failed to fall in love. Her marriage had never really touched her. Her
husband had vibrated many strings in her responsive impulsive young
heart--gratitude, affection, admiration,--but the great harmonious
combination, the master-chord, had yet to be struck. Consequently she
saw nothing unusual in living apart from her husband, financing her
family with his money, and enjoying herself with friends whom he did
not know.
Early in the year, however, it occurred to her that it would be
pleasant to go home again for a time. Her elastic nature had entirely
recovered from the stress of last summer's crisis, and she was frankly
consumed with curiosity on the subject of the new house in Berkeley
Square--and said so. It was perhaps an unfortunate reason for a wife
to give for wishing to return to her husband, but this did not occur
to her at the time. She received a brief note in reply, saying that
the furnishing and decorating were now practically completed, and the
house was ready for her inspection any time she cared to come up to
town. Hence this joyous expedition.
Daphne had half expected to find her husband waiting for her at the
house, for the Parliamentary recess was over and she knew he was
almost certain to be in town. Instead, she was received by an
overwhelmingly polite individual named Hibbins, from the
house-furnishers. Mr Hibbins' appearance and deportment proved a sore
trial to the composure of Nicky, who exploded at frequent and
unexpected intervals throughout the afternoon, lamely alleging the
fantastic design of some very ordinary wallpaper or the shortness of
Stiffy's Sunday trousers in excuse.
It was essentially a masculine house, furnished in accordance with the
man's ideas of solidity and comfort. The high oak panelling and
dark-green frieze in the dining-room pleased Daphne, who recognised
that glass and silver, well-illuminated, would show up bravely in such
a setting. The drawing-room was perhaps a little too severe in its
scheme of decoration: Daphne would have preferred something more
feminine. "But that comes," she reflected characteristically, "of
leaving the declaration to your partner!" There was a billiard-room in
which Nicky declared it would be a sin to place a billiard-table, so
perfectly was it adapted for waltzing after dinner.
Opening out of the billiard-room was a plainly furnished but
attractive little set of apartments--"the bachelor suite" Mr Hibbins
designated it--consisting of a snug study with an apartment adjoining,
containing a small camp-bed and a large bath. Daphne's own rooms
consisted of a bedroom and boudoir on the first floor, with wide
bow-windows.
The nursery came last. It was a large irregular-shaped room at the top
of the house, full of unexpected corners and curious alcoves such as
children love, affording convenient caves for robbers and eligible
lairs for wild beasts, fabulous or authentic. In addition to the
regulation nursery furniture there was a miniature set, in
green-stained wood--a table barely eighteen inches high, a tiny
arm-chair, and a pigmy sofa upon which Master Brian's friends might
recline when they came to drink tea, or its equivalent. Round the
whole room ran a brightly coloured dado covered with life-size figures
of all the people we love when we are young--Jack the Giant-Killer,
Old King Cole, Cinderella, and the Three Bears. Even Peter Pan, with
residence and following, was there. The spectacle of Doctor Johnson
taking a walk down Fleet Street would pale to insignificance compared
with that of Master Brian Vereker Carr enjoying a constitutional along
his own dado, encountering a new friend round every corner.
Daphne suddenly realised that here was yet another aspect of this
strange, impenetrable husband of hers. The room in its way was a work
of genius--the genius that understands children.
As they departed to catch the afternoon train to Snayling the
obsequious Mr Hibbins produced a letter.
Sir John Carr, he explained, had called at the head office of their
firm that morning--in _person_, Mr Hibbins added with a gratified
smile--and requested that this letter should be handed to her ladyship
in the afternoon. Sir John had also instructed Mr Hibbins to inform
her ladyship that any improvements or alterations which she desired
had only to be mentioned to be carried out.
Mr Hibbins having handed them into a cab and bidden them an unctuous
farewell, they drove away to the station, Nicky atoning for previous
aloofness by hanging out of the window and waving her handkerchief
until they turned the corner.
III.
The journey from London to Snayling, involving as it does a run of
forty miles by main line, a wait of indefinite duration at a
junction furnished with no other facilities for recreation than a
weighing-machine and a printed and detailed record of the fate which
awaits persons who compass the awe-inspiring but cumbrous crime of
travelling-by-a-class-superior-to-that-to-which-the-ticket-in-their-
possession-entitles-them, and concluding with an interminable crawl
along a branch line, is not at first sight an enterprise that promises
much joyous adventure; but Nicky and Stiffy, who usually contrived to
keep _ennui_ at arm's-length, had a very tolerable time of it.
