Mrs. Maxon Protests

Winnie and he were wholesome for one another. She forgot her theories; he kept better company than was his wont. They became good comrades and great friends. Godfrey was delighted; his absences on Sunday seemed in a way condoned; he was not haunted by the picture of a lonely Winnie. He ceased to accuse himself because he enjoyed being in Woburn Square, and therefore enjoyed it the more and the more freely. To be glad your lover can be happy in your absence is a good and generous emotion – whether characteristic of the zenith of passion is another question.

Accustomed rather to lavishness than to a thrifty refinement, Bob marvelled at the daintiness of Winnie's humble establishment. He admired – and in his turn pitied. His friend's circumstances were no secret to him.

"I wonder how you do it!" he would exclaim. "Do you have to work awfully hard?"

"Well, it sometimes seems hard, because I didn't used to have to do it. In fact I used to be scolded if I did do it." She laughed. "I'm not pretending to like being poor."

"But you took it on fast enough, Mrs. Ledstone. You knew, I mean?"

"Oh yes, I knew, and I took it on, as you call it. So I don't complain."

"I tell you what – some day you and Godfrey must come for a spree with me. Go to Monte Carlo or somewhere, and have a high old time!"

"I don't believe I should like Monte Carlo a bit."

"Not like it? Oh, I say, I bet you would."

"I suppose it's prejudice to condemn even Monte Carlo without seeing it. Perhaps we shall manage to go some day. I think Godfrey would like it."

"Oh, I took him once, all right, with – with some other friends."

"And all you men gambled like anything, I suppose?"

"Yes, we did a bit." Bob was inwardly amused at her assumption of the nature of the party – amused, yet arrested by a sudden interest, a respect, and a touch of Mrs. Lenoir's pity. If there had been only himself to confess about, he would have confessed.

"You want keeping in order, Mr. Purnett," she said, smiling. "You ought to marry, and be obliged to spend your money on your wife."

She puzzled Bob. Because here she was, not married herself! He could not get away from that rigid and logical division of his – and of many other people's, such as Dennehy and the like.

"I'm not a marrying man. Heaven help the woman who married me!" he said, in whimsical sincerity.

She saw the sincerity and met it with a plump "Why?"

Bob was not good at analysis – of himself or other people (though he was making a rudimentary effort over Winnie). "The way a chap's built, I suppose."

"What a very conclusive sort of argument!" she laughed. "How's Godfrey built, Mr. Purnett?"

"Godfrey's all right. He'd settle down if he ever got married."

The theories came tumbling in through the open door. Cowardly theories, had they refused an opening like that!

"Well, isn't he?" asked Winnie, with dangerously rising colour.

Bob Purnett was a picture of shame and confusion.

"I could bite my tongue out, Mrs. Ledstone – hang it, you don't think I'm – er – what you'd call an interfering chap? It's nothing to me how my friends choose to – to settle matters between themselves. Fact is, I just wasn't thinking. Of course you're right. He – well, he feels himself married all right. And so he is married all right – don't you know? It's what a chap feels in the end, isn't it? Yes, that's right, of course."

The poor man was terribly flustered. Yet behind all his aghastness at his blunder, at the back of his overpowering penitence, lay the obstinate question – could she really think it made no difference? No difference to a man like Godfrey Ledstone, whom he knew so well? Submerged by his remorse for having hurt her, yet the question lay there in the bottom of his mind. People neither regular nor irregular, people shifting the boundaries (really so well settled!) – how puzzling they were! What traps they laid for the heedless conversationalist, for the traditional moralist – or immoralist!

"Oh, I don't expect you to understand!" Winnie exclaimed petulantly. "I wonder you come here!"

"Wonder I come here! Good Lord!" He reflected on some other places he had been to – and meant to go to again perhaps.

"You're a hopeless person, but you're very kind and nice." The colour faded gradually and Winnie smiled again, rather tremulously. "We won't talk about that any more. Tell me how the chestnut mare shapes?"

Yet when she heard about the mare, she seemed no more than passably interested, and for once Bob was tongue-tied on the only subject about which he was wont to be eloquent. He could not forgive himself for his hideous inexplicable slip; because he had sworn to himself always to remember that Mrs. Ledstone thought herself as good as married. But so from time to time do our habits of thought trip up our fair resolutions; a man cannot always remember to say what he does not think, essential as the accomplishment is in society.

