Did women in Society ever “speak” to other women, when a man dear to
them both was concerned?
Had such an outrageous course ever been pursued since the days when
Chriemhild “spoke” to Gudrun in the midst of the Rhine stream?
Little Lady Greenwell pondered this, time after time, day after day,
as she sat dressed in her ineffectual Paris best, alone, in crowds, in
sunlight gardens, lamp-lit ball-rooms, unlit boudoirs arranged for
cosy gossiping teas. She never talked gossip, but she listened to it.
A great deal of it covertly was about herself, or rather about her
husband. That was one of the reasons why she felt that she ought to
speak--speak kindly, seriously, effectively.
She fully meant to tell Cynthia what it was her duty to tell her, but
she could not make up her mind to take the first plunge into
unconventionality.
So, she sat about through a whole season, watching Sir Hilary’s social
triumphs--she herself never triumphed--and arranged her speech,
carefully composing it beforehand, rehearsing it, canvassing the
relative claims of diplomacy and frankness, fulness and brevity,
emotion or matter of fact. What arguments should she use, and which
let go? Which, having regard to the character of Cynthia Chenies,
would be likely to affect that volatile lady most? Should she plead
her own years the more, her own looks the less? Should she take high
moral grounds?
Should she put forward the young widow’s personal expediency? It all
depended on what form of admonishment Cynthia would take best.
Lady Greenwell was honest enough to admit to herself that she proposed
to lecture Cynthia as much for her own good, as Cynthia’s. Truly, she
felt that it would be a difficult thing to keep self out of it, or as
much in the background as possible.
“Just you let my man alone!”
That was what Kate of Wapping would have said to Peg of Limehouse, and
no more ado, but could Lady Greenwell of Highfields, Hungerford, and
50, Carlton House Terrace so bluntly declare herself to the Honourable
Mrs. Chenies of Portland Place? Did well-bred women do these things?
It seemed at once so absurdly simple, just as you might ask some one
to take his foot off your dress and no offence, and at the same time
so appallingly impossible a thing to do. Women in Society were not
supposed to show when they were annoyed, ask for explanations, or to
“act straight.”
How they suffered in consequence of these absurd fetishes of conduct
they set up, women alone knew. Moreover, such a subject, even if it
were fairly and squarely discussed between two exceptional women,
would represent the merely primitive appeal of the one to the other’s
generosity, and generosity, though permissible in Wapping or Limehouse
is not the “thing” in Mayfair or Portland Place.
Yet some women were really and truly generous at heart--Cynthia was,
she was sure. Had it not been for the presence between them of this
male bone of contention, Sir Hilary, Lady Greenwell would have been
quite fond of Cynthia Chenies. She did not dislike her even now, when
Cynthia was making her so uncomfortable, and she admired her
sincerely, her frocks and her style. Hilary did, and she could not
help following suit in this as in all else.
And, naturally, Cynthia could not help liking Hilary and his open
attentions. Who could help liking Hilary and complying with him when
he chose to flirt, and he always did choose? He was a born flirt, and
he was eight years younger than his wife. Wives, who were burdened
with odious supernumerary years, must, of course, give their man a
little rope, and Mabel Greenwell gave hers a good deal.
Hilary Greenwell was a traveller, who came home and wrote books about
it. He danced and dashed through a season, and then packed up and went
to risk his life on some inaccessible mountain or other. Of course,
when he came back, brown as a berry, and with sheaves of notes and
measurements, he was the rage, and women simply “clawed him” for their
parties, and adored him for their boudoirs.
Cynthia Chenies was no exception to the rule. Though a widow, she was
little more than a girl, and looked a mere child. At the parties she
gave in her big house, so Hilary would say, you always expected to see
the dolls set up, and find pips in the orange juice soup, and have to
mumble the “pretend” biscuit joint. Child-like, she knew no measure in
her appreciation of the handsome traveller returned, and people were
saying now that she was making a fool of herself, and that Lady
Greenwell didn’t like it.
They were wrong there, Lady Greenwell wasn’t jealous at all. She was
sure of Hilary, and would not have insulted him by display of vulgar
jealousy. The effect of the scandal on her only amounted to
discomfort. Great discomfort she might say, and even annoyance, and a
few wet pillowed nights, loyally concealed from Hilary. She was
neither young nor beautiful: it behoved her to be clever. She could,
she knew, keep his love, though she was unable to restrain those loose
tendrils of his fancy which waved airily to and fro, catching here and
there temporarily on the fair upstanding flowers that bloomed every
year in the great parterre of London’s garden of seasonal delights.
