fate or flats.”
“No, it isn’t your fault, Herbert. You can’t help your character. It
isn’t your fault that when you come home from the city you fall asleep
after dinner. It isn’t your fault that when you go to the club I sit at
home with my hands in my lap, thinking and brooding. It isn’t your fault
that your mother and I get on each other’s nerves. It isn’t your fault
that you and I have grown out of each other, that we bore each other and
have nothing to say to each other--except when we quarrel.”
“Well, then,” said Herbert, “whose fault is it?”
“I don’t know,” said Clare. “I suppose it’s a fault of the system, which
is spoiling thousands of marriages just like ours. It’s the fault which
is found out--in the Eighth Year.”
“Oh, curse the Eighth Year,” said Herbert violently. “What is that bee
you have got in your bonnet?”
“It’s a bee which keeps buzzing in my brain. It’s a little bee which
whispers queer words to me--tempting words. It says you must break away
from the system or the system will break you. You must find a way of
escape or die. You must do it quickly, now, to-night, or it will be too
late. Herbert, a hungry woman will do desperate things to satisfy her
appetite, and I am hungry for some stronger emotion than I can find
within these four walls. I am hungry for love, hungry for work, hungry
for life. If you can’t give it to me, I must find it elsewhere.”
“Clare,” said Herbert, with deliberate self-restraint, “I must again
remind you that time is getting on and you are not yet dressed. In a
little while our guests will be here. I hope you don’t mean to hold me
up to the contempt of my friends. I at least have some sense of duty....
I am going to fetch the whisky.” As he strode toward the door he started
back at the noise of breaking china.
“What’s that?” asked Clare.
“God knows,” said Herbert. “I expect mother has broken a window.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth before Mrs. Heywood came in in a
state of great agitation.
“Herbert, I must really ask you to come into the kitchen.”
“What’s the matter now?” asked Herbert, prepared for the worst.
“Mollie has deliberately broken our best coffee-pot.”
Herbert stared at his wife.
“Didn’t I tell you so!” he said.
“Why has she broken the coffee-pot?” asked Clare.
“She was most insolent,” said Mrs. Heywood, “and said my interference
got on her nerves.”
“Well, even a servant _has_ nerves,” said Clare.
“But it was the _best_ coffee-pot, Clare. Surely you are not going to
take it so calmly?”
“Like mistress like maid!” said Herbert. “Oh, my hat! Why on earth did I
marry?”
“Don’t you think you had better fetch the whisky?” said Clare gently.
Herbert became excited again.
“I have been trying to fetch the whisky for the last half hour. There is
a conspiracy against it. Confound it, I _will_ fetch the whisky.”
He strode to the door, as though he would get the whisky or die in the
attempt.
“I think you ought to speak to Mollie first,” said Mrs. Heywood.
Herbert raised his hands above his head.
“Damn Mollie!” he shouted wildly. Then he strode out of the room. “Damn
everything!”
“Poor dear,” said Mrs. Heywood. “I wish he didn’t get so worried.”
“Clare, won’t you come and speak to Mollie?”
“Haven’t you spoken to her?” asked Clare wearily.
“I am always speaking to her.”
“_Poor_ Mollie!” said Clare.
Mrs. Heywood was hurt at the tone of pity. She flushed a little and then
turned to her daughter-in-law with reproachful eyes.
“I am an old woman, Clare, and the mother of your husband. Because my
position forces me to live in this flat, I do not think you ought to
insult me.”
“I’m sorry,” said Clare with sincerity.
“Mollie is right. We all get on each other’s nerves. It can’t be helped,
I suppose. It’s part of the system.”
“I can’t help being your mother-in-law, Clare.”
“No, it can’t he helped,” said Clare.
Mrs. Heywood came close to her and touched her hand.
“You think I do not understand. You think you are the only one who has
any grievance.”
“Oh, no!” said Clare. “I am not so egotistical.”
Mrs. Heywood smoothed down her dress with trembling hands.
“You think I haven’t been watching you all these years. I have watched
you so that I know your thoughts behind those brooding eyes, Clare. I
know all that you have been thinking and suffering, so that sometimes
you hate me, so that my very presence here in the room with you makes
you wish to cry out, to shriek, because I am your mother-in-law, and the
mother of your husband. The husband always loves his mother best,
and the wife always knows it. That is the eternal tragedy of the
mother-in-law. Because she is hated by the wife of her son, and is
an intruder in her home. I know that because I too suffered from a
mother-in-law. Do you think I would stay here an hour unless I was
forced to stay, for a shelter above my old head, for some home in which
I wait to die? But while I wait I watch... and I know that you have
reached a dangerous stage in a woman’s life, when she may do any rash
thing. Clare, I pray every night that you may pass that stage in life
without doing anything--rash. This time always comes in marriage, it
comes----”
“In the Eighth Year?” asked Clare eagerly. “Somewhere about then.”
“Ah! I thought so.”
“It came to me, my dear.”
“And did _you_ do anything rash?”
Mrs. Heywood hesitated a moment before replying.
“I gave birth to Herbert,” she said.
“Good Heavens!” said Clare.
“It saved me from breaking----”
“Windows, mother?”
“No, my own and my husband’s heart,” said Mrs. Heywood. “Well, I will
go and speak to Mollie again. Goodness knows how we shall get coffee
to-night.”
She went out of the room with her head shaking a little after this scene
of emotion.
Clare spoke to herself aloud. She had her hands up to her throat.
“I don’t want coffee to-night. I want stronger drink. I want to get
drunk with liberty of life.”
Suddenly there was a noise at the window and the woman looked up,
startled, and cried, “Who is there?”
Gerald Bradshaw appeared at the open French window leading on to the
balcony, and he spoke through the window.
“It is I, Clare? Are you alone?”
Clare had risen from her chair at the sound of his voice, and her face
became very pale.
“Gerald... How did you come there?”
Gerald Bradshaw laughed in his lighthearted way.
“I stepped over the bar that divides our balconies. It was quite easy.
It was as easy as it will be to cross the bar that divides you and me,
Clare.”
Clare spoke in a frightened voice.
“Why do you come here, at this hour?”
“Why do I ever come?” asked Gerald Bradshaw.
“I don’t know.”
“It’s because I want you. I want you badly to-night, Clare. I can’t wait
for you any longer.”
Clare spoke pleadingly.
“Gerald... go away... it’s so dangerous... I daren’t listen to you.”
“I want you to listen,” said Gerald Bradshaw.
“Go away... I implore you to go away.”
He laughed at her. He seemed very much amused.
“Not before I have said what I want to say.”
“Say it quickly,” said Clare. “Quickly!”
“There’s time enough,” said Bradshaw. “This is what I want to say. You
are a lonely woman and I am a lonely man, and only an iron bar divides
us. It’s the iron bar of convention, of insincerity, of superstition. It
seems so difficult to cross. But you see one step is enough. I want you
to take that step--to-night.”
Clare answered him in a whisper.
“Go away!”
“I am hungry for you,” said Bradshaw, with a thrill in his voice. “I am
hungry for your love. And you are hungry for me. I have seen it in your
eyes. You have the look of a famished woman. Famished for love. Famished
for comradeship.”
Clare raised her hands despairingly.
“If you have any pity, go away.”
“I have no pity. Because pity is weakness, and I hate weakness.”
“You are brutal,” said Clare.
He laughed at her. He seemed to like those words.
“Yes, I have the brutality of manhood. Man is a brute, and woman likes
the brute in him because that is his nature, and woman wants the natural
man. That is why you want me, Clare. You can’t deny it.”
Clare protested feebly.
“I do deny it. I _must_ deny it.”
“It’s a funny thing,” said Gerald Bradshaw. “Between you and me there
is a queer spell, Clare. I was conscious of it when I first met you.
Something in you calls to me. Something in me calls to you. It is the
call of the wild.”
Clare was scared now. These words seemed to make her heart beat to a
strange tune.
“What do you mean?” she said.
“It is the call of the untamed creature. Both you and I are untamed.
