CHAPTER XXIII
SECRET NUMBER TWO
Three days passed, seeming like a year, and everything was just the same. Each felt in the wrong, each had a grievance; and that is fatal for a settlement.
Helena, rebuffed, was quite determined to make no more appeals: and he was silent, that mockery of talk in front of Lily over, except that now and then he would throw out questions—with the hard air of counsel cross-examining—questions that showed upon what string his mind was harping, questions to do always with the hated book. These she answered patiently, as one who knows she has deserved her punishment.
What she had not deserved, what she would not endure, Helena decided, was his whole treatment of her. Each afternoon he had an agent, publisher, friend, somebody that took him into London; each night he had some work to do—and this although he told her brutally that she had fatally wrecked his new novel. It was a fresh routine.
Helena found herself sentenced—apparently for life—to solitary confinement in a new-art cottage. Callers arrived, suspicious in their frequency, but she said, "Not At Home" to all, caring but little to feed their taste for a tit-bit of scandal. Letters came too from dear friends who congratulated her ... but these she tore up, unanswered. Others came from Mr. Blatchley—unctuous, consoling, full of the glad news that sales were leaping up as a result, and sending a big cheque as a polite advance. Helena loathed herself for not destroying this as well; but she had sold her happiness, so why not take the price? Besides, if Hubert's new book had really had to be abandoned,——!
"I hope to get some reviewing work," he said at the end of the fourth ghastly lunch. "That will be something. I am off to town about it but shall be back to dinner."
She forced herself to speak in the same level tones that he adopted. "Doesn't it occur to you," she asked, "that it's not very pleasant for me, just now, to be always left alone? I can't go out like that, with everybody saying that we've quarrelled."
"Are you blaming me, now?" he asked in icy surprise.
She refused to argue this; she felt that it was mean. "What am I to do," she said, "all these lonely afternoons?"
"I should send for your good friend Alison," he answered with a grim humour, and went out to his own room.
Helena sighed, a sigh of despair; then she got up with more energy than during all these days, buoyed by a resolve.
Anything was better than inaction. Even a row would not be so awful as this freezing calmness! She would do something—must!
She took his advice. She went to the telephone and left a message with the Studio porter. She asked Mr. Alison to tea.
Then she went back to the drawing-room, and as she tidied the neglected flowers there was on her tight-pressed lips the whole eternal mystery of the sphinx-woman.
He arrived punctually to the moment—one second after the tea-urn—secretly nervous but outwardly full of a relieved delight. "I am forgiven then?" he cried, and she felt cheered already. It was something to talk. Besides, he really did look funny.... He laid on the table some roses he had bought and now had not the courage to present.
"I'm afraid I was a pig," she answered, nobly. One feud was quite enough for her. "I know you never meant to do it and you were awfully good about it all till then. You helped me such a lot."
"And I hope to do the same again," he said with an absurd little bow.
"Not give me away again?" she asked, mainly as a good excuse for smiling. But really she felt happier already. Tea smelt almost good again!
He looked at her with the reproachful eyes of a whipped hound. "You know I shouldn't, you know I never meant to. And I'm afraid you'll never trust me any more." He sighed cavernally.
"That's just what I'm going to do," she said, and then she could not refrain from laughing, for he looked so alarmed at new responsibility. "Oh, nothing like the other," she went on gaily, "this is a most harmless secret."
"What is it?" he answered keenly. "Tell me?" He hoped that Brett was teaing out somewhere.
"Well," said Helena, giving him his tea, "you know you said I ought to follow up the other with a second book and I said no? Well, now I think I will." She felt heroic and excited, merely saying it. It was her new resolve.
"Hooray!" cried Geoffrey Alison, catching some of the great moment's fire. "Blatchley will be bucked. He was immensely keen."
"Bother Blatchley," answered Helena. "I think he has behaved disgracefully and it is all his fault. But I can't stand this any longer; Hugh won't even speak to me; besides, if I write other books about quite different husbands, nobody can say they are all us."
"Excellent," said the other, grasping the involved idea at once, "and so——"
Helena laughed. "So now I'm going to write one about a woman married to an artist, and you must give me all the local colour."
"Shall I be Zoë's husband?" he asked eagerly. It still pleased him to say things like that.
"Oh no," she said, unconsciously ruthless, "no more than Hugh was the first; but I mean you must tell me what—well, what artists do."
"They paint," he answered gravely; and that made her laugh again. Ally was not a man to trust; she had been a real fool; but he was splendid company. He told her everything that artists did. He made her laugh a lot. Those endless hours of misery seemed nightmares of the past—until she was alone again.
But when business released Hubert Brett conveniently in time for their silent meal, he found in the hall a wife somehow less broken and submissive; less the girl-penitent serving a long sentence, much more a woman with secret laughter playing round the hard lines of her mouth.
"I'm glad you've got back," she said in the usual tone. "I took your advice and asked Mr. Alison to tea."
He had the sense to make no answer. But back in his study, he was weak enough to slam the door. And she was glad to hear it.
