A Case in Camera
"Do run away, you boys!" she said crossly instead. "Go and pick some of
those blue flowers; Auntie Joan's a little tired. Now, Joan, I'll tell
you what I'll do if you're good, but not unless. He's in a hospital or a
nursing-home, I expect, and I shall go straight to him; and then if he's
fit to move, as I expect he is by this time, I shall bring him straight
down here. Will that do?"
"I know he's not fit to move. I saw him fall. I saw him falling all last
night."
"Now you're naughty and just trying to make the worst of it. That's
simply willful. It's like Alan when he wants smacking; when you're as
old as I am you'll look on the bright side and be thankful it's no
worse. Now do try. I'm going to bring him down here, and we'll keep him
for a month. A whole month--it will be lovely! Why, you've only seen
him in London and Richmond Park!"
"I've been to Chalfont Woods with him four times."
Mollie seized gratefully on the diversion.
"Joan! How _could_ you! You never told me that!" she scolded. "And you
never told me you'd been flying with him either! Philip would be furious
if he knew! And now I'll tell him, and about Chalfont too, and all those
other times as well, if you don't try to be reasonable. A month in this
lovely place with him, and nobody to interfere--why, you'll be glad he
had a little bit of an accident!... Now get up and we'll all go back.
You'll have to get dinner ready, and I shall want a few sandwiches.
Alan! Jimmy! We're not going to the shore. You can play on the see-saw
instead. Run ahead, boys--and you come along, darling----"
And Joan of the cinemas and cliffs, of the secluded tea-shops and the
noble Santon shore, rose, still as naughty and obstinate as ever, but
obediently. Already Mollie, bustling the children on ahead, was shaping
in her mind the dressing-down she intended to give Philip that very
night.
XII
There was no help for it, Philip has since told me. He simply had to
tell her everything. She was, in fact, in possession of the whole story
long before any of the rest of us.
But even she had to wait yet a little longer. When, at half-past nine
that Monday night her taxi drew up at the wrought-iron gate in Lennox
Street, Philip was out and the place was in darkness. She had no key.
"Go on to Oakley Street," she ordered the driver.
Audrey Cunningham was at home. Mollie found her, alone, in her
first-floor bed-sitting-room, already on the point of going to bed.
"First of all give me a cup of cocoa or something," was Mollie's
greeting. "I've been half the day in the train with only a few
sandwiches, and I shall drop if I don't have something."
Mrs. Cunningham lighted the little gas-ring and fetched water from an
adjoining room. Then, opening a little cupboard, she mixed cocoa-paste
in a cup, got out bread and margarine and a plate of macaroons, and set
them on a little chintz-covered stool before Mollie.
"I've an egg if you'd like one," she said.
"No, thanks. I got your letter this morning. Have you got the one I
wrote yesterday?"
"No; but I don't think the last post's been yet."
"Well, it doesn't matter now. I've come to see for myself. Philip
doesn't know I'm here yet, but he will presently. Now first of all,
what's all this about you and Monty? What's happening?"
Her tone was that of a woman who intended to stand no further nonsense
of any kind. She was dog-tired, already angry on Joan's account, and the
resigned and hopeless air of the slender creature before her completed
her resolve to get to the bottom of things.
But nothing appeared to be happening about Audrey and Monty. Mrs.
Cunningham was still of the same mind, or no mind, that had prompted her
letter.
"Where is he now?" Mollie demanded.
Audrey did not know.
"Is he with Philip?"
She did not know that either.
"And aren't you going to Lennox Street?"
"I don't think I can."
Mollie's eyes went round the room. I myself have never been in Mrs.
Cunningham's bed-sitter, but I have been in many others and can picture
its frugality--the gas-ring, the little cupboard with the bread and jar
of marmalade in it, the chintz-covered grocer's box on which Mollie's
cup of cocoa stood, probably a slightly fresher wallpaper-pattern where
the Jacobean wardrobe had stood. Lennox Street was positive luxury by
comparison, yet here was Audrey preferring this. Then there was Audrey
herself, heavy-eyed, drained of energy, probably thinking of George
Cunningham and wondering whether any experience was worth repeating.
With Joan for breakfast and Audrey for supper, poor Mollie had had about
enough of it for one day.
"About this marriage," she said abruptly. "Of course, it's not going to
be put off. _I_ shall see to that. I shall have a talk with Monty too
when I've finished with Philip. You're simply run down and want a
tonic."
"Oh, it isn't that," Audrey replied, sinking into an old wicker chair.
"I've thought it all over. I don't think they tell young girls enough
before they get married. They ought to tell them lots more. They ought
to tell them quite plainly, 'You'll have to be prepared for this and
that and the other. You'll have to expect to sit up half the night in
the dining-room with dinner on the table wondering where he is. You'll
have to learn that he hasn't really been run over or anything of that
kind and that it's only their way. You must expect telegrams and
telephone calls and excuses, and you mustn't be surprised if he brings
somebody else with him when he does come. They're like that. And when
they come home in a beastly state----'"
Here Mollie peremptorily interrupted her.
"Leave that brute in his grave," she commanded. "We're talking about
Monty, not him. And I'll see Monty. Now what's all this rigmarole about
milkmen and cellars and all the rest of it? Tell me as I undress you.
