Mrs. Maxon Protests

"They'd just put me down as an ordinary – an ordinary bad woman?"

"Let's say the ordinary case of a woman who has made a scandal. Because I agree with you in thinking that such a woman needn't be a bad woman. But even when she's not bad, she may in certain positions be injurious to the commonwealth – and a regiment's a commonwealth. I'm not clever, as my brother is. I'm not likely ever to get a bigger job than this. It'll be the most important trust I shall get, I expect. I want to be loyal to it. I'm being loyal to it at a great cost to me – yes, a great cost now. And you try to make me look ridiculous! Well, let that pass. Only, feeling as I do, I want to put myself right in your eyes, before we say good-bye."

"I'm sorry I tried to make you look ridiculous. Is that enough, Major Merriam?"

"It's something," he smiled. "But couldn't you go so far as not to think me ridiculous?"

"Have I got to think the officers' wives and the subalterns not ridiculous too?"

"I can leave that to your later reflections. They're not going to part from you to-morrow, and they don't care so much about your good opinion."

"No, I don't think you ridiculous any more." She spoke now slowly and thoughtfully. "I didn't understand. I see better what you mean and feel now. Only understanding other people doesn't make the world seem any easier! But I think I do understand. The King pays you for your life, and you're bound to give it, not only in war, if that's required of you, but in peace too – is it something like that?"

"Yes, that's the sort of thing it is. Thank you."

"And you mustn't do anything that makes the life he's bought less valuable to him either in war or peace?"

"Yes, that's it too." He smiled at her more happily now and in a great kindness.

"In fact, you've sold yourself right out and quite irrevocably?"

"Ah, well, that's not quite the way I should put it. We Merriams have always done it."

"Hereditary slaves!" smiled Winnie. "It's really rather like marriage, as Cyril conceived it. You mustn't have another wife. The regiment's yours. It would be bigamy!"

"Charming people can talk great nonsense," the Major made bold to observe. He was rather chilled again.

"We're veering round in this discussion. Now you're making out that I'm ridiculous!"

He made a gesture of protest. Winnie laughed. "Six days ago I didn't care particularly about you, but I should have married you if you'd asked me."

"So you told me why I'd better not ask you? Yes?"

"Now I like you very particularly, but nothing on earth would induce me to marry you," said Winnie. She shot a quick glance of raillery at him. "So, if you're struggling, you needn't struggle."

"I am struggling rather, Winnie."

"To-morrow ends it."

"Yes, but what's going to happen to you?"

"That's become rather more difficult to answer than it used to be." She rose from her chair. "But now I'm going in, to beg the General's pardon for having been so naughty."

She stood there before him, slim, almost vague, in the soft darkness. Her black gown was a darker spot on the gloom; her face and shoulders gleamed white, her brows and the line of her red lips seemed black, and black, too, the eyes with which she regarded him, half-loving, still half-ridiculing, from across the gulf that parted them. He made a quick impulsive step towards her, putting out his arms. It seemed to him that hers came out to meet them; at least she did not retreat. With a sigh and a shiver she yielded herself to his embrace. "I'm half sorry it's so utterly impossible all round," she whispered.

After his passionate kiss the man let her go and drew back. "Now I'm thoroughly ashamed of myself," he said.

"Oh, my dear, you needn't be. Here we are, two small puzzled things, together on this beautiful night for just a little while, and then a long way from one another for ever! And we've done nothing very dreadful. Just what you like in me has kissed me, and just what I like in you has kissed you, and wished you God-speed, and been sorry for the trouble I've made, and told you how much I hope for you and your dear regiment. I'm glad you did it, and I'm glad I did it. Surely it makes us friends for always that our lips have met like that?"

"I'll give it all up if you ask me, Winnie."

"No, no. I've been learning to think how one will feel about things to-morrow. Forget you said that. You don't really mean it."

He stood silent for a moment. "No, I didn't really mean it. I beg your pardon."

"I bear you no malice. I liked you to think it for just a minute. It's all over." She smiled reassuringly. "But I shall remember – and like to remember. Everything of me won't leave you, nor everything of you leave me now, to-morrow – not absolutely everything. Well, it never does, with people you've met intimately, I think. But what you leave to me is all good. I was getting hard. This glimpse of you as you really are has stopped it. Dear friend, kiss me once again, and so good-bye."

