Mrs. Maxon Protests Part 15

The occasion of this--their first--tiff was small, but by no means insignificant. Winnie was holding G.o.dfrey to his promise that he would not be ashamed of her.

"Among our friends, I meant, of course," G.o.dfrey explained. "Among educated thinking people who can appreciate your position and our point of view. But this woman will simply think that you're--well, that you're what you're not, you know."

"How can she, when I told her all about it?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Wait till you blow her up about something; you'll see what I mean," said he.

"Then I shall dismiss her." Winnie's proud little face was very flushed.

There were sides of life which G.o.dfrey had observed. They had three cook-housemaids in quick succession, and were approaching despair when d.i.c.k Dennehy found them an old Irish woman, who could not cook at all, but was entirely charitable. She had been told about the situation beforehand by d.i.c.k; there was no occasion for Winnie to refer to it.

Winnie did not, and tried not to feel relieved. Also she ceased to tell the occasional charwomen, who came in "by the day." G.o.dfrey was perhaps right in thinking that superfluous. Dennehy came often, and they had other visitors, some bachelor friends of G.o.dfrey's, others belonging to the Shaylor's Patch frequenters--Mrs. Danford and Mr. Carriston, for example. Mrs. Lenoir also came--not of her own accord (she never did that), but in response to an invitation from Winnie. G.o.dfrey did not seem very enthusiastic about this invitation.

"But you seemed to like her so much at Shaylor's Patch," said Winnie, in surprise.

"Oh yes! Ask her then, if you like." He formulated no objection; but in his mind there was the idea that Winnie did not quite realize how very careful she ought to be--in her position.

Such were the little pa.s.sing clouds, obscuring for a moment the happiness of one or other of them.

Yet they were very happy. G.o.dfrey was genuinely in love; so was Winnie, and to her there was the added joy--the new wonder--of being free. Free, and yet not lonely. She had a companion and yet not a master. Hers was the better mind of the two. She did not explicitly realize it, but unconsciously and instinctively she took the lead in most of their pursuits and amus.e.m.e.nts. Her tastes guided their interests and recreation--the books they read, the concerts and theatres which they "squeezed" out of their none too large margin of spare cash. This initiative was unspeakably delightful to the former Mrs. Maxon, an absolutely fresh thing in her life, and absolutely satisfying. This freedom, this liberty to expand, to grow, to develop, was what her nature had craved. Even if she set her love altogether on one side--and how should she?--this in itself seemed to justify her refusal to be any longer Mrs. Maxon and her becoming Mrs. Winifred Ledstone. In fact it was bound up with her love, for half the joy of these new travels and adventures of the mind lay in sharing them with G.o.dfrey.

It still seemed as if everything were possible with a little courage, as if all the difficulties disappeared when boldly faced. Could there have been a difficulty more tremendous than Cyril Maxon? He had vanished into s.p.a.ce!

After some six weeks of this pleasant existence--during which the difficulties at least tactfully effaced themselves, save in such trifles as have been lightly indicated--a phenomenon began to thrust itself on Winnie's notice. G.o.dfrey was not a man of much correspondence; he did most of his business in person and conducted other necessary communications mainly by telephone (that was a luxury which they had agreed that they must "run to" at the cost of some other, and unspecified, luxury to be forgone). Now he began to receive a certain type of envelope quite often--three times a week perhaps. It was a mauve envelope, rather larger than the ordinary. Winnie was careful not to scrutinize these envelopes--she did not even inspect the postmarks--but she could not help observing that, though the envelopes were always alike, the handwriting of the address varied. In fact she noted three varieties. Being a woman of some perspicacity, she did not really need to inspect the postmarks. G.o.dfrey had a father, a mother, a sister. They were writing to him, writing rather bulky letters, which he did not read in company, but stowed away in his pocket; they never reappeared, and presumably were disposed of secretly, on or off the premises. Nor did she ever detect him in the act of answering one; but in the course of his work he spent many hours away from home, and he belonged to a modest little club in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden; no doubt it had writing-paper.