We both have the spirit of the woods. I am Pan. You are a wood nymph,
imprisoned in a cage, upholstered by maple, on the hire system.”
“What do you want with me?” asked Clare. It was clear that he was
tempting her.
“I want to play with you, like Pan played. You and I will hear the pipes
of Pan to-night--the wild nature music.”
“To-night?”
“To-night. I have waited too long for you, and now I’m impatient. I
am alone in my flat waiting for you. I ask you to keep me company, not
to-night only, but until we tire of each other, until perhaps we hate
each other. Who knows?”
“Oh, God!” said Clare. She moaned out the words in a pitiful way.
“You have only to slip down one flight of stairs and steal up another,
and you will find me at the door with a welcome. It will need just a
little care to escape from your prison. You must slip on your hat and
cloak as though you were going round to church, and then come to me, to
me, Clare! Only a wall will divide you from this flat, but you will be a
world away. For you will have escaped from this upholstered cage into
a little world of liberty. Into a little world of love, Clare. Say you
will come!”
“Oh, God!” moaned Clare.
“You will come?”
“Are you the Devil that you tempt me?” said Clare.
Gerald gave a triumphant little laugh.
“You will come! Clare, my sweetheart, I know you will come, for your
spirit is ready for me.”
As he spoke these words there was the sound of a bell ringing through
the flat, and the noise of it struck terror into Clare Heywood.
“Go away,” she whispered. “For God’s sake go! Some one is ringing.”
“I will cross the bar again,” said Bradshaw. “But I shall be waiting at
the door. You will not be very long, little one?”
Clare sank down with her face in her hands. And Gerald stole away from
the window just as Mollie showed in Madge Vernon.
“It’s our At Home night,” said Mollie, as she came in, “and they’ll be
here presently.”
“All right, Mollie,” said Miss Vernon, smiling. “I shan’t stay more than
a minute. I know I have come at an awkward time.”
“She _would_ come in, ma’am,” said Mollie, as though she were not strong
enough to thwart such a determined visitor.
As soon as the girl had gone Madge Vernon came across to Clare, very
cheerfully and rather excitedly.
“Clare, are you coming?”
“Coming where?” asked Clare, trying to hide her agitation.
“To the demonstration,” said Madge Vernon. “You know I told you all
about it! It begins at eight. It will be immense fun, and after your
window-smashing exploit you are one of us. Good Heavens, I think you
have beaten us all. None of us have ever thought of breaking our own
windows.”
“It’s my At Home night,” said Clare.
“Oh, bother the At Home. Can’t your husband look after his friends for
once? I wanted you to join in this adventure. It would be your enrolment
in the ranks, and it will do you a lot of good, in your present state of
health.”
“In any case----” said Clare.
“What?”
Clare smiled in a tragic way.
“I have received a previous invitation.”
“Oh, drat the invitation.”
“Of course I should have liked to come,” said Clare, “but----”
Madge Vernon was impatient with her. “But what? I hate that word
‘but.’”
“The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,” said Clare, speaking with
a deeper significance than appeared in the words.
“There is no weakness about you. You have the courage of your
convictions. Have you had the window mended yet?”
She laughed gaily and then listened with her head a little on one side
to the sound of a bell ringing in the hall.
“That must be Herbert,” said Clare. “I think you had better go.”
“Yes, I think I had better,” said Madge, laughing again. “If looks could
kill----”
She went toward the door and opened it, but I stood on the threshold
looking back.
“Won’t you come? Eight o’clock, you know.”
Clare smiled weakly.
“I am in great demand to-night.”
The two women listened to Herbert’s voice in the hall saying--
“Of course all the shops were shut.”
“Oh, Lord!” said Madge, “I must skedaddle.” She went out of the room
hurriedly, leaving Clare alone.
And after a moment or two Clare spoke aloud, with her hands clasped upon
her breast.
“I wonder if the Devil is tempting me tonight?” she said.
Then Herbert entered with two whisky bottles.
“I had to hunt all over the place,” he said.
Then he saw that his wife was still in her afternoon frock, and his face
flushed with anger.
“What, aren’t you dressed _yet?_... I think you might show some respect
for my wishes, Clare.”
“I am going to dress now,” said Clare, and she rose and went into the
bedroom.
“Women are the very devil,” said Herbert, unwrapping the whisky bottles.
While he was busy with this his mother came in, having changed her
dress.
“Oh, I am glad you managed to get the whisky,” she said.
“Of course nearly every blessed shop was shut,” said Herbert. “They
always are when I run out of everything. It’s this Radical Government,
with its beastly Acts.”
Mrs. Heywood hesitated and then came across to her son and touched him
on the arm.
“I think you had better come into the kitchen a moment, dear, and look
after Mollie.”
“She hasn’t broken anything else, has she?” said Herbert anxiously.
“No, dear. But she has just cut her finger rather badly. She got in a
temper with the sandwiches.”
Herbert raised his hands to heaven.
“Why do these things always happen when Clare gives an At Home? I shall
abolish these evenings altogether. They will drive me mad.”
“Oh, they’re very pleasant when they once begin,” said Mrs. Heywood.
“I’m glad you think so, mother. I am damned if I do. I was only saying
to Clare to-night----”
He stalked out of the room furiously.
Mrs. Heywood stood for a few moments staring at the carpet. Her lips
moved and her worn old hands plucked at her skirt.
“Every time there is an At Home at this flat,” she said, “I get another
white hair.”
She moved toward the door and went out of the room, so that it was left
empty.
Outside in the street a piano-organ was playing a rag-time tune with a
rattle of notes, and motor-cars were sounding their horns.
In this little drawing-room in Intellectual Mansions, Battersea Park,
there was silence, except for those vague sounds from without. There was
no sign here of Fate’s presence, summoning a woman to her destiny. No
angel stood with a flaming sword to bar the way to a woman with a wild
heart. The little ormolu clock ticking on the mantel-shelf did not seem
to be counting the moments of a tragic drama. It was a very commonplace
little room, and the flamboyant chintz on the sofa and chairs gave it
an air of cheerfulness, as though this were one of the happy homes of
England.
Presently the bedroom door opened slowly, and Clare Heywood stood there
looking into the drawing-room and listening. She was very pale, and
was dressed in her outdoor things, as Gerald Bradshaw had asked her
to dress, in her hat and cloak, so that she might slip out of the flat
which he had called her prison.
She came further into the room, timidly, like a hare frightened by the
distant baying of the hounds.
She raised her hands to her bosom, and spoke in a whisper:
“God forgive me!”
Then she crossed the floor, listened for a moment intently at the door,
and slipped out. A moment or two later one’s ears, if they had been
listening, would have heard the front door shut.
Clare Heywood had escaped.
A little while later Mrs. Heywood, her mother-in-law, came into the room
again and went over to the piano to open it and arrange the music.
“I do hope Clare is getting dressed,” she said, speaking to herself.
Then Herbert came in, carrying a tray with decanter and glasses.
“Isn’t Clare ready yet?” he asked.
“No, dear. She won’t be long.”
“I can’t find the corkscrew,” said Herbert, searching round for it, but
failing to discover its whereabouts.
“Isn’t it in the kitchen, dear?” asked Mrs. Heywood.
“Not unless Mollie has swallowed it. It’s just the sort of thing she
would do--out of sheer spite.”
“Didn’t you use it the other day to open a tin of sardines?” asked the
old lady, cudgelling her brains.
“Did I?” said Herbert. “Oh, Lord, yes! I left it in the bathroom.”
He went out of the room to find it.
Mrs. Heywood crossed over to the fire and swept up the grate.
“Clare is a very long time to-night,” she said.
Then Mollie came in carrying a tray with some plates of sandwiches. One
of her fingers was tied up with a rag.
“It’s a good job the guests is late to-night,” she remarked.
“Yes, we are all very behind-hand,” said Mrs. Heywood.
Mollie dumped down the tray and gave vent to a little of her impertinent
philosophy:
“I’ll never give an At Home when I’m married. Blest if I do. Social
‘ipocrisy, I call them.”
Mrs. Heywood rebuked her sharply:
“We don’t want your opinion, Mollie, thank you.”
