ON THEIR HONEYMOON
Mr. and Mrs. Nash had been spending the afternoon in Arundel Park.
When they returned to their rooms at Littlehampton they were met by
the diminutive maid with a message.
"If you please, Mr. Stephen Morgan of Cloverlea called."
"Mr.---- who?" asked Mr. Nash. Mrs. Nash changed colour. The maid
repeated the visitor's name. "She must mean Morgan the butler; what
does he mean by coming here?"
"I--I can't think."
She was conscious of that sudden sickness which she had experienced
once before; all at once the room seemed to be whirling round and
round. The maid went on.
"He said he'd call again; he couldn't say quite when, but he'd
certainly call again before you left Littlehampton."
"Like his impudence! What on earth can the fellow mean? By the way,
Louisa, have you seen a letter-case of mine lying about?"
"No, sir, that I haven't."
Mr. Nash went into the next room, hurriedly. So soon as he was through
the door he saw the letter-case upon the mantelpiece, where Mr. Morgan
had left it. The sight of it seemed to surprise him.
"Who put it there? I'll swear I didn't. Louisa, have you been in here
since I went out?"
"No, sir; not once."
"Has Mrs. Lorrimer?"
"I don't think so, sir; she's been out; she only come in just before
you did."
He was searching the letter-case, turning it literally inside out.
Suddenly he went to the door.
"Louisa, come here!" Louisa came. He spoke to her in lowered tones, as
if he did not wish what he said to be heard in the next room, where
his wife still was. "Who was in when Mr. Morgan came?"
"If you please, sir, I was; Mrs. Lorrimer, she was out."
"Where you in all the time that he was here?"
"No, sir; I had to go out and do some errands."
"And was he alone in the house while you were gone?"
"Yes, sir; he was outside the front door when I came back; it was then
he gave me the message about his calling again."
So surprising a look came on Mr. Nash's face that the girl shrunk
back, almost as if she had been afraid that he would strike her. He
went back into the bedroom, shutting the door with a bang. He stood
glaring about him, as if beside himself with rage. Then, with an
effort, he steadied himself. Again he turned the letter-case inside
out, going carefully through the papers it contained. Then he searched
the room so methodically that even a pin could hardly have escaped his
notice, moving every article it contained, his wife's trunks, his own
boxes, even turning down the bedclothes and looking under the pillows,
going down on his knees to peer under the bed. When all his hunting
came to nothing he leaned his elbows on the mantelpiece and shut his
eyes, as if suffering physical pain.
In the next room his wife was fighting a fight of her own. So soon as
he left her she dropped on to a chair, as if her legs refused her
support. A curious change had come over her face, and her lips were
twitching; she looked furtively about her, as if she was afraid of she
knew not what. When she heard the bedroom door banged, and she knew
that her husband had dismissed the maid, she called, "Louisa," softly;
so softly that one wondered if she wished to be heard.
But Louisa did hear, appearing with a startled visage in the doorway.
"Who--who did Mr. Morgan ask for?"
The question was put so softly that it was nearly whispered; the
speaker's tongue and lips seemed parched.
"Please, ma'am, he asked for you."
"For me? What--what did he say?"
"Please, ma'am, he said 'Is Mrs. Nash in?'"
"Mrs. Nash? You're sure he said Mrs. Nash?"
"Yes, ma'am, quite sure."
"And when you told him I wasn't in, did he ask for Mr. Nash?"
"No, ma'am; he said he'd wait."
"How--how long did he wait?"
"Maybe twenty minutes, maybe half-an-hour; please, ma'am, I couldn't
say exactly."
"And did he seem angry?"
"No, ma'am; quite pleasant. He gave me a shilling as he was going."
"A shilling! Oh! Now tell me, exactly, what was the message he left."
"If you please, ma'am, he told me to tell you exactly what he said, so
I took particular notice." She repeated word for word what Mr. Morgan
had said; Mrs. Nash listening with singular intentness, as if her
attention was fixed not so much on the actual words as on what was
behind them. When the girl had finished she sat still, as if
pondering. Louisa roused her. "If you please, ma'am, can I lay for
supper?"
Mrs. Nash rose with a little jump.
"Supper! of course; how silly I am! I was quite forgetting about
supper. Certainly, Louisa, you can lay for supper; I--I think I'm
quite ready for it." When she went into the bedroom her husband was
still standing with his elbows on the mantelpiece and his face to the
wall. As she entered he looked round with a start; the pair stood
looking at each other as if each was taken aback by something which
was on the other's face. She spoke first, in a voice which seemed to
tremble. "Herbert, what--what's the matter?"
"The matter?" He laughed, a forced laugh. "Nothing's the matter; why
do you ask what's the matter?"
"You're--you're looking so strange."
"That's your imagination, my dear. What is the matter is that I've got
a touch of headache--one of my mother's headaches; you remember what
I've told you about the headaches she used to have. I fancy the sun
was stronger than I thought."
"I didn't notice it; you said nothing about it."
"No; I didn't notice it at the time. I expect that what I want is my
supper; it'll be better after I've had something to eat."
