MAUVE ENVELOPES
The first condition of being able to please yourself is to have enough
to live upon. Stephen Aikenhead was entirely right about that. Thrift,
exercised by yourself or by some beneficent forerunner, confers
independence; you can live upon the world, and yet flout it. (Within the
limits of the criminal law, of course, but why be a criminal if you have
enough to live upon? You lack the one really good excuse.) Imagine the
state of affairs if it were not so--if banks, railways, docks, and
breweries could refuse you your dividends on the ground of irregularity
in your private life! What a sudden and profound quarter-day reformation
of manners among the well-to-do classes opens before our fantastic
vision! Really enough to turn the clergy and ministers of all
denominations green with envy!
This economic condition was fulfilled for Godfrey Ledstone's
establishment--just fulfilled according to Winnie's ideas, and no more.
She had a hundred and fifty pounds a year; Godfrey's earnings averaged
about two hundred, or a trifle more. His father had been in the habit of
giving him a cheque for fifty at Christmas--but that addition could
scarcely be relied on now. It was not riches; to one accustomed to
Devonshire Street and a rising King's Counsel's income it was by no
means riches. But it was enough; with care it would support the small
quarters they had taken near Baron's Court Station in West Kensington--a
studio, a small dining-room, two bedrooms, a bathroom, and "the usual
offices" (unusually cramped "the usual offices"). No room for expansion!
But they did not mean to expand at present.
Here Winnie sat down to defy or to convert the world. She had to begin
the process with her cook-housemaid. Defiance, not conversion, was here
certainly the word, and Godfrey was distinctly vexed at Winnie's opening
of the matter to the cook-housemaid. Since there were to be no
proceedings, need the good woman have been told at all?
The occasion of this--their first--tiff was small, but by no means
insignificant. Winnie was holding Godfrey to his promise that he would
not be ashamed of her.
"Among our friends, I meant, of course," Godfrey explained. "Among
educated thinking people who can appreciate your position and our point
of view. But this woman will simply think that you're--well, that you're
what you're not, you know."
"How can she, when I told her all about it?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Wait till you blow her up about something;
you'll see what I mean," said he.
"Then I shall dismiss her." Winnie's proud little face was very flushed.
There were sides of life which Godfrey had observed. They had three
cook-housemaids in quick succession, and were approaching despair when
Dick Dennehy found them an old Irish woman, who could not cook at all,
but was entirely charitable. She had been told about the situation
beforehand by Dick; there was no occasion for Winnie to refer to it.
Winnie did not, and tried not to feel relieved. Also she ceased to tell
the occasional charwomen, who came in "by the day." Godfrey was perhaps
right in thinking that superfluous. Dennehy came often, and they had
other visitors, some bachelor friends of Godfrey's, others belonging to
the Shaylor's Patch frequenters--Mrs. Danford and Mr. Carriston, for
example. Mrs. Lenoir also came--not of her own accord (she never did
that), but in response to an invitation from Winnie. Godfrey did not
seem very enthusiastic about this invitation.
"But you seemed to like her so much at Shaylor's Patch," said Winnie, in
surprise.
"Oh yes! Ask her then, if you like." He formulated no objection; but in
his mind there was the idea that Winnie did not quite realize how very
careful she ought to be--in her position.
Such were the little passing clouds, obscuring for a moment the
happiness of one or other of them.
Yet they were very happy. Godfrey was genuinely in love; so was Winnie,
and to her there was the added joy--the new wonder--of being free. Free,
and yet not lonely. She had a companion and yet not a master. Hers was
the better mind of the two. She did not explicitly realize it, but
unconsciously and instinctively she took the lead in most of their
pursuits and amusements. Her tastes guided their interests and
recreation--the books they read, the concerts and theatres which they
"squeezed" out of their none too large margin of spare cash. This
initiative was unspeakably delightful to the former Mrs. Maxon, an
absolutely fresh thing in her life, and absolutely satisfying. This
freedom, this liberty to expand, to grow, to develop, was what her
nature had craved. Even if she set her love altogether on one side--and
how should she?--this in itself seemed to justify her refusal to be any
longer Mrs. Maxon and her becoming Mrs. Winifred Ledstone. In fact it
was bound up with her love, for half the joy of these new travels and
adventures of the mind lay in sharing them with Godfrey.
It still seemed as if everything were possible with a little courage, as
if all the difficulties disappeared when boldly faced. Could there have
been a difficulty more tremendous than Cyril Maxon? He had vanished into
space!
