THE VELVET CASE
Savile, remembering that Chetwode had told him he was going away for 'a
week end for ten days', and that Felicity had said he was going away for
three days, went to see his sister. He had not received the promised
wire from Chetwode, but instead a cordial invitation to lunch at the
Savoy, in the course of which he told Savile that the whole thing had
been laid before Teignmouth; that Teignmouth was slow but sure; that he
was frightfully keen on arranging it, but said it can't be done in three
days. Savile forbore to press the matter, and said that he, of course,
disliked going back to school under the present circumstances; but if he
could rely on Chetwode and Teignmouth he would only worry _two_ more
people. The spirit of emulation that Savile hoped to rouse in his
brother-in-law was not observable. But Savile knew him to be a man of
his word, and really felt certain of Teignmouth's influence--he had
Aunt William and Jasmyn Vere up his sleeve. Aunt William was very rich
and very interested in politics, being an ardent member of the Primrose
League; Jasmyn Vere was so frightfully good-natured, and so anxious to
set people at their ease, that if Savile appeared with a shy request (he
smiled to himself as he thought of _his_ being shy of old Jasmyn!) he
would probably grant the request if he could. In fact, having seen in
the _World_ a paragraph speaking of Jasmyn as "one of the leaders of
society, the brilliancy of whose entertainments was only equalled by
their delightful originality" had decided Savile on the question.
"A chap," he said to himself, "who has a room arranged on purpose for
bright conversation at supper, with the subjects on the menu, and spends
thousands on orchids and gardenias for his parties, and admires Mrs.
Wilkinson, and _yet_ is at large, must have some peculiar power! I
should have thought he'd got nothing in him; but he's got such a
tremendous lot _on_ him and around him, I suppose it does instead."
Thus Savile, lost in these thoughts, rang rather judicially at the house
in Park Street that no ordinary house-agent could speak of without
emotion as a noble mansion; others, more genuinely enthusiastic still,
called it, with self-restraint, a commodious residence.
In the little blue-striped room that opened out of her bedroom he found
Felicity in tears and a tea-gown. He remembered that day he had found
Sylvia crying, and congratulated himself; first, that he was not a girl,
secondly, that he and not another man had seen them thus grieving.
Felicity looked up and said, "Oh, Savile, you're just the person I
want--an appalling thing has happened."
Savile sat down, lit a cigarette, and offered one to her, which she
accepted.
Her manner was rather like that of a young man who, though he dislikes
it, has decided to confide in a friend.
"Look here," she said, "I've had a wire from Chetwode to say he's going
to stay on at the Tregellys till next week."
"Well, what of that? _That_ can't be all, surely?"
"You're right, it's not. I was looking in one of his innumerable carved
chests for some novels, when I found a locked velvet case." She stopped
a minute. He was silent.
"I found a key that fitted it," she went on.
"Did you, though?" said Savile.
"In it I found a lovely porcelain picture of a woman. Blanche Tregelly
was written on the back. Where he's staying, you know. I've never seen
her. I vaguely knew Tregelly was more or less married: he was at Oxford
with Chetwode; but as they live so far away I've never got to know
them."
"Don't see your point," said Savile.
"_Why_ has he got that picture, _and_ is staying on?"
"Tregelly," said Savile, "probably gave it to Chetwode to get something
done to it--get it framed or something."
"Chetwode's not a framemaker! Why is he staying on?"
"Because he's having a good time."
"You're shirking the whole thing. The point is that when he stays away
so long, it isn't only racing."
"Of course not. At the Tregellys, it's bridge."
"Yes--and Mrs. Tregelly."
Angry tears again filled her eyes, but she brushed them away.
"You know Chetwode _does_ admire beauty," she said.
Savile looked at the picture. "But only the very _most_ beautiful. I've
never yet seen him admire anything second-rate. Have you?"
She beamed and said, "Savile, _is_ she second-rate?"
"Perhaps not, on porcelain."
