Collected Short Stories Read online

  He was about sixty. His family was established, in the East, his grandsons were growing up. It was necessary for him to live in London, for some years. This girl would be useful. She had no money, save what she would inherit from her mother. But he would risk that: she would be an investment in his business. And then the apartment. He liked the apartment extremely. He recognized the cachet, and the lilies and swans of the Aubusson carpet really did something to him. Virginia said to him: Mother gave me the apartment.--So he looked on that as safe. And finally, Virginia was almost a virgin, probably quite a virgin, and, as far as the paternal oriental male like himself was concerned, entirely virgin. He had a very small idea of the silly puppy-sexuality of the English, so different from the prolonged male voluptuousness of his own pleasures. And last of all, he was physically lonely, getting old, and tired.

  Virginia of course did not know why she liked being with Arnault. Her cleverness was amazingly stupid when it came to life, to living. She said he was "quaint". She said his nonchalant French of the boulevards was "amusing". She found his business cunning "intriguing", and the glint in his dark glazed eyes, under the white, thick lashes, "sheiky". She saw him quite often, had tea with him in his hotel, and motored with him one day down to the sea.

  When he took her hand in his own soft still hands, there was something so caressing, so possessive in his touch, so strange and positive in his leaning towards her, that though she trembled with fear, she was helpless.--"But you are so thin, dear little thin thing, you need repose, repose, for the blossom to open, poor little blossom, to become a little fat!" he said in his French.

  She quivered, and was helpless. It certainly was quaint! He was so strange and positive, he seemed to have all the power. The moment he realized that she would succumb into his power, he took full charge of the situation, he lost all his hesitation and his humility. He did not want just to make love to her: he wanted to marry her, for all his multifarious reasons. And he must make himself master of her.

  He put her hand to his lips, and seemed to draw her life to his in kissing her thin hand. "The poor child is tired, she needs repose, she needs to be caressed and cared for," he said in his French. And he drew nearer to her.

  She looked up in dread at his glinting, tired dark eyes under the white lashes. But he used all his will, looking back at her heavily and calculating that she must submit. And he brought his body quite near to her, and put his hand softly on her face, and made her lay her face against his breast, as he soothingly stroked her arm with his other hand, "Dear little thing! dear little thing! Arnault loves her so dearly! Arnault loves her! Perhaps she will marry her Arnault. Dear little girl, Arnault will put flowers in her life, and make her life perfumed with sweetness and content."

  She leaned against his breast and let him caress her. She gave a fleeting, half poignant, half vindictive thought to her mother. Then she felt in the air the sense of destiny, destiny. Oh so nice, not to have to struggle. To give way to destiny.

  "Will she marry her old Arnault? Eh? Will she marry him?" he asked in a soothing, caressing voice, at the same time compulsive.

  She lifted her head and looked at him: the thick white brows, the glinting, tired dark eyes. How queer and comic! How comic to be in his power! And he was looking a little baffled.

  "Shall I?" she said, with her mischievous twist of a grin.

  "Mais oui!" he said, with all the sang froid of his old eyes. "Mais oui! Je te contenterai, tu le verras."

  "Tu me contenteras!" she said, with a flickering smile of real amusement at his assurance. "Will you really content me?"

  "But surely! I assure it you. And you will marry me?"

  "You must tell mother," she said, and hid wickedly against his waistcoat again, while the male pride triumphed in him.

  Mrs Bodoin had no idea that Virginia was intimate with the Turkish Delight: she did not inquire into her daughter's movements. During the famous dinner, she was calm and a little aloof, but entirely self-possessed. When, after coffee, Virginia left her alone with the Turkish Delight, she made no effort at conversation, only glanced at the rather short, stout man in correct dinner-jacket, and thought how his sort of fatness called for a fez and the full muslin breeches of a bazaar merchant in The Thief of Baghdad.

  "Do you really prefer to smoke a hookah?" she asked him, with a slow drawl.

  "What is a hookah, please?"

  "One of those water-pipes. Don't you all smoke them, in the East?"