Their efforts at first were directed to securing an apartment to
themselves--an achievement which, when you come to think of it, fairly
epitomises the Englishman's outlook on life in general.
"Hang your face out of the window, Stiffy, my lad," commanded Nicky,
returning from an unsuccessful attempt to wheedle the guard into
labelling their carriage "engaged," "and play at Horatius Cocles till
the train starts. That ought to do the trick."
But no. At the last moment a crusty-looking old gentleman wrenched the
door open, nearly precipitating Horatius Cocles (and face) on to the
platform, and sat down with great determination in the corner seat. He
glared ferociously at the demure-looking pair before him, in a manner
which intimated plainly that he was too old a customer to be kept out
of his usual compartment by tricks of _that_ kind. After this he
produced _The Westminster Gazette_ from a handbag and began to read
it.
Nicky gave him five minutes. Then, turning to her brother and
scrutinising his freckled countenance, she observed in clear and
measured tones--
"I think they have let you out rather _soon_, John."
Stiffy, realising that he was the person addressed and that some fresh
game was afoot, looked as intelligent as possible, and waited. Daphne,
in the far corner of the carriage, hurriedly opened her husband's
letter and began to read it.
"The marks aren't all gone yet," continued Nicky, inspecting her
brother anxiously. "Are you still peeling?"
"Yes--I think so," said Stiffy, groping for his cue.
"Ah!" Nicky nodded her head judicially. "We must give you a carbolic
bath when we get you home."
_The Westminster Gazette_ emitted a perceptible crackle.
"It will never do," pursued Nicky, getting into her stride, "to have
you disfigured for life."
Stiffy, who was impervious to all reflections upon his personal
appearance, grinned faintly. Opposite, a scared and bulging eye slid
cautiously round the edge of _The Westminster Gazette_, and embarked
upon a minute and apprehensive inspection of the plague-stricken
youth. Nicky saw, and thrilled with gratification. She was on the
point of continuing when the train dived into a tunnel. Having no
desire that her schemes should go awry in the din, she waited.
The train came to a sudden and unexplained stop. Deathlike silence
reigned, broken only by murmurs of conversation from next door.
Presently in the gross darkness Nicky's voice was once more uplifted.
"By the way, is it infectious, or merely _contagious_? I meant to ask
when I called for you at the Institute"--she was rather proud of that
inspiration: an Institute sounded more terrifying and mysterious than
a Hospital--"but in the excitement of that last fainting-fit of yours
I forgot. Which is it?"
"Both, I think," said Stiffy, anxious to help.
"Ah! I feared as much. Still, things might be worse," commented Nicky
philosophically. "So many of these complaints are infectious in the
early stages, when no one suspects any trouble. Mumps, for instance,
or scarlet fever. But others, like yours, are only dangerous in the
convalescent stage, and then of course one knows exactly where one
is."
There was a crumpling of paper in the darkness, accompanied by a
shuffling of feet and a vibratory motion of the seat-cushions--all
indicative of the presence of one who knows exactly where _he_ is, and
regrets the fact exceedingly.
"The air is very close in here," resumed Nicky's voice. "I wonder----"
she whispered a sentence into Stiffy's ear, the only distinguishable
word in which was "germs." "Of course, I have _had_ it--slightly," she
added in a relieved tone.
Something moved again in the darkness opposite to them, and then came
a sound as of a window being cautiously slid open.
"Still, I _think_," replied Stiffy solicitously--as usual he was
warming up to the game slowly but surely--"that it would be wiser for
you to keep your mouth closed and breathe through your nose. One
cannot be too careful."
"All right," said Nicky.
Once again silence reigned. But presently there fell upon the ears of
the conspirators, rendered almost incredulous by joy, an unmistakable
and stertorous sound, as of some heavy and asthmatic body taking in
air through unaccustomed channels.