“I suppose I can _have_ a few opinions, although I _am_ in service,”
said Mollie. “There’s plenty of time for thought even in the kitchen
of a flat like this. I wonder domestic servants don’t write novels. My
word, what a revelation it would be! I’ve a good mind to write one of
them serials in the _Daily Mail_.”
“If I have any more of your impudence, Mollie----”
“It’s not impudence,” said Mollie. “It’s aspirations.”
The girl was silent when her master came into the room with the
corkscrew.
“It wasn’t in the bathroom,” he explained. “I remember now, I used it
for cleaning out my pipe.”
“I could have told you that a long time ago, sir,” said Mollie.
“Well, why the dickens didn’t you?” asked Herbert.
“You never asked me, sir.”
Mollie retired with the air of having scored a point.
“Well, as long as you’ve found it, dear,” said Mrs. Heywood.
“Unfortunately, I broke the point. However, I daresay I can make it do.”
He pulled one of the corks out of the whisky bottle and filled the
decanter.
“Hasn’t Clare finished dressing yet?” he said presently. “What on earth
is she doing?”
“I expect she wants her blouse done up at the back,” said Mrs. Heywood.
Herbert jerked up his head.
“And then she complains because I can’t tie my own tie I Just like
women.”
He drew out another cork rather violently and said:
“Well, go and see after her, mother.”
Mrs. Heywood went toward the bedroom door and called out in her silvery
voice:
“Are you ready, dear?”
She listened for a moment, and called out again:
“Clare!”
Herbert poured some more whisky into the decanter.
“I expect she’s reading one of those beastly pamphlets,” he said.
Mrs. Heywood tapped at the bedroom door.
“Clare!”
“Go in, mother,” said Herbert irritably.
“It’s very strange!” said Mrs. Heywood in an anxious voice.
She went into the bedroom, and Herbert, who had been watching her,
spilled some of the whisky, so that he muttered to himself:
“What with women and what with whisky----”
He did not finish his sentence, but stared in the direction of the
bedroom as though suspecting something was wrong.
Mrs. Heywood came trembling out. She had a scared look.
“Oh, Herbert!”
Herbert was alarmed by the look on her face.
“Is Clare ill--or something?”
“She isn’t there,” said Mrs. Heywood.
The old lady was rather breathless.
“Not there!” said Herbert in a dazed way.
“She went in to dress a few minutes ago,” said his mother.
Herbert stared at her. He was really very much afraid, but he spoke
irritably:
“Well, she can’t have gone up the chimney, can she? At least, I suppose
not, though you never can tell nowadays.”
He strode toward the bedroom door and called out:
“Clare!”
Then he went inside.
Mrs. Heywood stood watching the open door. She raised her hands up and
then let them fall, and spoke in a hoarse kind of whisper:
“I think it has happened at last.”
Herbert came out of the bedroom again. He looked pale, and had gloomy
eyes.
“It’s devilish queer!” he said.
Mother and son stood looking at each other, as though in the presence of
tragedy.
“She must have gone out,” said Mrs. Hey-wood.
“Gone out! What makes you think so?”
“She has taken her hat and cloak.”
“How do you know?” asked Herbert.
“I looked in the wardrobe.”
“Good Heavens! Where’s she gone to?”
Mrs. Heywood’s thin old hands clutched at the white lace upon her bosom.
“Herbert, I--I am afraid.”
The man went deadly white. He stammered as he spoke:
“You don’t mean that she is going to do something--foolish?”
“Something rash,” said Mrs. Hey wood mournfully.
Herbert had a sudden idea. It took away from his fear a little and made
him angry.
“Perhaps she has gone round to church. If so, I will give her a piece of
my mind when she comes back. It’s outrageous! It’s shameful.”
There was the sound of a bell ringing through the hall, and the mother
and son listened intently.
“Perhaps she _has_ come back,” said Herbert. “Perhaps she went to fetch
some flowers.” This idea seemed to soften him. His voice broke a little
when he said: “Poor girl! I didn’t mean to make such a fuss about them.”
“It isn’t Clare,” said Mrs. Heywood, shaking her head. “It’s a visitor.
I hear Mr. Atkinson Brown’s voice.”
Mr. Atkinson Brown’s voice could be heard quite plainly in the hall:
“Well, Mollie, is your mistress quite well?” Herbert grasped his
mother’s arm and whispered to her excitedly:
“Mother, we must hide it from them.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Heywood. “If the Atkinson Browns suspect anything it
will be all over the neighborhood.”
Herbert had a look of anguish in his eyes. “Good Heavens, yes. My
reputation will be ruined.”
Once again they heard Mr. Atkinson Brown’s voice in the hall.
“I see we are the first to arrive,” he said in a loud, cheery tone.
“Mother,” whispered Herbert, “we must keep up appearances, at all
costs.”
“I’ll try to, darling,” said Mrs. Heywood, clasping his arm for a
moment.
Herbert made a desperate effort to be hopeful.
“Clare is sure to be back in a few minutes. We’re frightening ourselves
for nothing.... I shall have something to say to her to-night when the
guests are gone.”
Mrs. Heywood’s eyes filled with tears, and she looked at her son as
though she knew that Clare would never come back.
“My poor boy!” she said.
“Play the game, mother,” said Herbert. “For Heaven’s sake play the
game.”
He had no sooner whispered these words than Mr. and Mrs. Atkinson Brown
entered the room, having taken off their outdoor things. Mr. Brown was
a tall, stout, heavily built man with a bald head and a great expanse
of white waistcoat. His wife was a little bird-like woman in pink silk.
They were both elaborately cheerful.
“Hulloh, Heywood, my boy!” said the elderly man.
“So delighted to come!” said Mrs. Atkinson Brown to Herbert’s mother.
Herbert grasped the man’s hand and wrung it warmly.
“Good of you to come. Devilish good.”
“Glad to come,” said Mr. Atkinson Brown. “Glad to come, my lad. How’s
the wife?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Atkinson Brown, glancing round the room. “Where’s dear
Clare?... Well, I hope.”
Herbert tried to hide his extreme nervousness.
“Oh, tremendously fit, thanks. She’ll be here in a minute or two.”
Mrs. Heywood appeared less nervous than her son. Yet her voice trembled
a little when she said:
“Do sit down, Mrs. Atkinson Brown.”
She pulled a chair up, but the lady protested laughingly:
“Oh, not so near the fire. I can’t afford to neglect my complexion at my
time of life!”
Her husband was rubbing his hands in front of the fire. He had no
complexion to spoil.
“Horrible weather for this time o’ year,” he said.
“Damnable,” said Herbert, agreeing with him almost too cordially.
“Is dear Clare suited at present?” asked the lady.
“Well,” said Mrs. Heywood, “we still have Mollie, but she is a great
trouble--a very great trouble.”
“Oh, the eternal servant problem!” said Mrs. Atkinson Brown. “I thought
I had a perfect jewel, but I found her inebriated in the kitchen only
yesterday.”
Herbert was racking his brains for conversational subjects. He fell back
on an old one. “Business going strong?”
“Business!” said Mr. Atkinson Brown. “My dear boy, business has been the
very devil since this Radical Government has been in power.”
“I am sure there has been a great deal of trouble in the world lately,”
said Mrs. Heywood.
“I’m sure I can’t bear to read even the dear _Daily Mail_,” said Mrs.
Atkinson Brown.
“What with murders and revolutions and eloping vicars and
suffragettes----”
“Those outrageous women ought to be whipped,” said her husband. “Spoiled
my game of golf last Saturday. Found ‘Votes for Women’ on the first
green. Made me positively ill.”
“I am glad dear Clare is so sensible,” said Mrs. Atkinson Brown.
“Yes. Oh, quite so,” said Mrs. Heywood, flushing a little.
“Oh, rather!” said Herbert.
“We domestic women are in the minority now,” said Mrs. Atkinson Brown.
“The spirit of revolt is abroad, Herbert,” said her husband. “Back to
the Home is the only watchword which will save the country from these
shameless hussies. Flog ‘em back, I would. Thank God _our_ wives have
more sense.”
