Vera reclined on the sofa that afternoon, and the sofa was drawn round
in front of the drawing-room fire. And she wore her fluffiest and
languidest peignoir. And there was a perfume of eau de Cologne in the
apartment. Vera was having a headache; she was having it in her grand,
her official manner. Stephen had had to lunch alone. He had been told
that in all probability his suffering wife would not be well enough to
go to the ball. Whereupon he had grunted. As a fact, Vera's headache
was extremely real, and she was very upset indeed.
The death of Li Hung Chang was heavy on her soul. Occultism was
justified of itself. The affair lay beyond coincidence. She had always
KNOWN that there was something in occultism, supernaturalism, so-called
superstitions, what not. But she had never expected to prove the faith
that was in her by such a homicidal act on her own part. It was
detestable of Charlie to have mentioned the thing at all. He had no
right to play with fire. And as for her husband, words could give but
the merest rough outline of her resentment against Stephen. A pretty
state of things that a woman with a position such as she had to keep up
should be reduced to six and sevenpence! Stephen, no doubt, expected
her to visit the pawnshop. It would serve him right if she did so--and
he met her coming out under the three brass balls! Did she not dress
solely and wholly to please him? Not in the least to please herself!
Personally she had a mind set on higher things, impossible aspirations.
But he liked fine clothes. And it was her duty to satisfy him. She
strove to satisfy him in all matters. She lived for him. She sacrificed
herself to him completely. And what did she get in return? Nothing!
Nothing! Nothing! All men were selfish. And women were their
victims.... Stephen, with his silly bullying rules against credit and
so forth.... The worst of men was that they had no sense.
She put a new dose of eau de Cologne on her forehead, and leaned on one
elbow. On the mantelpiece lay the tissue parcel containing the slim
silver belt, the price of Li's death. She wanted to stick it in the
fire. And only the fact that it would not burn prevented her savagely
doing so. There was something wrong, too, with the occultism. To
receive a paltry sovereign for murdering the greatest statesman of the
Eastern hemisphere was simply grotesque. Moreover, she had most
distinctly not wanted to deprive China of a distinguished man. She had
expressly stipulated for an inferior and insignificant mandarin, one
that could be spared and that was unknown to Reuter. She supposed she
ought to have looked up China at the Wedgwood Institution and selected
a definite mandarin with a definite place of residence. But could she
be expected to go about a murder deliberately like that?
With regard to the gross inadequacy of the fiscal return for her deed,
perhaps that was her own fault. She had not wished for more. Her brain
had been so occupied by the belt that she had wished only for the belt.
But, perhaps, on the other hand, vast wealth was to come. Perhaps
something might occur that very night. That would be better. Yet would
it be better? However rich she might become, Stephen would coolly take
charge of her riches, and dole them out to her, and make rules for her
concerning them. And besides, Charlie would suspect her guilt. Charlie
understood her, and perused her thoughts far better than Stephen did.
She would never be able to conceal the truth from Charlie. The
conversation, the death of Li within two hours, and then a sudden
fortune accruing to her--Charlie would inevitably put two and two
together and divine her shameful secret.
The outlook was thoroughly black anyway.
She then fell asleep.
When she awoke, some considerable time afterwards, Stephen was calling
to her. It was his voice, indeed, that had aroused her. The room was
dark.
'I say, Vera,' he demanded, in a low, slightly inimical tone, 'have you
taken a sovereign out of the empty drawer in your toilet-table?'
'No,' she said quickly, without thinking.
'Ah!' he observed reflectively, 'I knew I was right.' He paused, and
added, coldly, 'If you aren't better you ought to go to bed.'
Then he left her, shutting the door with a noise that showed a certain
lack of sympathy with her headache.
She sprang up. Her first feeling was one of thankfulness that that
brief interview had occurred in darkness. So Stephen was aware of the
existence of the sovereign! The sovereign was not occult. Possibly he
had put it there. And what did he know he was 'right' about?
She lighted the gas, and gazed at herself in the glass, realizing that
she no longer had a headache, and endeavouring to arrange her ideas.
'What's this?' said another voice at the door. She glanced round
hastily, guiltily. It was Charlie.
'Steve telephoned me you were too ill to go to the dance,' explained
Charlie, 'so I thought I'd come and make inquiries. I quite expected to
find you in bed with a nurse and a doctor or two at least. What is it?'
He smiled.
'Nothing,' she replied. 'Only a headache. It's gone now.'
She stood against the mantelpiece, so that he should not see the white
parcel.
'That's good,' said Charlie.
There was a pause.
'Strange, Li Hung Chang dying last night, just after we had been
talking about killing mandarins,' she said. She could not keep off the
subject. It attracted her like a snake, and she approached it in spite
of the fact that she fervently wished not to approach it.
'Yes,' said Charlie. 'But Li wasn't a mandarin, you know. And he didn't
die after we had been talking about mandarins. He died before.'
'Oh! I thought it said in the paper he died at two o'clock this
morning.'
'Two a.m. in Pekin,' Charlie answered. 'You must remember that Pekin
time is many hours earlier than our time. It lies so far eastward.'
'Oh!' she said again.
Stephen hurried in, with a worried air.
'Ah! It's you, Charlie!'
'She isn't absolutely dying, I find,' said Charlie, turning to Vera:
'You are going to the dance after all--aren't you?'
'I say, Vera,' Stephen interrupted, 'either you or I must have a scene
with Martha. I've always suspected that confounded housemaid. So I put
a marked sovereign in a drawer this morning, and it was gone at
lunch-time. She'd better hook it instantly. Of course I shan't
prosecute.'
'Martha!' cried Vera. 'Stephen, what on earth are you thinking of? I
wish you would leave the servants to me. If you think you can manage
this house in your spare time from the works, you are welcome to try.
But don't blame me for the consequences.' Glances of triumph flashed in
her eyes.
'But I tell you--'
'Nonsense,' said Vera. 'I took the sovereign. I saw it there and I took
it, and just to punish you, I've spent it. It's not at all nice to lay
traps for servants like that.'
'Then why did you tell me just now you hadn't taken it?' Stephen
demanded crossly.
'I didn't feel well enough to argue with you then,' Vera replied.
'You've recovered precious quick,' retorted Stephen with grimness.
'Of course, if you want to make a scene before strangers,' Vera
whimpered (poor Charlie a stranger!), 'I'll go to bed.'
Stephen knew when he was beaten.
She went to the Hockey dance, though. She and Stephen and Charlie and
his young sister, aged seventeen, all descended together to the Town
Hall in a brougham. The young girl admired Vera's belt excessively, and
looked forward to the moment when she too should be a bewitching and
captivating wife like Vera, in short, a woman of the world, worshipped
by grave, bearded men. And both the men were under the spell of Vera's
incurable charm, capricious, surprising, exasperating, indefinable,
indispensable to their lives.
'Stupid superstitions!' reflected Vera. 'But of course I never believed
it really.'
And she cast down her eyes to gloat over the belt.