If Only etc. Part 5

CHAPTER IV.

Six months wore themselves away; six months in every day of which John Chetwynd lived a year, measured by the anxiety and misery it held for him. He could no longer delude himself into the belief that Bella loved him, for all her actions went to prove the contrary. But her end just once gained, there were no more bickerings and disputes--she even condescended to consider her husband's wishes, when they did not clash or interfere with her own. But night after night he sat alone with the hateful consciousness that the woman who bore his name was parading her charms to d.i.c.k, Tom and Harry; in fact, to anybody who chose to pay his s.h.i.+lling for the privilege of contemplating them. It was in moments such as these that the iron entered his soul and there was no escape from it; he must bear his burden as many a better man had borne it before him. And thus it was he buried himself in his profession, working with a will and vigour that astonished no one so much as himself. He was rapidly becoming a popular man. Through sheer good luck (as he really believed it to be) he had diagnosed one or two cases with an ease and accuracy which not only filled his purse beyond his utmost expectations, but helped him up the ladder of fame at an amazing rate. But when emboldened by success, and always remembering the fact that however wilful and oblivious she might be, she was still to all intents and purposes the wife of his bosom and equally interested with himself in all his undertakings, he recounted his triumphs and declared his intention of leaving Camberwell forthwith and settling in Camelot Square, Bella smiled, yet proved in no way elated at the intelligence.

"So, my dear, you can go as soon as you like and fix upon a house,"

he said.

Bella yawned and stretched her arms above her head.

"Oh, you will know much better than I what is required," she replied.

"Have you, then, no interest in our new home?" he asked, more hurt than he could well have expressed.

"Do you ever show the slightest interest in what concerns me?" she retorted.

He winced. "This is a mutual interest, surely, since we must occupy it together."

"Must?" she echoed dreamily.

"What do you mean?" he asked sharply.

"Nothing, except that 'must' is the word I have banished from my vocabulary," and she smiled at him--actually smiled, though she must have known she was stabbing him to the very heart.

He said no more; and indeed, words seemed to be useless.

So he chose the house himself,--one that could not fail to please Bella, he felt exultantly. She would be less than woman if she were not glad to exchange the second-rate little dwelling in the Camberwell New Road for the substantial residence, with its modern improvements and embellishments in such a neighbourhood as Camelot Square.

It was not perhaps a palace, but it was a very great deal more imposing than anything they had dreamt of in the early days of their married life, and yet John Chetwynd told himself with a sigh that he would gladly give up fame and prosperity to win back the old love-light in his wife's eyes.

And there are some among us who cannot love for so little--"Of man's love a thing apart." Perhaps John Chetwynd would have been a happier man had he been one of these.

Even the task of furnis.h.i.+ng fell to the doctor's lot. Bella did not refuse, nor did she object to accompany him on what he might have naturally supposed would be a congenial task for her, but she showed herself so indifferent throughout that, after an effort or two to make her contented, he gave it up, and it ended in his carrying the whole thing through himself.

And he was not sorry when at length it was completed. On the morrow he would bring Bella to her new home.

He stood under the bright lighted chandelier and looked round him.

The carpet was thick and soft. Bella liked carpets her feet could sink into, she had once said. There by the fireplace was the most luxurious easy chair he could purchase, upholstered in her favourite colour, pale blue. He pictured the dainty figure nestling in it, and a little glow stirred at his heart. After all, she was his wife, his fondly loved wife, and who could tell? Perhaps with the old life, old feuds would die out and with the new, joy and happiness dawn for them both once more.

John Chetwynd was not a religious man; he rarely went to church and he never prayed; but now he covered his face with his hands, and his lips moved inaudibly.

He was asking for a blessing on the new life, and there was something like a tear in his eye and a suspicious huskiness in his voice as he called out "Come in" in answer to a hurried knock at the door and flung open the lid of a grand piano which was littered with music and songs, running his hands over the keys and smiling a little.

The piano was to be a surprise: Bella knew nothing about it.

Perhaps it would keep her more at home, for she was very fond of music.

It had cost more than he ought to have paid, but still it was for her.

