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_ On reading over what I have written of the Stricklands, I am
conscious that they must seem shadowy. I have been able to
invest them with none of those characteristics which make the
persons of a book exist with a real life of their own; and,
wondering if the fault is mine, I rack my brains to remember
idiosyncrasies which might lend them vividness. I feel that
by dwelling on some trick of speech or some queer habit I
should be able to give them a significance peculiar to themselves.
As they stand they are like the figures in an old tapestry;
they do not separate themselves from the background,
and at a distance seem to lose their pattern, so that you have
little but a pleasing piece of colour. My only excuse is that
the impression they made on me was no other. There was just
that shadowiness about them which you find in people whose
lives are part of the social organism, so that they exist in
it and by it only. They are like cells in the body, essential,
but, so long as they remain healthy, engulfed in
the momentous whole. The Stricklands were an average family
in the middle class. A pleasant, hospitable woman, with a
harmless craze for the small lions of literary society; a
rather dull man, doing his duty in that state of life in which
a merciful Providence had placed him; two nice-looking,
healthy children. Nothing could be more ordinary. I do not
know that there was anything about them to excite the
attention of the curious.
When I reflect on all that happened later, I ask myself if I
was thick-witted not to see that there was in Charles
Strickland at least something out of the common. Perhaps.
I think that I have gathered in the years that intervene between
then and now a fair knowledge of mankind, but even if when I first
met the Stricklands I had the experience which I have now,
I do not believe that I should have judged them
differently. But because I have learnt that man is incalculable,
I should not at this time of day be so surprised by the news
that reached me when in the early autumn I returned to London.
I had not been back twenty-four hours before I ran across Rose
Waterford in Jermyn Street.
"You look very gay and sprightly," I said. "What's the matter
with you?"
She smiled, and her eyes shone with a malice I knew already.
It meant that she had heard some scandal about one of her
friends, and the instinct of the literary woman was all alert.
"You did meet Charles Strickland, didn't you?"
Not only her face, but her whole body, gave a sense of alacrity.
I nodded. I wondered if the poor devil had been
hammered on the Stock Exchange or run over by an omnibus.
"Isn't it dreadful? He's run away from his wife."
Miss Waterford certainly felt that she could not do her
subject justice on the curb of Jermyn Street, and so,
like an artist, flung the bare fact at me and declared that
she knew no details. I could not do her the injustice of supposing
that so trifling a circumstance would have prevented her from
giving them, but she was obstinate.
"I tell you I know nothing," she said, in reply to my agitated
questions, and then, with an airy shrug of the shoulders:
"I believe that a young person in a city tea-shop has left
her situation."
She flashed a smile at me, and, protesting an engagement with
her dentist, jauntily walked on. I was more interested than
distressed. In those days my experience of life at first hand
was small, and it excited me to come upon an incident among
people I knew of the same sort as I had read in books.
I confess that time has now accustomed me to incidents of this
character among my acquaintance. But I was a little shocked.
Strickland was certainly forty, and I thought it disgusting
that a man of his age should concern himself with affairs of
the heart. With the superciliousness of extreme youth, I put
thirty-five as the utmost limit at which a man might fall in
love without making a fool of himself. And this news was
slightly disconcerting to me personally, because I had written
from the country to Mrs. Strickland, announcing my return, and
had added that unless I heard from her to the contrary,
I would come on a certain day to drink a dish of tea with her.
This was the very day, and I had received no word from Mrs.
Strickland. Did she want to see me or did she not? It was
likely enough that in the agitation of the moment my note had
escaped her memory. Perhaps I should be wiser not to go.
On the other hand, she might wish to keep the affair quiet,
and it might be highly indiscreet on my part to give any sign that
this strange news had reached me. I was torn between the fear
of hurting a nice woman's feelings and the fear of being in
the way. I felt she must be suffering, and I did not want to
see a pain which I could not help; but in my heart was a
desire, that I felt a little ashamed of, to see how she was
taking it. I did not know what to do.
Finally it occurred to me that I would call as though nothing
had happened, and send a message in by the maid asking Mrs.
Strickland if it was convenient for her to see me. This would
give her the opportunity to send me away. But I was
overwhelmed with embarrassment when I said to the maid the
phrase I had prepared, and while I waited for the answer in a
dark passage I had to call up all my strength of mind not to bolt.
The maid came back. Her manner suggested to my excited
fancy a complete knowledge of the domestic calamity.
"Will you come this way, sir?" she said.
I followed her into the drawing-room. The blinds were partly
drawn to darken the room, and Mrs. Strickland was sitting with
her back to the light. Her brother-in-law, Colonel MacAndrew,
stood in front of the fireplace, warming his back at an unlit fire.
To myself my entrance seemed excessively awkward. I imagined
that my arrival had taken them by surprise, and Mrs. Strickland
had let me come in only because she had forgotten to put me off.
I fancied that the Colonel resented the interruption.