I'm going to put you to bed."
But little that was fresh was to be learned here either. Audrey thanked
her again and again for the offer of the house, but she thought she
would rather be here with her gas-ring and cocoa and chintz-covered
sugar-box. Mrs. Cook thought she could arrange it--it would only be half
a crown more.
"Well, I'll see Mrs. Cook too while I'm about it; may as well do the
thing thoroughly. Let me unlace your boots--why, your feet are cold, and
on a night like this! Never mind your hair; you can do it in bed. And
drink the rest of this cocoa. Really I do think I live in a helpless
sort of world--there isn't enough of me to go round--there ought to be
half a dozen of me. Now into bed with you, and you'd better stay there
till I come round in the morning. I'm not going back till Wednesday."
She packed up the cocoa-cups and turned off the gas-ring, opened the
window and wound up the little Swiss clock. As she moved about the room
folding Audrey's clothes and setting things to rights her own letter of
Sunday morning was brought up, but she placed it on the mantelpiece by
the side of the clock, forbidding Audrey to read it till the morning.
Letters didn't matter now that she was here in her own capable,
practical person. Letters took too long. She was going to have things
done much more quickly or know the reason why.
XIII
Philip himself opened the door to her. She gave her cheek to be kissed
and then walked straight in.
"Is Monty here?" were her first words.
"No. I think he's gone out for a walk."
"A walk, at this time of night!"
Philip shrugged his shoulders. "What brings you here, Mollie?" he said.
She was busy untying her veil. "What do you suppose? Everything, of
course."
"Have you had dinner or supper?"
"I had a cup of cocoa at Audrey Cunningham's, and don't want anything
else. Now why didn't you answer my telegram, and why didn't you write
again as you promised?" She threw the hat and veil on the table and her
gloves after them and stood before Philip.
"How are the children?" he asked.
"Perfectly well."
"And Joan?"
Her only answer to this last was a long look. Then she walked to the
little Empire sofa and sat down. He might stand if he wished.
"Well?" she said at last. This was after a full minute, during which
time he had stood by the table idly fingering her veil. Then suddenly
his fingers pushed the veil aside, and he crossed to the sofa and sat
down by her.
"What is it you want to know, darling?" he asked.
"Everything--every little thing from beginning to end," she replied.
"You've seen that I don't want to tell you?"
"Yes, I've seen that."
"And that I probably have my reasons?"
"Oh--reasons!"
"Reasons that are stronger than ever at this moment?"
"Will they go on getting much stronger? If so I can only warn you that a
breaking-point will come."
"Yes. I'm very near it."
"And so am I, Philip."
There was no mistaking her tone. It did not mean that if he continued to
shut her out like this she would do anything violent--live apart from
him, become merely his housekeeper, or anything of that kind. It meant
enormously more than that. Where confidence and trust are, there are few
divergences that do not presently right themselves, few differences that
cannot be resolved; but where these are absent nothing is right. Every
word is possible peril, every silence a hanging sword. In all my
acquaintance I know of no happier marriage than the Esdailes'. You never
go into their house and feel that the air is still charged with some
scene that your arrival has interrupted, you never leave wondering what
weapons will be picked up again the moment your back is turned. Philip
is not without his tempers nor Mollie without her own purposes, but it
stops at that. The rest is brave decencies, with I know not what
tenderer stuff behind. This it was that seemed for the moment to be in
peril.
But suddenly she put her hand on his. She did not speak; the hand spoke
for her. The next moment his other hand had fallen on hers again, so
that both enclosed it. Then their eyes too met.
"It would be an awful thing to risk, Phil," she said quietly.
His eyes begged her. "Won't you let me carry it a little longer alone?"
"I don't believe you can. And if you can," she added, "I don't see what
we got married for."
"But it will be rotten for you too."
"When have I shrunk from that?" she asked.
"Never," he replied in a low voice.
And so Mollie Esdaile too took her portion of the burden.
"Well, where shall we begin?" he asked, with a sigh that it must be so.
"You know best. But tell me first why you didn't write."
"I hadn't seen young Smith. I haven't yet as a matter of fact. But----,"
he drew her head to his breast, and there were some moments during which
he whispered into her ear.
For all his care and guarding it was not possible that she should not at
least tremble. But she did not start within his arms. The tremor passed,
and her dry lips repeated--
"Shot him!"
"For some reason or other. I don't think either of us can quite tell
Joan that, can we?"
"Shot him! Chummy!"
"There's no doubt about it. It was Monty who picked up the pistol.
Neither you nor I can very well tell Audrey that, can we?"
"Monty found the pistol!"
"And I picked up the cartridge-shell myself. The police were round here
at six o'clock on Friday morning looking for them."
"The police! Here!"
In spite of all, Philip could not restrain a little laugh. "Oh, they
didn't find anything. They don't when they've given you warning the
night before. By that time both pistol and case had been at the bottom
of silver-flowing Tamesis for six hours. I dropped 'em in myself from
the middle of Albert Bridge. Do you begin to see what you're in for, my
poor darling?"
It was doubtful whether she yet did. She could still only repeat,