The Return Part 18

'I can't, I can't conceive such a position. Surely that alone is almost as frantic as it is heartless! Is it, is it even right?'

'Well, I have not actually asked it. I own,' he added moodily, almost under his breath, 'it would be--dangerous.... But there, Sheila, this poor old mask of mine is wearing out. I am somehow convinced of that.

What will be left, G.o.d only knows. You were saying--' He rose abruptly.

'Please, please sit down,' he said; 'I did not notice you were standing.'

'I shall not keep you a moment,' she answered hurriedly; 'I will sit here. The truth is, Arthur,' she began again almost solemnly, 'apart from all sentiment and--and good intentions, my presence here only hara.s.ses you and keeps you back. I am not so bound up in myself that I cannot realise THAT. The consequence is that after calmly--and I hope considerately--thinking the whole thing over, I have come to the conclusion that it would arouse very little comment, the least possible perhaps in the circ.u.mstances, if I just went away for a few days. You are not in any sense ill. In fact, I have never known you so--so robust, so energetic. You will be alone: Mr Bethany, perhaps.... You could go out and come in just as you pleased. Possibly,' Sheila smiled frankly beneath her veil, 'even this Dr Ferguson you have invented will be a help. It's only the servants that remain to be considered.'

'I should prefer to be quite alone.'

'Then do not worry about THEM. I can easily explain. And if you would not mind letting her in, Mrs Gull can come in every other day or so just to keep things in order. She's entirely trustworthy and discreet. Or perhaps, if you would prefer--'

'Mrs Gull will do nicely, Sheila. It's very good of you to have given me so much thought.' A long and rather arduous pause followed.

'Oh, one other thing, Arthur. You sent out to Mr Critchett--do you remember?--the night you first came home. I think, too, after the first awful shock, when we were sitting in our bedroom, you actually referred to--to violent measures. You will promise me, I may perhaps at least ask that, you will promise me on your word of honour, for Alice's sake, if not for mine, to do nothing rash.'

'Yes, yes,' said Lawford, sinking lower even than he had supposed possible into the thin and lightless chill of ennui--'nothing rash.'

Sheila rose with a sigh only in part suppressed. 'I have not seen Mr Bethany again. I think, however, it would be better to let Harry know; I mean, dear, of your derangement. After all, he is one of the family--at least, of mine. He will not interfere. He would, perhaps quite naturally, be hurt if we did not take him into our confidence. Otherwise there is no pressing cause for haste, at least for another week or so.

After that, I suppose, something will have to be done. Then there's Mr Wedderburn; wouldn't it be as well to let him know that at least for the present you are quite unable to think of returning to town? That, too, in time will have to be arranged, I suppose, if nothing happens meanwhile; I mean if things don't come right. And I do hope, Arthur, you will not set your mind too closely on what may only prove false hopes.

This is all intensely painful to me; of course, to us both.'

Again Lawford, even though he did not turn to confront it, became conscious of the black veil turned towards him tentatively, speculatively, impenetrably.

'Yes,' he said, 'I'll write to Wedderburn; he's had his ups and downs too.'

'I always rather fancied so,' said Sheila reflectively, 'he looks rather a--a restless man. Oh, and then again,' she broke off quickly, 'there's the question of money. I suppose--it is only a conjecture--I suppose it would be better to do nothing in that direction just for the present.

Ada has now gone to the Bank. Fifty pounds, Arthur; it is out of my own private account--do you think that will be enough, just, of course, for your PRESENT needs?'

'As a bribe, hush-money, or a thank-offering, Sheila?' murmured her husband wearily.

'I don't follow you,' replied the discreet voice from beneath the veil.

He did actually turn this time and glance steadily over his shoulder.

'How long are you going for? and where?'

'I proposed to go to my cousin's, Bettie Lovat's; that is, of course, if you have no objection. It's near; it will be a long-deferred visit; and she need know very little. And, of course, if for the least thing in the world you should want me, there I am within call, as it were. And you will write? We ARE acting for the best, Arthur?'

'So long as it is your best, Sheila.'

Sheila pondered. 'You think, you mean, they'll all say I ought to have stayed. Candidly, I can't see it in that light. Surely every experience of life proves that in intimate domestic matters, and especially in those between husband and wife, only the parties concerned have any means of judging what is best for them? It has been our experience at any rate: though I must in fairness confess that, outwardly at least, I haven't had much of that kind of thing to complain of.' Sheila paused again for a reply.

'What kind of thing?'

'Domestic experience, dear.'

