Leaven of Malice Read online

  “And—it sounds strange, but it’s the only phrase that fits—between me and being found out.”

  “Found out in what?”

  “You know very well. Of course you do.”

  “You mean about your wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “But, Gloss, everybody knows about that!”

  Ridley’s face was more white and drawn than ever. He looked at Mrs. Fielding coldly, almost with dislike.

  “Precisely what do you mean, ‘Everybody knows about that’?” said he.

  “Not everybody, of course, but dozens of people. I suppose that several hundred people in Salterton know that your wife has been in an asylum for nearly twenty years. Really, Gloss, for a newspaperman you are very stupid about secrets. How many Salterton secrets do you know? It must be hundreds. Scandals about money; adulteries; suicides; even murders. And you know how all those secrets came to your ears, and how many people know them beside yourself. Did you really, truly suppose, that your little secret could be kept when so many others were known? I have never mentioned it, because I knew you wouldn’t want me to do so. But Dick knows, and somebody told him. And I’ve heard it mentioned several times. Gloster Ridley’s wife is in an asylum near Halifax. Nobody thinks about it, but all kinds of people know it. Gloss, is all this passion for security an attempt to rise above that? You poor darling, what a lot of unnecessary agony! Why didn’t you tell me about that years ago? When you told me about your wife?”

  “I have never really told you about my wife.”

  “No? Is there more to it? But it can’t really be very dreadful.”

  “Can’t it? Elspeth, I visit my wife twice a year. I make myself do it. She hasn’t recognized me once in the past fifteen years, and now I don’t even see her. They let me look into her room. She lies there all day, curled up on a mattress in a corner, with a blanket pulled over her head. She has to be fed artificially.”

  “Poor Gloss! How dreadful! But really, my dear, wouldn’t it be better not to go? If you can’t do anything, I mean?”

  “No. I must go. It is absolutely necessary for me to go.”

  “But why?”

  “Because she is there through my fault. And—this is what shakes me, Elspeth—there is still a chance, remote, but a chance, that she might recover. Might be well enough to return to me, the doctors say. Can you imagine that? The murderer’s victim to rise from the dead, to live with him and share his daily life! Do you think murder a strong word to use? Do you? I use it, in my thoughts; often I can’t escape it. Murder! She is in a living death, and I cannot stifle the feeling that I murdered her.”

  “Oh, Gloss! I’m sure you didn’t.”

  “I wish I were sure, one way or the other. But I’ll never know. However, as Salterton knows so much about my affairs, I suppose this is all stale news to you?”

  “Oh, darling, don’t be bitter. Of course I want to know everything about it, if you’ll tell me. But I won’t pry.”

  “It isn’t as though there were much to tell. You’ll find this hard to believe, Elspeth, but when I was young I was very romantic. I was always falling in love—not lightly, but deeply and painfully. When I was twenty-one I met a girl who seemed to me to be the most beautiful and desirable creature that I could conceive of. I wanted to devote my life to her. She had no very strong feeling for me; she had no strong feeling about anything; but I talked her into marrying me. That happens oftener than people suppose. Love is a great force, and because I was a stronger character than she, I was able to persuade her. I was sure that she would grow to love me after we were married. She didn’t. Perhaps she couldn’t have loved anyone. I suppose I was an impossible fool. I know that I reproached her. She was stupid, and she was a wretched housekeeper. I know that sounds petty, in a love story, but we lived a pig’s life, for I had a job with a very poor salary, and it was all intolerable. I thought I couldn’t bear it. I considered running away from her, and do you know why I didn’t? Because of my mother; I didn’t want her to think ill of me. I didn’t know what to do. But one day my wife and I were driving in a borrowed car; I was going, I remember clearly, to report a small country fair for my paper. We quarrelled for several miles. Suddenly the car went out of control, and we turned over in the ditch. That is the phrase the papers always use—‘the car went out of control’—you see, it accuses nobody. It is for the court to make accusations. But in this case there was no court. I wasn’t very much hurt, but my wife was badly shaken. It was shock, the doctors said, and after shock came pneumonia. And within a year, a serious breakdown. Schizophrenia. Hallucinations, thinking she was somebody else, all that kind of thing. No need to go into detail about it. That meant the hospital, and that’s where she has been ever since. Now she is as near to being dead, to being nothing at all, as a living human creature can be. And what I have never been able to decide is whether that accident was really an accident, or whether I created it.”