Hilary loved her and her only. She must do nothing foolish.
Whatever she felt, whatever she said to Cynthia Chenies, must be a
secret for Sir Hilary, a matter between Cynthia and herself. Some
women--fools!--thought little Lady Greenwell--would have rushed at
once to their husband with an appeal or a command, to “put a stop to
it at once,” thus definitely estranging the coveted man without
affecting the issue in the desired way. No, it rested with her and her
alone, to convince Cynthia of the awkwardness of the situation created
by Cynthia’s careless compliance with the fancies of the irresponsible
Hilary, a situation merely irksome to his wife, but positively
injurious to his wife’s friend. Great interests on either hand were
not concerned. No one’s heart was in it.
Punctuality was Lady Greenwell’s virtue--consequently her husband’s
too. She sat on the sofa at the Creswicks’, fan in hand, handkerchief
in lap. The man who was going to take her in stood over her chair,
uttering the usual commonplaces, when the door opened to admit one
single, smiling lady--Cynthia Chenies, late as usual, wearing the
cluster of flowers she always wore, and that every one attributed to
Sir Hilary’s devotion. Lady Greenwell happened to know that Mrs.
Chenies ordered them at the florist’s for herself. But how could she
tell people that!
She saw, what, of course, other people saw, Cynthia’s careless
delicately possessive glance at Sir Hilary, a glance that effectually
singled him out, as it were, from a group of like patterned men,
clustered about the fireplace. So stupid of Cynthia! Nothing else, of
course. Lady Greenwell knew, as well as if she had been told, that
Betty Creswick would send the two in together. Suppose she spoke to
Betty Creswick, and asked her not to join the tacit conspiracy that
prevails in well-regulated, pleasure-loving society, to give the
woman, whenever it is possible, to the man she is supposed to want?
Never! She would die sooner! For Society would resent such an
anti-social proposal and protect its own joys and convenience.
It must go on although it was making her miserable. Would this
wretched season never come to an end? Not that she need expect to find
any intermission of her troubles even then! For there would come
visits, “country-housing” up and down the length and breadth of
England and Scotland, the three would be asked constantly to meet each
other. She had been so nice to Cynthia, that people all thought that
Lady Greenwell had accepted it. There would be no rest for her till
the late autumn, when Sir Hilary had agreed to go with a party of men
on an expedition to locate a continent somewhere. He would be away for
four months.
As a loving wife she ought to have dreaded this approaching
separation; she was shocked to realize that in her heart of hearts,
she was looking forward to it. She would not see the light of his
countenance, but then, neither would the other! Jealousy makes sad
dogs-in-the-manger of us all. And she would have the delight of his
frequent letters. That is, unless he wrote to Cynthia too?
If only she had had a child! Cynthia had one, Cynthia, a widow, with
no husband now to bind faster to her side therewith! What a pity it
all was!
Dinner was announced. Sir Hilary gave Cynthia his arm, with a certain
look… proud… protecting… sheepish rather.… Yes, she _must_ speak.
She placed her hand lightly on the sleeve of she knew not whom, and
followed Hilary and Cynthia into the dining-room. She was miserable,
she was sure that Hilary, had he but known how unhappy she was making
herself, would have tried at once to alter his line of conduct. And he
would have failed! Of that, too, she was sure. Man can do nothing in
this line, of himself alone, save by the grace of the woman who is
leading him astray. It was settled; she must speak to Cynthia!
Cynthia Chenies, who was not lacking in perception, realized at once
the meaning of the innocently diplomatic, intensely special glance
which Lady Greenwell, placed exactly opposite, fixed upon her, as soon
as everybody was seated.
“_Mabel Greenwell means to speak to me!_”
She could harbour no other thought, from the fish onward. She was a
nervous, lazy woman, and the fear of a “woman’s row” was intensely
repugnant to her. She hated fuss about men, and bad form, and
unconventionality of any kind. Her affair with Sir Hilary, whatever it
might mean to her, was openly, at least, quite within the bounds of
her world’s convention, and she deeply resented any attempt on Lady
Greenwell’s part to draw it out of its limbo of self-chosen vagueness.
