The Wheel Spins (17 page)

She was faced with the first real test of her principles—and her conscience won. Deception to save her husband from unnecessary suffering was a form of the lie magnificent. But now she told herself that the cause of humanity must come before family ties, because it was selfless.

She was prepared to do her duty—whatever the cost—by Miss Froy. But when she was assured by those whose judgement she could trust, that the peril was negligible, her resolution slipped.

The cause was too inadequate to exact such a sacrifice. On the evidence, it was nothing but the trumped-up invention of a hysterical girl to attract notice. But Gabriel was ill. He needed her, and he won.

It was after she had identified Miss Kummer as Miss Froy that she suddenly realised the advantage of a willing young man who could send off a telegram to her mother-in-law. As she doubted whether she could receive the reply without her husband’s knowledge—since her name might be bawled out by some official—she asked for the latest bulletin to await her at Calais. The sea-crossing would revive the vicar, while it would not be kind to keep him in the dark until he reached home.

Although her eyes were tragic, she smiled faintly at the thought of his unconsciousness. Like a big baby he was sorry for his aches and pains, but he knew nothing of what he was spared.

“Only a mother knows,” she thought.

This was exactly Mrs. Froy’s own conviction as she sat in the twilight and hungered for her child’s return.

As a rule Mrs. Froy lived on the sunny side of the street. This evening, however, the long black shadows of the elms seemed to have stretched out to reach her mind, for she was unaccountably depressed.

The sun no longer shone greenly through the creepers which muffled the windows, but she was accustomed to gloom. For reasons of economy, the lamp was never lit until the last possible moment. Neither was she influenced by the melancholy of the view from her bedroom, which overlooked a corner of the churchyard.

Having dwelt in rectories for so long, it was second-habit for the Froys to live close to the church. Whenever she looked out at the slanting tombstones of forgotten dead, she had trained herself to picture a spectacular resurrection, when the graves suddenly burst open and their glorified contents shot up into the air like a glittering shower of rockets.

This evening, when the green had all turned grey, she had her first misgivings.

“I wonder if it’s healthy for us to sleep so near all those mouldering corpses.”

In ordinary circumstances she would have scoffed at her idea; but she could not dislodge the black monkey that sat on her shoulder. Vague misgivings and presentiments kept shaking through her mind.

She told herself that she would be profoundly grateful when Winnie was safely home. Travel must be risky—otherwise railway companies would not issue insurance policies. Suppose Winnie were taken ill on the journey and had to be dumped in some foreign waiting-room.

Anything might happen to her—a smash, or even worse. One read of terrible things which happened to girls travelling alone. Not that Winnie was actually a girl—thank goodness—but she was so young for her age.

At this point Mrs. Froy took herself in charge.

“Only two nights more,” she reminded herself. “You ought to be happy as a queen, instead of carrying on like a weeping-willow with a stomach ache. Now, you find out what’s at the bottom of all this.”

Before long she believed she had worked back to the original cause of her depression. It was the blackberry stain on the best tablecloth, which had not yielded entirely to salt.

“Goose,” she said. “It’ll boil out in the wash.”

Making a face at the tombstones, she stumped out of the room and down the stairs in search of her husband.

Contrary to custom she found him in the parlour sitting in the dark.

“Lazybones, why haven’t you lit the lamp?” she asked.

“In a minute.” Mr. Froy’s voice was unusually lifeless.

“I’ve been brooding. Bad habit. It’s an extraordinary thing that Winsome has been away so often, yet this is the first time I’ve ever felt apprehensive about her safety. These continental trains—I suppose I’m growing old. The ground is pulling me.”

Mrs. Froy’s heart gave a sudden leap as she listened. So he, too, had caught the warning whisper.

Without speaking, she struck a match, turned up the wick of the lamp, lit it, and fitted on the chimney. As she waited for the glass to warm through, she looked at her husband’s face, visible in the weak glow.

It appeared white, bloodless and bony—the face of a man who should be going to bed in a damp corner under the window, instead of sharing her spring-mattress.

