THE COLLECTED EDITION OF
THE WORKS OF W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
_W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM_
THE
PAINTED VEIL
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD
". . . _the painted veil which those who live call Life._"
PREFACE
This story was suggested by the lines of Dante that run
as follows:
_Deh, quando tu sarai tornato al mondo,
E riposato della lunga via,
Seguitò 'l terzo spirito al secondo,
Ricorditi di me, che son la Pia:
Siena mi fé; disfecemi Maremma:
Salsi colui, che, 'nnanellata pria
Disposando m'avea con la sua gemma._
"Pray, when you are returned to the world, and rested
from the long journey," followed the third spirit on the
second, "remember me, who am Pia. Siena made me,
Maremma unmade me: this he knows who after
betrothal espoused me with his ring."
I was a student at St. Thomas's Hospital and the Easter vacation gave me
six weeks to myself. With my clothes in a gladstone bag and twenty
pounds in my pocket I set out. I was twenty. I went to Genoa and Pisa
and then to Florence. Here I took a room in the via Laura, from the
window of which I could see the lovely dome of the Cathedral, in the
apartment of a widow lady, with a daughter, who offered me board and
lodging (after a good deal of haggling) for four lire a day. I am afraid
that she did not make a very good thing out of it, since my appetite was
enormous, and I could devour a mountain of macaroni without
inconvenience. She had a vineyard on the Tuscan hills, and my
recollection is that the Chianti she got from it was the best I have
ever drunk in Italy. Her daughter gave me an Italian lesson every day.
She seemed to me then of mature age, but I do not suppose that she was
more than twenty-six. She had had trouble. Her betrothed, an officer,
had been killed in Abyssinia and she was consecrated to virginity. It
was an understood thing that on her mother's death (a buxom,
grey-haired, jovial lady who did not mean to die a day before the dear
Lord saw fit) Ersilia would enter religion. But she looked forward to
this with cheerfulness. She loved a good laugh. We were very gay at
luncheon and dinner, but she took her lessons seriously, and when I was
stupid or inattentive rapped me over the knuckles with a black ruler. I
should have been indignant at being treated like a child if it had not
reminded me of the old-fashioned pedagogues I had read of in books and
so made me laugh.
I lived laborious days. I started each one by translating a few pages of
one of Ibsen's plays so that I might acquire mastery of technique and
ease in writing dialogue; then, with Ruskin in my hand, I examined the
sights of Florence. I admired according to instructions the tower of
Giotto and the bronze doors of Ghiberti. I was properly enthusiastic
over the Botticellis in the Uffizi and I turned the scornful shoulder of
extreme youth on what the master disapproved of. After luncheon I had my
Italian lesson and then going out once more I visited the churches and
wandered day-dreaming along the Arno. When dinner was done I went out to
look for adventure, but such was my innocence, or at least my shyness, I
always came home as virtuous as I had gone out. The Signora, though she
had given me a key, sighed with relief when she heard me come in and
bolt the door, for she was always afraid I should forget to do this, and
I returned to my perusal of the history of the Guelphs and Ghibellines.
I was bitterly conscious that not thus behaved the writers of the
romantic era, though I doubt whether any of them managed to spend six
weeks in Italy on twenty pounds, and I much enjoyed my sober and
industrious life.
I had already read the Inferno (with the help of a translation, but
conscientiously looking out in a dictionary the words I did not know),
so with Ersilia started on the Purgatorio. When we came to the passage I
have quoted above she told me that Pia was a gentlewoman of Siena whose
husband, suspecting her of adultery and afraid on account of her family
to put her to death, took her down to his castle in the Maremma the
noxious vapours of which he was confident would do the trick; but she
took so long to die that he grew impatient and had her thrown out of the
window. I do not know where Ersilia learnt all this, the note in my own
Dante was less circumstantial, but the story for some reason caught my
imagination. I turned it over in my mind and for many years from time to
time would brood over it for two or three days. I used to repeat to
myself the line: _Siena mi fé; disfecemi Maremma_. But it was one among
many subjects that occupied my fancy and for long periods I forgot it.
Of course I saw it as a modern story, and I could not think of a setting
in the world of to-day in which such events might plausibly happen. It
was not till I made a long journey in China that I found this.
I think this is the only novel I have written in which I started from a
story rather than from a character. It is difficult to explain the
relation between character and plot. You cannot very well think of a
character in the void; the moment you think of him, you think of him in
some situation, doing something; so that the character and at least his
principle action seem to be the result of a simultaneous act of the
imagination. But in this case the characters were chosen to fit the
story I gradually evolved; they were constructed from persons I had long
known in different circumstances.
I had with this book some of the difficulties that are apt to befall an
author. I had originally called my hero and heroine Lane, a common
enough name, but it appeared that there were people of that name in
Hong-Kong. They brought an action, which the proprietors of the magazine
in which my novel was serialised, settled for two hundred and fifty
pounds, and I changed the name to Fane. Then the Assistant Colonial
Secretary, thinking himself libelled, threatened to institute
proceedings. I was surprised, since in England we can put a Prime
Minister on the stage or use him as the character of a novel, an
Archbishop of Canterbury or a Lord Chancellor, and the tenants of these
exalted offices do not turn a hair. It seemed to me strange that the
temporary occupant of so insignificant a post should think himself aimed
at, but in order to save trouble I changed Hong-Kong to an imaginary
colony of Tching-Yen. The book had already been published when the
incident arose and was recalled. A certain number of astute reviewers
who had received it did not on one pretext and another return their
copies. These have now acquired a bibliographical value, I think there
are about sixty of them in existence, and are bought by collectors at a
high price.
