For three years, for three interminable years, Jim had borne the stagnation of his married life at Eversfield, the door of his heart shut against the whispering voices which bade him turn his back on his heritage and come out into the free world once more. But now matters had reached a psychological crisis. Something had happened to him; something had opened the door again. And as he sat in his room that night these voices seemed to assail him from all sides, enticing him to leave England, coaxing him, wheedling him, jeering at him for his lack of enterprise, and persuading him with the pictured delights of other lands. “Give it up!” they murmured. “You were never meant for this sort of thing: you can never find happiness here. Think of the sound of the sea as it slaps the bow of the outbound liner; think of the throb of the screw; think of the noisy boatloads surrounding the ship when the anchor has rattled into the transparent water of a southern harbour; the familiar sound and smells of hot little towns, sheltering under the palms; the soft crunch of camels’ pads upon the desert sands; the far-off cry of the jackals. Think of the unshackled life of the happy wanderer; the freedom from the restraint of the Great Sham; the absence of these posings and pretences of so-called respectability. Give it up, you fool; and take[149] your lazy body over the hills and far away: for your lost content awaits you beyond the horizon, and it will never come back to you in this stagnant valley.”
Until late in the night he allowed his thoughts to wander in forbidden places, and when at last he sought comfort in sleep, his dreams were full of far-away things and alluring scenes. In the early morning he lay awake for an hour before it was time to take his bath; and through the open window the sound of the chimes from the distant spires of Oxford floated into the room.
“Confound those blasted bells!” he cried, suddenly springing from his bed. “They have drugged me long enough. To-day I am awake: I shall sleep no more!”
Of a sudden he formed a resolution. He would go away alone for two or three months, in spite of any protest which his wife might make. And not only would he take this single holiday: he would lay his plans so that there should be another scheme of existence to which, in the future, he could retire whenever his home became unbearable. His uncle had led a double life: he, too, would do so; not, however, in the company of any Emily, but in the far more alluring society of that Lady called Liberty. James Tundering-West, Squire of Eversfield, from henceforth should be subject to perennial eclipses, and at such times Jim Easton, vagrant, should be resuscitated.
He would sell out a couple of thousand pounds’ worth of stock, and generously place it as a first instalment to the credit of Jim Easton in another[150] part of the world; and nobody but himself should know about it. For the last three years he had lived mainly on his rent-roll, and this should remain the means of subsistence of his wife, and of himself so long as he was in England. But the bulk of the remainder of his fortune left of late almost untouched, should gradually be transferred, little by little, to the credit of the wanderer.
At breakfast he was so enthralled with his scheme that he paid no attention whatsoever to Dolly’s offended silence. He told her that he was going to London for a few days, and that very possibly he would there make arrangements to go abroad for a holiday.
“As you please,” she replied, coldly. “I, too, need a change; but I can’t play the deserter. I must stay here, and try to do my duty.”
Driving into Oxford he turned the matter over in his mind unceasingly, and in the train he thought of little else, nor so much as glanced at the newspapers he had brought. The difficulty was to think out a means whereby he could now place this capital sum to the account of Jim Easton, and later add to it, without using his cheque book or any bank notes which could be traced; for all the salt would be gone out of the proposed enterprise if his recurrent change of personality were open to detection. He wanted to be able to say to Dolly each year: “I am going away, and I shall be back about such-and-such a date, until then I shall not be able to be found, nor troubled in any way by the exigencies of domestic life.”
At length, as he reached the hotel where he was[151] going to stay, the simple solution came to him; and so eager was he to put the plan into execution that he was off upon the business so soon as he had deposited his dressing-case in the bedroom. In South Africa he had become an expert in the valuation of diamonds, and now he proposed to put this knowledge to use. He knew the addresses of two or three dealers who supplied the trade with unset stones; and to these he made his way, with the result that during the afternoon he had selected some twenty small diamonds which were to be held for him until his cheques should be forthcoming.
The business was resumed next day; and by the following evening he had depleted his capital by two thousand pounds, and in its place he held a little boxful of diamonds which, so far as he could tell, were worth considerably more than he had paid for them. These stones he proposed to sell again, practically one by one, in various foreign cities, depositing the proceeds in the name of Jim Easton at some bank, say in Rome; and, as all the jewels were of inconspicuous size and small value, his dealings would not be able to be traced beyond the original purchases in London, even if so far as that.
Before returning to Oxford he decided to pay a call on Mrs. Darling to invite her to go down to stay at Eversfield during his absence. He regarded her as a capable, good-natured, and entirely unprincipled woman; and she had invariably shown him that at any rate she liked him, if she were not always proud of him. As a mother-in-law she had been extraordinarily circumspect, and, in fact, she had effaced herself to a quite unnecessary extent, seldom[152] coming to stay at the manor, but preferring to pass most of her time at her little flat in London.
She was at home when he called, and greeted him with affection, good-temperedly scolding him for not writing to her more often.
“You might have peaceably passed away, for all I knew,” she said.
Jim smiled. “Oh, I think Dolly would have mentioned it, if I had,” he replied. He gazed around the room: it was always a source of profound astonishment to him. The walls were silver-papered, the woodwork was scarlet, the furniture was of red lacquer, the carpet was grey, and the chairs and sofa were upholstered in grey silk, ornamented with much silver fringe and many tassels of silver and scarlet. Upon the walls were a dozen Bakst-like paintings of women displaying bits of their remarkable anatomy through unnecessary apertures in their tawdry garments; and as Jim stared at them he was devoutly thankful that Mrs. Darling had not robed herself in like manner.
She followed the direction of his gaze. “Hideous, aren’t they?” she said.
“They are, rather,” he replied. “Why do you have them?”
“Well, you see,” she answered, “so many milliners and dressmakers come to see me in connection with my monthly fashion articles; and they would of course think nothing of my taste if I had any really nice pictures on my walls.”
She dived behind the sofa and rose again with her hands full of a medley of startling nightgowns.
“Look at these!” she laughed. “They were left[153] here for me to criticise by a shop which calls itself ‘Frocks, Follies, and Fragrance.’ Horrible, aren’t they? The only nice thing about them is their exquisite material. I always say to all young married women: ‘Flannel nightgowns may keep you warm, but crêpe-de-Chine will keep your husband.”
Jim stared at the wildly coloured garments long and thoughtfully. “I sometimes think,” he said at length, “that women have no sense of humour.”
“No more has Nature,” she replied. “Look at the camel.” She changed the conversation. “Tell me,” she said, “how is Dolly?”
“Top hole, thanks,” he replied.
“I notice,” Mrs. Darling remarked, as they sat down together on the big sofa, “that you don’t bring her to Town with you nowadays. I hope you’re not leading a double life?”
“No,” he answered.
“That’s right,” she said. “That’s a good boy! Have you taken to drink yet?”
Jim laughed. “No, why should I?”
“Most married men do,” she told him. “My own husband did. He never really showed it; but I’ve seen him get up the morning after, turn on a cold bath, drink it, and go to bed again.”
“Well, as a matter of fact,” said Jim, “I am thinking of breaking loose for a bit. That’s really what I’ve come to see you about. I want your advice.”
“Advice! Advice from me?” she exclaimed. “Why, my dear boy, my advice on domestic affairs would be worth about as much as the figure 0 without its circumference-line.”
[154]
“Well, not your advice exactly, but your help. The fact is, I want to get away. I’ve grown flat and stale down at Eversfield, and I think Dolly finds me rather a bore sometimes. I have an idea that it would do us both a ............