CHAPTER XXIV
BATTLE ROYAL
Geoffrey Alison felt very well content as he rang the bell and hastily fluffed out his hair. He was the bringer of good tidings and everything in general was going as it ought to go. Zoë was quite her old self again (would even let him call her that), had recovered from her silly temper, seen that he was not to blame, and now looked like making a bit of a stand against the conceited swine Brett, whom she had seen through finally.
He beamed on Lily, who remained impassive. There were, to her expressed mind, men and men. Mr. Alison, she had told Cook, was of the second kind.
"Is Mrs. Brett at home?" he asked.
"Mr. Brett, did you say, sir?" asked Lily. Humour is a wonderful assistance to those whose work is with the daily round.
"No; Mrs.," he replied, dwelling upon the sibilants in a way to delight an elocution-tutor.
He certainly did not want to see Brett, he told himself as Lily finally held the door open. He had not seen him since the crash, and fellows who had met him in the tube said that he was pretty surly. Geoffrey Alison did not like surly people—nor had he quite forgotten that scene in the garden.
Now whether it was that in his general delight with life he rang the bell with more than customary vigour and so brought out the owner of the house, or whether (as seems probable) there is some devilish telepathy that always tinkles into people's heads the exact thought one most wishes to avoid—whatever the cause, as in Lily's wake Geoffrey Alison stepped quietly past the study door this morning, it opened and Hubert looked out with something between suspicion and alarm upon his worried features.
Geoffrey Alison instinctively took a step backward.
The owner of the house, however, merely looked at him as though he had been dirt.
"Oh, it's you, Alison," he said, not holding out his hand; and then with an obvious sneer, "As busy as ever?" With which he put his head back and promptly shut the door. He might have acted thus if it had been the plumber—and he had wanted to change plumbers.
The other, naturally upset, poured this out instantly to Helena.
"Just like him, isn't it?" he said.
Helena would not be drawn to disloyalty, even about trifles.
"Hugh's such a worker," she said. "He thinks of nothing but his writing."
The artist, who was never busy, snorted. "He certainly does not think much about his wife," he answered. Extraordinary how a hog like Brett could keep the respect of a dear little girl like this!
"Well, what news have you got?" she enquired, to change the subject.
That reminded him. That scene with the great beast Brett had quite thrown the good news out of his head; but now, remembering, he won back his complacency.
"Capital!" he said, sitting down happily and pulling up his trousers to show light grey socks. Life was itself again. "Couldn't be better. What do you think? Guess."
"It might be anything at all, you see," she said with desolating common sense. "I never guess; it's only wasting time; so tell me."
"Well," began Geoffrey Alison, a little crushed, "I called along yesterday, after our talk, to tell Blatchley he had acted like a common cad."
"I don't see that's so very splendid," she objected. "You might have done it sooner, and anyhow he must have known that all the time. He only did it to get money, and he's getting it."
The other sighed, such a sigh as man has ever sighed when arguing with woman.
"You women will interrupt," he said loftily. Yes, they were quite on their old terms again.... "If you would only let me finish, I was going to tell you that he said he knew he had acted too hastily but that he hoped you would believe—and then he told a pack of lies, but here's the point." He spoke impressively. "If you'll let him have the new book, he'll pay you two hundred pounds down, only as a first dab of the royalties of course, and boom it better than ever, and he guarantees a still greater success, providing it's one half as good. So there, Miss Zoë, what do you think of your agent now?"
She did not exhibit the delirious gratitude which he clearly had expected. She sat, obviously thinking; and he for his part reflected that women were odd devils, however well you knew them. Surely nobody could know a woman better than he knew little Zoë; he saw more of her now than Brett did; talked to her with the direct ease of a husband—said just what he thought. Hadn't he just told her not to interrupt? Well, that meant knowing a girl pretty well; yet if any one had told him that she wouldn't be delighted about this book she wanted to write so much——
"I shall have to ask Hugh," she said very slowly, breaking in upon his thoughts.
This was the last word.... Ask Hugh! Ask Brett, who had behaved like a damned swine about the other book, who wouldn't speak to her except to snub her, who thought of nothing except his own rotten work! The girl must be mad!
"Ask him?" he said in amazement.
"I ought to have asked him about the other," she merely replied. "Then everything would have been quite all right."
"Yes," he assented, mocking; "then you'd have never had your book out, never had all this success. Everything would have been quite all right."
"Yes," she said, seriously.
After this there was no argument. He could not bring himself to stay. It was so asinine. People must go mad when once they married! Oh yes, he could stay no longer. Ask Hugh, indeed, when she had got the chance of her whole lifetime! He could guess what Hugh, dear Hugh, would say.
"Well," she said, "if you must really go so early?" She had no suspicion of his mental turmoil. "And I'll let you know to-morrow about the new book, when I've asked Hugh."
But he had clapped his green hat on impatiently and strode away. He knew she would not listen to anything against her husband; she had such young ideas about that sort of thing; but really!——
Helena, meanwhile, still innocent of the rage she had stirred up in him, spent the time till lunch in wondering how best to attack her not easy task. Before Hugh came in, she must have the book in its rough lines all in her head, so as to convince him that it was mere fiction and would make people believe at last the other had been meant for nothing more. Then he would surely not object, and be pleased; or if not—well, why worry about that? A row, she had decided, could not hurt like his cold silence. It would be human, anyhow. And what an outlet, what a boon for lonely evenings, the new book would be!
