On reading over what I have written of the Stricklands, I am conscious
that they must seem shadowy. I have been able to invest them with none
of those characteristics which make the persons of a book exist with a
real life of their own; and, wondering if the fault is mine, I rack my
brains to remember idiosyncrasies which might lend them vividness. I
feel that by dwelling on some trick of speech or some queer habit I
should be able to give them a significance peculiar to themselves. As
they stand they are like the figures in an old tapestry; they do not
separate themselves from the background, and at a distance seem to lose
their pattern, so that you have little but a pleasing piece of colour.
My only excuse is that the impression they made on me was no other.
There was just that shadowiness about them which you find in people
whose lives are part of the social organism, so that they exist in it
and by it only. They are like cells in the body, essential, but, so
long as they remain healthy, engulfed in the momentous whole. The
Stricklands were an average family in the middle class. A pleasant,
hospitable woman, with a harmless craze for the small lions of literary
society; a rather dull man, doing his duty in that state of life in
which a merciful Providence had placed him; two nice-looking, healthy
children. Nothing could be more ordinary. I do not know that there was
anything about them to excite the attention of the curious.
When I reflect on all that happened later, I ask myself if I was
thick-witted not to see that there was in Charles Strickland at least
something out of the common. Perhaps. I think that I have gathered in
the years that intervene between then and now a fair knowledge of
mankind, but even if when I first met the Stricklands I had the
experience which I have now, I do not believe that I should have judged
them differently. But because I have learnt that man is incalculable, I
should not at this time of day be so surprised by the news that reached
me when in the early autumn I returned to London.
I had not been back twenty-four hours before I ran across Rose
Waterford in Jermyn Street.
“You look very gay and sprightly,” I said. “What’s the matter with
you?”
She smiled, and her eyes shone with a malice I knew already. It meant
that she had heard some scandal about one of her friends, and the
instinct of the literary woman was all alert.
“You did meet Charles Strickland, didn’t you?”
Not only her face, but her whole body, gave a sense of alacrity. I
nodded. I wondered if the poor devil had been hammered on the Stock
Exchange or run over by an omnibus.
“Isn’t it dreadful? He’s run away from his wife.”
Miss Waterford certainly felt that she could not do her subject justice
on the curb of Jermyn Street, and so, like an artist, flung the bare
fact at me and declared that she knew no details. I could not do her
the injustice of supposing that so trifling a circumstance would have
prevented her from giving them, but she was obstinate.
“I tell you I know nothing,” she said, in reply to my agitated
questions, and then, with an airy shrug of the shoulders: “I believe
that a young person in a city tea-shop has left her situation.”
She flashed a smile at me, and, protesting an engagement with her
dentist, jauntily walked on. I was more interested than distressed. In
those days my experience of life at first hand was small, and it
excited me to come upon an incident among people I knew of the same
sort as I had read in books. I confess that time has now accustomed me
to incidents of this character among my acquaintance. But I was a
little shocked. Strickland was certainly forty, and I thought it
disgusting that a man of his age should concern himself with affairs of
the heart. With the superciliousness of extreme youth, I put
thirty-five as the utmost limit at which a man might fall in love
without making a fool of himself. And this news was slightly
disconcerting to me personally, because I had written from the country
to Mrs. Strickland, announcing my return, and had added that unless I
heard from her to the contrary, I would come on a certain day to drink
a dish of tea with her. This was the very day, and I had received no
word from Mrs. Strickland. Did she want to see me or did she not? It
was likely enough that in the agitation of the moment my note had
escaped her memory. Perhaps I should be wiser not to go. On the other
hand, she might wish to keep the affair quiet, and it might be highly
indiscreet on my part to give any sign that this strange news had
reached me. I was torn between the fear of hurting a nice woman’s
feelings and the fear of being in the way. I felt she must be
suffering, and I did not want to see a pain which I could not help; but
in my heart was a desire, that I felt a little ashamed of, to see how
she was taking it. I did not know what to do.
Finally it occurred to me that I would call as though nothing had
happened, and send a message in by the maid asking Mrs. Strickland if
it was convenient for her to see me. This would give her the
opportunity to send me away. But I was overwhelmed with embarrassment
when I said to the maid the phrase I had prepared, and while I waited
for the answer in a dark passage I had to call up all my strength of
mind not to bolt. The maid came back. Her manner suggested to my
excited fancy a complete knowledge of the domestic calamity.
“Will you come this way, sir?” she said.
I followed her into the drawing-room. The blinds were partly drawn to
darken the room, and Mrs. Strickland was sitting with her back to the
light. Her brother-in-law, Colonel MacAndrew, stood in front of the
fireplace, warming his back at an unlit fire. To myself my entrance
seemed excessively awkward. I imagined that my arrival had taken them
by surprise, and Mrs. Strickland had let me come in only because she
had forgotten to put me off. I fancied that the Colonel resented the
interruption.
“I wasn’t quite sure if you expected me,” I said, trying to seem
unconcerned.