Five minutes later the train, groaning arthritically, resumed its way
and crawled out of the tunnel into a station. Nicky and Stiffy,
blinking in the sudden daylight, beheld the reward of their labours. A
corpulent and rapidly ageing citizen, shrinking apprehensively into a
corner of the compartment and holding a small handbag upon his knees
as if with a view to instant departure, sat glaring malignantly upon
them. His face was mottled, his mouth was firmly closed, and he
breathed perseveringly through his nostrils.
Next moment he had flung open the door and was out upon the platform,
inhaling great gulps of vernal air and looking for the station-master.
"Stiffy, you darling! I'll never call you a fat-head again!" declared
Nicky, enthusiastically embracing her complacent accomplice. "That
notion of yours was simply _It!_ Daph, wasn't it splen--Hallo! Bless
me, Stiffy, if Daph isn't breathing through her nose too! Look!"
Certainly Daphne's lips were tightly compressed, but she turned to her
companions and smiled faintly.
"It's all right, kids," she said; "I think this carriage is overheated
or something. I shall be all right in a minute. Keep that window open,
Stiffy dear."
She was very white, but on emphatically declining Nicky's offer of
first aid she was left to herself, while her brother and sister
discussed the course to be followed in the event of another invasion
of the carriage. Like true artists, they scorned to achieve the same
effect by the same means twice running.
Meanwhile Daphne re-read her husband's letter.
"... I have waited six months, and as you display no
inclination to look facts in the face, I am compelled to take
the initiative myself. As far as I can gather from your
attitude, you seem to consider that things are very well as
they are. On this point I beg to differ from you. The present
situation must _end_. We must either come together again or
part for good on some definitely arranged terms.
"... As you have exhibited no desire to reconcile yourself to
me--your letter indicates that your sole object in returning
home is to play with your latest toy, the new house--I conclude
that you wish to remain your own mistress. I therefore place
the new house entirely at your disposal. You can draw money as
you require it from Coutts', and I will see to it that there is
always an adequate balance. I think, if you have no objection,
that it would be as well if I occasionally came to the house,
and occupied the bachelor suite off the billiard-room; but I
shall come and go without troubling you. We ought to make this
concession to appearances.
"I should not like your father, for instance, to be made
unhappy by the knowledge that his daughter and her husband
found it better to go their several ways.
"... As for the custody of the boy----"
A long, slow shudder rippled down Daphne's spine. Custody! There was a
horrible legal, end-of-all-things, divorce-court flavour about the
word.
"I think it would be a good scheme, Stiffy dear," broke in Nicky's
cheerful voice, "for you to pretend this time that you have just been
discharged from an asylum. I will be taking you home, and ..." Her
voice faded.
"... You will naturally like to have him with you while he is
a mere child. I will therefore leave him in your hands for the
present. Later, when he goes to a public school and University,
I think I should like him to be with me during his holidays.
When he grows up altogether, he must please himself about----."
Public School! University! Daphne turned sick and faint. Were the
provisions of this merciless letter to cover all eternity? What had
she done to deserve this?
"It would be a bright thought," continued Nicky's voice, returning
from a great distance, "to roll up your handkerchief into a ball and
put it right into your mouth. Then do something to attract their
attention, and when they are all looking, pull it right out with a
jerk, and mop and mow. _Can_ you mop and mow, Stiffy? Mop, anyhow!
Just before a station, you know, so that they can get out. If that
doesn't work, roll about on the cushions, and----."
Daphne detached her gaze from the flying landscape, and finished the
letter.
"Forgive me if I appear to have resorted to extreme or harsh
measures. I suppose I am a hard man: at any rate, I am not
pliable. I dare say if I had been differently built I might
have played the part of the modern husband with fair success,
and you could have picked your companions at will.
Unfortunately, I would rather die than permit you to impose
such a _regime_ upon me, as you seem prepared to do. The thing
is degrading. To my mind there can be no compromise, no
half-measures, between man and wife. It must be all in all, or
not at all....
"Lastly, Daphne, let me say how sorry I am that things have come
to this pass. I realise that it is my fault. I should not have
asked a young and inexperienced girl to marry me. You could not
be expected to know better: I might and should. And it is
because I realise and admit that the fault is mine, that I
refrain from attaching any blame to you or uttering any
reproaches. All I can do is to say that I am sorry, and make it
possible for you to go your way, unhampered as far as may be by
the ties of a marriage which should never have taken place.