"I wasn't quite sure if you expected me," I said, trying to
seem unconcerned.
"Of course I did. Anne will bring the tea in a minute."
Even in the darkened room, I could not help seeing that Mrs.
Strickland's face was all swollen with tears. Her skin,
never very good, was earthy.
"You remember my brother-in-law, don't you? You met at dinner,
just before the holidays."
We shook hands. I felt so shy that I could think of nothing
to say, but Mrs. Strickland came to my rescue. She asked me
what I had been doing with myself during the summer, and with
this help I managed to make some conversation till tea was
brought in. The Colonel asked for a whisky-and-soda.
"You'd better have one too, Amy," he said.
"No; I prefer tea."
This was the first suggestion that anything untoward
had happened. I took no notice, and did my best to engage
Mrs. Strickland in talk. The Colonel, still standing in front
of the fireplace, uttered no word. I wondered how soon I could
decently take my leave, and I asked myself why on earth Mrs.
Strickland had allowed me to come. There were no flowers,
and various knick-knacks, put away during the summer, had not been
replaced; there was something cheerless and stiff about the
room which had always seemed so friendly; it gave you an odd
feeling, as though someone were lying dead on the other side
of the wall. I finished tea.
"Will you have a cigarette?" asked Mrs. Strickland.
She looked about for the box, but it was not to be seen.
"I'm afraid there are none."
Suddenly she burst into tears, and hurried from the room.
I was startled. I suppose now that the lack of cigarettes,
brought as a rule by her husband, forced him back upon her
recollection, and the new feeling that the small comforts she
was used to were missing gave her a sudden pang. She realised
that the old life was gone and done with. It was impossible
to keep up our social pretences any longer.
"I dare say you'd like me to go," I said to the Colonel,
getting up.
"I suppose you've heard that blackguard has deserted her,"
he cried explosively.
I hesitated.
"You know how people gossip," I answered. "I was vaguely told
that something was wrong."
"He's bolted. He's gone off to Paris with a woman. He's left
Amy without a penny."
"I'm awfully sorry," I said, not knowing what else to say.
The Colonel gulped down his whisky. He was a tall, lean man
of fifty, with a drooping moustache and grey hair. He had
pale blue eyes and a weak mouth. I remembered from my
previous meeting with him that he had a foolish face, and was
proud of the fact that for the ten years before he left the
army he had played polo three days a week.
"I don't suppose Mrs. Strickland wants to be bothered with me
just now," I said. "Will you tell her how sorry I am?
If there's anything I can do. I shall be delighted to do it."
He took no notice of me.
"I don't know what's to become of her. And then there are the
children. Are they going to live on air? Seventeen years."
"What about seventeen years?"
"They've been married," he snapped. "I never liked him.
Of course he was my brother-in-law, and I made the best of it.
Did you think him a gentleman? She ought never to have
married him."
"Is it absolutely final?"
"There's only one thing for her to do, and that's to divorce
him. That's what I was telling her when you came in.
'Fire in with your petition, my dear Amy,' I said. `You owe it
to yourself and you owe it to the children.' He'd better not let
me catch sight of him. I'd thrash him within an inch of his life."
I could not help thinking that Colonel MacAndrew might have
some difficulty in doing this, since Strickland had struck me
as a hefty fellow, but I did not say anything. It is always
distressing when outraged morality does not possess the
strength of arm to administer direct chastisement on the sinner.
I was making up my mind to another attempt at going
when Mrs. Strickland came back. She had dried her eyes and
powdered her nose.
"I'm sorry I broke down," she said. "I'm glad you didn't go away."
She sat down. I did not at all know what to say. I felt a
certain shyness at referring to matters which were no concern
of mine. I did not then know the besetting sin of woman,
the passion to discuss her private affairs with anyone who is
willing to listen. Mrs. Strickland seemed to make an effort
over herself.
"Are people talking about it?" she asked.
I was taken aback by her assumption that I knew all about her
domestic misfortune.
"I've only just come back. The only person I've seen is Rose
Waterford."
Mrs. Strickland clasped her hands.
"Tell me exactly what she said." And when I hesitated,
she insisted. "I particularly want to know."
"You know the way people talk. She's not very reliable, is
she? She said your husband had left you."
"Is that all?"
I did not choose to repeat Rose Waterford's parting reference
to a girl from a tea-shop. I lied.
"She didn't say anything about his going with anyone?"
"No."
"That's all I wanted to know."
I was a little puzzled, but at all events I understood that I
might now take my leave. When I shook hands with Mrs.
Strickland I told her that if I could be of any use to her I
should be very glad. She smiled wanly.
"Thank you so much. I don't know that anybody can do anything
for me."
Too shy to express my sympathy, I turned to say good-bye to
the Colonel. He did not take my hand.
"I'm just coming. If you're walking up Victoria Street,
I'll come along with you."
"All right," I said. "Come on." _
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