  He only looked mystified and humble, and silence resumed. She little knew what was simmering inside his stillness.

  "Madame," he said, "I want to ask you something."

  "You do? Then why not ask it?" came her slightly melancholy drawl.

  "Yes! It is this. I wish I may have the honour to marry your daughter. She is willing."

  There was a moment's blank pause. Then Mrs Bodoin leaned towards him from her distance, with curious portentousness.

  "What was that you said?" she asked. "Repeat it!"

  "I wish I may have the honour to marry your daughter. She is willing to take me."

  His dark, glazed eyes looked at her, then glanced away again. Still leaning forward, she gazed fixedly on him, as if spellbound, turned to stone. She was wearing pink topaz ornaments, but he judged they were paste, moderately good.

  "Did I hear you say she is willing to take you?" came the slow, melancholy, remote voice.

  "Madame, I think so," he said, with a bow.

  "I think we'll wait till she comes," she said, leaning back.

  There was silence. She stared at the ceiling. He looked closely round the room, at the furniture, at the china in the ivory-inlaid cabinet.

  "I can settle five thousand pounds on Mademoiselle Virginia, Madame," came his voice. "Am I correct to assume that she will bring this apartment and its appointments into the marriage settlement?"

  Absolute silence. He might as well have been on the moon. But he was a good sitter. He just sat until Virginia came in.

  Mrs Bodoin was still staring at the ceiling. The iron had entered her soul finally and fully. Virginia glanced at her, but said:

  "Have a whisky-and-soda, Arnault?"

  He rose and came towards the decanters, and stood beside her: a rather squat, stout man with white head, silent with misgiving. There was the fizz of the syphon: then they came to their chairs.

  "Arnault has spoken to you, Mother?" said Virginia.

  Mrs Bodoin sat up straight, and gazed at Virginia with big, owlish eyes, haggard. Virginia was terrified, yet a little thrilled. Her mother was beaten.

  "Is it true, Virginia, that you are willing to marry this--oriental gentleman?" asked Mrs Bodoin slowly.

  "Yes, Mother, quite true," said Virginia, in her teasing soft voice.

  Mrs Bodoin looked owlish and dazed.

  "May I be excused from having any part in it, or from having anything to do with your future husband--I mean having any business to transact with him?" she asked dazedly, in her slow, distinct voice.

  "Why, of course!" said Virginia, frightened, smiling oddly.

  There was a pause. Then Mrs Bodoin, feeling old and haggard, pulled herself together again.

  "Am I to understand that your future husband would like to possess this apartment?" came her voice.

  Virginia smiled quickly and crookedly. Arnault just sat, planted on his posterior, and heard. She reposed on him.

  "Well--perhaps!" said Virginia. "Perhaps he would like to know that I possessed it." She looked at him.

  Arnault nodded gravely.

  "And do you wish to possess it?" came Mrs Bodoin's slow voice. "If it your intention to inhabit it, with your husband?" She put eternities into her long, stressed words.

  "Yes, I think it is," said Virginia. "You know you said the apartment was mine, Mother."

  "Very well! It shall be so. I shall send my lawyer to this--oriental gentleman, if you will leave written instructions on my writing-table. May I ask when you think of getting--married?"
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  "When do you think, Arnault?" said Virginia.

  "Shall it be, in two weeks?" he said, sitting erect, with his fists on his knees.

  "In about a fortnight, Mother," said Virginia.

  "I have heard! In two weeks! Very well! In two weeks everything shall be at your disposal. And now, please excuse me." She rose, made a slight general bow, and moved calmly and dimly from the room. It was killing her, that she could not shriek aloud and beat that Levantine out of the house. But she couldn't. She had imposed the restraint on herself.

  Arnault stood and looked with glistening eyes round the room. It would be his. When his sons came to England, here he would receive them.

  He looked at Virginia. She too was white and haggard, now. And she hung away from him, as if in resentment. She resented the defeat of her mother. She was still capable of dismissing him for ever, and going back to her mother.

