He stole upstairs. Not daring to have a bath, or shave (besides, the

water would be cold), he changed his clothes and packed stealthily

all he could. It was hard to leave so many shining boots, but one must

sacrifice something. Then, carrying a valise in either hand, he stepped

out onto the landing. The house was very quiet--that house where he had

begotten his four children. It was a curious moment, this, outside the

room of his wife, once admired, if not perhaps loved, who had called him

'the limit.' He steeled himself with that phrase, and tiptoed on; but

the next door was harder to pass. It was the room his daughters slept

in. Maud was at school, but Imogen would be lying there; and moisture

came into Dartie's early morning eyes. She was the most like him of the

four, with her dark hair, and her luscious brown glance. Just coming

out, a pretty thing! He set down the two valises. This almost formal

abdication of fatherhood hurt him. The morning light fell on a face

which worked with real emotion. Nothing so false as penitence moved him;

but genuine paternal feeling, and that melancholy of 'never again.' He

moistened his lips; and complete irresolution for a moment paralysed his

legs in their check trousers. It was hard--hard to be thus compelled to

leave his home! "D---nit!" he muttered, "I never thought it would come

to this." Noises above warned him that the maids were beginning to get

up. And grasping the two valises, he tiptoed on downstairs. His cheeks

were wet, and the knowledge of that was comforting, as though it

guaranteed the genuineness of his sacrifice. He lingered a little in the

rooms below, to pack all the cigars he had, some papers, a crush hat,

a silver cigarette box, a Ruff's Guide. Then, mixing himself a stiff

whisky and soda, and lighting a cigarette, he stood hesitating before a

photograph of his two girls, in a silver frame. It belonged to Winifred.

'Never mind,' he thought; 'she can get another taken, and I can't!' He

slipped it into the valise. Then, putting on his hat and overcoat, he

took two others, his best malacca cane, an umbrella, and opened the

front door. Closing it softly behind him, he walked out, burdened as

he had never been in all his life, and made his way round the corner to

wait there for an early cab to come by.

Thus had passed Montague Dartie in the forty-fifth year of his age from

the house which he had called his own.

When Winifred came down, and realised that he was not in the house,

her first feeling was one of dull anger that he should thus elude the

reproaches she had carefully prepared in those long wakeful hours. He

had gone off to Newmarket or Brighton, with that woman as likely as

not. Disgusting! Forced to a complete reticence before Imogen and the

servants, and aware that her father's nerves would never stand the

disclosure, she had been unable to refrain from going to Timothy's that

afternoon, and pouring out the story of the pearls to Aunts Juley and

Hester in utter confidence. It was only on the following morning that

she noticed the disappearance of that photograph. What did it mean?

Careful examination of her husband's relics prompted the thought that he

had gone for good. As that conclusion hardened she stood quite still in

the middle of his dressing-room, with all the drawers pulled out, to try

and realise what she was feeling. By no means easy! Though he was 'the

limit' he was yet her property, and for the life of her she could not

but feel the poorer. To be widowed yet not widowed at forty-two; with

four children; made conspicuous, an object of commiseration! Gone to the

arms of a Spanish Jade! Memories, feelings, which she had thought quite

dead, revived within her, painful, sullen, tenacious. Mechanically she

closed drawer after drawer, went to her bed, lay on it, and buried her

face in the pillows. She did not cry. What was the use of that? When she

got off her bed to go down to lunch she felt as if only one thing could

do her good, and that was to have Val home. He--her eldest boy--who

was to go to Oxford next month at James' expense, was at Littlehampton

taking his final gallops with his trainer for Smalls, as he would have

phrased it following his father's diction. She caused a telegram to be

sent to him.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024