Every one has noticed that the thought of a friend after a spell of forgetfulness is frequently the harbinger of a sudden meeting, or of the receipt of a letter or message. Such happenings are called “curious coincidences”; but personally I don’t consider them curious at all, or at least no more curious than it is to send a message by telephone, and to hear in reply a familiar voice speaking across the space. When the heart sends forth a wireless message of love and goodwill, surely, if we have in any sense grasped the wonderful power of thought, we must believe that the message reaches its destination, and calls forth a response! Right thoughts—thoughts of love and pity and helpfulness—are prayers winged to heaven and earth; bad thoughts—mean and grudging and censorious—well, they injure the person who thinks them so much, that there can’t be much poison left for the recipient. In any case, such leaden things can’t rise.
This moralising leads up to the fact that while my own letter to Delphine lay unfinished on my desk, a note arrived from Ralph Maplestone, to give me grave news of her husband.
“I am summoned home,” he wrote, “in my capacity of vicar’s warden. While I have been in town, poor Merrivale has had an attack of influenza, which has been pretty serious, and has left him rather alarmingly weak. I insisted upon calling in a consultant from B—, whose verdict is that the lungs are seriously threatened. I have feared it for some time, and am glad that he is now forced to take care. He is ordered complete rest, and is to get out of England for the spring months. I shall be kept busy here for some weeks, but expect to run up to town for a day’s business now and then, when I will give myself the pleasure of calling on you. Meanwhile, will you kindly pass on the news to Miss Wastneys. I know she will be interested. I rely on you to fulfil your kind promise.” By the same post came a letter from Charmion, tentatively breaking the news that she would not return for Christmas. Several minor reasons had contributed to this decision, but the big one was that she was still “working out her cure” and could do it better in solitude. What about me? Would I go to Ireland? Could I work in a visit to friends? Rather than think of me sitting alone in my dreary little flat, she would put everything on one side, and come rushing home.
“Dreary little flat, indeed!” I looked round the dainty, rose-lit room, and laughed a derisive laugh. It was strange. I did not feel a bit depressed. Life in the basement flat was very full, very interesting, of late days thrillingly exciting into the bargain. I was not at all sure that I wanted to go back to “Pastimes” so soon. Christmas in the flat offered endless possibilities. I would have a tree! Mrs Manners should help me. Her children would come, and all the Thorolds, and their father, and Mr Hallett. There should be lots of toys, and lots of baubles, but useful things too! Things which should truthfully be “just what I wanted!” Perhaps I would be noble and forgiving and ask Eric and Claudia and Moreen. Poor mites, it wasn’t their fault that their mother wore false pearls! The tree should be on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas night I would invite the grown-ups to dinner, and give them a light, dainty feast, with never a shadow of roast beef or plum pudding! They could do their duty by convention at the midday meal.
In two minutes’ time I had thought out the whole menu, even the decorations on the table. What fun it would be! How they would all enjoy it! How little Mrs Manners would revel in the shopping expeditions! Her present should be a pretty blouse—something pretty, bought with a view to what is becoming, and not to what will be useful, and wear for several seasons, and then cut up into dusters. An occasional extravagance is such a tonic to a feminine mind! As for the men, Mr Thorold should have a box of cigars. Mr Hallett should have the same. And in the deadliest secrecy I would commission each to buy for the other. Then they would be sure to get the right brand.
As for “Pastimes”—our guest tenant would be delighted to have her stay extended. I wondered if the gardener would pine for Bridget! I wondered if—anyone—would pine for me! Personally the prospect of occasional “calls” pleased me better than the thought of meetings in the country, under the Argus eye of village gossips. In the latter case one would be self-conscious and restrained; in the former, safe from observation, doubly sheltered behind wig and spectacles, there could be no doubt as to which position afforded the better opportunity of getting to know a man’s character.
I wrote a letter to Charmion, reassuring her as to Christmas in my “dreary flat”; I tore up the unfinished note to Delphine, and sent another, assuring her of my sympathy, repeating my offers of help. Poor little girl! Her real love for “Jacky” would be in the ascendant now, and all the pleasure and vanities for which she had pined would seem trivial things, compared with his dear life.
