The Moon and Sixpence (4 page)

'This is a terrible thing', he said, the moment we got out into the street.

I realized that he had come away with me in order to discuss once more what he had been already discussing for hours with his sister-in-law.

'We don't know who the woman is, you know', he said. 'All we know is that the blackguard's gone to Paris.'

'I thought they got on so well.'

'So they did. Why, just before you came in Amy said they'd never had a quarrel in the whole of their married life. You know Amy. There never was a better woman in the world.'

Since these confidences were thrust on me, I saw no harm in asking a few questions.

'But do you mean to say she suspected nothing?'

'Nothing. He spent August with her and the children in Norfolk. He was just the same as he'd always been. We went down for two or three days, my wife and I, and I played golf with him. He came back to town in September to let his partner go away, and Amy stayed on in the country. They'd taken a house for six weeks, and at the end of her tenancy she wrote to tell him on which day she was arriving in London. He answered from Paris. He said he'd made up his mind not to live with her any more.'

'What explanation did he give?'

'My dear fellow, he gave no explanation. I've seen the letter. It wasn't more than ten lines.'

'But that's extraordinary.'

We happened then to cross the street, and the traffic prevented us from speaking. What Colonel MacAndrew had told me seemed very improbable, and I suspected that Mrs Strickland, for reasons of her own, had concealed from him some part of the facts. It was clear that a man after seventeen years of wedlock did not leave his wife without certain occurrences which must have led her to suspect that all was not well with their married life. The Colonel caught me up.

'Of course, there was no explanation he could give except that he'd gone off with a woman. I suppose he thought she could find that out for herself. That's the sort of chap he was.'

'What is Mrs Strickland going to do?'

'Well, the first thing is to get our proofs. I'm going over to Paris myself.'

'And what about his business?'

'That's where he's been so artful. He's been drawing in his horns for the last year.'

'Did he tell his partner he was leaving?'

'Not a word.'

Colonel MacAndrew had a very sketchy knowledge of business matters, and I had none at all, so I did not quite understand under what conditions Strickland had left his affairs. I gathered that the deserted partner was very angry and threatened proceedings. It appeared that when everything was settled he would be four or five hundred pounds out of pocket.

'It's lucky the furniture in the flat is in Amy's name. She'll have that at all events.'

'Did you mean it when you said she wouldn't have a bob?'

'Of course I did. She's got two or three hundred pounds and the furniture.'

'But how is she going to live?'

'God knows.'

The affair seemed to grow more complicated, and the Colonel, with his expletives and his indignation, confused rather than informed me. I was glad that, catching sight of the clock at the Army and Navy Stores, he remembered an engagement to play cards at his club, and so left me to cut across St James's Park.

A day or two later Mrs Strickland sent me round a note asking if I could go and see her that evening after dinner. I found her alone. Her black dress, simple to austerity, suggested her bereaved condition, and I was innocently astonished that notwithstanding a real emotion she was able to dress the part she had to play according to her notions of seemliness.

'You said that if I wanted you to do anything you wouldn't mind doing it', she remarked.

'It was quite true.'

'Will you go over to Paris and see Charlie?'

'I?'

I was taken aback. I reflected that I had only seen him once. I did not know what she wanted me to do.

'Fred is set on going.' Fred was Colonel MacAndrew. 'But I'm sure he's not the man to go. He'll only make things worse. I don't know who else to ask.'

Her voice trembled a little, and I felt a brute even to hesitate.

'But I've not spoken ten words to your husband. He doesn't know me. He'll probably just tell me to go to the devil.'

'That wouldn't hurt you', said Mrs Strickland, smiling.

'What is it exactly you want me to do?'

She did not answer directly.

'I think it's rather an advantage that he doesn't know you. You see, he never really liked Fred; he thought him a fool; he didn't understand soldiers. Fred would fly into a passion, and there'd be a quarrel, and things would be worse instead of better. If you said you came on my behalf, he couldn't refuse to listen to you.'

'I haven't known you very long', I answered. 'I don't see how anyone can be expected to tackle a case like this unless he knows all the details. I don't want to pry into what doesn't concern me. Why don't you go and see him yourself?'