At the sight she exploded with the righteous wrath of a woman who is rough on shadows.

“Never let me hear you talk like that again,” she scolded. “You’re as bad as Miss Parsons. She’s only sixty-six, yet the last time we came back from town together, she grumbled because the bus was full and she had to stand. I said, ‘My dear, don’t let every one know that you are not accustomed to court circles.’ And then I said, ‘Take my seat,
I’m
young.’”

“Did the people in the bus laugh?” asked Mr. Froy appreciatively.

In the circle of mellow lamplight his face had lost its pallor. Before she replied, his wife pounced on the window-cords and rattled the green window-curtains together, shutting out the bogie-twilight.

“Yes,” she said, “they simply roared. Then some one started to clap. But when I thought the joke had gone far enough, I stopped it. I
looked
at them.”

Although Mrs. Froy was proud of her gifts as a comedian, her sense of dignity was stronger. Her head was held high, as though she were still quelling her audience, as she inquired, “Where is Sock?”

“My dear, I’m afraid he is waiting outside until it is time to meet the train. I do wish I could make the poor fellow understand it’s Friday.”

“I’ll make him,” announced Mrs. Froy. “Sock.”

The big dog shambled in immediately, for although normally too spoiled to be obedient, he always respected a certain rasp in his mistress’s voice.

Mrs. Froy took three biscuits from the tin and laid them in a row on the fender-stool.

“Look, darling,” she said. “Mother’s got three biscuits for you. This is tonight, but Winnie’s not coming tonight. This is tomorrow, but Winnie’s not coming tomorrow.
This
is Friday, and Winnie’s coming Friday and you shall go and meet the train. Remember—
this
one.”

Sock looked up at her as though he were straining to understand—his amber eyes beaming with intelligence under his wisps of hair, for his head had not been shorn.

“He understands,” declared Mrs. Froy. “I can always talk to animals. Perhaps our vibrations are the same. I know what’s in his mind and I can always make him know what is in mine.”

She turned back to the fender-stool and picked up the first biscuit.

“This is tonight,” she explained. “Well, tonight’s over. So you can eat tonight.”

Sock entered into the spirit of the game. While he was making a mess of crumbs on the mat, Mrs. Froy spoke to her husband.

“That’s an end of tonight for us, too,” she said. “And good riddance. I wish you would remember that it’s bad form to go half-way to meet troubles which are not coming to your house, and which have no intention of calling on you. What are you grinning at?”

Shaking with laughter, Mr. Froy pointed to Sock, who was in the act of crunching the last biscuit.

“‘
He
understands,’” he quoted with gentle mockery.

The sight of his face made Mrs. Froy forget her momentary discomfiture. It looked years younger. There was no question now of where he ought to sleep that night.

She patted Sock, kissed his nose and flicked the biscuit crumbs from his coat.

“Yes,” she said tartly, “he understands—and better than you do. Don’t you see that he is trying to make the time pass quicker?”

At that moment others besides Mrs. Froy were anxious to speed up the march of time. Some were on the express which was being stoked up for its final spurt, to reach Trieste on time.

One of these—Mrs. Todhunter—hid her impatience under a pose of nonchalance. Wherever she went, she attracted notice and she also excited feminine envy by her special atmosphere of romance. Apparently she had everything that a woman could want—beauty, poise, exquisite clothes, and a wealthy, distinguished bridegroom.

In reality she was feverishly eager to get back to her husband.

He was a stout middle-aged building-contractor, named Cecil Parmiter. When at home Mrs. Laura Parmiter lived in a super-fine new house, with all those modern improvements which her husband introduced into the blocks of flats he built for others—and with none of their short-comings. She had a comfortable income, a generous allowance, competent servants, leisure, a trusting affectionate husband and two large children.

She had the additional detail of respectability.

Although she was the social queen of her set, she was secretly ambitious and discontented. During the rehearsals of a local pageant, when class-distinctions were levelled, she met a certain rising barrister—a visitor to the district, who had been roped into taking a part. He was a king and she was a queen—and the royal atmosphere lent a glamour to their meetings.

