The House of Defence. Volume 2

No definite process of reasoning went on through Catherine’s mind, but somehow her heart sank. This was no caller, no one who would need entertainment; but there was something dimly familiar in that cart, and in the tradesman-like young man, that reminded her of medicines, of the time when the children had the measles. Yes; it was a man from the chemist’s … and next moment she knew why her heart sank.

“I will see who it is,” she said to Maud. “The servants seem to be asleep;” and she went across the grass to the front-door.

She had a word with the man, who gave her a small package, neatly sealed. Then he touched his hat, mounted, and turned his horse. Catherine came back to where Maud was sitting.

“It is directed to Thurso,” she said, “and it is from the chemist in Windsor. Maud – ”

Maud understood; but she shook her head.

“Oh, you can’t open other people’s things,” she said – “you can’t. Oh, Catherine, what are we to do?”

Catherine sat down again, with the bottle – the shape of it was plain – in her hand. Then Maud spoke again.

“But we must,” she said. “Open it carefully, so that if it isn’t what we think we can do it up again. Oh, I hate it all; it seems mean, but I don’t care. I’ll open it if you would rather not.”

Catherine seemed to think this unnecessary, and carefully broke the seals. There was a bottle of dark blue glass inside, with a red label of “Poison” on it. It was closed with a glass stopper, which she withdrew, and she smelled it. Then, paper and all, she passed it to Maud.

Maud put the stopper back into the bottle, squeezed up the paper and string in which it had been wrapped into a tight ball, and threw it deep into the flower-bed. Then she went to the opening in the yew-hedge and flung the bottle itself into mid-stream.

“So we’ve both had a hand in it,” she said when she returned. “Oh, Cathy, last night only he let you throw the wretched stuff out of the window, and the very next day has to go and order some more. Poor dear old boy! He must have ordered it when he went in with Theodosia after lunch. He must have told them he wanted it quickly. It’s death and hell, you know. I didn’t stop to think. I had to throw it into the river. What next? Are we to know anything about it or not?”

“Yes; he would find out in any case. The chemist’s man would say he gave it to me. But there is no reason why you should come into it.”

“Oh, give me my share,” said Maud quickly. “I want to help.”

“Of course you can help; but I am quite willing to take the whole responsibility for what we have done,” said Catherine.

“No; I want it to come from both of us,” said Maud, “if that is of any use.”

Catherine considered this.

“It is,” she said. “You have more weight with him than I have, you know.”

There was no trace of any bitterness in her tone. It was plain unemotional speech, but it struck Maud as one of the saddest things she had ever heard said. She had long known, of course, that the married life of her brother and Catherine was not very happy, but this afternoon the tragedy of it was becoming, by these little trivial words, infinitely more real. And the materials for tragedy were being dreadfully augmented. This little bottle she had just thrown into the Thames was like one of those little incidents in the first act of a play, from which disaster will certainly be evolved later. What hideous scene in the last act did the great Playwright of life mean to make out of this?

Then suddenly some memory of things Mr. Cochrane had said to her up in Scotland, some sentences from a book concerning Christian Science which he had lent her, came back to her mind. He had warned her that she would find in it certain things which would seem to her ridiculous, and he had asked her to pass over those. But he had told her that she would also find there certain things which were indisputably true, and, remembering one of them, she told herself now that she was thinking wrongly in anticipating evil like this. If she was to be of any use in the world, or produce any happiness in herself or others, she must turn away from evil, must deny it, and look at and affirm this great reality of Love and Good. To dwell on sin and error and on their consequences was to invite them, to make them her guests. It was another Guest – a very willing One – that was to be made welcome, but He was autocratic: you had to do His bidding all the time, even in details.

“Yes, let me help,” she said. “And we must tell him at once what we have done. Don’t let us deceive him, even if we could.”

“He will be furious,” said Catherine.

“We can’t help that. We have certainly got to tell him. Besides, we don’t want to conceal what we have done; we don’t want to think of some plan for preventing it coming to his knowledge. We are not ashamed of it. Wouldn’t you do it again? I would. I would throw all the laudanum bottles in the world into the Thames if I could prevent the stuff reaching him.”

