Claude, as became the future candidate for the constituency of West
Brentwood, was sedulous and regular in reading the House of Common
debates, and two mornings later was sitting after breakfast with his
_Times_ in front of him, to which he devoted an attention less direct
than was usual with him, for he expected every moment to be told that
the visitor whom he was waiting for would be announced, and he could
form no idea of what the visitor’s business might be. Half an hour ago
he had been summoned to the telephone and found that he was speaking to
one of the partners in Grayson’s bank, who asked if he could see him at
once. No clue as to what so pressing a business might be was given him,
and Mr. Humby, the partner who spoke to him, only said that he would
start immediately. He had first telephoned, it appeared, to Claude’s
flat, and his servant had given him the address.
In itself there was little here that was tangibly disquieting, for
Claude stood outside the region of money troubles, but other things
combined to make him, usually so serene, rather nervous and
apprehensive. For the last day or two he had been vaguely anxious about
his mother, who appeared to him not to be well, though in answer to his
question she confessed to nothing more than July fatigue, while his
relations with Dora, or rather his want of them, continued to perplex
or distress him. She was evenly polite to him, she went out with him
when occasion demanded, but that some barrier had been built between
them he could no longer doubt. He had not only his own feeling to go
upon, for his mother had remarked it, and asked if there was any
trouble. Lady Osborne was the least imaginative of women, he was afraid,
and her question had so emphasized it to his mind that he had
determined, should no amelioration take place, to put a direct question
to Dora about it. He would gladly have avoided that, for his instinct
told him that the trouble was of a sort that could scarcely be healed by
mere investigation, but the present position was rapidly growing
intolerable. All these things made it difficult for him to concentrate
his attention on the fiscal question, and it was almost with a sense of
relief to him that the interruption he had been waiting for came.
He shook hands with Mr. Humby, who at once stated his business.
“I may be troubling you on a false alarm, Mr. Osborne,” he said, “but
both my partners and I thought that one of us had better see you at once
in order to set our minds at rest.”
“You have only just caught me,” said Claude. “I am going into the
country before lunch.”
“Then I have saved myself a journey,” said Mr. Humby gravely.
He produced an envelope and took a cheque out of it.
“The cheque came through to-day,” he said; “it was cashed two days ago
at Shepherd’s Bank, quite regularly. But it is drawn by you to ‘self’
over a week ago. That was a little curious, since cheques drawn to self
are usually cashed at once. Also, though that is no business of ours, it
is a rather large sum, five hundred pounds, to take in cash. You have
banked with us for some years, Mr. Osborne, and we find you have never
drawn a large sum to yourself before. But the combination of these
things seemed to warrant us in making sure the cheque was--ah, genuine.
The handwriting appears to be yours.”
Claude looked at the date.
“June 24,” he said. “I did draw a large cheque about that time for a
motor-car.”
“That has been presented; it was drawn to Daimler’s,” said Mr. Humby.
Claude turned the cheque over: it was endorsed with his name, but search
how he might he could not recollect anything about it. And slowly his
inability to remember deepened into the belief that he had drawn no such
cheque.
“If you would refer to your cheque-book,” said Mr. Humby, “we could
clear the matter up. I am sorry for giving you so much trouble.”
“The question is, Where is my cheque-book?” said Claude. “I came over
here a week ago, but before that I was at my flat. But I will look.”
He went upstairs, into the sitting room, which was his and Dora’s. She
was sitting there now, writing notes, and looked up as he came in.
“Claude, can I speak to you for a minute?” she said.
“Yes, dear, but not this moment. I have to find my cheque-book. Where
do you suppose it is? One must attend to business, you know.”
“Oh, quite so,” said she, and resumed her letter again.
Claude’s heart sank. Perhaps she wanted to speak to him about things
that were of infinitely greater moment, and he had made a mess of it,
repulsed her, by his foolish speech.
“Dora, what is it?” he asked. “Is it----”
She must have known what was in his mind, for she made an impatient
gesture of dissent.
“No, if you can give me a minute later on, it will be all right,” she
said.
His search was soon rewarded, but proved to be fruitless, for the
cheque-book was a new one, and he had only used it for the first time
three days ago. But perhaps she would remember something.
“Dora, did I give you a rather big cheque for household bills or
anything, while we were in the flat?” he asked.
“Yes, I remember that you did,” she said. “And I remember endorsing it
as you drew it to me. Why?”
“Only that there is a cheque that I appear to have drawn for five
hundred pounds, just before I left the flat, and for some reason my
bankers want to be sure that I did draw it.”
“You mean they think that it may be forged?”
“Yes.”
“But who can have got hold of your cheque-book?” asked Dora. “You have
found it, haven’t you?”
“Yes, but this is no use. The cheque in question was drawn before I
began this book. I suppose I left it at the flat.”
Dora had continued writing her note as she talked, for it was only a
matter of a few formal phrases of regret, but at this moment, her hand
suddenly played her false, and her pen sputtered on the paper. And
though she did not know at that second why this happened, a moment
afterward she knew.
