She hadn't been into the library yet. She knew the dining-room, the
hall, the staircase, Lucy's bedroom, the spare-room, the antlers, and
the gong; but she didn't know the library. She had hoped to go away
without knowing it. However, she was not to be permitted to.
The newly-lit wood fire blazed cheerfully when they went in, but its
amiable light was immediately quenched by the electric light Wemyss
switched on at the door. From the middle of the ceiling it poured down
so strongly that Miss Entwhistle wished she had brought her sun-shade.
The blinds were drawn, and there in front of the window was the table
where Everard had sat writing--she remembered every word of Lucy's
account of it on that July afternoon of Vera's death. It was now April;
still well over three months to the first anniversary of that dreadful
day, and here he was married again, and to, of all people in the world,
her Lucy. There were so many strong, robust-minded young women in the
world, so many hardened widows, so many thick-skinned persons of mature
years wanting a comfortable home, who wouldn't mind Everard because they
wouldn't love him and therefore wouldn't feel,--why should Fate have
ordered that it should just be her Lucy? No, she didn't like him, she
couldn't like him. He might, and she hoped he was, be all Lucy said, be
wonderful and wholesome and natural and all the rest of it, but if he
didn't seem so to her what, as far as she was concerned, was the good of
it?
The fact is that by the time Miss Entwhistle got into the library she
was very angry. Even the politest worm, she said to herself, the most
conciliatory, sensible worm, fully conscious that wisdom points to
patience, will nevertheless turn on its niece's husband if trodden on
too heavily. The way Wemyss had ordered her not to go up to Lucy....
Particularly enraging to Miss Entwhistle was the knowledge of her weak
position, uninvited in his house.
Wemyss, standing on the hearthrug in front of the blaze, filled his
pipe. How well she knew that attitude and that action. How often she had
seen both in her drawing-room in London. And hadn't she been kind to
him? Hadn't she always, when she was hostess and he was guest, been
hospitable and courteous? No, she didn't like him.
She sat down in one of the immense chairs, and had the disagreeable
sensation that she was sitting down in Wemyss hollowed out. The two
little red spots were brightly on her cheek-bones,--had been there,
indeed, ever since the beginning of dinner.
Wemyss filled his pipe with his customary deliberation, saying nothing.
'I believe he's enjoying himself,' flashed into her mind. 'Enjoying
being in a temper, and having me to bully.'
'Well?' she asked, suddenly unbearably irritated.
'Oh it's no good taking that tone with me,' he said, continuing
carefully to fill his pipe.
'Really, Everard,' she said, ashamed of him, but also ashamed of
herself. She oughtn't to have let go her grip on herself and said,
'Well?' with such obvious irritation.
The coffee came.
'No thank you,' said Miss Entwhistle.
He helped himself.
The coffee went.
'Perhaps,' said Miss Entwhistle in a very polite voice when the door had
been shut by Chesterton, 'you'll tell me what it is you wish to say.'
'Certainly. One thing is that I've ordered the cab to come round for you
to-morrow in time for the early train.'
'Oh thank you, Everard. That is most thoughtful,' said Miss Entwhistle.
'I had already told Lucy, when she said you would be down to-morrow,
that I would go home early.'
'That's one thing,' said Wemyss, taking no notice of this and going on
carefully filling his pipe. 'The other is, that I don't wish you to see
Lucy again, either to-night or before you go.'
She looked at him in astonishment. 'But why not?' she asked.
'I'm not going to have her upset.'
'But my dear Everard, don't you see it will upset her much more if I
don't say good-bye to her? It won't upset her at all if I do, because
she knows I'm going to-morrow anyhow. Why, what will the child think?'
'Oblige me by allowing me to be the best judge of my own affairs.'
'Do you know I very much doubt if you're that,' said Miss Entwhistle
earnestly, really moved by his inability to perceive consequences. Here
he had got everything, everything to make him happy for the rest of his
life,--the wife he loved adoring him, believing in him, blotting out by
her mere marrying him every doubt as to the exact manner of Vera's
death, and all he had to do was to be kind and ordinarily decent. And
poor Everard--it was absurd of her to mind for him, but she did in fact
at that moment mind for him, he seemed such a pathetic human being,
blindly bent on ruining his own happiness--would spoil it all,
inevitably smash it all sooner or later, if he wasn't able to see,
wasn't able to understand....
Wemyss considered her remark so impertinent that he felt he would have
been amply justified in requesting her to leave his house then and
there, dark or no dark, train or no train. And so he would have done, if
he hadn't happened to prefer a long rather than a short scene.
'I didn't ask you into my library to hear your opinion of my character,'
he said, lighting his pipe.
