The Man Who Understood Women and Other Stories/Dead Violets
DEAD VIOLETS
"If you ever want me, write to me—I'd come to you from the end of the world!" he had said; and she had answered, "I shall always want you, but I shall never write, and you must never come." She was married.
It was in May that they parted; they parted on the day of her owning that she cared for him. The virtue was hers, not his; yet because he loved her, and realised that she was too good a woman to defy her conscience and be happy, he acquiesced in her decision—refrained from pleading to her, refrained from trying to see her again.
His only indulgence was to send violets to her home in Paris for the ninth of December; the ninth of December was her birthday, and violets, she had once told him, were her favourite flower. He did not scribble any greeting with them, did not even enclose a card; he was sure that she would know who sent them, and it lightened his pain to feel that she would know. Indeed, to recall himself to her thus mutely was a joy, the only joy that he had experienced since the day of the "good-bye"; almost it was as if he were going to her, that moment in the London florist's when he held the flowers that would reach her hands; she did not seem so lost to him for the moment, the separation did not seem so blank.
The next year, also, he sent violets for the ninth of December. His emotions it is true, were less vivid this time, but he was glad to show her that he was faithful; besides, the prettiness of the reminder pleased him.
And the third year he sent them chiefly because he felt that she would be disappointed if he appeared to forget.
So it had grown to be his custom to send violets to her for her birthday, though what was once an impulse of devotion was now a lie—the weakness of a sentimentalist reluctant to wound a woman, and his self-esteem, by admitting that he had exaggerated the importance of his feelings. And each December the woman had welcomed the lie with smiles and tears and believed that he loved her still.
When five years had passed he met her again. It was in Bond Street, and he had sent the violets to Paris two or three days before.
"Phil!"
As he turned and saw her, he thought how much better-looking she used to be. She was young still, no more than thirty, but she had longed for him on every day of the five years, and her tears had blotted some of the girlishness from her face. As he turned and saw her, the woman thought how his mouth had twitched when he said, "I'd come to you from the end of the world." It is among the unacknowledged truths that sentimentality may create as much ferment as enduring love, and he had suffered even more violently than she, though he had not suffered so long.
"What are you doing here in December? You're the last person I should have expected to see," she said.
"I go South to-morrow."
"Lucky man!"
"And you?"
"We're living here now."
"Really? You've left Paris? How long?"
"We've been here since October; we're flat-hunting."
"Oh!"
They stood looking into each other's eyes, neither knowing what to say next. Her heart was thumping terribly, and she felt very happy and very frightened. More than once she had been tempted to write to him that her courage had broken down; all resistance seemed to have left her as she stood looking into his eyes again.
"Flats," she added in a voice of composure, "are so abominably dear in London."
"Where are you staying?"
"In apartments—Bayswater."
"Bayswater must be a change from Neuilly? It was a jolly little place you had in Neuilly!"
"It was rather jolly, wasn't it? My—my husband's people wished us to come over; they thought they might put him into something over here. Of course, in Paris it was cheap, but there were no prospects."
"I understand."
"There's some talk of a secretaryship if a company is floated." It was so natural to be telling him everything now they had met. "It would be a very good thing for us."
"I hope it'll come off."
"Yes. … Well, how are you? I'm always seeing your name—'one of the novels of the year'!"
"They aren't so good as the novels that nobody read."
"Not quite. Why?"
"I'm turning out what's wanted now. One has to live."
"Yes. … Still, isn't it a pity to—to"
"Oh, one gets tired!" he said. "Ideals make lonely dwelling-places. … Let me take you somewhere and give you some tea."
"I ought to go to some shops; I'm up West to work."
"‘Work'? Spending money?"
"Earning it—I'm doing fashion articles."
"You? Do you mean it? Well, come and have some tea first."
It was very early, and there were vacant tables in the alcoves. As he sat opposite her, Orlebar thought what a fraud it was that the things one craved for only came to pass when one had grown resigned to doing without them. How he had besought God for some such chance as this—what a spectacle he had made of himself about her during six unforgettable months! And now he was sipping his tea without emotion, and observing that her clothes compared unfavourably with the other women's in the room! In that moment Orlebar saw the humiliating truth—knew that he had lived his great love down and deceived himself for years. But he didn't want to see—he preferred to deceive himself now. It is often more congenial to be an ass than to acknowledge that you have been one.
"It's a long time since we had tea together, Lucy!"
"Yes," she said.
"Well, what have you got to tell me?"
"I think I told you everything in a breath; at least What have you been doing all the time?"
"Trying to kill it."
"You're working in London now, eh?"
