Mr. Hutton looked on in silence. The spectacle of Janet Spence evoked in him an unfailing curiosity. He was not romantic enough to imagine that every face masked an interior physiognomy of beauty or strangeness, that every woman’s small talk was like a vapour hanging over mysterious gulfs. His wife, for example, and Doris; they were nothing more than what they seemed to be. But with Janet Spence it was somehow different. Here one could be sure that there was some kind of a queer face behind the Gioconda smile and the Roman eyebrows. The only question was: What exactly was there? Mr. Hutton could never quite make out.
«But perhaps you won’t have to go to Llandrindod after all,» Miss Spence was saying. «If you get well quickly Dr. Libbard will let you off.»
«I only hope so. Indeed, I do really feel rather better to-day.»
Mr. Hutton felt ashamed. How much was it his own lack of sympathy that prevented her from feeling well every day? But he comforted himself by reflecting that it was only a case of feeling, not of being better. Sympathy does not mend a diseased liver or a weak heart.
«My dear, I wouldn’t eat those red currants if I were you,» he said, suddenly solicitous. «You know that Libbard has banned everything with skins and pips.»
«But I am so fond of them,» Mrs. Hutton protested, «and I feel so well to-day.»
«Don’t be a tyrant,» said Miss Spence, looking first at him and then at his wife. «Let the poor invalid have what she fancies; it will do her good.» She laid her hand on Mrs. Hutton’s arm and patted it affectionately two or three times.
«Thank you, my dear.» Mrs. Hutton helped herself to the stewed currants.
«Well, don’t blame me if they make you ill again.»
«Do I ever blame you, dear?»
«You have nothing to blame me for,» Mr. Hutton answered playfully. «I am the perfect husband.»
They sat in the garden after luncheon. From the island of shade under the old cypress tree they looked out across a flat expanse of lawn, in which the parterres of flowers shone with a metallic brilliance.
Mr. Hutton took a deep breath of the warm and fragrant air. «It’s good to be alive,» he said.
«Just to be alive,» his wife echoed, stretching one pale, knot-jointed hand into the sunlight.
A maid brought the coffee; the silver pots and the little blue cups were set on a folding table near the group of chairs.
«Oh, my medicine!» exclaimed Mrs. Hutton. «Run in and fetch it, Clara, will you? The white bottle on the sideboard.»
«I’ll go,» said Mr. Hutton. «I’ve got to go and fetch a cigar in any case.»
He ran in towards the house. On the threshold he turned round for an instant. The maid was walking back across the lawn. His wife was sitting up in her deck-chair, engaged in opening her white parasol. Miss Spence was bending over the table, pouring out the coffee. He passed into the cool obscurity of the house.
«Do you like sugar in your coffee?» Miss Spence inquired.
«Yes, please. Give me rather a lot. I’ll drink it after my medicine to take the taste away.»
Mrs. Hutton leaned back in her chair, lowering the sunshade over her eyes, so as to shut out from her vision the burning sky.
Behind her, Miss Spence was making a delicate clinking among the coffee-cups.
«I’ve given you three large spoonfuls. That ought to take the taste away. And here comes the medicine.»
Mr. Hutton had reappeared, carrying a wineglass, half full of a pale liquid.
«It smells delicious,» he said, as he handed it to his wife.
«That’s only the flavouring.» She drank it off at a gulp, shuddered, and made a grimace. «Ugh, it’s so nasty. Give me my coffee.»
Miss Spence gave her the cup; she sipped at it. «You’ve made it like syrup. But it’s very nice, after that atrocious medicine.»
At half-past three Mrs. Hutton complained that she did not feel as well as she had done, and went indoors to lie down. Her husband would have said something about the red currants, but checked himself; the triumph of an «I told you so» was too cheaply won. Instead, he was sympathetic, and gave her his arm to the house.
«A rest will do you good,» he said. «By the way, I shan’t be back till after dinner.»
«But why? Where are you going?»
«I promised to go to Johnson’s this evening. We have to discuss the war memorial, you know.»