Winnie regained her own serenity, but could not restore his. She saw it, and in pity offered no opposition when he rose to go. But she was gracious, accompanying him to the door, and opening it for him herself. He had just shaken hands and put on his hat, when he exclaimed in a surprised tone, "Hullo, who's that?"

The studio stood a little back from the street; a small flagged forecourt gave access to it; the entrance was narrow, and a house projected on either side. To a stranger the place was not immediately easy to identify. Just opposite to it now there stood a woman, looking about her, as though in doubt. When the door opened and the light of the hall gas-jet streamed out, she came quickly through the gate of the forecourt and up to the house.

Bob Purnett emitted only the ghost of a whistle, but Winnie heard it and looked quickly at him. There was no time to speak before the visitor came up.

"Is this Mrs. Godfrey Ledstone's?" she began. Then, with a touch of surprise, she broke off, exclaiming, "Oh, you, Mr. Purnett!" It was not surprise that he should be there at all, but merely that she should chance to come when he was there.

"Yes, er – how are you?" said Bob. "I – I'm just going."

"If you know this lady, you can introduce me," Winnie suggested, smiling. "Though I'm afraid I'm receiving you rather informally," she added to the visitor. "I'm Mrs. Ledstone."

"Yes," said the visitor. She turned quickly on Bob. "Mr. Purnett, please say nothing about this to – to Godfrey."

"It's his sister." Bob effected the introduction as briefly as possible, and also as awkwardly.

"They don't know I've come, you see." Amy Ledstone spoke jerkily.

"Oh, that's all right, Miss Ledstone. Of course, I'm safe." He looked desperately at Winnie. "I – I'd better be off."

"Yes, I think so. Good-bye. Do come in, Miss Ledstone." She laughed gently. "You've surprised us both, but I'm very glad to see you, even though they don't know you've come. Good-bye again, Mr. Purnett."

She stood aside while Amy Ledstone entered the house, then slowly shut the door, smiling the while at Bob Purnett. After the door was shut, he stood where he was for several seconds, then moved off with a portentous shake of his head. He was amazed almost out of his senses. Godfrey's sister! Coming secretly! What for? More confusion of boundaries! He thought that he really had known Woburn Square better than this. The memory of his terrible slip, five minutes before so mercilessly acute, was engulfed in a flood of astonishment. He shook his head at intervals all the evening, till his companion at dinner inquired, with mock solicitude, where he had contracted St. Vitus's dance, and was it catching?

Amy Ledstone was in high excitement. She breathed quickly as she sat down in the chair Winnie wheeled forward. Winnie herself stood opposite her visitor, very still, smiling faintly.

"I came here to-day because I knew Godfrey wouldn't be here. Please don't tell him I came. He won't be back yet, will he?"

"Not for an hour later than this, as a rule."

"I left him in Woburn Square, you know."

Winnie nodded.

"And made my way here."

"From what you say, I don't suppose you've come just to call on me, Miss Ledstone?"

"No." She paused, then with a sort of effort brought out, "But I have been wanting to know you. Well, I'd heard about you, and – but it's not that."

"Please don't be agitated or – distressed. And there's no hurry."

"I wonder if you know anything of what daddy – my father – and mother are doing – of what's going on at home – in Woburn Square?"

"I suppose I can make a guess at it." She smiled. "First the letters, then the visits! Didn't you write any of the letters?"

"Yes – some." She stirred restlessly. "Why shouldn't I?"

"I haven't blamed you. No doubt it's natural you should. But then – why come here, Miss Ledstone?"

"How pretty you are!" Her eyes were fixed intently on Winnie's face. "Oh, it's not fair, not fair! It's not fair to – to anybody, I think. Do you know, your name's never mentioned at home – never – not even when we're alone?"

"That part of it is done in the letters, I suppose? What am I called? The entanglement, or the lamentable state of affairs – or what? I don't know, you see. If you don't talk about me, we don't talk much about you here either."

"Oh, well, it is – bad. But that's not what I meant – not all I meant, at least." She suddenly leant forward in her chair. "Does Godfrey ever talk of the people he meets besides ourselves?"

"No, never. I shouldn't know anything about them, should I?"

"Has he ever mentioned Mabel Thurseley?"

"Mabel Thurseley? No. Who is she?"