People began to gather again after this. Rudolf Villars and his companion came back from the river, he looking fatigued, while Alice was fresher than paint. Her husband came out from the house with considerable alertness, as if letter-writing had been an unconscious recuperative process. A few people from neighbouring houses came, by road or river, to look in at tea-time; and when Thurso, with the two Americans, returned from Windsor, there was a rather numerous company on the lawn. He went into the house before joining the others, and was there some minutes, during which time they heard a bell ring furiously within. Catherine’s eyes and Maud’s met over this; and when he came out, another piece of silent telegraphy went on between them, and Maud got up and went straight to him before he joined the tea-table group.

Catherine could not go with her, being busy with her entertaining, but between sentences she watched them. They were not far distant when they met, and Thurso’s face was towards her. She saw it get suddenly white, and he gave one furious gesticulation, then turned and went back towards the house again, without joining them. He did not go in, but walked down the shrub-set road that led to the stables.

Maud came back to the tea-table, spoke to friends, and gradually got close to Catherine.

“He is going back to Windsor to get more,” she said quietly. “Yes, no sugar, thanks. He would not listen to me. I have never seen him so angry.”

Catherine just nodded, and then, since, whatever private tragedy was being played, the public comedy had to go on, she was, with the surface-Catherine, no more than an admirable hostess, charmed to see her guests, eager to interest them. But below, courageous though she was, and little as she regretted what Maud and she had done, though it turned out to be futile, she feared what was coming, for she hated anger, and she hated, also, to think that just now, when, for reasons of which Maud knew nothing, she wanted Thurso’s friendship and companionship so much, there should open this fresh breach between them. But it was no good thinking of that: here was Villars at her elbow, and here was Thurso already on his way back to Windsor, for she had heard the motor start by the back way from the stables. And only last night he had let her pour the foul stuff away, and had thanked her for doing it!

Meantime the tinkle of drawing-room philosophy went on round her, and it was a relief, in its way, to join in it. It was so perfectly easy.

“Yes, it is necessary for all of us to have some fad which for the time being is quite the most serious thing in the world,” she said to Lady Swindon, who had come down the river from Cookham. “We do the serious things lightly, but we take our fads in deadly earnest. Two years ago, do you remember, we never wore hats in the country. I didn’t get as far as wearing none in town, though I remember you did; but in the country I felt that golden hours were wasted if I had a hat on. Then last year there was the simple life. I retain pieces of that still.”

Lady Swindon laughed.

“I know you do, darling Catherine, but you are so busy that you find time for everything. I gave it up because it was so very complicated. One had to provide two sorts of lunches and two sorts of dinners every day – one for the simple-life people who ate curried lentils and all the most expensive fruits, and one for the people who ate beef. Swindon always ate both, to show he wasn’t bigoted, and so, of course, he had two months at Carlsbad instead of one. The simple life, anyhow, is finished with: it was too difficult. Do tell me what the next fad is going to be. You always are a full fad ahead of the rest of us.”

“I wish I knew. I thought it would be spiritualism at one time, but I don’t believe now that it will come off. Such confusing things happen. I went to a séance the other day, and the most wonderful materialisation occurred, and I recognised the figure at once, and for certain, as being my grandmother. But in the same breath Major Twickenham over there recognised it as being his great-aunt, who was Austrian, and is no more a relation of mine than I am of the Shah’s. The medium subsequently explained it as being a spiritual coalition, but personally I felt rather inclined to explain it as being the medium.”

Lady Swindon looked thoroughly disappointed.

“Oh, I did hope it was going to be spiritualism,” she said. “I do automatic writing every evening, unless I am really tired – because it’s no use then, is it? – and sometimes it says the most extraordinary things. Haven’t you ever tried it? It is quite fascinating, especially if you use a stylograph pen, which seems to go easier. And Swindon and I have heard the most awful raps – like the postman. But if it is not going to be the craze I shall give it up. One has no time for a private hobby: one has to ride the public hobby all the time. Are you sure you are right? Think of the Zigzags. I never can remember their name. And what about Christian Science? I hear it is spreading tremendously. Or deep breathing?”

