Читать книгу: «A Bed of Roses», страница 24

'Five hundred pounds,' she said. 'Better make it out to me. It's very good of you, Jack.'

'Yes, yes,' he said dully, writing the date and the words 'Mrs Ferris.' Then he stopped. Concentrating with an effort he wrote the word 'five.'

'Five.. five.' he murmured. Then he looked up at Victoria with something like vacuousness.

A wild idea flashed through her brain. She must act. Oh, no, dreadful. Yet freedom, freedom… He could not understand.. she must do it.

'Thousand,' she prompted in a low voice.

'Thousand pounds,' went Jack's voice as he wrote obediently. Then, mechanically, reciting the formula his father had taught him. 'Five, comma, 0, 0, 0, dash, 0, dash, 0. John Holt.'

Victoria put her hands down on the table to take the cheque he had just torn out. All her fingers were trembling with the terrible excitement of a slave watching his fetters being struck off. As she took it up and looked at it, while the figures danced, Holt's eyes grew more insistent on her other hand. Slowly his fingers closed over it, raised it to his lips. With his eyes closed, breathing a little deeper, he covered her palm with lingering kisses.

CHAPTER XIX

The endowment of Betty was soon completed. Advised by the bank manager to whom she confided something of the young couple's improvident tendencies, Victoria vested the money in a trust administered by an insurance company. The deed was so drafted that it could not be charged; the capital could not be touched, excepting the case of male offspring who, after their mother's death, would divide it on their respective twenty-fifth birthdays; as she distrusted her own sex and perhaps still more the stock from which the girls might spring, she bound their proportion in perpetuity; failing offspring she provided that, following on his wife's decease, Mr Edward Smith should receive one fifth of the capital, four fifths reverting to herself.

Victoria revelled somewhat in the technicalities of the deed; every clause she framed was a pleasure in itself; she turned the 'hereinbefores' and the 'predecease as aforesaids' round in her mouth as if they were luscious sweets. The pleasure of it was not that of Lady Bountiful showering blessings and feeling the holy glow of charity penetrate her being. Victoria's satisfaction was more vixenish; she, the outlaw, the outcast, had wrested from Society enough money to indulge in the luxury of promoting a marriage, converting the illegal into the legal, creating respectability. The gains that Society term infamous were being turned towards the support of that Society; still more, failing her infamous help, Betty and Edward Smith would not have achieved their coming together with the approval of the Law, their spiritual regeneration and a house at Shepherd's Bush.

She was now the mistress of a fortune of over ten thousand pounds, a good half of which was due to her final stratagem. The time had now come for her to retire to the house in the country when she could resume her own name, piece together for the sake of the county her career since she left India for Alabama, and read the local agricultural rag. Her plans were postponed, however, owing to Holt's state of health, which compelled her, out of sheer humanity, to take him to a sunnier clime. She dismissed Algiers as being too far; she asked Holt where he would like to go to, but he merely replied 'East Coast,' which in December struck her as being absurd. Finally she decided to take him to Folkestone, as it was very near and he would doubtless like to sit with the dogs on the Leas.

Folkestone was bright and sunny. The sting in the glowing air brought fresh colour to Victoria's cheeks, a deeper brilliancy to her grey eyes; she felt well; her back was straighter; when a lock of dark hair strayed into her mouth driven by the high wind it tasted salt on her lips. Sometimes she could have leaped, shouted, for life was rushing in upon her like a tide. Most days, however, she was quiet, for Holt was not affected by the sea. His listlessness was now such that he hardly spoke. He would walk by her side vacuously, looking at his surroundings as if he did not see them. At times he stopped, concentrated with an effort and bought a bun from a hawker to break up for the dogs.

Victoria noticed that he was slipping, with ununderstanding fear. The phenomenon was beyond her. Though the guests at the hotel surrounded her with an atmosphere of admiration, Holt's condition began to occupy all her thoughts. He was thin now to the point of showing bone under his coat, pale and hectic, generally listless, sometimes wild-eyed. He never read, played no games, talked to nobody. Indeed nothing remained of him save the half physical, half emotional power of his passion. Victoria called in a doctor, but found him vague and shy; beyond cutting down Holt's cigarettes he prescribed nothing.