"Have you found your letter-case?"
"Oh yes, yes; I've found my letter-case; I must have dropped it out of
my pocket as I was putting on my coat--very stupid of me; but I've
found it all right. Anyhow there wasn't anything in it of very great
consequence, so it wouldn't have mattered much if I hadn't."
It was a curious meal, that supper of theirs. It was as if ghosts sat
with them at the table; phantoms of horror; one by his side, and one
at hers, whose presence each hoped was hidden from the other.
Conversation languished, and they were in general so talkative; the
efforts they made to disguise their incapacity for speech were
pathetic. Their appetites were as poor as their talking powers, and
that although each had professed to be ready to make an excellent
meal. He ate little, and what he did eat was with an obvious effort;
she ate still less, each mouthful seemed to choke her. When the
make-believe repast was at an end Mr. Nash got up.
"I'm afraid my headache isn't much better; I think I'll go for a turn
on the front; the night air may do it good."
She also rose.
"It won't take me a minute to put on my hat; I'll come with you."
He was not so pleased at her suggestion as he might have been.
"I think, if you don't mind, I'll go alone; I don't feel as if I were
in a mood for company."
She seemed hurt.
"Oh, Herbert, don't leave me behind! I won't keep you waiting; I'll
come without my hat."
But he still professed unwillingness for her society, speaking almost
roughly.
"Don't I tell you I'd sooner go alone? Can't you take a hint?"
It was the first time he had spoken to her like that since they had
been married, which was not so very long ago. Had he struck her he
could not have hurt her more. When he had gone, without another word,
or a kiss, or a sign of tenderness, she sat staring at the nearly
untouched meal, and shivered, although the night was warm. What had
happened to Herbert, to have produced such a change in his manner?
Could Morgan have left a note for him, or a message for his own
private ear; or dropped a hint; or communicated with him without her
knowledge? As Louisa cleared away the supper things she cross-examined
her. The girl told all that she had to tell again; Elaine could find
nothing in her story which would account for the singularity of her
husband's demeanour; but on one point she fastened, when the maid told
her that she had left the visitor in the house alone.
With Mr. Morgan in sole possession of the premises, Elaine saw instant
possibilities. What might he not have been doing while Louisa was out?
He might--he certainly might have intruded himself in her bedroom; if
he had gone so far he might have gone much farther. At the thought of
what he might have done she felt inclined to shake Louisa for giving
him the chance of doing it; instead, however, of assaulting the maid
she hurried off to learn, if she could, what he had done.
Apparently nothing. So far as she could perceive everything in the
bedroom remained untouched, just as she had left it. She opened her
trunk, and took out her dressing-case, to make sure; she kept her
dressing-case in her locked trunk for greater security. Herbert
laughed at her for her caution, but she did not mind; she knew its
secret, he did not. After all it was perhaps as well he had left her
behind; she never had a chance of peeping at her hidden hoard while he
was there. Morgan had not touched that; that was safe enough. She
examined it with feverish fingers, fearful every moment of her
husband's return. The tale of the money was correct; nothing was
missing there.
When she had done counting she hesitated, and thought, a big bundle of
notes in her hand. She slipped some of them into the bosom of her
dress--notes for a hundred pounds. Now that Morgan had thrust himself
again upon the scene they might be wanted; anything might happen; she
might not be able to get at her store at a moment's notice, with
Herbert always hovering round. She was just as anxious to keep the
secret of her hiding-place from her husband as from Morgan, or from
any one.
She had not long returned the dressing-case to the trunk, and locked
the trunk, and placed the notes representing a hundred pounds in a
more convenient spot than her bodice, when her husband returned. As he
came bustling into the bedroom she perceived at once that his mood had
changed. He put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her, rather
boisterously; his breath told her he had been drinking.
"Hello, old girl! that headache's better; the stroll has done it
good."
She wondered if it was the stroll or the refreshment he had taken; she
had already discovered that stimulants made of him another man; even
after one bottle of ale he was not the same man he had been before.
Her cue was to ignore the part which alcohol might have played in
affecting a cure.
"I am so glad you're better, dear; I know what it is to have a
headache; I believe I've got one. Please mayn't I go out on to the
common now?"
He laughed at her, lifting her off her feet.
"I'll carry you," he said.
And he did; out of the house, across the road, not putting her down
till he had borne her on to the grass; then, running the risk of what
eyes there might be about to see, she gave him a kiss to pay for
porterage. Presently they were, outwardly, on proper honeymooning
terms again, each making a gallant, and not wholly unsuccessful,
effort to shut out from actual vision the ghosts which kept step at
their sides. When they had retired to rest Herbert Nash said to his
wife--
"Do you know, I think I have had about enough of Littlehampton; what
do you say?"
"I say what you say; only the question is, wherever shall we go to?
and when?"
"There are heaps of places we can go to; and as for when, we can leave
this to-morrow. I'll think it over."