"Savile, you _know_ that if Chetwode likes her, she's not only pretty,
but very charming. In fact, I'm certain Blanche is perfectly delightful!
Pretending to oneself that one's rival is hideous and vulgar is a bit
_too_ cheap. It doesn't console me."
"You're worse than an ordinary woman, Felicity," said Savile, with a
laugh. "What do you propose to do? Go and consult George Lewis?"
"You're worse than an ordinary boy. I'm consulting you."
"No, you're not. You're asking my opinion. Chetwode is very----" He
paused. "I've never seen him look at any other woman."
"Let's face facts, dear," said Felicity. "It's not what we've seen, of
course."
"What have you decided to do?" said Savile. "To write and tell him
you've found the photograph?"
"Yes."
"I thought you wanted him to come home."
"Don't you?"
"Yes, rather!" said Savile. "And I don't think he _would_ come home if
he thought there was going to be a row of any kind. Lots of people love
rows. He doesn't."
She looked rather at a loss, and then said, "Well, _what_ would you do
if you were in my place?"
He waited a minute and then said: "Don't you always write to him, when
he's away, as if you were enjoying yourself?"
"Yes."
"Doesn't he ever think that there's a good deal of Wilton one--way or
another?"
"I think he has," she said, brightening up a little.
"Well, for heaven's sake don't try that with Chetwode! The more he was
riled, the more he'd say to himself, 'Of course she's enjoying herself.
There's no harm in it. No hurry to go back.'"
"Chetwode," said Felicity, "is one of those very English men who would
never own they're jealous unless things came to extremities, which, of
course, naturally, they never would."
"Look here, you're making a fool of yourself," said Savile. "You're
making yourself miserable over nothing at all." He stood up. "Don't do
_anything_ till after lunch, perhaps not till this evening. You've just
had a bit of a shock. You'll find you're wrong. Telephone when you want
me."
He kissed her and went away.
Felicity closed the velvet case. She then dressed very beautifully to go
out, but when it came to putting on her hat she couldn't. It requires
fairly good spirits to put on a modern hat and veil. She thought she
would go downstairs and think. Then she saw Bertie's green motor at the
door. She hesitated a moment about letting him come in; then she thought
that she would tell him about it, and according to how he behaved, would
test him once for all. If he didn't do exactly the right thing, she
would never see him again.
As Wilton came in, all the fluent conversation and compliments, the
gossip and jokes he had been saving up to tell her, died away on his
lips. He saw she had been crying. He sat down further away than usual,
and said--
"Don't tell me if you'd rather not. I'll go away, shall I? I'm quite
sure you're not in the mood for me."
She said, "No, don't go."
There was a moment's silence.
"What was the party like last night at the Harpers?" she then asked.
"I haven't the slightest idea," he answered.
"But you must have been there? I didn't tell you I'd changed my mind
about going. I meant to, and then at the last minute something rather
dreadful happened, and I stayed at home."
"Yes, I'm almost sure I was there," said Wilton thoughtfully. "I think I
must have gone if I expected to see you. But I don't remember anything
about it. I must look in the _Morning Post_ and see if I'm in the list
of guests. I'm afraid you think I'm not the sort of friend to tell
anything serious to, but really, Lady Chetwode, you're wrong there. If
there was anything on earth that I could do----"
"It's something so annoying, so horrid," she said. Her voice was
trembling.
"Tell me."
He looked so genuinely unhappy for her sake that, not being of the
disposition that conceals its sorrows from the sympathetic, Felicity of
course told him all about it.
He waited a minute, pale with interest, and then said--
"I appreciate your telling me this. But, of course, the whole trouble is
entirely imaginary. Oh, I know that doesn't make it any better for the
moment; but it's more evanescent."
"Imaginary? Why do you think that?"
"Well, the one thing that I pride myself on just the _least_ little bit
is an instinct--an instinct for temperament. I would undertake to swear
that Chetwode is one of those exceptional people who only love one woman
in their lives. He would never think of looking at any one except you.