To herself, she was willing to admit that she loved Sir Hilary very
well, nay, desperately. She was less willing to admit that she
suffered over this illicit attachment, and yet did suffer a good deal,
for she was a good woman, and Lady Greenwell a healthy woman, so the
chances were she would never get him honestly.
She knew Sir Hilary loved her, was fond of Mabel, and respected them
both. That being the case, he would not do either of them a wrong for
the whole world.
There it was! What an _impasse_! Three scrupulously honourable people
caught in a net! No issue but death, and she could not contemplate
even Mabel’s death with equanimity. Mabel had been very kind to her,
and she and Mabel would have been the greatest friends if Sir Hilary
had not stood between them.
Though she pitied Mabel for her age, her plainness, she could not help
feeling a little angry with Mabel for having presumed to marry Sir
Hilary; she should not have allowed Hilary to persuade her that she
was a suitable wife for him. Hilary was so plausible. Once, however,
having committed the initial error, Mabel should not have hoped to
keep him, except by courtesy.
She knew Sir Hilary well enough not to feel obliged to talk to him, so
she plodded imperturbably through the menu, eating a good deal to
justify her taciturnity. “Oh, I am so hungry,” she said once or twice,
“I have been down to Brighton to-day to see the boy!”
Sir Hilary never worried. He quietly looked after her, gave her her
own way now as ever. She was heedless, he safeguarded her reputation
as well as he could. He never wrote to her when he was away; she would
have forgotten to destroy his letters. He called on her not too often;
he dined with her now and then, generally with his wife. There was no
need to compromise her by overt acts of this sort. The mad, bad,
sympathetic world was kind enough to cater for the indulgence of their
affection; in all the ragôuts of society were they skilfully
combined, and discreet opportunities of meeting served up to them
daily, with the result that every one was happy and amused, except
Lady Greenwell, who had been born and bred in the country and never
could acquire London’s cynical tone.
Once or twice, however, before this evening, Cynthia had suspected
some such strata of unsuspected bourgeois feeling in Mabel. She almost
wished Betty Creswick would not be so kind to Hilary and herself, and
a little kinder to Mabel. She sometimes even avoided dull parties
where she knew he was going. Not so Sir Hilary, he had no scruples of
this kind. He adored her, he told her so--“and as there’s nothing
wrong about it all, why shouldn’t we see as much of each other as
people will let us?”
“Ah, but other people----”--an ellipsis for Mabel, whom it pleased her
to mention to him as little as possible. But he understood, in his
breezy, butterfly way.
“Mabel is all right. Mabel’s a good sort, and understands me. She
isn’t such a fool as to trouble about gossip.”
He never said more. It was tacitly assumed between them that Mabel was
awfully fond of him and all that, but “demonstrations would simply
bore her, you know.” Meanwhile, he loved Cynthia with every fibre of
his being--all save the domestic ones, it was understood--she was his
Egeria, his goddess, his good angel, the woman he thought of last
thing at night and the first thing on waking, in the jungle, on the
veldt, on the frozen Himalayan slope. He was hers--hers only. No one
else cared, not even Mabel, who had “settled down.”
Cynthia Chenies hardly realized it, but this passion had come to be
her life. She breathed and dressed but for Hilary. She was a cold
woman, and content with its platonic manifestations, but she
technically regretted the immense waste exemplified in the position of
the lover, tied for all his days to two women, neither of whom was or
could be everything to him.
She caught Mabel’s eye now and again full of timid reticences and
prudent punctilios, but expressing over and above all others, the
simple emotion that betrayeth itself in speech.
“I must speak, or burst!” the poor woman fancied Mabel saying, and
shivered over her chocolate _mousse_.
The moment came. Sir Hilary left soon after dinner to attend an
Ethnological Society’s meeting, and Lady Greenwell timidly offered to
motor Mrs. Chenies home. For some fateful reason or other, that lady’s
brougham was not forthcoming.
“It is frightfully out of your way, Mabel!” argued the trapped fly.
Gently, but firmly, the spider informed her that a mere difference of
a mile and a quarter did not in the least constitute
out-of-the-wayness, and the hostess settled it by her vague
encouragements.