If war it must be, then let it be war; but she would do her best for peace.
When he duly entered, however, all her good natural openings and deprecating explanations were mere labour lost. He fired the first shot—and in quite a different campaign.
"Look here, Helena," he said, coming into the drawing-room and actually sitting down, though not, of course, near her, "all this Alison nonsense must cease." He clutched the chair-arm firmly.
"What exactly do you mean by that?" she asked, very calm; but inwardly her spirit veered decisively to war.
"What do I mean?" he snorted. "Surely it's quite obvious! Most husbands would be jealous, but I'm not like that. I know it's mere stupidity; I couldn't be jealous of a knock-kneed ass like Alison; but all the same——" In spite of himself he relaxed his hold of the chair-arm and got up, pacing hurriedly about the little room. "Look here, Helena," he said once again, more calmly, "I see through it all; don't fancy not, for half a moment. You women are so obvious. I know you think you've only got to make us jealous for everything to be all right, but it's not going to work here."
"I don't know even what you mean," she answered, rather as though he had just made a dirty joke.
"Well, I do," he thundered, "and I mean it, too. This has got to stop, I tell you. I asked you long ago, when—when things were different, to see less of this fellow. I don't trust him. I ran across him just now, and he cringed. Grrrr!" (and here he made a gesture as of one who washes hands). "It's bad enough that you and he should be about together, day and night, till everybody talks; but when it comes to a cad like that calling you Zoë and——"
"So you've been listening," she said. It seemed so easy to keep calm, now that Hubert was excited.
He laughed scornfully. "That's likely, isn't it? I heard him bellowing it out in the hall.... No, this has got to stop. It's bad enough to have the Boyds and all our friends here sniggering, but when the servants——"
She got up abruptly, and he sat down; the room was too small for two rovers.
"Perhaps," she began icily, "you'll let me say a word. You haven't let me for a week." He spread his arms, hopeless, and sat down. "I'm glad you're not jealous," she went on slowly, as to a child. "That'd be stupid. You know quite well that Mr. Alison is nothing but a friend. I couldn't respect him as——" but no, she wouldn't seem to beg for mercy; she broke off and spoke again in a much fiercer tone. "Perhaps though, as you've told me what I mustn't do, you'll tell me what I can. You won't come out with me, you shun me like a criminal, you only talk to me in front of Lily. Do you think I can live like that? Do you really think I'm going out alone, alone with the dog, and everybody saying: 'There's poor Mrs. Brett; she's in disgrace; he's punishing her'? No, I'd rather let them see me with Mr. Alison and let them think it's I who am avoiding you!"
He looked at her as at some strange being in his house. "Helena," he said, "this can't be you who's speaking."
"Isn't it?" she laughed. Then calming herself, "Perhaps then," she added, borrowing some of his irony, "if I'm not to go out with Mr. Alison, you'll tell me what I am to do."
"What do most wives do," he asked, "whose husbands are away? They don't rush about everywhere with artist-wasters; they do some work or something."
It was a vague ending, but it lent Helena her chance.
"Exactly what I wanted you to say," she cried. "I don't want to do anything again without your leave; but now I will do some work. I'll live my own life, if you don't want me to share yours."
"What do you mean, Helena?" he asked. This was a new mood.
"I mean," she said surprised at her own calmness, "that Blatchleys have offered me two hundred pounds advance for my new novel. I said I must ask you first, but now I shall accept it."
"I utterly forbid it," he cried wildly and leapt to his feet. They were both standing now.
"What?" she exclaimed. "Forbid? What do you forbid? How can you forbid? You could have, in the old days; I wouldn't have done anything if you had asked me not; but now—how can you forbid?"
"I do," he cried excitedly. "I utterly forbid it." He was gaining time to think.
There was a pause while they stood facing one another.
"Do you think," he said presently, "apart from all that's happened, this horrible publicity, my friends all chaffing me, I ever would have married the sort of woman you propose becoming? I wanted a wife to look after me, to be a nice companion; I didn't want a woman-writer. I hate that type of woman. You were a simple, jolly girl when I first married you, and now—writing this popular clap-trap!—you must see, Helena, it isn't fair?" His stern air melted almost to appeal.
She would not allow herself to listen but forced the argument on to a safer plane. "This one," she said, "has nothing to do with an author at all, there can't be all those terrible misunderstandings. Oh, don't you see, Hubert," she cried, "that if I wrote another book, all obviously fiction, these horrid gossips may believe at last the other was all like that too? Besides, it's stupid to refuse two hundred pounds just when you say things are so bad and we may have to move."
She had not meant it so, but this was her worst cut of all.
Hubert remembered his own failure; was reminded of her huge success.
