The Garden of Mystery

— III —

— III —THE SUMMER HOUSE

Mrs. Owen was feeling unwell, as, when there was any unpleasantness in the air, she was very apt to do. There was something decidedly disagreeable in the air just then. Doris was behaving in a way which was most unsatisfactory. And that in spite of her mother’s plaintive wailing.

“Really, Doris, if you will persist in going on like this you’ll make me thoroughly ill. You know how easily things do upset me. In my present state of health it’s most unfeeling – most!”

Mrs. Owen, lying farther back on the pillows of the couch, held a cologne-laden pocket handkerchief to her forehead with one hand, and a bottle of smelling-salts to her nostrils with the other. In spite, however, of the lady’s conspicuous distress, her daughter continued to persist.

“I’m very sorry, mother, but you have brought it all upon yourself. If you will subject me to such humiliations—”

“Brought it all upon myself! Subject you to humiliations! As if you yourself were not the cause of everything! Oh, my poor head! I know I’m going to be ill.”

Instead of appearing properly sympathetic, an angry light came into the young lady’s eyes; her lips were drawn tighter together.

“I don’t wish to argue with you as to who has been most to blame—”

“I should think you didn’t!”

“But you yourself must see how perfectly impossible our position is in Mr. Thurston’s house.”

“Mr. Thurston! Why will you speak of him like that?”

“Is his name not Thurston?”

“Doris, you will drive me mad! When you have called him Alan all your life!”

“I will never call him Alan again, I promise you that; and surely you should be the last person to remind me that I have ever done so.”

“Oh, my poor head! Where is my phenacetin?”

“That you should insist on dragging me here was bad enough; but that you should think of staying when it is the evident intention of that woman he has married—”

“He would have had to marry a woman even if he had married you. Don’t throw the fact of his having married a woman in his face, my dear. You might have been the woman he has married had you chosen; don’t show temper because, by your own action, you are not.”

“Mother, why won’t you look the truth in the face?”

“Oh, my poor head! Why will you shout like this?”

“Don’t you know as well as I do how he has played fast and loose with me, throwing me on and off as if I were an old glove. Since you are my mother, one would have thought that you would have protected me from him; but that you have never dreamt of doing.”

“If you were like any ordinary person you wouldn’t talk such nonsense. You wanted a saint; instead of which Alan Thurston is just an ordinary man.”

“I should imagine, mother, that only an extraordinary man would treat the girl to whom he is engaged as Alan Thurston has treated me. I have forgiven him again and again for what the ordinary woman would never have forgiven him once. How long ago is it since he came to me with vows of penitence, imploring me to give him another trial? And then – within a month! – he marries a woman whom he has met for the first time in his life less than a fortnight before – and you say I could have married him. Apparently anyone could have done that.”

“Exactly. That has been my opinion all along, which only shows how foolish you were not to take advantage of the chance when you had it.”

“Mother, for both our sakes I will credit you with an incapacity to understand the meaning of your own words. And then, after he has used me in such a fashion, you drag me here, to his house, immediately after he has returned from his honeymoon. No wonder he does not condescend to be at home to receive us, and that his wife is insolent. I don’t know what you intend to do, but I shall leave tomorrow.”

“You shall do nothing of the kind. If you are not careful you will really rouse me, and then you will be sorry, as you frequently are when it is too late. Since you take up this high-faluting strain you shall know what my – what our exact position is. Are you aware that I changed our last five-pound note to bring us here?”

“Mother!”

“Our last five-pound note! I have less than two sovereigns left. If you insist on leaving tomorrow I have hardly enough money to pay your fare to London, and then what is to become of you – of both of us?”

The girl stood facing her with white cheeks and wide-open eyes.

“Mother, is this true?”

“Absolutely, literally true! I have not two sovereigns left in all the world. I don’t know what you have.”

“I? I have only a few shillings – certainly not half-a-sovereign.”

“Then that is precisely how it is with us.”

“But – I don’t understand. I had no idea that we were as poor as this. I – I thought you had some income, mother.”

“My income, such as it is, was mortgaged up to the hilt and over long ago.”

“Then – how have we been living?”

“Better ask no questions. I should have told you nothing now had you not forced me. I only wished to point out to you how impossible it is that we should leave tomorrow, so please let us consider that subject closed.”

“Mother, have you – have you been having money from Alan Thurston?”

“I will tell you one thing – I intend to have money from Alan Thurston.”

“Mother!”

“You heard what I said, you are not deaf, nor am I, so please don’t shout ‘mother’! I am as conscious as you are that he has treated you shamefully; only, unlike you, I don’t intend to allow him to escape scot free. Either he hands me of his own accord a handsome sum, a really handsome sum, by way of compensation, or – he will receive a communication from my solicitor.”

“Mother, I – I won’t have it.”

“You won’t have it! Doris, don’t, if you can help it, be a greater i***t than you have been already. How are you going to prevent it? I have only to tell him the state of my affairs, and, unless I much misjudge him, he’ll need no pressing to induce him to give me what I ought to have, after the way in which he has treated you. He is a gentleman, in spite of all that you can bring against him, and nothing you can do or say will prevent his doing his best to keep me out of the workhouse, and himself out of the law courts. So, if you take my advice, you’ll hold your tongue, and for once in your life you’ll attempt no interference. You can look and play the martyr; but you can’t and shan’t leave this house until I tell you. Now, go! Leave me! You have made me more than half hysterical, and my head is splitting.”