Very gently now he kissed her lips again – for it was her lips she gave him in a perfect confidence.

"Let's go in now," said Winnie, putting her arm through his.

They sauntered slowly through the fragrant garden. The night was still; no envious wind disturbed the island's rest. Merriam, deeply moved, but now master of himself, did not speak, but once or twice gently pressed the hand that lay on his arm. With Winnie there was a sense of sadness, yet also of peace. She had made a friend, and now was to lose him – yet not wholly. And, in winning him, she had won back herself also, and had done with the Miss Wilson who had been flouting and flirting these last few days, with intentions none too kind and manners none too good; she was again trying to understand, to be fair, to strike a true balance between herself and other people.

"You're very different from the others," she said suddenly; "but, somehow, you're helping me to be more just to them too." She gave a little sigh. "But justice is most awfully difficult. It's really much more comfortable to believe that there's absolutely nothing to be said for people. You believe that about a lot of people, don't you? You'd believe it about my friend Dick Dennehy, I expect, who wants to have Ireland independent, and to destroy the monarchy, and put down the army and navy, and all that sort of thing. Yet he's one of the greatest gentlemen."

"Then I'd hang him, but I'd shake hands with him first," said the Major.

"Rather like what he's done to me!" thought Winnie to herself; but Merriam did not read the meaning of the glance, the smile, and the gentle pressure on his arm.

"But he's got his regiment too!" she went on. Then, glancing up at her companion, she saw that he was not heeding her words, and the rest of her meditation over the parallel was conducted in silence.

The General was not to be found that night – he had retreated to his own quarters in the annex. Winnie said her farewell to him on the balcony after breakfast the next morning, as they stood and looked at the big hull of the liner in the roadstead; she was to start in a couple of hours' time.

"Have you forgiven me, General? Will you say good-bye to me? I said good-bye to your son last night."

"He'll be gone before you get back to England. He told me something about last night. You're friends, he and you, now? And, of course, my dear, you and I. And we shall meet."

The ship sent out a warning hoot. "Come on, if you're coming," she seemed to say.

"But he and I shan't meet. I'm so glad we have met – just for an hour once."

The funny little man, 'Dolly,' fussed on to the balcony, monstrously encumbered with impedimenta – a rug, a 'nest' of wicker baskets, a cap and a pair of shoes of the country, a huge bunch of bananas, and a specimen of sugar cane. The ship hooted again, and he made a hurried rush up to Winnie.

"Good-bye, Miss Wilson, good-bye," he said, dropping half a dozen things on the floor in order to give her a handshake. "I've got something for everybody, I think. I won – yes, I won – last night, and I went down to the town early and bought these presents."

"How fine! Good-bye, Mr. Wigram. Tell all the truth you can, won't you?"

He put his head on one side, in a comical seriousness. "I've been thinking – since I talked to you, Miss Wilson – that my senior class could stand a little." Another hoot! "Oh, good-bye!" he exclaimed, in an extraordinary fluster, as he picked up the things he had dropped, and made a bolt for the stairs. Winnie watched him running down the steps that led through the garden to the landing-stage.

"I think the senior class can stand a little, don't you, General?"

"You're over-young to be in it, my dear."

She turned to him. "I'm not unhappy, and I don't reckon myself unfortunate, because I think that, to some extent at least, I can learn. The only really unhappy people are people who can't learn at all, I think. Fancy going through it all and learning absolutely nothing!"

A longer, more insistent hoot! Bertie Merriam sauntered on to the balcony. No observer would have guessed that the hoot meant anything to him or that he had any farewell to make. The General held out his hand to Winnie. "I'll take the steps gently – Bertie can overtake me. Au revoir, Miss Winnie, in London!"

Bertie Merriam came to her. "You slept well?" he asked.

"Oh yes. Why not? I was so at peace. Say nothing this morning. We said good-bye last night."

"Yes, I know, but – " He was obviously embarrassed. "But I want to ask you one thing. It'll seem jolly absurd, I know, and rather conceited."

"Will it?" asked Winnie, with bright eyes glistening.

"Well, if there should be any little row in India – I know people at home don't take much notice of them – any little expedition or anything of that kind, could you keep your eye on it? Because we might have the luck to be in it, and I should like you to know how the regiment shows up."

