What was it he had come up to do? He remembered. Mabel had asked him a question. He ran downstairs and rejoined her.
"Because of the season ticket," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you asked me why I couldn"t go by train. I could get a season ticket, but I should lose it the first day. Then they fine you forty shillings, and make you buy another. And that would go on, and on, and on until I was bankrupt and a beggar. And we should have to go down the High Street together, singing hymns. And you never did have any voice, and----"
"Oh, that"ll do," said Mabel, wearily.
"Look here," he said, brightly, "I"ve brought you a present, Mabel. I think you will find these useful."
He produced the postage stamps from his pocket.
"Just a few stamps," he said.
"All right," said Mabel, not taking them. "Stick them down anywhere."
"They should be stuck down in the top right-hand corner," he said; "but I leave it all entirely to you."
He went out. She had not even thanked him.
CHAPTER VIII
Effie Vessunt remained at Jawbones for a fortnight. At the end of that time Dot"s knee had, so to speak, submitted and returned to barracks, and she could resume her ordinary work. Effie went to Bournemouth, where she took a position as kennel maid.
Luke heard nothing from Jona. Occasionally he saw her name in the newspaper as one of those present at some social function. Twice he read that her husband had been fined for being drunk while driving a motor-car. Beyond this, nothing. Luke adhered to his resolution. He never sent her a letter. He wrote one. It was a long and pa.s.sionate letter, full of poetry and beauty. But he never posted it.
He made a paper boat of it. And launched it on that old-world stream.
It floated away under the bridge, and on and on for nearly twenty yards. Then an old-world cow came down to the edge of the stream and ate it. The cow died.
And so the months pa.s.sed away. He completed another little monograph for the firm ent.i.tled "Pulp," of which he said beautifully that it was the beginning of all jam and the end of all books. Then he remembered that Jona had rather seemed to encourage him in his idea of writing his biography. He planned it all out in his mind. He pictured himself wrongly suspected, loathed by everybody (except Jona), suffering horribly, terribly ill. He thoroughly enjoyed it.
He enjoyed it so much that he felt he had to tell Mabel about it. He did.
"Mabel," he said, "have you ever realized that under certain circ.u.mstances the most awful things would happen to me that ever befell the hero of a melodrama? Just take the train of events. Effie has an illegitimate child. She writes and tells you about it."
"But she wouldn"t," said Mabel. "She was with me for a fortnight, and I always kept her in her place."
"Well, she refuses to say who the father is."
"Why?" asked Mabel.
"Because the story can"t possibly go on if she doesn"t. Please don"t interrupt me again until I"ve finished. Effie has no money. She goes to see her father, who will take her in, but not the child. It"s an accepted convention that the unmarried mother must be parted from her child. So Effie and the baby turn up here. I say that they shall stay.
You say that in that case you"ll go, which you do, having previously dismissed Dot and Dash. In consequence, everybody in this neighborhood cuts me, I am turned out of my business, and as the dates agree, I am believed to be the father of the child. Effie has the housework to do as well as the baby to look after, and in consequence, I am horribly neglected. The handle of the front door is not polished, and when an old friend comes down from London to see me, I have nothing to give him for lunch except cold meat and a fruit tart that is no longer in its first youth. So I take a week-end at Brighton without Effie. She cleans my straw hat with oxalic acid, which I have bought for her. I throw away the hat and buy another. While I am at Brighton she kills herself and the baby with what is left of the oxalic acid. At the inquest I am unable to say anything except "Look here," am severely censured by the coroner"s jury, and nearly lynched by the crowd outside. I go back to the house and find a letter on the clock, which entirely clears me and tells me that the father of the child is the son of Dobson, the dirty dog who sneaked my partnership. So I go to see Dobson and find that he has just got the news that his son is dead. I therefore burn Effie"s letter so as to get the sole evidence of my innocence out of the way, and then have a haemorrhage of the brain. And you divorce me, and then----"
"Look here, Luke, you"d better go and lie down for a little. You"ve been bicycling in the sun, you know."
"What do you mean? Wouldn"t it happen so? Isn"t it all absolutely inevitable?"
"Not absolutely," said Mabel. "The previous knowledge that one has of you would go for something. There was never any sign of an attachment of that kind between you and Effie. If you had been the father of the child you would most certainly not have left her alone, without any provision, at the time the child was born. I should be quite certain of that. So would the two maids here. Effie would apply to young Dobson, and failing him, to old Dobson. This is about the last house to which she would come. Her instinct would be to keep away from the neighborhood where she was known. If her own father agreed to take her in, it"s almost certain that he would take the baby as well. Your ideas about that convention are exaggerated, and old-fashioned. If she did come here, and you insisted on her staying, I should put up with it, though I should not like it, until some arrangement could be made for her to go elsewhere with her child. And that arrangement could be made easily and quickly. I do not see why I should dismiss the maids, and if I did they are paid with your money, and are much more devoted to you than they are to me. You would only have to speak and they would remain. No seducer would bring his victim and her child to the house where his wife was living. You would be thought quixotic but not guilty. If Effie saw that you were cut by everybody and that she had brought trouble on you, she would be particularly careful not to cause more serious trouble for you by committing suicide. And if she committed suicide, she would not implicate you in it by making you buy the poison. She would neither make fruit tart, nor clean a straw hat, because she simply would not have the time. You don"t know much about young babies, do you? I should not divorce you, and should have no evidence on which I could get a divorce. In fact, the whole thing"s skittles. By the way, when did Effie have her baby?"
"She never did," said Luke despondently. "That"s always the way.
Whenever I make a beautiful thing, some cow always gets it. It"s happened before. If I wrote my beautiful biography, some cow would parody it. The world"s full of cows."
"Well, I"m sorry, of course," said Mabel. "You can do most incredibly foolish things. You do frequently fail to say what you should say. But even with those advantages, I doubt if it would be possible for you to incur so much suffering and suspicion as you describe. I shall have to think out some other little martyrdom for you."
CHAPTER IX
1
Looking out of his window at the office in the afternoon, Luke Sharper saw a motor-car stop in front of the draper"s opposite. Lady Tyburn got out and entered the shop. So she was back.
Putting on his hat, so far as his agitated ears would permit, Luke rushed out into the street, crossed the road, and met her as she came out.
"Jona," he panted.
"Lukie, at last," she gasped.
"You were not long in the shop!"
"Just the same length that I am outside. I have been there three times to-day. Standing there, looking up at your window. Every time I bought a yard of elastic. Do you want any elastic?"
"No, thank you. Will you have a cup of tea?"
Emotion would not permit her to speak. But she nodded and got into the car. He followed her. On the way to the confectioner"s neither of them spoke a word.
At the tea-room the following conversation took place: "Tea?"
"Please."
"Milk?"
"Thanks."
"Sugar?"
"No."
"Buns?"
"One."