'You forget he isn't alone.'

I held my tongue. I saw myself calling on Charles Strickland and sending in my card; I saw him come into the room, holding it between finger and thumb:

'To what do I owe this honour?'

'I've come to see you about your wife.'

'Really. When you are a little older you will doubtless learn the advantage of minding your own business. If you will be so good as to turn your head slightly to the left, you will see the door. I wish you good afternoon.'

I foresaw that it would be difficult to make my exit with dignity, and I wished to goodness that I had not returned to London till Mrs Strickland had composed her difficulties. I stole a glance at her. She was immersed in thought. Presently she looked up at me, sighed deeply, and smiled.

'It was all so unexpected', she said. 'We'd been married seventeen years. I never dreamed that Charlie was the sort of man to get infatuated with anyone. We always got on very well together. Of course, I had a great many interests that he didn't share.'

'Have you found out who' – I did not quite know how to express myself – 'who the person, who it is he's gone away with?'

'No. No one seems to have an idea. It's so strange. Generally when a man falls in love with someone people see them about together, lunching or something, and her friends always come and tell the wife. I had no warning – nothing. His letter came like a thunderbolt. I thought he was perfectly happy.'

She began to cry, poor thing, and I felt very sorry for her. But in a little while she grew calmer.

'It's no good making a fool of myself, she said, drying her eyes. 'The only thing is to decide what is the best thing to do.'

She went on, talking somewhat at random, now of the recent past, then of their first meeting and their marriage; but presently I began to form a fairly coherent picture of their lives; and it seemed to me that my surmises had not been incorrect. Mrs Strickland was the daughter of an Indian civilian, who on his retirement had settled in the depths of the country, but it was his habit every August to take his family to Eastbourne for change of air; and it was here, when she was twenty, that she met Charles Strickland. He was twenty-three. They played tennis together, walked on the front together, listened together to the nigger minstrels; and she made up her mind to accept him a week before he proposed to her. They lived in London, first in Hampstead, and then, as he grew more prosperous, in town. Two children were born to them.

'He always seemed very fond of them. Even if he was tired of me, I wonder that he had the heart to leave them. It's all so incredible. Even now I can hardly believe it's true.'

At last she showed me the letter he had written. I was curious to see it, but had not ventured to ask for it.

M
Y DEAR AMY,

I think you will find everything all right in the flat. I have given Anne your instructions, and dinner will be ready for you and the children when you come. I shall not be there to meet you. 1 have made up my mind to live apart from you, and I am going to Paris in the morning. I shall post this letter on my arrival. I shall not come back. My decision is irrevocable.

Yours always,
C
HARLES STRICKLAND.

'Not a word of explanation or regret. Don't you think it's inhuman?'

'It's a very strange letter under the circumstances', I replied.

'There's only one explanation, and that is that he's not himself. I don't know who this woman is who's got hold of him, but she's made him into another man. It's evidently been going on a long time.'

'What makes you think that?'

'Fred found that out. My husband said he went to the club three or four nights a week to play bridge. Fred knows one of the members, and said something about Charles being a great bridge-player. The man was surprised. He said he'd never even seen Charles in the card-room. It's quite clear now that when I thought Charles was at his club he was with her.'

I was silent for a moment. Then I thought of the children. 'It must have been very difficult to explain to Robert', I said.

'Oh, I never said a word to either of them. You see, we only came up to town the day before they had to go back to school. I had the presence of mind to say that their father had been called away on business.'

It could not have been very easy to be right and careless with that sudden secret in her heart, nor to give her attention to all the things that needed doing to get her children comfortably packed off. Mrs Strickland's voice broke again.

'And what is to happen to them, poor darlings? How are we going to live?'

She struggled for self-control, and I saw her hands clench and unclench spasmodically. It was dreadfully painful.

'Of course I'll go over to Paris if you think I can do any good, but you must tell me exactly what you want me to do.'

'I want him to come back.'

'I understand from Colonel Mac Andrew that you'd made up your mind to divorce him.'

