24
She sent in a little note to Charlie on which she had written: ‘Please see me. It is urgent.’ A Chinese boy asked her to wait and brought the answer that Mr. Townsend would see her in five minutes. She was unaccountably nervous. When at last she was ushered into his room Charlie came forward to shake hands with her, but the moment the boy, having closed the door, left them alone he dropped the affable formality of his manner.
‘I say, my dear, you really mustn’t come her in working hours. I’ve got an awful lot to do and we don’t want to give people a chance to gossip.’
She gave him a long look with those beautiful eyes of her and tried to smile, but her lips were stiff and she could not.
‘I wouldn’t have come unless it was necessary.’
He smiled and took her arm.
‘Well, since you’re here come and sit down.’
It was a bare room, narrow, with a high ceiling; its walls were painted in two shades of terra cotta. The only furniture consisted of a large desk, a revolving chair for Townsend to sit in and a leather arm-chair for visitors. It intimidated Kitty to sit in this. He sat at the desk. She had never seen him in spectacles before; she did not know that he used them. When he noticed that her eyes were on them he took them off.
‘I only use them for reading,’ he said.
Her tears came easily and now, she hardly knew why, she began to cry. She had no deliberate intention of deceiving, but rather an instinctive desire to excite his sympathy. He looked at her blankly.
‘Is anything the matter? Oh, my dear, don’t cry.’
She took out her handkerchief and tried to check her sobs. He rang the bell and when the boy came to the door went to it.
‘If any one asks for me say I’m out.’
‘Very good, sir.’
The boy closed the door. Charlie sat on the arm of the chair and put his arm round Kitty’s shoulders.
‘Now, Kitty dear, tell me all about it.’
‘Walter wants a divorce,’ she said.
She felt the pressure of his arm on her shoulder cease. His body stiffened. There was a moment’s silence, then Townsend rose from her chair and sat down once more in his.
‘What exactly do you mean?’ he said.
She looked at him quickly, for his voice was hoarse, and she saw that his face was dully red.
‘I’ve had a talk with him. I’ve come straight from the house now. He says he has all the proof he wants.’
‘You didn’t commit yourself, did you? You didn’t acknowledge anything?’
Her heart sank.
‘No,’ she answered.
‘Are you quite sure?’ he asked, looking at her sharply.
‘Quite sure,’ she lied again.
He leaned back in his chair and stared vacantly at the map of China which was hanging on the wall in front of him. She watched him anxiously. She was somewhat disconcerted at the manner in which he had received the news. She had expected him to take her in his arms and tell her he was thankful, for now they could be together always; but of course men were funny. She was crying softly, not now to arouse sympathy, but because it seemed the natural thing to do.
‘This is a bloody mess we’ve got into,’ he said at length. ‘But it’s no good losing our heads. Crying isn’t going to do us any good, you know.’
She noticed the irritation in his voice and dried her eyes.
‘It’s not my fault, Charlie. I couldn’t help it.’
‘Of course you couldn’t. It was just damned bad luck. I was just as much to blame as you were. The thing to do now is to see how we’re going to get out of it. I don’t suppose you want to be divorced any more than I do.’
She smothered a gasp. She gave him a searching look. He was not thinking of her at all.
‘I wonder what his proofs really are. I don’t know how he can actually prove that we were together in that room. On the whole we’ve been about as careful as any one could be. I’m sure that old fellow at the curio shop wouldn’t have given us away. Even if he’d seen us go in there’s not reason why we shouldn’t hunt curios together.’
He was talking to himself rather than to her.
‘It’s easy enough to bring charges, but it’s damned difficult to prove them; any lawyer will tell you that. Our line is to deny everything, and if he threatens to bring an action we’ll tell him to go to hell and we’ll fight it.’
‘I couldn’t go into court, Charlie.’
‘Why on earth not? I’m afraid you’ll have to. God knows, I don’t want a row, but we can’t take it lying down.’
‘Why need we defend it?’
‘What a question to ask. After all, it’s not only you that are concerned, I’m concerned too. But as a matter of fact I don’t think you need be afraid of that. We shall be able to square your husband somehow. The only thing that worries me is the best way to set about it.’
It looked as though an idea occurred to him, for he turned towards her with his charming smile and his tone, a moment before abrupt and business-like, became ingratiating.
‘I’m afraid you’ve been awfully upset, poor little woman. It’s too bad.’ He stretched out his hand and took hers. ‘It’s a scrape we’ve got into, but we shall get out of it. It’s not...’ He stopped and Kitty had a suspicion that he had been about to say that it was not the first he had got out of. ‘The greatest thing is to keep our heads. You know I shall never let you down.’
‘I’m not frightened. I don’t care what he does.’
He smiled still, but perhaps his smile was a trifle forced.
‘If the worst comes to the worst I shall have to tell the Governor. He’ll curse me like hell, but he’s a good fellow and a man of the world. He’ll fix it up somehow. It wouldn’t do him any good if there was a scandal.’
‘What can he do?’ asked Kitty.
‘He can bring pressure to bear on Walter. If he can’t get at him through his ambition he’ll get at him through his sense of duty.’