I did not write to Mr Maplestone. The difficulty of handwriting came in, and there was no real necessity to answer his note. If I knew Delphine, she would find it a relief to pour forth her woes on paper. I waited confidently for a letter to appear.
Two days passed by, three; I was growing anxious, and debating if I should write again, when there came a loud rat-tat at the door, and a reply-paid telegram was handed in, addressed to Miss Wastneys:—
“Letter received. Need urgent. Unable to leave. Can you come to-morrow. Beg you not to refuse. Delphine.”
I seized a pencil, scribbled a hasty “Expect me by train arriving twelve,” and having despatched the promise, sat down to consider how I was to keep it. What an excitement to think of feeling young again, and being able to devote my attention to looking as nice as I could, instead of laboriously contriving disfigurements! Under my bed lived a box wardrobe on wheels, in which, carefully stretched and padded to avoid creases, reposed a selection of garments which were certainly not suited to old Miss Harding’s requirement. Mentally I reviewed them, selected the prettiest and most becoming, saw a vision of myself putting the last touches before the glass, with Bridget’s beaming face watching every stage. Oh, it would be an exhilarating variety, and easy, too—perfectly easy. I would give the orphan leave of absence for two days, and send her rejoicing to stay with “me aunt”. Then in leisurely enjoyment I would make my toilette and march complacently into the street. We possess no porter in our modest mansions; ten to one I should pass through the hall unseen, and even if I had the ill-luck to encounter a neighbour—well, if my disguise is good enough to deceive Ralph Maplestone, it can surely defy less interested eyes!
Bridget was as excited as I was. She hustled the orphan out of the flat, and superintended my toilette as eagerly as though I were dressing for a wedding, instead of a country visit.
“Praise the fates, we’ll see you looking yourself again! I never was in favour of this dressing up, and playing tricks with a face which anyone else would be proud to have, and to take care of. Not that you hadn’t more sense than I gave you credit for! We’ve been a godsend to this place, and if anyone doubts it, let ’em look at the kitchen book, and see the pounds of good meat I’ve made into beef tea with me own hands. And you running about by day and by night, waiting on ’em all in turns. There’s no doubt but we’ve done good, but what I say is—why not do it with your own face?”
“Don’t be foolish, Bridget! I couldn’t do it! Look at me now!”—I swirled round to face her, with a rustle of silk and a flare of skirts. “Do I look the sort of person to wheel out prams, and give tea parties to widowers, and be looked upon as a prop and support by my neighbours?”
Bridget chuckled.
“Go away wid you then!” said she, and that was the end of the discussion.
I met no one in the hall. I met no one in the street. I jumped into a taxi at the corner and drove off to the station without running the remotest chance of detection. It was so easy that I determined to do it again! Every now and then just for a change—just to remember what it was like to look nice! I arrived at the station and took my ticket. There was no one I knew upon the platform. I walked to the further end, and took a seat in an empty first-class carriage. The collector came round and looked at the tickets; there was a banging all down the length of the train, a sharp call, “Take your seats, please; take your seats!” The door of my compartment opened and shut. Ralph Maplestone seated himself in the corner opposite mine!
“How do you do, Miss Wastneys,” said he, as cool as a cucumber.
“How do you do, Mr Maplestone,” said I, as red as a beetroot.
Was it chance? Was it coincidence? Was it a deep and laborious plan? Had he heard from Delphine of my coming and rushed to town for the express purpose of returning in my company? It looked very like it. My wire could not have arrived at the Vicarage until after five in the afternoon, and the next train to town left at nine p.m. There was also an early morning one at eight-thirty. My brain seethed with curious questions, but there seemed only a moment’s pause before I spoke again:—
“Have you been staying in town?”
“Er—” his eyes showed a faint flicker of amusement—“not long. You are going down to see Delphine, I suppose. That’s good of you. She needs bucking up. The Vicar’s pretty bad, but with rest and change there’s no reason why he shouldn’t pick up. We are arranging to make things easy for them. It will do him no good if she makes herself miserable.”
“That’s the sort of futile remark that outsiders generally make on these occasions. They make me furious!” I cried, glad of an excuse to work off my self-consciousness in a show of indignation. “Perhaps it won’t; but as he belongs to her, and she loves him, she can hardly be expected to be happy! In illness all the sympathy is lavished on the invalid. In reality, the relations are more to be pitied. It’s far easier to lie still and bear physical pain than it is to be wracked with anxiety, and fatigue, and responsibility all at the same time.”