Below his cheque-book in the drawer lay Claude’s passbook. It had been
very recently made up, for his allowance from Uncle Alfred, paid on June
28, appeared to his credit, and on the debit side a cheque to Dora of
£150, cashed on the previous date. That, no doubt, was the cheque for
“books” of which she had spoken.
She had gone on writing again, and Claude apparently had noticed nothing
of that pen-splutter.
“Yes, here are cheques I have drawn up till the 29th,” he said, “and
none of £500. It looks rather queer. I’ll be back again in five minutes.
I must just see Mr. Humby, and tell him I can’t trace it.”
Claude went rather slowly downstairs again. The matter was verging on
certainty. He had drawn a cheque for five hundred pounds, on June 24,
and it had not been presented till two days ago. The cheque for the car
was entered, and the cheque for books to Dora. He hated to think that
Parker had forged his name, but if he had, good servant though he was,
there was no clemency possible.
“May I look at the cheque again?” he asked.
He examined it more closely.
“I can find no trace of drawing any such cheque,” he said, “and I
believe it is a forgery. It is very like my handwriting, but I don’t
believe I wrote it.”
“That is what we thought,” said Mr. Humby.
“Then what are you going to do?” asked he.
“Find out who presented the cheque, and prosecute. I am very sorry: it
is an unpleasant business, but the bank can take no other course.”
He folded up the cheque again, put it in his pocket and left the room.
But Claude did not at once go back to Dora. There had started unbidden
into his mind the memory of a morning at Grote before they were married,
of a game of croquet, of a sovereign. Next minute he too had left the
room, and the minute after he was in the road, walking quickly to Mount
Street. His old cheque-book no doubt was there, and he would be able to
find it. And all the way there, he tried desperately to keep at bay a
suspicion that threatened to grip him by the throat. And upstairs Dora
waited for him: the same doubt threatened to strangle her.
Jim was out, but was expected back every moment, and Claude went into
his small room, and began searching the drawers of his writing table.
There was a sheaf of letters from Dora in one, a copy of his speech on
municipal taxation in another, and in the third a heap of old cards of
invitation and the butt end of his cheque-book.
Sun blinds were down outside the windows, the room was nearly dark, and
he carried this out into the large sitting room and sat down to examine
it. There was a whole batch of cheques, most of which he could remember
about, drawn on June 22. Then came a blank counterfoil and then the last
counterfoil of the book, bearing a docket of identification as cheque to
Dora for £150. That was drawn on the 27th.
He heard a step outside; the door opened and Jim entered. He was
whistling as he came round the corner of the screen by the door. Then he
saw Claude, his whistling ceased, and his face grew white. Once he tried
to speak, but could not.
Claude saw that, the blank face, the whitened lips; it was as if Jim had
been brought face to face with some deadly spectre, instead of the
commonplace vision of his brother-in-law sitting in his own room,
looking through the useless but surely innocuous trunk of an old
cheque-book. And instantaneously, automatically, Claude’s mind leaped to
the conclusion which he had tried to keep away from it. But it could be
kept away no longer: the inference closed upon him like the snap of a
steel spring.
In the same instant there came upon him his own personal dislike of Jim,
and his distrust of him. How deep that was he never knew till this
moment. Then came the reflection that he was doing Jim a monstrous
injustice in harbouring so horrible a suspicion, and that the best way
of clearing his mind of it was to let the bank trace the cheque and
prosecute. But he knew that it was his dislike of his brother-in-law
that gave birth to this, not a sense of fairness. And on top of it all
came the thought of Dora and his love for her, and mingled with that a
certain pity that was its legitimate kinsman.
The pause, psychically so momentous, was but short in duration, and
Claude jumped up. His mind was already quite decided: it seemed to have
decided itself without conscious interference on his part.
“Good morning, Jim,” he said. “I must apologize for making an invasion
in your absence, but I had to refer back to an old cheque-book.”
Jim commanded his voice.
“Nothing wrong, I hope,” he said.
Again Claude had to make a swift decision. He could tell Jim that a
cheque of his had been forged, and that the matter was already in the
hands of the bank: that probably would force a confession, if there was
cause for one. But it would still be his dislike (though he might easily
call it justice) that was the mover here. There was a wiser way than
that, a way that, for all the surface falsehood of it, held a nobler
truth within.
“No, nothing whatever is wrong,” he said. “Excuse me: I must telephone
to the bank, to say the cheque is all right. Ah, I’ll telephone from
here if you will allow me.”
The telephone was just outside and Jim heard plainly all that passed.
The number was rung up, and then Claude spoke.
“Yes, I’m Mr. Claude Osborne. I am speaking to Mr. Grayson, am I? It is
the matter that Mr. Humby came to speak to me about this morning. Yes,
yes: the cheque for £500. I find I have made a complete error. The
cheque was drawn by me and is perfectly correct. Yes. It was very stupid
of me. Please let Mr. Humby know as soon as he gets back. Yes. Thank
you. Good morning.”