«Oh, I wish you weren’t going.» Mrs. Hutton was almost in tears. «Can’t you stay? I don’t like being alone in the house.»
«But, my dear, I promised weeks ago.» It was a bother having to lie like this. «And now I must get back and look after Miss Spence.»
He kissed her on the forehead and went out again into the garden. Miss Spence received him aimed and intense.
«Your wife is dreadfully ill,» she fired off at him.
«I thought she cheered up so much when you came.»
«That was purely nervous, purely nervous. I was watching her closely. With a heart in that condition and her digestion wrecked—yes, wrecked—anything might happen.»
«Libbard doesn’t take so gloomy a view of poor Emily’s health.» Mr. Hutton held open the gate that led from the garden into the drive; Miss Spence’s car was standing by the front door.
«Libbard is only a country doctor. You ought to see a specialist.»
He could not refrain from laughing. «You have a macabre passion for specialists.»
Miss Spence held up her hand in protest. «I am serious. I think poor Emily is in a very bad state. Anything might happen at any moment.»
He handed her into the car and shut the door. The chauffeur started the engine and climbed into his place, ready to drive off.
«Shall I tell him to start?» He had no desire to continue the conversation.
Miss Spence leaned forward and shot a Gioconda in his direction. «Remember, I expect you to come and see me again soon.»
Mechanically he grinned, made a polite noise, and, as the car moved forward, waved his hand. He was happy to be alone.
A few minutes afterwards Mr. Hutton himself drove away. Doris was waiting at the cross-roads. They dined together twenty miles from home, at a roadside hotel. It was one of those bad, expensive meals which are only cooked in country hotels frequented by motorists. It revolted Mr. Hutton, but Doris enjoyed it. She always enjoyed things. Mr. Hutton ordered a not very good brand of champagne. He was wishing he had spent the evening in his library.
When they started homewards Doris was a little tipsy and extremely affectionate. It was very dark inside the car, but looking forward, past the motionless form of M’Nab, they could see a bright and narrow universe of forms and colours scooped out of the night by the electric head-lamps.
It was after eleven when Mr. Hutton reached home. Dr. Libbard met him in the hall. He was a small man with delicate hands and well-formed features that were almost feminine. His brown eyes were large and melancholy. He used to waste a great deal of time sitting at the bedside of his patients, looking sadness through those eyes and talking in a sad, low voice about nothing in particular. His person exhaled a pleasing odour, decidedly antiseptic but at the same time suave and discreetly delicious.
«Libbard?» said Mr. Hutton in surprise. «You here? Is my wife ill?»
«We tried to fetch you earlier,» the soft, melancholy voice replied. «It was thought you were at Mr. Johnson’s, but they had no news of you there.»
«No, I was detained. I had a breakdown,» Mr. Hutton answered irritably. It was tiresome to be caught out in a lie.
«Your wife wanted to see you urgently.»
«Well, I can go now.» Mr. Hutton moved towards the stairs.
Dr. Libbard laid a hand on his arm. «I am afraid it’s too late.»
«Too late?» He began fumbling with his watch; it wouldn’t come out of the pocket.
«Mrs. Hutton passed away half an hour ago.»
The voice remained even in its softness, the melancholy of the eyes did not deepen. Dr. Libbard spoke of death as he would speak of a local cricket match. All things were equally vain and equally deplorable.
Mr. Hutton found himself thinking of Janet Spence’s words. At any moment—at any moment. She had been extraordinarily right.
«What happened?» he asked. «What was the cause?»
Dr. Libbard explained. It was heart failure brought on by a violent attack of nausea, caused in its turn by the eating of something of an irritant nature. Red currants? Mr. Hutton suggested. Very likely. It had been too much for the heart. There was chronic valvular disease: something had collapsed under the strain. It was all over; she could not have suffered much.
III
«It’s a pity they should have chosen the day of the Eton and Harrow match for the funeral,» old General Grego was saying as he stood, his top hat in his hand, under the shadow of the lych gate, wiping his face with his handkerchief.
Mr. Hutton overheard the remark and with difficulty restrained a desire to inflict grievous bodily pain on the General. He would
