They return at evening A book of ghost stories
joy. And, bitterly as she learned to loathe me, I am certain the fact
she was loathing the current number of one of the oldest baronetcies in
England gave her a soothing sense of social pride.
I had been working very hard on a delicate and highly contentious
section of my book, and was inclined to be irritable and “on edge.”
Luckily at first Ethel was fairly amenable. For one thing, she had the
Riviera to which to look forward, for another she was learning to ride,
an art which she had been instructed was a necessary accomplishment
for an English Gentlewoman. She learned quickly, and looked as nearly
palatable as any Gentlewoman can when topped by a silk hat. The
servants hated her, for her attitude towards them veered from touchy
insolence to obviously insincere blandishments, and that they disliked
both variants they showed most definitely though courteously.
As a Local Notable it was my duty to introduce Ethel to those of my
neighbours and friends she had not already met in London, and for this
purpose I gave a series of week-end parties. The fact that I do not
puncture or pursue the fauna of Wiltshire by any of the traditional
methods has not prevented me from being on most excellent terms with
my neighbours. I think I can say I have worked pretty hard at those
often tiresome jobs which the occupation of a prominent local position
entail. I am regarded as a bit of a freak--as was my father before me,
but my idiosyncrasies give them something to talk about, and there is
a “Dear Oldness” about their references to me which mark the absence
or passing of criticism. I was curious to observe how my good friends
would regard my good lady. Well, the Elderly Ladies Who Knew, knew she
was not quite a lady. The young women envied her clothes and looks,
but I do not think they envied _me_. The men behaved in a robustly
gallant manner towards her, partly out of consideration to me and
partly because her beauty was within limits overwhelming. But I think
they reserved judgment. A few fledglings fell in love with her and they
_did_ envy me. How I should have rejoiced to have settled some money on
her and danced at her wedding to one of them!
She played her part rather well, but that which has fundamental flaws
betrays itself inevitably by superficial cracks. Her breaks were not
shattering, but they were palpable, and not one of them went by the
Elderly Ladies Who Knew. She was quite unconscious of them. I usually
said nothing, but I had to protest against one. She had repeated with
the eager placid certainty of the natural scandal-monger a scabrous
little rumour about the morals of Lady Pount’s niece in the presence
of her Aunt. While undressing, I suggested that the study of Debrett
should not be pursued too academically, and that the art of knowing Who
is Who should be an applied art, in so much as it might prevent awkward
pauses in the hour of anecdote. And I gave as an instance the choice
little canard she had repeated that evening. At which she lost her
temper uneasily.
“I can’t remember all those people! How was I to know they were
related? It’s true, anyway, and I think she ought to be shown up, it’s
disgusting.”
“Nothing,” I said, “is worth an awkward pause, not even the exposure of
notorious evil-livers. Some people have a sixth sense for knowing how
to avoid them. Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
A short but violent scene ensued.
So we scrambled along the broad, well mile-stoned path to mutual
hostility. I made occasional half-hearted attempts to persuade myself
that Ethel was other than she was. She felt, when she inspected her
wardrobe and my broad acres and stable, and all those joys which I
had brought into her life, that there were sufficiently compensating
“Betters” for the “Worse.”
And then it was time for the Riviera, its boomed beauty, its bloody
brood. What a region! I have cruised the Mediterranean fairly
extensively, and it is no Sea for me. What merits the Southern Latins
may once have possessed is a matter of opinion; that they retain
any to-day seems to me untenable. A breed of pimps, parasites and
horse-torturers, the choicest surviving examples of that _cretin_
civilisation which is Catholicism’s legacy to the world. And it has
always seemed to me that members of races vastly their intellectual and
moral superiors become debased and degraded when brought in contact
with them, though I know the region attracts the worst.
Ethel was so happy. She changed her clothes at intervals during the
day, and made the acquaintance of a Grand-Duke, who was accompanied
by a selection from his harem. Her delight in this encounter was so
unconcealed that the nobleman for some time believed that she was
anxious to be enrolled in his service! She “adored” the Casino. I
took one look at those tables. A vice is known by the company it
collects. There must be something to be said for opium. It makes glad
the heart of Chinks, it induced _The Ancient Mariner_, and made De
Quincey immortal. Booze has many excellent songs, Boris Goudonov, and
missed partridges to its credit. Even murder can point to detective
stories--the favourite literature of our Great Ones, and the support
of hangmen’s families. But gambling has nothing to justify its
existence unless it be Revolver Smith’s dividends and A New Use for Old
Piano Cases. My absence from this Rouge et Noir midden didn’t matter,
for Ethel had many friends who considered it a Green Baize Paradise.
I mooned about aimlessly, did a little work, pretended at dropsical
meals that I was having a good time, and then one day decided I could
stick no more of it. So I informed Ethel and quelled the inevitable
typhoon by reminding her she was there at my expense and that she could
stay there _alone_ at my expense if she chose, otherwise we’d both
return to England at my expense. This syllogistic presentation of the
case impressed her, and I returned alone.
