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Page 16
He turned his head--their chairs were in front of the fire--and
looked at her. She was staring straight into the fire, and it was no
doubt the fire that made her face so red.
"I am thinking," he repeated, raising his clear, cultivated voice
and speaking with acerbity, for inattention at such a moment was
deplorable, "of taking you to Italy for Easter. Did you not hear me?"
Yes, she had heard him, and she had been wondering at the
extraordinary coincidence--really most extraordinary--she was just
going to tell him how--how she had been invited--a friend had invited
her--Easter, too--Easter was in April, wasn't it?---her friend had a--
had a house there.
In fact Mrs. Wilkins, driven by terror, guilt and surprise, had
been more incoherent if possible than usual.
It was a dreadful afternoon. Mellersh, profoundly indignant,
besides having his intended treat coming back on him like a blessing to
roost, cross-examined her with the utmost severity. He demanded that
she refuse the invitation. He demanded that, since she had so
outrageously accepted it without consulting him, she should write and
cancel her acceptance. Finding himself up against an unsuspected,
shocking rock of obstinacy in her, he then declined to believe she had
been invited to Italy at all. He declined to believe in this Mrs.
Arbuthnot, of whom till that moment he had never heard; and it was only
when the gentle creature was brought round--with such difficulty, with
such a desire on her part to throw the whole thing up rather than tell
Mr. Wilkins less than the truth--and herself endorsed his wife's
statements that he was able to give them credence. He could not but
believe Mrs. Arbuthnot. She produced the precise effect on him that
she did on Tube officials. She hardly needed to say anything. But
that made no difference to her conscience, which knew and would not let
her forget that she had given him an incomplete impression. "Do you,"
asked her conscience, "see any real difference between an incomplete
impression and a completely stated lie? God sees none."
The remainder of March was a confused bad dream. Both Mrs.
Arbuthnot and Mrs. Wilkins were shattered; try as they would not to,
both felt extraordinarily guilty; and when on the morning of the 30th
they did finally get off there was no exhilaration about the departure,
no holiday feeling at all.
"We've been too good--much too good," Mrs. Wilkins kept on
murmuring as they walked up and down the platform at Victoria, having
arrived there an hour before they need have, "and that's why we feel as
though we're doing wrong. We're brow-beaten--we're not any longer real
human beings. Real human beings aren't ever as good as we've been.
Oh"--she clenched her thin hands--"to think that we ought to be so
happy now, here on the very station, actually starting, and we're not,
and it's being spoilt for us just simply because we've spoilt them!
What have we done--what have we done, I should like to know," she
inquired of Mrs. Arbuthnot, patiently pacing, did not ask who she meant
by them, because she knew. Mrs. Wilkins meant their husbands,
persisting in her assumption that Frederick was as indignant as
Mellersh over the departure of his wife, whereas Frederick did not even
know his wife had gone.
Mrs. Arbuthnot, always silent about him, had said nothing of this
to Mrs. Wilkins. Frederick went too deep into her heart for her to
talk about him. He was having an extra bout of work finishing another
of those dreadful books, and had been away practically continually the
last few weeks, and was away when she left. Why should she tell him
beforehand? Sure as she so miserably was that he would have no
objection to anything she did, she merely wrote him a note and put it
on the hall-table ready for him if and when he should come home. She
said she was going for a month's holiday as she needed a rest and she
had not had one for so long, and that Gladys, the efficient
parlourmaid, had orders to see to his comforts. She did not say where
she was going; there was no reason why she should; he would not be
interested, he would not care.
The day was wretched, blustering and wet; the crossing was
atrocious, and they were very sick. But after having been very sick,
just to arrive at Calais and not be sick was happiness, and it was
there that the real splendour of what they were doing first began to
warm their benumbed spirits. It got hold of Mrs. Wilkins first, and
spread from her like a rose-coloured flame over her pale companion.
Mellersh at Calais, where they restored themselves with soles because
of Mrs. Wilkins's desire to eat a sole Mellersh wasn't having--Mellersh
at Calais had already begun to dwindle and seem less important. None
of the French porters knew him; not a single official at Calais cared a
fig for Mellersh. In Paris there was no time to think of him because
their train was late and they only just caught the Turin train at the
Gare de Lyons; and by the afternoon of the next day when they got into
Italy, England, Frederick, Mellersh, the vicar, the poor, Hampstead,
the club, Shoolbred, everybody and everything, the whole inflamed sore
dreariness, had faded to the dimness of a dream.
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