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Curious and strange things had a way of happening to Vera--
perhaps because she was an extremely feminine woman. But of all
the curious and strange things that ever did happen to Vera, this
was certainly the strangest and the most curious. It makes a
somewhat exasperating narrative, because the affair ended--or,
rather, Vera caused it to end--on a note of interrogation. The
reader may, however, draw consolation from the fact that, if he is
tormented by an unanswerable query, Vera herself was much more
tormented by precisely the same query.
Two days before Christmas, at about three o'clock in the
afternoon, just when it was getting dusk and the distant smokepall
of the Five Towns was merging in the general greyness of the
northern sky, Vera was sitting in the bow-window of the drawing-
room of Stephen Cheswardine's newly-acquired house at Sneyd; Sneyd
being the fashionable suburb of the Five Towns, graced by the near
presence of a countess. And as the slim, thirty-year-old Vera sat
there, moody (for reasons which will soon appear), in her charming
teagown, her husband drove up to the door in the dogcart, and he
was not alone. He had with him a man of vigorous and dashing
appearance, fair, far from ugly, and with a masterful face, keen
eyes, and most magnificent furs round about him. At sight of the
visitor Vera's heart did not exactly jump, but it nearly jumped.
Presently, Stephen brought his acquaintance into the drawing-
room.
"My wife," said Stephen, rubbing his hands. "Vera, this is Mr
Bittenger, of New York. He will give us the pleasure of spending
the night here."
And now Vera's little heart really did jump.
She behaved with the delicious wayward grace which she could
always command when she chose to command it. No one would have
guessed that she had not spoken to Stephen for a week.
'I'm most happy--most happy,' said Mr Bittenger, with a marked
accent and a fine complimentary air. And obviously he was most
happy. Vera had impressed him. There was nothing surprising in
that. She was in the fullness of her powers in that direction.
It is at this point--at the point of the first jumping of Vera's
heart--that the tale begins to be uncanny and disturbing. Thus
runs the explanation.
During the year Stephen had gradually grown more and more
preoccupied with the subject of his own health. The earthenware
business was very good, although, of course, manufacturers were
complaining just as usual. Trade, indeed, flourished to such an
extent that Stephen had pronounced himself to be suffering from
nervous strain and overwork. The symptoms of his malady were
chiefly connected with the assimilation of food; to be brief, it
was dyspepsia. And as Stephen had previously been one of those
favoured people who can eat anything at any hour, and arise in the
best of health the next day, Stephen was troubled. At last--about
August, when he was obliged to give up wine--he had suddenly
decided that the grimy air of the Five Towns was bad for him, and
that the household should be removed to Sneyd. And removed to
Sneyd it accordingly was. The new house was larger and more
splendid even than the Cheswardine abode at Bursley. But Vera did
not like the change. Vera preferred the town. Nevertheless, she
could not openly demur, since Stephen's health was supposed to be
at stake.
During the autumn she was tremendously bored at Sneyd. She had
practically no audience for her pretty dresses, and her friends
would not flock over from Bursley because of the difficulty of
getting home at night. Then it was that Vera had the beautiful
idea of spending Christmas in Switzerland. Someone had told her
about a certain hotel called The Bear, where, on Christmas Day,
never less than a hundred well-dressed and wealthy English people
sat down to an orthodox Christmas dinner. The notion enchanted
her. She decided, definitely, that she and Stephen should do their
Christmassing at The Bear, wherever the Bear was. And as she was
fully aware of the power of her capricious charm over Stephen, she
regarded the excursion as arranged before she had broached it to
him.
Stephen refused. He remarked bitterly that the very thought of a
mince-tart made him ill; and that he hated 'abroad'.
Vera took her defeat badly.
She pouted. She sulked. She announced that, if she was not to be
allowed to do her Christmassing at The Bear, she would not do it
anywhere. She indicated that she meant to perish miserably of
ennui in the besotted dullness of Sneyd, and that no Christmas-
party of any kind should occur in HER house. She ceased to show
interest in Stephen's health. She would not speak. In fact, she
went too far. One day, in reply to her rude silence, Stephen said:
'Very well, child, if that's your game, I'll play it with you.
Except when other people are present, not a word do I speak to you
until you have first spoken to me.'
She knew he would abide by that. He was a monster. She hated him.
She loathed him (so she said to herself).
That night, in the agony of her distress, she had dreamed a dream.
She dreamed that a stranger came to the house. The details were
vague, but the stranger had travelled many miles over water. She
could not see him distinctly, but she knew that he was quite bald.
In spite of his baldness he inspired her with sympathy. He
understood her, praised her costumes, and treated a woman as a
woman ought to be treated. Then, somehow or other, he was making
love to her, the monster Stephen being absent. She was shocked by
his making love to her, and she moved a little farther off him on
the sofa (he had sat down by her on a vague sort of sofa in a
vague sort of room); but still she was thrilled, and she could not
feel as wicked as she felt she ought to feel. Then the dream
became hazy; it became hazy at the interesting point of her answer
to the love-making. A later stage was very clear. Something was
afoot between the monster Stephen and the stranger in the dining-
room, and she was locked out of the dining-room. It was Christmas
night. She knocked frantically at the door, and at last forced it
open, and Stephen was lying in the middle of the floor; the table
had been pushed into a corner. 'I killed him quite by accident,'
said the stranger affably. And then he seized her by the hand and
ruthlessly dragged her away, away, away; and they travelled in
trains and ships and trains, and they came to a very noisy,
clanging sort of city--and Vera woke up. It had been a highly
realistic dream, and it made a deep impression on Vera.
Can one wonder that Vera's heart, being a superstitious little
heart, like all our hearts, should leap when the very next day
Stephen turned up with a completely unexpected stranger from New
York? Of course, dreams are nonsense! Of course! Still--
She did not know whether to rejoice or mourn over the fact that Mr
Bittenger was not bald. He was decidedly unbald; he had a glorious
shock of chestnut hair. That hair of his naturally destroyed any
possible connection with the dream. None the less the coincidence
was bizarre.
Read next: PART VII - CHAPTER VERA'S SECOND CHRISTMAS ADVENTURE: CHAPTER II
Read previous: PART VI - THE MURDER OF THE MANDARIN: CHAPTER III
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