The Favorite Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham (75 page)

“You seem to forget I’m a man. You treat me as if I was a boy of twelve.”

“Oh?”

He was blushing furiously. He was angry with himself and vexed with her. She really should be more tactful. He plucked nervously at the sheet.

“I know it means nothing to you and it ought not to mean anything to me. It doesn’t when I’m well and up and about. One can’t help one’s dreams, but they are an indication of what is going on in the subconscious.”

“Have you been dreaming about me? Well, I don’t think there’s any harm in that.”

He turned his head and looked at her. Her eyes were gleaming, but his were sombre with remorse.

“You don’t know men,” he said.

She gave a little burble of laughter. She bent down and threw her arms round his neck. She had nothing on but her sarong and baju.

“You darling,” she cried. “Tell me, what did you dream?”

He was startled out of his wits. He pushed her violently aside.

“What are you doing? You’re crazy.”

He jumped half out of bed.

“Don’t you know that I’m madly in love with you?” she said.

“What
are
you talking about?”

He sat down on the side of the bed. He was frankly bewildered. She chuckled.

“Why do you suppose I came up to this horrible place? To be with you, ducky. Don’t you know I’m scared stiff of the jungle? Even in here I’m frightened there’ll be snakes or scorpions or something. I adore you.”

“You have no right to speak to me like that,” he said sternly.

“Oh, don’t be so prim,” she smiled.

“Let’s get out of here.”

He walked out on to the veranda and she followed him. He threw himself into a chair. She knelt by his side and tried to take his hands, but he withdrew them.

“I think you must be mad. I hope to God you don’t mean what you say.”

“I do. Every word of it,” she smiled.

It exasperated him that she seemed unconscious of the frightfulness of her confession.

“Have you forgotten your husband?”

“Oh, what does he matter?”

“Darya.”

“I can’t be bothered about Angus now.”

“I’m afraid you’re a very wicked woman,” he said slowly, a frown darkening his smooth brow.

She giggled.

“Because I’ve fallen in love with you? Darling, you shouldn’t be so absurdly good-looking.”

“For God’s sake don’t laugh.”

“I can’t help it; you’re comic-but still adorable. I love your white skin and your shining curly hair. I love you because you’re so prim and Scotch and humourless. I love your strength. I love your youth.”

Her eyes glowed and her breath came quickly. She stooped and kissed his naked feet. He drew them away quickly, with a cry of protest, and in the agitation of his gesture nearly overthrew the rickety chair.

“Woman, you’re insane. Have you no shame?”

“No.”

“What do you want of me?” he asked fiercely.

“Love.”

“What sort of man do you take me for?”

“A man like any other,” she replied calmly.

“Do you think after all that Angus Munro has done for me I could be such a damned beast as to play about with his wife? I admire him more than any man I’ve ever known. He’s grand. He’s worth a dozen of me and you put together. I’d sooner kill myself than betray him. I don’t know how you can think me capable of such a dastardly act.”

“Oh, my dear, don’t talk such bilge. What harm is it going to do him? You mustn’t take that sort of thing so tragically. After all, life is very short; we’re fools if we don’t take what pleasure we can out of it.”

“You can’t make wrong right by talking about it.”

“I don’t know about that. I think that’s a very controvertible statement.”

He looked at her with amazement. She was sitting at his feet, cool to all appearance and collected, and she seemed to be enjoying the situation. She seemed quite unconscious of its seriousness.

“Do you know that I knocked a fellow down at the club because he made an insulting remark about you?”

“Who?”

“Bishop.”

“Dirty dog. What did he say?”

“He said you’d had affairs with men.”

“I don’t know why people won’t mind their own business. Anyhow, who cares what they say? I love you. I’ve never loved anyone like you. I’m absolutely sick with love for you.”

“Be quiet. Be quiet.”

“Listen, tonight when Angus is asleep I’ll slip into your room. He sleeps like a rock. There’s no risk.”

“You mustn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“No, no, no.”

He was frightened out of his wits. Suddenly she sprang to her feet and went into the house.

Munro came back at noon, and in the afternoon they busied themselves as usual. Darya, as she sometimes did, worked with them. She was in high spirits. She was so gay that Munro suggested that she was beginning to enjoy the life.

“It’s not so bad,” she admitted. “I’m feeling happy today.”

She teased Neil. She seemed not to notice that he was silent and kept his eyes averted from her.

“Neil’s very quiet,” said Munro. “I suppose you’re feeling a bit weak still.”

“No. I just don’t feel very talkative.”

He was harassed. He was convinced that Darya was capable of anything. He remembered the hysterical frenzy of Nastasya Filipovna in
The Idiot,
and felt that she too could behave with that unfortunate lack of balance. He had seen her more than once fly into a temper with one of the Chinese servants and he knew how completely she could lose her self-control. Resistance only exasperated her. If she did not immediately get what she wanted she would go almost insane with rage. Fortunately she lost interest in a thing with the same suddenness with which she hankered for it, and if you could distract her attention for a minute she forgot all about it. It was in such situations that Neil had most admired Munro’s tact. He had often been slyly amused to see with what a pawky and yet tender cunning he appeased her feminine tantrums. It was on Munro’s account that Neil’s indignation was so great. Munro was a saint, and from what a state of humiliation and penury and random shifts had he not taken her to make her his wife! She owed everything to him. His name protected her. She had respectability. The commonest gratitude should have made it impossible for her to harbour such thoughts as she had that morning expressed. It was all very well for men to make advances, that was what men did, but for women to do so was disgusting. His modesty was outraged. The passion he had seen in her face, and the indelicacy of her gestures, scandalized him.