A wife selling her books ten times as well as his own—a wife who wrote "for fun" in idle hours—a wife whom he had treated as a silly child.... "This one'll fail," he said almost fiercely, "it's bound to. You're nothing but an amateur, I've been at the job fifteen years. Two hundred's all you'll get, and much good may it do you!"
Full of conflicting moods; sullen yet ashamed; aware of his unworthy jealousy yet hardly able to endure the thought; sorry for her yet sick with his own wound; he turned away before the better side in him should win and he implore the pardon of this woman that he would always love, however much he hated her.
"Hubert," she began, aghast at his excitement.
"We won't argue," he said, back at the safe level of those days just past, and moved towards the door. She hesitated, not sure who had won.
At the door he turned. "Oh, by the way," he said, as to a servant. "I shall want a room for Ruth to-morrow. She's coming down before teatime."
Helena gave a short bitter laugh, which he just heard as the door closed.
She saw the issue of the tussle now.
He had failed to subdue the disobedient wife, and he was asking down his sister!
CHAPTER XXV
THE BROKEN TRIANGLE
Geoffrey Alison, bursting with anxiety for Helena's decision, found her next morning in exultant readiness.
"I accept," she cried excitedly, almost before he had got inside the door. "I accept Blatchley's offer. The book is growing splendidly. I've done two chapters and I see it all."
He thought he had never seen her in such good form, and he wondered. She had been so cold about it yesterday. He did not, of course, know about the meals between....
She could not, however, help telling him a little of it.
"Oh," she cried, "you don't know how glorious it'll be, having some work to do again; I've missed Virginia, I mean Zoë, horribly! It seems so endless, the day, now that Hubert's cross."
"Is he still sick?" the other asked. He only knew till now what people said. He was dying to hear, but she was so funny.
"Sick," she laughed mirthlessly. "That is a lovely word for it! He seems to be entirely different. I knew directly it came out, I had done something awful, but I thought he would understand and see I hadn't meant him really and forgive. But he gets worse and worse. I think his friends keep teasing him, and then he can't get on with his book in the least. It's sickening."
The artist was encouraged to a blow at his old enemy. "I expect really he's jealous of your success. He's always sensitive. He hates anybody his own age succeeding better." It was the first time she had ever said, or listened to, anything against her husband.
Helena was silent for a moment, dazed. Did this explain his harshness? Was he really jealous?
"Oh, I don't think so," she said, not letting herself think, for all the puzzling little bits began to fit, now, with a deadly ease. "I don't think it's that. He's naturally—'sick'!" and she forced out a laugh.
"I'm so sorry," he said. It was his first attempt at sympathy. Their talk had been on flippant lines.
She did not dare to look at him, remembering how funny he was when quite serious. "Thank you, Ally," she said gently. He was a good sort.
"I'm sorry," he repeated. "You know that, Zoë, don't you? I'm your pal, whatever Hubert is."
"Hubert's splendid," she said, childishly inadequate; and with these words, she who had been a hard woman for long days—melted perhaps by fatal sympathy or her own noble lie—suddenly found hot tears streaming down her cheeks. She turned away, ashamed, and hoped he would not see.
But he had seen.
What they had said just now had been enough—and this was far too much. Dear little Zoë—pretty little girl, too—married to that great swine Brett—in trouble—crying—wanting to be cheered.
The worst, of course, of keeping harmless vices as tame pets is that for years they only come out when needed and are very pleasant. Then, however, as time makes them stronger, comes the fatal moment when they gain the mastery, turn on their former owner and drag him where they will.
This was such a moment for Geoffrey Alison.
All those nice exciting stories, laudably abstract, bulked suddenly into the real. Here was a girl, crying—pretty too; dam pretty—and everybody knew that when dam pretty girls cried—why, they expected it....
"Zoë," he cried, surging forward, "why do you stand it? Why do you let him treat you like that? You're too good for him; I wish that I had half the trust, the love you give to him. I've done so much for you—the book and everything—and you're so hard to me."
An automatic thrill came in his voice, he leant a little forward; he stretched out timid arms towards her, ready to protect. There was no need to think; it came so easily. He had read the whole scene so often. The blood throbbed in his veins.
"My God!" he said, unthinking what it meant. They always did.
But Helena quite failed to play her part.
She got up hurriedly as his protective arms swayed over her; she backed and stared at him. He wasn't serious? She never knew....
Her tears had ceased. She felt a stupid terror. It was all so vulgar.
He dropped his arms slowly, chilled by her stare, and stood with his mouth ludicrously open.
"Oh!" she said at length, as though realising what the whole past had meant. "I thought you liked me—and it was only this."
They never had said that at all. He had no answer ready.
"Oh, come," he replied presently, "don't be so serious about it."
She spoke very seriously. "It was my fault," she said. "I ought to have seen. People told me. I thought you just liked me, and I suppose I was flattered. If only I had guessed! But I was always such a fool. You see, I never really had a chance. You taught me all I knew of art or anything. And that's why it's so terrible." The crisis over, she sank limply on a chair. She had never thought that anything like this could happen, ever. She knew it did in those books that she couldn't finish; but Mr. Alison——! He had been so amusing always; she had thought him a funny and kind little man. She had not even thought of any one but Hubert....
