It took Elsie exactly three months to bring Mr. Williams to the point
predicted by Irene Tidmarsh.
During that time she was quiet, and rather timid, scrupulously exact in
saying “sir” and very careful never to be heard laughing or chattering
with Fred Leary.
Williams at first made no allusion to her note. When at last he spoke
of it, he did so very much in his ordinary manner.
“I was sorry to get your little note the other day, Elsie, and to see
that you don’t quite trust me after all.”
“Oh, but I do,” she stammered.
He shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I’m afraid my little friend isn’t
quite as staunch as I fancied. It doesn’t matter. Perhaps some day
you’ll know me better.”
“It wasn’t anything like that. It was just that I--I thought mother
wouldn’t like it,” simpered Elsie. “It didn’t seem to me to be quite
right.”
“It would have been quite right, or I shouldn’t have asked you to do
it,” he replied firmly. “I’m a man of great experience, Elsie, a good
many years older than you are, and you may be quite sure that I should
never mislead you. But I see I made a mistake, you are not old enough
to have the courage to be unconventional.”
He looked hard at her as he spoke, but Elsie’s vanity was not of the
sort to be wounded at the term of which he had made use. She merely
drooped her head and looked submissive.
A month later he asked her, in thinly veiled terms, whether she had yet
changed her mind.
“I shan’t ever change it,” Elsie declared. “I daresay I’ve sometimes
been rather silly, and not as careful as I ought, but I know very well
that it wouldn’t _do_ for me to act the way you suggest. Why, you’d
never respect me the same way again, if I did!”
She felt that the last sentence was a masterpiece. Williams shrugged
his shoulders.
“Come, Elsie, let’s understand one another. You’re not ignorant, a girl
like you must have had half a dozen men after her. And then what about
that doctor fellow--Woolley?”
“What about him?”
“That’s what I’m asking you. Something happened to cause the
unpleasantness between Mrs. Woolley and yourself, and I’ve a very
shrewd suspicion that I know what it was.”
“Then I needn’t tell you,” said Elsie feebly.
“That isn’t the way to speak.”
His low voice was suddenly nasty, and she felt frightened. “I’m sorry.”
“Yes. Don’t do it again, Elsie. How far did Woolley go? That’s what I
want to know.”
“He--he frightened me. He tried to kiss me.”
“And succeeded. Anything else?”
“Mr. _Williams_!”
He gazed at her stonily. “Well,” he said at last, “I’m half inclined to
believe you. How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
“Seventeen!” he repeated after her, and his accent was covetous. “You
should be very innocent, at seventeen, Elsie--very innocent and very
pure. Now, my dear little late wife, when we were married, although she
was a good deal older than you are, knew nothing whatever. Her husband
had to teach her everything. That’s as it should be, Elsie.”
A certain prurient relish of his own topic, in Williams’ manner,
affected Elsie disagreeably. Neither did she like his reference to Mrs.
Williams.
She was glad that the conversation should at that point be interrupted
by the entrance of the austere Mr. Cleaver.
Suspense was beginning to make her feel very irritable. She now
wanted Williams to propose marriage to her, but had begun to doubt his
ever doing so. He continued to look at her meaningly, and to lay his
rather desiccated hand from time to time on her shoulder, or upon the
thin fabric of her sleeve, with a lingering, caressing touch. Elsie,
however, had inspired too many men to such demonstrations to feel
elated by them, and her employer’s proximity roused in her little or no
physical response.
One day, to her surprise, he brought her a present.
“Open it, Elsie.”
She eagerly lifted the lid of the small cardboard box.
Inside was a large turquoise brooch, shaped like a swallow, with
outspread wings.
She knew instantly that it had belonged to his dead wife, but the
knowledge did not lessen her pleasure at possessing a trinket that she
thought beautiful as well as valuable, nor her triumph that he should
wish to give it to her.
“Oh, I say, how lovely! Do you really mean me to keep it?”
