The Price of Love, Arnold Bennett [important of reading books .TXT] 📗

of the footballers reached them.

"What a pity!" she sympathized eagerly. "I'm sure it must be splendid." His situation seemed extraordinarily tragic to her. His short hair, ruffled by the keen wind, was just like a boy's hair and somehow the sight of it touched her deeply.

He put his hands far into his pockets and drummed one foot on the ground.

"What brought ye up here?" he demanded, with his eyes on an invisible town of Axe.

She opened her hand-bag.

"I came to bring you this," she said, and offered him an envelope, which he took, wonderingly.

Then, when he had it in his hands, he said abruptly, angrily, "If it's that money, I won't take it."

"Yes you will."

"Has Louis sent ye?" This was the first mention of Louis, though he was well aware of the accident.

She shook her head.

"Well, let him keep his half, and you can keep mine."

"It's all there."

"How--all there?"

"All that you left the other night."

"But--but--" He seemed to be furious as he faced her.

Rachel went on--

"The other part of the missing money's been found ... Louis had it. So all this belongs to you. If some one hadn't told you it wouldn't have been fair."

She flushed slowly, trembling, but looking at him.

"Well!" Julian burst out with savage solemnity, "there's not many of your sort knocking about. By G---- there isn't!"

She walked quickly away from his passionate homage to her.

"Here!" he shouted, fingering the envelope.

But she kept on at a swift pace towards Hanbridge. About a quarter of a mile down the road the pigeon-flyer's dogcart stood empty outside a public-house.


CHAPTER XVI


THE LETTER

I


Rachel stood at her own front door and took off her glove in order more easily to manipulate the latch-key, which somehow, since coming into frequent use again, had never been the same manageable latch-key, but a cantankerous old thing, though still very bright. She opened the door quietly, and stepped inside quietly, lest by chance she might disturb Louis, the invalid--but also because she was a little afraid.

The most contradictory feelings can exist together in the mind. After the desolate discomfort of Julian Maldon's lodging and the spectacle of his clumsiness in the important affair of mere living, Rachel was conscious of a deep and proud happiness as she re-entered the efficient, cosy, and gracious organism of her own home. But simultaneously with this feeling of happiness she had a dreadful general apprehension that the organism might soon be destroyed, and a particular apprehension concerning her next interview with Louis, for at the next interview she would be under the necessity of telling him about her transaction with Julian. She had been absolutely determined upon that transaction. She had said to herself, "Whatever happens, I shall take that money to Julian and insist on his keeping all of it." She had, in fact, been very brave--indeed, audacious. Now the consequences were imminent, and they frightened her; she was less brave now. One awkward detail of the immediate future was that to tell Louis would be to reopen the entire question of the theft, which she had several times in the most abrupt and arrogant manner refused to discuss with him.

As soon as she had closed the front door she perceived that twilight was already obscuring the interior of the house. But she could plainly see that the parlour door was about two inches ajar, exactly as she had left it a couple of hours earlier. Probably Louis had not stirred. She listened vainly for a sign of life from him. Probably he was reading, for on rare occasions when he read a novel he would stick to the book with surprising pertinacity. At any rate, he would be too lofty to give any sign that he had heard her return. Under less sinister circumstances he might have yelled gaily: "I say, Rache!" for in a teasing mood he would sometimes prefer "Rache" to "Louise."

Rachel from the lobby could see the fire bright in the kitchen, and a trayful of things on the kitchen table ready to be brought into the parlour for high tea.

Mrs. Tams was out. It was not among Mrs. Tams's regular privileges to be out in the afternoon. But this was Easter Saturday--rather a special day--and, further, one of her daughters had gone away for Easter and left a child with one of her daughters-in-law, and Mrs. Tams had desired to witness some of the dealings of her daughter-in-law with her grandchild. Not without just pride had Mrs. Tams related the present circumstances to Rachel. In Mrs. Tams's young maturity parents who managed a day excursion to Blackpool in the year did well, and those who went away for four or five days at Knype Wakes in August were princes and plutocrats. But nowadays even a daughter of Mrs. Tams, not satisfied with a week at Knype Wakes, could take a week-end at Easter just like great folk such as Louis. Which proved that the community at large, or Mrs. Tams's family, had famously got up in the world. Rachel recalled Louis' suggestion, more than a week earlier, of a trip to Llandudno. The very planet itself had aged since then.

