"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?"
"G.o.d 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 Park.
Chapter X
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 pa.s.sion, 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 sever 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 together, walked on the front together, listened together to the n.i.g.g.e.r minstrels; and she had 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.
"MY DEAR AMY,
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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. I 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,>
"CHARLES STRICKLAND."
"Not a word of explanation or regret. Don't you think it's inhuman?"
"It's a very strange letter under the circ.u.mstances," 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."
