CONFLAGRATION
To see his wife casually in a crowd, and to fall desperately in love with
her for the second time, was a unique experience even in Tyson's life.
But it had its danger. He had never been jealous before; now a feeling
very like jealousy had been roused by seeing her with Stanistreet. He had
followed her to the "Criterion"; he had hurried out before the end of the
piece, and hung about Ridgmount Gardens till he had seen her homecoming.
Stanistreet's immediate departure was a relief to a certain anxiety that
he was base enough to feel. And still there remained a vague suspicion
and discomfort. He had to begin all over again with her. In their first
courtship she was a child; in their second she was a woman. Hitherto, the
creature of a day, she had seemed to spring into life afresh every
morning, without a memory of yesterday or a thought of to-morrow; she had
had no past, not even an innocent one. And now he had no notion what
experiences she might not have accumulated during this year in which he
had left her. That was her past; and they had the future before them.
They had been alone together for three days, three days and three nights
of happiness; and on the evening of the fourth day Tyson had found her
reading--yes, actually reading!
He sat down opposite her to watch the curious sight.
Perhaps she had said to herself: "Some day I shall be old, and very
likely I shall be ugly. If I am stupid too, he will be bored, and perhaps
he will leave me. So now--I am going to be his intellectual companion."
He was amused, just as Stanistreet had been. "I say, I can't have that,
you know. What have you got there?"
She held up her book without speaking. "Othello," of all things in the
world!
"Shakespeare? I thought so. When a woman's in a damned bad temper she
always reads Shakespeare, or Locke on the Human Understanding. Come out
of that."
Though Mrs. Nevill Tyson set her little teeth very hard, the corners of
her mouth and eyes curled with mischief. It was delicious to feel that
she could torment Nevill, to know that she had so much power. And while
she pretended to read she played with the pearl necklace she wore. It was
one shade with the white of her beautiful throat.
"Who gave you those pearls?"
She made no answer, but her hand dropped a little consciously. He had
given them to her that afternoon, remarking, with rather questionable
taste, that they were "a wedding-present for the second Mrs. Nevill
Tyson."
He leant over her chair and assailed her with questions to which no
answer came, to which no answer was possible, punctuating his periods
with kisses.
"Are you a conundrum? Or a fiend? Or a metaphysical system? And if so,
why do you wear a pink frock! Are you a young woman who prefers a dead
poet to a living husband? Are you a young woman at all? Or only a dear
little, sweet little, pink little strawberry iceberg?"
He lay down on the sofa as if overcome by unutterable fatigue. "Just as
you like," he murmured faintly. "You'll be sorry for this some day.
Shakespeare is immortal. I, most unfortunately, am not."
He got up and threw the window open. He ramped about the room,
soliloquizing as he went. Never, even in the last days of their
engagement, had she seen him so restless. (But she was not going to speak
yet; not she!) He stopped before the chimney-piece; it was covered with
ridiculous objects, the things that please a child: there were Swiss
cow-bells and stags carved in wood, Chinese idols that wagged their
heads, little images of performing cats, teacups, a whole shelf full of
toys. Not one of them but had some minute fragment of his wife's
personality adhering to it. He remembered the insane impulse that came
upon him last year to smash them, sweep the lot of them on to the floor.
To-night he could have kissed them, cried over them. "T-t-t-tt! What
affecting absurdity!" That was the way he went on. And now he sat down
by her writing-table, and was taking things up and examining them while
he talked. He never, never forgot the expression of a certain brass
porcupine that was somehow a penwiper; it seemed to belong to a world
gone mad, where everything was something else, where porcupines _were_
penwipers, and his wife--
For suddenly his tongue had stopped. He had caught sight of an enormous
bunch of hothouse flowers in a vase on the floor by the writing-table.
Stanistreet's card was in the midst of the bunch, and a note from
Stanistreet lay open on the writing-table.
There was an ominous pause while Tyson read it. It was curt enough; only
an offer of flowers and a ticket for the "Lyceum." Stanistreet's mind
must have been seriously off its balance, otherwise he would never have
done this clumsy thing.