The smile on Alice Yardly’s face widened and deepened as she heard the sacred word. But at this moment she was being talked to, and could not join in with her long and lucid explanations, though the scientific statement of Being – cause, source, origin – was trembling on her lips.

“I have tried deep breathing,” said Catherine, “but there really isn’t time. You can’t do anything else while you are doing it; you can’t talk even, because your mouth is closed, and you breathe in through one nostril and breathe out through the other. Perhaps it will be Christian Science, though, do you know, I think some of it is too serious and sensible to be a fad, whereas the other half is too silly. On that side talk to Alice, or read what Mark Twain says. But on the serious side – the side that is sensible – get Maud to tell you about the typhoid up at Achnaleesh and her Mr. Cochrane.”

“Her Mr. Cochrane?” asked Lady Swindon, with the alertness of the world.

But the unconsciousness of the world, no less important an equipment, answered her.

“Oh, only ‘hers’ because she told me about him; no other reason. Thurso and she were up there together.”

“And Thurso – isn’t he here?”

“Oh yes,” said Catherine, “but tea-time isn’t his hour. Tea-time is women’s hour; it corresponds to men’s after-dinner talk when we have gone upstairs.”

“But we have women’s hour then, too,” said Lady Swindon. “I suppose we have got more to say?”

Lady Thurso laughed.

“Oh, I don’t think that,” she said. “I think we only take longer to say it. Tea, Theodosia?”

Theodosia had truly American ideas about being introduced. It was her custom – and a genial one – to make all her guests formally known to each other by name, and she expected the same formality.

“Kindly introduce me, Catherine,” she said.

“Lady Swindon – my cousin, Mrs. Morton.”

“Very happy to make your acquaintance, Lady Swindon,” said Theodosia; “and don’t you think that Catherine’s place down here is just the cunningest spot you ever saw? Why, look at that yew-hedge! I guess – expect, I mean – that Noah planted it before the Flood, or, anyhow, soon after, to have made it that height. But, then, all Catherine has is perfect, is it not? I adore her things and her. My! I never saw such a wonderful black pearl as that you’ve got around your neck. It looks as if it came straight from the Marquis of Anglesea’s tie-pin.”

“I think not; I inherited it,” said Lady Swindon rather icily.

“Well, there you are,” said the prompt Theodosia. “That’s what comes of being an Englishwoman of the upper classes. You inherit things, and we’ve got to buy them. Why, this afternoon Lord Thurso and my husband and I drove over to Windsor, and I never saw a spot that looked so inherited as that. You can’t buy that look: it’s just inheritance. Do you know my husband? Ah! he’s talking to Count Villars over there; and what a lovely man he is! And we had the loveliest time to-day! I never saw Windsor before; and fancy inheriting that! But I’m afraid Lord Thurso is sick. He called at a chemist’s, and told them to send some medicine out here right away. I guess he pined for that medicine. And he’s not here, is he? I shouldn’t wonder if he went straight in to take it. I guess he’s taking it now. Catherine, I think your husband is the loveliest man! I hope he’s not real sick. But he just pined for that medicine.”

Tea was no longer in demand, and Catherine got up. The whole situation was beginning to get on her nerves. Theodosia, with her awful American manner, was on her nerves; this dreadful information about the call at the chemist’s was there also, and she felt sure that Lady Swindon, for all her “darling Catherines,” was that sort of friend who likes knowing the weak points of others, not necessarily with the object of their malicious use, but as useful things to have in your pocket. Theodosia, as she was aware, when she got up now to get out of immediate range of that rasping voice, was one of her weak points: the mention of Thurso’s medicine and his anxiety to get it were others. Theodosia touched them with the unerring instinct of the true and tactless bungler. So Catherine, with the higher courage that wants not to know the worst, if Theodosia was going to throw more sidelights on the subject of this medicine, moved out of earshot.

Lady Swindon justified her position of a true friend to Catherine, and became markedly more cordial to Theodosia. She wanted to know more about this, and proceeded in the spirit of earnest inquiry.

“What a charming afternoon you must have had!” she said. “To see Windsor for the first time is delightful, is it not? and to have Lord Thurso as a companion is delightful at any time. But he is not ill, is he?”

