mrs. ames might or might not have been run down when she left riseborough the following week, but nothing can be more certain than that she was considerably braced up seven days after that. the delicious freshness of winds off the north sea, tempering the heat of brilliant summer suns, may have had something to do with it, and she certainly had more colour in her face than was usual with her, which was the legitimate effect of the felicitous weather. there was more colour in her hair also, and though that, no doubt, was a perfectly legitimate effect too, being produced by purely natural means, as the label on the bottle stated, the sun and wind were not accountable for this embellishment.
she had spent an afternoon in london—chiefly in bond street—on her way here, and had gone to a couple of addresses which she had secretly snipped out of the daily press. the expenditure of a couple of pounds, which was already yielding her immense dividends in encouragement and hope, had put her into possession of a bottle with a brush, a machine that, when you turned a handle, quivered violently like a motor-car that is prepared to start, and a small jar of opaque glass, which contained the miraculous skin-food. with these was being wrought the desired marvels; with these, as with a magician’s rod, she was conjuring, so she believed, the remote enchantments of youth back to her.{101}
after quite a few days change became evident, and daily that change grew greater. as regards her hair, the cost, both of time and material, in this miracle-working, was of the smallest possible account. morning and evening, after brushing it, she rubbed in a mere teaspoonful of a thin yellow liquid, which, as the advertisement stated, was quite free from grease or obnoxious smell, and did not stain the pillow. this was so simple that it really required faith to embark upon the treatment, for from the time of hebrew prophets, mankind have found it easier to do “some great thing” than merely to wash in the jordan. but mrs. ames, luckily, had shown her faith, and by the end of a week the marvellous lotion had shown its works. till now, though her hair could not be described as grey, there was a considerable quantity of grey in it: now she examined it with an eye that sought for instead of shutting itself to such blemish, and the reward of its search was of the most meagre sort. there was really no grey left in it: it might have been, as far as colour could be taken as a test of age, the hair of a young woman. it was not very abundant in quantity, but the lotion had held out no promises on that score; quality, not quantity, was the sum of its beckoning. the application of the skin-food was more expensive: she had to use more and it took longer. nightly she poured a can of very hot water into her basin, and with a towel over her head to concentrate the vapour, she steamed her face over it for some twenty minutes. emerging red and hot and stifled, she wiped off the streams of moisture, and with finger-tips dipped in this marvellous cream, tapped and dabbed at the less happy regions between her eyebrows, outside{102} her eyes, across her forehead, at the corners of her mouth, and up and down her neck. then came the use of the palpitating machine; it whirred and buzzed over her, tickling very much. for half-an-hour she would make a patient piano of her face, then gently remove such of the skin-food as still stayed on the surface, and had not gone within to do its nurturing work. certainly this was a somewhat laborious affair, but the results were highly prosperous. there was no doubt that to a perfectly candid and even sceptical eye, a week’s treatment had produced a change. the wrinkles were beginning to be softly erased: there was a perceptible plumpness observable in the leaner places. between the bouts of tapping and dabbing she sipped the glass of milk which she brought up to bed with her, as the deviser of the skin-food recommended. she drank another such glass in the middle of the morning, and digested them both perfectly.
as these external signs appeared and grew there went on within her an accompanying and corresponding rejuvenation of spirit. she felt very well, owing, no doubt, to the brisk air, the milk, the many hours spent out-of-doors, and in consequence she began to feel much younger. an unwonted activity and lightness pervaded her limbs: she took daily a walk of a couple of hours without fatigue, and was the life and soul of the dinner-table, whose other occupants were her hosts, mrs. bertram, a cold, grim woman with a moustache, and her husband, milder, with whiskers. their only passion was for gardening, and they seldom left their grounds; thus mrs. ames took her walks unaccompanied.