The house was quiet. There was not a sound stirring in the still sunny road of orchards and discreet and drowsy villas. A long silence followed, immensely active and alert on the one side, almost morbidly lethargic so far as the stooping figure in front of the looking-gla.s.s was concerned. At last the last haunting question came in a kind of croak, as if only by a supreme effort could it be compelled to produce itself for consideration.

'And Alice, Sheila?'

'Alice, dear, of course goes with ME.'

'You realise,' he stirred uneasily, 'you realise it may be final.'

'My dear Arthur,' cried Sheila, 'it is surely, apart from mere delicacy, a parental obligation to screen the poor child from the shock. Could she be at such a time in any better keeping than her mother's? At present she only vaguely guesses. To know definitely that her father, infinitely worse than death, had--had--Oh, is it possible to realise anything in this awful cloud? It would kill her outright.'

Lawford made no stir. The quietest of raps came at the door. 'The money from the Bank, ma'am,' said a faint voice.

Sheila carefully opened the door a few inches. She laid the blue envelope on the dressing-table at her husband's elbow. 'You had better perhaps count it,' she said in a low voice--'forty in notes, the rest in gold,' and narrowed her eyes beneath her veil upon her husband's very peculiar method of forgetting his responsibilities.

'French?' she said with a nod. 'How very quaint.'

Lawford's eyes fell and rested gravely on the dingy page of Herbert's mean-looking bundle of print. A queer feeling of cold crept over him.

'Yes,' he said vaguely, 'French,' and hopelessly failed to fill in the silence that seemed like some rather sleek nocturnal creature quietly waiting to be fed.

Sheila swept softly towards the door. 'Well, Arthur, I think that is all. The servants will have gone by this evening. I have ordered a carriage for half-past twelve. Perhaps you would first write down anything that occurs to you to be necessary? Perhaps, too, it would be better if Dr Simon were told that we shall not need him any more, that you are thinking of a complete change of scene, a voyage. He is obviously useless. Besides, Mr Bethany, I think, is going to discuss a specialist with you. I have written him a little note, just briefly explaining. Shall I write to Dr Simon too?'

'You remember everything,' said Lawford, and it seemed to him it was a remark he had heard ages and ages ago. 'It's only this money, Sheila; will you please take that away?'

'Take it away?'

'I think, Sheila, if I do take a voyage I should almost prefer to work my pa.s.sage. As for a mere "change of scene," that's quite uncostly.'

'It is only your face, Arthur,' said Sheila solemnly, 'that suggest these wicked stabs. Some day you will perhaps repent of every one.'

'It is possible, Sheila; we none of us stand still, you know. One rips open a lid sometimes and the wax face rots before one's eyes. Take back your blue envelope; and thank you for thinking of me. It's always the woman of the house that has the head.'

'I wish,' said Sheila almost pathetically, and yet with a faint quaver of resignation, 'I wish it could be said that the man of the house sometimes has the heart. Think it over, Arthur!'

Sheila, with her husband's luncheon tray, brought also her farewells.

Lawford surveyed, not without a faint, shy stirring of incredulity, the superbly restrained presence. He stood before her dry-lipped, inarticulate, a schoolboy caught redhanded in the shabbiest of offences.

'It is your wish then that I go, Arthur?' she said pleadingly.

He handed her her money without a word.

'Very well, Arthur; if you won't take it,' she said. 'I should scarcely have thought this the occasion for mere pride.'

'The tenth,' she continued, as she squeezed the envelope into her purse, with only the least hardening of voice, 'although I daresay you have not troubled to remember it--the tenth will be the eighteenth anniversary of our wedding-day. It makes parting, however advisable, and though only for the few days we should think nothing of in happier circ.u.mstances, a little harder to bear. But there, all will come right. You will see things in a different light, perhaps. Words may wound, but time will heal.' But even as she now looked closely into his colourless sunken face some distant memory seemed to well up irresistibly--the memory of eyes just as ingenuous, and as una.s.suming that even in claiming her love had expressed only their stolid unworthiness.

'Did you know it? have you seen it?' she said, stooping forward a little. 'I believe in spite of all....' He gazed on solemnly, almost owlishly, out of his fading mask.

'Wait till Mr Bethany tells you; you will believe it perhaps from him.'

He saw the grey-gloved hand a little reluctantly lifted towards him.

'Good-bye, Sheila,' he said, and turned mechanically back to the window.

She hesitated, listening to a small far-away voice that kept urging her with an almost frog-like pertinacity to do, to say something, and yet as stubbornly would not say what; and she was gone.