Between seven and eight o'clock on Tuesday evening, Tanqueray, in an
execrable temper, returned to his home.
The little house had an air of bright expectancy, not to say of
festival; it was so intensely, so unusually illuminated. Each window,
with its drawn blind, was a golden square in the ivy-darkened wall.
Tanqueray let himself in noiselessly with his latchkey. He took up the
pile of letters that waited for him on the hat-stand in the hall, and
turned into the dining-room.
It smiled at him brilliantly with all its lights. So did the table, laid
for dinner; the very forks and spoons smiled, twinkling and limping in
irrepressible welcome. A fire burned ostentatiously in the hearth-place.
It sent out at him eager, loquacious tongues of flame, to draw him to
the insufferable endearments of the hearth.
He was aware now that what he was most afraid of in this horrible coming
back was his wife's insupportable affection.
He turned the lights down a little lower. All his movements were
noiseless. He was afraid that Rose would hear him and would come running
down.
He went up-stairs, treading quietly. He meant to take his letters to his
study and read them there. He might even answer some of them. Anything
to stave off the moment when he must meet Rose.
The door of her bedroom was wide open. The light flared so high that he
judged that Rose was in there and about to appear. He swung himself
swiftly and dexterously round the angle of the stair-rail, and so
reached his own door.
She must have heard him go in, but there was no answering movement from
her room.
With a closed door behind him he sat down and looked over his letters.
Bills, proofs from the "Monthly Review," a letter from Laura that
saddened him (he had not realized that Prothero was so ill). Last of
all, at the bottom of the pile, a little note from Rose.
She had got it all into five lines. Five lines, rather straggling,
rather shapeless lines that told him with a surprising brevity that his
wife had decided on an informal separation, for his good.
No resentment, no reproach, no passion and no postscript.
He went down-stairs by no means noiselessly.
In the hall, as he was putting on his hat, Susan came to him. She gave
him a queer look. Dinner was ready, she said. The mistress had ordered
the dinner that he liked. (Irrepressibly, insistently, thick with
intolerable reminiscence, the savour of it streamed through the kitchen
door.) The mistress had cooked it herself, Susan said. The mistress had
told Susan that she was to be sure and make him very comfortable, and to
remember what he liked for dinner. Susan's manner was a little shy and a
little important, it suggested the inauguration of a new rule, a new
order, a life in which Rose was not and never would be.
Tanqueray took no notice whatever of Susan as he strode out of the
house.
The lights were dim in the corner house by the Heath, opposite the
willows. Still, standing on the upper ground of the Heath, he could see
across the road through the window of his old sitting-room, and there,
in his old chair by the fireside he made out a solitary seated figure
that looked like Rose.
He came out from under the willows and made for the front door. He
pushed past the little maid who opened it and strode into the room. Rose
turned.
There was a slight stir and hesitation, then a greeting, very formal and
polite on both sides, and with Joey all the time leaping and panting and
licking Tanqueray's hands. Joey's demonstration was ignored as much too
emotional for the occasion.
A remark from Rose about the weather. Inquiries from Tanqueray as to the
health of Mr. and Mrs. Eldred. Further inquiries as to the health of
Rose.
Silence.
"May I turn the light up?" (From Tanqueray.)
"I'd rather you let it be?" (From Rose.)
He let it be.
"Rose" (very suddenly from Tanqueray), "do you remember Mr. Robinson?"
(No response.)
"Rose, why are you sitting in this room?"
"Because I like it."
"Why do you like it?"
(No response; only a furtive movement of Rose's hand towards her
pocket-handkerchief. A sudden movement of Tanqueray's, restrained, so
that he appeared to have knelt on the hearthrug to caress the little
dog. A long and silent stroking of Joey's back. Demonstration of
ineffable affection from Joey.)
"His hair never _has_ come on, has it? Do you know" (very gravely), "I'm
afraid it never will."
(A faint quiver of Rose's mouth which might or might not have been a
smile.)
"Rose, why did you marry me? Wouldn't any other hairless little dog have
done as well?"
(A deep sigh from Rose.)
Tanqueray was now standing up and looking down at her in his way.
"Rose, do you remember how I came to you at Fleet, and brought you the
moon in a band-box?"
She answered him with a sudden and convulsive sob.
He knelt beside her. He hesitated for a moment.
"Rose--I've brought you the band-box without the moon. Will you have
it?"
She got up with a wild movement of escape. Something rolled from her lap
and fell between them. She made a dash towards the object. But Tanqueray
had picked it up. It was a pair of Tanqueray's gloves, neatly folded.
"What were you doing with those gloves?" he said.
"I was mendin' them," said she.
Half-an-hour later Rose and Tanqueray were walking up the East Heath
Road towards their little house. Rose carried Tanqueray's gloves, and
Tanqueray carried Minny, the cat, in a basket.
As they went they talked about Owen Prothero. And Tanqueray thanked God
that, after all, there was something they _could_ talk about.