THE PAINTED VEIL
_i_
She gave a startled cry.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
Notwithstanding the darkness of the shuttered room he saw her face on a
sudden distraught with terror.
"Some one just tried the door."
"Well, perhaps it was the amah, or one of the boys."
"They never come at this time. They know I always sleep after tiffin."
"Who else could it be?"
"Walter," she whispered, her lips trembling.
She pointed to his shoes. He tried to put them on, but his nervousness,
for her alarm was affecting him, made him clumsy, and besides, they were
on the tight side. With a faint gasp of impatience she gave him a
shoe-horn. She slipped into a kimono and in her bare feet went over to
her dressing-table. Her hair was shingled and with a comb she had
repaired its disorder before he had laced his second shoe. She handed
him his coat.
"How shall I get out?"
"You'd better wait a bit. I'll look out and see that it's all right."
"It can't possibly be Walter. He doesn't leave the laboratory till
five."
"Who is it then?"
They spoke in whispers now. She was quaking. It occurred to him that in
an emergency she would lose her head and on a sudden he felt angry with
her. If it wasn't safe why the devil had she said it was? She caught her
breath and put her hand on his arm. He followed the direction of her
glance. They stood facing the windows that led out on the verandah. They
were shuttered and the shutters were bolted. They saw the white china
knob of the handle slowly turn. They had heard no one walk along the
verandah. It was terrifying to see that silent motion. A minute passed
and there was no sound. Then, with the ghastliness of the supernatural,
in the same stealthy, noiseless and horrifying manner, they saw the
white china knob of the handle at the other window turn also. It was so
frightening that Kitty, her nerves failing her, opened her mouth to
scream; but, seeing what she was going to do, he swiftly put his hand
over it and her cry was smothered in his fingers.
Silence. She leaned against him, her knees shaking, and he was afraid
she would faint. Frowning, his jaw set, he carried her to the bed and
sat her down upon it. She was as white as the sheet and notwithstanding
his tan his cheeks were pale too. He stood by her side looking with
fascinated gaze at the china knob. They did not speak. Then he saw that
she was crying.
"For God's sake don't do that," he whispered irritably. "If we're in for
it we're in for it. We shall just have to brazen it out."
She looked for her handkerchief and knowing what she wanted he gave her
bag.
"Where's your topee?"
"I left it downstairs."
"Oh, my God!"
"I say, you must pull yourself together. It's a hundred to one it wasn't
Walter. Why on earth should he come back at this hour? He never does
come home in the middle of the day, does he?"
"Never."
"I'll bet you anything you like it was the amah."
She gave him the shadow of a smile. His rich, caressing voice reassured
her and she took his hand and affectionately pressed it. He gave her a
moment to collect herself.
"Look here, we can't stay here for ever," he said then. "Do you feel up
to going out on the verandah and having a look?"
"I don't think I can stand."
"Have you got any brandy in here?"
She shook her head. A frown for an instant darkened his brow, he was
growing impatient, he did not quite know what to do. Suddenly she
clutched his hand more tightly.
"Suppose he's waiting there?"
He forced his lips to smile and his voice retained the gentle,
persuasive tone the effect of which he was so fully conscious of.
"That's not very likely. Have a little pluck, Kitty. How can it possibly
be your husband? If he'd come in and seen a strange topee in the hall
and come upstairs and found your room locked, surely he would have made
some sort of row. It must have been one of the servants. Only a Chinese
would turn a handle in that way."
She did feel more herself now.
"It's not very pleasant even if it was only the amah."
"She can be squared and if necessary I'll put the fear of God into her.
There are not many advantages in being a government official, but you
may as well get what you can out of it."
He must be right. She stood up and turning to him stretched out her
arms: he took her in his and kissed her on the lips. It was such rapture
that it was pain. She adored him. He released her and she went to the
window. She slid back the bolt and opening the shutter a little looked
out. There was not a soul. She slipped on to the verandah, looked into
her husband's dressing-room and then into her own sitting-room. Both
were empty. She went back to the bedroom and beckoned to him.
"Nobody."
"I believe the whole thing was an optical delusion."
"Don't laugh. I was terrified. Go into my sitting-room and sit down.
I'll put on my stockings and some shoes."
_ii_
He did as she bade and in five minutes she joined him. He was smoking a
cigarette.
"I say, could I have a brandy and soda?"
"Yes, I'll ring."
"I don't think it would hurt _you_ by the look of things."
They waited in silence for the boy to answer. She gave the order.
"Ring up the laboratory and ask if Walter is there," she said then.
"They won't know your voice."
He took up the receiver and asked for the number. He inquired whether
Dr. Fane was in. He put down the receiver.
"He hasn't been in since tiffin," he told her. "Ask the boy whether he
has been here."
"I daren't. It'll look so funny if he has and I didn't see him."