"Yes, I've chambers in the Temple. Rather swagger compared with the little shanty in the rue Ravignan. How did you come to take up journalism?"
"Someone suggested it—and my twaddle seemed to do. It's pretty sickening."
"What's the idea—it doesn't pay very well, does it?"
"Not on my paper; I get a guinea a week, but Oh, why should I bore you with all that?"
"You don't 'bore' me, Lucy."
"Well, I—I prefer to do it. You don't know everything; his people have never forgiven his marriage—they think marriage has handicapped him so badly—and, you may be sure, they blame me more than him; it's always the daughter-in-law's fault! We've only their allowance to live on—it isn't pleasant to be kept by people who resent your existence."
"Poor little woman! 'No, I didn't know."
"Oh, it's not so bad as all that! Still, I'm glad to be making something, even if it's only a guinea a week. I don't feel so uncomfortable when I meet them, not such a dead weight. We have to go there to dinner on Sundays, and it's rather awful—they tell me what a splendid career he would have had if he hadn't married."
"Damn 'em!" said Orlebar.
"I do—every Sunday afternoon, from the soup to the coffee. Well"—she leant her elbows on the table, and smiled—"have I changed much?"
"No," he said, bravely. "But—but this is brutal hard lines—I didn't dream that you had things like that to put up with! You always seemed so lighthearted in Paris."
"I didn't meet his people in Paris. Besides, things alter in five years; I think—Oh!" she broke off, "it's ridiculous to talk about it to you, I don't know why I'm doing it!"
"Have you anybody else to talk to?"
"No," she admitted, slowly, "that's it. I can't talk to him because—well, they're his own people, for one thing; and, besides—well, of course marriage has handicapped him, and I suppose he knows it as well as they do."
"Do you mean—? … You don't get on now?"
She gave a shrug, and traced lines on the cloth with her spoon. "What do you suppose I mean?"
"I am so sorry for you, dear!"
"Oh, I daresay it's my fault. I suppose I don't do all I ought to make up for what I've cost him; it's difficult to do all you ought when—when—" her voice snapped—"when you sometimes wish to God that you hadn't done so much!"
"Perhaps you'd have done better to come to me, after all," said Orlebar, heavily; he couldn't think of anything else to say.
"I tried to be a good woman—I thought you'd forget me; I wanted to forget you. Why didn't you let me forget you? Why did you send me those flowers every year?"
"Were you vexed with me for sending them?"
"No."
"I'm glad. I sent some to Paris the other day."
"Did you? I wondered if you would; I've been rather impatient for my birthdays. What a confession—a woman impatient for her birthdays! I never meant to see you any more, though; I swore I wouldn't."
"But you wanted to, didn't you?"
Her cup was neglected now; she leant back in the chair, her hands clenched in her lap.
"Didn't you?" he repeated.
"Oh, don't!" she said in her throat. "I can't bear it, Phil!"
"What?"
"The life—everything! I'm tired of it all."
"Chuck it!" he muttered; "come away with me to-morrow!"
She didn't speak; she tried to believe that she was struggling. The pause seemed to Orlebar to last a long time while he sat wishing that he hadn't said it. The waitress inquired if they required anything else, and put the check on the table, and took her tip. The place was filling, and a ladies' orchestra began to twang their mandolins.
"Do you want me?" she asked, raising her eyes.
"Do I 'want' you!" What else could he reply?
"Very well, then." She nodded. "I'll go! … Let's get out of this—do you mind?—my head aches."
He knew dismally that her consent had come too late, that there would be nothing now to compensate him for the scandal—no months, or weeks, or even minutes of rapture. They got up, and he put the half-crown on the desk, and followed her into the street.
After they had strolled a few yards in silence, he said, as it seemed obligatory, "You've made me very happy."
She answered, "I'll try to." He wished that she had said anything else—it was painful.
"We'd better have a cab. Where shall we go—will you come to the Temple?"
"I think I'd like to go home; you can drive there with me,"
"Can you get away in the morning—or shall I put it off?" he asked in the hansom.
"No, I can get away—he won't be back till the evening."
"Back from where?"
"He went down to his people to-day—they're at Brighton now. What time's the train?"
"Ten o'clock—from Charing Cross; I was going by Folkestone and Boulogne. Are you a bad sailor?"
"No, I like it. We'll meet at Charing Cross, then?"
"Yes; in the first-class waiting-room—if you're sure it's not too early for you?"
"It's all right. … Is it real, Phil? Half an hour ago we hadn't seen each other; and now—it's to be all our lives! Oh, I hope you'll never be sorry! I wonder?"
"That's unjust."
"Is it?" Her eyes reminded him that he ought to kiss her, and he bent his head. … He pitied her acutely as he felt her tears on his face—hated himself for lying to her.