“Yes, there’s something in that,” said Herbert.
Mrs. Atkinson Brown was gazing round the room curiously. She seemed to
suspect something.
“You are sure dear Clare is quite well?” she asked. “No little trouble?”
“She is having a slight trouble with her back hair,” said Herbert.
“Won’t lie down, you know.”
He laughed loudly, as though he had made a good joke.
Mrs. Atkinson Brown half rose from her chair.
“Oh, let me go to the rescue of the dear thing!”
Herbert was terror-stricken.
“No--no! It was only my joke,” he said eagerly. “She will be here in a
minute. Do sit down.”
Mrs. Heywood remembered her promise to “play the game.”
“Won’t you sing something, dear?” she said to her visitor.
“Oh, not so early in the evening,” said the lady. “Besides, I have a
most awful cold.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Herbert. “I am beastly sorry.”
As he spoke the bell rang again, and Herbert went over to his mother and
whispered to her:
“Do you think that is Clare? My God, this is awful!”
“Clare was not looking very well the other day when I saw her,”
said Mrs. Atkinson Brown. “I thought perhaps she was sickening for
something.”
“Oh, I assure you she was never better in her life,” said Herbert.
“But you men are so unobservant. I am dying to see dear Clare, to ask
her how she feels. Are you sure I can’t be of any use to her?”
She rose again from her chair, and Herbert gave a beseeching look to his
mother.
“Oh, quite sure, dear,” said Mrs. Heywood. “_Do_ sit down.”
“Besides, you have such a frightful cold,” said Herbert, with extreme
anxiety. “_Do_ keep closer to the fire.”
Mrs. Atkinson Brown laughed a little curiously:
“You seem very anxious to keep me from dear Clare!”
This persistence annoyed her husband and he rebuked her sternly.
“Sit still, Beatrice, can’t you? Don’t you see that we have arrived a
little early and that we have taken Clare unawares? Let the poor girl go
on with her dressing.”
“Don’t bully me in other people’s flats, Charles,” said Mrs. Atkinson
Brown. “I have enough of it at home.”
Her husband was not to be quelled.
“Herbert and I can hardly hear ourselves speak,” he growled, “you keep
up such a clatter.”
Mrs. Atkinson Brown flared up.
“I come out to get the chance of speaking a little. For eight years now
I have been listening to your interminable monologues, and can’t get a
word in edgeways.”
“Stuff and nonsense!” said her husband.
“Have you been married eight years already, my dear?” asked Mrs. Heywood
in a tone of amiable surprise.
“Well, we are in our Eighth Year,” said Mrs. Atkinson Brown.
Mrs. Heywood seemed startled.
“Oh, I see,” she said thoughtfully.
“I assure you it seems longer,” said the lady. “I suppose it’s because
Charles makes me so very tired sometimes.”
Two other visitors now arrived. They were Mr. Hargreaves and his
wife: the former a young man in immaculate evening clothes, with
lofty manners; the latter a tall, thin, elegant, bored-looking woman,
supercilious and snobbish.
Herbert went forward hurriedly to his new guests.
“How splendid of you to come! How are you, sir?”
“Oh, pretty troll-loll, thanks,” said Mr. Hargreaves.
Herbert shook hands with Mrs. Hargreaves.
“How do you do?”
“We’re rather late,” said the lady, “but this is in an out-of-the-way
neighborhood, is it not?”
“Oh, do you think so?” said Herbert. “I always considered Battersea Park
very central.”
Mrs. Hargreaves raised her eyebrows.
“It’s having to get across the river that makes the journey so very
tedious. I should die if I had to live across the river.”
“There’s something in what you say,” said Herbert, anxious to agree with
everybody. “I must apologize for dragging you all this way. Of course,
you people in Mayfair----Won’t you sit down?”
Mr. Hargreaves became a victim of mistaken identity, shaking hands with
Mrs. Atkinson Brown.
“Mrs. Heywood, I presume. I must introduce myself.”
Mrs. Hargreaves also greeted the other lady, under the same impression.
“Oh, how do you do? So delighted to make your acquaintance.”
Mrs. Atkinson Brown was much amused, and laughed gaily.
“But I am _not_ Mrs. Heywood. I cannot boast of such a handsome
husband!”
“Oh, can’t you, by Jove!” said Mr. Atkinson Brown, rather nettled by his
wife’s candor.
“Oh, I beg pardon,” said Mr. Hargreaves. “Where _is_ Mrs. Heywood?”
“Yes, where is Mrs. Heywood?” said his wife.
Herbert looked wildly at his mother.
“Where is she, mother? Do tell her to hurry up.
“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Heywood meekly. She moved uncertainly toward the
bedroom door, and then hesitated: “Perhaps she will not be very long
now.”
“The fact is,” said Herbert desperately, “she is not very well.”
Mrs. Atkinson Brown was astounded.
“But you said she was perfectly well!”
“Did I?” said Herbert. “Oh, well, er--one has to say these things, you
know. Polite fictions, eh?”
He laughed nervously.
“The fact is, she has a little headache. Hasn’t she, mother?”
“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Heywood. “You know best.”
Mrs. Atkinson Brown rose from her chair again.
“Oh, I will go and see how the poor dear feels. So bad of you to hide it
from us.”
“Oh, please sit down,” said Herbert in a voice of anguish. “I assure you
it is nothing very much. She will be in directly. Make yourself at home,
Mrs. Hargreaves. This chair? Mother, show Mrs. Atkinson Brown Clare’s
latest photograph.”
“Oh, yes!” said Mrs. Heywood. “It is an excellent likeness.”
“But I want to see Clare herself!” said Mrs. Atkinson Brown plaintively.
“Sit down, Beatrice!” said her husband.
“Bully!” said Mrs. Atkinson Brown, sitting down with a flop.
Herbert addressed himself to Mr. Hargreaves.
“Draw up your chair, sir. You will have a cigar, I am sure.”
He offered him one from a newly opened box. Mr. Hargreaves took one,
smelled it, and then put it back.
“No, thanks,” he said. “I will have one of my own, if I may. Sure the
ladies don’t mind?”
“Oh, they like it,” said Herbert.
“We have to pretend to,” said Mrs. Hargreaves.
“Well, if you don’t, you ought to,” said her husband. “It’s a man’s
privilege.”
Mrs. Hargreaves smiled icily.
“One of his many privileges.”
“Will you have a cigarette, Mrs. Hargreaves?” said Herbert.
But Mr. Hargreaves interposed:
“Oh, I don’t allow my wife to smoke. It’s a beastly habit.”
Mr. Atkinson Brown, who had accepted one of Herbert’s cigars, but after
some inquiry had also decided to smoke one of his own, applauded this
sentiment with enthusiasm.
“Hear, hear! Hear, hear! Disgusting habit for women.”
“Of course I agree with you,” said Herbert. “Clare never smokes. But I
don’t lay down the law for other people’s wives.”
Mr. Hargreaves laughed.
“A very sound notion, Heywood. It takes all one’s time to manage one’s
own, eh?”
“And then it is not always effective,” said his wife. “Even the worm
will turn.”
Mr. Hargreaves answered his wife with a heavy retort:
“If it does I knock it on the head with a spade.”
Mr. Atkinson Brown laughed loudly again. He seemed to like this man
Hargreaves.
“Good epigram! By Jove, I must remember that!”
Herbert was on tenter-hooks when the conversation languished a little.
“Won’t you sing a song, Mrs. Atkinson Brown? I am sure my friend, Mr.
Hargreaves, will appreciate your voice.”
“Oh, rather!” said Hargreaves. “Though I don’t pretend to understand a
note of music.” Mrs. Atkinson Brown shook her head:
“I couldn’t think of singing before our hostess appears.”
The lady’s husband seemed at last to have caught the spirit of her
suspicion. He spoke in a hoarse whisper to his wife:
“Where the devil _is_ the woman?”
Herbert Heywood realized that he was on the edge of a precipice. Not
much longer could he hold on to this intolerable situation. He tried to
speak cheerfully, but there was anguish in his voice when he said:
“Well, let’s have a game of nap.”