Claude paused a moment with the receiver in his hand. Then he called to
Jim.
“Can’t stop a moment,” he said. “I’ve the devil of a lot to do.
Good-bye.”
He walked back again at once to Park Lane, still thinking intently,
still wondering if he could have done better in any way. Honest all
through, he hated with a physical repulsion the thought of what he felt
sure Jim had done, but oddly enough, instead of feeling a crescendo of
dislike to Jim himself, he was conscious only of a puzzled sort of pity.
By instinct he separated the deed from the doer, instead of bracketting
them both in one clause of disgusted condemnation. And then he ceased to
wonder at that: it seemed natural, after all.
He went straight up to Dora’s room, and found her still at her table
with letters round her. But when he entered she was not writing: she was
staring out of the window with a sort of terror on her face. Claude
guessed what it was that perhaps had put it there, and what lurked
behind that look of agonized appeal that she turned on him.
“I’m sorry for being so long, dear,” he said, “but I’ve been making a
fool of myself. That cheque I spoke to you about is quite all right. I
found the counterfoil in my old book at the flat. I drew it right
enough. Mr. Humby expects a fellow to carry in his head the memory of
every half-crown he spends.”
Dora gave one great sobbing sigh of relief, which she could not check.
“I’m glad,” she said. “I hated to think that Parker perhaps had gone
wrong. One--one hates suspicion, and its atmosphere.”
Claude heard, could not help hearing the relief in the voice, could not
help seeing that the smile she gave him struggled like mist-ridden
sunlight to shine through his dispelled clouds of nameless apprehension.
Nor could his secret mind avoid guessing what that apprehension was, for
it was no stranger to him; he had been sharer in it till he had seen
Jim, when it deepened into a certainty which was the opposite to that
which at this moment brought such relief to his wife. The other
certainty, his own, must of course be kept sealed and locked from her,
and Claude hastened to convey it away from her presence, so to speak, by
talking of something else, for fear that it might, in despite of him,
betray some hint of its existence.
“But there was something you wanted to speak to me about,” he said.
“Yes. It is about your mother. Do you think she is well?”
“No, I haven’t thought so for the last three or four days,” said he.
“What have you noticed?”
“I went into her room just now,” said Dora, “and she was sitting and
doing nothing. And she was crying.”
Claude paused in astonishment.
“Crying,” he said. “The mater crying?”
“Yes. She clearly did not wish me to see it, and so I pretended not to.
I had thought she wasn’t well before now. We must do something, Claude;
make her see a doctor.”
“But why hasn’t she been to see a doctor all these days?” he asked.
“The governor goes to a doctor if his nails want cutting.”
“I don’t know why she hasn’t been. There might be several reasons. But I
thought I would speak to you first and then if you approved I would go
to her and try to find out what is the matter.”
“I wish you would,” he said.
Dora got up, but her mind went back to that which she had been brooding
over in his absence, that which frightened her.
“Did you see Jim?” she asked.
“Yes: he came in when I was there.”
“How was he?” she asked negligently.
“Oh, much as usual. I couldn’t stop because I wanted to get back to you.
Will you come and tell me about the mater, after you have seen her?”
* * * * *
Dora went back to Lady Osborne’s room, and knocked before she entered.
The apparition of her sitting and crying all alone had frightened her
more than she had let Claude see, for as a rule her mother-in-law’s
cheerfulness was of a quality that seemed to be proof against all the
minor accidents of life, and Dora remembered how, one day in Italy, when
they had missed a train at Padua, and had to wait three hours, Lady
Osborne’s only comment had been, “Well, now, that will give us time to
look about us.” She was afraid therefore that the cause of her tears was
not trivial.
And now, when she went in again, receiving a rather indistinct answer to
her knock, she found Lady Osborne hastily snatching up the day’s paper,
so as to pretend to be occupied. But her face wore an expression
extraordinarily contorted, as if her habitual geniality found it a hard
task to struggle to the surface.
“And I’m sure the paper gets more and more interesting every day,” said
she, “though it’s seldom I find time to have a glance at all the curious
things that are going on in the world. What a dreadful place Morocco
must be; I couldn’t sleep quiet in my bed if I was there! What is it, my
dear?”
On her face and in her voice the trace of tears bravely suppressed still
lingered, and a great wave of pity suddenly swept over Dora. Something
was wrong, something which at present Lady Osborne was bearing in
secret, for it was quite clear that her husband, whose cheerfulness at
breakfast had bordered on the boisterous, knew nothing, nor did Claude
know. Her mother-in-law, as Dora was well aware, was not a woman of
complicated or subtle emotion, who could grieve over an imagined sorrow,
or could admit to a personal relation with herself the woe of the world,
for with more practical wisdom she gave subscriptions to those whose
task it was to alleviate any particular branch of it. Her family, her
hospitalities, her comfortable though busy life had been sufficient up
till now to minister to her happiness, and if something disturbed that,
Dora rightly thought that it must be something tangible and personal. So
she went to the sofa, and sat down by her, and did not seek to be
subtle.