Victoria resigned herself to the role of a nurse. At the beginning of January she noticed that Holt was using a stick to walk. The sight filled her with dread. She watched him on the Leas, walking slowly, resting the weight of his body on the staff, stopping now and then to look at the sea, or worse, at a blank wall. A terrible impression of weakness emanated from him. He was going down the hill. One morning in the middle of January, Holt did not get up. When questioned he hardly answered. She dressed feverishly without his moving, and went out to find the doctor herself, for she was unconsciously afraid of the servants' eyes. When she returned with the doctor Holt had not moved; his head was thrown back, his mouth a little open, his face more waxen than usual.

'Oh, oh..' Victoria nearly screamed, when Holt opened his eyes. The doctor threw back the bedclothes and examined his patient. As Victoria watched him inspecting Holt's mouth, the inside of his eyelids, then his finger nails, a terror came upon her at these strange rites. She went to the window and looked out over the sea; it was choppy, grey and foamy like a river in spate. She strove to concentrate on her freedom, but she could feel the figure on the bed.

'Got any sal volatile?' said the doctor's voice.

'No, shall I..?'

'No, no time for that, he's fainting; get me some salts, ammonia, anything.'

Victoria watched him forcing Holt to breathe the ammonia she used to clean ribbons. Holt opened his eyes, coughed, struggled; tears ran down his face as he inhaled the acrid fumes. Still he did not speak. The doctor pulled him out of bed, crossed his legs, and then struck him sharply across the shin, just under the knee, with the side of his hand. Holt's leg hardly moved. The doctor hesitated for a moment, then pushed him back into the bed.

'I.. Mrs..?'

'Holt.'

'Well, Mrs Holt, I'm afraid your husband is in a serious condition. Of course I don't say that with careful feeding, tonics, we can't get him round, but it'll be a long business, and.. and.. you see.. How long have you been married?'

'Over a year,' said Victoria with an effort.

'Ah. Well Mrs Holt, it will be part of the cure that you leave him for six months.'

Victoria gasped. Why? Why? Could it be.? The thought appalled her. Dimly she could hear the doctor talking.

'His mother.. if he has one.. to-day.. phosphate of.'

Then the doctor was gone. A telegram had somehow been sent to Rawsley Cement Works. Then the long day, food produced on the initiative of the hotel servants, the room growing darker, night.

It was ten o'clock, and two women stood face to face by the bed. One was Victoria, beautiful like a marble statue, with raven black hair, pale lips. The other a short stout figure with tight hair, a black bonnet, a red face stained with tears.

'You've killed him,' said the harsh voice.

Victoria looked up at Mrs Holt.

'No, no.'

'My boy, my poor boy!' Mrs Holt was on her knees by the side of the motionless figure.

Victoria began to weep, silently at first, then noisily. Mrs Holt started at the sound, then jumped to her feet with a cry of rage.

'Stop that crying,' she commanded. 'How dare you? How dare you?'

Victoria went on crying, the sobs choking her.

'A murderess,' Mrs Holt went on. 'You took my boy away; you corrupted him, ruined him, killed him. You're a vile thing; nobody should touch you, you..'

Victoria pulled herself together.

'It's not my fault,' she stumbled. 'I didn't know.'

'Didn't know,' sneered Mrs Holt, 'as if a woman of your class didn't know.'

'That's enough,' snarled Victoria. 'I've had enough. Understand? I didn't want your son. He wanted me. That's all over. He bought me, and now you think the price too heavy. I've been heaven to him who only knew misery. He's not to be pitied, unless it be because his mistress hands him over to his mother.'

'How dare you?' cried Mrs Holt again, a break in her voice as she pitied her outraged motherhood.

'It's you who've killed him; you, the family, Rawsley, Bethlehem, your moral laws, your religion. It's you who starved him, ground him down until he lost all sense of measure, desired nothing but love and life.'