miles of firm sands, when the tide was low, subtended{103} the cliffs on which mr. bertram’s house stood, and often mrs. ames preferred to walk along the margin of the sea rather than pursue more inland routes, and to-day, after her large and wholesome lunch (the physical stimulus of the east coast, combined with this mental stimulus of her object in coming here, gave her an appetite of dimensions unknown at riseborough) she took a maritime way. the tide was far out, and the lower sands, still shining and firm from the retained moisture of its retreat, made uncommonly pleasant walking. she had abandoned heeled footgear, and had bought at a shop in the village, where everything inexpensive, from wooden spades to stamps and sticking plaster was sold, a pair of canvas coverings technically known as sand-shoes. they laced up with a piece of white tape, and were juvenile, light, and easily removable. they, and the great sea, and the jetsam of stranded seaweed, and the general sense of youth and freshness, made most agreeable companions, and she felt, though neither mr. nor mrs. bertram was with her, charmingly accompanied. her small, toadlike face expressed a large degree of contentment, and piercing her pleasant surroundings as the smell of syringa pierces through the odour of all other flowers, was the sense of her brown hair and fast-fading wrinkles. that gave her an inward happiness which flushed with pleasure and interest all she saw. in the lines of pebbles left by the retreating tide was an orange-coloured cornelian, which she picked up, and put in her pocket. she could have bought the same, ready polished, for a shilling at the cheap and comprehensive shop, but to find it herself gave her a pleasure not to be estimated at all in terms of silver coinage. further{104} on there was an attractive-looking shell, which she also picked up, and was about to give as a companion to the cornelian, when a sudden scurry of claw-like legs about its aperture showed her that a hermit-crab was domiciled within, and she dropped it with a little scream and a sense of danger escaped both by her and the hermit-crab. there were attractive pieces of seaweed, which reminded her of years when she collected the finer sorts, and set them, with the aid of a pin, on cartridge-paper, spreading out their delicate fronds and fern-like foliage. there were creamy ripples of the quiet sea, long-winged gulls that hovered fishing; above all there was the sense of her brown hair and smoothed face. she felt years younger, and she felt she looked years younger, which was scarcely less solid a satisfaction.
it pleased her, but not acutely or viciously, to think of mrs. altham’s feelings when she made her rejuvenated appearance in riseborough. it was quite certain that mrs. altham would suspect that she had been “doing something to herself,” and that mrs. altham would burst with envy and curiosity to know what it was she had done. although she felt very kindly towards all the world, she did not deceive herself to such an extent as to imagine that she would tell mrs. altham what she had done. mrs. altham was ingenious and would like guessing. but that lady occupied her mind but little. the main point was that in a week from now she would go home again, and that lyndhurst would find her young. she might or might not have been right in fearing that lyndhurst was becoming sentimentally interested in millie evans, and she was quite willing to grant that her grounds for that fear were of the slenderest.{105} but all that might be dismissed now. she herself, in a week from now, would have recaptured that more youthful aspect which had been hers while he was still of loverlike inclination towards her. what might be called regular good looks had always been denied her, but she had once had her share of youth. to-day she felt youthful still, and once again, she believed, looked as if she belonged to the enchanted epoch. she had no intention of using this recapture promiscuously: she scarcely desired general admiration: she only desired that her husband should find her attractive.
for a little while, as she took her quick, short steps along these shining sands, she felt herself grow bitter towards millie evans. a sort of superior pity was mixed with the bitterness, for she told herself that poor millie, if she had tried to flirt with lyndhurst, would speedily find herself flirting all alone. very likely millie was guiltless in intention; she had only let her pretty face produce an unchecked effect. men were attracted by a pretty face, but the owners of such faces ought to keep a curb on them, so to speak. their faces were not their faults, but rather their misfortunes. a woman with a pretty face would be wise to make herself rather reserved, so that her manner would chill anybody who was inclined.... but the whole subject now was obsolete. if there had been any danger, there would not be any more, and she did not blame millie. she must ask millie to dine with them en famille, which was much nicer than en gar?on, as soon as she got back.
it might be gathered from this account of mrs. ames’ self-communings that deep down in her nature their lay a strain of almost farcical fatuousness. but{106} she was not really fatuous, unless it is fatuous to have preserved far out into the plains of middle-age some vision of the blue mountains of youth. it is true that for years she had been satisfied to dwell on these plains; now, her fear that her husband, so much younger than herself, was turning his eyes to blue mountains that did not belong to him, made her desire to get out of the plains and ascend her own blue mountains again and wave to him from there, and encourage his advance. she felt exceedingly well, and in consequence told herself that in mind, as well as physical constitution, she was young still, while the effect of the bottles which she used with such regularity made her believe that the outward signs of age were erasible. she seemed to have been granted a new lease of life in a tenement that it was easy to repair. her whole nature felt itself to be quickened and vivified.