"Oh, come, you know," he was saying again. "Don't go on as though there had been a tragedy! That's the worst of you awfully innocent women; you always think any one means so much worse than he does. Why you'd imagine I 'd suggested—well, almost anything; and all I wanted, just as my reward, was nothing but a kiss!"
Somehow, as he drew to an end of his halting apology, he realised how great the fall had been. Was this the man who had been almost throttled by a jealous husband? He felt, with a surge of self-contempt, that he had reached the level of a river-side tea-garden.
And to Helena, although far less consciously, the same feeling. It would have been better almost, less sordid, if he had meant something worse. A kiss—as his reward!... She understood why Hubert said "Grrrr!" and then washed his hands when he spoke about Mr. Alison. He was "funny" no longer; merely vulgar—vulgar and horrible.
"Please go," she said, more voicing her thoughts than meaning to speak. Then having started, she explained. "I don't want to be nasty; you've always been so kind; but it will be much better if we don't meet again. Hubert had asked me, anyhow ... and then, you see, I couldn't ever feel the same, quite, with you. Oh, I'm so sorry," she said, noticing his look—"but you do understand, don't you?"
"Oh yes, I understand," he answered, very deep down, and serious for once without seeming comic; "I've been a fool, a swine. He'd kick me if he knew—and he'd be right. But look here" (he could not keep away from his excuses), "do try to see it wasn't very much. Lots of women——" Then he caught her eye and said; "But you're so different and that's why I feel such a cad. Good-bye."
"Good-bye," she said and as he turned miserably away, she held her hand out to him, "and thank you all the same for what you've done. You've been a real good friend to me."
He had not looked for this and it was the worst part to bear. "I wish to God," he said passionately, "I'd been more worthy of your friendship. It's been the best thing in my life so far," and he turned hurriedly away, cursing himself for the damned fool he was. He had thrown everything away just for a moment that could never have meant anything. He had seen his real Self in her contemptuous eyes.
Helena stood, now, as the front door slammed, with eyes full of an emotion very different from contempt. She felt sorry—till her mind ranged swiftly back over all she had ever said to him, over the meanings he, a man like that, might read in it; and then she felt ashamed.
But all the while, unaccountably, she felt more alone than ever. She seemed so utterly thrown back on Hubert, now....
Presently, unable to bear the room's stillness, she went upstairs, mechanical as any housemaid, and busied herself needlessly about Ruth's room.
CHAPTER XXVI
TACT
Hubert at lunch made no reference whatever either to their own drawn battle or to that other, of which the sounds, she feared, might easily have reached him.
His one remark, indeed, beyond the usual polite abstractions for Lily's benefit, was "Ruth will be here at four o'clock. I want to see her before tea."
"Very well," was her submissive answer.
But this life of a housekeeper—how could she endure it after what had been? Hubert's only comments were aroused by letters, which his humorous friends still continued to send, quizzing him about his author-wife or sometimes facetiously alluding to some of the peculiarities of down-trodden Zöe's husband. "This I owe to you," he would say, throwing it across; or, "You'll enjoy this better," if a press-cutting contained nothing more pleasing to his vanity than a reference to himself as the notorious Husband.
Helena dreaded anything of this sort in front of his sister. She dreaded her visit entirely and hoped that it would not be long. Who could tell whether Ruth were not to be installed as her perpetual guardian, to watch over the wicked child? If so—but why make plans until things happened? The present was enough, and her chief wisdom lay in making the situation seem, to a third party, as easy as she could. She would force Hugh to speak.
There was a little fun in this idea, formed during lunch: and glancing across at his sullen face, with the too active mouth now tightly enough pressed, she only just restrained a laugh. It would have been the first during these ghastly and interminable meals.
So soon as he had got up, with his horribly polite; "Finished?" and the usual sigh, she ran almost lightly to the baize-door and called Lily.
"Lily," she asked, trying to compromise between an obvious whisper and a voice too audible, "were there any press-cuttings this morning?"
"Yes, mum," answered the always respectful conspirator.
"You kept them, I hope?"
"Oh yes, mum,"—almost hurt.
"Well, Lily," and she hesitated, the coward of Conscience; "I think I'll have them now and not to-night. Miss Brett will be here then."
Lily retreated and came back with the small envelope. Her eyes glistened sympathetically in the half-darkness. Perhaps she guessed—but she knew her own favourite among the Bretts.
Helena with that delicious thrill which makes crime so popular a hobby among those unable to afford sport or collecting, went into the drawing-room and boldly tore open the envelope addressed to "Hubert Brett, Esq." She did not want unpleasantness in front of Ruth.
She spread the cutting out, to read. He had not published a book now for months, so it was certain to refer to hers.
It did.
It was from People And Paragraphs, (which its admirers call by its initials,) and it ran, in the crisp, breezy, style which makes that sheet so popular:
"TURNING THE TABLES.
