Читать книгу The Woman Who Stole Everything and Other Stories - Arnold Bennett - Страница 8

Table of Contents

“Well, uncle, how do you think I’m looking?”

These were Cora’s first words as she dropped into an easy-chair in a small sitting-room on the first-floor with a view over the lawns and the Flats. Henry Kearns took a chair opposite to her. In the garden she had murmured meaningly to him: “I’m dying to have a chat, uncle. Do take me inside.” And when Kearns indicated her companion, who had been very summarily introduced, she had said with a certain nonchalance: “Oh, he’ll be all right here,” and louder: “Shan’t you, Sweeney?”

“How do I think you’re looking?” Henry repeated her words.

“Yes. Aren’t I looking rather nice?”

She seemed to be craving for admiration. She gave him a beseeching smile. She was now twenty-seven; she had been married for nearly three years and Henry Kearns had not seen her for four years.

With her hat, she had thrown off the dust-coat, and the pale attire thus revealed was of the slightest and flimsiest. One knee was crossed over the other and both were showing. Sturdy, graceful calves, comely ankles, a glimpse of powerful thighs; small feet, most fashionably sheathed; bare arms which matched the calves; hands long, but too narrow, with pointed, dyed nails and a few rings on the thin fingers. Brown hair mechanically waved.

What Henry chiefly noticed about the arrangement of the face was the touch of added red in the nostrils, which, like the small mouth, had the appearance of a wound half-healed. Every visible part of her epidermis, except perhaps on the nape of the neck, had been cosmetically treated, changed, transformed, in the intention to beautify. The result was a highly finished product. Her physique was magnificent, and she had made the best of it, after years of minute study of every inch and every attribute of her body. She had left nothing to itself. Even her attitude, as she threw her arms wide on the arms of her chair and slanted her head, was thought out, willed in detail. Her face could scarcely be called beautiful, and assuredly it was not pretty—the features were too large and accentuated, the expression too masterful, for that—but she was good-looking. The glance of the fine, hazel eyes was brazen, defiant, challenging; but apparently she could soften it at will, just as at moments she could put on an ingenuous simper which turned her into the pretty, frankly foolish, feminine creature who pleads for guidance and firm support from wise, strong males—turned her even into the virgin again. Whatever else she might be, she was something very definite and unmistakable, a remarkably representative specimen of a type.

Henry Kearns was amazed, and he was saddened, by the spectacle of her maturity. He had last seen her a wild girl with the lights of innocence in her eyes. He now saw her as the woman who had eaten to repletion of the tree of knowledge; hardened, coarsened; omniscient in physical sensations; meditating always upon her learning therein, savouring it, delving into it with her tireless thoughts. But she was wonderful, and she was his niece, and he had known her since babyhood, and he felt an affection for her.

The question he nervously asked himself was:

“Is she good-natured at bottom, or is her egotism ruthless?”

It seemed very odd to him, and quite disconcerting, that, such as she was, she was his niece. Women of her type were rarely relatives; one did not expect them to be relatives. Other men’s nieces—by all means! But one’s own!

He saw Nick’s difficulties in a new light. His sympathies floated forth towards distant Nick, but they enveloped also the too sophisticated head of Cora. She was she. And could she help it?

“Yes. I do think you look rather nice,” said Kearns, in an indulgent tone. He could see no advantage in frankness.

“But you aren’t quite satisfied. You’re disappointed.” Cora went on her way with determination. She seemed to imply that he had been living in the hope of seeing her in the most splendid bloom and that this hope had been his main interest in existence.

“Not at all!” he answered. “I think you look fine.”

“Of course two hours in an open car don’t exactly help a woman. I feel all blown away. I——”

“I think you look fine,” he said again.

“I’m so glad,” she smiled confidingly, weakly. Then she hardened. “Do I look older?”

“Well, you’ve been married since I saw you last.”

“I’m changed?” she exclaimed, suddenly apprehensive. “I do look older? Do I look my age?”

“Let’s see; how old are you?”

“Twenty-six. Some of my friends say I don’t look a day older than twenty-three.”