"Cheer up, dearest! Remember how we care for each other," he said.
The effort of affecting joy wore him out as they drove on. Intensely he wished that they had found a quicker cab; he wanted a drink badly, wanted to light a pipe and give way to his gloom. Her hand, which he clasped, seemed to him to grow larger and heavier through the long drive; and when at last they parted at her door, he thanked heaven for the right to heave a sigh, for the freedom to look as moody as he felt.
Five years ago. If it had only happened five—four years ago! The pathos of the situation took him by the throat. What a rotten thing life was! Again his mind reverted to the months when he had been torn with longing for her—the longing just to watch her, to listen to her, no matter what she said. And now he had kissed her for the first time—as a duty. That abandonment of despair had played havoc with him, yet he wished that it had lasted—it would have been worth while, he thought. God! the ecstasy that would have been thrilling in him now if he had suffered like that until this afternoon!
At the Club he ordered a "big whisky and a small soda."
"You're off to Rome soon, aren't you?" said a man presently. "You pampered novelists have all the luck!"
"Yes," said Orlebar. The man was the Editor of a daily paper; it occurred to the novelist that he was about to provide the paper with some surprising copy; also, that the editorial greeting would be less informal when they met again.
What a deuce of a lot of talk there would be! the damage it was going to do him socially! Socially? It would injure him financially, too; he recognised it for the first time as he surveyed the room. There was McKinnell, of the Mayfair, ragging a waiter because the toast was cold; Orlebar's new novel was to run through the Mayfair before it came out in book form. If he knew anything of McKinnell, that highly respectable gentleman would refuse to pollute the pages of his journal with the fiction of a co-respondent. And McKinnell's refusal wouldn't be singular, though he might express it with singular offensiveness. Even among good fellows, it would be, "Sorry, but we daren't run you just now in a paper for household reading—we should get no end of protests. Awful rot, of course, but there it is!" Five hundred pounds gone! Five hundred pounds was a large sum; he was no millionaire.
And his books? The sale of his next books would drop in this virtuous country when he had outraged the Eleventh Commandment. If she had been "Lady" somebody the public would have called the case "romantic"—it would have been a big advertisement then—but without the glamour of a title they would only call it "disgraceful." For one reader gained by the scandal, half a dozen would be lost. What a calamity, his turning into Bond Street this afternoon!
And how she had jumped at him, he thought with sudden resentment; she hadn't needed much persuasion! He had been an idiot to exalt her into a heroine at the beginning—since it had been fated that he was to ruin himself, he might at any rate have done it while he was in love with her! And he hadn't even the excuse of youth now; he was making a mess of his life when he was old enough to know better, when he did know better—he was ruining himself against his will! He had another whisky-and-soda, and wondered if there was any chance of his hearing that she had changed her mind. Confound it, she didn't know his address! And anyhow there would be no chance; what was she giving up—a husband who didn't want her. If she had had a child, it would have been a different thing. A pity she hadn't a family! A husband who didn't want her. And he, Philip Orlebar, was going to take her off his hands. Oh, what a mug's game! If he hadn't gone in to have his hat ironed, he wouldn't have met her. And it hadn't really needed ironing either!
He did not remain long in the Club when dinner was over. After all, he had mentioned that his rooms were in the Temple, and the hope that she might try to communicate with him lingered in spite of common-sense. At the gate he looked towards the porter eagerly, but the porter said nothing, and the shock of disappointment told Orlebar how strong the hope had been.
His portmanteaux were half-packed, and he spent the evening straining to catch the sound of the bell. Once it rang, but the visitor was only a bore who had dropped in for a drink and a chat. Orlebar loathed the beaming face as he gave him welcome, and, like the Editor, the bore made envious reference to the morrow's journey; he "wished he were in the author's shoes!" Orlebar was at infinite pains to affect high spirits, for it was undesirable that the man should say afterwards, "I was with him the night before he bolted with her—the poor beggar seemed to have an awful hump." But presently the man said, "You seem a cup low to-night, old chap?" The melancholy stroke of the Temple clock had never sounded so lugubrious as in the hours that followed.
When he woke in the morning, Orlebar remembered that there ought to be a half-bottle of Pommery in the bathroom, and he had it in lieu of tea, with some biscuits. The wine lightened his mood a little; it no longer seemed so hopelessly impossible to conceal his regret; and when he strode into the station, it was with a very fair show of impatience. But his heart leapt as he saw that she wasn't there. He sat down, and glanced alternately at the clock and the doors, praying that she wouldn't come.
She entered just as he was feeling sanguine.