"Many a woman finds herself socially snuffed out by being wedded to a luminary: she is Mr. Dash Blank's wife et voila tout. There have been cases exactly opposite; but hist! They say the lady herself is now touchy on the point. It cannot often have happened, however, that the tables have been turned so neatly as in the case of the Hubert Bretts. As a novelist, he has for a decade of years formed one of the small and essentially select coterie that largely exists, like the ladies who lived on each other's washing, by patting one another's backs. His reputation has been large, his notices extremely good; but neither adjective would fit his sales. Any librarian (librarians, en passant, are interesting men) could throw an odd light upon the curious relations between
REVIEWS AND ROYALTIES
"Now mark the sequel. Pretty little Mrs. Hubert, bored with her husband's neglect, indites a diary, which a keen-sighted publisher gives to the world. Hey presto! as dear old 'Bertie' Zoda used to say at the never-to-be-forgotten Pen-Pushers' Saturday nights (or were they Sunday mornings? Tush!), in a moment all is changed. She sells fifty copies to her husband's one; the book is in everybody's hands and mouth; the next is eagerly awaited—and poor Hubert finds himself, after all these years of manly efforts, as nothing more glorious than Zoë Brett's husband. Rough luck, Bertie, very!"
With a feeling of almost physical sickness Helena realised how narrow had been the escape. If he had read that, with his sister there——! She tore it viciously across and across, until no hand could ever piece it back to its vile self again. She felt the very action a relief.
In future, so long at any rate as Ruth was with them, she would open and destroy all cuttings. They could refer to nothing but her book. She went along and told the still impassive Lily to keep them all for her. She waited, this done, for Ruth Brett's arrival with far more complacency. At any rate her eyes weren't red....
It is typical of Hubert Brett's peculiar temperament that he had never thought of Ruth—at any rate as guest—until he needed her. He had marked her birthday down in his small pocket-diary, so soon as he bought it each year, and never failed to send a cheery note, however busy; and the same at Christmas. Also, when she had written letters filled with endless details about people he had never met and clearly should dislike, even if he had not read them all, he left no single one unanswered. But for the rest, she had her little cottage on the Norfolk coast and he his little home; so why should either trouble with the other? Many people sacrificed their life to relatives!
When, however, Helena grew so defiant over this affair which had been her own fault entirely, he thought at once of Ruth. She had been always full of doctrines of submission—almost maddeningly so; she saw that women who lived with men who were busy should be considerate, unselfish. She would not, he knew, approve of Helena's idea that she should be an author too, neglect her wifely duties and become a rival to himself. Ruth had been tiresome, certainly, in her persistent martyrdom, but she had never done a thing like that.
As for Ruth Brett herself, she did not question her brother's command. There is a lot in habit; besides, she happened to be fond of him. She took the train, directly she received his wire, and came. She hoped that it was nothing serious. He might have told her—but he wouldn't think....
She had met Helena so few times; Hubert had kept them apart in the old days; but now, so soon as the young wife stepped out into the hall, she flung herself upon her and cried, "What is it? Is he ill? What has happened? Quick!"
Helena was overwhelmed. She had rehearsed so many meetings—always with one idea: to seem at ease in an united home—and none of them of course was right.
"Oh no, he's all right," she said in confusion. How could she explain? "He wants to see you first. In there!" And the bewildered Ruth, scarce entered, still with her umbrella, was thrust at once towards another door; leaving Helena with the reflection that after all things had not turned out too badly, even though all the rehearsals had been absolutely useless.
Hubert jumped up from his table with a cry of welcome.
"But Ruth!" he said, holding her by both arms, "what's happened? I should not have known you." He did not realise the difference which changed environment can make in the chameleon, Woman.
"Well, it's three years," she explained.
"But you look ten years younger!" he cried, laughing. Just for a moment he forgot his troubles. It was incredible, this new Ruth with firm cheeks and bright colour; gayer even of costume. He could not understand—and he was little used to that. "I know!" he said; and then accusingly; "Ruth, you're in love."
At once a little of the old-time pathos crept into her face.
"No," she replied, "I think I've left all that too late."
"What is it, then?" persisted he, manlike.
"It's Norfolk," she said. Not for a million pounds would she have told him it was Freedom.... "Tell me, Hugh," she added quickly, "what has happened? Why did you wire for me? Everything seems quite all right!"
"Everything is utterly all wrong," answered Hubert, finding some consolation in a saying so tremendous; "it couldn't possibly be worse," and he poured the whole story forth with the accumulated passion of a week's not easy silence. How many times he had rehearsed his grievance to himself—when he felt any danger of relenting!
She listened to the end, attentively, in silence, and as she listened, it occurred to her too that these three years had wrought a miracle of change in her. All this, that he was hurling forth indignantly, seemed to her now so tragically small. She realised the pathos of a life in which—as with her, in the days gone by—one sense of wrong after another would always wreck his happiness and wreck the life of any one he loved. It had been her; now it was Helena; there always would be, must be, a victim to his tragical self-centred brooding. And he would not be happy, ever. He would stand alone upon the dignity of his achievement; alone, he would distress himself that nobody considered his work, him; alone, upon his deathbed, he would understand too late that he had never lived at all.