“What is it?” she said. “Is there anything the matter?”
The simplicity was not calculated; it was perfectly natural, and had its
effect. Lady Osborne held the paper in front of her a moment longer,
but it was shaken with the trembling of her hands. Then she dropped it.
“My dear, I am a selfish old woman,” she said, “but I can’t bear it any
longer. I’ve not been well this long time, but I’ve tried to tell myself
it was my imagination, and not bother anybody. And I could have held on,
my dear, a little longer, if you hadn’t come to me like this. I warrant
you, there would have been plenty of laughing and chaff at Grote this
week-end, as always. But the pain this morning was so bad that I just
thought I would have a bit of a cry all to myself.”
“But why have you told nobody?” said Dora. “Not Claude, nor Dad nor me?”
Lady Osborne mopped her eyes.
“Bless your heart, haven’t we all got things to bear, and best not to
trouble others?” she said. “I know well enough how you’d all spend your
time in looking after me, and having the doctor and what not, and I
thought I could get through to the end of the season and then go and
rest, and see what was the matter. And, my dearie, I’m a dreadful coward
you know, and I couldn’t abear the thought of being pulled about by the
doctor, and maybe worse than that. Anyhow, I’ve not given in at once.
Some days my colour has been awful and no appetite, but I’ve kept my
spirits up before you all. And I can’t bear to think now that I must
give in, and have to take doctor’s stuff, and lie up, spoiling all your
pleasure. But I don’t think as I can go on much longer like this.
Perhaps it’s best that you know. Poor Eddie! Him and his jokes this
morning at breakfast, chaffing me about Sir Thomas! Lor’, my dear, what
spirits he has! I declare he quite took my thoughts off. And about
Claude and Lizzie too, as if Claude ever gave a thought to anyone but
yourself.”
Lady Osborne patted Dora’s hand a moment in silence. She was not sure
that Dora had “relished” her husband’s fun at breakfast; now was the
time to set it right.
“But then, Eddie knew that, else he’d never have made a joke of it,” she
said. “And you, my dearie, have been so sweet to me these weeks, not
that you haven’t been that always, as if you was my own daughter.
Indeed, not that I complain of Lizzie, for I don’t, often and often
she’s behaved high to Mr. O. and me, when you, who have excuse enough,
have never done such a thing. Often I’ve said to him, ‘It’s as if Dora
was an Osborne herself.’ Thank you, my dearie, for that, and for all
you’ve done and been. I daresay it’s been difficult for you at times,
but there! I daresay you think I’ve not noticed, but I have, my dear,
and you’ve behaved beautiful always. I wanted just to say that, and
you’re behaving sweet and kind to me still.”
Somehow, deep down, this cut Dora like a knife. There was a wounding
pathos about it, that made those efforts she had put forth to behave
decently, appear infinitely trivial, humiliatingly cheap. And the gentle
patting on her hand continued.
“And now, dearie, I’m going to ask you to do another thing yet,” said
Lady Osborne, “and that is to take my place down at Grote this Sunday,
and let me stay up here and see my doctor this afternoon. If you hadn’t
such quick and loving eyes, I should have gone through with it and held
on, my dear, even if there was more mornings like this in store. But
with you knowing, my dear, I’ll not wait longer, and maybe make matters
worse, though perhaps it’s me as has been making a fuss about nothing,
and a bottle of medicine will make me as fit as a flea again, as Mr. O.
used to say. Now we must put our heads together and contrive, so that he
may think it’s just a touch of the liver and nothing to be alarmed for,
else he’ll never go and leave me. He’s gone off already to some
committee, and the car is to call for him at twelve and drive him
straight down, so that he’ll find himself at Grote before he knows
anything is wrong. And then, my dear, you must do your best to make him
think it’s nothing, as, please God, it isn’t. What a trouble our insides
are, though, to be sure, mine’s given me little enough to complain of
all these years. I’ve always eaten my dinner and got a good night’s rest
until this began.”
* * * * *
They talked long, “contriving,” as Lady Osborne had said, the sole point
of the contrivance being that her husband should enjoy his day or two at
Grote, and have everything to his liking, and not fret about her. Once
and again and again once, Dora tried to lead the conversation back to
Lady Osborne herself, to get from her some inkling of what her
indisposition might be, what its symptoms were, with a view of
encouraging her to face the doctor with equanimity, for this was clearly
an ordeal she dreaded. And on Dora’s third attempt she put an end to
further questions.
“I think, dearie, we’ll not talk about that,” she said, “because, as I
told you, I’m such a coward as never was, and the more I think about it,
the more coward I shall be when I get to the doctor’s door. It was just
the same with me about my teeth before I lost them all: if one had to
come out, I had such a shrinking from a bit of pain, that if I thought
about it, I knew I shouldn’t go to the dentist at all. So I used to busy
myself with other things, and plan a treat, maybe, for the working folk,
or an extra good dinner for Mr. O., or a surprise for Per or Claude; and
it’s a similar to that what I’ll do now, if you don’t mind. And I assure
you I’m so bothered over the thought of you and Dad being at Grote
without me that I’ve little desire to think about anything else.