Of course, I know there are many men who don't really appreciate the
most perfect woman if she happens to belong to them. But Chetwode isn't
like that. He hasn't a fickle nature; he doesn't seek for variety and
novelty. What you suppose is impossible to him. Not only now, but it
always will be."
"You may be quite right about his temperament, Bertie. I dare say you
are. But how do you account for the picture?"
"I don't. But there is an explanation. I don't pretend to be one of
those wonderful thought-readers who, in some public calamity, see in the
crystal everything they've read in the papers. You'll soon find out
about it. It's some mistake."
She held out the picture to him.
"But she's very pretty, Bertie."
Wilton examined the picture.
"A very dull, harmless, insipid style of prettiness," he said
consolingly. "The kind of face that once seen is never remembered, as
has been so well said of the characteristic British face. This woman is
devoted to her husband; goes to church every Sunday, takes great
interest in parish work, adores her children----"
"How many has she?"
He looked at the picture again.
"From her expression, I should say two--two boys; and I'm quite sure
she's very much more interested in their reports and their colds, their
sins and their talents, than in--for instance--Chetwode, or in anything
of the kind you seem to suggest."
"She never comes to London," said Felicity. "They live nearly all the
year round at their country place."
"Of course she doesn't come to London. Why should she? She has a
domestic face. Her home is her world. If she ever does come to town, she
wears a short serge skirt and a blouse with tight sleeves--because she
doesn't know they're coming in again--and takes one of the boys to the
dentist."
"And you can see all that in the porcelain picture?" said Felicity,
laughing.
"More. Far more. And all in your favour."
"But I think you're rather prejudiced, Bertie. You're such a convinced
Londoner yourself that you think every one who lives in the country must
be a paragon of virtue, just as people who live in the country suppose
their London friends to be given up to wickedness and frivolity. Lots of
people have a very good time in the country."
"No one knows that better than I do. I assure you I'm not a bit
prejudiced. I quite believe and realise that people can have a good time
anywhere. Why, even in provincial towns--what was that case at Bradford,
that astonished everybody so much? However, my point is, that Mrs.
Tregelly doesn't."
"Why? I think she looks very happy," said Felicity.
"Yes. Exactly. Happy, but perfectly calm. A woman placed as she is could
not possibly look as calm as that if she had a secret purple romance
with Chetwode, or with any other man. It just shows--if I may say
so--how blind Love is. If this had happened to anybody else, you would
be the first to see, on the face of it, that anything like a flirtation
between the Lady of the Velvet Case and your husband is one of those
hopeless impossibilities that only the wildly imaginative and charming
people who have no relation to real life, like yourself, could possibly
conceive."
Felicity seemed comforted.
"You think it utterly impossible?"
"Oh, I go further than that. I think it highly improbable. Can you see,"
continued Wilton, "this gentle, harmless creature, a woman capable of
having her portrait painted on porcelain, from a photograph, and framed
in crimson velvet, who never in her life had a secret except when she
concealed from her husband her real reason for sending the housemaid
away in order to give the girl another chance by giving her a good
character--can you see _her_, I say, privately slipping this enormous
case into Chetwode's small and reluctant white hand just as she was
going to church, and saying, 'Keep it for my sake'?"
"You make the whole thing so ridiculous, Bertie, I begin to think you're
right, but still it's very extraordinary that he did have it."
"Our not knowing the reason is not nearly so extraordinary as your
explanation."
"But I can't wait for the real explanation. Suspense is torture," she
said.
"But delightful--or there'd be no gambling in the world. Still, if you
dislike it, why not telegraph?" Wilton suggested.
"Because, you see, if there's nothing in it, I should appear so utterly
absurd. And if there was, _is_ it likely that Chetwode would wire and
say so?"
"Scarcely. You have sparks of real genius, Lady Chetwode, I must say! I
never thought of that! The best way would be to make him come back as
quickly as possible. Of course, he'd return if you were ill?"
"Rather. Besides, I am. Very."
"So you are. Then write to that effect."