"If I can at any time be of service to you, command me. I can
never forget that we have had our happy hours together."
Daphne folded up the letter with mechanical deliberation. The first
numbness was over. Her brain was clear again, and thoughts were
crowding in upon her. But two things overtopped all the others for the
moment.
The first was the realisation of the truth of her husband's words. The
old situation _had_ been impossible--as impossible as the new one was
inevitable. She saw that--at last. "All in all, or not at all," he had
said, and he was right.
The second was a sudden awakening to the knowledge that we never begin
really to want a thing in this world until we find we cannot have it.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
INTERVENTION.
"Madame," announced the major-domo of the Hotel Magnifique with a
superb gesture, "the post from England!"
"Thank you, Themistocle," said Mrs Carfrae. "But you are
over-generous: one of these letters is not for me."
She handed back an envelope.
Themistocle, needless to remark, was desolated at his own
carelessness, and said so. But the old lady cut him short.
"Don't distress yourself unduly, Themistocle. It is a mistake even an
English body might have made. There is not much difference between
Carfrae and Carthew."
The punctilious Themistocle refused to be comforted.
"But no, madame," he persisted; "I should have observed that the
letter addressed itself to a monsieur, and not a madame. Doubtless it
is intended for one of the English party who arrive this afternoon."
"An English party? Is my seclusion to be disturbed by the disciples of
the good Monsieur Cook?"
"Assuredly no, madame. These are English milords from Marseilles. The
Riviera season has been a failure: the mistral blows eternally.
Therefore the party abandons Cannes and telegraphs for apartments at
the Hotel Magnifique."
"Are they from London? Possibly I may be acquainted with some of them.
What are their names?"
Themistocle would inquire. He departed amid a whirlwind of bows,
leaving Mrs Carfrae to continue her _dejeuner_ in the sunny verandah
of her sitting-room. She came to Algiers every spring, and she came
unattended save for a grim-faced Scottish maid of her own age. It was
Mrs Carfrae's habit to assume that she and her wheeled chair were a
drag upon the world; and she systematically declined invitations to
join friends upon the Riviera. People, she explained, who would
otherwise have been playing tennis at the Beau Site or roulette at the
Casino would feel bound to relinquish these pursuits and entertain
her. So she came to Algiers by herself, this proud, lonely old lady.
"Carthew?" she mused. "That is the name of Johnny Carr's familiar
spirit. And that letter was in Johnny's handwriting. Well,
Themistocle, who are--stand _still_, man!"
Themistocle reluctantly curtailed an elaborate obeisance, and came to
attention. The leader of the expedition, he announced, was Milord the
Right Hon. Sir Hilton Bart., with Milady Hilton Bart. The names of the
other guests were not known, but there were eleven of them.
They arrived on the steamer that afternoon, and drove in an imposing
procession up the long and dusty hill that leads to Mustapha
Superieur, leaving Algiers--that curious combination of Mauretanian
antiquity and second-rate French provincialism--baking peacefully in
the hot sunshine below. As Themistocle had predicted, they came
unshepherded by the good Mr Cook. They were of the breed and caste
that has always found its own way about the world.
There was Sir Arthur Hilton, a slow-moving Briton of few words, with a
pretty wife of complementary volubility. There were one or two
soldiers on leave; there was a Cambridge don; there were three grass
widows. There were two newly emancipated schoolgirls, gobbling life in
indigestible but heavenly lumps. There was a tall and beautiful
damosel, with a demeanour which her admirers--and they were
many--described as regal, and which her detractors--and their name was
legion--described as affected; and whom her chaperon, Lady Hilton,
addressed as "Nina, dearest." And there was a squarely built,
freckle-faced young man with whom we are already acquainted. His name
was Jim Carthew.
Altogether they were a clean-bred, self-contained, easy-going band,
unostentatious but quietly exclusive--thoroughly representative of the
sanest and most reputable section of that variegated cosmos which
represents what Gallic students of British sociology term "Le Higlif."
Very few of them possessed much money: theirs was a stratum of society
to which money was no passport. You could have money if you liked,
they conceded, but you must have a good many other things first. Hence
the absence from their midst of Hoggenheimer and Aspasia.
