!  You are not fit to mention her name.’

‘I’ll go to Woking,’ she gasped.

‘You can go to the devil!’ said he, and rang the bell for his bill.  She stared at him with a surprise which had eclipsed her anger, while she pulled on her gloves with little sharp twitches.  This was a new Frank Crosse to her.  As long as a woman gets on very well with a man, she is apt, at the back of her soul, to suspect him of weakness.  It is only when she differs from him that she can see the other side, and it always comes as a surprise.  She liked him better than ever for the revelation.

‘I’m not joking,’ she whispered, as they went down the stair.  ‘I’ll go, as sure as fate.’

He took no notice, but passed on down the street without a word of farewell.  When he came to the turning he looked back.  She was standing by the curb, with her proud head high in the air, while the manager screamed loudly upon a whistle.  A cab swung round a distant corner.  Crosse reached her before it did.

‘I hope I haven’t hurt your feelings,’ said he.  ‘I spoke too roughly.’

‘Trying to coax me away from Woking,’ she sneered.  ‘I’m coming all the same.’

‘That’s your affair,’ said he, as he handed her into the cab.

CHAPTER XIX - DANGE
R

Again the bright little dining-room, with the morning sun gleaming upon the high silver coffee pot and the electro-plated toast-rack - everything the same, down to the plates which Jemima had once again forgotten to warm.  Maude, with the golden light playing upon the fringes of her curls, and throwing two little epaulettes of the daintiest pink across her shoulders, sat in silence, glancing across from time to time with interrogative eyes at her husband.  He ate his breakfast moodily, for he was very ill at ease.  There was a struggle within him, for his conscience was pulling him one way and his instincts the other.  Instincts are a fine old conservative force, while conscience is a thing of yesterday, so it is usually safe to prophesy which will sway the other.

The matter at issue was whether he should tell Maude about Violet Wright.  If she were going to carry out her threat, then certainly it would be better to prepare her.  But after all, his arguments of yesterday might prevail with her when her first impetuous fit of passion was over.  Why should he go half-way to meet danger?  If it came, nothing which he could say would ward it off.  If it did not come, there was no need for saying anything.  Conscience told him that it would be better to be perfectly straight with his wife.  Instinct told him that though she would probably be sweet and sympathetic over it, yet it would rankle in her mind and poison her thoughts.  And perhaps for once, Instinct may have been better than Conscience.  Do not ask too many questions, you young wife!  Do not be too free with your reminiscences, you young husband.  There are things which can be forgiven, but never, never, can they be forgotten.  That highest thing on earth, the heart of a loving woman, is too tender, too sacred, to be bruised by a wanton confidence.  You are hers.  She is yours.  The future lies with both of you.  It is wiser to leave the past alone.  The couples who boast that they have never had a secret are sometimes happy because the boast is sometimes untrue.

‘You won’t be late to-day, Frank,’ said Maude at last, peeping round the tall coffee-pot.

‘No, dear, I won’t.’

‘You were yesterday, you know.’

‘Yes, I know I was.’

‘Were you kept at the office?’

‘No, I had tea with a friend.’

‘At his house?’

‘No, no, at a restaurant.  Where has Jemima put my boots?  I wonder if she has cleaned them.  I can never tell by looking.  Here they are.  And my coat?  Anything I can get you in town?  Well, good-bye, dear, good-bye!’  Maude had never seen him make so hurried an exit.

It is always a mystery to the City man how his wife puts in the seven hours a day of loneliness while the E.C. has claimed him for its own.  She cannot explain it to him, for she can hardly explain it to herself.  It is frittered away in a thousand little tasks, each trivial in itself, and yet making in their sum the difference between a well-ordered and a neglected household.  Under the illustrious guidance of the omniscient Mrs. Beeton there is the usual routine to be gone through.  The cook has to be seen, the larder examined, the remains cunningly transformed into new and attractive shapes, the dinner to be ordered (anything will do for lunch), and the new supplies to be got in.  The husband accepts the excellent little dinner, the fried sole, the
ris de veau en caisse
, the lemon pudding, as if they had grown automatically out of the table-cloth.  He knows nothing of the care, the judgment, the prevision which ring the changes with every season, which never relax and never mistake.  He enjoys the fruits, but he ignores the work which raised them.  And yet the work goes cheerfully and uncomplainingly on.