  "Your mother is a wonderful lady," he said, going to Virginia and taking her hand. "But she has no husband to shelter her, she is unfortunate. I am sorry she will be alone. I should be happy if she would like to stay here with us."

  The sly old fox knew what he was about.

  "I'm afraid there's no hope of that," said Virginia, with a return to her old irony.

  She sat on the couch, and he caressed her softly and paternally, and the very incongruity of it, there in her mother's drawing-room, amused her. And because he saw that the things in the drawing-room were handsome and valuable, and now they were his, his blood flushed and he caressed the thin girl at his side with passion, because she represented these valuable surroundings, and brought them to his possession. And he said: "And with me you will be very comfortable, very content, oh, I shall make you content, not like Madame your mother. And you will get fatter, and bloom like the rose. I shall make you bloom like the rose. And shall we say next week, hein? Shall it be next week, next Wednesday, that we marry? Wednesday is a good day. Shall it be then?"

  "Very well!" said Virginia, caressed again into a luxurious sense of destiny, reposing on fate, having to make no effort, no more effort, all her life.

  Mrs Bodoin moved into an hotel next day, and came into the apartment to pack up and extricate herself and her immediate personal belongings only when Virginia was necessarily absent. She and her daughter communicated by letter, as far as was necessary.

  And in five days' time Mrs Bodoin was clear. All business that could be settled was settled, all her trunks were removed. She had five trunks, and that was all. Denuded and outcast, she would depart to Paris, to live out the rest of her days.

  The last day, she waited in the drawing-room till Virginia should come home. She sat there in her hat and street things, like a stranger.

  "I just waited to say good-bye," she said. "I leave in the morning for Paris. This is my address. I think everything is settled; if not, let me know and I'll attend to it. Well, good-bye!--and I hope you'll be very happy!"

  She dragged out the last words sinisterly; which restored Virginia, who was beginning to lose her head.

  "Why, I think I may be," said Virginia, with the twist of a smile.

  "I shouldn't wonder," said Mrs Bodoin pointedly and grimly. "I think the Armenian grandpapa knows very well what he's about. You're just the harem type, after all." The words came slowly, dropping, each with a plop! of deep contempt.

  "I suppose I am! Rather fun!" said Virginia. "But I wonder where I got it? Not from you, Mother--" she drawled mischievously.

  "I should say not."

  "Perhaps daughters go by contraries, like dreams," mused Virginia wickedly. "All the harem was left out of you, so perhaps it all had to be put back into me."

  Mrs Bodoin flashed a look at her.

  "You have all my pity!" she said.

  "Thank you, dear. You have just a bit of mine."

  HER TURN

  She was his second wife, and so there was between them that truce which is never held between a man and his first woman.

  He was one for the women, and as such, an exception among the colliers. In spite of their prudery, the neighbour women liked him; he was big, naïve, and very courteous with them; he was so, even to his second wife.

  Being a large man of considerable strength and perfect health, he earned good money in the pit. His natural courtesy saved him from enemies, while his fresh interest in life made his presence always agreeable. So he went his own way, had always plenty of friends, always a good job down pit.

  He gave his wife thirty-five shillings a week. He had two grown-up sons at home, and they paid twelve shillings each. There was only one child by the second marriage, so Radford considered his wife did well.

  Eighteen months ago, Bryan and Wentworth's men were out on strike for eleven weeks. During that time, Mrs. Radford could neither cajole nor entreat nor nag the ten shillings strike-pay from her husband. So that when the second strike came on, she was prepared for action.

  Radford was going, quite inconspicuously, to the publican's wife at the "Golden Horn". She is a large, easy-going lady of forty, and her husband is sixty-three, moreover crippled with rheumatism. She sits in the little bar-parlour of the wayside public-house, knitting for dear life, and sipping a very moderate glass of Scotch. When a decent man arrives at the three-foot width of bar, she rises, serves him, surveys him over, and, if she likes his looks, says:

  "Won't you step inside, sir?"

  If he steps inside, he will find not more than one or two men present. The room is warm, quite small. The landlady knits. She gives a few polite words to the stranger, then resumes her conversation with the man who interests her most. She is straight, highly-coloured, with indifferent brown eyes.