“Yes, really,” Mr. Williams assured her solemnly.
“But I couldn’t! It’s too lovely--I mean to say, really it is!”
“No, it isn’t, Elsie. You must please put it on, and let me have the
pleasure of seeing you wear it.”
“Put it on for me, then,” murmured Elsie, glancing up at him, and then
down again.
He took the ornament from her with hands that fumbled. “Where?”
“Just _here_.”
She indicated the round neck of her transparent blouse, just below the
collar-bone.
He stuck the pin in clumsily enough, and she stifled a little scream
as it pricked her, but remained passive under his slowly-moving,
dry-skinned fingers.
“There! I’m sorry there isn’t a looking-glass, Elsie.”
“Oh, I’ve got one! Don’t look, though!”
She stooped, pulled up her skirt, revealing a plump calf, and in a
flash had pulled out a tiny combined mirror and powder-puff from the
top of her stocking. She had no other pocket.
Williams did not utter a sound. He only kept his pale grey eyes fixed
gleamingly upon her.
“Are you shocked?” Elsie giggled. “I didn’t ought to, I suppose, but
really it’s hard to know what else to do.”
She peeped into the tiny looking-glass. “Isn’t it pretty!”
“_You_ are,” said Williams awkwardly. “How are you going to thank me,
Elsie?”
He always seemed to take pleasure in repeating her name.
“How do you suppose?”
“You know what I’d like.”
He came nearer to her, and put his hands upon her shoulders. Although
Elsie was short, he was very little taller.
She shut her eyes and put her head back, her exposed throat throbbing
visibly. She could feel his breath upon her face, when suddenly she
ducked her head, twisting out of his grasp, and cried wildly:
“No, no! It isn’t right--I oughtn’t to let you! Oh, Mr. Williams, I’d
rather not have the brooch, though it’s lovely. But I can’t be a bad
girl!”
He had taken a step backwards in his disconcerted amazement. “What on
earth----Why, Elsie, you don’t think there’s any harm in a kiss, do
you?”
“I don’t know,” she muttered, half crying. “But you make me feel so--so
helpless, somehow, Mr. Williams.”
Purest instinct was guiding her, but no subtlety of insight could have
better gauged the effect of her implication upon the little solicitor’s
vanity.
He drew himself up, and expanded the narrow width of his chest. “You’re
not frightened of me, little girl, are you?”
“I--I don’t know,” faltered Elsie.
“I can assure you that you needn’t be. Why, I--I--I’m very fond of you,
surely you know that?”
Elsie felt rather scornful of the lameness of his speech. She saw that
he was afraid of his own impulses, and the knowledge encouraged her.
“Here, Mr. Williams,” she said rather tremulously, holding out the
turquoise brooch.
He closed her hand over it. “Keep it. Are you fond of jewellery?”
“Yes, very.”
“It’s natural, at your age. I’d like to give you pretty things, Elsie,
but you mustn’t be such a little prude.”
“Mother always told me that one shouldn’t take a present--not a
valuable present--from a man, without he was a relation or--or
else----” She stopped.
“Or else what?”
“He’d asked one to marry him,” half whispered Elsie.
Williams recoiled so unmistakably that for a sickening instant she was
afraid of having gone too far.
Genuine tears ran down her face, and she did not know what to say.
“Don’t cry,” said the solicitor dryly. “I’d like you to keep the
brooch, and you can thank me in your own time, and your own way.”
“Oh, how good you are!”
She was relieved that he said no more to her that day.
She wore the brooch on the following morning, and fingered it very
often. Williams eyed her complacently.
She began to notice that he was taking some pains with his own
appearance, occasionally wearing a flower in his coat, and discarding
the crêpe band round his arm. She even suspected, from a certain smell
noticeable in the small office, that he was trying the effect of a
hair-dye upon his scanty strands of hair. Elsie mocked him inwardly,
but felt excited and hopeful.