'Well then,' said Miss Entwhistle, for there was too much at stake for
her to allow herself either to be silenced or goaded, 'let me tell you a
few things about Lucy's.'
'About Lucy's?' echoed Wemyss, amazed at such effrontery. 'About my
wife's?'
'Yes,' said Miss Entwhistle, very earnestly. 'It's the sort of character
that takes things to heart, and she'll be miserable--miserable, Everard,
and worry and worry if I just disappear as you wish me to without a
word. Of course I'll go, and I promise I'll never come again unless you
ask me to. But don't, because you're angry, insist on something that
will make Lucy extraordinarily unhappy. Let me say good-night to her
now, and good-bye to-morrow morning. I tell you she'll be terribly
worried if I don't. She'll think'--Miss Entwhistle tried to smile--'that
you've turned me out. And then, you see, if she thinks that, she won't
be able----' Miss Entwhistle hesitated. 'Well, she won't be able to be
proud of you. And that, my dear Everard--' she looked at him with a
faint smile of deprecation and apology that she, a spinster, should talk
of this--'gives love its deepest wound.'
Wemyss stared at her, too much amazed to speak. In his house.... In his
own house!
'I'm sorry,' she said, still more earnestly, 'if this annoys you, but I
do want--I really do think it is very important.'
There was then a silence during which they looked at each other, he at
her in amazement, she at him trying to hope,--hope that he would take
what she had said in good part. It was so vital that he should
understand, that he should get an idea of the effect on Lucy of just
that sort of unkind, even cruel behaviour. His own happiness was
involved as well. Tragic, tragic for every one if he couldn't be got to
see....
'Are you aware,' he said, 'that this is my house?'
'Oh Everard----' she said at that, with a movement of despair.
'Are you aware,' he continued, 'that you are talking to a husband of his
wife?'
Miss Entwhistle said nothing, but leaning her head on her hand looked at
the fire.
'Are you aware that you thrust yourself into my house uninvited directly
my back was turned, and have been living in it, and would have gone on
indefinitely living in it, without any sanction from me unless I had
come down, as I did come down, on purpose to put an end to such an
outrageous state of affairs?'
'Of course,' she said, 'that is one way of describing it.'
'It is the way of every reasonable and decent person,' said Wemyss.
'Oh no,' said Miss Entwhistle. 'That is precisely what it isn't. But,'
she added, getting up from the chair and holding out her hand, 'it is
your way, and so I think, Everard, I'll say good-night. And good-bye
too, for I don't expect I'll see you in the morning.'
'One would suppose,' he said, taking no notice of her proffered hand,
for he hadn't nearly done, 'from your tone that this was your house and
I was your servant.'
'I assure you I could never imagine it to be my house or you my
servant.'
'You made a great mistake, I can tell you, when you started interfering
between husband and wife. You have only yourself to thank if I don't
allow you to continue to see Lucy.'
She stared at him.
'Do you mean,' she said, after a silence, 'that you intend to prevent my
seeing her later on too? In London?'
'That, exactly, is my intention.'
Miss Entwhistle stared at him, lost in thought; but he could see he had
got her this time, for her face had gone visibly pale.
'In that case, Everard,' she said presently, 'I think it my duty----'
'Don't begin about duties. You have no duties in regard to me and my
household.'
'I think it my duty to tell you that from my knowledge of Lucy----'
'Your knowledge of Lucy! What is it compared to mine, I should like to
know?'
'Please listen to me. It's most important. From my knowledge of her, I'm
quite sure she hasn't the staying power of Vera.'
It was now his turn to stare. She was facing him, very pale, with
shining, intrepid eyes. He had got her in her vulnerable spot he could
see, or she wouldn't be so white, but she was going to do her utmost to
annoy him up to the last.
'The staying power of----?' he repeated.
'I'm sure of it. And you must be wise, you must positively have the
wisdom to take care of your own happiness----'
'Oh good God, you preaching woman!' he burst out. 'How dare you stand
there in my own house talking to me of Vera?'
'Hush,' said Miss Entwhistle, her eyes shining brighter and brighter in
her white face. 'Listen to me. It's atrocious that I should have to, but
nobody ever seems to have told you a single thing in your life. You
don't seem to know anything at all about women, anything at all about
human beings. How could you bring a girl like Lucy--any young wife--to
this house? But here she is, and it still may be all right because she
loves you so, if you take care, if you are tender and kind. I assure you
it is nothing to me how angry you are with me, or how completely you
separate me from Lucy, if only you are kind to her. Don't you realise,
Everard, that she may soon begin to have a baby, and that then she----'
'You indelicate woman! You incredibly indecent, improper----'
'I don't in the least mind what you say to me, but I tell you that
unless you take care, unless you're kinder than you're being at this
moment, it won't be anything like fifteen years this time.'