THE LETTER
I
Rachel stood at her own front door and took off her glove in order
more easily to manipulate the latch-key, which somehow, since coming
into frequent use again, had never been the same manageable latch-key,
but a cantankerous old thing, though still very bright. She opened
the door quietly, and stepped inside quietly, lest by chance she might
disturb Louis, the invalid--but also because she was a little afraid.
The most contradictory feelings can exist together in the mind. After
the desolate discomfort of Julian Maldon's lodging and the spectacle
of his clumsiness in the important affair of mere living, Rachel
was conscious of a deep and proud happiness as she re-entered
the efficient, cosy, and gracious organism of her own home. But
simultaneously with this feeling of happiness she had a dreadful
general apprehension that the organism might soon be destroyed, and a
particular apprehension concerning her next interview with Louis, for
at the next interview she would be under the necessity of telling him
about her transaction with Julian. She had been absolutely determined
upon that transaction. She had said to herself, "Whatever happens, I
shall take that money to Julian and insist on his keeping all of
it." She had, in fact, been very brave--indeed, audacious. Now the
consequences were imminent, and they frightened her; she was less
brave now. One awkward detail of the immediate future was that to tell
Louis would be to reopen the entire question of the theft, which she
had several times in the most abrupt and arrogant manner refused to
discuss with him.
As soon as she had closed the front door she perceived that twilight
was already obscuring the interior of the house. But she could plainly
see that the parlour door was about two inches ajar, exactly as she
had left it a couple of hours earlier. Probably Louis had not stirred.
She listened vainly for a sign of life from him. Probably he was
reading, for on rare occasions when he read a novel he would stick
to the book with surprising pertinacity. At any rate, he would be
too lofty to give any sign that he had heard her return. Under less
sinister circumstances he might have yelled gaily: "I say, Rache!" for
in a teasing mood he would sometimes prefer "Rache" to "Louise."
Rachel from the lobby could see the fire bright in the kitchen, and
a trayful of things on the kitchen table ready to be brought into the
parlour for high tea.
Mrs. Tams was out. It was not among Mrs. Tams's regular privileges
to be out in the afternoon. But this was Easter Saturday--rather a
special day--and, further, one of her daughters had gone away for
Easter and left a child with one of her daughters-in-law, and
Mrs. Tams had desired to witness some of the dealings of her
daughter-in-law with her grandchild. Not without just pride had Mrs.
Tams related the present circumstances to Rachel. In Mrs. Tams's young
maturity parents who managed a day excursion to Blackpool in the year
did well, and those who went away for four or five days at Knype Wakes
in August were princes and plutocrats. But nowadays even a daughter
of Mrs. Tams, not satisfied with a week at Knype Wakes, could take a
week-end at Easter just like great folk such as Louis. Which proved
that the community at large, or Mrs. Tams's family, had famously got
up in the world. Rachel recalled Louis' suggestion, more than a week
earlier, of a trip to Llandudno. The very planet itself had aged since
then.
She looked at the clock. In twenty minutes Mrs. Tams would be back.
She and Louis were alone together in the house. She might go straight
into the parlour, and say, in as indifferent and ordinary a voice as
she could assume: "I've just been over to Julian Maldon's to give him
that money--all of it, you know," and thus get the affair finished
before Mrs. Tams's reappearance. Louis was within a few feet of her,
hidden only by the door which a push would cause to swing!... Yes, but
she could not persuade herself to push the door! The door seemed to
be protected from her hand by a mysterious spell which she dared not
break. She was, indeed, overwhelmed by the simple but tremendous fact
that Louis and herself were alone together in the darkening house. She
decided, pretending to be quite calm: "I'll just run upstairs and take
my things off first. There's no use in my seeming to be in a hurry."
In the bedroom she arranged her toilet for the evening, and
established order in every corner of the chamber. Under the washstand
lay the long row of Louis' boots and shoes, each pair in stretchers.