He said, looking at me with an air of the most profound attention:—
“You are thinner than you were. Your face is thinner—”
“We were not talking about my face. How long has Mr Merrivale really been ill?”
“It’s difficult to say. He is the sort of fellow who never thinks about himself, and Delphine is not—not exactly noticing! I fancy she blames herself now; but he never complained, and always went on working at full pressure, till this attack came on, and he went down with a crash.”
“And now? How does he seem now?”
His forehead wrinkled into lines.
“Depressed. Nervous. Inclined to be jumpy. He has lived for his work, and hates the idea of giving up, even for a time. He has overtaxed his strength for years, and his nerves are bound to play up. However, once we get them off to the sun, he’ll soon pull round.”
“And when do they—”
“As soon as possible. It is Delphine who is putting things off. So far as Merrivale himself is concerned, the sooner he starts the better. He’ll not grow any stronger where he is. When are you coming back to ‘Pastimes’?”
“It’s uncertain. Not before Christmas. Is your mother quite well?”
“Quite, thanks. You know that I have made Miss Harding’s acquaintance. She is a charming old lady.”
“I’m so glad you like her. I knew you had called. Nice little flat, isn’t it?”
He growled, his face eloquent with disapproval.
“If you call it ‘nice’ to live burrowed underground! How sane people can consent to live in town, herded together in a building more like a prison than a home—”
“‘The goodness and the grace’ did not make us all country squires!” I said shortly, whereat he laughed—quite an easy, genial laugh, and twinkled at me with his blue eyes. It was extraordinary how natural and at his ease he appeared; so different from the stiff, silent man I had known at Escott!
The journey takes exactly sixty minutes, and we talked the whole way. For the first twenty minutes I was on my guard, nerving myself to say “No” for the second time, with due firmness and finality. For the next twenty I was friendly and natural. He was behaving so well that he deserved encouragement. During the third twenty I said less, stared out of the carriage window, and felt a disagreeable feeling of irritation and depression. He went on talking about books and gardens and parish difficulties, and I wasn’t interested one bit. One may not wish a man to propose to one for the second time; but, with the echo of vows of undying devotion ringing in one’s ears, it is rather daunting to go through an hour’s tête-à-tête without one personal remark! He had said that I was thin. Perhaps he found me changed in other ways. Perhaps on meeting me again he found he did not like me as much as he had believed. Perhaps he was glad that I had said “No”. We parted at the Vicarage gate; he apparently quite comfortable and composed, I in the lowest depths. What a change from last time!
The door opened, and before I had time to blink Delphine’s arms were round me, and a hot, wet cheek pressed against mine. She was sobbing in a hard, breathless way which made my heart leap; but even on the way to her sitting-room I gathered that my first fear was unfounded.
“Jacky was—the same! In bed. So tired—always so tired! Seems to care for nothing. Hardly even”—the blue eyes opened in incredulous misery—“for me!”
“When people are very weak, they can’t care. It takes strength even to love—at least, to realise that one loves. I never knew a man who adored his wife more than Mr Merrivale does you; but I expect it suits him better just now to lie quietly and snooze rather than to hold your hand and watch you cry.”
She looked guilty at that, and tossed her head with a spice of her old spirit. But the next moment her breath caught in a sob, and she cried desperately:—
“Oh, Evelyn, it’s all awful! Other things—everything—far worse than you know. I’m the most miserable creature in the world. I think I shall go mad. I sent for you because—”
“Hold hard for one moment! I’m hungry! I need my lunch! So do you, by the look of you. Shall we have it first, and tackle the serious business afterwards in your room, where we shan’t be interrupted. There will be plenty of time; I needn’t leave till five.”
“I ordered cutlets, and an omelette, and coffee afterwards. All the things you liked best when you were here. But I can’t eat a bite. It would choke me. I hate the sight of food.”
“Very well then—you can watch me eat mine,” I said, with the callousness of one who had heard dozens of people declare the same thing, and then watched them tuck into a square meal. Delphine proved another protester to add to the list. She ate her share of the meal with no sign of choking, and brightened into acutest interest at hearing of my escort from town. The fork stopped half-way to her mouth; her eyes widened to saucer size. In the sheer surprise of the moment she forgot her grief and anxieties.