Kitty was a little chilled. She did not seem able to make Charlie see how desperately grave the situation was. His airiness made her impatient. She was sorry that she had come to see him in his office. The surroundings intimidated her. It would have been much easier to say what she wanted if she could have been in his arms with hers round his neck.
‘You don’t know Walter,’ she said.
‘I know that every man has his price.’
She loved Charlie with all her heart, but his reply disconcerted her; for such a clever man it was a stupid thing to say.
‘I don’t think you realise how angry Walter is. You haven’t seen his face and the look of his eyes.’
He did not reply for a moment, but looked at her with a slight smile. She knew what he was thinking. Walter was the bacteriologist and occupied a subordinate position; he would hardly have the impudence to make himself a nuisance to the upper officials of the Colony.
‘It’s no good deceiving yourself, Charlie,’ she said earnestly. ‘If Walter has made up his mind to bring an action nothing that you or anybody else can say will have the slightest influence.’
His face once more grew heavy and sulky.
‘Is it his idea to make me correspondent?’
‘At first it was. At last I managed to get him to consent to let me divorce him.’
‘Oh, well, that’s not so terrible.’ His manner relaxed again and she saw the relief in his eyes. ‘That seems to me a very good way out. After all, it’s the least a man can do, it’s the only decent thing.’
‘But he makes a condition.’
He gave her an inquiring glance and he seemed to reflect.
‘Of course I’m not a very rich man, but I’ll do anything in my power.’
Kitty was silent. Charlie was saying things which she would never have expected him to say. And they made it difficult for her to speak. She had expected to blurt it out in one breath, held in his loving arms, with her burning face hid on his breast.
‘He agrees to my
divorcing him if your wife will give him the assurance that she will divorce you.’
‘Anything else?’
Kitty could hardly find her voice.
‘And – it’s awfully hard to say, Charlie, it sounds dreadful– if you’ll promise to marry me within a week of the decrees being made absolute.’
25
For a moment he was silent. Then he took her hand again and pressed it gently.
‘You know, darling,’ he said, ‘whatever happens we must keep Dorothy out of this.’
She looked at him blankly.
‘But I don’t understand. How can we?’
‘Well, we can’t only think of ourselves in this world. You know, other things being equal, there’s nothing in this world I’d love more than to marry you. But it’s quite out of the question. I know Dorothy: nothing would induce her to divorce me.’
Kitty was becoming horribly frightened. She began to cry again. He got up and sat down beside her with his arm round her waist.
‘Try not to upset yourself, darling. We must keep our heads.’
‘I thought you loved me ... ’
‘Of course I love you,’ he said tenderly. ‘You surely can’t have any doubt of that now.’
‘If she won’t divorce you Walter will make you corespondent.’
He took an appreciable time to answer. His tone was dry.
‘Of course that would ruin my career, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t do you much good. If the worst came to the worst I should make a clean breast of it to Dorothy; she’d be dreadfully hurt and wretched, but she’d forgive me.’ He had an idea. ‘I’m not sure if the best plan wouldn’t be to make a clean break of it anyhow. If she went to your husband I daresay she could persuade him to hold his tongue.’
‘Does that mean you don’t want her to divorce you?’
‘Well, I have got my boys to think of, haven’t I? And naturally I don’t want to make her unhappy. We’ve always got on very well together. She’s been an awfully good wife to me, you know.’
‘Why did you tell me that she meant nothing to you?’
‘I never did. I said I wasn’t in love with her. We haven’t slept together for years except now and then, on Christmas Day for instance, or the day before she was going home or the day she came back. She isn’t a woman who cares for that sort of thing. But we’ve always been excellent friends. I don’t mind telling you that I depend on her more than any one has any idea of.’
‘Don’t you think it would have been better to leave me alone then?’
She found it strange that with terror catching her breath she could speak so calmly.
‘You were the loveliest little thing I’d seen for years. I just fell madly in love with you. You can’t blame me for that.’
‘After all, you said you’d never let me down.’
‘But, good God, I’m not going to let you down. We’ve got in an awful scrape and I’m going to do everything that’s humanly possible to get you out of it.’
‘Except the one obvious and natural thing.’
He stood up and returned to his own chair.
‘My dear, you must be reasonable. We’d much better face the situation frankly. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but really I must tell you the truth. I’m very keen on my career. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be a Governor one of these days, and it’s a damned soft job to be a Colonial Governor. Unless we can hush this up I don’t stand a dog’s chance. I may not have to leave the service, but there’ll always be a black mark against me. If I do have to leave the service then I must go into business in China where I know people. In either case my only chance is for Dorothy to stick to me.’
‘Was it necessary to tell me that you wanted nothing in the world but me?’
The corners of his mouth drooped peevishly.
‘Oh, my dear, it’s rather hard to take quite literally the things a man says when he’s in love with you.’
‘Didn’t you mean them?’
‘At the moment.’
‘And what’s to happen to me if Walter divorces me?’
‘If we really haven’t a leg to stand on of course we won’t defend. There shouldn’t be any publicity and people are pretty broad-minded nowadays.’