she had gone far along the sands, and the tide was beginning to flow again. all round her were great empty spaces, a shipless sea, a cloudless sky, a beach with no living being in sight. a sudden unpremeditated impulse seized her, and without delay she sat down on the shore, and took off her shoes and stockings. then, pulling up her skirts, she hastily ran down to the edge of the water, across a little belt of pebbles that tickled and hurt her soft-soled feet, and waded out into the liquid rims of the sea. she was astonished and amazed at herself that the idea of paddling had ever come into her head, and more amazed that she had had the temerity to put it into execution. for the first minute or two the cold touch of the water on her unaccustomed ankles and calves made her gasp a little, but for all the strange{107}ness of these sensations she felt that paddling, playing like a child in the shallow waters, expressed the tone of her mind, just as the melody of a song expresses the words to which it is set. if she had had a spade, she would certainly have built a sand-castle and dug moats about it, and a smile lit up her small face at the thought of purchasing one at the universal shop, and furtively conveying it to these unfrequented beaches. and the smile almost ended in a blush when she tried to imagine what riseborough society would say if it became known that their queen not only paddled in the sea, but seriously contemplated buying a wooden spade in order to conduct building operations on lonely shores.
the paddling, though quite pleasant, was not so joyous as the impulse to paddle had been, and it was not long before she sat down again on the beach and tried to get the sand out of the small, tight places between her toes, and to dry her feet and plump little legs with a most exiguous handkerchief. but even in the midst of these troublesome operations, her mind still ran riot, and she planned to secrete about her person one of her smaller bedroom towels when she went for her walk next day. and she felt as if this act of paddling must have aided in the elimination of wrinkles. for who except the really young could want to paddle? to find that she had the impulse of the really young was even better than to cultivate, though with success, the appropriate appearance. all the way home this effervescence of spirit was hers, which, though it definitely sprang from the effects of the lotion, the skin-food and the tonic air, produced in her an illusion that was complete. she was certainly ascending her remote blue mountains again,{108} and through a clarified air she could look over the plains, and see how very flat they had been. that must all be changed: there must be more variety and gaiety introduced into her days. for years, as she saw now, her life had been spent in small, joyless hospitalities, in keeping her place as accredited leader of riseborough’s socialities, in paying her share towards the expenses of the house. they did not laugh much at home: there had seemed nothing particular to laugh about, and certainly they did not paddle. she was forming no plan for paddling there now, irrespective of the fact that a muddy canal, which was the only water in the neighbourhood, did not encourage the scheme, but there must be introduced into her life and lyndhurst’s more of the spirit that had to-day prompted her paddling. exactly what form it should take she did not clearly foresee, but when she had recaptured the spirit as well as the appearance of youth, there was no fear that it would find any difficulty in expressing itself suitably. all aglow, especially as to her feet, which tingled pleasantly, she arrived at her host’s house again. they were both at work in the garden: mrs. bertram was killing slugs in the garden beds, mr. bertram worms on the lawn.
major ames proved himself during the next week to be a good correspondent, if virtue in correspondents is to be measured by the frequency of their communications. his letters were not long, but they were cheerful, since the garden was coming on well in this delightful weather, which he hoped embraced cromer also, and since he had on two separate occasions made a grand slam when playing bridge at the club. he and harry were jogging along quite{109} pleasantly, but there had been no gaieties to take them out, except a tea-party with ices at mrs. brooks’. unfortunately, some disaster had befallen the ices: personally, he thought it was salt instead of sugar, but harry had been unwell afterwards, which suggested sour cream. but his indisposition had been but short, though violent. he himself had dropped in to dine en gar?on with the evans’, and the doctor was very busy. finally (this came at the end of every letter), as the place was doing her so much good, why not stop for another week? he was sure the bertrams (poor things!) would be delighted if she would.
but that suggestion did not commend itself to mrs. ames. she had come here for a definite purpose, and when on the morning before her departure she looked very critically at herself in the glass, she felt that her purpose had been accomplished. her skin had not, so much she admitted, the unruffled smoothness of a young woman’s, but she had not been a young woman when she married. but search where she might in her hair, there was no sign of greyness in it all, while the contents of the bottle were not yet half used. but she would take back the more than moiety with her, since an occasional application when the hair had resumed its usual colour was recommended. it appeared to her that it undoubtedly had resumed its original colour: the change, though slight (for grey had never been conspicuous), was complete; she felt equipped for youth again. and psychologically she felt equipped: every day since the first secret paddling she had paddled again in secret, and from a crevice in a tumble of fallen rock she daily extracted a small wooden spade, by aid of which, with many glancings around for fear{110} of possible observers, she dug in the sand, making moats and ramparts. the “first fine careless rapture” of this, it must be admitted, had evaporated: after one architectural afternoon she had dug not because this elementary pursuit expressed what she felt, so much as because it expressed what she desired to feel. after all, she did not propose to rejuvenate herself to the extent of being nine or ten years old again....