On the journey home I had an opportunity for coolly regarding things
in themselves, with particular reference to my marriage. By then I
knew for certain that Ethel would never leave me of her own accord.
She had everything she wanted, a title, money to burn, a circle of
sycophants, a husband she could dominate. Could she? I supposed so, for
the dread of scenes is the beginning and end of feminine domination
in the case of men of my type, weak, introspective, with sensitive
ears and a tantalising tolerance. I say _tantalising_ because, were I
asked to prescribe for the matrimonial troubles of others, I should be
cool, hard, a rationalist, a regarder of facts in the face. I should
prescribe for those in my state a drastic, cauteristic remedy, and feel
confident of its efficacy. “No sentimentalist need apply” I should
inscribe on my brass plate.
“Physician, heal thyself,” the hardest of all hard sayings! But this is
how I should prescribe in a case such as mine. “Force a divorce, you
will never be happy. You know her chief concern is money, settle some
on her. Living with her seems the Devil, well, take him by the horns.”
Perfectly sound, common sense itself, but I couldn’t do it.
A week after getting back I received a cable, “Returning immediately.
Ethel.”
This unexpected announcement filled me with a vague excitement. What
had she been up to? Something which might lead to a solution--a
dissolution? I enjoyed twenty-four hours of such straw-clutching, and
then she arrived, and, as was her wont, went straight and viciously to
the point. “I’m going to have a baby, and I won’t have a baby. You’ve
got to help me. It’ll spoil everything. I don’t care how much you want
it. Tell me someone to go to.”
“I shall do nothing of the kind,” I replied. “Certainly I want you to
have a child, and you’ll be much happier. Now, Ethel, be unselfish
about this!”
“Happier! Unselfish! I like that. You don’t have to spend nine foul
months, be cut out of everything, and probably have your figure ruined.
I refuse to argue about it. Will you help me?”
“No, I won’t,” I said.
She said no more, but in ten minutes she was on her way to London.
I heard nothing more from her for a fortnight, and then one evening she
came back. She went straight to her room, refused to see me, and dined
in bed.
However, I went up to her after dinner.
She was shaking with anger, and her eyes were those of a trapped lynx.
“I told you I didn’t want to see you, but now you’re here let me tell
you this, I will _never_ bear your child.”
I think it was then, when I saw her hatred for me, that I first knew I
hated her, and I suppose the murderer in me first woke to life.
She was as good as her word. She had a miscarriage two weeks later,
and became quite light-hearted again. One day she came into my
dressing-room when I was shaving to tell me that, as she was not quite
fit enough to hunt, she was going up to London, and had taken a suite
at Claridge’s. And then I received the worst shock of my life. She bent
down for a moment to smell a bowl of roses on the dressing table. I had
my razor in my hand, and for a moment I believed I could not restrain
myself from cutting that lovely throat. With an agonising effort of
self-control, I flung the razor on the floor. Ethel glanced up quickly,
and, I suppose, partially understood the look in my face, for she put
her hands to her eyes and ran from the room. She went up to London
after breakfast, leaving me to my thoughts.
For the rest of the day I could not control my nerves nor stay still
for a moment, for my brain continually forced that hideous picture
before my eyes. I could see her writhing on the carpet, the blood
gushing from her throat. And that night, each time I fell into an
uneasy doze, it came as a fleeting dream vision more vivid and
more vile. I knew I was receiving a most urgent warning, that my
subconsciousness was telling me that inevitably, if I continued to see
her, one day I should kill her.
The next morning I met Margaret Pascal. It was the only time I have
figured in one of those coy sexual situations beloved by the authors of
scenarios, for I found her embraced by barbed wire in Far Wood. After
I had disentangled her and noticed the lovely junction of her legs and
feet, we began a vague little talk. I told her my name. “This is all
yours then,” she said. “Was I trespassing?”
“Technically, yes,” I replied. “But please commit the offence as often
as you like.”
“I am staying with the Franks,” she said, “and was just wandering
about. As a matter of fact, I adore birds, and there’s a shrike’s
larder in that thorn just there, and I wanted to examine the grisly
little feast.”
She had a curiously deep and individual voice, and one can fall in love
with a voice at first hearing, as I did. While we inspected the sorry
and dismembered collation, each drawn, quartered and impaled remnant
fluttering in the breeze, I appraised her. I had learned bitterly to
distrust women’s looks, so I paid little attention to her physical
attributes. It was a certain combination of sweetness and intelligence,
of gentleness and determination, and her all-pervading rightness, which
lulled and soothed and stirred and excited me. She told me afterwards
that I had the same immediate effect on her. A certain tension
established itself, a happy unease.
When we parted I asked her if she would like me to show her over a part
of the estate which was specially famous for its birds and beasts, for
I had forbidden my keepers to shoot or trap there. She said she would
love it, and I arranged to fetch her in the car early next day.
I found my mood had completely changed. I could even examine Ethel’s
photograph with a whistling ease, for everything else I had a bounding
pulse and a flattering eye. And I knew why--it was because I was