“So nice of you to chaperon each other like that!”
Mrs. Chenies hardly grasped the significance of Lady Creswick’s remark
until the knees of Lady Greenwell and herself were safely stowed under
the same bearskin rug.
“I wanted to speak to you, Cynthia,” began Lady Greenwell honestly,
without preface or pretence.
“Did you?” replied the other, shrinking as far away from her companion
as she could into the corner of the motor. Then, collecting herself,
she said, “You can, you know.”
“It is a little difficult for me--but then--I must remember it is for
your good, Cynthia.”
“Oh, for my good!” exclaimed Mrs. Chenies, stung by the familiar, too
familiar exordium. “You must remember I am not a mere girl--I am a
widow.”
“That is just it,” continued Lady Greenwell, delighted. “A young
and”--with a gulp--“pretty widow.”
“Oh, don’t mention it,” the other begged her flippantly.
Though her tone grated on and disturbed Lady Greenwell, that lady
continued, almost apologetically--
“That is the right way to take it, dear, not seriously! Just a little
hint, you know--laugh about it as much as you like when I am done, but
listen to me for a minute.…! Could you not contrive, dear, to see a
little less of Hilary--my husband?”
“I know he’s your husband, Mabel, well enough!” Mrs. Chenies jerked
out crossly. “And I don’t see so much of him as all that!”
“Oh, I know, dear, I know all about your friendship--your intimacy…
it’s nothing at all, nothing at all… Only you see people will talk.”
“Yes, bother them!”
“We mustn’t pay too much attention to gossip, of course, but we owe it
to--ourselves, to take some notice of what is said. You may want to
marry again?”
“Never!”
“Oh, don’t say that!” pleaded the other pitifully. “You are sure
to--so young and pretty. But don’t you think, that meantime, that
people should couple your name and Hilary’s is prejudicial--rather to
you? Of course, I know----”
“What?”
“That there is nothing at all serious between you--nothing at all,
Hilary”--she blurted out the indecent fact--“Hilary is devoted to me,
and always has been, he has never swerved for the fraction of an
instant. Besides, he would not----”
“Would not what?”
“Oh, Cynthia, you do make it so difficult! You seem so stony.… You
aren’t offended?”
“No, of course not, I only wanted to know what it was Hilary wouldn’t
do?”
Her careless use of the beloved’s name hurt Lady Greenwell a good
deal. She drew herself up--
--“Would not allow himself to make love to another woman during his
wife’s lifetime. You may as well take that for granted. Only--he is
younger than I, and heedless, and you are most attractive, while I am
a plain woman, well-dressed. And the world thinks, of course, the
usual thing! Oh! Cynthia, help me! And it would not matter, of course,
if it were not for you and your reputation, though I can’t deny that
it makes me very uncomfortable to hear him lightly spoken of.”
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“I said what. See less of him. See him only at my house.”
“Will you give him your orders, then, not to call at mine?”
“Dear Cynthia, how could I do that? What do you think of me?”
“I think you are like all women--want to get some one else to pull the
chestnuts out of the fire for you. Why should I do your dirty work?
And it would not do either, I couldn’t forbid him my house without
creating remark, and doing exactly what you don’t want done--getting
him talked about. Nor can I go and tell Betty Creswick not to send us
in to dinner together----”
“Of course you can’t tell her, but there are methods----”
“And I refuse to employ them, and let all the world think I am doing
it because I have a guilty conscience or because you have been making
a scene. You don’t want that surely?”
“No.” She shuddered. “Then it has been no use my speaking,
practically? And, Cynthia, you can have no idea what it has cost me!”
“I am truly sorry, but, indeed, dear, this sort of carriage lecture
never does any good. You can’t have straight talks to women. No woman
can employ another woman to help keep her husband for her--it really
isn’t done.”
“Keep my husband! But have I not been telling you, Cynthia, all this
time, that if I thought for one moment that my husband had been
unfaithful to me in word, or thought, or deed, I would not have spoken
to anybody at all about it, I would just have died! It is precisely
because I do believe in him----”
“Then it makes it quite simple--go on believing in him. You may,”
replied the other woman, drily, as the carriage stopped at the door of
her own house. “Good-night, Mabel! Thank you for the lift.”
“And are you cross, Cynthia? Believe me, I meant well.”
