Shivers for Christmas (60 page)

‘I don't know what a woman feels like about her own sex of that class. I expect most men would have felt what I did then, a sort of demand for consideration, quite unsupported by the conscience or moral standards of a county councillor. Christmas Day and that snow-storm when most people were sitting beside a warm fire awaiting the announcement of a comfortable meal! I felt pretty sorry for her. I suppose it was this and that consciousness of her personality made me turn. If she had said anything I should have walked straight on. She had gone by in silence, and I turned.

‘She had not only turned as well. She had stopped. With all that snow on the ground I hadn't heard her. We stood there looking at each other and then she came back.

‘“Going to your club?” she said.

‘“Coming from it,” said I.

‘“Going home, I suppose?”

‘I nodded my head.

‘“And all the family expecting you back to dinner?”

‘I told her there was no family—merely dinner.

‘“Alone?” she asked.

‘“Quite alone,” said I.

‘That didn't deter her. She started walking in my direction. I should have looked a fool if I had refused to accompany her. Besides that, there's a considerable excitement of interest in talking to an absolute stranger of the other sex. Men and women too would indulge more frequently in that kind of adventure if they weren't so afraid of appearances. Probably the snow-storm gave me courage. We walked into St James's Street together and up into Piccadilly.

‘“I live just in Stretton Street,” said I. “If you come much farther, a mere common politeness will compel me to ask you in to dinner.”

‘“If you did,” said she, “a mere common appetite for a comfortable meal would compel me to accept.”

‘The human voice is an extraordinary thing. It is an unfailing indication of character and personality. You can't really fake it. The best actor or actress in the world'—he made a sweep of his hand excluding Valerie Brett—‘can only make up their face. They can't make up their voice. They can imitate. But that's not the same thing. There was something in this woman's voice that guaranteed me against feeling ashamed of myself before my man, Charles. Charles is essentially a diplomat, but he has taste. How she was dressed didn't matter so much. How she was dressed I couldn't see, covered as she was with the snow that was falling. I don't know anything about women's dress, but I was conscious of the impression that she was what a man calls—all right.

‘“Allow me to invite you then,” said I, and when she accepted I felt I had done a thing which you do, not so much because you want to, as because of some arrangement of things which needs a certain act from you at a certain given moment. I felt that Ganthony's refusal to come and dine with me was an essential part of that whole arrangement. I felt that my will was not concerned in the matter. I walked up the steps and opened the door with my latchkey, and it seemed as though it were a mere act of obedience on my part. When she passed me into the hall it was as though she had the control of the situation, not I.

‘I am trying to convey my impressions to you in the light of what happened, yet I don't want to exaggerate those impressions because, up to the last moment, there was no reason why it should not have appeared absolutely natural. A little unconventional perhaps—but that's all.

‘I have only four rooms at Stretton Street—a dining-room, a sitting-room and two bedrooms. Charles showed her along to the spare bedroom to take her coat off and tidy up. It was ten minutes off dinner. And here is another impression I'm sure I don't exaggerate. Charles's manner from the moment he saw her was by no means that of the incomparable diplomat. It was not that he objected to her coming to a meal in the flat so much as that he would have avoided the situation if he could. When I taxed him with it afterwards, he said:

‘“I make my apologies, sir, if I showed anything.”

‘“You disapproved, Charles?” I asked him.

‘“No, sir—why should I disapprove?”

‘“Then what was it?”

‘“I just felt awkward, sir—I felt as though the lady knew more about things than what I did, which is an uncomfortable feeling, sir, when it's a woman.”

‘Well—that's that. Charles has no reason to exaggerate his impressions, because I've never told him anything. Anyhow, we don't matter. She's the centre of the tale. She came into the sitting-room in about five minutes with her coat and hat off. I suppose she was well-dressed. I can only tell you there was nothing of Jermyn Street about her appearance. At the same time, there she was, unmistakably the courtesan. I don't mean that she was rouged or dyed. I don't mean that she made advances to me. I don't mean that her conversation was anything but what any woman's might have been who found herself dining with a man completely strange to her. She was perfectly natural, and yet there was this extraordinary suggestion about her that she was not just one of a type, but the type itself embodied in one person.

