old days, when they were first married, before he had come into his
fortune, he had actually seen Bella shed tears.
With fingers that felt numb he took up the little vellum-bound book and
opened it at the page containing the latest items.
There, on the credit side, was the sum of money which had been paid in,
to his bankers' order, on the last quarter day. On the debit side were a
few cheques made out to trades-people. There was not a single cheque
made out to "self" on the page at which he was looking; but--but of
course it was possible that Bella, like so many women, added a few
pounds for change every time she settled a tradesman's account.
He turned several leaves of the little book backwards----Here was a page
which bore the date of three years ago; and here, as he had feared to
find, there were constant, small entries to "self"....
By the empty place on the shelf where the bank-book had stood was a gilt
file for bills, a pretty little toy which had been given her, so the
husband now remembered, by Uvedale. The letters composing the word
"paid" were twisted round the handle--horrible symbolic word!
He took up the file and ran his fingers through the receipted bills.
Ah! here at last, was one which bore the name of Mrs. Bliss.
The amount of the bill amazed him,--eight hundred and seventy-one
pounds, sixteen shillings,--and Bella had paid four hundred pounds on
account about a fortnight before. It was the only bill on the file on
which there still remained a balance owing. Germaine did not need to
look again at his wife's bank-book to see that the majority of the
receipted bills had not been paid by cheque.
These bills, so he now became aware with a frightful contraction of the
heart, were for all sorts of things--expensive trifles, costly hot-house
flowers, extravagantly expensive fruit--which he had enjoyed, and of
which he had partaken, believing, if he thought of the matter at
all--fool that he had been--that they were being paid for out of his
modest income, the income which had once seemed so limitless.
* * * * *
"What are you doing, Oliver? You've no business to look at my things. I
never look at yours." He had not heard the door open, and Bella had
crept up swiftly behind him; there was some anger, but there was far
more fear, in her soft voice.
Germaine turned round and looked at his wife.
Bella had changed her dress, and she was now wearing a painted muslin
gown, her slender waist girdled with a blue ribbon. She looked
exquisitely lovely, and so young,--a girl, a young and innocent girl.
There fell a heavy hand on her rounded shoulder.
"Oliver!" she cried, "you're hurting me!"
He withdrew his hand--quickly.
"Bella," he said, "I only want to ask you one question--I know
everything,"--and in answer to a strange look that came over her face
he added hurriedly, "Never mind how I found out. I _have_ found out, and
now I only want to ask you one thing--I--I have a right to know who it
is."
"Who it is?" she repeated. "I don't understand what you mean, Oliver?
Who--what?" but as Bella Germaine asked the useless question she shrank
back; for the first time in their joint lives she felt afraid of
Oliver,--afraid, and intensely sorry for him.
A sob rose to her throat. What a shame it was! How on earth could he
have found out? She had thought he would go on not knowing--for ever.
That this should happen now, when she was so happy too,--when everything
was so--so comfortable.
"Tell me--tell me at once, Bella," he said again, shaken almost out of
his self-control by her pretended lack of understanding.
But Bella made no answer; she was retreating warily towards the open
window; Oliver, poor angry Oliver, could not say much, he could not _do_
anything, out on the balcony.
But he grasped her arm. "Come back," he said, "right into the room," and
forced her, trembling, down into a low chair. "Now tell me," he
repeated. "Don't keep me waiting--I can't stand it. I won't hurt you."
He leant over her, grasping her soft arm.
But still Bella said nothing. Her free hand was toying with the fringe
of her blue sash. She had become very pale, a sickly yellow colour which
made her violet eyes seem blue,--for one terrible moment Oliver thought
she was going to faint.
"Why should I tell you?" she muttered at last, "you can't force me to
tell you. It's a matter personal to myself. It's no business of yours.
I've never spent any of the money on you,"--she unfortunately added, "at
least hardly any."
Germaine took his hand from her arm. "My God!" he said, "my God!"
Did a dim gleam of what he was feeling penetrate Bella's brain?
"I don't know why you should trouble to ask me," she said defiantly.
"Surely you must know well enough."
"I daresay I'm stupid, but I find it very difficult to guess which of
the two, Joliffe or--or Uvedale, is your lover."
"My lover? Joliffe--Uvedale?" Bella started to her feet, the colour
rushed back into her face. She was shaking with anger and indignation.