Tyson strode to his wife's chair and tossed the letter into her lap.
"How long has Stanistreet been paying you these little attentions?"
She looked up smiling. I am not sure that she did not think this new tone
of Tyson's was part of the game they were playing together. She had never
taken him seriously.
"Ever since he found out that I liked them, I suppose."
"Did it not occur to you that the things you like are rather expensive
luxuries, some of them?"
"No. Perhaps that's why I hardly ever get them."
"My dear girl, I know the precise amount of Stanistreet's income. Money
can't be any object to him. But perhaps you've a soul above boxes at the
'Criterion,' and champagne suppers afterwards, and the rest of it?"
"I have, unfortunately. But there wasn't any champagne." Her indifferent
voice gave the lie to her beating pulses. Between playing and fighting
there is only a difference of degree.
"Will you kindly tell me why you selected Stanistreet of all people for
this business?"
"I didn't select him--he was always there."
"And if it hadn't been Stanistreet it would have been somebody else? I
see. I hope you appreciate the peculiar advantages of his society?"
"I do. Louis is a gentleman, though he is your friend. He knows how to
talk to women."
"If he doesn't it is not for want of practice. I could swallow all this,
Molly, if you were a little girl just out of the schoolroom; but--I
don't think you've much to learn."
Mrs. Nevill Tyson's eyes flashed. The play had turned to deadly earnest.
"Not much, thanks to you," said she. Her voice sank. "Louis was good to
me."
"Was he? '_Good_' to you--How extremely touching! Pray, were you good to
him?"
"No--no." She shook her head remorsefully. "I wish I had been."
Tyson knitted his brows and looked at her. He had not quite made up his
mind.
"Do you know, I don't altogether believe in your refreshing _näiveté_.
Stanistreet is not 'good' to pretty women for nothing. I know, and you
know, that a woman who has been seen with him as you apparently have
been, is not supposed to have a character to lose."
She rose to her feet and faced him. "How could you? Oh, how could you?"
He shrank from her, without the least attempt to conceal his repulsion.
"If you look in the glass you'll see."
She turned mechanically and saw the reflection of her face, all flushed
as it was and distorted, the eyes fierce with passion. It was like the
sudden leaping forth of her soul; and Mrs. Nevill Tyson's soul, after
three days' intercourse with her husband's, was not a thing to trust
implicitly. Without sinning it seemed unconsciously to reflect his sin.
I can not tell you how that was; marriage is a great mystery.
She understood him, though imperfectly; she understood many things
now. Oh, he was right--she looked the part; no wonder that he hated
her. She sat down and covered her face with her hands, as if to shut
out that momentary vision of herself. Herself and not herself. What she
saw was something that had never been. But it was something that might
be--herself, as Tyson alone had power to make her. All this came to her
as an unexplained, confused terror, a trouble of the nerves; there was no
reasoning, no idea; it was all too new.
But if she did not understand her own misery, she understood vaguely what
he had said to her. She got up and went to her writing-table where a
letter lay folded, ready for its envelope. She gave it to him without
a word.
"Do you mean me to read this?" he asked.
"Yes; if you like." She answered without looking at him; apparently she
was absorbed in addressing her envelope.
He opened the letter gingerly, and read in his wife's schoolgirl
handwriting:--
"Dear Louis,--It's awfully good of you but I'm afraid I can't go with you
to the 'Lyceum' to-morrow night so I return the ticket with many thanks,
in case you want to give it to somebody else. Nevill has come home--why
of course you saw him--and I am so happy and I want all my time for him.
"I thought you'd like to know this. I'm sure he will be delighted to see
you whenever you like to call.--Yours sincerely,
"Molly Tyson.
"_P.S._--Thanks awfully for the lovely flowers. You can smell them all
over the flat!"
"Come here, you fool," he said gently.
But Mrs. Nevill Tyson was stamping her envelope with great deliberation
and care. She handed it to him at arm's length and darted away. He heard
her turning the key in her bedroom door with a determined click.