She suddenly contrasted Julian's heavy and arrogant dowdiness with the
nice dandyism of Louis. She could not help thinking that Julian
would be a terrible person to live with. This was the first thought
favourable to Louis which had flitted through her mind for a long
time. She dismissed it. Nothing in another man could be as terrible to
live with as the defects of Louis. She set herself--she was obliged to
set herself--high above Louis. The souvenir of the admiration of
old Batchgrew and John's Ernest, the touching humility before her
of Julian Maldon, once more inflated her self-esteem--it could not
possibly have failed to do so. She knew that she was an extraordinary
woman, and a prize.
Invigorated and reassured by these reflections, she descended proudly
to the ground floor. And then, hesitating at the entrance to the
parlour, she went into the kitchen and poked the fire. As the fire
was in excellent condition there was no reason for this act except her
diffidence at the prospect of an encounter with Louis. At last, having
examined the tea-tray and invented other delays, she tightened her
nerves and passed into the parlour to meet the man who seemed to be
waiting for her like the danger of a catastrophe. He was not there.
The parlour was empty. His book was lying on the Chesterfield.
She felt relieved. It was perhaps not very wise for him to have gone
out for a walk, but if he chose to run risks, he was free to do so,
for all she cared. In the meantime the interview was postponed; hence
her craven relief. She lit the gas, but not by the same device as in
Mrs. Maldon's day; and then she saw an envelope lying on the table.
It was addressed in Louis' handwriting to "Mrs. Louis Fores." She was
alone in the house. She felt sick. Why should he write a letter to her
and leave it there on the table? She invented half a dozen harmless
reasons for the letter, but none of them was the least convincing.
The mere aspect of the letter frightened her horribly. There was no
strength in her limbs. She tore the envelope in a daze.
The letter ran--
Dear Rachel,--I have decided to leave England. I do not know
how long I shall be away. I cannot and will not stand the life
I have been leading with you this last week. I had a perfectly
satisfactory explanation to give you, but you have most rudely
refused to listen to it. So now I shall not give it. I shall
write you as to my plans. I shall send you whatever money is
necessary for you. By the way, I put four hundred and fifty
pounds away in my private drawer. On looking for it this
afternoon I see that you have taken it, without saying a word
to me. You must account to me for this money. When you have
done so we will settle how much I am to send you. In the
meantime you can draw from it for necessary expenses.
Yours,
L.F.
II
Rachel stared at the letter. It was the first letter she had seen
written on the new note-paper, embossed with the address, "Bycars,
Bursley." Louis would not have "Bycars Lane" on the note-paper,
because "Bycars" alone was more vague and impressive; distant
strangers might take it to be the name of a magnificent property. Her
lips curled. She violently ripped the paper to bits and stuck them in
the fire; a few fragments escaped and fluttered like snow on to the
fender. She screwed up the envelope and flung it after the letter. Her
face smarted and tingled as the blood rushed passionately to her head.
She thought, aghast: "Everything is over! He will never come back.
He will never have enough moral force to come back. We haven't
been married two months, and everything is over! And this is Easter
Saturday! He wanted us to be at Llandudno or somewhere for Easter, and
I shouldn't be at all surprised if he's gone there. Yes, he would be
capable of that. And if it wasn't for the plaster on his face, he'd be
capable of gallivanting on Llandudno pier this very night!"
She had no illusion as to him. She saw him as objectively as a god
might have seen him.
And then she thought with fury: "Oh, what a fool I've been! What a
little fool! Why didn't I listen to him? Why didn't I foresee?... No,
I've _not_ been a fool! I've not! I've not! What did I do wrong?
Nothing! I couldn't have borne his explanations!... Explanations,
indeed! I can imagine his explanations! Did he expect me to smile and
kiss him after he'd told me he was a thief?"
And then she thought, in reference to his desertion: "It's not true!
It can't be true!"