“He seemed just crazy to get to that chemist’s,” said Theodosia, “and he seemed just crazy to get back home again. They tell me you have a speed-limit for motors over here, but if we didn’t exceed it, I don’t see that it can be of much service.”

Now, Lady Swindon was not really more malicious than most people, in spite of her weakness for her friends’ weaknesses, and it was in the main her truly London desire to be always well up in current scandals, and know the details of all that may perhaps soon be beginning to be whispered, that led her to “pump” (if a word that implies effort may be used about so easy a process) Theodosia on this subject. Thurso’s long absence in Scotland, to begin with, had seemed to her queer, and to require explanation. It did not seem likely, somehow, that he had gone there after a woman, but, on the other hand, she personally thought it improbable that he had really gone to look after fever-stricken tenants. As a matter of fact, of course he had done so, but the truth usually escapes these earnest inquirers, especially if it is quite simple and straightforward. But here was a fresh fact: he had been crazy to get to the chemist’s and had raced home. She felt she had guessed.

“He used to have dreadful headaches,” she observed. “Perhaps he had one this afternoon.”

“He didn’t seem that way,” said Theodosia, “and I know about headaches, because Silas used to have them, arising from faulty digestion, to which he is a martyr. He took opium for them.”

“Yes?” said Lady Swindon.

“That always cured him. Why, here’s Count Villars. Count Villars, I haven’t set eyes on you since lunch, and I feel bad because you are neglecting me. Let me present you to Lady Swindon.”

Villars bowed.

“I think we were introduced about twelve years ago,” he observed. “How are you, Lady Swindon? You have come down the river from your charming Cookham?”

Lady Swindon got up, turning her back on Theodosia, for whom she had no further use.

“Yes, and I am just going back there. How clever of you to remember where we live! Will you take me to my boat? Let us walk round the garden first. It is charming to see you again.”

They strolled a few yards down the path between the two tall herbaceous borders, while she rapidly ran over in her mind what information she wanted from him. It was very quickly done.

“And you are staying here?” she asked. “How do you find Catherine? I am sure you walked together last night after dinner, and joined old memories onto the present.”

Lady Swindon was colossal in her impertinence. It struck Villars afresh after his long absence from England how very ill-bred a well-bred Englishwoman can be. But he was more than a match for her.

“Ah, my dear lady,” he said, “we found that the two needed no link. We neither of us have that faculty, which, no doubt, is often convenient, of forgetting old friends. As always, I adore her; as always, she receives my adoration from her infinite height. The Madonna still smiles on her worshipper. He asks no more.”

It was admirably done, for it told her nothing. She tried again.

“Indeed? I thought you had once asked more,” she said. “We all supposed so.”

“There is no limit to what people of brilliant and vivid imagination may not suppose,” said he.

She could not help smiling at her own defeat. His refusals to give direct answers were so very silken.

“And the truth always exceeds one’s imagination, does it not?” she said.

“It is usually different from it,” observed he.

This would not do. She tried something else.

“And Thurso?” she said. “How do you think he is?”

Villars looked at her in bland surprise.

“Very well, surely, is he not?” he said. “Why should you think otherwise?”

“Only something I heard about his calling at a chemist’s and racing home afterwards.”

“Indeed!” said Villars.

Lady Swindon was afraid there was no more to be got there, and he handed her into her launch.

“But I am so glad, so very glad you think he is well,” she said. “Do come and spend a Sunday with us some week. I will try to get Catherine to come and meet you.”

He murmured gratitude of the non-committal sort, and stood a little while looking after her launch, which sped like an arrow up-stream, raising a two-foot wave in its wake, and nearly upset half a dozen boats in its passage. Then he strolled back to the lawn again. He had not the faintest intention of staying with Lady Swindon, but, on the other hand, he did not at all desire to be on bad terms with her, for, little as he respected her, he had a profound respect for her supreme mischief-making capabilities. She had got hold of something about Thurso, too, and perhaps it was as well she had not seen him. In that case, his own bland assertion that he considered him very well would not have been of much use.

Lady Swindon’s departure had acted as a signal for a general move, and when Villars got back, Lady Thurso was just saying good-bye to the last of her guests. On the moment, the butler came out of the house and spoke to her.