“You meant well by yourself, eh, dear? Just realize that you were
speaking for yourself----”
“Oh, Cynthia, you _are_ cruel.”
“Yes, but honest. Think it over. Let it all be as if it hadn’t been.
Shall I kiss you?” She paused, with a light foot on the step.
“Yes, please. You know I am really fond of you, Cynthia, but you seem
to have beaten me.”
“Oh, no!” asseverated Mrs. Chenies, “only convinced you that these
sort of things can’t be done.”
They kissed.
“I had doubts about the wisdom of it at the time,” murmured Lady
Greenwell. “I thought you might say it was tactless. Hilary says I
have no tact.”
“Never mind, you are sure he loves you, and that’s better than
tact--that’s everything!”
Mrs. Chenies was shaking out her skirts on the pavement, pulling out
her latch key.…
“So that’s all right. There’s an end of it----”
“Yes, and come to dinner to-morrow night, will you?”
“Yes, dear. Good-night!”
Two hands met and clasped over the window-bar of the carriage. Lady
Greenwell watched her friend in, and whirled away. Mrs. Chenies rushed
impulsively upstairs to her room, and threw herself on her bed in an
agony of weeping. They were tears both for herself and Mabel.
* * * * * * *
It was a year later. Mrs. Chenies in modified mourning--for she had
made herself as black as she dared--rang for admittance at the door of
Greenwell House. The very house seemed in mourning. It used to be
furnished exotically, with variegated hangings and things Hilary had
brought back from abroad. Cynthia shivered. She had been sent for.
Why? Why did Mabel Greenwell want to see her? The cords of their
friendship had been sensibly loosened. It was perhaps as well. They
mourned in their separate corners--of London.
She was ushered into the presence of a little woman whose deep
official weeds seemed almost to obliterate her slight frame and make
her fade into the surrounding blackness. She rushed at and clung to
her handsome visitor, and kissed her mournfully and deliberately on
both cheeks.
“Dear, dear Cynthia, how good of you to come to me!”
“Dearest Mabel, how good of you to be willing to see me!”
“Oh, I wanted you--somehow--so much! I believe, when all is said and
done, Cynthia, I am fonder of you than I am of any one!”
Mrs. Chenies winced and suffered herself to be kissed again on both
cheeks. She looked extremely handsome in her glowing purples and
blues. The widow’s inexpressive eyes were merely dimmed and bleared by
her tears, those of Cynthia Chenies shone, and she was not so silly as
to redden the lids by dabbing them with a handkerchief, as Lady
Greenwell did.
“He was so fond of you, Cynthia! He has left you to me as a sort of
legacy. We often spoke of you.”
Cynthia started. It had surely been a tacit convention between herself
and the dead Hilary, that--
“Yes, I ventured at last to tell him about that talk I had with you
once, and he took it just as you did. He laughed at me and said that I
had no right to worry you with that sort of thing and that you were
perfectly justified in being ‘short’ with me, as you were, Cynthia,
you know. He thought it very nice of you to forgive me and go on
seeing us as usual.”
“Yes, yes, but I saw very little of him alone after that.”
“He went away so soon after, didn’t he? That was perhaps a good
thing--it gave one time----”
“I don’t think you had any need to tell him.”
“Oh, my dear, what could it matter? There was such perfect confidence
between us, and I preferred that a trifling incident like that should
not be allowed to interfere with it. Surely you don’t mind?”
“Not now!” replied Cynthia Chenies, with an effort. “And I suppose you
had a perfect right to do as you liked about it.”
“That’s all right then. And Hilary said--dear thing!--when he left me
to go on that wretched expedition that killed him, that I was to be as
nice to you as I could, and see as much of you as you would allow me
to do, and so I have, and so I mean to.”
“Don’t, don’t cry so, dear!”
“Oh, do let me cry--it helps me! And how can I help it, when I think
of the dearest husband ever woman had, lost to me, gone--gone--killed,
out there alone, among horrid savages.… Why, Cynthia, you are crying
too!”
“I can’t help it either,” said the other savagely, disdaining to wipe
her tears away.
“Cynthia, you were fond of him, too--now don’t say you were not!”
“I was.”
Lady Greenwell rose. She looked taller. She looked grim.