  “But of course you didn’t create it! You mustn’t think such a thing! I’m sorry, Gloss; I know that was a silly and useless thing to say.”

  “It’s very sweet of you to have such belief in me. Of course I, as I exist at this moment, didn’t create it. But I was a very different person then. I wished her dead, or myself dead, time and time again. And you see, so much of my life has been devoted to making myself into a person who couldn’t possibly have created that accident, who couldn’t possibly have done that murder. And if you think the red gown of a Doctor of Laws wouldn’t be a help in that, you haven’t understood what a very inferior creature I am, and how much apparently small things can mean to me.”

  “But, my dear, a red gown can’t change your own opinion of yourself. The man you live with, and feed and wash and dress and go to bed with doesn’t wear a red gown. He’s the man that counts. Oh, Gloss darling, you must stop torturing yourself. What’s the good of winning honours and the good opinion of the world if you can’t live on good terms with yourself?”

  “Do you know anybody who isn’t a fool who really lives on good terms with himself?”

  “Yes, of course I do.”

  “I shouldn’t have married her, but I did. Very well. Having married her, I should have borne it better, shown more restraint, and more kindness. But I didn’t. Can I forget that, or forgive myself?”

  “But it’s done and past repair. Now, Gloss, you must listen to me.”

  It would be of little avail to set down in detail what Mrs. Fielding said to Ridley. None of it was extraordinarily wise, or uncommonly deep, but it was all rooted fast in love and womanly tenderness. Nor would it be truthful to say that Ridley was set free from his bugbear forever. But his burden was so much lightened, and confession had so cleansed him, that he was very much changed, very much cheered, and when at last Mr. Fielding came home Ridley greeted him with a warmth of affection that surprised that gentleman, old friends as they were.

  When at last Ridley set out for home, his step was light, and he felt free and vigorous. If only, he thought, I had had the good luck to marry somebody like Elspeth. But that was fruitless speculation, and he had learned that night how profitless, how diminishing, fruitless speculation can be. At fifty he was perhaps rather old to be coming to such conclusions, but we all subscribe thoughtlessly to many beliefs, the truth of which does not strike home to us until experience gives them reality. Wisdom may be rented, so to speak, on the experience of other people, but we buy it at an inordinate price before we make it our own forever.

  “If I could hold fast to this state of mind I am in now, I might at last be free,” thought Ridley exultantly.

  When he went into the vestibule of the old mansion in which his apartment was, he found a figure huddled on the floor, partly asleep. It started up, and revealed itself as Henry Rumball.

  “I’ve been waiting for you, sir,” said he. “I’ve found X.”

  He held out his hand. In it was a pink slip for a Bellman classified advertisement.

  MRS. EDITH LITTLE had completed her
self-imposed nightly task of marking the typographical errors in The Bellman and was knitting on a sweater for little Earl. It was a complicated pattern, designed to make the finished garment look as though it had been made from heavy cable, and she was often compelled to consult her pattern book, from the page of which smiled the photograph of an offensively neat and handsome little boy, wearing the sweater in question. The Morphew’s living-room presented a peaceful domestic scene. Mrs. Morphew was painting her toenails coral pink, having spent an agreeable hour rubbing the hair from her legs with a pad of fine emery paper. The radio had been discoursing music, comic repartee, news and advertising all evening but neither Ede nor Kitten had paid any attention to it. They were lost in their thoughts. But when an announcer said that it was, at that very instant, eleven o’clock, Ede spoke to her sister censoriously.

  “You’d better stop that. The boys’ll be home soon.”

  “What of it? I got a whole ’nother foot still to do.”

  “D’you want them to catch you at it?”

  “Why not? Georgie knows I do it. Georgie likes it.”

  “What about Bev?”

  “Bev’s an old sport. He’d like it.”