The boy brought the drinks and Townsend helped himself. When he offered
her some she shook her head.
"What's to be done if it was Walter?" she asked.
"Perhaps he wouldn't care."
"Walter?"
Her tone was incredulous.
"It's always struck me he was rather shy. Some men can't bear scenes,
you know. He's got sense enough to know that there's nothing to be
gained by making a scandal. I don't believe for a minute it was Walter,
but even if it was my impression is that he'll do nothing. I think he'll
ignore it."
She reflected for a moment.
"He's awfully in love with me."
"Well, that's all to the good. You'll get round him."
He gave her that charming smile of his which she had always found so
irresistible. It was a slow smile which started in his clear blue eyes
and travelled by perceptible degrees to his shapely mouth. He had small
white even teeth. It was a very sensual smile and it made her heart melt
in her body.
"I don't very much care," she said, with a flash of gaiety. "It was
worth it."
"It was my fault."
"Why did you come? I was amazed to see you."
"I couldn't resist it."
"You dear."
She leaned a little towards him, her dark and shining eyes gazing
passionately into his, her mouth a little open with desire, and he put
his arms round her. She abandoned herself with a sigh of ecstasy to
their shelter.
"You know you can always count on me," he said.
"I'm so happy with you. I wish I could make you as happy as you make
me."
"You're not frightened any more?"
"I hate Walter," she answered.
He did not quite know what to say to this, so he kissed her. Her face
was very soft against his.
But he took her wrist on which was a little gold watch and looked at the
time.
"Do you know what I must do now?"
"Bolt?" she smiled.
He nodded. For one instant she clung to him more closely, but she felt
his desire to go, and she released him.
"It's shameful the way you neglect your work. Be off with you."
He could never resist the temptation to flirt.
"You seem in a devil of a hurry to get rid of me," he said lightly.
"You know that I hate to let you go."
Her answer was low and deep and serious. He gave a flattered laugh.
"Don't worry your pretty little head about our mysterious visitor. I'm
quite sure it was the amah. And if there's any trouble I guarantee to
get you out of it."
"Have you had a lot of experience?"
His smile was amused and complacent.
"No, but I flatter myself that I've got a head screwed on my shoulders."
_iii_
She went out on to the veranda and watched him leave the house. He waved
his hand to her. It gave her a little thrill as she looked at him; he
was forty-one, but he had the lithe figure and the springing step of a
boy.
The veranda was in shadow; and lazily, her heart at ease with satisfied
love, she lingered. Their house stood in the Pleasant Vale, on the side
of the hill, for they could not afford to live on the more eligible but
expensive Mount. But her abstracted gaze scarcely noticed the blue sea
and the crowded shipping in the harbour. She could think only of her
lover.
Of course it was stupid to behave as they had done that afternoon, but
if he wanted her how could she be prudent? He had come two or three
times after tiffin, when in the heat of the day no one thought of
stirring out, and not even the boys had seen him come and go. It was
very difficult at Tching-Yen. She hated the Chinese city and it made her
nervous to go into the filthy little house off the Victoria Road in
which they were in the habit of meeting. It was a curio dealer's; and
the Chinese who were sitting about stared at her unpleasantly; she hated
the ingratiating smile of the old man who took her to the back of the
shop and then up a dark flight of stairs. The room into which he led her
was frowsy and the large wooden bed against the wall made her shudder.
"This is dreadfully sordid, isn't it?" she said to Charlie the first
time she met him there.
"It was till you came in," he answered.
Of course the moment he took her in his arms she forgot everything.
Oh, how hateful it was that she wasn't free, that they both weren't
free! She didn't like his wife. Kitty's wandering thoughts dwelt now for
a moment on Dorothy Townsend. How unfortunate to be called Dorothy! It
dated you. She was thirty-eight at least. But Charlie never spoke of
her. Of course he didn't care for her; she bored him to death. But he
was a gentleman. Kitty smiled with affectionate irony: it was just like
him, silly old thing; he might be unfaithful to her, but he would never
allow a word in disparagement of her to cross his lips. She was a
tallish woman, taller than Kitty, neither stout nor thin, with a good
deal of pale brown hair; she could never have been pretty with anything
but the prettiness of youth; her features were good enough without being
remarkable and her blue eyes were cold. She had a skin that you would
never look at twice and no colour in her cheeks. And she dressed
like--well, like what she was, the wife of the Assistant Colonial
Secretary at Tching-Yen. Kitty smiled and gave her shoulders a faint
shrug.
Of course no one could deny that Dorothy Townsend had a pleasant voice.
She was a wonderful mother, Charlie always said that of her, and she was
what Kitty's mother called a gentlewoman. But Kitty did not like her.
She did not like her casual manner; and the politeness with which she
treated you when you went there, to tea or dinner, was exasperating
because you could not but feel how little interest she took in you. The
fact was, Kitty supposed, that she cared for nothing but her children:
there were two boys at school in England, and another boy of six whom
she was going to take home next year. Her face was a mask. She smiled
and in her pleasant, well-mannered way said the things that were
expected of her; but for all her cordiality held you at a distance. She
had a few intimate friends in the Colony and they greatly admired her.
