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A terrible blow fell upon her the next morning. Stephen had one of
his bad colds, one of his worst. The mere cold she could have
supported with fortitude, but he was forced to remain indoors, and
his presence in the house she could not support with fortitude.
The music-stool would be sure to arrive before lunch, and he would
be there to see it arrive. The ecstasy had fully expired now, and
she had more leisure to think than she wanted. She could not
imagine what mad instinct had compelled her to buy the music-
stool. (Once out of the shop these instincts always are difficult
to imagine.) She knew that Stephen would be angry. He might
perhaps go to the length of returning the music-stool whence it
came. For, though she was a pretty and pampered woman, Stephen had
a way, in the last resort, of being master of his own house. And
she could not even placate him with the gift of a cigar-cabinet.
She could not buy a five-guinea cigar-cabinet with ten and six.
She had no other money in the world. She never had money, yet
money was always running through her fingers. Stephen treated her
generously, gave her an ample allowance, but he would under no
circumstances permit credit, nor would he pay her allowance in
advance. She had nothing to expect till the New Year.
She attended to his cold, and telephoned to the works for a clerk
to come up, and she refrained from telling Stephen that he must
have been very careless while in London, to catch a cold like
that. Her self-denial in this respect surprised Stephen, but he
put it down to the beneficent influence of Christmas and the
Venetian vases.
Bostock's pair-horse van arrived before the garden gate earlier
than her worse fears had anticipated, and Bostock's men were
evidently in a tremendous hurry that morning. In quite an
abnormally small number of seconds the wooden case containing the
fragile music-stool was lying in the inner hall, waiting to be
unpacked. Having signed the delivery-book Vera stood staring at
the accusatory package. Stephen was lounging over the dining-room
fire, perhaps dozing. She would have the thing swiftly transported
up-stairs and hidden in an attic for a time.
But just then Stephen popped out of the dining-room. Stephen's
masculine curiosity had been aroused by the advent of Bostock's
van. He had observed the incoming of the package from the window,
and he had ventured to the hall to inspect it. The event had
roused him wonderfully from the heavy torpor which a cold induces.
He wore a dressing-gown, the pockets of which bulged with
handkerchiefs.
'You oughtn't to be out here, Stephen,' said his wife.
'Nonsense!' he said. 'Why, upon my soul, this steam heat is warmer
than the dining-room fire.' Vera, silenced by the voice of truth,
could not reply.
Stephen bent his great height to inspect the package. It was an
appetizing Christmas package; straw escaped from between its ribs,
and it had an air of being filled with something at once large and
delicate.
'Oh!' observed Stephen, humorously. 'Ah! So this is it, is it? Ah!
Oh! Very good!'
And he walked round it.
How on earth had he learnt that she had bought it? She had not
mentioned the purchase to Mr Woodruff.
'Yes, Stephen,' she said timidly. 'That's it, and I hope--'
'It ought to hold a tidy few cigars, that ought,' remarked Stephen
complacently.
He took it for the cigar-cabinet!
She paused, struck. She had to make up her mind in an instant.
'Oh yes,' she murmured.
'A thousand?'
'Yes, a thousand,' she said.
'I thought so,' murmured Stephen. 'I mustn't kiss you, because
I've got a cold,' said he. 'But, all the same I'm awfully obliged,
Vera. Suppose we have it opened now, eh? Then we could decide
where it is to go, and I could put my cigars in it.'
'Oh no,' she protested. 'Oh no, Stephen! That's not fair! It
mustn't be opened before Christmas morning.'
'But I gave you my vases yesterday.'
'That's different,' she said. 'Christmas is Christmas.' 'Oh, very
well,' he yielded. 'That's all right, my dear.'
Then he began to sniff.
'There's a deuced odd smell from it,' he said.
'Perhaps it's the wood!' she faltered.
'I hope it isn't,' he said. 'I expect it's the straw. A deuced odd
smell. We'll have the thing put in the side hall, next to the
clock. It will be out of the way there. And I can come and gaze at
it when I feel depressed. Eh, Maria?' He was undoubtedly charmed
at the prospect of owning so large and precious a cigar-cabinet.
Considering that the parcel which she had given to Penkethman to
put in the music-stool comprised a half-a-pound of Bostock's very
ripest Gorgonzola cheese, bought at the cook's special request,
the smell which proceeded from the mysterious inwards of the
packing-case did not surprise Vera at all. But it disconcerted her
none the less. And she wondered how she could get the cheese out.
For thirty hours the smell from the unopened packing-case waxed in
vigour and strength. Stephen's cold grew worse and prevented him
from appreciating its full beauty, but he savoured enough of it to
induce him to compare it facetiously to the effluvium of a dead
rat, and he said several times that Bostock's really ought to use
better straw. He was frequently to be seen in the hall, gloating
over his cigar-cabinet. Once he urged Vera to have it opened and
so get rid of the straw, but she refused, and found the nerve to
tell him that he was exaggerating the odour.
She was at a loss what to do. She could not get up in the middle
of the night and unpack the package and hide its guilty secret.
Indeed, to unpack the package would bring about her ruin
instantly; for, the package unpacked, Stephen would naturally
expect to see the cigar-cabinet. And so the hours crept on to
Christmas and Vera's undoing. She gave herself a headache.
It was just thirty hours after the arrival of the package when Mr
Woodruff dropped in for tea. Stephen was asleep in the dining-
room, which apartment he particularly affected during his colds.
Woodruff was shown into the drawing-room, where Vera was having
her headache. Vera brightened. In fact, she suddenly grew very
bright. And she gave Woodruff tea, and took some herself, and
Woodruff passed an enjoyable twenty minutes.
The two Venetian vases were on the mantelpiece. Vera rose into
ecstasies about them, and called upon Charlie Woodruff to rise
too. He got up from his chair to examine the vases, which Vera had
placed close together side by side at the corner of the
mantelpiece nearest to him. Vera and Woodruff also stood close
together side by side. And just as Woodruff was about to handle
the vases, Vera knocked his arm; his arm collided with one vase;
that vase collided with the next, and both fell to earth--to the
hard, unfeeling, unyielding tiles of the hearth.
Read next: PART V - VERA'S FIRST CHRISTMAS ADVENTURE: CHAPTER IV
Read previous: PART V - VERA'S FIRST CHRISTMAS ADVENTURE: CHAPTER II
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