Scarlet and Hyssop: A Novel

by E. F. Benson

"I trust you in every way, dear—every way. And it shows your good sense that you did not definitely refuse him. I do not wish to force you at all or hurry your decision."

This was all that was said on the subject at the time, but Mildred, after careful thought, was convinced she had done right. This impeccable attitude was completed by her looking rather sad whenever her daughter was observing her, sighing, and constantly calling her "dear child" in well-modulated tones of chastened and uncomplaining affection. This policy—if it is possible to use so cold and calculating a word for a process so tender—had its desired effect, and Maud felt herself touched with a sense of vague contrition. Eventually, not feeling sure of herself, she had decided to confide her difficulty to Marie Alston, for whom she cherished a shy and secret adoration. This interview, however, had not been productive of a result which harmonized with her mother's tender processes; indeed, had Mildred known that her gentle dropping of water on a stone (the tender process) would have led her daughter to ask advice of Marie, she would have adopted quite different methods. Maud told her about the interview the same afternoon. She was not called "dear child," or words to that effect, on this occasion.

Now, there is a sort of anger which, though it is often seen in combination with irritation and ill-temper, is something very different from either. It is not a quick-burning emotion; it is in no hurry to strike and to hurt, but is quite deliberate, very patient, and at the end, when a favourable opportunity presents itself, strikes hard. It was this quality of anger that entered into Mildred's mind when Maud told her of this interview. Had she been simply irritated with Marie or angry with an anger of the less dangerous and quicker sort, she would probably have rushed round to Park Lane, used the language of a cook to Marie, burst into tears, and probably made it up a day or two later. But she had not the slightest impulse to do any of those things. She was irritated with Maud, called her a fool, and sent her away. Then she sat down and thought about Marie.

There occurred to her, of course, at once a very obvious method of injuring Marie. All London—every one, that is to say, who mattered at all—except Marie herself, knew that she and Jack had been great friends for a very long time. What would be the effect on Marie if she let her know quietly, drop by drop, as one lets absinthe cloud and embitter water, what had been going on so long, what she had been blind to so long! Mildred knew her to be a woman of a pride and fastidiousness quite beyond not only her own reach, but her own comprehension. This she had never either resented or envied; if people chose to behave in what she called a Holy Land manner, it was nothing to her, but she was not jealous of their unattainable Oriental longitudes. It was all very well to sit on a pedestal, but if you did, you had no idea what games went on in the jostling world below. Marie's habitual attitude was to put her nose in the air and draw her skirts away from the crowd; it would really be very humiliating for her to get to learn by degrees what had been going on all these years, to upset the pedestal, in fact, and let her struggle to her feet as best she could, to let her, who always professed to find scandal and gossip of all sorts so uninteresting, know for the first time a bit of it which she could scarcely consider dull.

Mildred got up from the sofa where she was lying in her sitting-room, and, lighting a cigarette, took a turn up and down. At first sight it seemed an excellent plan, diabolical, which suited her mood, and simple as all good plans are; but on second thoughts there were objections. In her present anger she did not value Marie's friendship a straw, while as for her own reputation, she was well aware that for all practical purposes she had none. People, she knew, did not talk about Jack and her any longer, simply because the facts were so stale, "and that," she thought to herself with grim cynicism, "is what one calls living a thing down." No, the danger lay elsewhere. Supposing Marie cut up very rough indeed, supposing in her horror and disgust at Jack she did not hesitate to punish herself as well, and bring the matter if she could into the crude and convincing light of the Divorce Court, it would be both unpleasant for Mildred herself, for she felt that cross-examination was not likely to be amusing, and it would also spell ruin for Jack's career, a thing which now, in the present state of her affections, she cared about perhaps more than Jack. Of course, the matter might be conveyed to Marie in so gradual and vague a manner that such proceedings on her part would be without chance of success as far as getting a divorce was concerned—to possess her mind with suspicions that gradually became moral certainties was the point—but Mildred knew well that in the mind of the great middle class to be mentioned in connection with the Divorce Court is the mischief, not to lose or win your case there. In any case, if she decided on this she would have to think it very carefully over; it must be managed so that Marie could not possibly go to the courts. Besides, ridiculous as Marie would appear even if she adopted the least aggressive attitude of self-defence, yet Mildred felt she must not underrate the strength of her position in society. Perhaps another plan might be found as simple and without these objections. She wanted, in fact, to think of something which would hurt Marie as much as possible, and yet give her no chance of retaliation. Where was Marie vulnerable? Where was she most vulnerable?

For a moment her irritation and exasperation got the upper hand, and she flung off the sofa with clenched and trembling hands. "How dare she—how dare she persuade Maud not to marry him!" she said to herself. It frankly appeared to her the most outrageous thing to have done. Marie must have known what her own desires for her daughter were—in fact, she had before now told her of them—yet she had done this. Mildred felt a qualm of almost physical sickness from the violence of her rage, and sat down again to recover herself. It soon passed, leaving her again quiet, patient, and implacable, searching about for a weapon. Suddenly she got up, and stood quite still a moment.

"Most extraordinary that I should not have thought of that before," she said aloud. Then she washed her face and bathed her eyes with some rose-water, examining them a little anxiously as she dried them on her silk face-napkin. They were as red as if she had been crying—red, she must suppose, from anger, just as a mongoose's eyes get red when it sees a cobra. Certainly she had been angry enough to account for the colour. But on the whole she did not like emotions, except pleasant ones—they were exhausting; and she lay down again on her sofa for half an hour to recover herself, and told her maid to bring her a tablespoonful of brandy with an egg beaten up into it. Then she dressed and went out to a small private concert, where Saltsi was going to sing two little French songs, exceedingly hard to understand, but simply screaming when you did so. For herself, she was certain that she would understand quite enough.

She had just come down-stairs when a note was brought her, which proved to be from Marie.