“I thought you were twenty-seven.”

“Yes, so I am,” she calmly admitted. “That’s right. But it was only the other day. You needn’t be so particular, uncle darling. So I look twenty-seven, do I? Well, everyone doesn’t think so.”

Henry understood then that it was a matter of terrific importance to her to look younger than her years, and that the suspicion of having changed ever so little with the passage of time was repugnant to her, intolerable. Her anxiety was sincere to the point of being tragic. It really touched Henry, so that he spoke reassuringly, as to an invalid about an invalid’s health, when he said, falsely and heartily:

“I never accused you of looking twenty-seven. If I didn’t know, I should give you twenty-three or four.”

“You are a dear. But you always were,” she responded, appeased and grateful. “I do admire your taste in villages, uncle. And in houses, too. Oh! What wouldn’t I give to bury myself in the country—for years and years, away from everything!” She gave a long sigh, as it were yearning after the realisation of an impossible and heavenly dream. “A cottage like one of those down the road. I shouldn’t mind how simple.”

“But a bathroom—hot and cold.”

“Oh, of course, if there could be a bathroom.”

“All the cottages here are full of rats,” said Henry. “You adore rats, I suppose.”

“How horrid you are, uncle!” She frowned. “As if rats couldn’t be put right quite easily. But you do like to tease me. You always did. It’s growing on you.” She smiled softly. “I’m frightfully thirsty It’s the dust. You can’t imagine how dusty it was. It’s nonsense about tar preventing dust.” Her tone incriminated all road authorities. “Would you like to offer me just a tiny drink?”

“Certainly. I’ll ask for tea.” He jumped up and rang the bell.

“I suppose I daren’t ask for a dry Martini,” she suggested.

“You dare,” said Henry. “But what about your friend in the garden?”

“Oh, he can wait. Surely he can wait just a minute or two!” said Cora carelessly.

Henry rang the bell, and said to the maid, who entered somewhat scared—for the staff had only just heard, and indirectly, of the master’s arrival:

“Good afternoon, Annie. Mrs. Ussher will have a dry Martini cocktail, if there’s one to be had. And you can bring me some tea.”

“Yes, sir. If you please, sir, the housekeeper told me to ask when it would be convenient for you to see her. She only knew a minute since that you’d come, sir.”

“Any time. Any time. Tell her.”

“Uncle,” said Cora, when the maid had gone away “I do wish you hadn’t said the cocktail was for me. I thought you’d order two cocktails. That would have been all right. They’re always so funny about women having anything but tea in the afternoon.”

“Who are funny?”

“Servants.” Cora pouted.

“Don’t let that trouble you,” said Henry soothingly. “They won’t think anything here. But I’m sorry I didn’t think of it, all the same.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Cora negligently pardoned him. “But——” She left the “but” in the air, feeling by instinct that it would be more effective so.

The tea and the Martini cocktail were brought in with surprising speediness—and by the housekeeper herself, a plumpish woman of forty, clearly very intelligent and capable, but with little regard for the conventionalities of professional costume. She was wearing a mauve skirt and a crimson blouse; she belonged to the village, and had probably never seen a fashionably correct housekeeper in her life.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Hickett,” Kearns greeted her; and as soon as she had set down the tray, he half rose and shook hands with her.

“Good afternoon, sir.” Mrs. Hickett had a pleasant smile for him, and a pleasant, energetic, self-respecting manner. She seemed to be not in the least overset by the honour of having her hand shaken by the master of the house.

“You all right, Mrs. Hickett?”

“Yes, thank you, sir. And I hope you are.”

“Oh yes.... This is my niece, Mrs. Ussher.”

Cora’s recognition of Mrs. Hickett might perhaps have been detected by some instrument of scientific sensitiveness and precision.

“Good afternoon, madam,” said Mrs. Hickett, in a firm, impartial voice, looking straight at Cora, who thereupon ornamented her first recognition with a ghastly insincere smile.