"How dare you insult me so?" she gasped. "You wouldn't have dared to say
such a thing if my father had been alive! How dare you say, how dare you
_think_, I have a lover?" and then with quivering pain she gave a little
cry, "Oh, Oliver!"
Germaine looked at her grimly enough. What a fool--what an abject fool
he had been! It fed his anger to see that Bella had so poor an opinion
of his intelligence as to suppose that he would believe her denial.
"I know you are lying," he said briefly. "I _know_ it is either Joliffe
or Uvedale."
"But, Oliver--indeed it isn't!"
She was looking at him with a very curious expression; the fear, the
real terror, there had been in her face, had left it. She was staring at
her husband as if she were seeking to find on his face some indication
of a distraught, unhinged mind.
But he looked cool, collected, stern,--and anger again surged up in
Bella's heart. If he were sane she would never--never forgive him his
vile suspicion of her. Was it for this that she, Bella, had always gone
so straight--never even been tempted to go otherwise, in spite of all
the admiration lavished on her?
There had been a time in Bella Germaine's life, some two years before,
when she had often rehearsed this scene, when she had been so haunted by
the fear of it that it had been a constant nightmare.
But never had she imagined the conversation between Oliver and herself
taking the turn it now had. Never, in her most anguished dreams, had
Oliver accused her of having--a lover. But she had known, only too well,
with what anger and amazement he would learn the lesser truth.
"Peter Joliffe?" she said, with a certain scorn. "How little you know
Peter, Oliver, if you think he would be any married woman's lover, let
alone mine! Why, Peter's a regular old maid!" She laughed a little
hysterically at her simile, and, to her husband, the merriment, which he
felt to be genuine, lowered the discussion to a level which was
hateful--sordid.
"Then it's Uvedale," he said, heavily; and this time, so he was quick to
notice, Bella did not take the trouble to utter a direct denial.
"Bob Uvedale? Are you quite mad? Bob Uvedale is really fond of you,
Oliver,--do you honestly think he would make love to me?"
She was actually arguing with him; he shrugged his shoulders with a
hopeless gesture.
Then Bella Germaine came quite close up to her husband. She looked at
him straight in the eyes.
"I'll tell you," she said. "I see you really don't know. It's--it's----"
she hesitated, again a look of shame,--more, of fear,--came into her
face, "The person who has been giving me money, Oliver, is Rabbit."
"Rabbit? I don't believe you!"
"You don't believe me?"
Bella drew a long breath. The worst, from her point of view, was now
over. She had told the truth,--and Oliver had brushed the truth aside,
so possessed by insane jealousy of Peter Joliffe and Bob Uvedale, that
he had apparently no room in his heart for anything else.
Bella gave a little sigh of relief. Perhaps, after all, she had made a
mistake in being so frightened; men are so queer--perhaps Oliver would
feel, as she had now felt for so long, that poor old Rabbit could not
find a better use for his money than in making her happy.
She walked over to her pretty desk, and frowned a little as she saw its
condition of disarray; the receipted bills which she had found her
husband looking over were scattered, even the tradesmen's books had not
been put back in their place on the little shelf.
She touched the spring of a rather obvious secret drawer. There had been
a time when Bella Germaine had hidden very carefully what she was now
about to show Oliver as the certain, triumphant proof that his revolting
suspicions were false. But of late she had grown careless.
"If you don't believe me," she said coldly, "look at this, Oliver. I
think it will convince you that I told the truth just now."
Bella knew she had a right to be bitterly indignant at her husband's
preposterous accusation. But she told herself that now was not the time
to show it; she would punish Oliver later on.
She waited a moment and then cried, "Catch!"
Oliver instinctively held out his hands. A bulky envelope fell into
them. It was addressed in a handwriting he knew well,--the unformed, and
yet meticulous handwriting of Henry Buck. On it was written:
"Mrs. Oliver Germaine,
"19, West Chapel Street,
"Mayfair."
In the corner were added the words:
"Any one finding this, and taking it to the above address, will be
handsomely rewarded."
"Open it!" she said imperiously. "Open it, and see what is inside,--he
only brought it to-day."
Oliver opened the envelope. Folded in two pieces of paper was a packet
of bank-notes held together with an elastic band.
Germaine looked up questioningly at his wife.
