The London newspapers had not given much of their space to Mrs.
Lambert's doings while she was alive. She did not advertise in them.
Besides, all their dramatic critics were on speaking terms with Lambert,
and even dramatic critics have second-hand prejudices. But now that
Mrs. Lambert was dead she was accorded the half-column of obituary
notice to which actors and actresses seem to have a prescriptive right.
Defunct millionaires and jam-makers get a little less: British officers
who die for their country have to be satisfied with a couple of lines
tucked away among the Military Intelligence.
The papers belauded the dead woman. They recorded her dramatic
successes with much detail. They were fulsome concerning her virtues.
Their readers were left to imagine the feelings of her bereaved and
heart-broken husband, who at the moment was sorting an auction-bridge
hand in the cardroom of a transatlantic liner. It was the sort of
pretentious gush that had always sickened Mrs. Lambert when she read it
about others.
The funeral was largely attended by members of the theatrical
profession. Few of them knew the deceased personally, but as the
occasion provided an opportunity for public exhibition and incidentally
for getting their names into the papers they did not miss it.
Maggy was not of these. Woolf had made some engagement for her which he
would not let her break. But she sent a wreath. It was quite unlike
any of the others. Hers was composed of autumn-tinted leaves and the
last homely flowers that one sees in cottage gardens. She purposely
wished to avoid the conventional effect aimed at by the professional
florist whose stiff made-to-order wreath implies such indifference to
death.
Alexandra placed it at the head of the coffin. Mary Mantel had also sent
one, ordered before she left for America with Lambert. But Alexandra
refused to take it in. Lambert's card was inscribed "From your
sorrowing husband." All the newspapers dragged in those words with a
suitably unctuous comment.
Late on the afternoon of the funeral Maggy managed to evade Woolf and go
to Albert Place, thinking to find Alexandra there. The blinds had not
yet been drawn up, but the front door was open. Feeling an aversion
from disturbing the silence of a house of mourning she went in without
ringing and ascended to the room Alexandra had used. Finding it empty
she came down and looked into the drawing room. It was in the green
gloom of a closed jalousie and she thought it unoccupied. In that room
she had spent such a pleasant half-hour with Lord Chalfont not so very
long ago. Since then, disaster had befallen its owner, and she herself
had been very near to death. The three events seemed associated in her
mind.
She was about to draw back when a movement arrested her. At the far end
she made out Chalfont. He was sitting at an escritoire with his head
bent over it. After a moment of hesitation she went up to him and
timidly touched him on the shoulder. Dazed by grief and with his
thoughts far away he did not at first recognize her. Seeing how it was
with him she gently said:
"I'm Maggy. I didn't mean to disturb you. I was looking for Lexie....
Now that I'm here I'd like to say how dreadfully sorry I am."
After he had thanked her there was a pause. His ease had temporarily
left him. Maggy felt she was intruding.
"Do you know where she has gone? Lexie, I mean," she went on.
"She wrote down her address." Chalfont searched for and found it among
the papers on the escritoire. "109, Sidey Street."
"Then she's gone back. That's where we used to live together."
There was another silence. Then Chalfont said:
"Will you let me know if there is anything I can do for her? Mrs.
Lambert was very interested in her--and yourself. Indeed--" here he
hesitated a little--"the last word she spoke was your name. That is why
I--"
The color came into Maggy's face. She did not let him finish.
"Did she--did she say anything else?"
"No; only your name. She seemed to be concerned about you."
Maggy nodded.
"She knew all about me," she said in an explanatory tone. "She was
worried because I had been ill, I expect. She was like that, I know....
And she knew I--I wasn't married."
Her meaning was quite plain, as plain as the wedding-ring on her
ungloved hand. In her honesty she thought the admission was due to
Chalfont after he had apprized her of Mrs. Lambert's interest in her.
His manner of doing so had implied friendship. She did not want to
accept that under false pretenses.
Chalfont was quick to appreciate her motive in making the confession.
If possible it raised her in his estimation. But it filled him with a
curious sense of disappointment. In spite of the absence of a legal
bond between Mrs. Lambert and himself he had a strong distaste for free
alliances. He had chafed against circumstances in his own case, and he
was far from sitting in judgment on Maggy's. Still, he could not help
the shock they had on his feelings.
"You didn't think I was that sort," she said, guessing at what was in
his mind. "Lexie's not, but I'm different. I'm not a lady. It wasn't
only because I wanted clothes and jewelry, or because I was hungry
that--that it happened. I _did_ hate going without things. But it was
because I met a man who made me feel--like jelly. If he'd had nothing a
year I would have gone to the devil with him just the same.... I'm
telling you all this to show you why we can't be friends, although I
know you're ever so kind."
"Can we not? Mrs. Lambert was your friend."
"I can't think why." Tears came into her eyes. "There aren't many
women like her.... You loved her, didn't you?"
"I loved her very dearly. More than she loved me. Though she loved me
as much as I deserved," he added quickly.
"And she loved her husband. I know. I think he must be a pig! ... Why
do we love things that are bad for us, and men that don't care for us?
... You would have married her, wouldn't you?"
"That was what I desired more than anything else," he rejoined in a
voice full of regret.
This unreserved talk did not strike either of them as strange. Chalfont
was usually sphynx-like about his innermost feelings, but with Maggy it
seemed unnecessary to hide them. It did him good to unburden his heart
to her. Maggy not only inspired confidence, she attracted it. It gave
her a double hold on sympathy.
"She would have been 'my lady' then," she said thoughtfully. "What a
draw that would be to a lot of women--the women who don't put love
first. It's when we love that we don't think what we get by it.... If
the Earl of the Scilly Isles came crawling all the way from Scotland and
wanted me to marry him I wouldn't leave Woolf."
Chalfont lost sight of her amazing geography in the surprise he felt at
the name she mentioned.
"Woolf! What Woolf?" he stared.
"Fred Woolf," she said with a touch of pride. "He owns the _Jockey's
Weekly_ and Primus cars. You must have heard of Biretta, his racehorse."
"Oh!"
Chalfont was incapable of more than the exclamation. He knew all about
Woolf. Sudden pity for Maggy took hold of him. He could not run the
man down; he could not tell her that Woolf's name stank in the nostrils
of decent-minded men; that even the men who fraternized with him took
care to keep their womenfolk out of his reach. He could not tell her of
Woolf's shady reputation on the turf, at the card table, and in the
city. He saw that it would be useless to do so, and also cruel.
"You've met him, haven't you?" she asked.
"I've seen him at race-meetings and--and once at a club to which I
belong."