He wondered whether she would really carry out her threat to come to his room. He didn’t think she would dare. But when night came and they all went to bed, he was so terrified that he could not sleep. He lay there listening anxiously. The silence was broken only by the repeated and monotonous cry of an owl. Through the thin wall of woven palm leaves he heard Munro’s steady breathing. Suddenly he was conscious that someone was stealthily creeping into his room. He had already made up his mind what to do.

“Is that you, Mr Munro?” he called in a loud voice.

Darya stopped suddenly. Munro awoke.

“There’s someone in my room. I thought it was you.”

“It’s all right,” said Darya. “It’s only me, I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d go and smoke a cigarette on the veranda.”

“Oh, is that all?” said Munro. “Don’t catch cold.”

She walked through Neil’s room and out. He saw her light a cigarette. Presently she went back and he heard her get into bed.

He did not see her next morning, for he started out collecting before she was up, and he took care not to get in till he was pretty sure Munro would be back. He avoided being alone with her till it was dark and Munro went down for a few minutes to arrange the moth-traps.

“Why did you wake Angus last night?” she said in a low angry whisper.

He shrugged his shoulders and going on with his work did not answer.

“Were you frightened?”

“I have a certain sense of decency.”

“Oh, don’t be such a prig.”

“I’d rather be a prig than a dirty swine.”

“I hate you.”

“Then leave me alone.”

She did not answer, but with her open hand smartly slapped his face. He flushed, but did not speak. Munro returned and they pretended to be intent on whatever they were doing.

For the next few days Darya, except at meal-times and in the evenings, never spoke to Neil. Without prearrangement they exerted themselves to conceal from Munro that their relations were strained. But the effort with which Darya roused herself from a brooding silence would have been obvious to anyone more suspicious than Angus, and sometimes she could not help herself from being a trifle sharp with Neil. She chaffed him, but in her chaff was a sting. She knew how to wound and caught him on the raw, but he took care not to let her see it. He had an inkling that the good-humour he affected infuriated her.

Then one day when Neil came back from collecting, though he had delayed till the last possible minute before tiffin, he was surprised to find that Munro had not yet returned. Darya was lying on a mattress on the veranda, sipping a gin pahit and smoking. She did not speak to him when he passed through to wash. In a minute the Chinese boy came into his room and told him that tiffin was ready. He walked out.

“Where’s Mr Munro?” he asked.

“He’s not coming,” said Darya. “He sent a message to say that the place he’s at is so good he won’t come down till night.”

Munro had set out that morning for the summit of the mountain. The lower levels had yielded poor results in the way of mammals, and Munro’s idea was, if he could find a good place higher up, with a supply of water, to transfer the camp. Neil and Darya ate their meal in silence. After they had finished he went into the house and came out again with his topee and his collecting gear. It was unusual for him to go out in the afternoon.

“Where are you going?” she asked abruptly.

“Out.”

“Why?”

“I don’t feel tired. I’ve got nothing much else to do this afternoon.”

Suddenly she burst into tears.

“How can you be so unkind to me?” she sobbed. “Oh, it is cruel to treat me like this.”

He looked down at her from his great height, his handsome, somewhat stolid face bearing a harassed look. “What have I done?”

“You’ve been beastly to me. Bad as I am I haven’t deserved to suffer like this. I’ve done everything in the world for you. Tell me one single little thing I could do that I haven’t done gladly. I’m so terribly unhappy.”

He moved on his feet uneasily. It was horrible to hear her say that. He loathed and feared her, but he had still the respect for her that he had always felt, not only because she was a woman, but because she was Angus Munro’s wife. She wept uncontrollably. Fortunately the Dyak hunters had gone that morning with Munro. There was no one about the camp but the three Chinese servants and they, after tiffin, were asleep in their own quarters fifty yards away. They were alone.

“I don’t want to make you unhappy. It’s all so silly. It’s absurd of a woman like you to fall in love with a fellow like me. It makes me look such a fool. Haven’t you got any self-control?”

“Oh, God. Self-control!”

“I mean, if you really cared for me you couldn’t want me to be such a cad. Doesn’t it mean anything to you that your husband trusts us implicitly? The mere fact of his leaving us alone like this puts us on our honour. He’s a man who would never hurt a fly. I should never respect myself again if I betrayed his confidence.”

She looked up suddenly.

“What makes you think he would never hurt a fly? Why, all those bottles and cases are full of the harmless animals he’s killed.”

“In the interests of science. That’s quite another thing.”

“Oh, you fool, you fool.”

“Well, if I am a fool I can’t help it. Why do you bother about me?”

“Do you think I wanted to fall in love with you?”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“Ashamed? How stupid! My God, what have I done that I should eat my heart out for such a pretentious ass?”

“You talk about what you’ve done for me. What has Munro done for you?”

“Munro bores me to death. I’m sick of him. Sick to death of him.”

“Then I’m not the first?”

Ever since her amazing avowal he had been tortured by the suspicion that what those men at Kuala Solor had said of her was true. He had refused to believe a word of it, and even now he could not bring himself to think that she could be such a monster of depravity. It was frightful to think that Angus Munro, so trusting and tender, should have lived in a fool’s paradise. She could not be as bad as that. But she misunderstood him. She smiled through her tears.

“Of course not. How can you be so silly? Oh, darling, don’t be so desperately serious. I love you.”