“I’ve got back, you see,” said she. It was just the sort of thing one would expect her to say, and because of this it ought to have called up an instant smile; it would have done so yesterday.
But today there was no smile. Marble’s set, dull look frightened her, it was so like the look he had worn in the bad time. A little shudder ran through her, as she realized that it was calling up within her the same sensations, as though they were echoes, that she had known during the same period. A light had gone out in the world.
“What’s the matter, dear?” she said. “Aren’t you—aren’t you well?” that was all she could say, because of the barrier still between them. She could not very well say: “Is your conscience troubling you?” or “Are you still afraid of detection?”
And Marble could only answer dully, “Oh, I’m all right,” and put her aside rather abashed and frightened. He could not tell her that what he had foreseen had happened; that by the second post, happily after she had gone out, there had arrived a letter from Rouen, a cruel, bitter letter, delicately phrased and worded, apparently telling him of the writer’s unbounded affection for him, but really only a sneering demand for money—more money. The actual cash did not matter so much; Marble had enough and to spare to keep even Marguerite Collins quiet. No, it was not the money. It was—although he did not allow himself to believe it—the fact that the letter had brought back into his life what had been for a moment absent—the sense of hideous insecurity, the knowledge that the future was laden with all sorts of ghastly possibilities, and had once more set his mind running on the things that might happen. Marble started drinking heavily again that day. He could hardly be blamed for so doing.
Yet for all that he roused himself the next morning sufficiently to go into town; he cashed a cheque, and with the money he went into an exchange bureau, and bought many dirty hundred franc notes, which he put into a registered envelope and despatched it to Rouen.
It was in this fashion that the old atmosphere redeveloped at 53 Malcolm Road. It grew slowly, and the young friendship died hard, but the one grew and the other died, inevitably, infallibly. And the passionate love that Annie bore to Marble, the love that he had roused, was beaten down and trampled underfoot. Passion she had known before, in a vague sort of way, when they had first been married, and love she had always borne him, but the new love, this splendid brilliant thing that had just come into her life, borne of trouble shared with him, and which for this space had illuminated her whole being, was changed to poison and bitterness. It was bad for both of them.
The effect was not yet well marked by the time Easter came, bringing back Winnie from school. She had changed, just as she had changed during the other two terms. She was taller—she nearly overtopped her father now—and she was more beautiful than ever. Her manner had changed, too. She had gained in assurance—it might be better put as insolence—and her voice had gained in its marked throaty quality. Her complexion was wonderful and her figure was marvellous. Her upper lip was short and her eyelids drooping, and she carried herself with an easy erectness that accentuated the arrogance of her manner.
She was head girl of the school now, thanks to a capacity for producing good results in examinations without doing much work beforehand, and thanks also to an unexpected flair for lacrosse and for tennis; she was not the sort of girl to stand any nonsense from old-fashioned parents, not by a long chalk.
At first things did not go too badly. Matters had not declined very much from the old standard of perfection that they had reached during the good time that had just ended. Winnie’s drooping lids lifted a trifle in surprise the first lunchtime, when she saw the spotless white cloth and the bright silver, and was given a lunch not very inferior either in quality or quantity to that she was given at school.
But the brief spell of intimacy her parents had enjoyed had left an unfortunate legacy behind it. They could quarrel now, which was more than they had been able to do before, and they rather took advantage of it. The disappointment of the decline of their happiness rasped their nerves, and they displayed a distressing tendency to snap at one another which Winnie deprecated. It was rank bad form for husband and wife to quarrel in public. Winnie considered that her presence was sufficient to make the quarrels take place “in public.”
Behind the wrinkle in Winnie’s brow many things were slowly developing. She liked to think of herself as cold-blooded and calculating. Calculating she may have been; cold-blooded she certainly was not. She could weigh up chances, and make a plan of campaign, but she never chose the cautious plan indicated by those chances. Winnie’s cold-bloodedness amounted to an ability to see the folly of recklessness combined with an inability to avoid being reckless.
First of all she was cautious. She refitted her wardrobe to the fullest extent she could possibly contrive; her father paid the bills without a murmur. He still could take delight in the fact that his daughter was at school with two Honourables—daughters of a profiteering war peer—and that during the last holidays she had met several other titled people to speak to. He did not object in the least to paying for her clothes
