REGINA SETS FOOT ON THE DOWN GRADE
There is a great deal of wisdom in the old saying "Truth will out."
Somehow those sables served to put Regina further from her husband
instead of drawing her nearer to him. I'm sure that Alfred Whittaker
himself would have been shocked had he known the effect that his gift
had upon his spouse. Every day--nay, every hour tended to confirm her
belief that the hussy she had seen dining with Alfred at the Trocadero
had complete ascendancy over him, and yet those sables stopped her time
after time from broaching the subject to him. They were, so to speak, a
sop in the pot, and whenever Regina was on the point of laying her hand
on Alfred's shoulder and saying to him, plump and straight, "Alfred, is
your heart still mine?" a vision of dark sables seemed to rise up and
choke the very words in her throat. Most women would love to have a
danger-signal in the shape of dark sables, rich and elegant, soft and
cosy, at once luxurious and comforting, but there were times when Regina
almost hated her sables because they seemed to have raised an extra
barrier between herself and Alfred.
"Mother," said Julia, one morning, when Regina was about to leave the
house on one of her strictly-personal expeditions, "are you going to Dr.
Money-Berry again?"
"Yes, dear, I am. Why?"
"Do you think he is doing very much good?"
"Oh, I do, indeed! I consider that he has set me free, body and soul,
from the burden that I used to carry about with me."
"Oh--you mean--fat, darling? Don't you think it suits you to be a little
fat?"
"I don't think it suits anybody to be fat," said Regina, with the
enthusiasm of the recent convert.
"And yet I have heard you describe daddy as a man of commanding
presence. How would you like it if daddy were to starve himself down
until all the command of his presence disappeared into nothingness?"
"Ah, but I was gross," said Regina.
"I never knew you when you were gross," said Julia. "I thought at
Maudie's wedding you looked lovely, and daddy said to me--"
"What did your father say to you?"
Julia drew a step nearer to her mother, and smoothed down, with tender
yet nervous fingers, the stole of soft gray fur which was around her
shoulders.
"Why don't you ever wear your sables?" she asked irrelevantly.
"My sables?" said Regina. "Oh, I don't like to wear them every day."
"But when you are going to town, among smart West-End physicians--that
doesn't mean every day. I don't suggest that you should put them on to
go up the village in. Don't you like them?"
"Oh, yes, no woman in the world would dislike them."
"That's what I thought. You know, mother dear, you're cooking up
something about daddy."
"No, I would rather not discuss it with you, my darling."
"Sometimes," said Julia, still smoothing the stole up and down,
"sometimes it's better to get it off your chest."
"What a very vulgar remark!" said Regina.
"Yes, perhaps, but very practical. Now, I've been watching you."
"I wish you wouldn't," said Regina.
"Yes, we all wish others wouldn't. You see, that night at the Trocadero
let us all behind the scenes a little. Yes--I must speak, it's been
trembling on the tip of my tongue for weeks past, but, somehow, you
always put me off. I believe that daddy could explain it all."
"There is no necessity for explanation."
She looked very stern, very severe; but Julia was minded to speak, and
when Julia was minded to speak she generally had her say.
"You are quite a different woman to what you were when Maudie was
married. You're not fretting after her, that's certain--an outsider
might think so, but I know better. You've never told daddy a word about
our having seen him at the Trocadero that night. You didn't notice him
very much; you resolutely kept your eyes away from him. I had no such
delicacy of feeling, I watched him very closely. That woman is nothing
to him. I don't know why he was dining with her, I don't know why he
didn't tell you about it, but he was bored and annoyed. He was trying to
pull something off, and he couldn't get what he wanted. If she ever had
any sort of hold over him, that hold has long since ceased to be an
attractive one--he was bored to death with her. I don't know that Maudie
wasn't right."
"You have discussed it with Maudie?"
"I have, or rather she has discussed it with me. She was all for going
down and tackling daddy right away, and I believe her instinct was
right, and that daddy would rather you knew he was there."