Kitty wondered whether Mrs. Townsend thought her a little common. She
flushed. After all there was no reason for her to put on airs. It was
true that her father had been a Colonial Governor and of course it was
very grand while it lasted--every one stood up when you entered a room
and men took off their hats to you as you passed in your car--but what
could be more insignificant than a Colonial Governor when he had
retired? Dorothy Townsend's father lived on a pension in a small house
at Earl's Court. Kitty's mother would think it a dreadful bore if she
asked her to call. Kitty's father, Bernard Garstin, was a K.C., and
there was no reason why he should not be made a judge one of these days.
Anyhow they lived in South Kensington.
_iv_
Kitty, coming to Tching-Yen on her marriage, had found it hard to
reconcile herself to the fact that her social position was determined by
her husband's occupation. Of course every one had been very kind and for
two or three months they had gone out to parties almost every night;
when they dined at Government House the Governor took her in as a bride;
but she had understood quickly that as the wife of the Government
bacteriologist she was of no particular consequence. It made her angry.
"It's too absurd," she told her husband. "Why, there's hardly any one
here that one would bother about for five minutes at home. Mother
wouldn't dream of asking any of them to dine at our house."
"You mustn't let it worry you," he answered. "It doesn't really matter,
you know."
"Of course it doesn't matter, it only shows how stupid they are, but it
is rather funny when you think of all the people who used to come to our
house at home that here we should be treated like dirt."
"From a social standpoint the man of science does not exist," he smiled.
She knew that now, but she had not known it when she married him.
"I don't know that it exactly amuses me to be taken in to dinner by the
agent of the P. and O.," she said, laughing in order that what she said
might not seem snobbish.
Perhaps he saw the reproach behind her lightness of manner, for he took
her hand and shyly pressed it.
"I'm awfully sorry, Kitty dear, but don't let it vex you."
"Oh, I'm not going to let it do that."
_v_
It couldn't have been Walter that afternoon. It must have been one of
the servants and after all they didn't matter. Chinese servants knew
everything anyway. But they held their tongues.
Her heart beat a little faster as she remembered the way in which that
white china knob slowly turned. They mustn't take risks like that again.
It was better to go to the curio shop. No one who saw her go in would
think anything of it, and they were absolutely safe there. The owner of
the shop knew who Charlie was and he was not such a fool as to put up
the back of the Assistant Colonial Secretary. What did anything matter
really but that Charlie loved her?
She turned away from the verandah and went back into her sitting-room.
She threw herself down on the sofa and stretched out her hand to get a
cigarette. Her eye caught sight of a note lying on the top of a book.
She opened it. It was written in pencil.
_Dear Kitty_,
_Here is the book you wanted. I was just going to send it when I met Dr.
Fane and he said he'd bring it round himself as he was passing the
house._
_V.H._
She rang the bell and when the boy came asked him who had brought the
book and when.
"Master bring it, missy, after tiffin," he answered.
Then it had been Walter. She rang up the Colonial Secretary's Office at
once and asked for Charlie. She told him what she had just learned.
There was a pause before he answered.
"What shall I do?" she asked.
"I'm in the middle of an important consultation. I'm afraid I can't talk
to you now. My advice to you is to sit tight."
She put down the receiver. She understood that he was not alone and she
was impatient with his business.
She sat down again, at a desk, and resting her face in her hands sought
to think out the situation. Of course Walter might merely have thought
she was sleeping: there was no reason why she should not lock herself
in. She tried to remember if they had been talking. Certainly they had
not been talking loud. And there was the hat. It was maddening of
Charlie to have left it downstairs. But it was no use blaming him for
that, it was natural enough, and there was nothing to tell that Walter
had noticed it. He was probably in a hurry and had just left the book
and the note on his way to some appointment connected with his work. The
strange thing was that he should have tried the door and then the two
windows. If he thought she was asleep it was unlike him to disturb her.
What a fool she had been!
She shook herself a little and again she felt that sweet pain in her
heart which she always felt when she thought of Charlie. It had been
worth it. He had said that he would stand by her, and if the worse came
to the worst, well. . . . Let Walter kick up a row if he chose. She had
Charlie; what did she care? Perhaps it would be the best thing for him
to know. She had never cared for Walter and since she had loved Charlie
Townsend it had irked and bored her to submit to her husband's caresses.
She wanted to have nothing more to do with him. She didn't see how he
could prove anything. If he accused her she would deny, and if it came
to pass that she could deny no longer, well, she would fling the truth
in his teeth, and he could do what he chose.
_vi_
Within three months of her marriage she knew that she had made a
mistake; but it had been her mother's fault even more than hers.