“But—but—how could he be there? He was here last night. Quite late. Ten o’clock. Walked down after dinner to hear how Jacky was!”
I made a vague sweeping gesture, which was designed to express a lack of all responsibility concerning the Squire’s eccentricities, but Delphine’s suspicions were aroused, and she was not to be easily put off.
“He must have gone up by the workman’s train. And yours left at eleven. How very peculiar! And he said nothing last night. ... Did I tell him you were coming?” She wrinkled her brows in the effort to remember. “Yes, I did. He said something about taking me for a drive to freshen me up, and I said you would be here before lunch. Evelyn, he couldn’t possibly have gone to meet you!”
Evidently she suspected nothing. I tried to look composed and natural, and said lightly:—
“It seems preposterous, doesn’t it. He certainly did not say so.”
She stared at me curiously.
“What did you talk about? About us? Did he say anything about me?”
“Of course. What do you suppose? We had quite an argument, because he seemed to think it a pity that you should injure yourself by fretting, and I said I didn’t see how you could do anything else.”
She smiled, and tilted her head, her complacency restored.
“That was it, I suppose! He wanted to talk to you before you saw me. He is good. And you argued with him, you say? Disagreed, I suppose. Oh, well—men are always more tender-hearted than women.”
I felt annoyed, and munched in silence, staring fixedly at my plate. If this particular man was so much more understanding, why had she summoned me from town?
After lurch Delphine ran upstairs to see her husband for a few minutes, and then returned to me in her little sitting-room. He was tired, she said, and hoped to sleep until tea. She had not told him of my visit; he was so listless and apathetic that it worried him to talk, or to have people talk to him. “I don’t believe he will ever be the same again!”
“People always say that in the middle of an illness, but they find their mistake later on. After a long rest the Vicar will be better than he has been for years, and it will be your business to see that he never works so hard again. You were always longing for a change, Delphine. Think how you will enjoy Switzerland, sitting out in the crisp clear air, looking at those glorious mountains, with no house or parish to worry over—nothing to do but wait on your dear man, and watch him growing stronger every day!”
She looked at me dumbly, while the colour faded out of her cheeks, and the pretty curved lips twitched and trembled. I saw her clasp her hands, and brace herself against her chair, and knew that the moment for confession had come, and that it was difficult to find words.
“No worry!” she repeated slowly. “No worry! But that’s just what is killing me. I’m so worried, so worried that I feel sometimes, Evelyn, as if I were going out of my mind!”
“You mean—about your husband?” I asked, but the question was really put as a lead; I knew she was not referring to illness.
Delphine shook her head.
“That is bad enough, but it is not the worst. The worst is that through me—through my wretched, selfish, vain, discontented folly, I—I have made it difficult for him even to get well. I—I have got into a horrible mess, Evelyn, and when he hears of it—when he has to hear, he will be so worried, so miserable, so disappointed, that it will bring on a relapse, and he will probably be worse than before. We can neither of us be happy again—never, never, any more!”
“Sounds pretty bad!” I said, startled. “But there must be some way out, or you would not have sent for me to help you. You are going to tell me the whole truth, Delphine! Half confidences are no use. You will speak honestly, and—let me speak honestly to you?”
“Oh, yes! You will do, whether I allow you or not. I know you!”
“Well, then”—I bent forward, staring full in her face—“let’s get to the point. Is it another man?”
Her face answered, without the need of words. Amazed resentment blazed out of her blue eyes.
“Another man! I should think not! How hateful of you, Evelyn! I’m despicable enough, but I love Jacky. There’s no other man in the world for me. Of course,” she paused, and faintly smiled, as at a soothing recollection, “people admire me. I can’t help that, and there’s no harm so long as I don’t flirt. There’s the Squire. I think if I were not married, he might want—but I am married, and it’s the honest truth that I’ve never said a word to a man since our marriage that I shouldn’t be willing for Jacky to hear. No! it’s not that—”
“It’s money, then,” I said quickly. (So the Squire would “want,” would he? Oh, indeed!) “Delphine! you have been getting into debt?”