Bella hung her head. She had the grace to feel embarrassed, ashamed in
this moment that she believed to be the moment of her exculpation. Her
pretty little hands, laden with rings, each one of which had been given
her by her husband, were again toying with the fringe of her blue sash.
The silence grew intolerable.
"I know I've been a beast,"--her voice faltered, broke into tears. "I
knew you wouldn't like it, but--but you know, Oliver, Rabbit isn't like
an ordinary man."
"When did he begin to give you money?" asked Oliver, in a low voice.
"A long time ago," she answered, vaguely.
"He came in one day when I was awfully upset about a bill--a bill of
that old devil, Bliss,--and he was so kind, Oliver. He explained how
awfully fond he was of us both. He said we were his only friends--I
always _have_ been nice to him, you know. He said he couldn't spend the
money he'd got----"
"How much have you had from him?"
"I can tell you exactly," she said eagerly, and again she moved towards
her bureau.
Bella felt utterly dejected; somehow she had not expected Oliver to take
the news quite in this way; he looked dreadful--not relieved, as she had
thought he would do.
It was with slow lagging steps that she walked back to where her husband
was still standing with the envelope and its contents crushed in his
right hand.
Bella's love of tidiness and method had stood her in fatally good stead.
She had put down all the sums she had received from Henry Buck, but in
such a fashion that any one else looking at the figures would not have
known money was in question.
Oliver stared down at the piece of paper. Insensibly he straightened his
shoulders as if to meet calmly a physical blow. "Are these pounds?" he
asked.
She nodded.
"But Bella, it's an enormous sum,--over four thousand."
"I suppose it is," she said listlessly.
Her husband put the paper in his breast pocket; then he hesitated a
moment, and Bella thought he was perhaps going to hand her back the
envelope and its contents. But that also, to her chagrin, disappeared
into his pocket.
"I suppose the money Buck brought you to-day is included in this
amount?"
Bella shook her head sadly. "I hadn't time to put it down," she said.
"Well, I'll see what can be done."
"I suppose you mean to pay it all back? I suppose"--her voice was
trembling with self-pity--"that we shall have to go and live in the
country now?"
He said nothing,--only looked at her with that same cold look of
surprise and alienation.
He was leaving the room when a cry from her brought him back. She
clutched his hand.
"You've never said you're sorry for the horrible thing you said to
me----" and, as he looked at her, still silent, "Oliver! you surely
don't think that Rabbit----Why, he's never even squeezed my hand!"
"Stop!" he cried roughly. "Don't be silly, Bella. Of course I don't
think anything of the kind. I accept absolutely what you tell me of your
relations with Henry Buck."
"Why, there have been no relations with Henry Buck and me," she cried,
protesting. "What a hateful word to use, Oliver!"
But he was already out of the door, making his way to the only human
being in whom he still felt complete confidence, who, he knew, loved
him, in the good old homely sense of the word.
* * * * *
"My dear boy, what _is_ the matter?"
Fanny sat up. She had been lying down on the sofa in the sitting-room of
her lodgings. Oliver had explained to the servant that he was Mrs.
Burdon's brother, and he had been allowed to make his own way up to the
drawing-room floor.
"There's a good deal the matter," he said. "The fact is I've made a fool
of myself, Fanny,--and I've come to you for help."
Fanny looked up at him, and what she saw checked the words on her lips.
She was wide awake now, but rather painfully conscious that she looked
untidy. Her smart voile gown--voile was the "smart" material that
season--was crumpled. And Oliver's wife, Bella, was always so
dreadfully, so unnaturally, tidy and neat,--it was one of the things
that perhaps made people think her so much prettier than she really was.
"Of course I will help you," she answered briskly. "Tell me all about
it."
"Have you still that five thousand pounds Cousin Andrew left you?"
"Why of course I have,--and it's rather more now, for luckily we didn't
put it into Consols; we put it into a Canadian security."
"Is it invested in Dick's name?"
Dick's wife laughed. "No, of course it isn't," she said. "Why should it
be?"
"Could you get at it without Dick's knowing?"
"Yes, I suppose I could." There was a touch of wonder in her voice.
"Fanny, I want you to lend me four thousand pounds." Oliver spoke
huskily. He was staring out of the window.