There was a photograph of her mother in the room and Kitty's harassed
eyes fell on it. She did not know why she kept it there, for she was not
very fond of her mother; there was one of her father too, but that was
downstairs on the grand piano. It had been done when he took silk and it
represented him in wig and gown. Even they could not make him imposing;
he was a little, wizened man, with tired eyes, a long upper lip, and a
thin mouth: a facetious photographer had told him to look pleasant, but
he had succeeded only in looking severe. It was on this account, for as
a rule the downturned corners of his mouth and the dejection of his eyes
gave him an air of mild depression, that Mrs. Garstin, thinking it made
him look judicial, had chosen it from among the proofs. But her own
photograph showed her in the dress in which she had gone to Court when
her husband was made a King's Counsel. She was very grand in the velvet
gown, the long train so disposed as to show to advantage, with feathers
in her hair and flowers in her hand. She held herself erect. She was a
woman of fifty, thin and flat-chested, with prominent cheek-bones and a
large, well-shaped nose. She had a great quantity of very smooth black
hair and Kitty had always suspected that, if not dyed, it was at least
touched up. Her fine black eyes were never still and this was the most
noticeable thing about her; for when she was talking to you it was
disconcerting to see those restless eyes in that impassive, unlined and
yellow face. They moved from one part of you to another, to other
persons in the room, and then back to you; you felt that she was
criticising you, summing you up, watchful meanwhile of all that went on
around her, and that the words she spoke had no connection with her
thoughts.
_vii_
Mrs. Garstin was a hard, cruel, managing, ambitious, parsimonious and
stupid woman. She was the daughter, one of five, of a solicitor in
Liverpool and Bernard Garstin had met her when he was on the Northern
Circuit. He had seemed then a young man of promise and her father said
he would go far. He hadn't. He was painstaking, industrious and capable,
but he had not the will to advance himself. Mrs. Garstin despised him.
But she recognised, though with bitterness, that she could only achieve
success through him, and she set herself to drive him on the way she
desired to go. She nagged him without mercy. She discovered that if she
wanted him to do something which his sensitiveness revolted against she
had only to give him no peace and eventually, exhausted, he would yield.
On her side she set herself to cultivate the people who might be useful.
She flattered the solicitors who would send her husband briefs and was
familiar with their wives. She was obsequious to the judges and their
ladies. She made much of promising politicians.
In twenty-five years Mrs. Garstin never invited any one to dine at her
house because she liked him. She gave large dinner parties at regular
intervals. But parsimony was as strong in her as ambition. She hated to
spend money. She flattered herself that she could make as much show as
any one else at half the price. Her dinners were long and elaborate, but
thrifty, and she could never persuade herself that people when they were
eating and talking knew what they drank. She wrapped sparkling Moselle
in a napkin and thought her guests took it for champagne.
Bernard Garstin had a fair, though not a large practice. Men who had
been called after him had long outstripped him. Mrs. Garstin made him
stand for Parliament. The expense of the election was borne by the
party, but here again her parsimony balked her ambition, and she could
not bring herself to spend enough money to nurse the constituency. The
subscriptions Bernard Garstin made to the innumerable funds a candidate
is expected to contribute to, were always just a little less than
adequate. He was beaten. Though it would have pleased Mrs. Garstin to be
a member's wife she bore her disappointment with fortitude. The fact of
her husband's standing had brought her in contact with a number of
prominent persons and she appreciated the addition to her social
consequence. She knew that Bernard would never make his mark in the
House. She wanted him to be a member only that he might have a claim on
the gratitude of his party and surely to fight two or three losing seats
would give him that.
But he was still a junior and many younger men than he had already taken
silk. It was necessary that he should too, not only because otherwise he
could scarcely hope to be made a judge, but on her account also: it
mortified her to go in to dinner after women ten years younger than
herself. But here she encountered in her husband an obstinacy which she
had not for years been accustomed to. He was afraid that as a K.C. he
would get no work. A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, he told
her, to which she retorted that a proverb was the last refuge of the
mentally destitute. He suggested to her the possibility that his income
would be halved and he knew that there was no argument which could have
greater weight with her. She would not listen. She called him
pusillanimous. She gave him no peace and at last, as always, he yielded.
He applied for silk and it was promptly awarded him.
His misgivings were justified. He made no headway as a leader and his
briefs were few. But he concealed any disappointment he may have felt,
and if he reproached his wife it was in his heart. He grew perhaps a
little more silent, but he had always been silent at home, and no one in
his family noticed a change in him. His daughters had never looked upon
him as anything but a source of income; it had always seemed perfectly
natural that he should lead a dog's life in order to provide them with
board and lodging, clothes, holiday and money for odds and ends; and
now, understanding that through his fault money was less plentiful, the
indifference they had felt for him was tinged with an exasperated
contempt. It never occurred to them to ask themselves what were the
feelings of the subdued little man who went out early in the morning and
came home at night only in time to dress for dinner. He was a stranger
to them, but because he was their father they took it for granted that
he should love and cherish them.
_viii_
But there was a quality of courage in Mrs. Garstin which in itself was
admirable. She let no one in her immediate circle, which to her was the
world, see how mortified she was by the frustration of her hopes. She
made no change in her style of living. By careful management she was
able to give as showy dinners as she had done before, and she met her
friends with the same bright gaiety which she had so long cultivated.
She had a hard and facile fund of chit-chat which in the society she
moved in passed for conversation. She was a useful guest among persons
to whom small talk did not come easily, for she was never at a loss with
a new topic and could be trusted immediately to break an awkward silence
with a suitable observation.