"I think I will, but not yet." She remembered Savile's advice to wait
till after dinner.
"May I ask," inquired Wilton, "if you're delaying in order to confide in
women? This, I know, seems very impertinent of me, but I can't help
advising you not. You'd be so sorry afterwards! When you go and tell
Vera that it is all right after all, however pleased she is, there'll
always be an uncomfortable feeling on your side that perhaps she doesn't
quite believe you--that she thinks you're making the best of it. And
Miss Sylvia will be so gloriously indignant and jealous for you that she
won't do you any good."
"I know, Bertie. You are absolutely right. But I never do confide in
women--only in men whom I can trust. Like you--and Savile."
"Thank you. And how right you are! Then if you're going to delay any
action in the matter and put the picture aside, what are you going to do
to-day?"
"I half promised Vera to meet her marvellous new palmist, Madame Zero,
at her house this afternoon."
She took Vera's note out of a long grey envelope sealed with an Egyptian
seal.
"It seems she's _too_ wonderful. Only one or two people are going."
"Mrs. Ogilvie kindly asked me," said Bertie modestly. "Of course you'll
go and hear what the soothsayer has to say about the velvet case?"
"Perhaps, but I'm not sure.... I feel restless.... I must say, it does
seem unlikely there could be much harm in a woman who has her portrait
painted in porcelain from a photograph--by the young lady at the
photographer's, I dare say, who makes the appointments and touches up
the negatives. And yet--perhaps that very innocence--that sweet, blank
expression--even the tight sleeves and the two boys may make her all the
more attractive!"
Wilton got up.
"Good-bye," he said. "You're perverse. It's no use, I see, telling you
not to worry; but please try to realise there's no occasion."
"Wouldn't you say just the same if you thought there had been occasion?"
she persisted.
"Absolutely. But that doesn't prove I'm not sincere now."
He pressed her hand with a look that he hoped conveyed the highest
respect, the tenderest sympathy, a deep, though carefully suppressed
passion, and a longing to administer some refined and courteous
consolation, and went away.
Wilton was only twenty-five, so, naturally, as soon as he got home, he
tried the expression in the mirror, and was horribly disappointed in it.
"I must have looked as if I'd suddenly got an awful twinge of
neuralgia," he said to himself.
"It shows how careful one ought to be. Confound it!"
* * * * *
Felicity, however, was not troubling herself about Wilton or his
expressive looks. The complicated glance, which he feared was a failure,
had not even been seen by her. What he had said cheered her for the
moment, and _au fond_, at the back of her brain, with her real sound
common sense, she did not actually believe in the cause of her grief.
But passion and jealousy, unfortunately, are not governed by sound
common sense; they work in circles. Argument and reasoning have but a
temporary effect on them; they come back to the point at which they
started.
As she looked at Mrs. Tregelly's picture, the feverish chills of
suspicion again took possession of her. She told herself repeatedly that
she had only been married a year, that Chetwode was in love with her,
and had always seemed cold to other women. But he was continually away.
He was charming and attractive. Perhaps the other women he met thought
_she_ lived for amusement and was utterly neglectful of him. She was
afraid she had been imprudent in being seen so much with Wilton, but
Chetwode never seemed, really, to mind. He trusted her as she deserved,
and as she ought to trust him. Considering the terms that they were
on--far more like lovers than husband and wife--it would be real
treachery on his part. He was incapable of treachery. She would trust
him.
Then the image of Chetwode making love to that pretty woman abruptly
forced itself on her mental vision in spite of all reasoning, like a
sudden violent physical pain, and she burst into tears.
* * * * *
She controlled them as soon as possible, for she strongly dissented from
the old-fashioned idea that a good cry was consoling. On the contrary,
she thought that the headache and unbecoming traces of emotion that
followed tears had a particularly depressing effect, and left one with
nerves. She resolved to dismiss the subject for the moment, anyhow, and
to go to Vera's in the afternoon to meet Madame Zero and two or three of
Vera's most favoured and intimate friends.