“Of course I did. Anne will bring the tea in a minute.”
Even in the darkened room, I could not help seeing that Mrs.
Strickland’s face was all swollen with tears. Her skin, never very
good, was earthy.
“You remember my brother-in-law, don’t you? You met at dinner, just
before the holidays.”
We shook hands. I felt so shy that I could think of nothing to say, but
Mrs. Strickland came to my rescue. She asked me what I had been doing
with myself during the summer, and with this help I managed to make
some conversation till tea was brought in. The Colonel asked for a
whisky-and-soda.
“You’d better have one too, Amy,” he said.
“No; I prefer tea.”
This was the first suggestion that anything untoward had happened. I
took no notice, and did my best to engage Mrs. Strickland in talk. The
Colonel, still standing in front of the fireplace, uttered no word. I
wondered how soon I could decently take my leave, and I asked myself
why on earth Mrs. Strickland had allowed me to come. There were no
flowers, and various knick-knacks, put away during the summer, had not
been replaced; there was something cheerless and stiff about the room
which had always seemed so friendly; it gave you an odd feeling, as
though someone were lying dead on the other side of the wall. I
finished tea.
“Will you have a cigarette?” asked Mrs. Strickland.
She looked about for the box, but it was not to be seen.
“I’m afraid there are none.”
Suddenly she burst into tears, and hurried from the room.
I was startled. I suppose now that the lack of cigarettes, brought as a
rule by her husband, forced him back upon her recollection, and the new
feeling that the small comforts she was used to were missing gave her a
sudden pang. She realised that the old life was gone and done with. It
was impossible to keep up our social pretences any longer.
“I dare say you’d like me to go,” I said to the Colonel, getting up.
“I suppose you’ve heard that blackguard has deserted her,” he cried
explosively.
I hesitated.
“You know how people gossip,” I answered. “I was vaguely told that
something was wrong.”
“He’s bolted. He’s gone off to Paris with a woman. He’s left Amy
without a penny.”
“I’m awfully sorry,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
The Colonel gulped down his whisky. He was a tall, lean man of fifty,
with a drooping moustache and grey hair. He had pale blue eyes and a
weak mouth. I remembered from my previous meeting with him that he had
a foolish face, and was proud of the fact that for the ten years before
he left the army he had played polo three days a week.
“I don’t suppose Mrs. Strickland wants to be bothered with me just
now,” I said. “Will you tell her how sorry I am? If there’s anything I
can do. I shall be delighted to do it.”
He took no notice of me.
“I don’t know what’s to become of her. And then there are the children.
Are they going to live on air? Seventeen years.”
“What about seventeen years?”
“They’ve been married,” he snapped. “I never liked him. Of course he
was my brother-in-law, and I made the best of it. Did you think him a
gentleman? She ought never to have married him.”
“Is it absolutely final?”
“There’s only one thing for her to do, and that’s to divorce him.
That’s what I was telling her when you came in. ‘Fire in with your
petition, my dear Amy,’ I said. ‘You owe it to yourself and you owe it
to the children.’ He’d better not let me catch sight of him. I’d thrash
him within an inch of his life.”
I could not help thinking that Colonel MacAndrew might have some
difficulty in doing this, since Strickland had struck me as a hefty
fellow, but I did not say anything. It is always distressing when
outraged morality does not possess the strength of arm to administer
direct chastisement on the sinner. I was making up my mind to another
attempt at going when Mrs. Strickland came back. She had dried her eyes
and powdered her nose.
“I’m sorry I broke down,” she said. “I’m glad you didn’t go away.”
She sat down. I did not at all know what to say. I felt a certain
shyness at referring to matters which were no concern of mine. I did
not then know the besetting sin of woman, the passion to discuss her
private affairs with anyone who is willing to listen. Mrs. Strickland
seemed to make an effort over herself.
“Are people talking about it?” she asked.
I was taken aback by her assumption that I knew all about her domestic
misfortune.
“I’ve only just come back. The only person I’ve seen is Rose
Waterford.”
Mrs. Strickland clasped her hands.
“Tell me exactly what she said.” And when I hesitated, she insisted. “I
particularly want to know.”
“You know the way people talk. She’s not very reliable, is she? She
said your husband had left you.”
“Is that all?”
I did not choose to repeat Rose Waterford’s parting reference to a girl
from a tea-shop. I lied.
“She didn’t say anything about his going with anyone?”
“No.”
“That’s all I wanted to know.”
I was a little puzzled, but at all events I understood that I might now
take my leave. When I shook hands with Mrs. Strickland I told her that
if I could be of any use to her I should be very glad. She smiled
wanly.
“Thank you so much. I don’t know that anybody can do anything for me.”
Too shy to express my sympathy, I turned to say good-bye to the
Colonel. He did not take my hand.
“I’m just coming. If you’re walking up Victoria Street, I’ll come along
with you.”
“All right,” I said. “Come on.”