After some six weeks of this pleasant existence--during which the
difficulties at least tactfully effaced themselves, save in such trifles
as have been lightly indicated--a phenomenon began to thrust itself on
Winnie's notice. Godfrey was not a man of much correspondence; he did
most of his business in person and conducted other necessary
communications mainly by telephone (that was a luxury which they had
agreed that they must "run to" at the cost of some other, and
unspecified, luxury to be forgone). Now he began to receive a certain
type of envelope quite often--three times a week perhaps. It was a mauve
envelope, rather larger than the ordinary. Winnie was careful not to
scrutinize these envelopes--she did not even inspect the postmarks--but
she could not help observing that, though the envelopes were always
alike, the handwriting of the address varied. In fact she noted three
varieties. Being a woman of some perspicacity, she did not really need
to inspect the postmarks. Godfrey had a father, a mother, a sister. They
were writing to him, writing rather bulky letters, which he did not read
in company, but stowed away in his pocket; they never reappeared, and
presumably were disposed of secretly, on or off the premises. Nor did
she ever detect him in the act of answering one; but in the course of
his work he spent many hours away from home, and he belonged to a
modest little club in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden; no doubt it
had writing-paper.
These mauve envelopes began to afflict the peace, or at least the
happiness, of the little household. The mornings on which they came were
less cheerful than other mornings; a constraint showed itself in
greetings and farewells. They were reminders--ominous reminders--of the
big world outside, the world which was being defied. His family was at
Godfrey Ledstone--three of his family, and one of them with a weak
heart.
Three weeks of the mauve envelopes did their work. One had come on the
Saturday; on the Sunday morning Godfrey made an apology to Winnie. He
would not be able to join her in their usual afternoon excursion--for a
walk, or to a picture gallery, and so forth.
"My mother's not very well--she's not strong, you know. I must go to my
people's."
"Of course you must, Godfrey. But--without me?"
"Yes." Passing her on his way to the mantelpiece, he pressed her hand
for a moment. Then he stood with his back to her, as he filled his pipe
with fingers unusually clumsy. "Oh, I've tried! They've been at me for
weeks--you probably guessed--and I've been back at them--letter after
letter. It's no use! And yesterday father wrote that mother was really
seriously upset." He turned round, and spoke almost fiercely. "Don't you
see I must go, Winnie?"
"Of course you must," she said again. "And I can't come if they--if they
won't let me in!" She managed a smile. "It's all right. I'll have a walk
by myself."
He tried to find a bright side to the situation. "I may have a better
chance of convincing them, if I go. I'm no good at letters. And mother
is very fond of me."
"Of course you must go," Winnie repeated yet again. What else was there
for Winnie to say--with Mrs. Ledstone not strong and really seriously
upset?
"I haven't seen any of them for--oh, it must be three months--and I used
to go every Sunday, when I was in town."
"Well, you're going to-day, dear. That's all settled!" She went up to
him and kissed him daintily. "And we won't despair of them, will we?
When do you go?"
"I--I generally used to go to lunch. They want me to. And come away
after tea."
"Well, do just what you used to. I hope I shall be doing it with you in
a few weeks."
"Oh, I hope so, dearest."
He had not the glimmer of such a hope. To ask him if he had even the
wish would have been to put an awkward question. The code wherein he was
Bob Purnett's pupil recognizes quite a strict division of life into
compartments. He was Winnie's lover of a certainty; quite doubtfully was
he her convert. Being her lover was to break the law; being her convert
was to deny it. Before he met her, he had been of the people who always
contemplate conforming to the law--some day; at the proper time of life,
or at the proper time before death--whichever may be the more accurate
way of putting it. He was ready to say to the Tribunal, "I have done
wrong"--but not to say, "You--or your interpreters--have been wrong." A
very ordinary man was Godfrey Ledstone.
So after a solitary lunch (a sausage left cold from breakfast and a pot
of tea) Winnie started on a solitary expedition. She took the train from
Baron's Court to Hyde Park Corner, with the idea of enjoying the
"autumn tints" along by Rotten Row and the Serpentine. But, as she
walked, her thoughts were not so much on autumn tints as on Woburn
Square--on that family so nearly related to her life, yet so unspeakably
remote, to whom she was worse than a menace--she was a present and
active curse--who to her were something wrong-headed, almost ridiculous,
yet intensely formidable--really the concrete embodiment of all she had
to struggle against, the thing through which the great world would most
probably hit at her, wound her, and kill her if it could. And both the
family and Winnie thought themselves so absolutely, so demonstrably,
right! Right or wrong, she knew very well, as she walked on towards the
Serpentine, that now--this instant--in Woburn Square they were trying to
get her man away from her; to make him ashamed of her (he had sworn
never to be), to make him throw her over, to leave her stranded, to the
ridicule and ruin of her experiment. With a sudden catch in the breath
she added, "And the breaking of my heart!"
Just as she came near to the lake she saw--among the walkers who had
till now seemed insubstantial shades to her preoccupied mind--a familiar
figure, Hobart Gaynor! Her heart leapt in sudden joy; here was an old, a
sympathetic friend, the man who understood why she had done what she
had. But Hobart Gaynor was not alone. His radiant and self-satisfied
demeanour was justified by the fair comeliness of the girl who walked
beside him--his bride, wedded to him a month ago, Cicely Marshfield.