He read her letter over again twice. The ridiculous little phrases
convinced him of the groundlessness of his suspicion. Punctuation
would have argued premeditation, and premeditation guilt. "Nevill has
come home--why of course you saw him." She had actually forgotten that
Stanistreet had been there on the evening of his arrival.
He laughed so loud that Mrs. Nevill Tyson heard him in her bedroom.
An hour later he heard her softly unlocking her door. He smiled. She
might be as innocent as she pleased, but she had made him make a cursed
fool of himself, and he meant that she should suffer for that.
He threw Stanistreet's flowers out of the window, put Molly's note up in
its envelope and sent it to the post. Then he sat down to think.
Mrs. Nevill Tyson's room was opposite the one she had just left. She
stood for a moment before her looking-glass, studying her own reflection.
She took off her pearl necklace and spanned her white throat with her
tiny hands. And as she looked she was glad. When all was said and done
she looked beautiful--beautiful after her small fashion. She turned this
way and that to make perfectly sure of the fact. She had realized long
ago how much her hold on Nevill's affections depended on it. His love had
waxed and waned with her beauty. Well--She opened her door before getting
into bed, and for the next hour she lay listening and wondering. She saw
the line of light at the top of the drawing-room door disappear as the
big lamp went out. It was followed by a fainter streak. Nevill must have
lit the little lamp on the table by the window. (Oh, dear! He was going
to sit up, then.) She heard him go into the dining-room beyond and
stumble against things; then came the spurt of a match, followed by the
clinking of glasses. (He was only going to have a smoke and a drink.)
She waited a little while longer, then she called to him. There was no
answer; he must be dozing on the couch in the dining-room. A light wind
lifted the carpet at the door, and she wondered drowsily whether Nevill
had left the drawing-room window open.
He had done all that she supposed, and more. First of all, he drank a
little more than was good for him; this happened occasionally now. Then
he sat down and wrote what he thought was a very terse and biting letter
to Stanistreet, in which he said: "You needn't call. You will not find
either of us at home at Ridgmount Gardens from May to August, nor at
Thorneytoft from August to May. And if you should happen to meet my
wife anywhere in public, you will oblige me greatly by cutting her."
This letter he left on the table outside for postage in the morning. Then
he went back to the dining-room and drank a great deal more than was good
for him. Of course he left the drawing-room window open and the lamp
burning, and by midnight he was sleeping heavily in the adjoining room.
And the wind got up in the night: it played with the muslin curtains,
flinging them out like streamers into the room; played with the flimsy
parasol lamp-shade until it tilted, and the little lamp was thrown on to
the floor.
Mrs. Nevill Tyson woke with the light crash. She sat up for a moment,
then got out of bed, crossed the passage, and opened the drawing-room
door. A warm wind puffed in her face; the air was full of black flakes
flying through a red rain; a stream of fire ran along the floor, crests
of flames leapt and quivered over the steady blue under-current; and over
there, in the corner, an absurd little arm-chair had caught fire all by
itself; the flames had peeled off its satin covering like a skin, and
were slowly consuming the horse-hair stuffing; the pitiable object sent
out great puffs and clouds of smoke that writhed in agonized spirals. The
tiny room had become a battlefield of dissolute forces. But as yet none
of the solid furniture was touched; it was a superficial conflagration.
Mrs. Nevill Tyson saw nothing but the stream of fire that ran between her
and the room where Nevill lay. She picked up her skirt and waded through
it barefoot. A spark flung from the burning draperies settled on the wide
flapping frills of her night-gown. Nevill was fast asleep with the rug
over him and his mouth open. She shook him with one hand, and with the
other she tried to beat down her flaming capes. Was he never going to
wake?
She was afraid to move; but by dropping forward on her knees she could
just reach some soda-water on the table; she dashed it over his face. The
fire had hurt the soles of her feet; now it had caught her breast, her
throat, her hair; it rose flaming round her head, and she cried aloud in
her terror. Still clutching Nevill's sleeve, she staggered and fell
across him, and he woke.
He woke dazed; but he had sense enough to roll her in the rug and crush
the flames out.