"If you've the luck to be getting killed, I'll read about it," said Winnie. She smiled with trembling lips. "It's really the least I can do for a friend, Major Merriam."

"Killed? Oh, rot! Just see first how near to full strength we turn out – that's my great test – and then, if you read of any other fellows showing us the way, you might let me know, and I'll inquire about it – because we don't reckon to let it happen very often. Hullo, that whistle really sounds as if she meant business!" He gripped her hand tightly and looked into her eyes. "Here's the end, Winnie!"

"I wouldn't have had it not happen; would you?"

"I shall often wonder if I did right."

She smiled. "You needn't. What you did would have made no difference – only you'd have been a little less loyal to your duty."

"I wish I knew what was going to become of you."

"I'm not afraid any more. God bless you, dear."

He waited one moment longer. "You've no grudge against me?"

Winnie turned sharply away, and leant over the balcony. "Oh, please, please!" she stammered.

When she saw him again, he was half-way down to the landing-stage. He turned, waved his hand, and so passed out of sight – and out of life for Winnie Maxon.

CHAPTER XXV

"PERHAPS!"

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Ladd, laying down her knife and fork.

From her table in the dining-room of the Hôtel de la Grande Bretagne at Bellaggio, she commanded a view of the door, and could scrutinize her fellow-guests as they entered. The hotel was full of fresh birds of passage every evening, for the end of the season was approaching, and all the world was travelling through on its way northwards. A lady of lively curiosity, possessed, moreover, by that sense of superiority over the casual visitor which a long stay in a hotel always gives, Mrs. Ladd allowed few of the new-comers to escape without comment or criticism. Lady Rosaline, whose back was towards the door, often felt compelled to twist her head round, in order to estimate for herself the justice of her companion's remarks; but on this occasion she merely asked, "What's the matter, dear?"

"Why, that woman who's just come in!" Her voice was full of pleasurable excitement. "It's Cyril Maxon's wife. Who is it with her, I wonder!" Mrs. Ladd was not acquainted personally, or even by hearsay, with Mrs. Lenoir.

Lady Rosaline's head went round, not quickly or eagerly, but with a well-bred show of indifference. She watched Winnie walking down the room. "Did she see us?" she asked of Mrs. Ladd.

"No, she didn't look this way. What shall we do, Rosaline? It's very awkward." Awkward as it was, Mrs. Ladd sounded more puzzled than pained.

"I only knew her very slightly – three or four quite formal calls – in the old days."

"Oh, I used to see her now and then, though it was her husband who was my friend, of course."

"Well, then, I think we can do as we like."

"I don't know. As friends of his – well, what's the right thing towards him?"

"I don't mind what's the right thing – towards Mr. Maxon," said Lady Rosaline pettishly. "It won't hurt him if we're civil to her. I shall please myself. I shan't go out of my way to look for her, but if we meet I shall bow."

"Oh, well, I must do the same as you, of course. Only I must say I hope Cyril won't hear about it and be hurt. He always expects his friends to make his quarrels theirs, you know!"

Lady Rosaline allowed herself a shrug of the shoulders; she was not bound to please Cyril Maxon – not yet. The friendly correspondence was still going on, but things looked as if it would either cease or assume a different complexion before long. She had a letter upstairs in her writing-case at this moment – an unanswered letter – in which he informed her that the last tie between Winnie and himself would be severed in a few weeks, and asked leave to join her at Bellaggio, or wherever else she was going to be, for two or three days during the Whitsuntide vacation.

"Then there will be nothing to prevent our arriving at a complete understanding," he added.

Lady Rosaline knew what that meant. She must make up her mind. Unless she could make it up in the manner desired by Mr. Maxon, she did not think that they had better meet in the Whitsuntide vacation; he would not be an agreeable companion if his wishes were thwarted. Even now, while he was still in hope and had every motive to be as pleasant as he could, there ran through the friendly letter a strain of resentment imperfectly repressed.