the manner of her return to riseborough demanded consideration: it was not sufficient merely to look up in a railway guide the swiftest mode of transit and adopt it, for this was not quite an ordinary entry, and it would never do to take the edge off it by making a travel-soiled and dusty first appearance. so she laid down a plan.
the bare facts about the trains were these. a train starting at a convenient hour would bring her to london a short half-hour before another convenient train from another and distant terminus started for riseborough. it was impossible to make certain of catching this, so she wrote to her husband saying that she would in all probability get to riseborough by a later train that arrived there at eight. she begged him not to meet her at the station, but to order dinner for half-past eight. it would be nice to be at home again. then came the plan. clearly it would never do to burst on him like that, to sit down opposite him at the dinner-table beneath the somewhat searching electric light there, handicapped by the fatigues of a hot journey only imperfectly repaired by a hasty toilet. she must arrive by the early train, though not expected till the later. thus she would secure a quiet two hours for bathing,{111} resting and dressing. if lyndhurst did not expect her to arrive till eight it was a practical certainty that he would be at the club till that hour, and walk home in time to welcome her arrival. he would then learn that she had already come and was dressing. she would be careful to let him go downstairs first, and a minute later she would follow. he should see....
so in order to catch this earlier train from town she left cromer while morning was yet dewy, and had the peculiar pleasure, on her arrival at riseborough, of seeing her husband, from the windows of her cab, passing along the street to the club. she had a moment’s qualm that he would see her initialled boxes on the top, but by grace of a punctual providence mrs. brooks came out of her house at the moment, and the major raised a gallant hat and spoke a cheerful word to her. certainly he looked very handsome and distinguished, and mrs. ames felt a little tremor of anticipation in thinking of the chapters of life that were to be re-read by them. she felt confident also; it never entered her head to have any misgivings as to what the last fortnight, which had contained so much for her, might have contained for him.
harry had gone back to cambridge for the july term the day before, and she found on her arrival that she had the house to herself. the afternoon had turned a little chilly, and she enjoyed the invigoration of a hot bath, and a subsequent hour’s rest on her sofa. then it was time to dress, and though the dinner was of the simplest conjugal character, she put on a dress she had worn but some half-dozen of times before, but which on this one occasion it was meet should descend from the pompous existence that was its{112} destiny for a year or two to come. it was of daring rose-colour, the most resplendent possible, and never failed to create an impression. indeed, she had, on one of its infrequent appearances, heard lyndhurst say to his neighbour in an undertone, “upon my soul, amy looks very well to-night.” and amy meant to look very well again.
all happened as she had planned. shortly after eight lyndhurst tapped at her door on his return from the club, but could not be admitted, and at half-past, having heard him go downstairs, she followed him. he had not dressed, according to their custom when they were alone.
major ames was writing a note when she entered, and only turned round in his chair, not getting up.
“glad to see you home, my dear,” he said. “excuse me one moment. i must just direct this.”
she kissed him and waited while he scrawled an address. then he got up and rang the bell.
“just in time to catch the post,” he said. “by jove! amy, you’ve put on the famous pink gown. i would have dressed if i had known. you’re tired with your journey, i expect. it was a very hot day here, until a couple of hours ago.”
he gave the note to the servant.
“and dinner’s ready, i think,” he said.
they sat down opposite each other at ends of the rather long table. there were no flowers on it, for it had not occurred to him to get the garden to welcome her home-coming, and the whole of her resplendency was visible to him. he began eating his soup vigorously.
“capital plan in summer to have dinner at half-past eight,” he said. “gives one most of the day{113}light and not so long an evening afterwards. excellent pea-soup, this. fresh peas from my garden. the evans’ dine at eight-thirty. and how have you been, amy?”
some indefinable chill of misgiving, against which she struggled, had laid cold fingers on her. things were not going any longer as she had planned them. he had noticed her gown, but he had noticed nothing else. but then he had scarcely looked up since they had come into the dining-room. but now he finished his soup, and she challenged his attention.