Then when every preparation has been made for the dinner - that solemn climax of the British day, there is plenty for Maude to do.  There is the white chiffon to be taken out of the neck of that dress, and the pink to be put in.  Amateur dressmaking is always going on at The Lindens, and Frank has become more careful in his caresses since he found one evening that his wife had a row of pins between her lips - which is not a pleasant discovery to make with your own.  Then there are drawers to be tidied, and silver to be cleaned, and the leaves of the gutta-percha plant to be washed, and the feather which was damped yesterday to be re-curled before the fire.  That leaves just time before lunch to begin the new novel by glancing at the last two pages to see what
did
happen, and then the three minutes lunch of a lonely woman.  So much for business, now for the more trying social duties.  The pink dressing-gown is shed and a trim little walking dress - French grey cloth with white lisse in front and a grey zouave jacket - takes its place.  Visiting strangers is not nearly so hard when you are pleased with your dress, and even entertaining becomes more easy when your costumière lives in Regent Street.  On Tuesdays Maude is at home.  Every other day she hunts through her plate of cards, and is overwhelmed by the sense of her rudeness towards her neighbours.  But her task is never finished, though day after day she comes back jaded with her exertions.  Strangers still call upon her - ‘hope it is not too late to do the right thing, and to welcome,’ etc., etc. - and they have to be re-visited.  While she is visiting them, other cards appear upon her hall table, and so the foolish and tiresome convention continues to exhaust the time and the energies of its victim.

Those original receptions were really very difficult.  Jemima announced a name which might or might not bear some relation to the visitor’s.  The lady entered.  Her name might perhaps be Mrs. Baker.  Maude had no means of knowing who Mrs. Baker might be.  The visitor seldom descended to an explanation.  Ten minutes of desultory and forced conversation about pinewoods and golf and cremation.  A cup of tea and a departure.  Then Maude would rush to the card-tray to try to find out whom it was that she had been talking to, and what it was all about.

Maude did not intend to go visiting that particular day, and she had hoped that no one might visit her.  The hours of danger were almost past, and it was close upon four o’clock, when there came a brisk pull at the bell.

‘Mrs. White,’ said Jemima, opening the drawing-room door.

‘Wright,’ said the visitor, as she walked in - ‘Mrs. Violet Wright.’

Maude rose with her pleasant smile.  It was a peculiarly sweet and kindly smile, for it was inspired by a gentle womanly desire to make things pleasant for all who were around her.  Amiability was never artificial with her, for she had the true instincts of a lady - those instincts so often spoken of, so seldom, so very seldom seen.  Like a gentleman, or a Christian, or any other ideal, it is but a poor approximation which is commonly attained.

But the visitor did not respond to the pretty gesture of welcome, nor did her handsome face return that sympathetic smile.  They stood for an instant looking at each other, the one tall, masterful, mature, the other sweet, girlish, and self-distrustful, but each beautiful and engaging in her own way.  Lucky Master Frank, whose past and present could take such a form; but luckier still if he could have closed the past when the present opened.  The visitor was silent, but her dark eyes looked critically and fixedly at her rival.  Maude, setting the silence down to the shyness of a first visit, tried to make matters easier.

‘Please try this armchair.  No doubt you have had a tiring walk.  It is still very warm in the afternoons.  I think it was so kind of you to call.’

A faint smile flickered upon the dark face.

‘Kind of me to call!’ said she.

‘Yes; for in a rising place like Woking, with so many new arrivals, it must be quite a task for the older inhabitants to welcome them.  I have been so surprised by the kindness which every one has shown.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said her visitor, ‘you think that I live here.  I have really just come down from London.’

‘Indeed,’ said Maude, and awaited an explanation.  As none was forthcoming, she added, ‘You will find Woking a very nice place.’