His sister looked at him rather queerly for a moment: "Yes, of course I
will," she said. And, as he turned to her, his face working,--"You
needn't make a fuss about it, dear old boy. You'll pay me back all
right, I know that."
"I'll insure against it, and I'll pay you proper interest for
it--whatever you're getting now," he said. "And we'll get a lawyer to
see that it's all made safe."
"That'll be all right," said Fanny, and then again she gave him that
curious, considering look.
Germaine pulled himself together. "You'll think I've been a fool," he
exclaimed abruptly,--he had to say something in answer to that
look,--"and so I have. But you know--at least you don't know, luckily
for you--what it's like to be mixed up with a lot of fellows who are all
richer than one is oneself;" and then in a very different tone, one in
which his sister felt the ring of truth, "Are you sure Dick won't know,
Fanny? I don't want Dick to know."
"Of course he won't know," Fanny smiled. "You don't suppose I tell Dick
everything?"
Oliver stared at his sister. He was rather shocked by her admission;
till to-day he had thought that all husbands and wives who loved one
another told each other everything; and yet, here was Fanny, who hadn't
a thought in the world beyond Dick, the children, the dogs--and, and,
yes, her brother----
"It's none of Dick's business what I choose to do with my own money--not
that he'd mind."
"I think of spreading the re-payment over five years."
"That would be rather too soon," she said; and added, looking away as
she spoke, "I don't think it would be fair to Bella."
Oliver reddened, a man's dusky unbecoming blush.
"Bella's been good about it," he said briefly. "She said herself that we
should have to go and live in the country. Still, let's make it seven
years. I say, Fanny, you _are_ a brick," and sitting down by the table,
Oliver Germaine broke into hard, painful sobs.
Fanny got up off the sofa. She felt rather shy.
"Don't be so worried," she said. "Bella's a very good sort, and awfully
fond of you, old boy. She'll like the country better than you think. Her
looks will last twice as long there, and, and--if I were you,
Oliver--you and Bella I mean," Fanny got rather mixed, and very
red--"well, I'd try and have a baby. Bella would look awfully sweet with
a baby. And a baby's no trouble in the country--less trouble than a
puppy!"
"Yes, that's true," he said, raising his head, and feeling vaguely
comforted. His sister Fanny had a lot of sense. Oliver had always known
that.
IV
ACCORDING TO MEREDITH
"Certainly, however, one day these present conditions of marriage
will be changed. Marriage will be allowed for a certain period, say
ten years."--Mr. GEORGE MEREDITH in the _Daily Mail_ of September
24th, 1904.
"Give you some heads? My dear fellow, there need be no question of
heads! This is to be a model will. You need simply put down, in as few
words as are legally permissible--I know nothing of such things--that I
leave all of which I die possessed to my wife."
Philip Dering threw his head back, and gave the man to whom he was
speaking, and opposite to whom he was standing, a confident smiling
glance. Then he turned and walked quickly over to the narrow,
old-fashioned, balconied window which, commanding the wide wind-blown
expanse of Abingdon Street, exactly faced the great cavity formed by the
arch of the Victoria Tower.
To the right lay the riverside garden, a bright patch of delicate spring
colouring and green verdure, bounded by the slow-moving grey waters of
the Thames; and Dering's eager eyes travelled on till he saw, detaching
itself against an April afternoon horizon, the irregular mass of
building formed by Lambeth Palace and the Lollards' Tower.
"I say," he exclaimed, rather suddenly, "this is better than Bedford
Park, eh? I suppose a floor in one of these houses would cost us a
tremendous lot; even beyond _our_ means, Wingfield?" and again a happy
smile came over the tense, clear-cut face, still full of youthful glow
and enthusiasm.
"You wish everything to go to Louise? All right, I'll make a note of
that."
The speaker, a round-faced, slightly bald, shrewd-looking lawyer, took
no notice of the, to him, absurd question concerning the rent of floors
in Abingdon Street. Still, he looked indulgently at his friend, as he
added:
"But wait a bit,--I promise that yours shall be a model will,--only you
seem to have forgotten, my dear fellow, that you may out-live your wife.
Now, should you have the misfortune to lose Louise, to whom would you
wish to devise this fifteen thousand pounds? It's possible, too, though
not very probable, I admit, that you may both die at the same time--both
be killed in a railway accident for instance."