"Come in, Mrs. Brewer--what is it? I'm just off. You will have us both here to-morrow at this time for good and all, I hope."

"Indeed, sir, and I'm glad to hear it. Things do look most beautiful, and no mistake."

The good soul shambled across the floor and held out a letter wrapped in the corner of her ap.r.o.n.

"A boy brought it, sir, half an hour ago, but I clean forgot it, and that's a fact."

"Never mind. It is probably of no importance."

But it was. By-and-by his eyes fell on it as it lay where Mrs.

Brewer's hard-working fingers had placed it, on the edge of a little gaily-lined work table destined to hold Bella Chetwynd's cotton and needles, and to his astonishment he observed it was in his wife's handwriting.

Ah! written just before she started for the----.He caught it up and tore it open. The next instant it fluttered from his hold.

For fully ten seconds John Chetwynd sat spell-bound, and then he broke into a laugh--mirthless, hollow.

"And I prayed to my G.o.d to send his blessing on--our--future," he said in a dull, mechanical manner. "Well, the last act is played out and they may ring the curtain down. From to-night I believe neither in woman, Heaven, nor h.e.l.l, save that which each man makes for himself."

Bella had turned her shapely back on the apotheosis of respectability for a life of excitement and the protection of another man. n.o.body was surprised but John himself.

Everybody had predicted it months ago. The only astonis.h.i.+ng feature of the scandal was, that it had not occurred before.

The one other thing people found surprising was the callousness with which the injured husband took it.

It had always been believed that what love there was, was on his side, but now--

Well, it is indeed an ill wind that blows us no good. If notoriety was what John Chetwynd desired, he got it in full measure, well pressed down and br.i.m.m.i.n.g over; his waiting room was besieged, for many patients flocked there, wide eyed in scrutiny, martyrs to symptoms discovered or invented for the occasion.

Of course he would divorce her. And he did.

In due course he obtained his decree _nisi_, which later on was made absolute.

Bella's picture no longer stared him in the face from every h.o.a.rding, and the newspaper advertis.e.m.e.nts knew her no more. She had gone back to the States, and by-and-by was forgotten on this side the Atlantic.

Now and then he was disagreeably reminded of her existence.

Once in the Club a young fellow to whom Chetwynd was personally unknown stretched himself behind a newspaper and muttered, "Bella Blackall Wasn't that the name of Dr. Somebody's wife who ran away with another fellow?"

"Yes, Bella Blackall was my wife," John Chetwynd answered with unruffled equanimity, picking up the paper which the other had thrown down. "She used to be rather a clever dancer, too."

And he calmly perused the line which included her name among some well known American stars touring in the provinces.

"And he never turned a grizzled hair! I give you my word I felt more over the thing than he did," remarked Captain Hetherington afterwards; "without exception the most cold-blooded individual ever met."

But John Chetwynd was far from being this. He had felt his wife's desertion far too deeply to show his scars, nor was he a man to wear his heart upon his sleeve; but as time went by and the utter callousness of Bella's conduct came home to him, he realised to the full that she was unworthy of a single pang, and he became reconciled to the inevitable. His profession claimed every spare moment, and for a man ill at ease there is no specific like hard work. By-and-by as the years rolled on, another distraction presented itself. He became interested in one of his patients, the only daughter of the Duke of Huddersfield, Lady Ethel Claremont, and this interest blossomed into something stronger and warmer--something that at last he dignified by the name of love, though he was by no means without misgivings as to whether it could ever really lay claim to the t.i.tle.

Certain it was that there was no more of the old exultation about his heart that had formed so large a part of his former courts.h.i.+p; there were no extravagances, no quickened pulses--rapture's warmth had yielded to the mildest of after-glows; but there was no reason that it should not prove as satisfactory in the long run. It is an open question whether the doctor, popular though he undoubtedly was, would have been considered an eligible suitor from the maternal point of view, had it not been that just about this time fortune elected to bestow another favour upon him; his career had reached its apex, and (again through sheer good luck, as John Chetwynd modestly declared) he was offered a baronetcy.