‘A nice place to be buried in, alive or dead,’ said her visitor.

There was something peculiarly ungracious in her tone and manner.  It seemed to Maude that she had never before been alone with so singular a person.  There was, in the first place, her striking and yet rather sinister and voluptuous beauty.

Then there was the absolute carelessness of her manner, the quiet assumption that she was outside the usual conventionalities of life.  It is a manner only to be met in English life, among some of the highest of the high world, and some of the highest of the half world.  It was new to Maude, and it made her uncomfortable, while mingled with it there was something else which made her feel for the first time in her life that she had incurred the hostility of a fellow-mortal.  It chilled her, and made her unhappy.

The visitor made no effort to sustain the conversation, but leaned back in her chair and stared at her hostess with a very critical and searching glance.  Those two questioning dark eyes played eagerly over her from her brown curls down to the little shining shoe-tips which peeped from under the grey skirt.  Especially they dwelt upon her face, reading it and rereading it.  Never had Maude been so inspected, and her instinct told her that the inspection was not altogether a friendly one.

Violet Wright having examined her rival, proceeded now with the same cool attention to take in her surroundings.  She looked round deliberately at the furniture of the room, and reconstructed in her own mind the life of the people who owned it.  Maude ventured upon one or two conventional remarks, but her visitor was not to be diverted to the weather or to the slowness of the South-Western train service.  She continued her quiet and silent inspection.  Suddenly she rose and swept across to the side-table.  A photograph of Frank in his volunteer uniform stood upon it.

‘This is your husband, Mr. Frank Crosse?’

‘Yes, do you know him?’

‘Slightly.  We have mutual friends.’  An ambiguous smile played across her face as she spoke.  ‘This must have been taken after I saw him.’

‘It was taken just after our marriage.’

‘Quite so.  He looks like a good little married man.  The photograph is flattering.’

‘Oh, you think so!’ said Maude coldly.  ‘My own impression is that it fails to do him justice.’

Her visitor laughed.  ‘Of course that
would
be your impression,’ said she.

Maude’s gentle soul began to rise in anger.

‘It is the truth,’ she cried.

‘It is right that you should think so,’ the other answered, with the same irritating laugh.

‘You must have known him very slightly if you can’t see that it is the truth.’

‘Then I must have known him very slightly.’

Maude was very angry indeed.  She began to find sides to her own nature the very existence of which she had never suspected.  She tapped her little shoe upon the ground, and she sat with a pale face, and compressed lips, and bright eyes, quite prepared to be very rude indeed to this eccentric woman who ventured to criticise her Frank in so free and easy a style.  Her visitor watched her, and a change had come over her expression.  Maude’s evident anger seemed to amuse and interest her.  Her eyes lost their critical coldness, and softened into approval.  She suddenly put her hand upon the other’s shoulder with so natural and yet masterful a gesture, that Maude found it impossible to resent it.

‘He is a lucky man to have such a warm little champion,’ said she.

Her strong character and greater knowledge of the world gave her an ascendency over the girlish wife such as age has over youth.  There were not ten years between them, and yet Maude felt that for some reason the conversation between them could not quite be upon equal terms.  The quiet assurance of her visitor, whatever its cause, made resentment or remonstrance difficult.  Besides, they were a pair of very kindly as well as of very shrewd eyes which now looked down into hers.

‘You love him very much, then?’

‘Of course I love him.  He is my husband.’

‘Does it always follow?’

‘You are married yourself.  Don’t you love yours?’

‘Oh, never mind mine. 
He’s
all right.  Did you ever love any one else?’

‘No, not really.’

Maude was astonished at herself, and yet the questions were so frankly put that a frank answer came naturally to them.  It pleased her to lose that cold chill of dislike, and to feel that for some reason her strange visitor had become more friendly to her.

‘You lucky girl, you actually married the one love of your life!’

Maude smiled and nodded.

‘What a splendid thing to do!  I thought it only happened in books.  How happy you must be!’

‘I
am
very, very happy.’