'You killed him, though,' said the mother.

'Perhaps. I didn't want to. I was.. fond of him. But how can I help it? And supposing I did? What of it? Yes, what of it? Who was your son but a man?'

'My son?'

'Your son. A distinction, not a title. Your son bears part of the responsibility of making me what I am. He came last but he might have come first, and I tell you that the worker of the eleventh hour is guilty equally with the worker of the first. Your son was nothing and I nothing but pawns in the game, little figures which the Society you're so proud of shifts and breaks. He bought my womanhood; he contributed to my degradation. What else but degradation did you offer me?'

Mrs Holt was weeping now.

'I am a woman, and the world has no use for me. Your Society taught me nothing. Or rather it taught me to dance, to speak a foreign language badly, to make myself an ornament, a pleasure to man. Then it threw me down from my pedestal, knowing nothing, without a profession, a trade, a friend, or a penny. And then your Society waved before my eyes the lily-white banner of purity, while it fed me and treated me like a dog. When I gave it what it wanted, for there's only one thing it wants from a woman whom nothing has been taught but that which every woman knows, then it covered me with gifts. A curse on your Society. A Society of men, crushing, grinding down women, sweating their labour, starving their brains, urging them on to the surrender of what makes a woman worth while. Ah.. ah..'

Breath failed her. Mrs Holt was weeping silently in her hands in utter abandonment.

'I'm going,' said Victoria hoarsely. She picked up a handkerchief and dabbed her eyes.

As she opened the door the figure moved on the bed, opened its eyes. Their last lingering look was for the woman at the door.

CHAPTER XX

The squire of Cumberleigh was not sorry that 'The Retreat' had found a tenant at last. The house belonged to him, and he might have let it many times over; but so conservative and aristocratic was his disposition that he preferred to sacrifice his rent rather than have anyone who was undesirable in the neighbourhood. Yet, in the case of the lady who had now occupied the house for some three weeks, though the strictest enquiries had been made concerning her, both in Cumberleigh and the surrounding district, nothing could be ascertained beyond the scanty facts that she was a widow, well-to-do and had been abroad a good deal. The squire had seen her on two separate occasions himself and could not but admit that she was far from unprepossessing; she was obviously a lady, well-bred and educated, and, if her frock and hat had been a trifle smarter than those usually seen in a country village, she had owned up to having recently been to Paris to replenish her wardrobe. It was curious, when he came to reflect upon it, how little she had told him about herself, and yet, what was more curious, she had no sooner left him after the second visit than he had betaken himself to his solicitor to get him to make out the lease. She had received and signed it the following day, showing herself remarkably business-like, but not ungenerous when it came to the buying of the fixtures and to the vexed question of outdoor and indoor repairs.

As the squire climbed the hill that gave upon the village from the marshes, one cold March evening, he did not regret his decision; for, standing in front of 'The Retreat,' he felt bound to admit that there was something cheering and enlivening in the fact that the four front windows now flaunted red curtains and holland blinds, where they had been so dark and forbidding. In the lower one on the left, where the lamps had not yet been lighted or the blinds drawn down, in the light of the dancing fire, he could see distinctly a woman's workbox on a small inlaid table, a volume of songs on the cottage piano, and, at the back of the room, a hint of china tea cups, glistening silver and white napery. Presently a trim maid came out to bolt the front door, followed by two snuffling yellow dogs who took the air for a few moments in tempestuous spirits, biting each other about the neck and ears and rushing round in giddy circles on the tiny grass plot until, in response to a call from the maid, they returned with her to the house. They were foreigners evidently, these dogs! The squire could not remember the name of the breed, but he thought he had seen one of the kind before in London. He was not quite sure he approved of foreign dogs; they were not so sporting or reliable as those of the English breeds; still, these were handsome fellows, well kept and (from the green ribbons that adorned their fluffy necks) evidently made much of. He was still looking after the dogs when he was joined by the curate coming out of the blacksmith's cottage opposite and stopping to light a match in the shelter of the high wall of 'The Retreat.'