She looked at him with pity as he ended, the tempest lulled by its own blown-out fury.
"Well," he said presently, as she was silent.
"I can't understand," Ruth answered slowly.
"Can't understand?"
"I haven't read the book," she said, "our village library does not believe in modern fiction, but—well, what I don't understand is this. You say she swears the husband wasn't meant for you. Well, then, from what you tell me of his character in the book—weak, selfish, bloated with conceit, a little man who thinks he's great, full of absurd cranks about 'atmosphere' and so on, cruel to his wife—I wonder you can ever pretend, or care to pretend to think that it was meant for you! You surely don't think three years have made you like that?" and she gave a laugh as at some absolute absurdity, confident in her own knowledge of how splendid a man he had always been.
He looked up swiftly. He suspected her. But she did not flinch, for this was a new Ruth indeed. She looked straight at him—puzzled innocent surprise—and it was his gaze that fell after all. He knew what she meant—and she knew also that he knew.
The woman's tact had conquered in a sentence.
"Anyhow," he answered sulkily, acknowledging defeat in that one word, "you must see she is in the wrong? I know you women always hold together, but you must see that it's not—well, not exactly pleasant for me to be paragraphed in every rag as the selfish author-husband, whether I was meant or not. She had no right to publish it without my knowing."
"Oh yes," assented Ruth, "I see that, quite. She has been very silly, but I'm sure she meant nothing and perhaps——" Then she stopped abruptly and repeated; "But she has certainly been silly."
Hubert, oddly full of guilt and humiliation, was glad to leave this interview at such an end. He had planned it in a way very different.
"Well," he said decisively, as he got up, "I can do nothing with her. She persists that she will bring another book out now, and so revive the whole unpleasant business! Tea will be ready and you must want it, but afterwards" (he touched her lovingly upon the arm), "I know you'll want to help me, dear old girl. You'll go and talk to her quite firmly, won't you?"
"I'll go and talk to her, yes," said Ruth, pressing his arm no less fondly.
He did not notice that she dropped the adverbs.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE TWO WAYS
It was not a comfortable meal, this tea, and though Helena no less than Ruth knew it to be the prelude to a scene, neither could feel much regret when Hubert with clumsy ill-ease said; "Well, it is five o'clock, I'll leave you two to a chat," and so out, colliding with the door.
They were left staring at each other, the wife and the sister.
Helena, although she knew the object of this chat and the whole visit, could not work herself up to the pitch of feeling so much resentment as she had intended. This was such a different woman, who looked across at her with bright understanding eyes, from the one she remembered: shrivelled, worthy, with a hint of tracts to come. Helena looked back across the fireplace at her almost with a smile.
It was Ruth who spoke first. "Well," she said, "of course you know I've been asked down to make peace."
It was so unexpected that Helena did actually smile. "To make me a good girl," she emended.
"I'm afraid," laughed Ruth, "as usual with children, you are both to blame."
It all seemed easy in a moment. Helena suddenly felt the thick clouds of misery lift from her soul. She believed in Ruth. The whole air of the little room appeared to change from stiff hostility to friendly hope. Tea seemed a thousand years ago. She gave a cheery little laugh.
"Look here," said Ruth, encouraged, "I'm so glad you're taking it like this; I hated coming down. I know how people feel about in-laws and I thought you'd think I had come down to side with Hubert blindly. I've not, a bit. I'm very fond of him, but I see all his faults. I only want him to be happy. I'm forty, you know, and I've seen a good deal of things, so possibly——" She broke off and said, by an abrupt change; "You see, I lived with him for years and years so I can understand. He's difficult, I know, when you're with him, but when you get away—isn't he a dear?" She smiled.
"He's more than that," said Helena, suddenly wanting to cry.
She had said it unthinking, moved by the other's appeal, but to Ruth it was everything, for it meant that her task was easy. She embarked with confidence.
"When I first lived with him," she began, "I met a lot of well-known writers, artists, actors. He used to go out more then, and it flattered him to meet men who were famous. Well, I came to the conclusion that the greatest men are the most tragic, the most pathetically childish. I suppose you have to be self-centred to succeed; and then somehow, they can't get used to the little things. You know how press-notices upset poor Hubert? Well, they're all like that about something or other. You see, you married a man of that sort and you must make allowances."
"Oh, I do," said Helena, leaping at self-defence. "I always did. It's him. He won't forgive me, won't believe I'm sorry, won't let me put things right. You don't know what this week has been. I can't endure it, really."
"And so," asked Ruth, "you mean to write another book?"
Helena for just one moment scented battle and replied more stiffly. She would not throw her arms down till she knew there was to be no fighting. "What do you expect me to do, otherwise? He won't allow me to see other men, won't talk to me himself. A little house like this is nothing. What am I to do? It isn't even as though I'd a child."
Ruth answered very slowly. "Hugh is just a child," she said with a great tenderness.
Helena laughed. "A child indeed? If you could have heard him this week!" She suddenly grew hostile. "Why," she demanded passionately, "should everything in the house hinge round his career? Why am I not to write another book? Is it because I am a woman? Mine has sold better than all his put together and yet I'm not to do another! I'm just to sit at home, here in this tiny room, while he works and says we've no money! No, I utterly refuse. I've got an offer and I mean to take it."