  “It isn’t right for men to know what women do.”

  “If you’d let Bob Little know a little more what you did, maybe he wouldn’t’ve run out on you.”

  “That is one hell of a thing to say.”

  “Yeah, ain’t it though!”

  “Yes, it is! If I wanted to throw my legs around I could get men to look at me too. The way George looks at you sometimes, it makes me creep!”

  “I’ll bet it does.”

  “All right, if you’re proud of that kind of thing.”

  “George is still living right here with me, and glad to, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “And so he ought. You’re a wonderful housekeeper. I give you that.”

  “That’s only part of what I am.”

  “Oh, you both of you make so much of that! Still, it hasn’t brought you any children.”

  “Ede, that’s a dirty, lousy thing to say, even between sisters!”

  “Well, who threw Bob Little up to me a minute ago? I may not have a husband, but I’ve got my child, and I’d a lot sooner it was that way than the other way.” And Ede knitted ostentatiously.

  “You’re a liar but I forgive you,” said Kitten good-naturedly. “Listen, why don’t you start looking around?”

  “I’m not interested, thank you very much.”

  “Well then, get interested. Earl’s going to need a daddy. If you don’t think much of George, get a man of your own to bring up the boy.”

  “I can manage Earl without any man.”

  “All right. Go on wishing old Baldy Ridley would take a tumble to you. And I’ll bet you wouldn’t wait for any ring if he did either.”

  “That’s a fine thing to say about your own flesh and blood.”

  “Ede, you got more refinement than sense; that’s what’s wrong with you.”

  ‘I’ve got a child to think of; I can’t just let myself go.”

  “Oh, so I’ve let myself go, have I? I can get into clothes you can’t even touch.”

  “I meant mentally. Living with George you’ve just sunk to his level. You’ve just become George’s Thing, if you want to know what I really think! Just his Thing!”

  Kitten was unable to reply to this, for she had thrown herself backward in her chair and was kicking her feet vigorously in the air in order to dry her nail-varnish. It was at this moment that the front door opened and George and Mr. Higgin walked in, followed by a stranger.

  “Looka there!” shouted George, and seizing one of his wife’s feet he nipped her playfully on the big toe with his front teeth. “What I always say, kid, you’re good enough to eat!”

  “Georgie, lemme down! Georgie!” squealed Kitten, and after a great deal of bare leg and frilly panties had been displayed, and after George had pretended to strum on her leg as upon a guitar, he did let her down, and she made a great show of modesty, tucking her feet up under her.

  “What a pleasant homecoming,” said Mr. Higgin, laughing delightedly, his bright eyes missing nothing of Kitten’s display. “You would have been proud of George, Kitten, indeed you would. He was quite the hit of the smoker, wasn’t he, Mr. Rumball?”

  “Uh-huh,” said Rumball, without much enthusiasm.

  “Meet m’friend Henry Rumball,” said George; “Hank, meet the wife. Meet Ede. Siddown. Getcha drink.”

  “Don’t bother, Mr. Morphew,” said Rumball. “I’ll have to go in just a minute, anyway.”

  “Hank’s a reporter,” said George. “Gonna write us all up in The Bellman, aintcha, Henry?”

  “I can’t promise anything,” said Rumball. “I only dropped in to see Mr. Higgin; Mr. Shillito insisted that I should. It wasn’t a regular assignment, you know. I only came to see if there was anything about Mr. Higgin I might work up into a feature story. There won’t be any report of the smoker.”

  “No report of the smoker?” said George, greatly indignant. “And why not? Ain’t we boys at the club subscribers? Ain’t we got any rights? Listen, son, just tell me one thing; you’ve heard about the freedom of the Press?”

  “Sure, sure,” said Rumball uneasily.

  “OK then, why don’t the smoker get a write-up?”

  “Well, it was a private performance, Mr. Morphew.”

  “You’re damn right it was private. So what were you doing there, sticking your nose into it?”

  “Well, as I said, Mr. Shillito asked me to go to see what Mr. Higgin was doing, and to see if I could write something about it.”