“i have been very well indeed,” she said. “don’t i look it?”
he looked her straight in the face, saw all that had seemed almost a miracle to her—the softened wrinkles, the recovered colour of her hair.
“yes, i think you do,” he said. “you’ve got a bit tanned too, haven’t you, with the sun?”
the cold fingers closed a little more tightly on her.
“have i?” she said. “that is very likely. i was out-of-doors all day. i used to take quite long walks every afternoon.”
he glanced at the menu-card.
“i hope you’ll like the dinner i ordered you,” he said. “your cook and i had a great talk over it this morning. ‘she’ll have been in the train all day,’ i said, ‘and will feel a little tired. appetite will want a bit of tempting, eh?’ so we settled on a grilled sole, and a chicken and a macédoine of fruit. hope that suits you, amy. so you used to take long walks, did you? is the country pretty round about? bathing, too. is it a good coast for bathing?”
again he looked at her as he spoke, and for the moment her heart-beat quickened, for it seemed that{114} he could not but see the change in her. then his sole required dissection, and he looked at his plate again.
“i believe it is a good coast,” she said. “there were a quantity of bathing-machines. i did not bathe.”
“no. very wise, i am sure. one has to be careful about chills as one gets on. i should have been anxious about you, amy, if i had thought you would be so rash as to bathe.”
some instinct of protest prompted her.
“there would have been nothing to be anxious about,” she said. “i seldom catch a chill. and i often paddled.”
he laid down his knife and fork and laughed.
“you paddled!” he asked. “nonsense, nonsense!”
she had not meant to tell him, for her reasonable mind had informed her all the time that this was a secret expression of the rejuvenation she was conscious of. but it had slipped out, a thoughtless assertion of the youthfulness she felt.
“i did indeed,” she said, “and i found it very bracing and invigorating.”
then for a moment a certain bitterness welled up within her, born from disappointment at his imperceptiveness.
“you see i never suffer from gout or rheumatism like you, lyndhurst,” she said. “i hope you have been quite free from them since i have been away.”
but his amusement, though it had produced this spirit of rancour in her, had not been in the least unkindly. it was legitimate to find entertainment in the thought of a middle-aged woman gravely paddling, so long as he had no idea that there was a most{115} pathetic side to it. of that he had no inkling: he was unaware that this paddling was expressive of her feeling of recaptured youth, just as he was unaware that she believed it to be expressed in her face and hair. but this remark was distinctly of the nature of an attack: she was retaliating for his laughter. he could not resist one further answer which might both soothe and smart (like a patent ointment) before he changed the subject.
“well, my dear, i’m sure you are a wonderful woman for your years,” he said. “by jove! i shall be proud if i’m as active and healthy as you in ten years’ time.”
dinner was soon over after this, and she left him, as usual, to have his cigarette and glass of port, and went into the drawing-room, and stood looking on the last fading splendour of the sunset in the west. the momentary bitterness in her mind had quite died down again: there was nothing left but a vague, dull ache of flatness and disappointment. he had noticed nothing of all that had caused her such tremulous and secret joy. he had looked on her smoothed and softened face, and seen no difference there, on her brown unfaded hair and found it unaltered. he had only seen that she had put her best gown on, and she had almost wished that he had not noticed that, since then she might have had the consolation of thinking that he was ill. it was not, it must be premised, that she meant she would find pleasure in his indisposition, only that an indisposition would have explained his imperceptiveness, which she regretted more than she would have regretted a slight headache for him.{116}
for a few minutes she was incapable of more than blank and empty contemplation of the utter failure of that from which she had expected so much. then, like the stars that even now were beginning to be lit in the empty spaces of the sky, fresh points in the dreary situation claimed her attention. was he preoccupied with other matters, that he was blind to her? his letters, it is true, had been uniformly cheerful and chatty, but a preoccupied man can easily write a letter without betraying the preoccupation that is only too evident in personal intercourse. if this was so, what was the nature of his preoccupation? that was not a cheerful star: there was a green light in it.... another star claimed her attention. was it lyndhurst who was blind, or herself who saw too much? she had no idea till she came to look into the matter closely, how much grey hair was mingled with the brown. perhaps he had no idea either: its restoration, therefore, would not be an affair of surprise and admiration. but the wrinkles....
she faced round from the window as he entered, and made another call on her courage and conviction. though he saw so little, she, quickened perhaps by the light of the green star, saw how good-looking he was. for years she had scarcely noticed it. she put up her small face to him in a way that suggested, though it did not exactly invite a kiss.