Doris went, with a tempest of feeling raging within to which she was altogether incapable of giving utterance; out into the garden which, even in the darkness, she knew so well, along the winding path to the summer-house, in which it was the fashion at Glynde, in the long days of summer, to do almost everything but sleep. There, at that season of the year, she could be sure of being alone, and might sob out her grief and her shame in solitude.

By degrees the tumult even of her emotion began to be spent. She became conscious that time was passing, and that if she proposed to be present at dinner it was desirable that she should return to the house. She was lying, full length, face downwards, on a wooden seat, and was just about to change to a sitting posture when a sound caused her to continue motionless. She heard footsteps advancing along the path – the footsteps of more than one person. While she was hoping that it was no one who was coming in search of her, a voice came towards her through the darkness; one which, although she had only heard it once, she never should forget. It was the voice of Mrs. Thurston – Alan’s wife. At the sound Doris clung still closer to the seat, as if it were a refuge. Surely she was not coming to look for her. She should not find her if she was. Than endure the ignominy of being discovered in such a position by her, with the traces of her anguish written in unmistakable characters upon her face, the girl would almost rather have died.

But apparently she had alarmed herself unnecessarily. It soon became plain that she was not the object of the lady’s walks abroad. It was Mrs. Thurston’s companion who was the magnet who had drawn her out into the cold dampness of the November evening; it immediately became obvious to the listener’s attentive ear that that companion was a man.

The pair reached the summer-house, then paused. Doris held her breath. It was Mrs. Thurston speaking.

“This is the place I want; let us go in here. We ought to be safe from observation if there should happen to be a spy about; though let me inform you, my friend, this visit of yours must not be repeated. Now tell me – I can only give you two minutes at the most – what is it that you want?”

They entered; there was their tread upon the boarded floor. Then the man spoke, in a not unpleasant voice, though now and then in some of his tones was that which was hardly suggestive of ultra-refinement. His idioms also were frequently his own.

“The first thing I want’s a kiss. I’ve wanted that God knows how long. As I came, I swore I’d have one, if I had to take it under your new chap’s very nose.”

“My dear boy, you can have a dozen – under my very nose.” Judging from the sound he had them. At that moment Doris was physically incapable of revealing her presence; but if the ground would only have opened and swallowed her up! Presently it seemed that the lady was endeavouring to disengage herself from the gentleman’s arms. “Now, boy, don’t be silly! Since you’ve put pleasure first, do let’s come to business. Don’t you understand that I haven’t a couple of minutes? What do you want?”

“What I’ve always liked about you is your – shall we call it – sublime cheek.”

“You can call it what you please; only please don’t waste time in talking about me.”

“For calmness you’re unique. You promise that I shall be your best boy for all the days of your life, and then when, by the merest accident, I learn that you’ve gone and got yourself married, you tell me that I’m not to waste time in talking about you. What might you think I’ve come to talk about?”

“My dear Bill, I had to marry; I was sick of governessing.”

“You weren’t forced to governess. There was me.”

“You! The police are such disagreeable creatures, and you know how unpleasant they were making themselves about you.”

“I rather fancy that, at that time, they were also taking an interest in you.”

“Well, all the more reason why I should regulate myself, as I have done. They would never interfere with so respectable a person as I have become. Do you know there’s an earl in the family? One day I may be a countess.”

“How many lives are there between your husband and the title?”

“Only two. Under certain circumstances, two lives – what are they?”

“Exactly. What are they? You’re a beauty. What sort of man is the husband?”

“Well – he’s not a bad sort in a way; but – he’s variable. Normally, he’s a gentleman from top to toe, though there’s a streak of the cad in him.”

“And you found it. I see.”

“Really, Bill, that isn’t very nice of you. Yet I suppose I did; and now the trouble is that I don’t know whether to keep on finding it, or whether to screw him up to the gentleman pitch, and keep him there. But I dare say before very long I shall be able to make up my mind. Now, boy, I absolutely must go.”

“Before you go what I want to know, as you are very well aware, is, where, in all this, do I come in?”

“If you’ll give me your address, I’ll write to you, and meet you in town, and we’ll have a regular rare old time together; then I’ll explain where you come in. In the meanwhile, I do hope that you’re not pressed for cash.”

“I am, as you’ve evidently guessed.”

“Would French bank-notes be of any use to you?”

“Any number, if they’re not earmarked.”

“These aren’t. I’ve not much money of my own, but I happen to have some French notes, which came into my possession in rather a curious way.”

“Is it a good story?”

“Well, that depends; perhaps I’ll tell it you someday. There are five of them for a thousand francs each; that’s two hundred pounds. Would you like to strike a match to see that they’re all right?”

There was a rustling, as if papers were being passed from hand to hand.

“No, thanks, I’ll trust you. Kiddie, you’re a brick. I shouldn’t be surprised if I make my fortune with this two hundred.”

“Yes, I know. You’d better live on it until it’s gone; you’ll find that’s the best investment.”

“If two hundred was all you’d got, you’d go for the gloves, I bet.”

“Well, if you will go for the gloves – and I suppose you must – I hope you’ll get them. What’s the address which will find you?”

“William Seymour, 72 Albion Street, Regent’s Park, until you hear from me to the contrary.”

“I don’t want to hear from you; you’ll hear from me in about a fortnight. I expect by then I shall be bored to death; and when I am bored I must go bang. Now, boy, goodbye! That’s enough! Be good!”

The speakers left the summer-house. They went together for a certain distance; then they paused. Presently Doris could hear footsteps moving in two different directions. The pair had parted.