She wanted to read the letter again, so that perhaps she might
read something into it that was hopeful. But to read it again was
impossible. She tried to recall its exact terms, and could not. She
could only remember with certainty that the final words were "Yours,
L.F." Nevertheless, she knew that the thing was true; she knew by the
weight within her breast and the horrible nausea that almost overcame
her self-control.
She whispered, alone in the room--
"Yes, it's true! And it's happened to me!... He's gone!"
And not the ruin of her life, but the scandal of the affair, was the
first matter that occupied her mind. She was too shaken yet to feel
the full disaster. Her mind ran on little things. And just as once
she had pictured herself self-conscious in the streets of Bursley as
a young widow, so now she pictured herself in the far more appalling
role of deserted wife. The scandal would be enormous. Nothing--no
carefully invented fiction--would suffice to stifle it. She would
never dare to show her face. She would be compelled to leave the
district. And supposing a child came! Fears stabbed her. She felt
tragically helpless as she stood there, facing a vision of future
terrors. She had legal rights, of course. Her common sense told her
that. She remembered also that she possessed a father and a brother in
America. But no legal rights and no relatives would avail against
the mere simple, negligent irresponsibility of Louis. In the end, she
would have to rely on herself. All at once she recollected that she
had promised to see after Julian's curtains.
She had almost no money. And how could the admiration of three men
other than her husband (so enheartening a few minutes earlier) serve
her in the crisis? No amount of masculine admiration could mitigate
the crudity of the fact that she had almost no money. Louis' illness
had interrupted the normal course of domestic finance--if, indeed, a
course could be called normal which had scarcely begun. Louis had
not been to the works. Hence he had received no salary. And how much
salary was due to him, and whether he was paid weekly or monthly, she
knew not. Neither did she know whether his inheritance actually had
been paid over to him by Thomas Batchgrew.
What she knew was that she had received no house-keeping allowance for
more than a week, and that her recent payments to tradesmen had been
made from a very small remaining supply of her own prenuptial money.
Economically she was as dependent on Louis as a dog, and not more so;
she had the dog's right to go forth and pick up a living.... Of course
Louis would send her money. Louis was a gentleman--he was not a cad.
Yes, but he was a very careless gentleman. She was once again filled
with the bitter realization of his extreme irresponsibility.
She heard a noise in the back lobby, and started. It was Mrs. Tams,
returned. Mrs. Tams had a key of her own, of which she was proud--an
affair of about four inches in length and weighing over a quarter of a
pound. It fitted the scullery door, and was, indeed, the very key with
which Rachel had embroidered her lie to Thomas Batchgrew on the day
after the robbery. Mrs. Tams always took pleasure in entering the
house from the rear, without a sound. She was now coming into the
parlour with the tray for high tea. No wonder that Rachel started.
Here was the first onset of the outer world.
Mrs. Tams came in, already perfectly transformed from a mother,
mother-in-law, and grandmother into a parlour-maid with no human tie.
"Good-afternoon, Mrs. Tams."
"So ye've got back, ma'am!"
While Mrs. Tams laid the table, with many grunts and creakings of the
solid iron in her stays, Rachel sat on a chair by the fire, trying to
seem in a casual, dreamy mood, cogitating upon what she must say.
"Will mester be down for tea, ma'am?" asked Mrs. Tams, who had
excusably assumed that Louis was upstairs.
And Rachel, forced now to defend, instead of attacking, blurted out--
"Oh! By the way, I was forgetting; Mr. Fores will not be in for tea."
Mrs. Tams, forgetting she was a parlour-maid, vociferated in amazement
and protest--
"Not be in for tea, ma'am? And him as he is!" All her lately gathering
suspicions were strengthened and multiplied.
Rachel had to continue as she had begun: "He's been called away on
very urgent business. He simply had to go."
Mrs. Tams, intermitting her duties, stood still and gazed at Rachel.
"Was it far, ma'am, as he had for to go?"
A simple question, and yet how difficult to answer plausibly!
"Yes--rather."
"I suppose he'll be back to-night, ma'am?"
