I
On a Saturday afternoon in late October Edward Coe, a satisfactory
average successful man of thirty-five, was walking slowly along the
King's Road, Brighton. A native and inhabitant of the Five Towns in the
Midlands, he had the brusque and energetic mien of the Midlands. It
could be seen that he was a stranger to the south; and, in fact, he was
now viewing for the first time the vast and glittering spectacle of the
southern pleasure city in the unique glory of her autumn season. A
spectacle to enliven any man by its mere splendour! And yet Edward Coe
was gloomy. One reason for his gloom was that he had just left a
bicycle, with a deflated back tyre, to be repaired at a shop in Preston
Street. Not perhaps an adequate reason for gloom!... Well, that depends.
He had been informed by the blue-clad repairer, after due inspection,
that the trouble was not a common puncture, but a malady of the valve
mysterious.
And the deflation was not the sole cause of his gloom. There was
another. He was on his honeymoon. Understand me--not a honeymoon of
romance, but a real honeymoon. Who that has ever been on a real
honeymoon can look back upon the adventure and faithfully say that it
was an unmixed ecstasy of joy? A honeymoon is in its nature and
consequences so solemn, so dangerous, and so pitted with startling
surprises, that the most irresponsible bridegroom, the most
light-hearted, the least in love, must have moments of grave anxiety.
And Edward Coe was far from irresponsible. Nor was he only a little in
love. Moreover, the circumstances of his marriage were peculiar, and he
had married a dark, brooding, passionate girl.
Mrs Coe was the younger of two sisters named Olive Wardle, well known in
the most desirable circles in the Five Towns. I mean those circles where
intellectual and artistic tastes are united with sound incomes and
excellent food delicately served. It will certainly be asked why two
sisters should be named Olive. The answer is that though Olive One and
Olive Two were treated as sisters, and even treated themselves as
sisters, they were not sisters. They were not even half-sisters. They
had first met at the age of nine. The father of Olive One, a widower,
had married the mother of Olive Two, a widow. Olive One was the elder by
a few months. Olive Two gradually allowed herself to be called Wardle
because it saved trouble. They got on with one another very well indeed,
especially after the death of both parents, when they became joint
mistresses, each with a separate income, of a nice house at Sneyd, the
fashionable residential village on the rim of the Five Towns. Like all
persons who live long together, they grew in many respects alike. Both
were dark, brooding and passionate, and to this deep similarity a
superficial similarity of habits and demeanour was added. Only, whereas
Olive One was rather more inclined to be the woman of the world, Olive
Two was rather more inclined to study and was particularly interested in
the theory of music.
They were sought after, naturally. And yet they had reached the age of
twenty-five before the world perceived that either of them was not
sought after in vain. The fact, obvious enough, that Pierre Emile
Vaillac had become an object of profound human interest to Olive
One--this fact excited the world, and the world would have been still
more excited had it been aware of another fact that was not at all
obvious: namely, that Pierre Emile Vaillac was the cause of a secret and
terrible breach between the two sisters. Vaillac, a widower with two
young children, Mimi and Jean, was a Frenchman, and a great authority on
the decoration of egg-shell china, who had settled in the Five Towns as
expert partner in one of the classic china firms at Longshaw. He was
undoubtedly a very attractive man.
Olive One, when the relations between herself and Vaillac were
developing into something unmistakable, had suddenly, and without
warning, accused Olive Two of poaching. It was a frightful accusation,
and a frightful scene followed it, one of those scenes that are seldom
forgiven and never forgotten. It altered their lives; but as they were
women of considerable common sense and of good breeding, each did her
best to behave afterwards as though nothing had happened.
Olive Two did not convince Olive One of her innocence, because she did
not bring forward the supreme proof of it. She was too proud--in her
brooding and her mystery--to do so. The supreme proof was that at this
time she herself was secretly engaged to be married to Edward Coe, who
had conquered her heart with unimaginable swiftness a few weeks before
she was about to sit for a musical examination at Manchester. "Let us
say nothing till after my exam," she had suggested to her betrothed.
"There will be an enormous fuss, and it will put me off, and I shall
fail, and I don't want to fail, and you don't want me to fail." He
agreed rapturously. Of course she did fail, nevertheless. But being
obstinate she said she would go in again, and they continued to make a
secret of the engagement. They found the secret delicious. Then followed
the devastating episode of Vaillac. Shortly afterwards Olive One and
Vaillac were married, and then Olive Two was alone in the nice house.
The examination was forgotten, and she hated the house. She wanted to be
married; Coe also. But nothing had been said. Difficult to announce her
engagement just then! The world would say that she had married out of
imitation, and her sister would think that she had married out of pique.
Besides, there would be the fuss, which Olive Two hated. Already the
fuss of her sister's marriage, and the effort at the wedding of
pretending that nothing had happened between them, had fatigued the
nerves of Olive Two.
Then Edward Coe had had the brilliant and seductive idea of marrying in
secret. To slip away, and then to return, saying, "We are married.
That's all!" ... Why not? No fuss! No ceremonial! The accomplished fact,
which simplifies everything!
It was, therefore, a secret honeymoon that Edward Coe was on;
delightful--but surreptitious, furtive! His mental condition may be best
described by stating that, though he was conscious of rectitude, he
somehow could not look a policeman in the face. After all, plain people
do not usually run off on secret honeymoons. Had he acted wisely?
Perhaps this question, presenting itself now and then, was the chief
cause of his improper gloom.