  "What was that you asked me, Mr. Radford?"

  "What is the difference between a donkey's tail and a rainbow?" asked Radford, who had a consuming passion for conundrums.

  "All the difference in the world," replied the landlady.

  "Yes, but what special difference?"

  "I s'll have to give it up again. You'll think me a donkey's head, I'm afraid."

  "Not likely. But just you consider now, wheer . . ."

  The conundrum was still under weigh, when a girl entered. She was swarthy, a fine animal. After she had gone out:

  "Do you know who that is?" asked the landlady.

  "I can't say as I do," replied Radford.

  "She's Frederick Pinnock's daughter, from Stony Ford. She's courting our Willy."

  "And a fine lass, too."

  "Yes, fine enough, as far as that goes. What sort of a wife'll she make him, think you?"

  "You just let me consider a bit," said the man. He took out a pocket-book and a pencil. The landlady continued to talk to the other guests.

  Radford was a big fellow, black-haired, with a brown moustache, and darkish blue eyes. His voice, naturally deep, was pitched in his throat, and had a peculiar, tenor quality, rather husky, and disturbing. He modulated it a good deal as he spoke, as men do who talk much with women. Always, there was a certain indolence in his carriage.

  "Our mester's lazy," his wife said. "There's many a bit of a jab wants doin', but get him to do it if you can."

  But she knew he was merely indifferent to the little jobs, and not lazy.

  He sat writing for about ten minutes, at the end of which time, he read:

  "I see a fine girl full of life.

  I see her just ready for wedlock,

  But there's jealousy between her eyebrows

  And jealousy on her mouth.

  I see trouble ahead.

  Willy is delicate.

  She would do him no good.

  She would never see when he wasn't well,

  She would only see what she wanted--"

  So, in phrases, he got down his thoughts. He had to fumble for expression, and therefore anything serious he wanted to say he wrote in "poetry", as he called it.

  Presently, the landlady rose, saying:

  "Well, I s'll have to be looking after our mester. I s'll be in aga
in before we close."

  Radford sat quite comfortably on. In a while, he too bade the company good-night.

  When he got home, at a quarter-past eleven, his sons were in bed, and his wife sat awaiting him. She was a woman of medium height, fat and sleek, a dumpling. Her black hair was parted smooth, her narrow-opened eyes were sly and satirical, she had a peculiar twang in her rather sleering voice.

  "Our missis is a puss-puss," he said easily, of her. Her extraordinarily smooth, sleek face was remarkable. She was very healthy.

  He never came in drunk. Having taken off his coat and his cap, he sat down to supper in his shirt-sleeves. Do as he might, she was fascinated by him. He had a strong neck, with the crisp hair growing low. Let her be angry as she would yet she had a passion for that neck of his, particularly when she saw the great vein rib under the skin.

  "I think, missis," he said, "I'd rather ha'e a smite o' cheese than this meat."

  "Well, can't you get it yourself?"

  "Yi, surely I can," he said, and went out to the pantry.

  "I think, if yer comin' in at this time of night, you can wait on yourself," she justified herself.

  She moved uneasily in her chair. There were several jam-tarts alongside the cheese on the dish he brought.

  "Yi, Missis, them tan-tafflins'll go down very nicely," he said.

  "Oh, will they! Then you'd better help to pay for them," she said, amiably, but determined.

  "Now what art after?"

  "What am I after? Why, can't you think?" she said sarcastically.

  "I'm not for thinkin', missis."

  "No, I know you're not. But wheer's my money? You've been paid the Union to-day. Wheer do I come in?"

  "Tha's got money, an' tha mun use it."

  "Thank yer. An' 'aven't you none, as well?"

  "I hadna, not till we was paid, not a ha'p'ny."

  "Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself to say so."

  "'Appen so."

  "We'll go shares wi' th' Union money," she said. "That's nothing but what's right."

  "We shonna. Tha's got plenty o' money as tha can use."

  "Oh, all right," she said. "I will do."