'First pipe I have had to-day,' said the newcomer as he puffed at it luxuriously. 'It's more than you can say, squire, I'll be bound.'

'Twenty-first, that's more like it,' said the squire with a laugh. 'How is Mrs Johnson?' This in allusion to the curate's call at the smithy.

'Dying. Won't last the night out, I think. She is quite unconscious. Still I am glad I went. Johnson and his daughters seemed to like to have me there, though of course there was nothing for me to do.'

'Quite so, quite so,' said the squire approvingly, for the village was so small that he took a paternal interest in all its inhabitants. 'Any more news?'

'Mrs Golightly has had twins, and young Shaw has enlisted. That's about all, I think. Oh, by the by, I paid a call here to-day.' And he indicate. 'The Retreat.' 'It seemed about time you know, and one mustn't neglect the new-comers.'

'Of course not,' the squire assented with conviction. 'Was she.. did she in any way indicate that she was pleased to see you?'

'She was very gracious, but she seemed to take my call quite as a matter of course. A nice woman I should think, though a little reserved. However she is going to rent one seat in church if not more, and she said I might put her name down for one or two little things I am interested in at present.'

'In fact you made hay while the sun shone. Well, after all, why not? She didn't tell you anything about herself I suppose, or her connections?'

'No, she never mentioned them. I understood or she implied she had been abroad a good deal and that her husband had died some years ago. Still I really don't think we need worry about her; the whole thing, if I may say so, was so obviously all right, the house I mean and all its appointments. She is a quiet woman, a little shy and retiring perhaps, belongs to the old-fashioned school.'

'Well she is none the worse for that,' said the squire with a grunt. 'We don't meet many of that kind nowadays. Even the farmers' daughters are quite ready to set you right whenever they get a chance. This modern education is a curse, I have said so from the very beginning. Still they haven't robbed us of our Church schools yet, if that is any consolation. Coming back to dine with me to-night, Seaton?'

The young man shook his head. 'Very sorry, squire, it's quite impossible to-night. It is Friday night, choir practice you know, and there is a lantern lecture in the mission hall. I ought to be there already, helping Griffin with the slides.'

'All right, Sunday evening then, at the usual time,' said the squire cordially as the curate left him, and, as he looked after him, he criticised him as a busy fellow, not likely to set the Thames on fire perhaps, but essentially the right man in the right place.

His own progress was a good deal slower; not that he found the hill too steep, for, in spite of his fifty years, he was still perfectly sound of wind and limb, as was shown by his athletic movements, the fresh healthy colour on his cheeks, and the clear blue of his eyes, but rather because he seemed loth to tear himself away from 'The Retreat' and his new tenant. Even when he had reached the little post office that crowned the summit, he did not turn off towards his own place till he had spent another five minutes contemplating the stack of chimney-pots sending out thick puffs of white smoke into the quiet evening sky, and listening attentively to the cheerful sound of a tinkling piano blended with the gentle lowing of the cattle on the marsh below. After all, he told himself, he was very glad Seaton had called, for apart from his duty as a clergyman it was only a kind and neighbourly thing to do.

It was a pity that there were not more of his kind in the neighbourhood, for in spite of his own preference for the country, he could imagine that a woman coming to it fresh from London at such a season might find it dull and a little depressing. He wondered if Mrs Menzies, of Hither Hall, would call if he asked her to do so. Of course she would in a moment if he put it on personal grounds, but that was not the point. All he wished was to be kind and hospitable to a stranger; and Mrs Menzies, much as he respected and admired her, had never been known to err on the side of tolerance, nor did one meet in her drawing-room anyone whose pedigree would not bear a thorough investigation. Yes, there was no doubt about it, though the laws that governed social intercourse were on the whole excellent and had to be kept, there were here, as everywhere else in life, exceptions to the rule, occasions when anyone of a kindly disposition must feel tempted to break them. And Mrs Menzies was certainly a little stiff: witness her behaviour in the case of Captain Clinton's widow and the fuss she had made because the unfortunate lady had forgotten to tell her of her relationship to the Eglinton Clintons and had only vouchsafed the fact that her father's people had been in trade. Why, it had taken weeks if not months to clear the matter up; and it had been very awkward for everybody, the Eglinton Clintons included when the truth had transpired. No, on second thoughts he would not ask Mrs Menzies to call; he would far rather make the first venture himself than risk a snub for this lonely defenceless stranger.