“His lordship begs that you and Lady Maud will go to his room for a moment as soon as you are disengaged, my lady,” he said.

“Tell his lordship we will come immediately. Ah, Count Villars, we were going on the river, were we not? Could you wait a few minutes? Thurso wants to see me about something.”

Maud joined her, and they went together to Thurso’s sitting-room at the end of the house. He was sitting at his table in the window, and, with his usual courtesy, got up as they entered. On the table in front of him stood a bottle of dark blue glass. He had just finished unpacking this as they entered, and threw the corrugated paper in which it had been wrapped into the waste-paper basket.

“A cigarette, Catherine?” he said, offering her one. “I want a few minutes’ talk with you both.”

She took one, and he waited till she had lit it, and sat down.

“Maud tells me,” he said, “that you and she undid a package that arrived here this afternoon addressed to me, and threw it away. That is so, I believe?”

She did not answer – it seemed unnecessary – and he raised his voice a little.

“Will you kindly say whether that is so?” he said.

“Yes; quite right,” she said.

Again he raised his voice, that shook with suppressed rage.

“And do you make a habit of doing such things, both of you? Do you open my letters, other people’s letters?”

“Oh, Thurso, don’t be a fool!” said Maud quietly.

His face went very white.

“Maud, I am trying to be courteous,” he said, “under a good deal of provocation. You might make an effort to follow my example.”

“Is it courteous to ask Catherine and me whether we are in the habit of opening other people’s letters?” she asked.

“Your behaviour this afternoon seems to me to warrant my question,” he said.

“No, Thurso, it does not,” said his wife. “I think you know it, too.”

He looked first at the one, then at the other, and his hand moved as if instinctively towards the bottle on the table.

“I don’t want to make a scene with either of you,” he said, “and I don’t want to detain you. I wish to say, however, that I think you behaved quite outrageously. And I require you both to promise never again to act in such a way. You are absolutely unjustified in touching or interfering with my things in this way from whatever motive.”

He took up the bottle.

“You see how little good your interference has done in this instance,” he said, “and it will do as little in any other. You will merely oblige me to adopt methods as underhand as your own.”

“There was nothing underhand,” said Catherine. “We were going to tell you what we had done. Indeed, Maud did tell you.”

“I should have said that stealing was underhand,” said he very evilly, “though perhaps you think differently. As to your telling me, you knew it was inevitable that I should find out.”

“That has nothing to do with it,” said Maud quickly. “Even if you could never have found out otherwise, we should have told you.”

“Ah!” said he.

Maud looked at him in amazement. She had been told by Catherine this afternoon that there were two Mauds, and here indeed was a Thurso whom she would scarcely have known for her brother. His manner was quite quiet and courteous again now, but it seemed as if he was possessed. There was a world of sneering incredulity in that one word.

“You don’t believe what I say?” she asked.

He was silent; he smiled a little, and raised his eyebrows. There was no need for him to speak; he could not have shouted his meaning nearly so clearly.

“Then where is the use of our giving you any promise for the future, if you don’t believe what we say?” she asked.

“I ask for your promise, however,” he said.

“And if we don’t give it you?” said Catherine.

He looked at her closely, and she felt that he hated her at that moment.

“I shall merely have to find some other way of getting things delivered,” he said, “so that you shall not st – intercept them.”

There was silence.

“I ask for your promise,” he repeated.

Maud threw back her head.

“I promise,” she said. “It is no use refusing.”

“And I,” said Catherine, getting up. “Is that all, Thurso?”

Thurso put his hand to his head suddenly, with a wince of pain he could not control.

“Yes, on that point that is all,” he said. “Let us agree to say nothing more about a most unpleasant subject. But I want to tell you this: I am suffering so hideously at the present moment that I hardly know what I am saying. Agitation and anger, for which you two are responsible, have brought on about the worst attack I ever had. Very likely I should not have taken laudanum from that bottle you threw away; in any case, I should have struggled hard not to. I struggled yesterday, with the result that I allowed Catherine to pour away all I had in the house. But I am not going to struggle now, thank you. The pain is intolerable, and I believe it to have been brought on by what you did. Your interference has not done the slightest good; it has only given me an hour of hell.”