When Williams actually did ask her to marry him, Elsie’s head reeled
with the sudden knowledge of having achieved her end. He had offered to
take her for a walk one Sunday afternoon, and they were primly going
across the Green Park.
To Elsie’s secret astonishment, he had neither put his arm round her
waist nor attempted to direct their steps towards a seat beneath one of
the more distant trees. He simply walked beside her, with short little
steps, every now and then jerking up his chin to pull at his tie, and
saying very little.
Then, suddenly, it came.
“Elsie, perhaps you don’t know that I’ve been thinking a great deal
about you lately.” He cleared his throat. “I--I’ve been glad to see
that you’re a very good girl. Perhaps you’ve not noticed one or two
little tests, as I may call them, that I’ve put you through. We lawyers
learn to be very cautious in dealing with human nature, you know.
And I’m free to admit that I thought very highly of you after--after
thinking it over--for the attitude you took up over that little trip we
were going to take together. Not, mind you, that you weren’t mistaken.
I should never, never have asked you to do anything that wasn’t
perfectly right and good. But your scruples, however unfounded, made a
very favourable impression on me.”
He stopped and cleared his throat again.
Intuition warned Elsie to say nothing.
“A young girl can’t be too particular, Elsie. But I don’t want to give
up our plan--I want my little companion on holidays, as well as on work
days. Elsie,” said Mr. Williams impressively, “I want you to become my
little wife.”
And as she remained speechless, taken aback in spite of all her
previous machinations, he repeated:
“My dear, loving little wife.”
“Oh, Mr. Williams!”
“Call me Horace.”
Elsie very nearly giggled. She felt sure that it would be quite
impossible ever to call Mr. Williams Horace.
“Let’s sit down,” she suggested feebly.
They found two little iron chairs, and Mr. Williams selected them
regardless of their proximity to the public path.
When they sat down, Elsie, really giddy, leant back, but Mr. Williams
bent forward, not looking at her, and poking his stick, which was
between his knees, into the grass at their feet.
“Of course, there is a certain difference in our ages,” he said,
speaking very carefully, “but I do not consider that that would offer
any very insuperable objection to a--a happy married life. And I shall
do my utmost to make you happy, Elsie. My house is sadly in want of a
mistress, and I shall look to you to make it bright again. You will
have a servant, of course, and I will make you an allowance for the
housekeeping, and, of course, I need hardly say that my dear little
wife will look to me for everything that concerns her own expenditure.”
He glanced at her as though expecting her to be dazzled, as indeed she
was.
It occurred to neither of them that Elsie’s acceptance of his proposal
was being tacitly taken for granted without a word from herself. She
wondered if he would mention Mrs. Williams, but he did not do so.
He continued to talk to her of his house, and of the expensive
furniture that she would find in it, and of the fact that she would no
longer have to work.
All these considerations appealed to Elsie herself very strongly, and
she listened to him willingly, although a sense of derision pervaded
her mind at the extraordinary aloofness that her future husband was
displaying.
At last, however, he signed to a taxi as they were leaving the park,
and said that he would take her to have some tea. Almost automatically,
Elsie settled herself against him as soon as the taxi had begun to move.
Rather stiffly, Williams passed his arm round her. His first kiss was
a self-conscious, almost furtive affair that Elsie received on her
upraised chin.
Intensely irritated by his clumsiness, she threw herself on him with
sudden violence, and forced her mouth against his in a long, clinging
pressure.
* * * * *
Elsie Palmer was married to Horace Williams at a registrar’s office
rather less than a fortnight later.
Williams had insisted both upon the early date and the quietness
of the wedding. He had refused to allow Elsie to tell her mother
of the marriage until it was accomplished, and a lurking fear of
him, and schoolgirl satisfaction in taking such a step upon her own
responsibility, combined to make her obedient.