"And Maudie thinks--?"
"Maudie? Oh, Maudie's mind works in quite a different way to
mine--always did. Maudie thinks it is just an ordinary affair of that
kind, and left alone she would have gone down and taxed him with it, but
Harry wouldn't hear of it. But daddy was there and she was there--and a
horrid-looking brute she was--but whoever she was, and whatever she may
be, I am perfectly sure there is not the slightest occasion for you to
worry about her, one way or the other."
"I don't--" Regina began, but Julia promptly cut her short.
"Oh, yes, darling, you do. You were quite a changed woman after that
night--ah, and before that night, too. I know perfectly well that you
are worrying, I could burst out crying sometimes to see the look on your
face, and poor old daddy is quite unconscious, he hasn't the least idea
why you are so quiet and so unlike yourself. He asked me quite
anxiously the other day if I thought you were over-doing the treatment
with Dr. Money-Berry."
"I believe," said Regina, who before all things was loyal to her Alfred,
"I believe that all persons inclining to stoutness would be better in
health, and in mind too, if they would take means to keep themselves to
proper proportions. Oh, Dr. Money-Berry is quite right in saying that
fat is a disease, and should be treated as such. I have been to him once
or twice lately because I was not sure that my symptoms were desirable.
I am really going to him to-day to say good-by for the second time.
Don't worry about me, darling child, and don't discuss your father with
Maudie. I have never entered into details of business and I never intend
to. Your father distinctly told me that he was dining with somebody on
business; it would be intolerable for him, placed as he is, if his wife
were to worry him to death every time he spoke to another woman. Dear
little girl, you'll be marrying one of these days, and you'll have a
husband of your own; then you will realize that between husband and wife
discretion is truly the better part of valor. And I wish you would put
that incident right out of your head--regard it as a business
matter--and not think of it every time you think I am not looking as gay
as usual. You know, my darling, I have many thoughts busying to and fro
in my brain. I have never been a mere machine for ordering dinner, and
although I have given up public life, I have not given up all my
thoughts--I still have an intellect. Your father is the best and noblest
man I ever knew. One of these days he will explain what, so far, he has
only told me in part. But I must be going, I am rather late already.
Tell me, are you occupied all day?"
"Yes, that is to say, I am lunching with Maudie, and then I am going on
to my club."
"No, come and have tea at mine. I shall expect you between half-past
four and five."
"Right you are, mother."
And then Mrs. Whittaker went out, passed down the tessellated covered
way and turned her face toward the station, conscious that she had that
day graduated as a first-class liar. Well, if she had lied, she had lied
in a good cause. If she had succeeded in restoring the faith of her
child in husband and father, she had lied to some purpose, and surely
the recording angel would drop showers of tears over the spot, and it
would be blotted out forever. Her thoughts had reached this point when
she reached the ticket office. She had to stand and wait for some time
while two ladies fumbled with their purses, and while they discussed
whether they would travel first or second.
"First-class to Baker Street--oh, yes, it's horrid on that line, I
always go first to Baker Street--and, my dear, if I didn't meet him the
very next day, walking along with a creature--oh! Twopence more? Thank
you, I'm so sorry to give you so much trouble--yes, I met him walking
with a bold, brazen hussy, and I never saw a man looking so crestfallen
as Mr. Whittaker did when he saw me."
There was a little waiting-room hard by the ticket office and Regina
turned sharply round and took refuge in this dingy little retreat.
"My dear!" said the lady who had been listening to the one who had
mentioned Mr. Whittaker's name, "you have done the most awful thing you
ever did in your life. Mrs. Whittaker was standing just behind you, and
she heard every word you said."
"Poor woman! Did she, really? I _am_ sorry! Well, I never believe in
making mischief between husband and wife, but it's a shame, and I do
think that a man who is carrying on a double game ought to be found
out."