"They live near us – in Torrington Square. Her mother's a widow, an old friend of ours."

"No, Godfrey has never said anything about Miss Thurseley."

"She's rather pretty – not very, I think. They're comfortably off. I mean, as we think it. Not what you'd call rich, I suppose." She was remembering Mrs. Maxon.

"My idea of riches nowadays isn't extravagant. But please tell me why you're talking to me about Miss Thurseley. Did you come here to do that?"

"Yes, I did. You're never mentioned to her either. That's it."

Winnie had never moved through the talk. Her slim figure, clad in close-clinging black, was outlined against the grey wall of the studio.

"Oh, that's it! I see."

"So I had to come. Because how is it right? How is it decent, Mrs. Maxon?"

Winnie let the name pass, indeed hardly noticed it. "Wouldn't your ideas be considered rather eccentric?" she asked, with a smile.

"Oh, I feel – I don't have ideas," murmured Amy Ledstone.

"In your home I'm considered the thing that exists, but isn't talked about – that's done and got over."

Again Amy's fixed gaze was on her companion. "Yes," she said, more than half assenting to Winnie's description of herself, yet with a doubt whether "thing" were wholly the word, whether, if "thing" were not the word, the home doctrine could be altogether right.

"What about her then?" she went on.

"What about – ?"

"Why, Mabel – Mabel Thurseley."

"Oh yes! Well, I suppose she – she knows what everybody knows – she knows what often happens."

"Oh, but while it's absolutely going on here! They might have waited a little at all events."

"You mean that – it's happening?"

Amy's figure rose erect in her chair again.

"Try and see if you can get him to utter Mabel's name to you!"

Winnie was struck with the suggestion. Her interest in her visitor suddenly became less derivative, more personal. She looked at Amy's passably well-favoured features and robust physique. There was really nothing about her to suggest eccentric ideas.

"Oh, do please sit down! Don't stand there as if you were turned to stone!" Amy's appeal was almost a wail. The slim figure was so motionless; it seemed arrested in its very life.

"I like you. It's very kind of you. I – I'm trying to think… I can't take your word for it, you know. I love him – I trust him."

Amy fidgeted again uncomfortably. "Daddy and mother are always at him. They think it – it will be redemption for him, you see."

"Yes, I suppose they do – redemption!" Suddenly she moved, taking two steps nearer to Amy, so that she stood almost over her. "And you think – ?"

Amy looked up at her, with tears in her eyes. "Oh, I don't know! What am I to think? Why did you do it? Why did you make everything impossible either way? Somebody must be miserable now!"

"Somebody was miserable before – I was. And I've been happy for a bit. That's something. It seems to me only one person need be miserable even now. Why is that worse?"

The clock struck six. Amy started to her feet in alarm.

"He might come back a little sooner than usual – we finish tea about half-past five. By the Tube – " She was nervously buttoning her jacket. "If he caught me!" she murmured.

"Caught you here?"

"Oh, how can I go against them? I'm not married – I have to live there."

Winnie stretched out her thin arms. "Would you be with me if you could? Would you, Amy? I had such a bad time of it! And he was mine first, you know."

Amy drew back ever so little. "Don't!" she gasped. "I really must go, Mrs. – oh, I really must go!"

"Yes, you must go. He might come back soon now. Shall we ever meet again, I wonder?"

"Oh, why did you?"

"It's not what I did. It's what you think about it."

"Because you seem to me wonderful. You're – you're so much above him, you know."

"That doesn't help, even if it's true. I should hate to believe it."

"Good-bye. You won't let anybody know I came? Oh, not Godfrey?"

"You may trust me – and Mr. Purnett too, I think."

"Oh yes; I can trust him. Good-bye!"

Without offering her hand, far less with any suggestion of a more emotional farewell, Amy Ledstone drifted towards the door. This time Winnie did not escort or follow her guest. She stood still, watching her departure. She really did not know what to say to her; Amy's attitude was so balanced – or rather not balanced, but confused. Yet just before the guest disappeared, she found herself calling out: "I am grateful, you know. Because thinking as you do about me – "

Amy turned her head for a moment. "Yes, but I don't know that you'll come worst out of it, after all," she said.

Then Winnie was left alone, to wait for Godfrey – and to see whether he would make mention of Mabel Thurseley's name, that entirely new and formidably significant phenomenon.