“it is so nice to be home again,” she said.
the suggestion that she meant to convey occurred to him, but, very reasonably, he dismissed it as improbable. a promiscuous caress was a thing long obsolete between them. morning and evening he brushed her cheek with the end of his moustaches.{117}
“well, then, we’re all pleased,” he said good-humouredly. “shall i ring for coffee, amy?”
she was not discouraged.
“do,” she said, “and when we have had coffee, will you fetch a shawl for me, and we will stroll in the garden. you shall show me what new flowers have come out.”
the intention of that was admirable, the actual proposal not so happy, since a glimmering starlight through the fallen dusk would not conduce to a perception of colour.
“we’ll stroll in the garden by all means,” he said, “if you think it will not be risky for you. but as to flowers, my dear, it will be easier to appreciate them when it is not dark.”
again she put up her face towards him. this time he might, perhaps, have taken the suggestion, but at the moment parker entered with the coffee.
“how foolish of me,” she said. “i forgot it was dark. but let us go out anyhow, unless you were thinking of going round to the club.”
“oh, time for that, time for that,” said he. “i expect you will be going to bed early after your long journey. i may step round then, and see what’s going on.”
without conscious encouragement or welcome on her part, a suspicion darted into her mind. she felt by some process, as inexplicable as that by which certain people are aware of the presence of a cat in the room, that he was going round to see mrs. evans.
“i suppose you have often gone round to the club in the evening since i have been away,” she said.
“yes, i have looked in now and again,” he said. “on other evenings i have dropped in to see our{118} friends. lonely old bachelor, you know, and harry was not always very lively company. it’s a good thing that boy has gone back to cambridge, amy. he was always mooning round after mrs. evans.”
that was a fact: it had often been a slightly inconvenient one. several times the major had “dropped in” to see millie, and found his son already there.
“but i thought you were rather pleased at that, lyndhurst,” she said. “you told me you considered it not a bad thing: that it would keep harry out of mischief.”
he finished his coffee rather hastily.
“yes, within reason, within reason,” he said. “well, if we are to stroll in the garden, we had better go out. you wanted a shawl, didn’t you? very wise: where shall i find one?”
that diverted her again to her own personal efforts.
“there are several in the second tray of my wardrobe,” she said. “choose a nice one, lyndhurst, something that won’t look hideous with my pink silk.”
the smile, as you might almost say, of coquetry, which accompanied this speech, faded completely as soon as he left the room, and her face assumed that business-like aspect, which the softest and youngest faces wear, when the object is to attract, instead of letting a mutual attraction exercise its inevitable power. even though mrs. ames’ object was the legitimate and laudable desire to attract her own husband, it was strange how common her respectable little countenance appeared. she had adorned herself to attract admiration: coquetry and anxiety were pitifully mingled, even as you may see them in haunts far less respectable than this{119} detached villa, and on faces from which mrs. ames would instantly have averted her own. she hoped he would bring a certain white silk shawl: two nights ago she had worn it on the verandah after dinner at overstrand, and the reflected light from it, she had noticed, as she stood beneath a light opposite a mirror in the hall, had made her throat look especially soft and plump. she stood underneath the light now waiting for his return.
fortune was favourable: it was that shawl that he brought, and she turned round for him to put it on her shoulders. then she faced him again in the remembered position, underneath the light, smiling.
“now, i am ready, lyndhurst,” she said.
he opened the french window for her, and stood to let her pass out. again she smiled at him, and waited for him to join her on the rather narrow gravel path. there was actually room for two abreast on it, for, on the evening of her dinner-party, harry had walked here side by side with mrs. evans. but there was only just room.
“you go first, amy,” he said, “or shall i? we can scarcely walk abreast here.”
but she took his arm.
“nonsense, my dear,” she said. “there: is there not heaps of room?”
he felt vaguely uncomfortable. it was not only the necessity of putting his feet down one strictly in front of the other that made him so.
“anything the matter, my dear?” he asked.
the question was not cruel: it was scarcely even careless. he could hardly be expected to guess, for his perceptions were not fine. also he was thinking about somebody else, and wondering how late it was.{120} but even if he had had complete knowledge of the situation about which he was completely ignorant, he could not have dealt with it in a more peremptory way. the dreary flatness to which she had been so impassive a prey directly after dinner, the sense of complete failure enveloped her like impenetrable fog. out of that fog, she hooted, so to speak, like an undervitalized siren.