“And that is the reason I thought--I made up my mind that you were the
proper person to consult about this.…”
“This?” asked the other, following the direction of those sad sunken
eyes.
“Yes! It was his last wish, Cynthia!” Lady Greenwell pointed to a
large bulging packet lying, with a magnificent despatch box, close to
her elbow, and continued, in her thin, nervous, passionate voice--
“You know, when he got ill over there--it came on so gradually--he
never ceased writing to me till the very last--he got his secretary to
send home the MS. of his new book to me. He wanted me to see to the
publication of it. I was to edit it, if he never came back to do it
himself--and I was to ask you to be co-editress.”
“Good God!”
“Oh, don’t be frightened, dear, there is nothing to do, it is all
done. I did it, only, as he said you were to see it, before it came
out, I could not but prepare to carry out his dear wishes. And now I
must tell you, as he is gone, I should like to call it _Memorials of a
Noble Soul_, something like that, and add some of his letters to me. I
have them all here, in this despatch box, I never destroyed a single
line of dear darling Hilary’s----”
“They will make a most interesting book!” murmured Mrs. Chenies,
looking away.
“Yes, won’t they, only, of course,” Lady Greenwell breathed softly,
with a watery smile of triumph, “they will want some editing. They are
too intimate, too personal for the ear of the general public. It could
not be otherwise. But, still, I don’t think the public should lose
because he was in love with his wife, do you?”
“No, certainly not.”
“There is a great deal in them of purely general interest, of course,
but it still wants weeding of lover’s phrases and endearments and so
on. So I thought the best plan would be for me to read them all aloud
to you, and consult you as to what is to be left in, or struck out.”
Cynthia Chenies groaned aloud. Lady Greenwell smiled. She had gained
confidence.
“Cynthia, dear, how like you! You were always afraid of hard work, and
there is nothing--nothing bores you so much as listening. Hilary
noticed that. ‘These brilliant women!’ he used to say.”
“Let’s have the letters,” ejaculated Mrs. Chenies bluffly. She
adjusted a cushion or two behind her shoulders. “I have learnt how to
listen lately. Let’s have tea first.”
“Certainly!” Lady Greenwell rang the bell. Tea was brought. The
hostess dispensed it. Then, with many a reminiscent pause, and sob and
dab of the handkerchief, Lady Greenwell opened the despatch box, and
produced letters tied up in blue, Hilary’s favourite colour. It was
the colour of Cynthia’s eyes. She fidgeted in her place, and Lady
Greenwell offered her another cushion--“because this will all take
time.”
“I’ll read the first that comes,” the widow of Hilary declared, when
they had both settled down. “I am not afraid of your knowing, Cynthia,
how fond he was of me. This one begins--he generally begins so--‘_Dear
little woman_’--we can leave that out if you like?”
“You can’t. It shows character,” observed Mrs. Chenies sombrely. “Go
on.”
Thus encouraged, Lady Greenwell read, shyly at first, but with
gathering confidence, as the map of her husband’s affection unrolled
itself under her faltering tongue. She read faster. The session was
going to last interminably, the letters were good, but long!
“Very vivid! Most interesting!” Mrs. Chenies remarked now and again,
drumming with her foot, and with her face turned away.
“It is really rather too intimate!” Lady Greenwell blurted out.
“Listen to this--‘_Darling, my darling_.’ I can scarcely bear to read
it. ‘_All night I lie and toss on my uncomfortable rugs, and
think--think of you, darling, and your soft breast!_’”
“You might put ‘cheek’ there, instead of ‘breast,’ if you liked?”
interposed the co-editress hastily. Lady Greenwell looked up.
“Very well.” She used a little pencil at her girdle. Then she
resumed--
“‘_And I realize how the thought of one sweet woman at home, can be at
once the joy and the torture of the traveller. For I don’t know if it
is most sweet or most bitter, this remembrance of happier hours in
altered circumstances. It is joy, but then, sometimes the agony of
separation is too keen to bear.…_’ Oh, that he should feel it so! I’ll
go on, Cynthia, if you don’t feel too much bored. ‘_I stretch out my
hands, I look for you, for your warm kind arms----_’”
“You certainly will have to strike all those rhapsodies out,” Mrs.
Chenies remarked coldly. “He must have been very ill then. Are the
letters all like that? If so, they won’t made a book of very general
interest.”
