The Moon and Sixpence
a dish of tea with her. This was the very day, and I had received no
word from Mrs. Strickland. Did she want to see me or did she not? It
was likely enough that in the agitation of the moment my note had
escaped her memory. Perhaps I should be wiser not to go. On the other
hand, she might wish to keep the affair quiet, and it might be highly
indiscreet on my part to give any sign that this strange news had
reached me. I was torn between the fear of hurting a nice woman’s
feelings and the fear of being in the way. I felt she must be
suffering, and I did not want to see a pain which I could not help; but
in my heart was a desire, that I felt a little ashamed of, to see how
she was taking it. I did not know what to do.
Finally it occurred to me that I would call as though nothing had
happened, and send a message in by the maid asking Mrs. Strickland if
it was convenient for her to see me. This would give her the
opportunity to send me away. But I was overwhelmed with embarrassment
when I said to the maid the phrase I had prepared, and while I waited
for the answer in a dark passage I had to call up all my strength of
mind not to bolt. The maid came back. Her manner suggested to my
excited fancy a complete knowledge of the domestic calamity.
“Will you come this way, sir?” she said.
I followed her into the drawing-room. The blinds were partly drawn to
darken the room, and Mrs. Strickland was sitting with her back to the
light. Her brother-in-law, Colonel MacAndrew, stood in front of the
fireplace, warming his back at an unlit fire. To myself my entrance
seemed excessively awkward. I imagined that my arrival had taken them
by surprise, and Mrs. Strickland had let me come in only because she
had forgotten to put me off. I fancied that the Colonel resented the
interruption.
“I wasn’t quite sure if you expected me,” I said, trying to seem
unconcerned.
“Of course I did. Anne will bring the tea in a minute.”
Even in the darkened room, I could not help seeing that Mrs.
Strickland’s face was all swollen with tears. Her skin, never very
good, was earthy.
“You remember my brother-in-law, don’t you? You met at dinner, just
before the holidays.”
We shook hands. I felt so shy that I could think of nothing to say, but
Mrs. Strickland came to my rescue. She asked me what I had been doing
with myself during the summer, and with this help I managed to make
some conversation till tea was brought in. The Colonel asked for a
whisky-and-soda.
“You’d better have one too, Amy,” he said.
“No; I prefer tea.”
This was the first suggestion that anything untoward had happened. I
took no notice, and did my best to engage Mrs. Strickland in talk. The
Colonel, still standing in front of the fireplace, uttered no word. I
wondered how soon I could decently take my leave, and I asked myself
why on earth Mrs. Strickland had allowed me to come. There were no
flowers, and various knick-knacks, put away during the summer, had not
been replaced; there was something cheerless and stiff about the room
which had always seemed so friendly; it gave you an odd feeling, as
though someone were lying dead on the other side of the wall. I
finished tea.
“Will you have a cigarette?” asked Mrs. Strickland.
She looked about for the box, but it was not to be seen.
“I’m afraid there are none.”
Suddenly she burst into tears, and hurried from the room.
I was startled. I suppose now that the lack of cigarettes, brought as a
rule by her husband, forced him back upon her recollection, and the new
feeling that the small comforts she was used to were missing gave her a
sudden pang. She realised that the old life was gone and done with. It
was impossible to keep up our social pretences any longer.
“I dare say you’d like me to go,” I said to the Colonel, getting up.
“I suppose you’ve heard that blackguard has deserted her,” he cried
explosively.
I hesitated.
“You know how people gossip,” I answered. “I was vaguely told that
something was wrong.”
“He’s bolted. He’s gone off to Paris with a woman. He’s left Amy
without a penny.”
“I’m awfully sorry,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
The Colonel gulped down his whisky. He was a tall, lean man of fifty,
with a drooping moustache and grey hair. He had pale blue eyes and a
weak mouth. I remembered from my previous meeting with him that he had
a foolish face, and was proud of the fact that for the ten years before
he left the army he had played polo three days a week.
“I don’t suppose Mrs. Strickland wants to be bothered with me just
now,” I said. “Will you tell her how sorry I am? If there’s anything I
can do. I shall be delighted to do it.”
He took no notice of me.
“I don’t know what’s to become of her. And then there are the children.
Are they going to live on air? Seventeen years.”
“What about seventeen years?”
“They’ve been married,” he snapped. “I never liked him. Of course he
was my brother-in-law, and I made the best of it. Did you think him a
gentleman? She ought never to have married him.”
“Is it absolutely final?”
“There’s only one thing for her to do, and that’s to divorce him.
That’s what I was telling her when you came in. ‘Fire in with your
petition, my dear Amy,’ I said. ‘You owe it to yourself and you owe it
to the children.’ He’d better not let me catch sight of him. I’d thrash
him within an inch of his life.”
I could not help thinking that Colonel MacAndrew might have some
difficulty in doing this, since Strickland had struck me as a hefty
fellow, but I did not say anything. It is always distressing when
outraged morality does not possess the strength of arm to administer
direct chastisement on the sinner. I was making up my mind to another
attempt at going when Mrs. Strickland came back. She had dried her eyes
and powdered her nose.
“I’m sorry I broke down,” she said. “I’m glad you didn’t go away.”
