The Oyster Part 50

"Tiens! Who knows!" She went to a table, poured out brandy and opened a bottle of Perrier. "Who knows, my Bertie. I saw you with Her at the theatre."

He sprang up, white, angry, to find the words wither on his lips. How could he deny, refute, with to-morrow--nay, to-day--before him? He sat down again, wearily, as a man does who is very tired.

"Look here, Bertie." Esme lighted the gas fire, flung off her cloak; her hair was tossed, her thin arms and neck bared to the bounds of decency, her dress was a sheath outlining each slender limb. "Look here!" she said. "You're sick of me. Let's have done with it. I'll meet you half-way."

"What do you mean?" he stammered.

"Mean?" She lighted a cigarette, then took a little tablet from a box and dropped one into her gla.s.s. "This is Nervine--Steadier--what you like," she mocked, "and really morphia. My nerves have gone to pieces.

I mean--go away; refuse to come back; amuse yourself with the fair Estelle, and I'll divorce you. Frank Dravelling would marry me," she said eagerly.

Bertie gave no answer.

"And I'm sick of this. He's a bleating, mawkish calf, but he's got fifteen thousand a year for me to spend, and if I don't, a dozen other women will."

Cold disgust gagged him. Had she no sense of decent feeling, to talk like this? Was the girl he had married dead?

"He is at the age when he admires rouge and paint," mocked Esme. "He'll make me My Lady, and Society will be glad to know me again. I'm sick of being no one, of seeing glum looks and tracking round with fifth-rate women. Come, Bertie! It's easily arranged."

As swift hands rub blurred gla.s.s, so that one can see clearly through what was dim, Esme's words let the man's mental eyes look across the future.

Estelle, his pure little Estelle! This painted, haggard woman would make a cat's-paw of her, drag her shamed name into the maw of the press, and stand aloof herself, an injured wife. And he--he--in his madness had been about to help her. Hidden by glamour of pa.s.sion, how different it had been to this standing naked, showing its distorted limbs. Let sorrow come or go, he knew that he would not now drag the woman he loved into sinning. These are the world's laws, men say, yet surely G.o.d's laws also, since to break them means remorse and punishment. Slight bonds of custom, but holding sane humanity.

"You have a curious mind," he said at last. "My G.o.d, have you no sense of right or wrong, Esme--no shade of decency left?"

"Oh, leave sermons to the Church," she said roughly.

"And supposing"--he got up, stood facing her, man baited, driven to bay--"I were to divorce you, my wife?"

"You can't," she said coolly. "If I stay out all night it's with companions. And look here, Bertie, I am sick of it all. I say, let me divorce you, or I'll take proceedings myself. If you are wise any woman of the streets will serve your purpose; if you are not, your pure Estelle's name will be in every paper. See!"

She tossed a photograph across to him. A glimpse of sea and cliff, and two people asleep, lying close to a bank. Their faces were clear; the girl, lying back, had one hand outstretched; the man, his face against the bank, had his upon it.

"Repose," said Esme, coa.r.s.e meaning in her voice, as every shade of colour whickered from her husband's face. "Repose by the sea."

The girl's face was Estelle Reynolds; the man's his own.

"Marie's young man is a photographer; he snapped this at the seaside one day in June, years ago. Marie brought it to me, commenting on the likeness to you. I kept it. Come, Bertie, give me freedom, or I'll take it."

Holding the photograph, he saw what its evidence would mean. Idle to prate of innocence with this before the jury. It might be printed with a dozen suggestive names below it. His uncle would turn against him; Estelle would not get over it.

"Well?" she said, watching him.

"No, but ill," he answered. "Yes, it's true. We dropped asleep sitting looking at the sea. Pah! what use to tell you?... We merely dropped asleep. But if you show this there shall be counter action, Esme."

"As I said," she flung out defiantly--"if I stay out at night, it's with companions."

He was ready with his counter-thrust; it darted, swift and true.

"From what companion," he asked slowly, "do you get your money? Do you think me a fool, Esme, not to have noticed all that you spend and pay?"

The colour ebbed from her face now, leaving the reddened mouth, the rouged cheeks, standing out unnaturally.

Evidence was so easy to find and trump up; she wanted her freedom, but with her name untouched--it was her one chance.

"I've known for months or more that there was someone," he went on.

"There is such a thing as common intelligence, Esme."

"You've known for months and years--known that there was someone," Esme repeated; her red lips drew away from her white teeth as she sat, stunned. So Bertie had believed her a light woman, untrue to him, a creature vending her beauty to some man. That, too, the consequence of her deceiving, of her folly.

She sat still, a stricken thing, her eyes alone alive in her face.

"That, I suppose, was why you changed to me," she whispered, in a curious metallic voice.

"That was why I ceased to love you--to live with you as your husband,"

he said simply and very sadly.

"That too!" The words rasped from between her white teeth, and suddenly she laughed--a hopeless, mirthless laugh, coming in noisy gusts; laughed, sitting there, white and haggard, until the laughter changed to gulping, sobbing gasps.

"Don't, Esme, don't," he cried. "Don't laugh like that."

She got up, her rich dress trailing round her thin limbs, the fire of her jewels catching the gleams from the electric light.

"So you won't let me divorce you?" she said. "Well, find my fellow-sinner if you can, and for the present say good-night to Mrs Cain."

Still laughing, she moved slowly across the room, and into her own; shut the door quietly behind her.

"That too!" she said. "Cut by Society; suspected by her husband." Oh, poor Esme, just because she was a selfish, wicked fool. Poor Esme--who was once so happy.

"Marie, I ... have you heard me? Marie--come!"

And then, for the first time, Esme fainted; sank into a merciful blackness, lay cold and still, until Marie found her.

Estelle had decked her room with flowers; had put on a soft gown, when a messenger brought her a letter.

"Estelle, I will not come. You are not a woman for a selfish man to drag down. It is good-bye, and not good-bye for me, for I shall never lose sight of your dear face; but for you, you are a girl--young--forget me. Marry someone you can like; don't leave your life empty. Let home and the kiddies be the cloth to wipe my memory out with. Estelle, I've woken you. I speak from man to woman, plainly. Go to your mother, and marry, for thwarted nature leads to strange miseries. Good-bye, Estelle. Last night Esme spoke out, and I saw where I was taking you to, and I'll not do it. My place is here, to save my wife, for who am I to prate of morality?"

Estelle read the letter, folded it up; the world was empty, swept clear of love and hope and tenderness.

Very quietly she went to her writing-table, sat down there.

"I have just got your letter," she wrote. "You are right, but one word.

People believe that Esme took, or got, jewels of Lady Blakeney's and sold them at Benhusan's and elsewhere. Her money comes from this source, they say. That is why people have cut her. I could not tell you before, and I was wrong. I do not believe it, but think that they were given to her by Denise Blakeney, and that there is some secret between them. Estelle."

She sent the letter by a cab.