“Ah!” Lady Greenwell exclaimed. She was tossing over the letters
feverishly. “They seem to have got mixed! This is one of the English
series--written from the Creswicks’ place. That must have been sent
the summer before he went, for that’s the only time he ever went to
Betty Creswick’s alone. It was the very week I spoke to you, Cynthia.”
“I wish you would not keep on bringing that in,” interposed Cynthia
Chenies irritably, “you were quite right, and I was quite wrong, I see
that well enough, now. Go on. We are both dining out to-night, I
suppose?”
“Not I,” said Lady Greenwell haughtily. “I shall never dine out
again.” She read on a little to herself. “He didn’t like being there
without me a bit,” she murmured. “In fact, he loathed it.”
“Why didn’t you go with him, then?” asked Mrs. Chenies, though she
knew well enough. She had been one of the Creswick party, and the
letter explaining Mabel’s reasons for defection had been read aloud to
her. But Lady Greenwell couldn’t know that.
“Oh, I got a bad chill at the very last moment, and had to wire I
couldn’t go. Cynthia, shall I read this letter?”
“Of course. It’s part of his life, I suppose.”
“‘_My own little brown bird_,’” read Lady Greenwell softly, “‘_I was
so grieved to leave you, tucked up in bed, a darkened room and with
only a hired nurse to hold your little hot hand. Here I may say I am
not enjoying myself a bit, and yet we are a very gay party and
everything jolly. But I can’t get any fun out of it without you to
talk it over with me, after we’ve gone to bed at four in the morning.
Dear little woman, why did you make me go alone? The Creswick ménage
is a bit noisy for your quiet sober husband. One gets a little tired
of the society of brilliant women--they flash and coruscate--and
finally weary. I can’t help thinking of a certain still small brown
bird at home sitting on the bough, and waiting for me._’ Oh, Cynthia,
I do believe, here is something actually about you--he mentions you by
name----”
“I’m the brilliant woman that wearies, am I not? Well, let us hear
what he says about me.”
“Shall I? I’ve read them all a hundred times, but I don’t quite
remember, so if it annoys you, mind, it is your own fault. Here goes!
‘_The Cynthia of the Minute is really a little overpowering. She seems
quite to enjoy saying risque things and compromising herself.…_’ I
really don’t think I ought to read this to you, Cynthia?”
“Read it or I shall snatch it out of your hands.”
“Well, you are sure you won’t mind? ‘_Poor little Cynthia, she is
astonishingly indiscreet, but she means no harm. She is a dear, nice,
ordinary simple woman, pretending to be a sad rake, but as good as
gold, really----_’”
“As good as gold, really!”
“Well, isn’t that nice for him to say that! Poor dear boy, he always
did go straight to the heart of the matter, didn’t he? He was, as a
matter of fact, awfully fond of you, and this just shows it. He knew
you through and through--though. What’s the matter?”
“Give me some hot water to drink,” gasped Mrs. Chenies. “Is--this your
revenge, Mabel?”
“Dear Cynthia, aren’t you well? You do use such odd stagey words.
Revenge! I am your friend and always will be. My husband wanted us to
be friends.”
“Well, then, do let us keep friends,” said Mrs. Chenies, drinking her
scalding hot water hastily and rising. “I must go. An early dinner for
the theatre.… Tommy Vavasor.…”
“But what about the letters? I have only read two.”
“Of course, you must leave that out about me,” said Cynthia, speaking
very fast and knotting her fur round her neck as if she wanted to
throttle herself, “and all personalities about people still living.
And you must not print names. But, as for the rest, I should give the
letters in their entirety. Go ahead, that’s my advice to you. You can
hurt none, and your collaborator gives you _carte blanche_.”
She escaped. She preserved no memory of the passage from Lady
Greenwell’s dull drawing-room to the gas-lit street outside. She
bitterly resented the dead man’s view of her innocent attempts at
disillusioning him, on the only occasion they had met previously to
his departure and after his wife’s lecture, and she would have given
her best jewel to discover whether Mabel’s quite thorough revenge had
been carefully planned or not?
She married young Lord Vavasor within the year, and contrived, without
exciting any suspicion, never again to be alone in the same room with
the widowed Lady Greenwell again. But she longed as she had never
longed for anything else, to hear of Lady Greenwell’s remarriage.