Under these circumstances, with this decision of hers to make, it was not strange that Lady Rosaline should be interested by the chance which threw across her path the woman who had been – and technically still was, for a little while longer – Cyril Maxon's wife. Mrs. Ladd, who guessed her friend's situation pretty shrewdly, was hardly less curious, though more restrained by her loyalty to Cyril. Still she was glad that Lady Rosaline had determined that they need not cut Mrs. Maxon. That she was 'Mrs. Maxon' – 'Mrs. Winifred Maxon' – became apparent from an examination of the visitors' book, which Mrs. Ladd initiated directly after dinner. Winnie was sailing under her own flag again, and proposed to continue to fly it, unless Cyril Maxon objected. If he heard of it, he probably would object; then she could find another sobriquet if Mrs. Lenoir was still obdurate as regards the ''kins' which disfigured her own maiden name of 'Wilkins.'

"And the woman with her seems to be a Mrs. Lenoir. At least, their names are next one another, and so are their rooms. Did you ever hear of her?"

"Never," answered Lady Rosaline. It was just as well; they had plenty of material for gossip already.

They were sitting in the hall of the hotel, where wicker chairs and little tables were set out, and where it was customary to take coffee after dinner. Mrs. Ladd had made her inspection and rejoined her friend.

"Have they come out from dinner yet?" she asked.

"No. They were late in beginning, you see. Where we're sitting, they needn't pass us when they do come out. Well, we don't want to make a rush for them, do we, Mrs. Ladd?"

"Indeed, no. I shall only speak if it's forced on me – just not to be unkind, Rosaline. But I do wish they'd come out!"

At last the new-comers entered the hall, Mrs. Lenoir leading the way. She looked handsome still, but rather old and haggard. By bad luck the voyage had been stormy the last two days, and the railway journey had wearied a body not very robust. But Winnie looked well, bright, and alert. They did not pass Mrs. Ladd and Lady Rosaline, but sat down at a table near the dining-room door. As they sat, their profiles were presented to the gaze of the two ladies who were observing them so closely.

"The other woman must have been very handsome once," Mrs. Ladd pronounced. "I wonder who she was!" Mrs. Lenoir's air of past greatness often caused people to speak of her in a corresponding tense.

"Winnie Maxon's looking well, too. I think she's somehow changed; don't you, Mrs. Ladd? There's a new air about her, it seems to me – a sort of assured air she hadn't before."

"My dear, she must carry it off! That's the meaning of it."

"I wonder!" Lady Rosaline was not satisfied. Her memory of Winnie, slight as it was, reminded her quite definitely that Cyril Maxon's wife possessed a rather timid air, a deprecatory manner. The woman over there was in no way self-assertive or 'loud,' but she seemed entirely self-possessed and self-reliant, and was talking in an animated fashion. Mrs. Ladd looked again.

"Cyril said she accused him of tyrannizing over her. I'm sure she doesn't look as if she'd been tyrannized over," she remarked. "All nonsense, I've no doubt."

Lady Rosaline made no answer; she merely went on looking. But she could not forget that many months had passed since Winnie ended her married life with Cyril Maxon.

No encounter between the two couples occurred that night; indeed Mrs. Lenoir and Winnie remained unconscious of the scrutiny to which they were subjected, and of the presence of the ladies who were conducting it. Wearied by travel they went early to bed, and Mrs. Ladd, feeling immediately very dull, went and hunted out an elderly novel from the drawing-room shelves. Lady Rosaline did not read; she sat on idly in the hall – thinking still of Winnie, and of Mrs. Ladd's remark which she herself had not answered. Should she – could she – question the one person who might give it a pertinent answer? Could even she answer to any purpose? That is, would Winnie's experience and opinion be any guide to Lady Rosaline in settling her own problem? Perhaps it would be strange to question, and perhaps no answer, useless or useful, would be forthcoming. Yet, on the other hand, it might be possible to get some light. These thoughts engrossed her mind till she went discontentedly to bed, and, even after she had got into bed, remained to vex and puzzle her still. But there was really no doubt what, in the end, she would do. She was bound to try. Both curiosity and personal interest drove her on. They were too strong to be suppressed, either by the fear of a snub or by the doubt of useful results.

The next morning, directly after breakfast, she went out on to the broad terrace in front of the hotel, and sat down on a bench close by the main doorway. No one could leave the house without her seeing. She reckoned on the new-comers being early afoot, to explore their surroundings; she even surmised that the young woman would very likely be out before her elderly companion – and that (said Lady Rosaline's secret thoughts) would afford the best chance of all. She put up her parasol and waited. She was safe from Mrs. Ladd, whom she did not want at that moment, for Mrs. Ladd was upstairs, repairing some ravages suffered by one of her gowns.