"Oh yes, of course!" replied Rachel, in absurd haste. "But if he
isn't, I'm not to worry, he said. But he fully expects to be. We
scarcely had time to talk, you see. He was getting ready when I came
in."
"A telegram, ma'am, I suppose it was?"
"Yes.... That is, I don't know whether there was a telegram first, or
not. But he was called for, you see. A cab. I couldn't have let him go
off walking, not as he is."
Mrs. Tarns gave a gesture.
"I suppose I mun alter this 'ere table, then," said she, putting a cup
and saucer back on the tray.
"Idiot! Idiot!" Rachel described herself to herself, when Mrs.
Tams, very much troubled, had left the room. "'By the way, I was
forgetting'--couldn't I have told her better than that? She's known
for a week that there's been something wrong, and now she's certainly
guessed there's something dreadfully wrong.... Just look at all the
silly lies I've told already! What will it be like to-morrow--and
Monday? I wonder what my face looked like while I was telling her!"
She rushed upstairs to discover what luggage Louis had taken with him.
But apparently he had taken nothing whatever. The trunk, the valise,
and the various bags were all stacked in the empty attic, exactly as
she had placed them. He must have gone off in a moment, without any
reflection or preparation.
And when Mrs. Tams served the solitary tea, Rachel was just as idiotic
as before.
"By the way, Mrs. Tams," she began again, "did you happen to tell Mr.
Fores where I'd gone this afternoon?... You see, we'd no opportunity
to discuss anything," she added, striving once more after
verisimilitude.
"Yes'm. I told him when I took him his early cup o' tea."
"Did he ask you?"
"Now ye puzzle me, ma'am! I couldn't swear to it to save my life. But
I told him."
"What did he say?" Rachel tried to smile.
"He didna say aught."
Rachel remained alone, to objurgate Rachel. It was indeed only too
obvious from Mrs. Tams's constrained and fussy demeanour that the
old woman had divined the existence of serious trouble in the Fores
household.
III
Some time after the empty ceremony of tea, Rachel sat in state in the
parlour, dignified, self-controlled, pretending to sew, as she had
pretended to eat and drink and, afterwards, to have an important
enterprise of classifying and rearranging her possessions in the
wardrobe upstairs. Let Mrs. Tams enter ever so unexpectedly, Rachel
was a fit spectacle for her, with a new work-basket by her side on the
table, and her feet primly on a footstool, quite in the style of the
late Mrs. Maldon, and a serious and sagacious look on her face that
the fire and the gas combined to illuminate. She did not actually sew,
but the threaded needle was ready in her hand to move convincingly
at a second's notice, for Mrs. Tams was of a restless and inquisitive
disposition that night.
Apparently secure between the drawn blinds, the fire, the
Chesterfield, and the sideboard, Rachel was nevertheless ranging wide
among vast, desolate tracts of experience, and she was making singular
discoveries. For example, it was not until she was alone in the
parlour after tea that she discovered that during the whole of her
interview with Julian Maldon in the afternoon she had never regarded
him as a thief. And yet he was a thief--just as much as Louis! She had
simply forgotten that he was a thief. He did not seem to be any the
worse for being a thief. If he had shown the desire to explain to her
by word of mouth the entire psychology of his theft, she would have
listened with patience and sympathy; she would have encouraged him
to rectitude. And yet Julian had no claim on her; he was not her
husband; she did not love him. But because Louis was her husband,
and had a claim on her, and had received all the proofs of her
affection--therefore, she must be merciless for Louis! She perceived
the inconsistency; she perceived it with painful clearness. She had
the impartial logic of the self-accuser. At intervals the self-accuser
was flagellated and put to flight by passionate reaction, but only to
return stealthily and irresistibly....
She had been wrong to take the four hundred and fifty pounds without a
word. True, Louis had somewhat casually authorized her to return half
of the sum to Julian, but the half was not the whole. And in any case
she ought to have told Louis of her project. There could be no doubt
that, immediately upon Mrs. Tams's going out, Louis had looked for
the four hundred and fifty pounds, and, in swift resentment at its
disappearance, had determined to disappear also. He had been stung and
stung again, past bearing (she argued) daily and hourly throughout
the week, and the disappearance of the money had put an end to his
patience. Such was the upshot, and she had brought it about!