It was unlikely now that Bernard Garstin would ever be made a judge of
the High Court, but he might still hope for a County Court judgeship or
at the worst an appointment in the Colonies. Meanwhile she had the
satisfaction of seeing him appointed Recorder of a Welsh town. But it
was on her daughters that she set her hopes. By arranging good marriages
for them she expected to make up for all the disappointments of her
career. There were two, Kitty and Doris. Doris gave no sign of good
looks, her nose was too long and her figure was lumpy; so that Mrs.
Garstin could hope no more for her than that she should marry a young
man who was well off and in a suitable profession.
But Kitty was a beauty. She gave promise of being so when she was still
a child, for she had large, dark eyes, liquid and vivacious, brown,
curling hair in which there was a reddish tint, exquisite teeth and a
lovely skin. Her features would never be very good, for her chin was too
square and her nose, though not so long as Doris's, too big. Her beauty
depended a good deal on her youth, and Mrs. Garstin realised that she
must marry in the first flush of her maidenhood. When she came out she
was dazzling: her skin was still her greatest beauty, but her eyes with
their long lashes were so starry and yet so melting that it gave you a
catch at the heart to look into them. She had a charming gaiety and the
desire to please. Mrs. Garstin bestowed upon her all the affection, a
harsh, competent, calculating affection, of which she was capable; she
dreamed ambitious dreams; it was not a good marriage she aimed at for
her daughter, but a brilliant one.
Kitty had been brought up with the knowledge that she was going to be a
beautiful woman and she more than suspected her mother's ambition. It
accorded with her own desires. She was launched upon the world and Mrs.
Garstin performed prodigies in getting herself invited to dances where
her daughter might meet eligible men. Kitty was a success. She was
amusing as well as beautiful, and very soon she had a dozen men in love
with her. But none was suitable, and Kitty, charming and friendly with
all, took care to commit herself with none. The drawing-room in South
Kensington was filled on Sunday afternoons with amorous youth, but Mrs.
Garstin observed, with a grim smile of approval, that it needed no
effort on her part to keep them at a distance from Kitty. Kitty was
prepared to flirt with them, and it diverted her to play one off against
the other, but when they proposed to her, as none failed to do, she
refused them with tact but decision.
Her first season passed without the perfect suitor presenting himself,
and the second also; but she was young and could afford to wait. Mrs.
Garstin told her friends that she thought it a pity for a girl to marry
till she was twenty-one. But a third year passed and then a fourth. Two
or three of her old admirers proposed again, but they were still
penniless, one or two boys younger than herself proposed; a retired
Indian Civilian, a K.C.I.E., did the same: he was fifty-three. Kitty
still danced a great deal, she went to Wimbledon and Lord's, to Ascot
and Henley; she was thoroughly enjoying herself; but still no one whose
position and income were satisfactory asked her to marry him. Mrs.
Garstin began to grow uneasy. She noticed that Kitty was beginning to
attract men of forty and over. She reminded her that she would not be
any longer so pretty in a year or two and that young girls were coming
out all the time. Mrs. Garstin did not mince her words in the domestic
circle and she warned her daughter tartly that she would miss her
market.
Kitty shrugged her shoulders. She thought herself as pretty as ever,
prettier perhaps, for she had learnt how to dress in the last four
years, and she had plenty of time. If she wanted to marry just to be
married there were a dozen boys who would jump at the chance. Surely the
right man would come along sooner or later. But Mrs. Garstin judged the
situation more shrewdly: with anger in her heart for the beautiful
daughter who had missed her chances she set her standard a little lower.
She turned back to the professional class at which she had sneered in
her pride and looked about for a young lawyer or a business man whose
future inspired her with confidence.
Kitty reached the age of twenty-five and was still unmarried. Mrs.
Garstin was exasperated and she did not hesitate often to give Kitty a
piece of her very unpleasant mind. She asked her how much longer she
expected her father to support her. He had spent sums he could ill
afford in order to give her a chance and she had not taken it. It never
struck Mrs. Garstin that perhaps her own hard affability had frightened
the men, sons of wealthy fathers or heirs to a title, whose visits she
had too cordially encouraged. She put down Kitty's failure to stupidity.
Then Doris came out. She had a long nose still, and a poor figure, and
she danced badly. In her first season she became engaged to Geoffrey
Dennison. He was the only son of a prosperous surgeon who had been given
a baronetcy during the war. Geoffrey would inherit a title--it is not
very grand to be a medical baronet, but a title, thank God, is still a
title--and a very comfortable fortune.
Kitty in a panic married Walter Fane.
_ix_
She had known him but a little while and had never taken much notice of
him. She had no idea when or where they had first met till after their
engagement he told her that it was at a dance to which some friends had
brought him. She certainly paid no attention to him then and if she
danced with him it was because she was good-natured and was glad to
dance with any one who asked her. She didn't know him from Adam when a
day or two later at another dance he came up and spoke to her. Then she
remarked that he was at every dance she went to.
"You know, I've danced with you at least a dozen times now and you must
tell me your name," she said to him at last in her laughing way.
He was obviously taken aback.
"Do you mean to say you don't know it? I was introduced to you."
"Oh, but people always mumble. I shouldn't be at all surprised if you
hadn't the ghost of an idea what mine was."
He smiled at her. His face was grace and a trifle stern, but his smile
was very sweet.
"Of course I know it." He was silent for a moment or two. "Have you no
curiosity?" he asked then.