Thirty-five years it is last May, my dear, since we took each other for
better or worse, and it’s always been better, and not a night since
then, I assure you, have we not slept under the same roof, and in the
same room save when I had a cold and feared to give it him. And he’s got
to depend on me, Gold bless him, and knows that I shall see he has a
biscuit or two on a plate by his bedside and a glass of milk, against he
wakes the night. Servants are never to be trusted, my dear, though I’m
sure it’s a shame to say it, when ours are so attentive. But he’s got a
new valet just of late, and if you could peep in at my lord’s bedroom
door when you went up to bed, and see as all was prepared, and that his
slippers was put where he can see them in his dressing room, else he’ll
walk to bed in his bare feet and step on a pin or a tack someday, which
I always dread for him. And if he comes in hot, as he’s taken to do in
this weather from his walk, just you behave as if you was me, and say
to him, ‘Mr. O., you go and change your vest and your socks, else I
don’t pour out your cup of tea,’ and knowing as you’ll do that will take
a load off my mind, and I shall go to the doctor this afternoon, knowing
as you are looking after him as if I was there, as comfortable as if I
was going to have a cheque cashed for me. And, my dear, if you’d sit
next him in church, and just nudge him if he attempts to follow the
lesson without putting his glasses on. It’s small print in his Bible,
and never another one will he let me give him, just because it was that
one he used to read out of to me when we were in Cornwall on our wedding
trip, and sometimes no church within distance. But be sure he changes
his underwear, my dear, when he comes in, for he catches cold easy, and
his skin acts so well that it’s as if he’d had a bath. And give him
plenty of milk in his coffee at breakfast, not that he likes it, but he
will have the coffee made so strong that it’s enough to rasp the coats
of the stomach, as they say, unless you drown it in milk. And you’ll
cheer him up, I know, my dear, if he gets anxious, and just say to him
‘Stuff and nonsense, Dad, Mrs. O.’s had a bit of an upset, same as you
have times without number, and she’s always nervous about herself, and
has gone to see the doctor, and as like as not will come down to-morrow
afternoon with a couple of pills in her pocket, and ready to be laughed
at to your heart’s content.’ That’s what I want you to say, my dear,
though you’ll put it in your own words, and much better I’m sure. But
to-day it’s as if I feel I couldn’t go and look after my friends, now
that I know you’ll take my place, for when there’s a multitude in the
house, sometimes the mistress can’t get to bed till it maybe is one
o’clock or worse, and I want a good long night. I shall try to see Sir
Henry as soon as may be, and after that I don’t doubt I shall just get
to bed and sleep the clock round. I’m so tired, my dear, and there’s
something---- Well, I make no doubt that before many hours are out, we
shall all be laughing together over my silliness, and Mr. O. will be
asking if I have taken enough phosphorus jelly, or what not. Lor’, he’ll
never let me hear the last of it!”
* * * * *
That was a triumphant conclusion. The whole speech punctuated by
silences, punctuated by a little dropping of tears and by a little
laughter, was hardly less triumphant. Once, ages ago, so it seemed to
Dora, Claude had held up his father and mother as examples of the ideal
antidote against the gray-business of middle age, and it had failed to
satisfy her then. She would have thought it comical, had not there been
some very keen sense of disappointment about it, that a lover should
speak to his beloved in such language. But now, with rekindled meaning,
she remembered the incident and its setting. She had asked him for
consolation with regard to the gray-business that awaited everybody,
hoping to hear words of glowing romance, and had found it half comical,
half tragic, that he refuted her doubts by the visible example of his
father and mother. He had said that she “was his best girl still.” But
now Dora did not feel either the comedy or the tragedy of his reply; she
felt only the truth of it. And she did not wonder that her
mother-in-law was Dad’s best girl still.
But for herself, though there was heartache in much that had been said,
there was the beginning of understanding also, or, at any rate, the
awakening of the sense that there was something to understand. Lady
Osborne had called herself a coward, and reiterated that charge, with
regard to seeing a doctor only. But love--a golden barrier of solid
defence, no filagree work--had come between her and her fear; yet it was
scarcely true to say that it had come there: it was always there. Once
Dora had thought that, compared to romance, any relation that could
exist between Claude’s parents, must necessarily be of an ash-cold
quality. But was it? She herself had known the romantic, but in
comparison with all that she had been conscious of with regard to Claude
for the last few weeks she could not call Lady Osborne ash-cold. In her
there was some glow, some authentic fire that had never known quenching.
It might have altered in superficials, for flames there might have been
substituted the glowing heart of the fire. But it was the same fire.
There had not been ashes at any time: the fire always burned,
unconsumed, with no waste of cinder; it was immortal, radium-like.
