She knew what she had to do. She composed her features and covered them
with powder, and rang the bell.
It was the cook who answered it, not the new parlour maid. The cook,
whom Mrs. Poynder worked hard and bullied, was in consequence a firm
ally of the young and far niente mistress of the house, who preferred
pleasant and flattering looks even to good service.
“Mary,” Mrs. Elles said urbanely, “come and help me! I want to catch the
night mail for the south.”
They pulled open drawers and dragged in trunks. Mrs. Elles was not sure
that she was not leaving her husband’s house for ever, and she did not
mean to go without her things. The two women worked hard, carrying on a
fragmentary conversation the while.
“How has your master been while I was away?” she asked of the cook,
proud of being able to show that amount of good feeling.
“He’s not been to say sae well. The doctor’s been in once or twice, to
please the missis--Mrs. Poynder, I mean. But the master doesn’t seem to
hold with doctors much.”
“No, I know he hates them,” said his wife, carefully controlling her
surprise. It was natural that Mortimer should have given way a little
during her absence, partly through temper, and partly for want of her
supervision, but still a little fit of excess did not seem to indicate
so important a step as the calling in of doctors. “But I wonder why I
have not heard anything of all this except through you?” she added,
forgetting to be prudent. “What was it?”
“Oh, just a fainting fit like. Missis Poynder found him in his study a
day or two back, and it took a fair half hour to bring him round.”
“Why wasn’t I telegraphed for?”
“Eh, ma’am, ye were away for your health, and so Missis Poynder thought
she wouldn’t go for to agitate ye. It’s all passed off, but the doctor
he says as Master behoved to be car’ful.”
“Heart?” murmured Mrs. Elles, with the interrogative inflexion, not
liking to ask a direct question. She was really a little anxious. She
did not positively hate her husband.
“Yes, that’s what doctor said. Avoid excitement--sperrits the worst
thing!”
Everyone in the house knew that this prohibition was by no means
unnecessary.
“Well, Mary, you must look after him while I am away. I am going up to
London on business. See that he has what he likes.” She pressed five
shillings into the cook’s hand, feeling the glow of accomplishment of
the whole duty of a married woman and picturesque forgiveness of insult
and injuries.
Her packing was done. It was half-past eleven. She had a whole hour
before her.
Of the laws of her country she had about as much practical knowledge as
most women--that is to say none at all! She was full of the proposition
she had made to Mortimer, of a bloodless duel, an amicable separation, a
social catastrophe which should affect herself only, leaving Rivers
untouched. The engagement between Rivers and Egidia, which she was going
to London to suggest, would surely tell very much in favour of her plan,
but she must neglect nothing, leave no stone unturned for the
accomplishment of his salvation. She had made up her mind to work this
thing for Rivers, to be his diplomatic angel, and that her heroic plan
involved the surrendering of him to another woman only added to the
sublimity of the act.
She went down to her husband’s study; she knew he was out; she hoped she
would not have the ill luck to meet Mrs. Poynder.
The house was perfectly still. There stood the row of collected legal
wisdom, dusty, dull, abstruse, but full of vital truths for her at this
moment. In a few minutes she was deep in law, and covered and daubed
with its dust.
She found no hint of a previous engagement of the co-respondent being
considered as a circumstance invalidating the divorce, but she saw that
she and her husband must on no account sleep under the same roof
to-night. That was why he had gone out. He probably did not intend to
return. It was a pity he did not know that she was going to take the
initiative and leave him, and could not see her boxes at that very
moment standing in the hall, strapped and corded and mountainous.
She stood there, taking down one volume after another, feeling the thief
of knowledge, since it was from her husband’s own books that she was
gleaning the wherewithal to discomfit him when the time came. At any
rate they would start fair! About on a level with her hand, she noticed
a Blue Book on the Laws of Divorce. She eagerly took it down from the
shelf. It seemed clearly written and fairly explanatory.
“There is no divorce by mutual consent of husband and wife.”
She saw that she had been talking nonsense to Mortimer upstairs. How he
must have laughed at her absurd proposition!
“The Causes of Divorce.” This seemed a useful heading! She read on
eagerly.
“Attempt by one of the parties on the life of the other, either
personally, or by an accomplice.”
But she had not attempted Mortimer’s life, nor had Rivers attempted that
of Mortimer, and though she had heard of cruelty, she had not thought
of this definition of it.
“I had no idea the laws of my country were so absurd!” she exclaimed,
laying down the blue book in a pet. Then a glance at its cover showed
her that the volume she held referred to the Laws of Foreign Countries,
and this was the procedure of the Argentine Republic that she was
looking at!