He turned into the gates of Redland Hall with a half-formed intention of doing so immediately. He dined alone as usual; it was very rare that the dining-room of Redland Hall extended its hospitality to anybody nowadays; for the squire, like most men over forty, had lost the habit of entertaining and did not know how to recover it. A bachelor friend spent a night with him from time to time; the curate supped with him every Sunday; and his sister came for a week or two during the summer, when she invariably told him that the house was too uncomfortable to live in, and he ought to have it thoroughly done up and modernised. He invariably promised to set about it immediately, with the full intention of doing so; but his resolution began to weaken the day on which he saw her off at the station, and degenerated steadily for the remainder of the year. That night, however, for the first time for many months he made a voyage of discovery into his own drawing-room. Yes, there was no doubt about it, Selina was quite right in calling it draughty and uncomfortable; the gilt French furniture was shabby and tarnished, the Aubusson carpet worn, the wall paper faded, the whole room desolate in its suggestion of past glory. He crossed over to the enormous grand piano, opened it and struck a yellow key gently with one finger. Was he wrong, he wondered, in thinking its tone was lamentably thin and poor? A rat scampered and squeaked in the wainscoting, the windows rattled in their loose sashes; he shut the piano abruptly and left the room. It would cost a good deal to have it thoroughly done up, of course; but that was not the point. Who would superintend the decorations? He did not trust his own taste and had no faith in that of any upholsterer. Selina would come and help him if he asked her, though she would think it strange, for she had paid her annual visit in August, and it was now only March; besides, if she brought her delicate little girls with her at such a time the whole house would be upset in arranging for their comfort. Still, Selina or no, he had quite made up his mind to have the room done up and to buy a new piano immediately; it was ridiculous to harbour an instrument which was merely a nesting place for mice. He returned to the dining-room, poured himself out a stiff whiskey and soda, and dozed over his Spectator for the rest of the evening. Yet, next morning, even in the unromantic light of day, he was surprised to find that his plan of doing up the drawing-room still held good.

He had intended to ride into Wetherton that day to try his new mare across country, for the gates were high in that direction and good enough to test her powers as a jumper. A glance at the glistening frost on the grass soon sufficed, however, to tell him that his scheme could not be carried out; nor was he sorry until, having spent the morning on his farms and inspected everything and everybody at his leisure, it occurred to him with a desperate sense of conviction that there was still the afternoon to be filled in somehow. About three he set off in the direction of the village, looked in at the church and had a brief colloquy with Seaton regarding the new pews which were being put up, interviewed the postmaster, condoled with the blacksmith upon the death of his wife, and even ventured down as far as the marsh to see if the new carrier who had taken the place of old Dick Tomlinson was likely to fulfil his duties properly. About four o'clock he found himself once more opposite 'The Retreat.' It was on the main road certainly, but it was only recently that he had become aware of its importance in the landscape. One could not get to the marsh or come back from it without passing it. The windows looked as trim as ever – trimmer perhaps, for short muslin curtains interspaced with embroidery seemed to have sprung up in the night. They were very decorative in their way; at the same time they quite shut out all prospect of the interior, and there was no workbox, piano, or suggestion of tea things to be seen to-day. The foreign dogs were snuffling in the garden as he passed the second time, and one of them nosed its way through the iron gate and ventured a few yards down the road, but just as the squire had made up his mind it was his duty to take it back, it returned of its own accord. He watched the trim maid come out and call them as she had done the day before, and saw them rush after her frolicking round her skirt.

Suddenly he crossed the road, looked up and down to make sure there was no acquaintance within sight, opened the iron gate of 'The Retreat,' and passed up the gravel pathway into the porch.

'Mrs Fulton is at home,' said the trim maid demurely, in answer to his question.