Irene Tidmarsh and a man whose name Elsie never learnt, but who
came with Mr. Williams, were witnesses to the marriage. Elsie was
principally conscious that she was looking plain, unaccountably pale
under a new cream-coloured hat and feather, and with her new shoes
hurting her feet. It also occurred to her that she would have preferred
a wedding in church, with wedding-cake and a party to follow it.
She felt inclined to cry, especially when they came out of the dingy
office, after an astonishingly short time spent inside it, and found
that it was raining.
“Where are we going to?” said Irene blankly. (“My goodness, Elsie, just
look at your ring! Doesn’t it look queer?) I suppose you’ll take a
taxi?”
Mr. Williams showed no alacrity to fall in with the suggestion, but
after a dubious look round at the grey sky and rain-glistening pavement
he signed with his umbrella to a taxi-cab.
“I suppose we’d better. Can I see you to your ’bus first, or do you
prefer the Tube?” he added to Irene.
Both girls flushed, and looked at one another.
“Aren’t you going to give us lunch, I should like to know?” murmured
Elsie.
“I’m sure if I’m in the way, I’ll take myself off at once, and only
too pleased to do it,” said Irene, her voice very angry. “Please don’t
trouble to see me to the station, Mr. Williams.”
“As you like,” he replied coolly, and held out his hand. “Good-bye,
Miss--er--Tidmarsh. I’m glad to have met you, and I hope we shall have
the pleasure of seeing you in Elsie’s new home one of these days.”
“Oh yes, do come, Ireen!” cried the bride, forgetting her mortification
for a moment. “I’ll run in and see you one of these evenings, and we’ll
settle it.”
“Get in, Elsie. You’re getting wet,” said Mr. Williams, and he pushed
her into the taxi and climbed in after her, leaving Irene Tidmarsh
walking away very quickly in the rain.
“Well, I must say you might have been a bit more civil,” began Elsie,
and then, as she turned her head round to face him, the words died away
on her lips.
“You didn’t think I was going to have a strange girl here, the first
minute alone with _my wife_, did you?” he said thickly. “You little
fool!”
He caught hold of her roughly and kissed her with a vehemence that
startled her. For the first time, Elsie realised something of the
possessive rights that marriage with a man of Williams’ type would
mean. For a frantic instant she was held in the grip of that sense of
irrevocability that even the least imaginative can never wholly escape.
Her panic only endured for a moment.
“Don’t,” she began, as she felt that his embrace had pushed her
over-large hat unbecomingly to one side. She was entirely unwarmed by
passion, unattracted as she was by the man she had married, and chilled
and depressed besides in the raw atmosphere of a pouring wet day in
London.
The first sound of her husband’s voice taught her her lesson.
“There’s no ‘don’t’ about it now, Elsie. You remember that, if you
please. We’re man and wife now, and you’re _mine_ to do as I please
with.”
His voice was at once bullying and gluttonous, and his dry, grasping
hands moved over her with a clutching tenacity that reminded her
sickeningly of a crab that she had once seen in the aquarium.
Elsie was frightened as she had never in her life been frightened
before, and the measure of her terror was that she could not voice it.
She remained absolutely silent, and as nearly as possible motionless,
beneath his unskilled caresses. Williams, however, hardly appeared to
notice her utter lack of responsiveness. He was evidently too much
absorbed in the sudden gratification of his own hitherto suppressed
desires.
Presently Elsie said faintly: “Where are we going to?”
“I thought you’d want some luncheon.”
“I couldn’t touch a morsel,” Elsie declared, shuddering. “Couldn’t
you--couldn’t you take me home?”
“Do you mean Hillbourne Terrace?”
“Yes. I’ve got to tell mother some time to-day, and I’d rather get it
over.”
“Very well,” Williams agreed, with a curious little smile on his thin
lips. “But you mustn’t think of it as being home now, you know, Elsie.
Your home is where I live--where you’re coming back with me to-night.
No more office for my little girl after to-day.”
His short triumphant laugh woke no echo from her.
“Do you want me to come in with you?”