Then for the first time the beauty of it struck her. Before this moment
she had seen something that appeared comical; then, with better vision,
she had seen something that struck her as pathetic. Now with true vision
she saw all she had missed before--Beauty. It was that she had
worshipped all her life, thinking that she would always recognize and
adore. But she had missed it altogether in that which was so constantly
under her eyes. She had been too quick in seeing all that was obvious:
wealth, indiscriminate hospitality, vulgarity (since she had chosen to
call it so); but the big thing, that which was the essential, she had
missed altogether. Once before, when Mr. and Mrs. Osborne shared a
hymn-book in church, she had seen, and thought she understood. Now she
was beginning to understand. She began to want to take other hearts into
her own. The desire was there. The beauty she had at last seen attracted
her, drew her to it. Strangely had it been unveiled, by tale of slippers
and biscuits and underwear. She never had expected to find it in such
garb. But Claude had known it was there; he had not been diverted by
superficial things, but had seen always that “the mater was the
governor’s best girl still.”
* * * * *
Dora left her mother-in-law that morning with a sense of humility, a
sense also of disgust at herself for her own stupidity. All these months
a thing as beautiful as this great love and tenderness had been in front
of her eyes, and she had not troubled to look at it with enough
attention to recognize that there was beauty there. But now the tears
that dimmed her own eyes quickened her vision. At last she saw the
picture in its true value, and it made her ashamed. Was she equally
blind, too, with regard to Claude? Was there something in him, some
great thing which mattered so much that all which for months had got on
her nerves more and more every day was, if seen truly, as trivial as
she now saw were those things that had blinded her in the case of Lady
Osborne? It might be so; all she knew was that if it was there, she had
not troubled to look for it. At first she had so loved his beauty that
nothing else mattered; nor did it seem to her possible that love could
ever be diminished or suffer eclipse. But that had happened, even before
she had borne a child to him; and to take its place (and more than take
its place) there had sprung up no herbs of more fragrant beauty than the
scarlet of that first flower. She had nothing in her garden for him but
herbs of bitterness and resentment. That, at least, was all she knew of
till now.
She paused a moment outside the door of the sitting room where she had
left him, before entering, for she knew his devotion to his mother, and
was sorry for him. And somehow she felt herself unable to believe that
Lady Osborne’s optimistic forecast would be justified; she did not think
that in a few hours they would be all laughing over her imaginary
ailment. And Claude must see that she was anxious; it would be better to
confess to that, and prepare him for the possibility of there being
something serious in store.
He looked up quickly as she came in, throwing away the cigarette he had
only just begun.
“Well?” he said.
Dora heard the tremble and trouble in that one word, and she was sorry
for him. That particular emotion she had never felt for him before; she
had never seen him except compassed about with serene prosperity.
“Claude, I’m afraid she is ill,” she said. “She feels it herself too.
She has been in great pain.”
“But how long has it been going on?” he asked. “Why hasn’t she seen a
doctor?”
“Because she didn’t want to spoil things for us. She thought she could
hold on. But she is going now, to-day.”
“What does she think it is?” asked he.
“She wouldn’t talk of it at all,” said Dora. “I think she could hardly
think of it, because she was thinking of Dad so much. She won’t come
down to Grote, you see, but stop up here, unless she is told it is
nothing. And so we must do our best that he shan’t be anxious or unhappy
until we know whether there is real cause or not. She wants me
particularly to go down there, or of course I would stop with her.”
“The mater must feel pretty bad if she’s not coming to Grote,” said he.
“Yes, I am afraid she does. Oh, Claude, I am so sorry for her, and you
all. Her bravery has made us all blind. I ought to have seen long ago. I
reproach myself bitterly.”
“No, no, there’s no cause for that,” said he gently. “She’s taken us all
in, and it’s just like her. Besides, who knows? it may be nothing in the
least serious.”
“I know that,” said she, “and we won’t be anxious before we have cause.
Go and see her, dear, before we start, and make very light of it; just
say you are glad she is being sensible at last, in going to be put
right. There is no cause for anxiety yet. I shall go round to Sir
Henry’s and arrange an appointment for her this afternoon, if possible,
and get him to write to us very fully this evening, so that we shall
know to-morrow. And then, if we are to get down by lunch, it will be
time for us to start. I ordered the motor for twelve.”
* * * * *
Lord Osborne was a good deal perturbed at the ne with which Dora met him
at Grote, and it was an affair that demanded careful handling to induce
him not to go back at once to town and see her.
“Bless me! Maria not well enough to come down, and you expect me to take
my Sunday off, and eat my dinner as if my old lady was a-seated opposite
me?” he asked. “Not I, my dear; Maria’s and my place is together,
wherever that place may be.”
“But you can’t go against her wish, Dad,” said Dora. “And what’s to
become of me if you do? I’ve been sent down on purpose to play at being
her. You’ve got to have a glass of milk by your bed, and a couple of
biscuits. Oh, I know all about it!”
“To think of your knowing that!” he said, rather struck by this detail.
“Yes, but only this morning did I know it,” said Dora. “I sat with her a
long time, and all she could think about was that you should be
comfortable down here.”