“Can’t the little fool see that it always pays to be a bit more than civil to head servants?” Kearns reflected. “She might be coming down here to stay, one day.... To put it no higher!” he added to himself. He knew that Mrs. Hickett was forming her estimate of Cora, and that the estimate had certain reserves. He was ashamed of Cora, or rather, he definitely did not care for Mrs. Hickett to know he had for niece such a woman as Cora appeared to the eye to be. He saw Cora with Mrs. Hickett’s eye. He felt as though he ought to explain Cora to Mrs. Hickett, but he knew that any attempt to do so, even were it possible, must fail. Cora could never be established in the good opinion and sympathies of Mrs. Hickett. The two women became at once inimical, on terms of equality. There are very frequently occasions on which women lose the sense of relative rank. This was one of them.

The maid arrived with a cake-stand, which Mrs. Hickett took from her and put in exactly the most convenient position for a cake-stand. When the maid had gone, and when Mrs. Hickett had reached the door, Mrs. Hickett turned round.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t downstairs to meet you when you arrived, sir.”

“Not at all. I went straight into the garden. Nobody even saw me.”

“No, sir. You see, sir, I got the two telegrams together, yours and Mrs. Ussher’s, and seeing I didn’t expect either of them just now, there was a good bit to do. I thought you might be driving down, sir. Oh! And your luggage has just come, sir. Your room is quite ready, sir. And the two spare rooms will be ready in a few minutes, sir. I sent to ask if Mr. Ussher would take anything, but he said not yet, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Exit Mrs. Hickett, with nothing but a somewhat bewildered nod of approbation from her employer.

Cora leaned forward and, seizing cake, stuffed a large piece of it into her mouth.

“You did say I should be welcome to come and stay here whenever I liked,” said Cora, through the cake thickly. “You said you preferred the house to be occupied, and the servants to have something to do.”

Kearns recalled that some time before he had casually so written to his niece.

“Yes,” he agreed. A pause. “I did.” A pause “And here you are.” He was collecting himself from an incredible blow.

“You also said you’d warn your housekeeper.”

“I did say so, and I did warn her.”

“So I thought I’d run down for a week-end.”

“Quite! But this ‘Mr. Ussher’ in the garden?”

“Of course it’s just my luck. I never do have any luck,” Cora complainingly protested. “I’d no idea you’d be here. I didn’t even know you were in England. I had the notion of coming down this morning—and you know how impulsive I am. I admit I’m all in the wrong, and naturally you’ll blame me. But it was so tempting. It sounded such a lovely idea. And Sweeney’s so hard up, poor thing. We couldn’t have afforded an hotel—at least not our sort of hotel. I must be comfortable. If I can’t be comfortable, I’d as soon be dead. Yes, I mean it, though you don’t believe me. Besides, hotels——”

“Whose car did you come down in?”

“Oh, I hired a car, and I shall pay for it. Why shouldn’t I? Can’t a woman offer a man a seat in a car? I should like to know why not indeed. All these old-fashioned ideas are all gone now, you know—but perhaps you don’t know. Anyhow, I’m entitled to hire a car and ask who I like to sit in it, and I’m entitled to pay for it. And considering Sweeney drives himself and saves a chauffeur——”

“You mean Nick’s entitled to pay for it,” Kearns interrupted her flow. “Unless, of course, you’ve come into money and never told me.”

“Now, uncle, please, please——”

Her voice broke. At first, after the incursion of Mrs. Hickett, she had been most painfully, if not ludicrously, constrained. The constraint, however, had yielded to the magic of her arguments in her own favour, had melted visibly in the warmth of them, like snow in the sun. But now, at the mention of Nick, it had all returned, more painful or ludicrous than before. She wept, bowed her head, extended her hand nervously towards Henry Kearns; her fingers moved as if groping for something they could not find. Suddenly she sprang up and hysterically snatched Kearns’s handkerchief from his pocket and dropped back into her seat with the plunder.

“Excuse me; excuse me,” she begged, dabbing her eyes. “I must have left my bag somewhere; it’s always losing itself. Physical objects have a grudge against poor me. I’ve often no—no—noticed it.” She was sobbing.