"As much as most women."
"It didn't occur to you to ask somebody or other what my name was?"
She was faintly amused; she wondered why he thought it could in the
least interest her; but she liked to please, so she looked at him with
that dazzling smile of hers, and her beautiful eyes, dewy ponds under
forest trees, held an enchanting kindness.
"Well, what is it?"
"Walter Fane."
She did not know why he came to dances, he did not dance very well, and
he seemed to know few people. She had a passing thought that he was in
love with her; but she dismissed it with a shrug of the shoulders: she
had known girls who thought every man they met was in love with them and
had always found them absurd. But she gave Walter Fane just a little
more of her attention. He certainly did not behave like any of the other
youths who had been in love with her. Most of them told her so frankly
and wanted to kiss her: a good many did. But Walter Fane never talked of
her and very little of himself. He was rather silent; she did not mind
that because she had plenty to say and it pleased her to see him laugh
when she made a facetious remark: but when he talked it was not
stupidly. He was evidently shy. It appeared that he lived in the East
and was home on leave.
One Sunday afternoon he appeared at their house in South Kensington.
There were a dozen people there, and he sat for some time, somewhat ill
at ease, and then went away. Her mother asked her later who he was.
"I haven't a notion. Did you ask him to come here?"
"Yes, I met him at the Baddeleys. He said he'd seen you at various
dances. I said I was always at home on Sundays."
"His name is Fane and he's got some sort of job in the East."
"Yes, he's a doctor. Is he in love with you?"
"Upon my word, I don't know."
"I should have thought you knew by now when a young man was in love with
you."
"I wouldn't marry him if he were," said Kitty lightly.
Mrs. Garstin did not answer. Her silence was heavy with displeasure.
Kitty flushed: she knew that her mother did not care now whom she
married so long as somehow she got her off her hands.
_x_
During the next week she met him at three dances and now, his shyness
perhaps wearing off a little, he was somewhat more communicative. He was
a doctor, certainly, but he did not practice; he was a bacteriologist
(Kitty had only a very vague idea what that meant) and he had a job at
Tching-Yen. He was going back in the autumn. He talked a good deal about
China. She made it a practice to appear interested in whatever people
talked to her of, but indeed the life in Tching-Yen sounded quite jolly;
there were clubs and tennis and racing and polo and golf.
"Do people dance much there?"
"Oh, yes, I think so."
She wondered whether he told her these things with a motive. He seemed
to like her society, but never by a pressure of the hand, by a glance or
by a word, did he give the smallest indication that he looked upon her
as anything but a girl whom you met and danced with. On the following
Sunday he came again to their house. Her father happened to come in, it
was raining and he had not been able to play golf, and he and Walter
Fane had a long chat. She asked her father afterwards what they had
talked of.
"It appears he's stationed in Tching-Yen. The Chief Justice is an old
friend of mine at the Bar. He seems an unusually intelligent young man."
She knew that her father was as a rule bored to death by the young
people whom for her sake and now her sister's he had been forced for
years to entertain.
"It's not often you like any of my young men, father," she said.
His kind, tired eyes rested upon her.
"Are you going to marry him by any chance?"
"Certainly not."
"Is he in love with you?"
"He shows no sign of it."
"Do you like him?"
"I don't think I do very much. He irritates me a little."
He was not her type at all. He was short, but not thick-set, slight
rather and thin; dark and clean-shaven, with very regular, clear-cut
features. His eyes were almost black, but not large, they were not very
mobile and they rested on objects with a singular persistence; they were
curious, but not very pleasant eyes. With his straight, delicate nose,
his fine brow and well-shaped mouth he ought to have been good-looking.
But surprisingly enough he was not. When Kitty began to think of him at
all she was surprised that he should have such good features when you
took them one by one and yet be so far from handsome. His face was cold.
His expression was slightly sarcastic and now that Kitty knew him better
she realised that she was not quite at ease with him. He had no gaiety.
By the time the season drew to its end they had seen a good deal of one
another, but he had remained as aloof and impenetrable as ever. He was
not exactly shy with her, but embarrassed; his conversation remained
strangely impersonal. Kitty came to the conclusion that he was not in
the least in love with her. He liked her and found her easy to talk to,
but when he returned to Tching-Yen in November he would not think of her
again. She thought it not impossible that he was engaged all the time to
some nurse in a hospital at Tching-Yen, the daughter of a clergyman,
dull, plain, flat-footed and strenuous; that was the wife that would
exactly suit him.
Then came the announcement of Doris's engagement to Geoffrey Dennison.
Doris, at eighteen, was making quite a good marriage, and she was
twenty-five and single. Supposing she did not marry at all? That season the
only person who had proposed to her was a boy of twenty who was still at
Oxford: she couldn't marry a boy five years younger than herself. She
had made a hash of things. Last year she had refused a widowed Knight of
the Bath with three children. She almost wished she hadn't. Mother would
be horrible now, and Doris, Doris who had always been sacrificed because
she, Kitty, was expected to make the brilliant match, would not fail to
crow over her. Kitty's heart sank.
_xi_
But one afternoon when she was walking home from Harrod's she chanced to
meet Walter Fane in the Brompton Road. He stopped and talked to her.