'I'll never divorce him', she answered with a sudden violence. 'Tell him that from me. He'll never be able to marry that woman. I'm as obstinate as he is, and I'll never divorce him. 1 have to think of my children.'

I think she added this to explain her attitude to me, but I thought it was due to a very natural jealousy rather than to maternal solicitude.

'Are you in love with him still?'

'I don't know. I want him to come back. If he'll do that we'll let bygones be bygones. After all, we've been married for seventeen years. I'm a broad-minded woman. I wouldn't have minded what he did as long as I knew nothing about it. He must know that his infatuation won't last. If he'll come back now everything can be smoothed over, and no one will know anything about it.'

It chilled me a little that Mrs Strickland should be concerned with gossip, for I did not know then how great a part is played in women's life by the opinion of others. It throws a shadow of insincerity over their most deeply felt emotions.

It was known where Strickland was staying. His partner, in a violent letter, sent to his bank, had taunted him with hiding his whereabouts; and Strickland, in a cynical and humorous reply, had told his partner exactly where to find him. He was apparently living in an hotel. 'I've never heard of it', said Mrs Strickland. 'But Fred knows it well. He says it's very expensive.'

She flushed darkly. I imagine that she saw her husband installed in a luxurious suite of rooms, dining at one smart restaurant after another, and she pictured his days spent at race-meetings and his evenings at the play.

'It can't go on at his age', she said. 'After all, he's forty. I could understand it in a young man, but I think it's horrible in a man of his years, with children who are nearly grown up. His health will never stand it.'

Anger struggled in her breast with misery.

'Tell him that our home cries out for him. Everything is just the same, and yet everything is different. I can't live without him. I'd sooner kill myself. Talk to him about the past, and all we've gone through together. What am I to say to the children when they ask for him? His room is exactly as it was when he left it. It's waiting for him. We're all waiting for him.'

Now she told me exactly what I should say. She gave me elaborate answers to every possible observation of his.

'You will do everything you can for me?' she said pitifully. 'Tell him what a state I'm in.'

I saw that she wished me to appeal to his sympathies by every means in my power. She was weeping freely. I was extraordinarily touched. I felt indignant at Strickland's cold cruelty, and I promised to do all I could to bring him back. I agreed to go over on the next day but one, and to stay in Paris till I had achieved something. Then, as it was growing late and we were both exhausted by so much emotion, I left her.

During the journey I thought over my errand with misgiving. Now that I was free from the spectacle of Mrs Strickland's distress I could consider the matter more calmly. I was puzzled by the contradictions that I saw in her behaviour. She was very unhappy, but to excite my sympathy she was able to make a show of her unhappiness. It was evident that she had been prepared to weep, for she had provided herself with a sufficiency of handkerchiefs; I admired her forethought, but in retrospect it made her tears perhaps less moving. I could not decide whether she desired the return of her husband because she loved him, or because she dreaded the tongue of scandal; and I was perturbed by the suspicion that the anguish of love contemned was alloyed in her broken heart with the pangs, sordid to my young mind, of wounded vanity. I had not yet learnt how contradictory is human nature; I did not know how much pose there is in the sincere, how much baseness in the noble, or how much goodness in the reprobate.

But there was something of an adventure in my trip, and my spirits rose as I approached Paris. I saw myself, too, from the dramatic standpoint, and I was pleased with my role of the trusted friend bringing back the errant husband to his forgiving wife. I made up my mind to see Strickland the following evening, for I felt instinctively that the hour must be chosen with delicacy. An appeal to the emotions is little likely to be effectual before luncheon. My own thoughts were then constantly occupied with love, but I never could imagine connubial bliss till after tea.

I inquired at my hotel for that in which Charles Strickland was living. It was called the Hotel des Beiges. But the concierge, somewhat to my surprise, had never heard of it. I had understood from Mrs Strickland that it was a large and sumptuous place at the back of the Rue de Rivoli. We looked it out in the directory. The only hotel of that name was in the Rue des Moines. The quarter was not fashionable; it was not even respectable. I shook my head.

'I'm sure that's not it', I said.