“Oh, Lord, no,” said Hargreaves. “I only play nap on the way to a race.
You don’t sport a billiard table, do you?”
Herbert Heywood was embarrassed.
“Er--a billiard table?” He looked round the room as though he might
discover a billiard table. “I’m afraid not.”
“Don’t be absurd, Edward,” said Mrs. Hargreaves. “People don’t play
billiards on the wrong side of the river.”
Conversation languished again, and Herbert was becoming desperate. He
seized upon the sandwiches and handed them round.
“Won’t anybody have a sandwich to pass the time away? Mrs. Hargreaves?”
Mrs. Hargreaves laughed in her supercilious way.
“It’s rather early, isn’t it?”
“Good Lord, no!” said Herbert. “I am sure you must be hungry. Let me beg
of you--Mother, haven’t you got any cake anywhere?”
“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Heywood. She, too, was suffering mental tortures.
“Atkinson Brown. You will have a sandwich,” said Herbert.
He bent over to his visitor and spoke in a gloomy voice:
“Take one, for God’s sake.”
Atkinson Brown was startled.
“Yes! Yes! By all means,” he said hastily. Herbert handed the sandwiches
about rather wildly. “Mother, you will have one, won’t you? Mrs.
Atkinson Brown?... And one for me, eh?”
Mrs. Hargreaves eyed her host curiously.
“I hope your wife is not seriously unwell, Mr. Heywood.”
Herbert was losing his nerve.
“Can’t we talk of something else?” he said despairingly. “What is your
handicap at golf?”
“My husband objects to my playing golf,” said the lady.
“It takes women out of the home so much,” said Hargreaves. “Play with
the babies is my motto for women.”
Mrs. Atkinson Brown shook her finger at him, and laughed in a shrill
voice:
“But supposing they haven’t got any babies?”
“They ought to have ‘em,” said Hargreaves.
It was Atkinson Brown who interrupted this interesting discussion, which
promised to bring up the great problem of eugenics, so favored now as a
drawing-room topic. He had been turning his sandwich this way and that,
and he leaned forward to his host:
“Excuse me, Herbert, old man. There’s something the matter with this
sandwich.”
“Something the matter with it?” asked Herbert anxiously.
“It’s covered with red spots,” said Atkinson Brown.
“Spots--what kind of spots?”
“Looks like blood,” said Atkinson Brown, giving an uneasy guffaw.
“Suppose there hasn’t been a murder in this flat?”
All the guests leaned forward and gazed at the sandwich.
Herbert spoke in a tragic whisper to his mother:
“Mollie’s finger!”
Then he explained the matter airily to the general company.
“Oh, it’s a special kind of sandwich with the gravy outside. A new fad,
you know.”
“Oh, I see,” said Atkinson Brown, much relieved. “Hadn’t heard of it.
Still, I think I’ll have an ordinary one, if you don’t mind.”
Herbert was muttering little prayers remembered from his childhood.
“Mrs. Hargreaves,” he said cajolingly, “I am sure you play. Won’t you
give us a little tune?”
“Well, if it won’t disturb your wife,” said the lady.
“Oh, I am sure it won’t. She’ll love to hear you.”
He felt immensely grateful to this good-natured woman.
“Edward, get my music-roll,” said Mrs. Hargreaves.
But Herbert had a horrible disappointment when Hargreaves said:
“By Jove! I believe I left it in the taxi. Yes, I am sure I did!”
Herbert put his hand up to his aching head and whispered his anguish:
“Oh, my God! Now how shall I mark time?”
“But I reminded you about it!” said Mrs. Hargreaves.
“Yes, I know. But you are always reminding me about something.”
“Well, play something by heart,” said Herbert in a pleading way. “Any
old thing. The five-finger exercises.”
“I am very out of practice,” said Mrs. Hargreaves. “But still I will
try.”
Herbert breathed a prayer of thankfulness, and hurried to conduct the
lady to the music-stool.
As he did so there was a noise outside the window. Newspaper men were
shouting their sing-song: “Raid on the ‘Ouse. Suffragette Outrage. Raid
on the ‘Ouse of Commins.”
“What are the devils saying?” asked Hargreaves, trying to catch the
words.
“Something about the Suffragettes,” growled Atkinson Brown.
“I’m afraid it will give poor Clare a worse headache,” said Mrs.
Atkinson Brown.
Mrs. Heywood tried to be reassuring:
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
At that moment there was a loud ring at the bell. The sound was so
prolonged that it startled the company.
Herbert listened intently and then whispered to his mother:
“That must be Clare!”
“Oh, if it is only Clare!” said Mrs. Heywood. When Mrs. Hargreaves had
struck a few soft chords on the piano there was the sound of voices
speaking loudly in the hall. Everybody listened, surprised at the
interruption. Mollie’s voice could be heard quite clearly.
“I told you it was our At Home night, Miss Vernon.”
“I can’t help that.”
The drawing-room door opened, _sans ceremonie_, and Madge Vernon came
in. Her face was flushed, and she had sparkling eyes. She stood in the
doorway looking at the company with a smile, as though immensely amused
by some joke of her own.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you good people,” she said very cheerfully, “but
I have come on urgent business, which brooks no delay, as they say in
melodrama.”
Mrs. Heywood gazed at her with frightened eyes.
“My dear!... What has happened?”
“What’s the matter?” said Herbert, turning very pale.
“Oh, it’s nothing to be alarmed at,” said Madge Vernon. “It’s about your
wife.”
“My wife?”
“About Clare?” exclaimed Mrs. Atkinson Brown.
Mrs. Hargreaves craned her head forward, like a bird reaching for its
seed.
“I wonder--” she said.
Madge Vernon grinned at them all.
“It’ll be in the papers to-morrow, so you are all bound to know.
Besides, why keep it a secret? It’s a thing to be proud of!”
“Proud of what?” asked Herbert in a frenzied tone of voice.
Madge Vernon enjoyed the drama of her announcement.
“Clare has been arrested in a demonstration outside the House to-night.”
“Arrested!”
The awful word was spoken almost simultaneously by all the company in
that drawingroom of Intellectual Mansions, S. W.
“She’s quite safe,” said Madge Vernon calmly. “I’ve come to ask you to
bail her out.”
Herbert’s guests rose and looked at him in profound astonishment and
indignation.
“But you told us--” cried Mrs. Atkinson Brown.
Herbert Heywood gave a queer groan of anger and horror.
“Bail her out!... Oh, my God!”
He sank down into his chair and held his head in his hands.
CHAPTER III
Herbert Heywood was in the depths of an arm-chair reading the paper.
Mrs. Heywood was on the other side of the fireplace with a book on her
lap. But she was dozing over it, and her head nodded on to her chest.
Herbert turned over the leaves of the paper and then studied the
advertisements. He had a look of extreme boredom. Every now and then he
yawned quietly and lengthily. At last he let the paper fall on to the
floor, and uttered his thoughts aloud, so that his mother was awakened.
“Did you say anything, Herbert?” said the old lady.
“Nothing, mother, except that I am bored stiff.”
He went over to the piano and played “God Save the King” with one
finger, in a doleful way.
Mrs. Heywood glanced over her spectacles at him.
“Would you like a game of cribbage, dear?”
“No, thanks, mother,” said Herbert hastily. “Not in the afternoon.”
Mrs. Heywood listened to his fumbling notes for a moment and then spoke
again.
“Won’t you go out for a walk? It would do you good, Herbert.”
“Think so?” said Herbert bitterly; without accepting the suggestion,
he played “Three Blind Mice,” also with one finger. It sounded more
melancholy than “God Save the King.”
“I don’t like to see you moping indoors on a bright day like this,” said
Mrs. Heywood. “Take a brisk walk round the Park. It would cheer you up.”
Herbert resented the idea fiercely.
“A long walk in Battersea Park would make a pessimist of a laughing
hyena.”
Mrs. Heywood was silent for some time, but then she made a last effort.
“Well, go and see a friend, dear. The Atkinson Browns, for instance.”