“Well, it goes against the grain not to be with her,” said he. “But, as
you say, there’s no cause to be alarmed yet. And Sir Henry’s going to
see her this afternoon?”
“Yes, and telegraph to me afterward. Dad, if you upset all our beautiful
arrangements, neither she nor I will ever speak to you again. Oh! do be
good.”
“But it won’t be like home not to have Lady O. here,” said he.
“She knows that; but Claude and I have to make as good an imitation as
we can. And you’ll put me in a dreadful hole if you go back to town. She
will say I have made no hand of looking after you at all. I shall be in
disgrace, as well as you.”
“Well, God bless you, my dear!” said he, “and thank you for being so
good to us. Here I’ll stop, if it’s the missus’s wish. No, I don’t fancy
any pudding to-day, thank you.”
Dora laid down her spoon and fork.
“Dad, not one morsel do I eat unless you have some!” she said. “And I’m
dreadfully hungry.”
Lord Osborne laughed within himself.
“Eh! you’ve got a managing wife, Claude,” he said. “She twists us all
round her little finger.”
* * * * *
The expected telegram arrived in the course of the evening, and though
it contained nothing definite, Lord Osborne was able to interpret it in
the most optimistic manner.
“Well, Sir Henry tells you that Mrs. O.’s in no pain, and that he’s
going to see her again to-morrow,” he said. “Why, I call that good news,
and it relieves my mind, my dear. Bless her! she’ll get a good night’s
rest, I hope now, and feel a different creature in the morning. There’s
nothing else occurs to you, my dear? Surely he would have said if he had
found anything really wrong?”
Dora read the telegram again.
“No; I think you are quite right to put that interpretation on it,” she
said truthfully enough. “We’ll hope to get good news again to-morrow. I
am glad she is out of pain.”
But secretly she feared something she did not say--namely, that there
was something wrong, but that Sir Henry had not been able without
further examination to say what it was. Yet, after all, that
interpretation might be only imagination on her part. But there was
nothing in the telegram which appeared to her to be meant to allay the
anxiety which he must know existed.
Dora went to bed that evening with a great many things to think about,
which had to be faced, not shirked or put aside. The day, which by the
measure of events had been almost without incident, seemed terribly full
of meaning to her. Lady Osborne had seen a doctor; she had talked over
domestic affairs with Dora ... that was not quite all: Claude had
thought that a cheque had been forged, but found on examination that he
had made a mistake. Set out like that, there seemed little here that
could occupy her thoughts at all, still less that could keep away from
her the sleep that in general was so punctual a visitor to her. But
to-night it did not come near her, and she did not even try to woo its
approach. She had no thought of sleep, though she was glad to have the
darkness and the silence round her so that she might think without
distraction. All these things, trivial as events, seemed to her to be
significant, to hold possibilities, potentialities, altogether
disproportionate to their face value. It might prove not to be so when
she examined them; it might be that for some reason a kind of nightmare
inflation was going on in her mind, so that, as in physical nightmare
things swell to gigantic shape, in her imagination these simple little
things were puffed to grotesque and terrifying magnitude. She had to
think them over calmly and carefully; it might easily be that they would
sink to normal size again.
She took first that affair of the cheque, which had turned out,
apparently, to be no affair at all. Claude had made a mistake, so he had
himself said, and the cheque which he and the bank had suspected was
perfectly genuine. But Dora, between the time of his thinking there was
something wrong and of his ascertaining that there was not, had passed a
very terrible quarter of an hour--one that it made her feel sick to
think of even now. There was no use in blinking it; she had feared that
Jim had forged her husband’s cheque. She had hardly given a thought to
what the consequences might be; what turned her white and cold was the
thought that he had done it. Her pen had spluttered when the thought
first occurred to her, but she believed Claude had not noticed that. But
had he noticed the sob of relief in her voice when he told her that the
cheque was all right? He was not slow to observe, his perceptions,
especially where she was concerned, were remarkably vivid, and it seemed
to her that he must have noticed it. Yet he had said nothing.
Anyhow the cheque was correct, and she was left with the fact that it
had seemed to her possible that Jim had been guilty of this gross
meanness. And, just as if the thing had been true, she found herself
trying to excuse him, saw herself pleading with Claude for him. Poor
Jim was not ... was not quite like other people: he did not seem to know
right from wrong. He had always cheated at games; she remembered telling
Claude so one day down here at Grote, when he and Jim had been playing
croquet and Jim had cheated. But they had not been playing for money. So
Claude had told her. And he had told her the cheque was all right. That
was all: there was nothing more to be thought of with regard to this.
Yet she still lingered on the threshold of the thought of it. Jim had
got “cleaned out” (his own phrase) in the Derby week, had pledged the
quarter’s rent of Grote in advance to pay his Derby debts. And somebody
had told her that Jim had lost heavily at Newmarket afterward, and he
had told her that he had paid and was upright before the world in the
matter of debts of honour.