Then, casually, he asked her if she would not take a turn with him in
the Park. She had no particular wish to go home: it was not just then a
very agreeable place. They strolled along, talking as they always
talked, of casual things, and he asked her where she was going for the
summer.
"Oh, we always bury ourselves in the country. You see, father is
exhausted after the term's work and we just go to the quietest place we
can find."
Kitty spoke with her tongue in her cheek, for she knew quite well that
her father had not nearly enough work to tire him and even if he had his
convenience would never have been consulted in the choice of a holiday.
But a quiet place was a cheap place.
"Don't you think those chairs look rather inviting?" said Walter
suddenly.
She followed his eyes and saw two green chairs by themselves under a
tree on the grass.
"Let us sit in them," she said.
But when they were seated he seemed to grow strangely abstracted. He was
an odd creature. She chattered on, however, gaily enough and wondered
why he had asked her to walk with him in the Park. Perhaps he was going
to confide in her his passion for the flat-footed nurse in Tching-Yen.
Suddenly he turned to her, interrupting her in the middle of a sentence,
so that she could not but see that he had not been listening, and his
face was chalk white.
"I want to say something to you."
She looked at him quickly and she saw that his eyes were filled with a
painful anxiety. His voice was strained, low and not quite steady. But
before she could ask herself what this agitation meant he spoke again.
"I want to ask you if you'll marry me."
"You could knock me down with a feather," she answered so surprised that
she looked at him blankly.
"Didn't you know I was awfully in love with you?"
"You never showed it."
"I'm very awkward and clumsy. I always find it more difficult to say the
things I mean than the things I don't."
Her heart began to beat a little more quickly. She had been proposed to
often before, but gaily or sentimentally, and she had answered in the
same fashion. No one had ever asked her to marry him in a manner which
was so abrupt and yet strangely tragic.
"It's very kind of you," she said, doubtfully.
"I fell in love with you the first time I saw you. I wanted to ask you
before, but I could never bring myself to it."
"I'm not sure if that's very well put," she chuckled.
She was glad to have an opportunity to laugh a little, for on that fine,
sunny day the air about them seemed on a sudden heavy with foreboding.
He frowned darkly.
"Oh, you know what I mean. I didn't want to lose hope. But now you're
going away and in the autumn I have to go back to China."
"I've never thought of you in that way," she said helplessly.
He said nothing more. He looked down on the grass sullenly. He was a
very odd creature. But now that he had told her she felt in some
mysterious way that his love was something she had never met before. She
was a little frightened, but she was elated also. His impassivity was
vaguely impressive.
"You must give me time to think."
Still he did not say anything. He did not stir. Did he mean to keep her
there till she had decided? That was absurd. She must talk it over with
her mother. She ought to have got up when she spoke, she had waited
thinking he would answer, and now, she did not know why, she found it
difficult to make a movement. She did not look at him, but she was
conscious of his appearance; she had never seen herself marrying a man
so little taller than herself. When you sat close to him you saw how
good his features were, and how cold his face. It was strange when you
couldn't help being conscious of the devastating passion which was in
his heart.
"I don't know you, I don't know you at all," she said tremulously.
He gave her a look and she felt her eyes drawn to his.
They had a tenderness which she had never seen in them before, but there
was something beseeching in them, like a dog's that has been whipped,
which slightly exasperated her.
"I think I improve on acquaintance," he said.
"Of course you're shy, aren't you?"
It was certainly the oddest proposal she had ever had. And even now it
seemed to her that they were saying to one another the last things you
would have expected on such an occasion. She was not in the least in
love with him. She did not know why she hesitated to refuse him at once.
"I'm awfully stupid," he said, "I want to tell you that I love you more
than anything in the world, but I find it so awfully difficult to say."
Now that was odd too, for inexplicably enough it touched her; he wasn't
really cold, of course, it was his manner that was unfortunate: she
liked him at that moment better than she had ever liked him before.
Doris was to be married in November. He would be on his way to China
then and if she married him she would be with him. It wouldn't be very
nice to be a bridesmaid at Doris's wedding. She would be glad to escape
that. And then Doris as a married woman and herself still single! Every
one knew how young Doris was and it would make her seem older. It would
put her on the shelf. It wouldn't be a very good marriage for her, but
it was a marriage, and the fact that she would live in China made it
easier. She was afraid of her mother's bitter tongue. Why, all the girls
who had come out with her were married long ago and most of them had
children; she was tired of going to see them and gushing over their
babies. Walter Fane offered her a new life. She turned to him with a
smile which she well knew the effect of.
"If I were so rash as to say I'd marry you when would you want to marry
me?"
He gave a sudden gasp of delight, and his white cheeks flushed.
"Now. At once. As soon as possible. We'd go to Italy for our honeymoon.
August and September."
That would save her from spending the summer in a country vicarage,
hired at five guineas a week, with her father and mother. In a flash she
saw in her mind's eye the announcement in the _Morning Post_ that, the
bridegroom having to return to the East, the wedding would take place at
once. She knew her mother well enough, she could be counted on to make a
splash; for the moment at least Doris would be in the background and
when Doris's much grander wedding took place she would be far away.
She stretched out her hand.
"I think I like you very much. You must give me time to get used to
you."