“They do nothing but nag at each other,” said Herbert. “And Atkinson
Brown hasn’t as much brains as a Teddy Bear. Besides, he’s become
friendly with that fellow Hargreaves, and I’m not going to take the risk
of meeting a man who turned me out of my job.”
Mrs. Heywood became agitated.
“Are you sure of that, Herbert? I can’t think he could have been so
malicious, after coming here and eating your salt, as it were. What was
his reason?”
“He made no disguise of it,” said Herbert bitterly. “I saw his letter
to my chief. Said that it was quite impossible to employ a man who was
mixed up with the militant Suffragettes. Damned liar!”
“Good Heavens!” said Mrs. Heywood.
“Of course it was all due to that ghastly evening when Clare got
arrested. She knows that well enough.”
“Well, dear,” said Mrs. Heywood, “she has tried to make amends. The
shock of your losing your place has made her much more gentle and
loving. It has brought back all her loyalty to you, Herbert.”
“Loyalty!” said Herbert. “Where is she now, I should like to know?”
“She is gone to some committee meeting.”
“She’s always got a committee meeting,” said Herbert angrily, kicking
the hassock.
“She joins a new committee for some kind of social reform nonsense every
blessed day.”
“Well, it keeps her busy, dear,” said Mrs. Heywood gently. “Besides,
it is not all committee work. Since she has been visiting the poor and
helping in the slums she has been ever so much better in health and
spirits.”
“Yes, but where the devil do I come in?” asked Herbert.
“Don’t you think you might go out, dear? Just for a little while?”
“I don’t _want_ to go out, mother,” said Herbert with suppressed heat.
“Very well, dear.”
Herbert stood in front of the fireplace and rattled the keys in his
pocket moodily.
“What’s the good of toiling to keep a home together if one’s wife
abandons her husband’s society on every possible pretext? A home! This
place is just a receiving office for begging letters and notices for
committees and subcommittees.”
Mrs. Heywood sighed.
“It might have been worse, Herbert.”
“As far as I’m concerned, it couldn’t be worse. I’m the most miserable
wretch in London. Without a job and without a wife.”
“You’ll get a place all right, dear. You have the promise of one
already. And you know Clare’s health was in a very queer state before
Miss Vernon made her take an interest in helping other people. I was
seriously alarmed about her.”
“What about me?” asked Herbert. “No one troubles to get alarmed about
me.”
“Are you unwell, dear?” said Mrs. Hey-wood anxiously.
“Of course I’m unwell.”
“Darling!” said Mrs. Heywood, still more anxiously.
“Oh, there’s nothing the matter with me from a physical point of view.
But mentally and morally I’m a demnition wreck.”
“Aren’t you taking your iron pills regularly?” said his mother.
“Pills! As if pills could cure melancholia!” Mrs. Heywood was aghast at
that dreadful word.
“Good Heavens, dear!”
“I’m on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” said Herbert.
“Oh, Herbert,” cried his mother, “I hope not!”
“I’m working up to a horrible crisis,” said Herbert.
“What are your symptoms? How do you feel?” asked his mother.
“I feel like smashing things,” said Herbert savagely.
He sat down at the piano again and played “We Won’t Go Home Till
Morning,” but missed his note, and banged on to the wrong one in a
temper.
“There goes a note, anyhow. Thank goodness for that!”
At that moment Mollie came in holding a silver tray with a pile of
letters.
“The post, sir.”
“Well, something to break the infernal monotony,” said Herbert with a
sigh of relief.
He took up the letters and examined them.
“Life is a bit flat, sir,” said Mollie, “since we gave up having At
Homes.”
“Hold your tongue,” said Herbert.
Mollie tossed her head and muttered an impertinent sentence as she left
the room.
“Can’t even open my mouth without somebody jumping down my throat. I
will break that girl’s neck one of these days,” said Herbert.
He went through the letters and read out the names on them.
“Mrs. Herbert Heywood, _Mrs._ Herbert Heywood, Mrs. Herbert Heywood,
Mrs. Herbert--Why, every jack one is for Mrs. Herbert Heywood! Nobody
writes to me, of course. No one cares a damn about _me_.”
“Your mother cares, Herbert,” said the old lady.
“I shall take to drink--or the devil,” said Herbert, and he added
thoughtfully, “I wonder which is the most fun?”
“Herbert, dear!” cried his mother, “don’t say such awful things.”
“The worst of it is,” said Herbert bitterly, “they’re both so beastly
expensive.”
There was the noise of a latchkey in the hall, and Mrs. Heywood gave a
little cry.
“There’s Clare!”
“Think so?” said Herbert, listening.
From the hall came the sound of Clare’s voice singing a merry tune.
“She’s in a cheerful mood, anyhow,” said Mrs. Heywood, smiling.
Herbert answered her gloomily.
“Horribly cheerful.”
The mother and son looked toward the door as Clare came in. There was a
noticeable change in her appearance since the evening At Home. There was
more color in her cheeks and the wistfulness had gone out of her eyes.
She was brisk, keen and bright.
“Well, mother,” she said, “been having a nap?”
“Oh, no, dear,” said the old lady, who never admitted that she made a
habit of naps.
“Hulloh, Herbert,” said Clare. “Have you got that new post yet?”
“No,” said Herbert. “And I don’t expect I shall get it.”
“Oh, yes, you will, dear old boy. Don’t you worry! Have you been home
long?”
“Seems like a lifetime.”
Clare laughed.
“Not so long as that, surely?”
She came forward to him and put her arm about his neck, and offered him
her cheek. He looked at it doubtfully for a moment and then kissed her
in a “distant” manner.
“I’m frightfully busy, old boy,” said Clare. “I just have a few minutes
and then I shall have to dash off again.”
“Dash off where?” asked Herbert, with signs of extreme irritation. “Dash
it all, surely you aren’t going out again?”
“Only round the corner,” said Clare quietly. “I have got to look into
the case of a poor creature who is making match-boxes. Goodness knows
how many for a farthing! And yet she’s so cheerful and plucky that it
does one good to see her. Oh, it kills one’s own selfishness, Herbert.”
“Well, why worry about her, then, if she’s so pleased with herself?”
“She’s plucky,” said Clare, “but she’s starving. It’s a bad case of
sweated labor.”
“Sweated humbug,” said Herbert. “What am I going to do all the evening,
I should like to know? Sit here alone?”
“I don’t suppose I shall be long,” said Clare. “Besides, there’s
mother.”
“Yes, there’s mother,” said Herbert. “But when a man’s married he wants
his wife.”
Clare was now busy looking over her letters.
“Can’t you go to the club?” she asked.
“I’m dead sick of the club. That boiled-shirt Bohemianism is the biggest
rot in the world.”
“Take mother to the theatre,” said Clare cheerfully.
“The theatre bores me stiff. These modern plays set one’s nerves on
edge.”
“Well, haven’t you got a decent novel or anything?” said Clare, reading
one of her letters.
“A decent novel! There’s no such thing nowadays, and they give me the
hump.”
Clare was reading another letter with absorbed interest, but she
listened with half an ear, as it were, to her husband.
“Play mother a game of cribbage, then,” she said.
“Look here, Clare,” said Herbert furiously, “I shall begin to throw
things about in a minute.”
“Don’t get hysterical, Herbert,” said Clare calmly. “Especially as I
have got some good news for you.”
As she spoke these words she looked across a Demonstration to him with a
curious smile and added: “A big surprise, Herbert!”
“A surprise?” said Herbert with sarcasm. “Have you discovered another
widow in distress?”
“Well, I have,” said Clare, “but it’s not that.”
Mrs. Heywood glanced from her son to her daughter-in-law, and seemed to
imagine that she might be disturbing an intimate conversation.
“I will be back in a minute. I won’t disturb you two dears,” she said,
as she left the room quietly.
“You won’t disturb us, mother,” said Clare.
But the old lady smiled and said, “I won’t be long.”
“Are you going to get arrested again?” asked Herbert. “Do you want me to
bail you out? Because by the Lord, I won’t!”