"Such good fortune may befall us----" Dering spoke quite simply, and
accepted the other's short laugh with great good-humour. "Oh! you know
what I mean; I always _have_ thought husbands and wives--who care, I
mean--ought to die on the same day. That they don't do so is one of the
many strange mysteries which complicate life. But I say, Wingfield----"
The speaker had turned away from the window. He had again taken up his
stand opposite the other's broad writing table, and not even the cheap,
ill-made clothes could hide the graceful lines of the tall, active
figure, not even the turned-down collar and orange silk tie could
destroy the young man's look of rather subtle distinction.
"Failing Louise, I should like this money, at my death, to be divided
equally between the young Hintons and your kids," and as the other made
a gesture of protest, Dering added quickly:
"What better could I do? Louise is devoted to Jack Hinton's children,
and I've always regarded you--I have indeed, old man,--as my one real
friend. Of course it's possible now,"--an awkward shy break came into
his voice--"it's possible now, I say, that we may have children of our
own; I don't suppose you've ever realised how poor, how horribly poor,
we've been all these years."
He looked away, avoiding the other man's eyes; then, picking up his hat
and stick with a quick, nervous gesture, was gone.
* * * * *
After the door had shut on his friend, Wingfield went on still standing
for awhile. His hands mechanically sorted the papers and letters lying
on his table into neat little heaps, but his thoughts were travelling
backward, through his and Dering's past lives.
The friends had first met at the City of London school, for they were
much of an age, though the lawyer looked the elder of the two. Then
Dering had gone to Cambridge, and Wingfield, more humbly, to take up
life as an articled clerk to a good firm of old-established attorneys.
Again, later, they had come together once more, sharing a modest
lodging, while Dering earned a small uncertain income by contributing to
the literary weeklies, by "ghosting" writers more fortunate than
himself, by tutoring whenever he got the chance,--in a word, by
resorting to the few expedients open to the honest educated Londoner
lacking a definite profession.
The two men had not parted company till Dering, enabled to do so with
the help of a small legacy, had chosen to marry a Danish girl, as
good-looking, as high-minded, as unpractical as himself.
But stay, had Louise Dering proved herself so unpractical during the
early years of her married life?
Wingfield, standing there, his mind steeped in memories, compared her,
with an unconscious critical sigh, with his own stolid, unimaginative
wife, Kate. As he did so he wondered whether, after all, Dering had not
known how to make the best of both worlds; and yet he and his Louise had
gone through some bad times together.
Wingfield had been the one intimate of the young couple when they began
their married life in a three-roomed flat in Gray's Inn; and he had been
aware, painfully so, of the incessant watchful struggle with money
difficulties, never mentioned while the struggle was in being, for only
the rich can afford to complain of poverty. He had admired, it might
almost be said he had reverenced with all his heart, the high courage
then shown by his friend's wife.
During those first difficult years, when he, Wingfield, could do
nothing for them, Louise had gone without the help of even the least
adequate servant. The women of her nation are taught housewifery as an
indispensable feminine accomplishment, and so she had scrubbed and sung,
cooked and read, made and mended, for Philip and herself.
Wingfield was glad to remember that it was he who had at last found
Dering regular employment; he who had so far thrown prudence aside as to
persuade one of his first and most valuable clients to appoint his
clever if eccentric friend secretary to a company formed to exploit a
new invention. The work had proved congenial; Dering had done admirably
well, and now, when his salary had just been raised to four hundred a
year, a distant, almost unknown, cousin of his dead mother's had left
him fifteen thousand pounds!
* * * * *
At last James Wingfield sat down. He began making notes of the
instructions he had just received, though as he did so he knew well
enough that he could not bring himself to draw up a will by which his
own children might so greatly benefit.
Then, as he sat, pen in hand, wondering with a certain discomfort as to
what ought to be the practical effect of the conversation, there
suddenly came a sound of hurrying feet up the shallow oak staircase, and
through the door, flung open quickly and unceremoniously, strode once
more Philip Dering.
"I say, I've forgotten something!" he exclaimed, and then, as Wingfield
instinctively looked round the bare spacious room--"No, I didn't leave
anything behind me. I simply forgot to ask you one very important
question----"
He took off his hat, put it down with a certain deliberation, then drew
up a chair, and placed himself astride on it, an action which to the
other suddenly seemed to blot out the years which had gone by since they
had been housemates together.