Winnie had sent him congratulations, good wishes, and a present; all of
which had been cordially acknowledged in a letter written three days
before the wedding. The ceremony had taken place in the country, and
quietly (because of an aunt's death); no question had arisen as to who
was or was not to be asked to attend it.
Her heart went out to Hobart. He had loved her; she had always been very
fond of him. In her drab uneventful girlhood he had provided patches of
enjoyment; in that awful married life he had now and then been a refuge.
She did not know Cicely, but Hobart would surely have chosen a nice
girl, one who would be a friend, who would understand it all, who could
be talked to about it all? With a happy smile and a pretty blush she met
Hobart and his bride Cicely. She saw him speak to her, a quick, hurried
word. Cicely replied--Winnie saw the rapid turn of her head and the
movement of her lips. He spoke once more--just as Winnie nodded and
smiled at him, and he was raising his hand to his hat. Then came the
encounter. But before it was fairly begun, Winnie's heart was turned to
lead. Hobart's face was flushed; his hand came out to hers in a stiff
reluctance. The tall fair girl stood so tall, so erect, looking down,
bowing, not putting out a hand at all, ignoring a pathetically comic
appeal in her embarrassed husband's eyes.
Winnie's eager words of congratulation, of cordiality and friendship,
met with a chilly "Thank you," uttered under an obvious protest, under
_force majeure_. Winnie set her eyes on Hobart's, but his were turned
away; a rigid smile on his lips paid a ghastly tribute to courtesy.
Winnie carried the thing through as briefly as possible. She was not
slow to take a cue.
"Well, I'm glad to have run across you," she said, "and when you're
settled in, I must come and see you. You won't want to be bothered just
yet."
Again Hobart's glance appealed desperately to his wife. But his wife
left the answer to him.
"We are a bit chaotic still," he stumbled. "But soon, I hope,
Winnie----"
"I'll give you notice. Don't be afraid! Now I must hurry on--good-bye."
"Good-bye," said Cicely, with another inclination of her head--it seemed
so high above Winnie's, looking down from such an altitude.
"Good-bye, Winnie." A kindliness, queerly ashamed of itself, struggled
to expression in Hobart's voice.
When the pair had passed by--after a safe interval--Winnie turned and
looked at their retreating figures, the haughty erect girl, dear old
Hobart's broad solid back, somewhat bowed by much office work. Winnie
was smiling; it is sometimes the only thing to do.
"This isn't my lucky day." So she phrased her thoughts to herself,
coupling together the encounter in Hyde Park with what was now--at this
moment--going on in Woburn Square; for it was not yet tea-time, and
Godfrey's visit would last, according to custom, till after tea.
She got home and waited for him in the dusk of the autumn evening. An
apprehension possessed her; she did not know how much effect Woburn
Square might have had upon him. But he came in about six, cheerful,
affectionate, unchanged. On the subject of his home-visit, however, he
was rather reticent.
"They were all very kind--and I really don't think mother's any worse
than usual. About her frail ordinary." He seemed inclined to dismiss the
matter with this brief summary. "And what did you do with yourself?"
"I took the Tube up to the Park and had a walk." She paused. "I met
Hobart and Cicely Gaynor."
"Oh, the happy pair! How were they flourishing?"
"They--well, they warned me off, Godfrey. At least she did--and he had
to follow suit, of course."
Godfrey had been helping himself to whisky and soda-water; tumbler in
hand, he walked across the studio and back again.
"Hobart's one of the very few people in the world I'm really fond of."
"Well, you know, Winnie, you wanted it this way. I assure you I don't
find it altogether comfortable either." He emptied the tumbler in a long
draught and set it down on the table.
She jumped up quickly, came to him, and clasped her arms round his neck;
she could but just reach, for he was tall.
"And they've all been at me--and at you about me--in Woburn Square too,
I suppose?"
"On my honour, you weren't once mentioned the whole time, Winnie. They
were all three just awfully kind, and glad to see me."
Winnie's face wore much the same smile as when she had regarded Cicely
Gaynor's erect back in retreat from her.
"That was rather clever of them," she remarked. "Never to have mentioned
me!"
"Are you being quite just?" He spoke gently and kissed her.
"No, dear," she said, and burst into tears. "How can I be just when
they're trying to take you from me?"
"Neither they nor anybody else can do that."
And then--for a space again--she believed her lover and forgot the rest.
But on the Monday morning there came two mauve envelopes. Winnie was
down first as it chanced--and this time she looked at the postmarks.
Both bore the imprint, "W.C.," clearly indicative of Bloomsbury. Winnie
smiled, and proffered to herself an excuse for her detective
investigation.
"You see, I thought one of them might be from Cicely Gaynor. I'm quite
sure she uses mauve envelopes too."
The world of propriety seemed to be draping itself in mauve--not, after
all, a very cheerful colour.
Godfrey came in, glanced at the two mauve envelopes, glanced across at
Winnie, and put the envelopes in his pocket. After a silence, he
remarked that the bacon was very good.