Kearns was amazed, he was nearly stupefied, by the enormity of her indiscretion. It was inconceivable that she should have realised, in imagination, all the consequences, or half the consequences, of her utterly crazy bad taste. He said to himself that a woman who would do what she had done would stick at absolutely nothing for the satisfaction of a caprice. And the man—Sweeney, as she called him! The man! In order to restore his own calm he very carefully poured himself out a cup of tea. The cocktail had vanished down that elegant throat. Crumbs of cake littered the pale, fragile lap. He waited for her, and had not to wait long.

“My life’s been hell,” she murmured and muttered, gazing curiously at the pattern of Henry’s handkerchief. “What a sporting hanky! I’m not one to complain. I never complain. I might have written and told you some things. But I didn’t. Nobody ever went into marriage with higher ideals than I did. I wanted marriage to be everything. I must have affection, tenderness. Yes, tenderness. If I don’t have it, I’m like a flower without water. And romance! Did I tell you Sweeney’s the finest driver in London? Why shouldn’t life be romantic? But I’ve had nothing. Business, business, health, fitness, economy, all day, every day! I’ve had nothing. I couldn’t stand it any more. Of course I might have killed myself. That might have been the best for everyone—certainly for me it would have been. But we’re so weak. I suppose we oughtn’t to be.... I thought surely there must be some romance in the world, waiting for me. And then poor darling Sweeney came into my life.” (She’s quoting from some novel she’s read, reflected Henry.) “And why shouldn’t we be happy, Sweeney and me? Isn’t everybody entitled to happiness if they can find it? That’s my religion anyway. Sweeney adores me. The way he looks at me sometimes—it makes me feel giddy, yes it does.” She smiled plaintively. “You can’t say I’m not being frank with you.... Well, I know I oughtn’t to have done it. I oughtn’t to have come here like this, with Sweeney, and not told you. I say it again quite plainly, I blame myself. I’ve nothing to answer. I’m defenceless. But if you knew—if you knew—if you could realise! You can’t, though.” She seemed to imply that since she had thus candidly and unreservedly judged and condemned herself, no one else ought to judge and condemn her. Indeed she had raised herself to be the chief saint and martyr of the whole situation.

Henry Kearns said not a word; he felt that no speech would be adequate, but his real reason for silence was fear of the impossibility of defeating her by argument. She was now half-lying in the easy-chair, her dress in extreme disarray, the skirt rucked up, one short sleeve slipping down her shoulder. This frock was less a covering than an exposition.

And she had a general air of dampness which strangely became her, and enhanced her attractiveness, giving her the charm of a soft victim. She was aware of this, and, further, she exulted in the ruin of the costly frock, which was part of her martyrdom. A superb and unhappy animal twisting and curving and cowering in its lair! She was exciting, never more sensuous than in her woe.

She fascinated Henry Kearns. Without looking at him she knew that his gaze was upon her. She stirred afresh into a new posture, lifted her head, smiled at him with a new smile, languorous, exhausted with emotion, supplicating, ravishing, darting at him delicious danger; and yet humble, niece-like, pure. This was the child he had known. See her! The mature, highly finished, unscrupulous, irresistible feminine!

“But it’s all right now you’re here,” she astoundingly said. “You’ve saved me by being here. Sweeney can go away. He must, in fact, poor darling! Shall have to find a reason for him going. Your Mrs. Hickett need never know he isn’t my husband. Of course it means that Nick won’t ever be able to come to see you; but I expect you won’t mind that. I’m sure he won’t.”

“Yes, but supposing I hadn’t happened to be here. Think of the——”

“How like a man to say that! What’s the good of supposing? You are here. And oh, uncle! I can say this for myself at any rate. I’m not mercenary, am I? All I ask for is affection. I’m willing to give up everything for that. Everything. Poor Sweeney hasn’t a cent. He’s only himself. I’ll just go and speak to him.”

Henry was nonplussed—so colossal was her assumptions, her omissions, her suppressions. She rendered him speechless. He thought of Nick. Nick had had the management of this young woman! He had lived alone with her in a flat for three years, trying to cope with her. It was terrible. And how was Henry himself to contend with her?