These mauve envelopes began to afflict the peace, or at least the happiness, of the little household. The mornings on which they came were less cheerful than other mornings; a constraint showed itself in greetings and farewells. They were reminders--ominous reminders--of the big world outside, the world which was being defied. His family was at G.o.dfrey Ledstone--three of his family, and one of them with a weak heart.

Three weeks of the mauve envelopes did their work. One had come on the Sat.u.r.day; on the Sunday morning G.o.dfrey made an apology to Winnie. He would not be able to join her in their usual afternoon excursion--for a walk, or to a picture gallery, and so forth.

"My mother's not very well--she's not strong, you know. I must go to my people's."

"Of course you must, G.o.dfrey. But--without me?"

"Yes." Pa.s.sing her on his way to the mantelpiece, he pressed her hand for a moment. Then he stood with his back to her, as he filled his pipe with fingers unusually clumsy. "Oh, I've tried! They've been at me for weeks--you probably guessed--and I've been back at them--letter after letter. It's no use! And yesterday father wrote that mother was really seriously upset." He turned round, and spoke almost fiercely. "Don't you see I must go, Winnie?"

"Of course you must," she said again. "And I can't come if they--if they won't let me in!" She managed a smile. "It's all right. I'll have a walk by myself."

He tried to find a bright side to the situation. "I may have a better chance of convincing them, if I go. I'm no good at letters. And mother is very fond of me."

"Of course you must go," Winnie repeated yet again. What else was there for Winnie to say--with Mrs. Ledstone not strong and really seriously upset?

"I haven't seen any of them for--oh, it must be three months--and I used to go every Sunday, when I was in town."

"Well, you're going to-day, dear. That's all settled!" She went up to him and kissed him daintily. "And we won't despair of them, will we?

When do you go?"

"I--I generally used to go to lunch. They want me to. And come away after tea."

"Well, do just what you used to. I hope I shall be doing it with you in a few weeks."

"Oh, I hope so, dearest."

He had not the glimmer of such a hope. To ask him if he had even the wish would have been to put an awkward question. The code wherein he was Bob Purnett's pupil recognizes quite a strict division of life into compartments. He was Winnie's lover of a certainty; quite doubtfully was he her convert. Being her lover was to break the law; being her convert was to deny it. Before he met her, he had been of the people who always contemplate conforming to the law--some day; at the proper time of life, or at the proper time before death--whichever may be the more accurate way of putting it. He was ready to say to the Tribunal, "I have done wrong"--but not to say, "You--or your interpreters--have been wrong." A very ordinary man was G.o.dfrey Ledstone.

So after a solitary lunch (a sausage left cold from breakfast and a pot of tea) Winnie started on a solitary expedition. She took the train from Baron's Court to Hyde Park Corner, with the idea of enjoying the "autumn tints" along by Rotten Row and the Serpentine. But, as she walked, her thoughts were not so much on autumn tints as on Woburn Square--on that family so nearly related to her life, yet so unspeakably remote, to whom she was worse than a menace--she was a present and active curse--who to her were something wrong-headed, almost ridiculous, yet intensely formidable--really the concrete embodiment of all she had to struggle against, the thing through which the great world would most probably hit at her, wound her, and kill her if it could. And both the family and Winnie thought themselves so absolutely, so demonstrably, right! Right or wrong, she knew very well, as she walked on towards the Serpentine, that now--this instant--in Woburn Square they were trying to get her man away from her; to make him ashamed of her (he had sworn never to be), to make him throw her over, to leave her stranded, to the ridicule and ruin of her experiment. With a sudden catch in the breath she added, "And the breaking of my heart!"

Just as she came near to the lake she saw--among the walkers who had till now seemed insubstantial shades to her preoccupied mind--a familiar figure, Hobart Gaynor! Her heart leapt in sudden joy; here was an old, a sympathetic friend, the man who understood why she had done what she had. But Hobart Gaynor was not alone. His radiant and self-satisfied demeanour was justified by the fair comeliness of the girl who walked beside him--his bride, wedded to him a month ago, Cicely Marshfield.