For the first time Kitty thought of her mother. She shivered. She looked again at Townsend. Her pain now was tinged with resentment.
‘I’m sure you’d have no difficulty in bearing any inconvenience that I had to suffer,’ she said.
‘We’re not going to get much further by saying disagreeable things to one another,’ he answered.
She gave a cry of despair. It was dreadful that she should love him so devotedly and yet feel such bitterness towards him. It was not possible that he understood how much he meant to her.
‘Oh, Charlie, don’t you know how I love you?’
‘But, my dear, I love you. Only we’re not living in a desert island and we’ve got to make the best we can out of the circumstances that are forced upon us. You really must be reasonable.’
‘How can I be reasonable? To me our love was everything and you were my whole life. It is not very pleasant to realise that to you it was only an episode.’
‘Of course it wasn’t an episode. But you know, when you ask me to get my wife, to whom I’m very much attached, to divorce me, and ruin my career by marrying you, you’re asking a good deal.’
‘No more than I’m willing to do for you.’
‘The circumstances are rather different.’
‘The only difference is that you don’t love me.’
‘One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one’s life with her.’
She gave him a quick look and despair seized her. Heavy tears rolled down her cheeks.
‘Oh, how cruel! How can you be so heartless?’
She began to sob hysterically. He gave an anxious glance at the door.
‘My dear, do try and control yourself.’
‘You don’t know how I love you,’ she gasped. 1 can’t live without you. Have you no pity for me?’
She could not speak any more. She wept without restraint.
‘I don’t want to be unkind and, Heaven knows I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I must tell you the truth.’
‘It’s the ruin of my whole life. Why couldn’t you leave me alone? What harm had I ever done you?’
‘Of course if it does you any good to put all the blame on me you may.’
Kitty blazed with sudden anger.
‘I suppose I threw myself at your head. I suppose I gave you no peace till you yielded to my entreaties.’
‘I don’t say that. But I certainly should never have thought of making love to you if you hadn’t made it perfectly clear that you were ready to be made love to.’
Oh, the shame of it! She knew that what he said was true. His face now was sullen and worried and his hands moved uneasily. Every now and then he gave her a little glance of exasperation.
‘Won’t your husband forgive you?’ he said after a while.
‘I never asked him.’
Instinctively he clenched his hands. She saw him suppress the exclamation of annoyance which came to his lips.
‘Why don’t you go to him and throw yourself on his mercy? If he’s as much in love with you as you say he’s bound to forgive you.’
‘How little you know him!’
26
She wiped her eyes. She tried to pull herself together.
‘Charlie, if you desert me I shall die.’
She was driven now to appeal to his compassion. She ought to have told him at once. When he knew the horrible alternative that was placed before her his generosity, his sense of justice, his manliness, would be so vehemently aroused that he would think of nothing but her danger. Oh, how passionately she desired to feel his dear, protecting arms around her!
‘Walter wants me to go to Meitan-fu.’
‘Oh, but that’s the place where the cholera is. They’ve got t
he worst epidemic that they’ve had for fifty years. It’s no place for a woman. You can’t possibly go there.’
‘If you let me down I shall have to.’
‘What do you mean? I don’t understand.’
‘Walter is taking the place of the missionary doctor who died. He wants me to go with him.’
‘When?’
‘Now. At once.’
Townsend pushed back his chair and looked at her with puzzled eyes.
‘I may be very stupid, but I can’t make head or tail out of what you’re saying. If he wants you to go to this place with him what about a divorce?’
‘He’s given me my choice. I must either go to Meitan-fu or else he’ll bring an action.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Townsend’s tone changed ever so slightly. ‘I think that’s rather decent of him, don’t you?’
‘Decent?’
‘Well, it’s a damned sporting thing of him to go there. It’s not a thing I’d fancy. Of course he’ll get a C.M.G. for it when he comes back.’
‘But me, Charlie?’ she cried, with anguish in her voice.
‘Well, I think if he wants you to go, under the circumstances I don’t see how you can very well refuse.’
‘It means death. Absolutely certain death.’
‘Oh, damn it all, that’s rather an exaggeration. He would hardly take you if he thought that. It’s no more risk for you than for him. In point of fact there’s no great risk if you’re careful. I’ve been here when there’s been cholera and I haven’t turned a hair. The great thing is not to eat anything uncooked, no raw fruit or salads, or anything like that, and see that your drinking water is boiled.’ He was gaining confidence as he proceeded, and his speech was fluent; he was even becoming less sullen and more alert; he was almost breezy. ‘After all, it’s his job, isn’t it? He’s interested in bugs. It’s rather a chance for him if you come to think of it.’
‘But me, Charlie?’ she repeated, not with anguish now, but with consternation.
‘Well, the best way to understand a man is to put yourself in his shoes. From his point of view you’ve been rather a naughty little thing and he wants to get you out of harm’s way. I always thought he never wanted to divorce you, he doesn’t strike me as that sort of chap; but he made what he thought was a very generous offer and you put his back up by turning it down. I don’t want to blame you, but really for all our sakes I think you ought to have given it a little consideration.’