“Of course I do!” said Elsie indignantly. “Why, mother’ll be simply
furious! You don’t suppose I’m going to stand up to her all by myself,
do you?”
“Why should she be furious, Elsie? You’ve not done anything disgraceful
in marrying me.”
His voice was as quiet as ever, but his intonation told her that he was
offended.
“I don’t mean that,” she explained confusedly. “Of course, mother knows
you, and all--it’s only the idea of me having gone and been and done it
all on my own hook; that’ll upset her for a bit. She’s always wanted to
make babies of us, me and Geraldine.”
“You haven’t told your sister anything, have you?”
“No fear. She’s a jealous thing, ever so spiteful, is Geraldine.
You’ll see, she’ll be as nasty as anything when she knows I’m
actually--actually----”
Elsie stopped, giggling.
“Actually what?”
“You know very well.”
“Say it.”
“Actually married, then,” said Elsie, blushing a good deal and with
affected reluctance.
When they arrived at Hillbourne Terrace, and the taxi drew up before
the familiar flight of steps, she began to feel very nervous. She
told herself that she was a married woman, and looked at her new
wedding-ring, but she did not feel in the least like a married woman,
nor independent of Mrs. Palmer’s anger.
Elsie’s mother opened the door herself. “What on earth----Are you ill,
Elsie, coming home in a cab at this hour of the morning? Whatever next!”
“Mr. Williams is here, Mother,” said Elsie, pushing her way into the
dining-room.
Geraldine was there, a check apron, torn and greasy, tied round her
waist, and her hair still in curling-pins.
She was placing clean forks and spoons all round the table.
She looked at her sister with unfriendly surprise. Elsie had worn her
everyday clothes on leaving home that morning, and had changed at
Irene’s house.
“Whatever are you dressed up like that for?” said Geraldine at once.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I’d like to know where you get the money to pay for your new hats,”
said Geraldine significantly. “First one thing, and then another--I
wonder you don’t sport a tiara, young Elsie.”
“Perhaps I may, before I’ve done.”
Elsie was not really thinking of what she was saying, but was rather
listening to a sound of voices in the hall outside that denoted a
conversation between Williams and Mrs. Palmer.
She could not help hoping that he was breaking the news of their
marriage to her mother. Elsie still felt certain that Mrs. Palmer would
be very angry. It astonished her when her mother came into the room and
kissed her vehemently.
“You sly young monkey, you! Geraldine, has this girl told you what
she’s done?”
“What?”
“Gone and got married! This morning!! To Mr. Horace Williams!!!” Mrs.
Palmer’s voice rose in a positively jubilant crescendo.
“_Married!_” screamed Geraldine. Her face became scarlet, and then grey.
“My little girl, married at seventeen!” said Mrs. Palmer with her head
on one side.
She examined Elsie’s plump hand with its wedding-ring.
Horace Williams stood by, quietly smiling. “Then you’re willing to
trust her to me, Mrs. Palmer? You’ll forgive us for taking you by
surprise, but you see, in all the circumstances, I could hardly--I
naturally preferred--something very quiet. But you and I will have a
little talk about business one of these days, and you’ll find that part
of it all in good order. Elsie will be provided for, whatever happens.”
“So generous,” murmured Mrs. Palmer.
She insisted upon their remaining to dinner, and sent out Nellie
Simmons for a bottle of wine. Elsie, now that she saw that her mother
looked upon her marriage with the elderly solicitor as a triumph, and
that Geraldine was madly jealous of her, became herself excited and
elated.
Williams went to the office in the afternoon, but Elsie remained at
home and packed up all her things.
She made her farewells quite cheerfully when Williams came to fetch
her, still thinking of her mother’s repeated congratulations and
praises.
It came upon her as a shock, as they were driving away, when Williams
observed dryly:
“That’s over, and now there’ll be no need for you to be over here very
often, Elsie, or _vice versa_. You must remember that _my_ house is
your only home, now.”