The concierge shrugged his shoulders. There was no other hotel of that name in Paris. It occurred to me that Strickland had concealed his address, after all. In giving his partner the one I knew he was perhaps playing a trick on him. I do not know why I had an inkling that it would appeal to Strickland's sense of humour to bring a furious stockbroker over to Paris on a fool's errand to an ill-famed house in a mean street. Still, I thought I had better go and see. Next day about six o'clock I took a cab to the Rue des Moines, but dismissed it at the corner, since I preferred to walk to the hotel and look at it before I went in. It was a street of small shops subservient to the needs of poor people, and about the middle of it, on the left as I walked down, was the Hotel des Beiges. My own hotel was modest enough, but it was magnificent in comparison with this. It was a tall, shabby building, that cannot have been painted for years, and it had so bedraggled an air that the houses on each side of it looked neat and clean. The dirty windows were all shut. It was not here that Charles Strickland lived in guilty splendour with the unknown charmer for whose sake he had abandoned honour and duty. I was vexed, for I felt that I had been made a fool of, and I nearly turned away without making an inquiry. I went in only to be able to tell Mrs Strickland that I had done my best.

The door was at the side of a shop. It stood open, and just within was a sign:
Bureau au premier.
I walked up the narrow stairs, and on the landing found a sort of box, glassed in, within which were a desk and a couple of chairs. There was a bench outside, on which it might be presumed the night porter passed uneasy nights. There was no one about, but under an electric bell was written
Gargon.
I rang, and presently a waiter appeared. He was a young man with furtive eyes and a sullen look. He was in shirt sleeves and carpet slippers.

I do not know why I made my inquiry as casual as possible.

'Does Mr Strickland live here by any chance?' I asked.

'Number thirty-two. On the sixth floor.'

I was so surprised that for a moment I did not answer.

'Is he in?'

The waiter looked at a board in the
bureau.

'He hasn't left his key. Go up and you'll see.'

I thought it as well to put one more question.

'Madame est la!'

'Monsieur est seul.'

The waiter looked at me suspiciously as I made my way upstairs. They were dark and airless. There was a foul and musty smell. Three flights up a woman in a dressing-gown, with touzled hair, opened a door and looked at me silently as I passed. At length I reached the sixth floor, and knocked at the door numbered thirty-two. There was a sound within, and the door was partly opened. Charles Strickland stood before me. He uttered not a word. He evidently did not know me.

I told him my name. I tried my best to assume an airy manner.

'You don't remember me. I had the pleasure of dining with you last July.'

'Come in', he said cheerily. 'I'm delighted to see you. Take a pew.'

I entered. It was a very small room, overcrowded with furniture of the style which the French know as Louis Philippe. There was a large wooden bedstead on which was a billowing red eiderdown, and there was a large wardrobe, a round table, a very small washstand, and two stuffed chairs covered with red rep. Everything was dirty and shabby. There was no sign of the abandoned luxury that Colonel MacAndrew had so confidently described. Strickland threw on the floor the clothes that burdened one of the chairs, and I sat down on it.

'What can I do for you?' he asked.

In that small room he seemed even bigger than I remembered him. He wore an old Norfolk jacket, and he had not shaved for several days. When last I saw him he was spruce enough, but he looked ill at ease: now, untidy and ill-kempt, he looked perfectly at home. I did not know how he would take the remark I had prepared.

'I've come to see you on behalf of your wife.'

'I was just going out to have a drink before dinner. You'd better come too. Do you like absinthe?'

'I can drink it.'

'Come on, then.'

He put on a bowler hat much in need of brushing.

'We might dine together. You owe me a dinner, you know.'

'Certainly. Are you alone?'

I flattered myself that I had got in that important question very naturally.

'Oh yes. In point of fact I've not spoken to a soul for three days. My French isn't exactly brilliant.'

I wondered as I preceded him downstairs what had happened to the little lady in the tea-shop. Had they quarrelled already, or was his infatuation passed? It seemed hardly likely if, as appeared, he had been taking steps for a year to make his desperate plunge. We walked to the Avenue de Clichy, and sat down at one of the tables on the pavement of a large café.