Jim Carthew had not meant to come. Juggernaut had given him six weeks'
leave, for there had been an Autumn Session in town and an industrial
upheaval in the country, and the squire had worked early and late by
his knight's side. Consequently when the spring came Carthew was
summarily bidden to go to Scotland and fish. Without quite knowing
why, he went to Cannes instead, where Nina Tallentyre, attended by a
zealous but mutually-distrustful guard-of-honour, was enjoying herself
after her fashion under the inadequate wing of Lady Hilton. When the
exodus to Algiers was mooted, Carthew labelled his portmanteau London.
But he ultimately crossed the Mediterranean with the rest. He had
never seen Africa, he explained to himself.
Daphne was of the party too. (Possibly the reader has already
identified her as one of the three grass widows.) She had despatched
Master Brian Vereker Carr to Belton for a season, and joined the
Hiltons' party four weeks ago. The great new house in town stood
empty. After her husband's bombshell in February, she had felt bound
to do something to show her spirit. Another strike was brewing in the
north, so doubtless her lord and master would soon be congenially
occupied in starving his dependents into submission. Meanwhile her
duty was to herself. Domestic ties were at an end. She would enjoy
life.
She experienced no difficulty in the execution of this project. Every
one seemed anxious to assist her. Despite precautions, the fact that
all was not well in the house of Juggernaut was public property; and
the usual distorted rumours on the subject had set out upon their
rounds, going from strength to strength in the process. Daphne was
soon made conscious that people were sorry for her. Frivolous but
warm-hearted women were openly sympathetic. Large, clumsy men
indicated by various awkward and furtive acts of kindness that they
too understood the situation, but were too tactful to betray the fact.
Altogether Daphne was in a fair way to becoming spoiled. With all her
faults no one had ever yet been able or inclined to call her anything
but unaffected and natural; but about this time she began to assume
the virtuous and long-suffering demeanour of a _femme incomprise_. She
was only twenty-four, and few of us are able to refuse a martyr's
crown when it is pressed upon us.
Only her monosyllabic host--"The Silent Knight," his friends called
him, denying him his baronetcy in their zest for the nickname--was
unable to appreciate the extreme delicacy of the situation. He was a
plain man, Arthur Hilton, and hated mysteries.
"Why isn't that girl at home, lookin' after her husband, Ethel?" he
inquired of his wife one morning.
"I think she is happier with us, dear," replied Lady Hilton with
immense solemnity.
The Silent Knight emitted a subdued rumble, indicative of a desire to
argue the point, and continued--
"Happier--eh? Hasn't she got a baby, or somethin', somewhere? What the
dev----"
"Yes, dear, she _has_ a baby," replied his wife, rolling up her
fine eyes to the ceiling; "but I fear she has not been very
fortunate in her marriage. She was the daughter of a country
clergyman--_dreadfully_ poor, I understand--and wanted to improve
the family fortunes. There were eight or nine of them, so she took
this old man."
The Silent Knight's engine fairly raced.
"Old man be damned!" he observed with sudden heat. "Sorry, my dear!
But Jack Carr can't be more than forty-six. I'm forty-eight. I'm an
old man, too, I suppose! Back number--eh? One foot in the grave! You
lookin' about for my successor, Ethel--what?"
It was useless to explain to this obtuse and uxorious critic that a
young and sensitive girl cannot be expected to dwell continuously
beneath the roof of a husband whose tastes are not her tastes, who has
merely married her to keep house for him, and who neglects her into
the bargain. Not that this prevented Lady Hilton from endeavouring to
do so. When she had finished, her husband knocked the ashes out of his
pipe, and remarked--
"Can't make you women out. Here's old Juggernaut--best man _I_ ever
came across, and as kind as they make 'em--marries this little fool
of a girl and gives her everything she wants; and she goes off and
leaves him slavin' at his work, while she comes trapesin' about
here with a collection of middle-aged baby-snatchers and
knock-kneed loafers. Next thing, she'll start flirting; then she'll
fall in love with some bounder, and then there'll be the devil of a
mess. Rotten, I call it! Don't know what wives are comin' to
nowadays. Have _you_ goin' off next, Ethel--leavin' me and the
kids, and becomin' a Suffragette--what?"