“Oh, how did you guess?” She turned her head over her shoulder, as though afraid some one might overhear. “Oh, Evelyn, nobody knows but you. I think I have been mad. Goodness knows what I expected to happen in the end. I was in a crazy, rebellious mood, tired to death of being dull and careful, and I had a wild spell of extravagance, ordered whatever I wanted, ran up bills in town. I went to your dressmaker. I was sick of making my own clothes, and looking a frump. I’m young, and I’m pretty, I wanted to look nice while I could. Every one said I did look nice; but she is a terror, that woman of yours! I had no idea of the bill!”
“You did not ask for estimates in advance?”
“How could I? I didn’t even know what to order. I just said, ‘A pretty dress for the afternoon.’ ‘A hat with roses.’ ‘An evening cloak.’ Descriptions like that. And there was the habit, too, and little things—oddments. They grow into mountains! And I bought furniture to make my room look pretty and homelike. You remember you said I deserved to have one nice room!”
Apparently this extravagance also could be traced to my influence! It was useless to waste any more words. I went straight to the point.
“How much?”
“Oh!” she started and shivered. “I’m ashamed to say. And now—we are going away, and the bills have to be paid. I’m a new customer, and they keep sending them in. And the house books! They have run on. Jacky gave me some money. I meant to pay them, honestly I did, Evelyn, but somehow the money frittered away till there wasn’t enough left. I paid some—but there are others left. Jacky would hate it, if we left the parish in debt.”
“How much?” I repeated, and she flushed to the roots of her hair.
“Over—a hundred! Nearer—two, I’m afraid, Evelyn!”
It was more than I had expected. I had to make fresh calculations, and revise several plans. Subconsciously, I had known that the trouble was monetary, and had made a special study of my pass book before leaving the flat.
“I can let you have a hundred at once, and settle the rest of the bills for you next month, if that will do.”
She looked at me with tear-filled eyes.
“Do you think I deserve it?”
“I’m not sure that you do, but Mr Merrivale does! He shan’t have any new worry just now, if I can prevent it. You are sure you have told me everything, Delphine? That is all!”
“I’ll show you the bills. I knew you would help. You were the only person I could bear to ask; but you did not wait to be asked. I do love you, Evelyn, and I shall never forget! You understand, don’t you, that it is only a loan? I shall pay you back!”
“I know you will, when you can. It’s a comfort that you need not hurry. I can wait for years.”
“You will have to, I’m afraid. Three years! I hadn’t a penny of my own when I married, but an old aunt left us all two hundred and fifty pounds, to be paid when we were twenty-five. That’s my fortune! Jacky teases me about it, for I was always planning what I will do when it comes. I had decided to buy a tiny two-seater, and learn to drive. I told him that it would be useful in the parish, but really I was thinking of the fun for myself. Are you shocked?”
“Not a bit!”
“Well, it would be a waste of energy if you were, for I shall never have it now. The money will go to repay you—and to pay interest on the loan. I shall pay five per cent.”
“I only get four.”
“I insist upon five! I should like to feel that you had made a good investment.” She waved her hand with a lordly air which made me laugh. And she laughed, too, with obvious enjoyment. “Oh, my dear, what a relief! I shall sleep happily to-night for the first time for weeks. I can never tell you how wretched I’ve felt; so worried, and guilty, and trapped! Honestly it will be a lesson for life. You have helped me for the moment, but my worst punishment is to come. When he is well again, quite strong and fit, I must tell Jacky!” Her face clouded. “He won’t say much, but his face! It will be an awful ordeal, but I suppose it will be good for me!”
I thought—but did not say—that it would be good for him too. The shock might teach him to be more understanding in his treatment of his girl wife.
Soon after that I suggested paying a flying call on the General, and Delphine assented eagerly, no doubt feeling, as I did myself, that it would be a relief to be spared a further tête-à-tête. The dear old man was delighted to see me, and was eager to hear when Charmion and I were coming back to “Pastimes”. Something in his manner, in the way his old eyes searched my face, made me suspect that he knows.
I travelled to town alone, and arrived at the flat feeling tired and dispirited. Bridget wanted to know if I had seen anything of her man. She also seemed a trifle out of temper.
“Some people,” she said darkly, “don’t know when they are well off!”