“i am only so glad to get back,” she said, pressing his arm a little. “i hoped you were glad, too, that i was back. tell me what you have been doing all the time i have been away.”
this, like banns, was for the third time of asking. he recalled for her the days one by one, leaving out certain parts of them. even at the moment, he was astonished to find how vivid his recollection of them was. on thursday, when he had played golf in the morning, he had lunched with the evans’ (this he stated, for harry had lunched there too) and he had culled probably the last dish of asparagus in the afternoon. he had dined alone with harry that night, and harry had toothache. next day, consequently, harry went to the dentist in the morning, and he himself had played golf in the afternoon. that he remembered because he had gone to tea with mrs. evans afterwards, but that he did not mention, for he had been alone with her, and they had talked about being misunderstood and about affinities. on saturday harry had gone back to cambridge, but, having missed his train, he had made a second start after lunch. he had met dr. evans in the street that day, going up to the golf links, and since he would otherwise be quite alone in the evening, he had dined with them, “en gar?on.{121}”
this catalogue of trivial happenings took quite a long time in the recitation. but below the trivialities there was a lurking significance. he was not really in love with millie evans, and his assurance to himself on that point was perfectly honest. but (this he did not put so distinctly to himself) he thought that she was tremendously attracted by him. here was an appeal to a sort of deplorable sense of gallantry—so terrible a word only can describe his terrible mind—and mentally he called her “poor little lady.” she was pretty, too, and not very happy. it seemed to be incumbent on him to interest and amuse her. his “droppings in” amused her: when he got ready to drop out again, she always asked when he would come to see her next. these “droppings in” were clearly bright spots to her in a drab day. they were also bright spots to him, for he was more interested in them than in all his sweet-peas. there was a “situation” come into his life, something clandestine. it would never do, for instance, to let amy or the estimable doctor get a hint of it. probably they would misunderstand it, and imagine there was something to conceal. he had the secret joys of a bloodless intrigue. but, considering its absolute bloodlessness, he was amazingly wrapped up in it. it was no wonder that he did not notice the restored colour of amy’s hair.
he, or rather mrs. evans, had made a conditional appointment for to-night. if possible, the possibility depending on amy’s fatigue, he was going to drop in for a chat. primarily the chat was to be concerned with the lighting of the garden by means of chinese lanterns, for a nocturnal fête that mrs. evans meant to give on her birthday. the whole{122} garden was to be lit, and since the entertainment of an illuminated garden, with hot soup, quails and ices, under the mulberry-tree was obviously new to riseborough, it would be sufficiently amusing to the guests to walk about the garden till supper-time. but there would be supererogatory diversions beyond that, bridge-tables in the verandah, a small band at the end of the garden to intervene its strains between the guests and the shrieks of south-eastern expresses, and already there was an idea of fancy dress. major ames favoured the idea of fancy dress, for he had a red velvet garment, sartorially known as a venetian cloak, locked away upstairs, which was a dazzling affair if white tights peeped out from below it. he knew he had a leg, and only lamented the scanty opportunities of convincing others of the fact. but the lighting of the garden had to be planned first: there was no use in having a leg in a garden, if the garden was not properly lit. but the whole affair was as yet a pledged secret: he could not, as a man of honour, tell amy about it. short notice for a fête of this sort was of no consequence, for it was to be a post-prandial entertainment, and the only post-prandial entertainment at present existent in riseborough was going to bed. thus everybody would be able to be happy to accept.
a rapid résumé of this made an undercurrent in his mind, as he went through, in speaking voice, the history of the last days. up and down the narrow path they passed, she still with her hand in his arm, questioning, showing an inconceivable interest in the passage of the days from which he had left out all real points of interest. his patience came to an end before hers.{123}
“upon my word, my dear,” he said, “it’s getting a little chilly. shall we go in, do you think? i’m sure you are tired with your journey.”
there was nothing more coming: she knew that. but even in the midst of her disappointment, she found consolation. daylight would show the re-establishment of her youthfulness more clearly than electric light had done. every one looked about the same by electric light. and though, in some secret manner, she distrusted his visit to the club, she knew how impolitic it would be to hint, however remotely, at such distrust. it was much better this evening to acquiesce in the imputation of fatigue. nor was the imputation groundless; for failure fatigues any one when under the same conditions success would only stimulate. and in the consciousness of that, her bitterness rose once more to her lips.