She sat down. I did not at all know what to say. I felt a certain
shyness at referring to matters which were no concern of mine. I did
not then know the besetting sin of woman, the passion to discuss her
private affairs with anyone who is willing to listen. Mrs. Strickland
seemed to make an effort over herself.
“Are people talking about it?” she asked.
I was taken aback by her assumption that I knew all about her domestic
misfortune.
“I’ve only just come back. The only person I’ve seen is Rose
Waterford.”
Mrs. Strickland clasped her hands.
“Tell me exactly what she said.” And when I hesitated, she insisted. “I
particularly want to know.”
“You know the way people talk. She’s not very reliable, is she? She
said your husband had left you.”
“Is that all?”
I did not choose to repeat Rose Waterford’s parting reference to a girl
from a tea-shop. I lied.
“She didn’t say anything about his going with anyone?”
“No.”
“That’s all I wanted to know.”
I was a little puzzled, but at all events I understood that I might now
take my leave. When I shook hands with Mrs. Strickland I told her that
if I could be of any use to her I should be very glad. She smiled
wanly.
“Thank you so much. I don’t know that anybody can do anything for me.”
Too shy to express my sympathy, I turned to say good-bye to the
Colonel. He did not take my hand.
“I’m just coming. If you’re walking up Victoria Street, I’ll come along
with you.”
“All right,” I said. “Come on.”
Chapter IX
“This is a terrible thing,” he said, the moment we got out into the
street.
I realised that he had come away with me in order to discuss once more
what he had been already discussing for hours with his sister-in-law.
“We don’t know who the woman is, you know,” he said. “All we know is
that the blackguard’s gone to Paris.”
“I thought they got on so well.”
“So they did. Why, just before you came in Amy said they’d never had a
quarrel in the whole of their married life. You know Amy. There never
was a better woman in the world.”
Since these confidences were thrust on me, I saw no harm in asking a
few questions.
“But do you mean to say she suspected nothing?”
“Nothing. He spent August with her and the children in Norfolk. He was
just the same as he’d always been. We went down for two or three days,
my wife and I, and I played golf with him. He came back to town in
September to let his partner go away, and Amy stayed on in the country.
They’d taken a house for six weeks, and at the end of her tenancy she
wrote to tell him on which day she was arriving in London. He answered
from Paris. He said he’d made up his mind not to live with her any
more.”
“What explanation did he give?”
“My dear fellow, he gave no explanation. I’ve seen the letter. It
wasn’t more than ten lines.”
“But that’s extraordinary.”
We happened then to cross the street, and the traffic prevented us from
speaking. What Colonel MacAndrew had told me seemed very improbable,
and I suspected that Mrs. Strickland, for reasons of her own, had
concealed from him some part of the facts. It was clear that a man
after seventeen years of wedlock did not leave his wife without certain
occurrences which must have led her to suspect that all was not well
with their married life. The Colonel caught me up.
“Of course, there was no explanation he could give except that he’d
gone off with a woman. I suppose he thought she could find that out for
herself. That’s the sort of chap he was.”
“What is Mrs. Strickland going to do?”
“Well, the first thing is to get our proofs. I’m going over to Paris
myself.”
“And what about his business?”
“That’s where he’s been so artful. He’s been drawing in his horns for
the last year.”
“Did he tell his partner he was leaving?”
“Not a word.”
Colonel MacAndrew had a very sketchy knowledge of business matters, and
I had none at all, so I did not quite understand under what conditions
Strickland had left his affairs. I gathered that the deserted partner
was very angry and threatened proceedings. It appeared that when
everything was settled he would be four or five hundred pounds out of
pocket.
“It’s lucky the furniture in the flat is in Amy’s name. She’ll have
that at all events.”
“Did you mean it when you said she wouldn’t have a bob?”
“Of course I did. She’s got two or three hundred pounds and the
furniture.”
“But how is she going to live?”
“God knows.”
The affair seemed to grow more complicated, and the Colonel, with his
expletives and his indignation, confused rather than informed me. I was
glad that, catching sight of the clock at the Army and Navy Stores, he
remembered an engagement to play cards at his club, and so left me to
cut across St. James Park.
Chapter X
A day or two later Mrs. Strickland sent me round a note asking if I
could go and see her that evening after dinner. I found her alone. Her
black dress, simple to austerity, suggested her bereaved condition, and
I was innocently astonished that notwithstanding a real emotion she was
able to dress the part she had to play according to her notions of
seemliness.
“You said that if I wanted you to do anything you wouldn’t mind doing
it,” she remarked.
“It was quite true.”
“Will you go over to Paris and see Charlie?”
“I?”
I was taken aback. I reflected that I had only seen him once. I did not
know what she wanted me to do.
“Fred is set on going.” Fred was Colonel MacAndrew. “But I’m sure he’s
not the man to go. He’ll only make things worse. I don’t know who else
to ask.”
Her voice trembled a little, and I felt a brute even to hesitate.
“But I’ve not spoken ten words to your husband. He doesn’t know me.
He’ll probably just tell me to go to the devil.”
“That wouldn’t hurt you,” said Mrs. Strickland, smiling.
“What is it exactly you want me to do?”
She did not answer directly.