“Oh, that was quite an accident,” said Clare, laughing. “Besides, I gave
you my word to abstain from the militant movement, and you can’t say I
have broken the pledge.”
“You have broken a good many other things.”
“What kind of things?” asked Clare. “You aren’t alluding to that window
again, are you?”
“You have broken my illusions on married life,” said Herbert, with
tragic emphasis.
“Ah,” said Clare, “that is ‘the Great Illusion,’ by the Angel in the
House.”
“You have broken my ideals of womanhood.”
“They were false ideals, Herbert,” said Clare very quietly. “It was only
a plaster ideal which broke. The real woman is of flesh and blood. The
real woman is so much better than the sham. Don’t you think so?”
“It depends on what you call sham,” said Herbert.
“I was a sham until that plaster image of me broke. I indulged in sham
sentiment, sham emotion, sham thoughts. Look at me now, since I went
outside these four walls and faced the facts of life, and saw other
people’s misery besides my own, and the happiness of people with so much
more to bear than I had. Look into my eyes, Herbert.”
She smiled at him tenderly, alluringly. “What’s the good?” said Herbert.
“Do you see a weary soul looking out?”
Herbert looked into his wife’s eyes for a moment and then stared down at
the carpet.
“I used to see love looking out,” he said.
“It’s looking out now,” said Clare. “Love of life instead of discontent.
Love of this great throbbing human nature, with so much to be put right.
Love of poor people, and little children, and brave hearts. Madge Vernon
taught me that, for she has a soul bigger than the suffrage, and ideals
that go beyond the vote. I have blown the cobwebs out of my eyes,
Herbert. I see straight.”
“How about _me?_” asked Herbert. “That’s what I want to know. Where do I
come in?”
“Oh, you come in all right!” said Clare. “You are a part of life and
have a big share of my love.”
“I don’t want to be shared up, thanks,” said Herbert.
She stroked his hand.
“I love you much better now that I see you with this new straight vision
of mine. At any rate I love what is real in you and not what is sham.
And I have learned the duties of love, Herbert. I believe I am a better
wife to you. I think I have learned the meaning of marriage, and of
married love.”
She spoke with a touch of emotion, and there was a thrill in her voice.
“You are in love with your social work and your whining beggars, not
with me. You are getting farther and farther away from me. You leave me
alone; I come back to a neglected home.”
“Why, Mollie and mother look after it beautifully,” said Clare very
cheerfully.
Herbert gave expression to his grievances.
“I come home and ask, ‘Where is Clare?’ and get the eternal answer,
‘Clare is out.’ I am an abandoned husband, and by Heaven I won’t stand
it. I will----”
“What, Herbert?” said Clare, smiling up at him. “Don’t do anything rash,
old boy.”
“I--have a good mind to make love to somebody else’s wife. But they’re
all so beastly ugly!”
“Perhaps somebody else’s wife won’t respond,” said Clare. “Some women
are very cold.”
“I’ll take to drink. I have already given mother full warning.”
“I am sure it will disagree with you, dear,” said Clare.
“You scoff at me,” said Herbert passionately. “I think we had better
live apart.”
“You would get even more bored than before. Dear old boy. _Do_ be
reasonable. _Do_ cultivate a sense of humor.”
“This is not a farce,” said Herbert. “It’s a horrible tragedy.”
“Take up a hobby or something,” said Clare. “Golf--or fretwork.”
Herbert was furious.
“Fretwork! Is that a joke or an insult?”
“It was only a suggestion!” said Clare. Herbert jumped up from his
chair.
“I had better go and drown myself straight away...”?
He turned at the door, and gave a tragic look at his wife. “Good-by.”
Clare smiled at him.
“Won’t you kiss me before you go?”
“I will take my pipe,” said Herbert, coming back to the mantelshelf.
“It’s my only friend.”
“It will go out in the water,” said Clare. “Besides, Herbert, don’t you
want to hear my good news? My big surprise?”
“No,” said Herbert. “Nothing you could say or do could surprise me now.
If mother wants me I shall be in the study for the rest of the evening.”
“But I thought you were going to the river?”, said Clare teasingly.
Herbert was not to be amused.
“I suppose you think you’re funny? I don’t,” he said.
Then he went out and slammed the door. Clare was left alone, and there
was a smile about her lips.
“Poor old Herbert,” she said. “I think he will have the surprise of his
life.”
She laughed quietly to herself, and then looked up and listened as she
heard a slight noise. She stood up with a sudden look of anger as she
saw Gerald Bradshaw gazing at her through the open French windows.
The man spoke to her in his soft, silky voice.
“Clare, why are you so cruel to me? I have been ill because of your
heartlessness.”
Clare answered him sternly.
“I thought I had got rid of you. Have you come back to plague me?”
“I tried to forget you,” said Gerald Bradshaw. “I went as far as Italy
to forget you. I made love to many women to forget you. But I have come
back. And I shall always come back, because you are my mate and I cannot
live without you.”
Clare’s voice rang out in the room.
“God ought not to let you live. Every word you speak is a lie. You are
a thief of women’s honor. Get away from my window, because your very
breath is poison.”
The man was astonished, a little scared. “You did not speak like that
once, Clare. You let me hold your hand. You trembled when I leaned
toward you.”
“I was ill and weak,” said Clare, “and you tried to tempt my weakness. I
was blind and did not see the evil in you. But now I am well and strong,
and my eyes are opened to the truth of things. If you don’t go I will
call my husband and he will throw you over that balcony at one word from
me.”
Gerald Bradshaw laughed scoffingly.
“Your husband! I could kill him between my thumb and forefinger.”
“He is strong because he is good,” said Clare. “I will call him now.”
She went quickly toward the bell.
“You needn’t call him,” said Gerald Bradshaw. “I would dislike to hurt
the little man.”
“You are going?” asked Clare.
“Yes, I am going,” said the man, “because something has changed in you.”
Clare gave a cheerful little laugh.
“You are right.”
“I see that now. I have lost my spell over you. Something has broken.”
“Are you going,” said Clare sternly, “or shall I call my man?”
“I am going, Clare,” said the man at the window. “I am going to find
another mate. She and I will talk evil of you, and hate you, as I
hate you now. Farewell, foolish one!” He withdrew from the window, and
instantly Clare rushed to it, shut it and bolted it. Then she pulled
down the blind, and stood, panting, with her back to it and her arms
outstretched.
“God be praised!” she said. “He has gone out of my life. I am a clean
woman again.” At that moment Mrs. Heywood entered. “Must you go out
again, Clare?” said the old lady.
“Only for a little while, mother,” said Clare, a little breathless after
her emotion.
“Is anything the matter, dear?” said Mrs. Heywood. “You look rather
flustered.”
“Oh, nothing is the matter!” said Clare. “Only I am very happy.”
Mrs. Heywood smiled at her.
“It makes me happy to see you so well and bright,” she said.
“I don’t get on your nerves so much, eh, mother?”
She laughed quietly.
“Well, I must go and tidy my hair.”
She moved toward the bedroom, but stopped to pack up her letters.
“I am so sorry you have to go out,” said the old lady.
“I shan’t be more than a few minutes,” said Clare. “But I must go.
Besides, after this I am going to _give_ up some of my visiting work.”
“Give it up, dear?”
“Yes. One must be moderate even in district visiting.”
She went into the bedroom, but left the door open so that she could hear
her mother.
“Clare!” said the old lady.
“Yes, mother.”
“What is that surprise you were going to give us?”
“Surprise, mother?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Heywood. “The good news?”
“Oh, yes, I forgot,” said Clare. “Come in and I will tell you.”
Mrs. Heywood went into the bedroom. Outside, in the street, a man with
a fiddle was playing the “Intermezzo.” Presently both women came out.
Clare was smiling, with her arm round Mrs. Heywood’s neck. Mrs. Heywood
was wiping her eyes as though crying a little.
“Cheer up,” said Clare. “It’s nothing to cry about.”
“I am crying because I am so glad,” said Mrs. Heywood.
“Well, that’s a funny thing to do,” said Clare, laughing gaily. “Now I
must run away. You won’t let Herbert drown himself, will you?”