She had imagined that she was waiting for destiny, but in fact she had
been making destiny all the time, with her steely glances at Louis and
her acrid, uncompromising tongue!... And did those other men really
admire her? How, for instance, could Thomas Batchgrew admire her,
seeing that he had suspected her of lies and concealment about the
robbery? If it was on account of supposed lies and concealment that he
admired her, then she rejected Thomas Batchgrew's admiration....
The self-accuser and the self-depreciator in her grew so strong that
Louis' conduct soon became unexceptionable--save for a minor point
concerning a theft of some five hundred pounds odd from an old lady.
And as for herself, she, Rachel, was an over-righteous prig, an
interfering person, a blundering fool of a woman, a cruel-hearted
creature. And Louis was just a poor, polite martyr who had had the
misfortune to pick up certain bank-notes that were not his.
Then the tide of judgment would sweep back, and Rachel was the
innocent, righteous martyr again, and Louis the villain. But not for
long.
She cried passionately within her brain: "I must have him. I must get
hold of him. I _must_!"
But when the brief fury of longing was exhausted she would ask: "How
can I get hold of him? Where is he?" Then more forcibly: "What am I to
do first? Yes, what ought I to do? What is wisest? He little guesses
that he is killing me. If he had guessed, he wouldn't have done it.
But nothing will kill me! I am as strong as a horse. I shall live for
ages. There's the worst of it all!... And it's no use asking what I
ought to do, either, because nothing, nothing, nothing would induce me
to run after him, even if I knew where to run to! I would die first. I
would live for a hundred years in torture first. That's positive."
The hands of the clock, instead of moving slowly, seemed to progress
at a prodigious rate. Mrs. Tams came in--
"Shall I lay mester's supper, ma'am?"
The idea of laying supper for the master had naturally not occurred to
Rachel.
"Yes, please."
When the supper was laid upon one half of the table, the sight of it
almost persuaded Rachel that Louis would be bound to come--as though
the waiting supper must mysteriously magnetize him out of the world
beyond into the intimacy of the parlour.
And she thought, as she strove for the hundredth time to recall the
phrases of the letter--
"'Perfectly satisfactory explanation!' suppose he _has_ got a
perfectly satisfactory explanation! He must have. He must have. If
only he has, everything would be all right. I'd apologize. I'd almost
go on my knees to him.... And he was so ill all the time, too!... But
he's gone. It's too late now for the explanation. Still, as soon as I
hear from him, I shall write and ask him for it."
And in her mind she began to compose a wondrous letter to him--a
letter that should preserve her own dignity while salving his, a
letter that should overwhelm him with esteem for her.
She rang the bell. "Don't sit up, Mrs. Tams."
And when she had satisfied herself that Mrs. Tams with unwilling
obedience had retired upstairs, she began to walk madly about
the parlour (which had an appearance at once very strange and
distressingly familiar), and to whisper plaintively, and raging, and
plaintively again: "I must get him back. I cannot bear this. It is too
much for me. I _must_ get him back. It's all my fault!" and then
dropped on the Chesterfield in a collapse, moaning: "No. It's no use
now."
And then she fancied that she heard the gate creak, and a latch-key
fumbling into the keyhole of the front door. And one part of her brain
said on behalf of the rest: "I am mad. I am delirious."
It was a fact that Louis had caused to be manufactured for his own use
a new latch-key. But it was impossible that this latch-key should now
be in the keyhole. She was delirious. And then she unmistakably
heard the front door open. Her heart jumped with the most afflicting
violence. She was ready to fall on to the carpet, but seemed to be
suspended in the air. When she recognized Louis' footsteps in the
lobby tears burst from her eyes in an impetuous torrent.