She gave that up, and reached down Stephen’s Commentaries, and tried to
find some hint there that would be useful to her.
She read on it for a good quarter of an hour, but the legal phrases
puzzled her, the scantiness of details left her uncertain, the heavy
volumes tired her hands to hold. She was no wiser, and a good deal
wearier.
The door opened behind her. Instinctively she turned round.
“Oh, Mortimer, what is a femme sole?”
* * * * *
She laughed to herself, as the train sped southwards through the night,
when she thought of her last sight of her husband as he stood in the
doorway, apparently transfixed by her extraordinarily indiscreet
question. His abrupt volte face and retreat reminded her that an injured
husband is not to be used as an Encyclopædia Britannica. Henceforth she
was as a noxious animal, to be got rid of, not argued with. She laughed,
and then she cried, but finally her offended dignity won the day, and
the train deposited a heroine, rugless, hopeless, comfortless, but still
a heroine, every inch of her, on the platform at King’s Cross in the
early dawn.
She took a room at the Great Northern Hotel and waited in all the day
till the calling hour, except for a little excursion to a jeweller’s
shop near the station, where she sold her one magnificent diamond ring
for about a third of its value. At four o’clock she dressed herself
beautifully and took a hansom to Queen Anne’s Mansions, where Egidia
lived. She made sure of finding the novelist at home; she had heard her
say she was at home on Fridays; if she was not alone she would outstay
the other callers. As she drove along she looked at herself critically
in the little glass in the corner of the cab.
“Talk of the empire of the mind over the body, it is nothing to that of
the mind over the complexion!” she said to herself, but was pleased to
see that two sleepless nights had only made her eyes larger and her face
more interesting. Looks are the sinews of a woman’s war and, though she
was not going to quarrel with Egidia but merely give up her lover to
her, her prettiness would serve to mark and accentuate her heroism.
It was five o’clock when her cab drove under the archway and pulled up
at the big door which is the portal to so many homes. Egidia lived very
near the top, but she preferred to walk up, she was afraid of the lift.
On the threshold of the door which was the novelist’s, as the boy who
rang the bell for her informed her, she caught her dress in the mat and
stumbled as the maid opened the door.
“It means something!” she said to herself.
It meant that she was nervous. She was going to do an absurd thing; make
a most curiously intimate proposition to a woman she hardly knew! It was
like a scene in a novel. If only Egidia would not be too
matter-of-fact,--would consent to stay in the picture, as it were! As a
novelist she would be apt for irregular situations, and able to enjoy
and employ them.
The parlour-maid mumbled her name, which she had mumbled to her. Egidia,
in a red teagown, like a handsome velvet moth, rose from a low seat to
receive her, and Mrs. Elles felt like a frivolous butterfly in the
somewhat freakish, bizarre habiliments in which she elected to express
her personality.
“Oh, it is you!” exclaimed the novelist, her lips breaking into a kind
smile and her eyes diffusing cordiality, as she held out both hands.
A tall figure rose from his seat on the other side of the fireplace, and
Mrs. Elles’s eyes were fixed on him while Egidia was speaking.
“So you have found your way here at last! Where are you staying? Let me
introduce Mr. Edmund Rivers--Mrs. Mortimer Elles!”
Why should he not be calling on Egidia? It was the most natural thing.
Mrs. Elles had never thought of this contingency, and yet she would not
have had it not happen for the world. She was not a woman who would go
out of her way to avoid situations. She bowed--he bowed; and then Egidia
seeming by her manner to prescribe a greater intimacy, they shook hands.
Oh! why was it so dark? She could not see his face.
“Will you ring the bell, Edmund, please, for another cup. Mrs. Elles,
you must have some tea!”
“Thank you, no. I think I won’t---- ” began Mrs. Elles. To calmly sit
down and drink a cup of tea at a juncture like this! It was not to be
thought of.
“Oh, but you must. North country people can’t do without their tea, I
know that. Only in London we don’t have sweet little cakes like yours.
What do you call them--girdle cakes?”
So Egidia ran on, putting her visitor into a chair and pouring out a cup
of tea and looking after her comfort in the most solicitous manner. Mrs.
Elles felt that, considering “everything,” this made her look
ridiculous--but then Egidia could not be expected to know about
“everything”! Rivers would surely not have told her about what had
happened in the woods of Brignal. That was their affair--hers and his.
Egidia would never have received her like this had she known. She felt a
warm glow of pleasure on recognising the bond between her and him of a
common secret.