She had passed the threshold of that thought and was inside again. Where
had he got the money from? Well, anyhow, not by forgery. Claude had said
that the mistake was his. But how odd that he should not have been able
to recollect about a cheque for five hundred pounds, drawn only ten days
before!
* * * * *
Dora still lingered in the precincts of that thought, though she
beckoned, so to speak, another thought to distract her. What a wonderful
thing, how triumphant and beautiful was the love of which she had seen a
glimpse to-day! It was all the more wonderful because it seemed to be
common, to be concerned with biscuits and coffee. A hundred times she
had seen Lady Osborne wrapped up in such infinitesimal cares as these,
and had thought only that her mind and her soul were altogether
concerned with serving, that the provision for the comfortable house and
the good dinner was aspiration sufficient for her spiritual capacity.
Yet there had always been a little more than that: there had been the
moment in church when the sermon was to her taste, and the hymn a
favourite, and she and her husband had tunelessly sung out of one book.
That had touched Dora a little, but she had then dismissed it as a banal
affair of goody-goody combined with a melodious tune, when she saw the
great lunch that they both ate immediately afterward.
But now these details, these Martha-cares had taken a different value.
This morning Lady Osborne had been in great pain, had broken down in her
endeavour to carry on somehow, and was face to face with a medical
interview which she dreaded. But still she could think with meticulous
care of her husband’s milk, of his slippers, of his tendency toward
strong coffee. What if below the Martha was Mary, if it was Mary’s love
that made Martha so sedulous in serving?
All that she had overlooked, not caring to see below a surface which she
said was commonplace and prosperous. The surface was transparent enough,
too: it was not opaque. She could have seen down into the depths at any
time if she had taken the trouble to look.
Before her marriage and for a few months after it, she had thought she
knew what “depths” meant. She thought she knew what it was to be
absorbed in another. Then had come her disillusionment. She had
worshipped surface only: she knew no more of Claude than that. She had
loved his beauty, she had got accustomed to it. She had at first
disregarded what she had grown to call his vulgarity, and had not got
accustomed to it. She had known he was honest and true and safe, but she
had grown to take all that for granted. She had never studied him,
looked for what was himself, she had had few glimpses of him, no more
than she had had of his mother. But to-day she felt that with regard to
her these glimpses were fused together: they made a view, a prospect of
a very beautiful country. But as yet there had no fusing like that come
with regard to her husband. Now that she “saw,” even the country, the
country of the gray-business was beautiful. And at present in her own
warm country, her young country, beauty was lacking.
Perhaps--here the third subject came in--perhaps even in the trouble
that she felt threatened them, there were elements that might be
alchemized. She was willing, at least, to attempt to find gold, to
transform what she had thought was common into the fine metal. Some
alchemy of the sort had already taken place before her eyes; she no
longer thought common those little pathetic anxieties which she had
heard this morning. For days and months the same anxieties, the same
care had been manifest. There was no day, no hour in which Lady Osborne
had not been concerned with the material comfort of those whom she
loved. She was always wondering if her husband had got his lunch at the
House, and what they gave him; whether the motor had got there in time,
and if he remembered to put his coat on. Nor had her care embraced him
alone. One day she had come up to Dora’s sitting room and found that
there was a draught round the door, and so had changed her seat. But
next day there was a screen placed correctly. Or Claude had sneezed at
dinner, and a mysterious phial had appeared on his dressing table with
the legend that directed its administration. He had come in to Dora to
ask if she had any explanation of the bottle. But she had none and they
concluded Mrs. Osborne had put it there, fussily no doubt, for a sneeze
was only a sneeze, but with what loving intent. She remembered
everything of that sort. Per liked kidneys: his wife liked cocoa. It was
all attended to. Martha was in evidence. But Mary was there.
Dora’s thoughts had strayed again. She had meant to think about the
trouble that she felt was threatening, and to see if by some alchemy it
might be transformed into a healing of hurt. She did not believe that
she was fanciful in expecting bad news: she wished to contemplate the
effect of it, if it came. Supposing Lady Osborne was found to be
suffering from something serious, how was she herself to behave? She had
to make things easier for her father-in-law: she had to be of some use.
That was not so difficult: a little affection meant so much to him. He
glowed with pleasure when she was kind. But for Claude? That was more
difficult. She had to be all to him. It was much harder there to meet
the needs she ought to meet, and should instinctively meet without
thought. Once, if she had said, “Oh, Claude,” all would have been said
because the simple words were a symbol. But now she could not say, “Oh,
Claude” like that. She could be Martha, that was easy. But it was not
Martha who was wanted.
The door from his dressing room opened, and he came in, shielding with
his hand the light of his candle, so that it should not fall on her
face. The outline of his fingers even to her half-shut eyes was drawn in
luminous red, where the light shone through the flesh. He had often come
in like that, fearing to awaken her. Often she had been awake, as she
was now.
To-night she feigned sleep. And she heard the soft breath that quenched
the candle; she heard a whisper of voice close to her, words of one who
thought that none heard.
“Good night, my darling,” he said.