He was infatuated—temporarily—by her statuesque beauty and the facility with which she could quote passages from Swinburne and Browning, culled from her Oxford Book of Verse. After a few meetings in London, under the seal of the apple, he swept her away with him on a passionate adventure.

Although she lost her footing, Mrs. Laura’s brain still functioned. She had a definite ulterior motive for her surrender. During a session of Browning lectures, she had read “The Statue and the Bust” and had imbibed its spirit. She determined, therefore, to risk her counter on a bold fling—the chance of a double divorce.

After the preliminary patch of mud was crossed, she would take her rightful place in Society as the beautiful wife of a distinguished barrister. The world soon forgets—while she was confident that she could compel her husband to admit her moral claim to the children.

She lost. And Browning could have been proud of the spirit in which she took her toss.

The barrister was married to a sour elderly wife; but she possessed both a title and wealth. When Mrs. Laura discovered that he had not the slightest intention of making their adventure a prelude to matrimony, her pride forbade her to show any disappointment.

Perhaps her nonchalance was easier to assume by reason of her own disillusionment. The passionate adventure had not matured according to its promise. It taught her that a professional man did not differ so greatly from a tradesman in essentials and that they looked much the same before shaving and without their collars.

Moreover, the barrister had a handicap from which the builder was immune. He was a hard snorer.

To make matters worse, while he was careless of his own failings, his standard for women was so fastidious that she found it a strain to live up to it. She could never relax, or be natural, without being conscious of his criticism or impatience.

Being practical, she determined to cut short the holiday and get back to her husband while the going was good. Fortunately, she had not burned any bridges. Her husband had bought her return ticket to Turin, and she had told him to expect no mail, since he was going on a sea trip to the Shetlands.

Her plan was to leave the barrister at Turin, where he had joined her on the outward journey, and to stay there, for a night, so that her luggage could display the hotel labels.

The end of it all would be a happy domestic reunion and a better understanding, for—by contrast—she had learnt to appreciate her husband’s solidity. Thus one more matrimonial shipwreck had been averted by a trial-venture and a smashed code of morality.

As the Todhunters sat in their coupé, waiting for the second dinner to be served, they were a spectacle which attracted the interest of the tourists who straggled past the window. They must still be known by the name in which they had registered, since the barrister was too cautious to sign his own name.

It was “Brown.”

However, his parents had done their best for him, and his title of “Sir Peveril Brown” was sufficiently well-known to be dangerous—in addition to a striking profile which had been reproduced often in the pictorial press.

True to her character of Browning’s good loser, Mrs. Laura continued to play her part. Although her acquired drawl was replaced sometimes by her natural accent she still looked choice and aloof as a beautiful princess—remote from the rabble. But her fingers kept tapping the greasy old-gold plush seat, while she glanced continuously at her watch.

“Still hours and hours,” she said impatiently. “It seems as though we’d never make Trieste—let alone Turin.”

“Anxious to drop me?” asked Todhunter incredulously.

“I’m not thinking of you. But children get measles—and deserted husbands prove unfaithful. The world is full of pretty typists.”

“In that case, he’d have nothing on you, if it came to a show-up.”

She started at the word.

“
Show-up?
Don’t give me the jitters,” she cried sharply.

“There’s no chance of it, is there?”

He stroked his lip.

“I should say we are reasonably secure,” he told her. “Still I’ve handled some queer cases in my career. One never knows what will break. It was unfortunate that there were any English visitors at the hotel. And you are entirely too beautiful to remain anonymous.”

Mrs. Laura shook off his hand. She wanted reassurance, not compliments.

“You told me there was no risk,” she said. Forgetting that her original scheme had been to force her husband to take action, she added bitterly, “What a fool I’ve been.”

“Why are you suddenly so anxious to get back to your husband?” asked Todhunter.

“Well, to be brutally frank, we are all of us out for what we can get. And he can give me more than you can.”