"It's a funny situation!" So Lady Rosaline reflected, and she wondered, in a whimsical mood of speculation, what Cyril Maxon himself would think of it. "What I really want to do is to ask for his character from his last place!" Yes, that was what it came to; and the parallel held good still further, in that it was quite likely that the character would not tell her very much, would not show whether the applicant were likely to suit her, however well or ill he had suited in his previous situation. Still, it must surely reveal something about him or about his wife herself; even knowledge about the wife who had left Maxon would be, in a way, knowledge about Maxon himself. But it was an odd situation. What would Cyril think of it?

A surprising number of people came out of that doorway before Winnie; but in the end Lady Rosaline's forecast was justified. Winnie did come out, and she came out alone. She wore her hat, carried a parasol, and walked with a quick step, as though she were bound on an expedition. Lady Rosaline rose from her chair, and intercepted her.

"I thought it was you last night, at table d'hôte, and now I'm sure! How do you do, Mrs. Maxon? You remember me – Rosaline Deering?" She held out her hand. "I'm so glad to see you."

Winnie shook hands. "Yes, I remember you, Lady Rosaline, and I'm glad to see you – if you're glad to see me, I mean, you know." She smiled. "Well, you needn't have shaken hands with me if you hadn't wanted to, need you? Isn't it lovely here?"

"It is, indeed. Mrs. Ladd – you remember her too, of course? – and I have been here together for nearly a month, and hope to be here another fortnight. Are you staying long?"

"We hoped to, but my friend isn't very well – she's staying in bed this morning – and I'm afraid she's set her mind on getting home. So we might be off really at any moment."

Clearly Lady Rosaline had no time to lose. "Are you going for a walk?" she said.

"Oh, I'm just going to saunter through the town and look about me."

"May I come with you?"

"Of course! It'll be very kind." There was just the faintest note of surprise in Winnie's voice. Her acquaintance with her husband's friend, Rosaline Deering, had been very slight; it had never reached the pitch of cordiality on which it seemed now, rather paradoxically, to be establishing itself.

Off they went together – certainly a strange sight for Cyril Maxon, had his eyes beheld it! But even eager Lady Rosaline could not plunge into her questions at once, and Winnie, full of the new delight of Italy, was intent on the sights of the little town, and on the beauty of the lake and the hills. It was not till they had come back and sat down on a seat facing the water that the talk came anywhere near the point. Yet the walk had not been wasted; they had got on well together, the cordiality was firmly established – and Lady Rosaline had enjoyed an opportunity of observing more closely what manner of woman Cyril Maxon's wife was. The old impression of the timid air and deprecatory manner needed drastic revision to bring it up to date; these were not words that anybody would use to describe the present Winnie Maxon.

Still Lady Rosaline found it hard to begin, hard to make any reference, however guarded, to the past. In fact it was Winnie herself who in the end gave the lead. Lady Rosaline was thankful; she had begun to be afraid that a nervous desperation would drive her into some impossibly crude question, such as "Do you think I should be a fool if I married your husband?"

"I suppose you see Cyril sometimes, Lady Rosaline? Is he all right?"

"Oh yes, he's very much all right, I think, and I see him pretty often, for so busy and sought-after a man." She decided that she must risk something if she were to gain anything. "Isn't it rather a strange feeling, after having been so very much to one another, to be so absolutely apart now? I hope you'll tell me if you'd rather not talk?"

"I don't mind," smiled Winnie. "It's a great change, of course, but really I don't often think of him – nor he of me, I expect." She added, with a little laugh: "At least I hope he doesn't, because he wouldn't think anything complimentary. Of course I was surprised about the divorce."

"We were all rather surprised at that," Lady Rosaline murmured discreetly; her object was to obtain, not to give, information.

"It's the one inconsistent thing I've ever known him do." She laughed. "I wonder if it's possible that he's fallen in love with somebody else!"

Lady Rosaline threw no light. "Oh, well, he wouldn't have to ask in vain, I should think."

Winnie said nothing. She looked at the sea with a smile which her companion felt justified in calling inscrutable. Lady Rosaline took another risk.