Ruth looked troubled, feeling that she had been confident too soon.
"Helena," she said very gently, thrusting the name forward to make peace, "I'm not going to ask you to give up your career; I'm asking you to spare Hugh his illusions."
"I don't see," answered Helena, suspicious.
"No," said the other, and then paused. Helena thought that she had finished, when she suddenly began again. "I've been alone a good deal these three years, and I have thought a lot about marriage. Oh, not for myself, no" (she spoke so sadly that Helena relented for a moment); "but because my life now is so different from the one I spent with Hubert, and that makes one think. You know, if I'd my life to live again, I'd live it all alone—I'm afraid, yes, I'd sacrifice Hubert: men are born to marry, not to live with sisters!—but I'd have my life-work."
"And yet," swiftly interrupted Helena in triumph, "you ask me to give up mine?"
"I don't." She spoke decisively. "I only ask you not to sacrifice Hubert's to it."
"I still don't understand." Her voice was almost resentful.
"Hubert married you," began Ruth expansively, "because he is the sort of man who needs encouragement. He wanted some one who'd think his work wonderful and ask him how he did it. You surely see the difference? Imagine his life now, for any one like him: your bigger sales, your long reviews, your photographs, his own eclipse. It is impossible."
Helena remembered the press-notice and spoke more obediently. "What are you asking me to do then?"
"Leave him." The words dropped out like heavy weights.
"Leave him?" cried Helena, and by a natural dramatic instinct she rose from her chair. "Leave him when I'm fond of him?"
Ruth looked very earnest. "Leave him," she said again, "unless you're fond enough of him to give up your career. I tell you—I know—you can not have both, with Hubert."
"You cannot serve God and Mammon," murmured Helena. She did not know that she had said it. She sank down into her chair again and forced her numb brain to thought.
"Don't break all his illusions," she heard Ruth saying, miles away. "Be gentle with him if you're fond of him. You know how sensitive he is. Your books, you say, sell better. How do you think he could ever endure that, he who—I tell you—is nothing but a child? It would be agony, a life-time agony; disgrace. He lives upon success, on admiration, on being the centre even of a little house. How could a man like that endure to be just Helena Brett's husband? ... Oh no, you won't do it, you can't be so brutal. No one can forbid you your career, but go away and work it out alone. I will look after Hubert, if he needs me."
That struck home, among these words that came dully to Helena through the chaos of her thought. "So that's it," she said with a bitter laugh, longing to hurt somehow. "You're thinking of yourself."
"God knows," said Ruth solemnly, "I wouldn't come back willingly for half the world, fond as I am of Hugh. I've lived since I got right away alone beside the sea. He always trampled on me; I lay down; I haven't got your courage. I often cried myself to sleep—and he not even guessing he had been unkind! It was hideous, I see now; hideous every day of it. But I'd go through it all again, and worse, sooner than expose him to this agony."
There was conviction in her tones. Helena tried to arouse herself. "Leave him?" she said dully. "Surely there's some other way? Even if he didn't mind, think of—— You talk about agony, but how can you advise me to do this, when you know how his friends——"
"Nothing would hurt him," said Ruth earnestly, "nothing in all the world—that is the awful part—so much as this blow to his pride, this shattering of all his life-work. He thinks—he told me so—he thinks this book of yours was just a fluke, an amateur attempt; that you can never do another. Oh, don't you see?" (she cried impatiently): "Must I put it in words? He thinks that he is a real author, you just nobody; that he has studied, he has nerves and everything an artist has, but you are just a woman. He lives upon his self-conceit.... Oh yes, I've said it now; I had to. It's not disloyalty. I'm fond of Hubert too—everybody is, because he is so thorough in it, such a perfect child. And everybody spares him too. Men of his sort are never told; everybody pities them the shock. They smile on him and like to see him so contented. They call him 'dear old Hubert.' It's half pity, yes—but also it's half love. I've seen it all so clearly since I got away. I've sometimes told myself that if I had those years again, I should let him have the whole truth; but I know that I shouldn't. And you won't either, Helena. Nobody ever does. They dream on happily, and all we others seem the selfish ones to them. It's all a comedy, when you're not near enough to see the tragedy. I've thought a lot about it, and I'm so glad now I was gentle. And you'll be gentle too, I know. You'll either go away or you won't write: it's not for me to settle which; but you'll be gentle. You said just now you hadn't got a child. You have. No married woman is without a child. You won't be hard, I know, will you, because your child has been a little spoilt and things have suddenly gone wrong, and—just for a little bit—he loves to hurt his toys?"
"I—I never thought of it like that," said Helena, an odd look in her eyes. "I thought him so splendid and clever, so terribly above me. It all seemed so hopeless."
For answer Ruth went across and kissed this girl who made her feel so old. "I wish we had known each other sooner," she said. "I must go and unpack."
But outside in the hall she stood for a few moments, dabbing at her eyes with a quite fashionably small handkerchief.