“you mustn’t catch cold,” she said. “let us go in.”
it was still only half-past ten: all this flatness and failure had lasted but a couple of hours, and major ames, as soon as his wife had gone upstairs, let himself out of the house. his way lay past the doors of the club, but he did not enter, merely observing through its lit windows that there were a good many men in the smoking-room. on arrival at the doctor’s he found that elsie and her father were playing chess in the drawing-room, and that mrs. evans was out in the garden. he chose to go straight into the garden, and found her sitting under the mulberry, dressed in white, and looking rather like the milky way. she did not get up, but held out her hand to him.
“that is nice of you,” she said. “how is cousin amy?”
“amy is very well,” said he. “but she’s gone to{124} bed early, a little tired with the journey. and how is cousin amy’s cousin?”
he sat down on the basket chair close beside her which creaked with his weight.
“i must have a special chair made for you,” she said. “you are so big and strong. have you seen cousin amy’s cousin’s husband?”
“no: i heard you were out here. so i came straight out.”
she got up.
“i think it will be better, then, if we go in, and tell him you are here,” she said. “he might think it strange.”
major ames jumped up with alacrity: with his alacrity was mingled a pleasing sense of adventure.
“by all means,” he said. “then we can come out again.”
she smiled at him.
“surely. he is playing chess with elsie. i do not suppose he will interrupt his game.”
apparently dr. evans did not think anything in the least strange. on the whole, this was not to be wondered at, since he knew quite well that major ames was coming to talk over garden illumination with his wife.
“good evening, major,” he said; “kind of you to come. you and my little woman are going to make a pauper of me, i’m told. there, elsie, what do you say to my putting my knight there? check.”
“pig!” said elsie.
“then shall we go out, major ames?” said millie. “are you coming out, wilfred?”
“no, little woman. i’m going to defeat your{125} daughter indoors. come and have a glass of whisky and soda with me before you go, major.”
they went out again accordingly into the cool starlight.
“wilfred is so fond of chess,” she said. “he plays every night with elsie, when he is at home. of course, he is often out.”
this produced exactly the effect that she meant. she did not comment or complain: she merely made a statement which arose naturally from what was going on in the drawing-room.
but major ames drew the inference that he was expected to draw.
“glad i could come round,” he said. “now for the lanterns. we must have them all down the garden wall, and not too far apart, either. six feet apart, eh? now i’ll step the wall and we can calculate how many we shall want there. i think i step a full yard still. not cramped in the joints yet.”
it took some half hour to settle the whole scheme of lighting, which, since major ames was not going to pay for it, he recommended being done in a somewhat lavish manner. with so large a number of lanterns, it would be easily possible to see his leg, and he was strong on the subject of fancy dress.
“there’ll be some queer turn-outs, i shouldn’t wonder,” he said; “but i expect there will be some creditable costumes too. by jove! it will be quite the event of the year. amy and i, with our little dinners, will have to take a back seat, as they say.”
“i hope cousin amy won’t think it forward of me,” said millie.
major ames said that which is written “pshaw.{126}” “forward?” he cried. “why, you are bringing a bit of life among us. upon my word, we wanted rousing up a bit. why, you are a public benefactor.”
they had sat down to rest again after their labour of stepping out the brick walls under the mulberry-tree, where the grass was dry, and only a faint shimmer of starlight came through the leaves. at the bottom of the garden a train shrieked by, and the noise died away in decrescent thunder. she leaned forward a little towards him, putting up her face much as amy had done.
“ah, if only i thought i was making things a little pleasant,” she said.
suddenly it struck major ames that he was expected to kiss her. he leaned forward, too.
“i think you know that,” he said. “i wish i could thank you for it.”
she did not move, but in the dusk he could see she was smiling at him. it looked as if she was waiting. he made an awkward forward movement and kissed her.
there was silence a moment: she neither responded to him nor repelled him.
“i suppose people would say i ought not to have let you,” she said. “but there is no harm, is there? after all, you are a—a sort of cousin. and you have been so kind about the lanterns.”
major ames was thinking almost entirely about himself, hardly at all about her. an adventure, an intrigue had begun. he had kissed somebody else’s wife and felt the devil of a fellow. but with the wine of this emotion was mingled a touch of alarm. it would be wise to call a halt, take his whisky and soda with her husband, and get home to amy.