"My darling," he murmured, "here you are!"
"Am I late?"
"I was beginning to be afraid. But there's time enough—I've got the tickets. Where's your luggage?"
"They've taken it through."
"We'd better go, then."
Among the bustle on the platform he could say little more than, "How pale you are!" and "Which are your trunks?" Then they were alone, and the door had been slammed, and the train moved out.
"Darling!" he said again. "Well?"
"Well?"
"It seems too good to be true." His tone was lifeless.
"Does it?"
"Doesn't it to you?"
"I think it's true," she said, with a tired smile.
"How pale you are!" he repeated. "Didn't you sleep?"
"Not much. I've been wondering."
"‘Wondering'? What?"
"Whether I ought to have said 'no.' What would you have done if I'd said 'no,' Phil? Really?"
"What can a man do? I suppose I should have had to put up with it."
She did not reply for a moment. She was gazing straight before her, with a frown.
"Do you think me a bad woman, Phil?"
"I think you're the best woman I've ever known."
"It looks like it, doesn't it?"
"The force of circumstances! If you had met me before you met him"
"But I didn't. It's pretty mean of me to spoil his life, isn't it?"
"I didn't know that he cared so much about you?"
"Oh"—she hesitated—"we've quarrelled, like everybody else, but—but he's very fond of me. Of course, it'll be an awful blow. I can't forget it—I've been thinking of it ever since."
"It just depends … the thing you've got to consider is which way you'll be happier yourself. If—I don't know! I suppose there are women who can't go wrong and be happy."
"I'm thinking of my duty," she faltered. "You know I love you, don't you? I want you to know it, to keep remembering it all the time. I love you, I love you, I love you! But—" She waited with her heart in her throat.
"But what?" he asked, moodily. "What were you going to say?"
Her eyes closed with pain.
"Eh?" he said.
"There are his people," she stammered; "they'll feel the disgrace so much. I've been considering everything—I—I didn't know what a wrench it would be."
"You'll get over it."
"I'm not sure? Perhaps I shall always—? Do you think I've … made a mistake?" Again she waited breathlessly. If he would only seize her in his arms! If he would only cry, "Let them all go to the devil, and remember me!"
"If you feel like that," he said feebly, "of course I hardly—I hardly know what I can say to you."
"You can't think of anything to say?" she pleaded. "There's nothing—nothing I'm overlooking?"
"There's time; one gets over anything in time," he said, incautiously.
"Oh, my God!" she moaned.
She turned to the window, her face as white as a dead woman's. The terror was confirmed that had stolen on her in the cab, that had haunted her throughout the night—confirmed by his tones, his looks, by every answer he had made to her halting falsehoods; he had learnt to do without her, she had given herself unsought! In the agony of shame that overwhelmed her she could have thrown herself from the compartment; and it was only her love for him that restrained her—she would not reproach him by deed or word; he shouldn't be burdened by the knowledge of what he had made her suffer.
"Well," he said, "it's not too late."
"No," she muttered; "I can't go!"
His pulses jumped; for an instant he couldn't trust his voice.
"You must do as you like, I don't want to take you against your will. … If you wish it, you can go back from Folkestone; I suppose—if he's away—there'd be no harm done, would there?"
"You're not angry with me? You won't mind too much?"
"Don't worry about me—I want you to be happy. To tell you the truth, I think you're right—you are not the woman to kick over the traces, you'd be too cut up about it. Go back and make the best of a bad business—it'll be easier for you to bear than the other, anyhow! We'll see about a train for you as soon as we get in.
At Folkestone Harbour they ascertained that there would be an express to Charing Cross at two o'clock, and he paced the platform with her till it was time to say good-bye. Exhilaration had given him an appetite, but she answered that she wasn't hungry; so, as he had missed his boat, he decided to drive to an hotel on the Leas and have an elaborate luncheon when she had gone. His glances at the playbills on the walls showed him that San Toy was at the Pleasure Gardens, and he foresaw himself cheerfully among the audience in the evening. He was feeling on a sudden twenty years younger, and, hard as he strove to acquire a manner of tender gravity, she discerned the improvement in his spirits every time he spoke.
Her train arrived in town at a few minutes to four, and she re-entered the lodging-house some hours earlier than her husband. But the fire had gone out, and she had to wait shivering till it was lighted before she could burn the note that she had left on the mantelpiece for him. A little box addressed to her had been delivered during her absence; when the slatternly servant left her alone at last, the woman dared to touch it—and fell to sobbing as if her heart would burst. It contained the violets that Orebar had sent in token of his love.
The box had been redirected from Paris. Owing to the delay, the violets, now that they reached her, were quite dead.