‘Added to this was the impression I received directly she entered the room, that I had seen her before. Again and again through dinner, stealing glances, because I had a strong reluctance to show how interested I was, I tried to place her somewhere in my life. I failed so completely that for a time I gave it up. We just talked—oh, about all sorts of things. It came to jewellery. She was wearing a big cabochon ruby in a ring. It was the only bit of jewellery she had. I admired it and asked her where it came from.

‘“I got that in Ceylon,” said she.

‘Suddenly my memory quickened. I held my tongue till we got into the sitting-room. Then, while we were drinking coffee, I looked straight at her and said: “Did you know a man named Ganthony in Ceylon?”

‘If I had expected any flutter of surprise I was disappointed. Very serenely she looked at me and she said:

‘“Are you trying to place me?”

‘I admit for the moment I was disconcerted. I didn't know whether to apologize—or frankly agree that I was.

‘“My inquisitiveness is not as rude as it appears,” I said. “I have a reason for asking.”

‘She inquired quite placidly what it was.

‘For answer I went straight across to my desk. Somewhere in one of the drawers was that snapshot Ganthony had sent me from Ceylon. I fished it out, satisfied myself first, and then brought it across to her. So far as a snapshot can be said to be a likeness in its minute dimensions and unposed effect, that picture of Ganthony's wife was the picture of the woman who was sitting there in my room. I'll swear to that.

‘She took it from my hand. For quite a long while she sat there looking at it, a slow smile spreading over her face as I watched her. At the sound of the door-bell of my flat, she looked up, straight at me.

‘“Does this man named Ganthony come here?” she asked.

‘Then it suddenly occurred to me. This was Ganthony. It couldn't be anyone else—and somehow she knew it. I hurried out of the room before Charles could open the door. It was Ganthony. Despite his ifs and buts he'd come. And all this seemed part of the arrangement—part of some scheme of things which none of us could have prevented. I caught his arm as he passed through the door.

‘“Are you prepared for a shock?” I said as quietly as I could.

‘I don't know why he should have looked distressed so quickly, but he did.

‘“What is it?” he asked.

‘I pointed to my sitting-room door.

‘“Your wife's in there,” said I.

‘“My wife's dead,” he said, and there was a sharp note of anger in his voice. “I told you she was dead. I saw her dead”—and thrusting my arm away before I could stop him, he strode to the door, opened it and went in. For a moment I wondered whether I should follow. There's a sound principle about not interfering between a husband and wife. I was just about to go into the dining-room when the sense of an odd silence got me. There were no voices. I followed him. Ganthony was standing in the middle of the room staring at the little photograph of her. There was no one else there.

‘Without a word to him I went to the little bedroom that opened off the sitting-room. Her hat and coat were gone. I came back and walked across to the window. My flat is on the ground floor. I opened the window. There were no signs of her having gone that way, though certainly the snow was falling so fast that if there had been, her footsteps outside would have been covered by them.

‘I turned back and looked at Ganthony.

‘“I'll swear,” I began.

‘He just smiled at me, a thin sort of a smile, the smile of a man who has plumbed the depths of suffering and knows that nothing more can hurt him.

‘“Don't bother,” said he. “I've seen her myself. Nearly a year ago it was, at Monte Carlo. Last September I was in London. Just for three days. I saw her then. She's dead,” he added, “I saw her dead—as dead as that sort of women ever dies.”'

Northanger passed his glass to Stenning to be replenished. All our minds were battling through the subsequent silence to ply him with our questions.

‘It's no good asking me any more about it,' said he—‘that's all I know and I don't pretend to understand.'