But he was very cleverly neutral in manner. As he handed her the cake
his eyes met hers with a curious look, searching but impenetrable. It
disconcerted her. It seemed to take her all in, but it gave nothing out.
But she was at least positive that there was no love in it, no
pleasurable excitement in a loved mistress refound. Under the
oppression of this idea she took a draught of hot tea that scalded her
and in the access of pain that ensued persuaded herself that she was
glad of the counter-irritant.
“Look, Mrs. Elles, at this little sketch Mr. Rivers has just given me
for my birthday,” Egidia was saying, as she held up a framed
water-colour drawing lovingly.
Mrs. Elles looked at it. The rush of recollection was not so blinding as
she expected, but poignant enough.
“Where is it?” she asked, for form’s sake. She knew well enough.
“May I tell her, Edmund?”
He made a little nod in the affirmative.
“Well, he could scarcely try to keep that knowledge from me,” Mrs. Elles
thought to herself.
“It is Rokeby,” Egidia went on, “Scott’s Rokeby--that place where Mr.
Rivers works so much. Rather near your part of the world, I believe.”
“I know it well,” Mrs. Elles said.
Rivers was standing abstractedly a few yards away from the two women.
Mrs. Elles resented his lack of emotional interest.
“It is quite charming!” she said, raising her voice. “And is that a
little figure I see--on the edge of the stream? Some village girl you
got to stand for you, I suppose?”
It was no village girl, and she knew it. It was herself, done by her own
desire. She had begged him to put in some human interest for once, and
he had indulgently agreed to do so, on condition she supplied it
herself. She had posed for twenty minutes under a broiling sun, and had
refused the gift of the sketch when it was done. She had somehow wished
that the memento of her should be retained by him, not her.
No, he could never have cared for her, or he could never have borne to
give away that sketch to another woman! Her lips stiffened and then
quivered. Had she known what was actually the fact, that the
circumstance of her posing for that particular sketch had completely
lapsed from the painter’s memory, would she have been less distressed?
“That is the very reason I chose it,” Egidia said, taking the drawing
out of her hands. “Mr. Rivers gave me my choice of the Rokeby sketches,
and out of a whole quantity of them in his studio I chose this one
because it had a little human interest in it. I like people, you know. I
should feel the world so cold, so dull, without them. I can’t think how
you, Cousin Edmund, manage to do without them so nicely!”
The painter actually laughed--from an excess of nervousness, Phœbe Elles
hoped.
“Do say that I may bring Mrs. Elles to see your studio one day? I am
sure she would like to see it!”
“I should be delighted,” he said, “only you know a landscape painter’s
studio is not much to look at. Now Tadema’s---- ”
“Ah! but then Mrs. Elles is not blasée on the subject of studios as yet,
are you, Mrs. Elles? She wants to see a little bit of everything now
that she is here, don’t you? You remember our conversation in Newcastle?
We must go about a little together and see the sights. I don’t mean the
Tower and the Monument--you are of course far above these. You might ask
us to tea in your studio,” she ended, turning, suddenly appealing, to
Rivers.
“She wants to show off her intimacy with him,” Mrs. Elles thought
bitterly.
“I will,” said Rivers gravely. “You must write and name your own day. It
will have to be when I come back from Paris.”
“Oh, are you going to Paris?” Egidia exclaimed, obviously surprised and
completely uninstructed in his movements.
“I think I shall have to, on business; but I will let you know when I
come back, and I will try to get a few interesting people to meet
you--and your friend!”
Mrs. Elles had to make what she could out of the slight hesitation. He
smiled, forcedly--she was sure it was forcedly.
Egidia’s face was wreathed in kindly natural smiles as he bade
good-bye--so was hers. It was pathetic. Mrs. Elles, with her superior
knowledge of “fearful consequences, yet hanging in the stars,” felt as
if they were all dancing on a grave--treading a volcano. She knew well
enough that she would never go to tea with him, never touch his hand
again perhaps, as she gave hers, and dreamt of the accustomed thrill of
pleasure that the mere contact used to give her. It did not now. Was it
that she was too nervous, too frightened to be receptive, or was it that
his magnetism had ceased to flow for her, as a consequence of his
indifference?
He raised the heavy portière, and the light seemed to go out of two
women’s lives as it fell to behind him.
“Well,” said Egidia, complacently, “that will be the first tea party my
cousin has ever given in his studio in his life, to my knowledge! I do
hope it will come off, for I want you two to be great friends. You
will--you are the veritable antithesis of each other.”
Mrs. Elles interrupted her with a sudden burst of hysterical laughter.
“Friends!” she said. “Friends! And my husband is going to make a
co-respondent of him!”