The Betrayal of John Fordham. Farjeon Benjamin Leopold

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ It is quite the fashionable thing for ladies to do."

      I replied that I did not like to see women smoke.

      "Then you shall not see me do it," she said, vivaciously. "I would die rather than give you one moment's annoyance."

      Annette was the chambermaid, a tall, thin-faced, spare woman of middle age; and a stranger, observing her and my wife together, would have supposed they had been long acquainted. Barbara was given to sudden and violent likings and dislikings, and had once said to me, "I love impulsive people. They are ever so much better and so much more genuine than people who hum and ha, and want time to consider whether they are fond of you or not. They resemble spiders who, after watching for days and days, creep out of their corners when you least expect it, and bind you tight so that you can't move, and say, 'I have made up my mind; I am going to eat you bit by bit.'" I thought this speech very clever when I first heard it, and I became immediately a worshiper of impulsiveness. That Barbara should strike up a sudden friendship with the new chambermaid did not, therefore, surprise me. Together they proceeded with the unpacking of Barbara's wardrobe, Barbara darting in upon me now and then to give me a kiss, "on the sly," she whispered, "for she mustn't see." Then she would return to Annette, and they would laugh and talk. My letters written, I lit a cigar and took up a French newspaper. Once Barbara brought a peculiar flavor into the room, and I asked her what it was.

      "Cloves," she replied. "I dote on them." She popped one into my mouth, and said, "Now we are equal and you can't complain. Oh, John, promise me never, never to eat onions alone. I am passionately fond of them. You are beginning to find out all my little failings."

      She ran into the bedroom to tell Annette the joke, and there was much giggling between them.

      "How provoking!" she cried, darting in for the twentieth time. "I have mislaid the key of my small trunk. Lend me your keys; perhaps one of them will fit."

      I gave her my bunch of keys, and she was a long time trying them. I took no notice of this, being engrossed in a feuilleton, and taking from the style in which the exciting incidents were described a lesson for the novel I contemplated writing.

      "Not one of them will fit," said Barbara, throwing the keys into my lap. Shortly afterwards she called out, "Congratulate me, John, I have found my key. It was in my pocket all the time. See what a simple little woman you have married; and you thought me clever, you foolish boy!"

      So far as I can recall my impressions I am endeavoring to describe them faithfully. I went through many transitions of feeling in those days, now hoping, now despairing, now accusing myself of doing my wife an injustice, now sternly convinced that I was right. On this day I was comforted, Barbara was so bright, so ingenuous, and I firmly believed she would keep the promise she had given me. She brought into play all the arts and fascinations by which she had beguiled me in our courting days. She ordered me to take her for a drive, to buy her violets, to drive to the Magazin de Louvre to make purchases (where she selected a number of things she did not need), to take her to a famous restaurant to dine – "it is so dull," she said, "to dine in a stuffy little room all by ourselves" – and, dinner over, she invited me to accompany her to a theatre where a comedy was being played which Annette had told her was very amusing.

      "I can't live without excitement," she said. "I love theatres, I love bright weather, I love flowers, I love handsome men – why do you look so grave, sir? Do you not love handsome women? You are a ninny if you don't, and if you don't, sir, why did you marry me?"

      "Barbara," I said gravely, "it is a strange question, I know, but do you think we are suited to one another?"

      "It is a strange question," she replied, laughing. "My dear, we were made for one another. Fie, love! Do you forget that marriages are made in Heaven?"

      "Ours, Barbara?"

      "Certainly, ours."

      Wonderful were the inconsistencies of her utterances; one moment questioning whether she had not made a mistake in marrying me, the next declaring that our marriage was made in heaven.

      "I have not a secret from you," I said.

      "Nor I from you," she returned. "I hope you agree with me, John, that there should be perfect confidence between man and wife, that they should hide nothing from one another."

      "I do agree with you; not even the smallest matter should be hidden."

      "Yes, John, love, not even the smallest matter. Little things are often very important, and it is so awkward to be found out. I am so glad we are of one mind about this. When we first engaged I said to Maxwell, 'John shall know everything about me – everything. All my faults and failings – nothing shall be hidden from him. Then he can't reproach me afterwards. I will be perfectly frank with him.' Maxwell called me a fool, and said there were lots of things people ought to keep to themselves, and that I should be horrified if I were told all the dreadful things you had done. He spoke of wild oats, and bachelors living alone, and the late suppers they had in their chambers with girls and all sorts of queer company. But I was determined. You might deceive me, but I would not deceive you. I would not have that upon my conscience."

      "You really kept nothing from me, Barbara?"

      "Nothing, love."

      "And you are keeping nothing from me now?"

      "Nothing, love."

      I did not press her farther. Her smiling eyes looked into mine, and I had received incontestible proof that she was lying to my face.

      CHAPTER VIII

      I was an inveterate smoker, and at this period my favorite habit was a consolation to me. I smoked at all hours of the day, and Barbara had encouraged me, saying that she loved the smell of a cigar. But on the morning following the conversation I have just recorded she complained that my cigar made her ill, and I went into the boulevard to smoke it. When I had thrown away the stump I returned to the hotel to attend to my trunks, which were not yet unpacked. These trunks were in a small ante-room, the key of which I had put in my pocket. I had adopted this precaution in order that they should not be in Barbara's sight, that she should not be left alone with them, and that when I unpacked them she should not see what they contained. Upon my return to the hotel Barbara was in her bed-room, attending to her toilet, and Annette was with her. It was Barbara's first visit to Paris, and we had arranged to make the round of its principal attractions.

      The first trunk I opened was that in which I had deposited the five bottles of brandy I had found among Barbara's dresses. To my astonishment they were gone.

      I was positive I had placed them there, but to make sure I searched my second trunk, with the same result. The bottles had been abstracted. By whom, and by what means?

      The cunning hand was Barbara's.

      What kind of a woman was I wedded to who spoke so fair and acted so treacherously, who could smile in my face with secret designs in her heart against my peace and happiness? I could go even farther than that, and say against my honor. Fearful lest my indignation might cause me to lose control over myself and lead to a scandalous scene, I locked the trunk and left the hotel. In the open air I could more calmly review the deplorable position into which I had been betrayed.

      It is the correct word to use. Treacherously, basely, had I been betrayed.

      It was long before I was sufficiently composed to apply myself to the consideration of the plan by means of which Barbara obtained the bottles of brandy. The lock of the trunk had not been tampered with, and no force had been used in opening it. She must have had a duplicate key. How did she become possessed of it?

      I СКАЧАТЬ