Winnie had sent him congratulations, good wishes, and a present; all of which had been cordially acknowledged in a letter written three days before the wedding. The ceremony had taken place in the country, and quietly (because of an aunt's death); no question had arisen as to who was or was not to be asked to attend it.

Her heart went out to Hobart. He had loved her; she had always been very fond of him. In her drab uneventful girlhood he had provided patches of enjoyment; in that awful married life he had now and then been a refuge.

She did not know Cicely, but Hobart would surely have chosen a nice girl, one who would be a friend, who would understand it all, who could be talked to about it all? With a happy smile and a pretty blush she met Hobart and his bride Cicely. She saw him speak to her, a quick, hurried word. Cicely replied--Winnie saw the rapid turn of her head and the movement of her lips. He spoke once more--just as Winnie nodded and smiled at him, and he was raising his hand to his hat. Then came the encounter. But before it was fairly begun, Winnie's heart was turned to lead. Hobart's face was flushed; his hand came out to hers in a stiff reluctance. The tall fair girl stood so tall, so erect, looking down, bowing, not putting out a hand at all, ignoring a pathetically comic appeal in her embarra.s.sed husband's eyes.

Winnie's eager words of congratulation, of cordiality and friends.h.i.+p, met with a chilly "Thank you," uttered under an obvious protest, under _force majeure_. Winnie set her eyes on Hobart's, but his were turned away; a rigid smile on his lips paid a ghastly tribute to courtesy.

Winnie carried the thing through as briefly as possible. She was not slow to take a cue.

"Well, I'm glad to have run across you," she said, "and when you're settled in, I must come and see you. You won't want to be bothered just yet."

Again Hobart's glance appealed desperately to his wife. But his wife left the answer to him.

"We are a bit chaotic still," he stumbled. "But soon, I hope, Winnie----"

"I'll give you notice. Don't be afraid! Now I must hurry on--good-bye."

"Good-bye," said Cicely, with another inclination of her head--it seemed so high above Winnie's, looking down from such an alt.i.tude.

"Good-bye, Winnie." A kindliness, queerly ashamed of itself, struggled to expression in Hobart's voice.

When the pair had pa.s.sed by--after a safe interval--Winnie turned and looked at their retreating figures, the haughty erect girl, dear old Hobart's broad solid back, somewhat bowed by much office work. Winnie was smiling; it is sometimes the only thing to do.

"This isn't my lucky day." So she phrased her thoughts to herself, coupling together the encounter in Hyde Park with what was now--at this moment--going on in Woburn Square; for it was not yet tea-time, and G.o.dfrey's visit would last, according to custom, till after tea.

She got home and waited for him in the dusk of the autumn evening. An apprehension possessed her; she did not know how much effect Woburn Square might have had upon him. But he came in about six, cheerful, affectionate, unchanged. On the subject of his home-visit, however, he was rather reticent.

"They were all very kind--and I really don't think mother's any worse than usual. About her frail ordinary." He seemed inclined to dismiss the matter with this brief summary. "And what did you do with yourself?"

"I took the Tube up to the Park and had a walk." She paused. "I met Hobart and Cicely Gaynor."

"Oh, the happy pair! How were they flouris.h.i.+ng?"

"They--well, they warned me off, G.o.dfrey. At least she did--and he had to follow suit, of course."

G.o.dfrey had been helping himself to whisky and soda-water; tumbler in hand, he walked across the studio and back again.

"Hobart's one of the very few people in the world I'm really fond of."

"Well, you know, Winnie, you wanted it this way. I a.s.sure you I don't find it altogether comfortable either." He emptied the tumbler in a long draught and set it down on the table.

She jumped up quickly, came to him, and clasped her arms round his neck; she could but just reach, for he was tall.