“No, dear,” said Mrs. Heywood, wiping her eyes.
“Who would have thought it!” said Mrs.
Heywood, speaking to herself as her daughter-in-law left the room.
She went over to the mantelpiece and took up her son’s photograph and
kissed it. Then she went to the door and stood out in the hall and
called in a sweet old woman’s voice:
“Herbert! Herbert, dear!”
“Are you calling, mother?” answered Herbert from another room.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Heywood. “I want you.”
“I don’t feel a bit like cribbage, mother,”’ said Herbert.
“I don’t want you to play cribbage to-night,” said the old lady. “I have
something to say to you.”
“Has Clare gone?” asked Herbert, still calling from the other room.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Heywood. “But she won’t be long.”
“Oh, all right. I’ll be along in a moment.”
Mrs. Heywood went back into the room and waited for her son eagerly.
Presently he came in with a pipe in his hand and book under his arm. He
had changed into a shabby old jacket, and was in carpet slippers.
“What’s the matter, mother?” he asked.
“There’s nothing the matter,” said the old lady; then she became very
excited, and raised her hands and cried out:
“At least, everything is the matter. It’s the only thing that matters!
... Oh, Herbert!”
She laughed and cried at the same time so that her son was alarmed and
stared at her in amazement.
“You aren’t ill, are you?” he said. “Shall I send for a doctor?”
Mrs. Heywood shook her trembling old head.
“I’m quite well. I never felt so well.”
“You had better sit down, mother,” said Herbert.
He took her hand and led her to a chair.
“What’s up, eh, old lady? Mollie hasn’t run away, has she?”
The old lady took his hand and fondled it.
“Herbert, my son, I’ve wonderful news for you.”
“News?” said Herbert. “Did you find it in the evening paper?”
“It’s going to make a lot of difference to us all,” said Mrs. Heywood.
“No more cribbage, Herbert!”
“Thank heaven for that!” said Herbert.
“And not so much social work for Clare.”
“Well, let’s be thankful for small mercies,” said Herbert.
“Bend your head down and let me whisper to you,” said Mrs. Heywood.
She put her hands up to his head, and drew it down, and whispered
something into his ears.
It was something which astounded him.
He started back and said “No!” as though he had heard something quite
incredible. Then he spoke in a whisper:
“By Jove!... Is that a fact?”
“It’s the best fact that ever was, Herbert,” said the old lady.
“Yes... it will make a bit of a difference,” said Herbert thoughtfully.
Mrs. Heywood clasped her son’s arm. There was a tremulous light in her
eyes and a great emotion in her voice.
“Herbert, I am an old woman and your mother. Sit down and let me talk to
you as I did in the old days when you were my small boy before a nursery
fire.”
Herbert smiled at her; all the gloom had left his face.
“All right, mother.... By Jove, and I never guessed. And yet I ought to
have guessed. Things have been--different--lately.”
He sat down on a hassock near the old lady with his knees tucked up. She
sat down, too, and stretched out a trembling hand to touch his hair.
“Once upon a time, Herbert, there was a young man and a young woman who
loved each other very dearly.”
Herbert looked up and smiled at her.
“Are you sure, mother?”
“Perfectly sure. Then they married.”
“And lived happily ever after? I bet they didn’t!”
“No, not quite happily, because this is different from the fairy tales.
... After a time the husband began to think too much about his work,
while the wife stayed at home and thought too much about herself.”
“It’s a stale old yarn,” said Herbert. “What happened then?”
“By degrees the wife began to think she hated her husband, because
although he gave her little luxuries and pretty clothes, and all the
things that pleased _him_, he never gave her the thing _she_ wanted.”
“What was that?” asked Herbert.
“It was a magic charm to make her forget herself.”
“Well, magic charms aren’t easy to find,” said Herbert.
“No.... But at last she went out to find it herself. And while she was
away the husband came home and missed her.”
“Poor devil!” said Herbert. “Of course he did.”
“Being a man,” said Mrs. Heywood, giving a queer little laugh, “he
stayed at home more than he used to do, and then complained that he was
left too much alone. Just like his wife had complained.”
“Well, hang it all,” said Herbert, “she ought to have stayed with him.”
“But then she wouldn’t have found the magic charm,” said Mrs. Heywood.
“Don’t you see?... And she would have withered and withered away until
there was nothing left of her, and the husband would have been quite
alone--forever.”
“Think so?” said Herbert very thoughtfully. “D’you think it would have
been as bad as that?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Heywood. “I’m sure of it.”
“Well, what did happen?” asked Herbert. “Did she find the magic charm?
It wasn’t a widow in distress, was it? Or Social Reform humbug?”
“No,” said Mrs. Heywood; “that gave her a new interest in life because
it helped her to forget herself, some of her own little worries, some of
her brooding thoughts. But a good fairy who was looking after her worked
another kind of magic.... Herbert I It’s the best magic for unhappy
women and unhappy homes, and it has been worked for you. Oh, my dear,
you ought to be very thankful.”
“Yes,” said Herbert, scratching his head. “Yes, I suppose so. But what’s
the moral of the tale, mother? I’m hanged if I see.”
Mrs. Heywood put her hand on her son’s shoulder, as he sat on the
hassock by her chair.
“It’s a moral told by an old woman who watched these two from the very
beginning. A husband mustn’t expect his wife to stay at home for ever.
The home isn’t big enough, Herbert. There’s the great world outside
calling to her, calling, calling. The walls of a little fiat like this
are too narrow for the spirit and heart. If he keeps her there she
either pines and dies, or else----”
“What?” asked Herbert.
“Escapes, my dear,” said the old lady very solemnly.
Herbert drew a deep, quivering breath.
“Then,” said Mrs. Heywood, “nothing in the world can call her
back--except----”
“Except what?”
“A little child.”
Herbert got up from the hassock and clasped the mantelshelf, and spoke
in a low, humble, grateful voice.
“Thank God, Clare has been called back!” he said.
Mrs. Heywood rose from her chair also, and caught hold of her son’s
sleeve.
“Yes,” she said, “yes. But even now she will want to spread her wings
a little. She must take short flights, Herbert, even now. She must wing
her way out to the big world at times. You will remember that, won’t
you?”
“I’ll try to remember,” said Herbert. He bent his head over his hands on
the mantelshelf. “I’ve been selfish,” he said. “Blinded with selfishness
and self-conceit. God forgive me.”
“Perhaps we have all been a little selfish,” said Mrs. Heywood quietly.
“But we shall have some one else to think about now. A new life,
Herbert. A new life is coming to us all!”
“Hush!” said Herbert. “Here’s Clare.”
The mother and son stood listening to the voice of Clare singing in the
hall. She was singing the old nursery rhyme of--
“Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket-full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie,
When the pie was opened-----”
Mrs. Heywood smiled into her son’s eyes.
“I think I’ve left my spectacles in the other room,” she said. She went
out into the hall, leaving her son alone.
And Herbert stood with his head raised, looking toward the door,
eagerly, like a lover waiting for his bride.
Then Clare came in. There was a smile about her lips, and she spoke
cheerfully.
“Well, you see I wasn’t long.”
Herbert strode toward her and took her hands and raised them to his
lips.
“Clare, sweetheart! Is it true? Have you been called back to me?”
Clare put her forehead down against his chest.
“I never went very far away,” she said.
Presently Herbert spoke again with great cheerfulness.
“I say, Clare. It’s a funny thing!”
“What’s a funny thing?” asked Clare, smiling at him.
“Why, I was reading the advertisements in the paper to-night---”
“Were _they_ funny?” asked Clare.
“No,” said Herbert, “but I saw something that would just suit us.”
He went over to a side-table and picked up the newspaper. Sitting on the
edge of the table, he read out an advertisement.
“Here it is.... ‘Chelsea--Semi-detached house, dining-room,
drawing-room, three bedrooms, and a large nursery. Shed for bicycle or
perambulator.’”
Clare laughed happily.
“Well, we might have both!” she said.
Herbert dropped the paper, came over to his wife, and kissed her hands
again.
THE END