  “Now lookit,” said George pugnaciously, “about this freedom of the Press. That means the club has as much right to a plug in the paper as anybody, don’t it? And if not, just kindly tell me why not, will ya? Just explain.”

  “Don’t get excited, George,” said Higgin. “It was a private show. And a very good thing too. Oh, if you could have seen George!” He giggled rapturously.

  “I was good, wasn’t I?” said George, restored to good humour. He was not entirely drunk, but he was in a variable mood, and there were traces of greasepaint on his face.

  “You were sensational,” said Mr. Higgin, giggling again.

  “What’d you sing, Georgie?” asked Kitten, who had surveyed all of this with complacency.

  “The ones I practised,” said George, then winked at Higgin and went off into a fit of laughter so great that he fell into his wife’s chair. When they had sorted themselves out, he was sitting in the chair and Kitten was in his lap, her coral toes hanging over the arm.

  “Oh, but it was the encores,” said Mr. Higgin, bubbling with mirth. “That was where he really had them, eh, Mr. Rumball?”

  “Yes, I guess it was,” said Rumball.

  “ ‘I’ll be up ’er flue next week,’ ” sang George, loudly, and collapsed in laughter.

  “What?” cried Kitten, who had caught the infection and was laughing herself, without knowing why.

  “It’s his song,” said Higgin, wiping his eyes. “He sings it in the character of a chimney-sweep. It’s all about his work, you see, and that’s the refrain—‘I’ll be up ’er flue next week’—and the meanings people seem to see in it, you’d never think! What we in the profession call the double entendre,” he said to Edith, feeling that she should be included in the gaiety, if possible on a higher level of culture than the others. But Ede merely snorted.

  “I’d like to get along now, if that’s all right?” said Rumball.

  “Yes, of course. You wanted to see my press-cutting book. I’ll get it at once,” said Higgin, and trotted up the stairs.

  “I’ll expect to see something in the paper about the show tonight,” said George, in a loud, bantering tone. “We got some influence, you know. Ede here’s got influence on The Bellman, ain’t that right, Ede?”

  “George, that’ll do,” said Edith, with dignity.

  “ ‘
I’ll be up ’er flue next week,’ ” sang George, sotto voce, and pinched Kitten from below. She slapped him playfully and they scuffled under the embarrassed eyes of Mr. Rumball until Bevill Higgin came downstairs, carrying a large press-cutting book.

  “Here it is,” said he. “A complete record of my career, with photographs, clippings, programmes—all dated and arranged in proper order. You will be very careful with it, won’t you? All my life I have been methodical. I cannot bear to part with any of my little clippings from the past. A few may be loose in the book. When you have done with it, if you will give me a call, I’ll pick it up at The Bellman offices myself. Please, please be careful. This is my life,” he said, patting the volume with a wistful charm which no one but Edith fully appreciated.

  “Yes, I’ll be careful,” said Rumball, and then, nervously to the others, “well, good night, everybody.”

  “Remember, we got influence!” shouted George, as the door closed behind the reporter.

  “Do you really think you’ll get a write-up?” asked Edith very seriously when, a little later, they had all been accommodated with glasses of rye from the bottle which Georgie produced from his bundle of costumes. “It would be wonderful publicity, Bev—bring you all kinds of pupils.”

  “I have hopes,” said Mr. Higgin demurely. “My friend Mr. Shillito is, so to speak, editor emeritus of the newspaper; I have been given to understand that he carries very great influence—very great. He thinks something should be done. Of course, that young man will write his critique on what he finds in my cuttings-book. Tonight’s work was not my best line, of course.”

  “Oh yes it was,” said George, “that’s the stuff the public wants. You got to give the public what it wants. And it wants the heart stuff and the funny stuff. This arty stuff is all baloney.”

  “Listen to who’s talking,” said Edith.

  “Yeah? Well, if you’d heard how I went over tonight you’d change your tune, Ede. Bev says I got talent and I guess tonight I proved it, eh, Bev?”

  “Oh, no doubt about it,” said Mr. Higgin, and giggled again. “You ladies should have heard him. Or no—perhaps you shouldn’t have heard him. But for a male audience it was a treat, really it was.”