He thought it over; all through the night he lay thinking, with
wide-open eyes, and so did she. But they did not leave on the morrow,
nor the next day. And on the morning of the third day there came a
letter addressed to "Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Nash," which Mr. Nash, being
first at the breakfast table, opened. It ran--
"DEAR FRIENDS,
"Mrs. Lorrimer's servant will have told you that I called to see you,
and also that I propose to call again. Apart from the pleasure which I
anticipate from meeting you once more, I have something of the utmost
importance which I wish to say to both of you. As I believe you have
no pressing engagements, I confidently hope that you will not leave
Littlehampton till I have had an opportunity of saying it. I will let
you have a wire, advising you of my coming, and shall be glad if you
will leave word at the house where, at any moment, you are to be
found, as I should not like to miss you a second time.
"Adding my congratulations to the numerous expressions of goodwill
which, I do not doubt, you have already received on the auspicious
occasion of your marriage, believe me to be,
"Yours most sincerely,
"STEPHEN MORGAN."
Mr. Nash was reading this epistle a second time when his wife came in.
"What have you got there?" she asked.
He looked up with a frown, seeming to hesitate about what to say, then
answered--
"It's from that fellow Morgan; the most insolent, presumptuous scrawl.
What he's driving at I can't imagine; the fellow must be stark,
staring mad."
If Mr. Nash had been in an observant mood he might have noticed that
the smile which had been on his wife's face gave way to quite a
different expression, and that she shivered, as she always did do when
Mr. Morgan's name was mentioned.
"What does he say? Let me look at his letter."
He was folding it up, as with the intention of consigning it to his
pocket unseen by his wife; at her point-blank request he seemed to
hesitate, then tossed it to her across the table.
"If you can explain what the fellow means by sending a letter like
that I can't; it's beyond me altogether." As she read he commented.
"Fancy calling us 'Dear friends.'"
"What an extraordinary thing for him to do."
"A butler!"
"It's quite inexplicable."
"What on earth has he to say to us which is of the least importance?"
"That's it; what can he have?"
"He practically orders us not to leave the place till it pleases him
to come."
"It does--it does amount to that, doesn't it?"
"Fancy his telling us to let them know in the house where, at any
moment, we're to be found, as if the one thing to be considered was
his sovereign pleasure!"
"That is really remarkable."
"Remarkable! I should say so; remarkable is a mild way of putting it.
I've half-a-mind to pack directly after breakfast and leave the place
this morning; the idea of his attempting to dictate to us! As I say,
the only explanation I can think of is that the fellow's stark,
staring mad."
"That--that must be it."
Mr. Nash continued to comment on Mr. Morgan's insolent epistle while
he trifled with his breakfast; but it was noticeable that he only
trifled. If he had had an appetite it had vanished; it seemed as if
the man's impertinence must have affected him more than he would have
cared to own. It was the same with his wife, she had no appetite
either. Indeed, when one came to think of it, neither of them had
eaten much since they had first heard of Mr. Morgan's call. The fact
had even been noticed by the landlady.
"I can't think what's the matter with them all at once," she declared
to her diminutive maid, Louisa. "They used to eat heartily enough; as
you know, I remarked on it to you."
"Yes, Mrs. Lorrimer, that you did."
"But these last couple of days they've scarcely touched a thing.
There's been nothing the matter with the food, and I'm sure there's
been nothing the matter with the cooking; it must be them that's
wrong."
When breakfast was finished--such a breakfast as it was; even the
soles went out practically as they came in--Mrs. Nash went to put on
her hat preparatory to going out with her husband on to the front, as
she usually did on fine mornings; he with a newspaper, and she with a
book. That morning the process was a lengthy one; she seemed
preoccupied, as if her mind was so full that there was no room in it
for her hat. She moved restlessly about the room, as if her thoughts
kept her in motion. All at once it seemed that she arrived at a sudden
resolution.
"I know what I'll do; I'll get Herbert to go; we will go, before he
comes; we'll go to-day. I'll talk to Herbert directly we get outside.
I believe he wants to go as much as I do; though I--I don't know why.
And this time we won't stay in England; we'll go abroad, as far away
as ever we can; somewhere where that wretch can't get at us; and--and
we'll leave no address behind."
While the lady so resolved the gentleman--unconscious of her
resolution--waited for her on the doorstep. As he waited he saw,
advancing towards the house on a bicycle, a telegraph boy. Some
instinct induced him to leave that doorstep and move to meet him.
"Got a telegram for me--Nash?"
"Nash? Yes, sir." The boy jumped off; he produced the familiar yellow
envelope. "Herbert Nash."
"That's for me; that's all right. Wait while I see if there's an
answer." He tore the envelope open; this was the message it contained:
"Coming by the train due 12.28. You had better meet me at the station
alone.--STEPHEN MORGAN." "There is no answer," Mr. Nash informed the
boy.
The boy got on his machine and rode away. Mr. Nash read that telegram
again, then stuffed it into his jacket pocket, swearing beneath his
breath. He looked quite ugly when he swore. He glanced at his watch,
as if to make sure about the time, then returned to his place upon the
doorstep. He said nothing about the telegram to his wife.