She looked at the clock. In twenty minutes Mrs. Tams would be back. She and Louis were alone together in the house. She might go straight into the parlour, and say, in as indifferent and ordinary a voice as she could assume: "I've just been over to Julian Maldon's to give him that money--all of it, you know," and thus get the affair finished before Mrs. Tams's reappearance. Louis was within a few feet of her, hidden only by the door which a push would cause to swing!... Yes, but she could not persuade herself to push the door! The door seemed to be protected from her hand by a mysterious spell which she dared not break. She was, indeed, overwhelmed by the simple but tremendous fact that Louis and herself were alone together in the darkening house. She decided, pretending to be quite calm: "I'll just run upstairs and take my things off first. There's no use in my seeming to be in a hurry."

In the bedroom she arranged her toilet for the evening, and established order in every corner of the chamber. Under the washstand lay the long row of Louis' boots and shoes, each pair in stretchers. She suddenly contrasted Julian's heavy and arrogant dowdiness with the nice dandyism of Louis. She could not help thinking that Julian would be a terrible person to live with. This was the first thought favourable to Louis which had flitted through her mind for a long time. She dismissed it. Nothing in another man could be as terrible to live with as the defects of Louis. She set herself--she was obliged to set herself--high above Louis. The souvenir of the admiration of old Batchgrew and John's Ernest, the touching humility before her of Julian Maldon, once more inflated her self-esteem--it could not possibly have failed to do so. She knew that she was an extraordinary woman, and a prize.

Invigorated and reassured by these reflections, she descended proudly to the ground floor. And then, hesitating at the entrance to the parlour, she went into the kitchen and poked the fire. As the fire was in excellent condition there was no reason for this act except her diffidence at the prospect of an encounter with Louis. At last, having examined the tea-tray and invented other delays, she tightened her nerves and passed into the parlour to meet the man who seemed to be waiting for her like the danger of a catastrophe. He was not there. The parlour was empty. His book was lying on the Chesterfield.

She felt relieved. It was perhaps not very wise for him to have gone out for a walk, but if he chose to run risks, he was free to do so, for all she cared. In the meantime the interview was postponed; hence her craven relief. She lit the gas, but not by the same device as in Mrs. Maldon's day; and then she saw an envelope lying on the table. It was addressed in Louis' handwriting to "Mrs. Louis Fores." She was alone in the house. She felt sick. Why should he write a letter to her and leave it there on the table? She invented half a dozen harmless reasons for the letter, but none of them was the least convincing. The mere aspect of the letter frightened her horribly. There was no strength in her limbs. She tore the envelope in a daze.

The letter ran--

Dear Rachel,--I have decided to leave England. I do not know
how long I shall be away. I cannot and will not stand the life
I have been leading with you this last week. I had a perfectly
satisfactory explanation to give you, but you have most rudely
refused to listen to it. So now I shall not give it. I shall
write you as to my plans. I shall send you whatever money is
necessary for you. By the way, I put four hundred and fifty
pounds away in my private drawer. On looking for it this
afternoon I see that you have taken it, without saying a word
to me. You must account to me for this money. When you have
done so we will settle how much I am to send you. In the
meantime you can draw from it for necessary expenses.

Yours,

L.F.

II


Rachel stared at the letter. It was the first letter she had seen written on the new note-paper, embossed with the address, "Bycars, Bursley." Louis would not have "Bycars Lane" on the note-paper, because "Bycars" alone was more vague and impressive; distant strangers might take it to be the name of a magnificent property. Her lips curled. She violently ripped the paper to bits and stuck them in the fire; a few fragments escaped and fluttered like snow on to the fender. She screwed up the envelope and flung it after the letter. Her face smarted and tingled as the blood rushed passionately to her head.

She thought, aghast: "Everything is over! He will never come back. He will never have enough moral force to come back. We haven't been married two months, and everything is over! And this is Easter Saturday! He wanted us to be at Llandudno or somewhere for Easter, and I shouldn't be at all surprised if he's gone there. Yes, he would be capable of that. And if it wasn't for the plaster on his face, he'd be capable of gallivanting on Llandudno pier this very night!"

She had no illusion as to him. She saw him as objectively as a god might have seen him.

And then she thought with fury: "Oh, what a fool I've been! What a little fool! Why didn't I listen to him? Why didn't I foresee?... No, I've _not_ been a fool! I've not! I've not! What did I do wrong? Nothing! I couldn't have borne his explanations!... Explanations, indeed! I can imagine his explanations! Did he expect me to smile and kiss him after he'd told me he was a thief?"

And then she thought, in reference to his desertion: "It's not true! It can't be true!"

She wanted to read the letter again, so that perhaps she might