The Relentless City

by E. F. Benson

She bent her head, took up his hand where it lay on the arm of her chair, and kissed it.

'Ah, not that, Sybil,' said he.

'Yes, just that,' she answered.

The letter which the joint wits of Judy and Ginger concocted that afternoon went northwards, and reached its destination next morning. It told Bertie merely the fact that on the day on which Amelie had lunched with her father she had been to see Mrs. Emsworth afterwards, and suggested that it would be worth while finding out, if possible, what took place there. Of late the estrangement between him and Amelie, though it had in no ways healed, had been, since they were staying in other houses, where there was less opportunity for intimacy and thus less sense of its absence, less intolerably and constantly present to his consciousness. Every now and then, as on the occasion when she told him that they were going to bore for coal, there had been bitter and stinging moments, but such were rare, and their intercourse, which was rare also, was distinguished by cool if not frigid courtesy.

On this particular morning they were leaving the house they had been staying in near Inverness, and were coming South again to visit other friends in the North of England. It was perfectly natural, therefore, that Bertie should travel some part of the way, at any rate, in a smoking-carriage, but, the train being an express, he never omitted to visit her carriage when it stopped, and inquired whether she wanted anything. Once she was thirsty, and he got her some lemonade from the refreshment-room, bought her papers, and opened for her a window which was stiff to move. These little attentions were accepted by her with the same courtesy as that with which they were offered, and he would stand on the platform chatting to her through the window, or seating himself for a few minutes in her carriage, till it was time for him to go back to his own. They lunched together in her carriage, and it was at her suggestion that at the next stopping-place he went back to the other to smoke after lunch. It was then that he opened the letters which had reached him that morning, having in the hurry of departure forgotten to do so, and found Ginger's communication.

At first his impulse was to do nothing whatever, and treat the letter as if it had never been received, and, following the dictation of his laisser aller nature, make no further effort to investigate any possible source of his domestic estrangement. In a way (the freezing process had already gone far) he had got used to his aloofness from his wife; the acuteness of it had got dulled with time, the intolerable had become bearable. He was tired with conjecturing what had happened, and the pride which at first had prevented him straightforwardly going to her and saying 'What have I done?' had become habit. Not having done so before, he could not now, and until she voluntarily told him the matter must remain in silence. Disgust, fastidiousness, and a bitter sense of having been cheated, had at first stood in her way, where pride stood in his, and she, like him, having lost her first opportunity, waited for him to be the first to speak. But as he watched through the window the giddy scudding by of the brown wind-scoured moors, his indifference began to fade, and curiosity (at first it was no more than that) took its place. Having successfully blackmailed him, had Dorothy, in order to emphasize his own weakness, told his wife that which he had already paid so much to keep secret? To have blackmailed him at all was so utterly unlike what he knew of her that he told himself he knew nothing at all, and if this conjecture was right, she became something monstrous, something portentous. He would really very much like to know if she was stupendous enough to do that.

A rather bitter smile crossed his face, and he took out of his despatch-box a small packet containing the two letters for which he had paid so highly, and a copy of the second blackmailing letter, which he had made before he delivered his cheque and the original at Bilton's office in New York. His own letter he read through again, wondering at himself. Those words of wild adoration—even now he felt a faint internal thrill at the recollection of the mood they conjured up again—were written to a woman who had done this. It seemed to him incredible that no inkling of her real nature had ever crossed his mind. It seemed impossible that he could have loved one to whom this was possible. For mere interest in a phenomenon like this he must find out what had passed between her and Amelie. It was impossible to ask Amelie, therefore he would ask her.

He wrote to her that night asking whether he might come and see her as soon as he got to town. Their northern visits were nearly at an end, and he would be passing through in about a week's time. The matter, he added, was one which might be of great importance to him and his future happiness, and no one in the world could help him but her.

The answer he got was thoroughly characteristic—characteristic, that is, of the Dorothy Emsworth whom he knew, thoroughly uncharacteristic of the Dorothy who had blackmailed and then mocked at him by telling his wife what he had paid so heavily for her not to know.

'Charmed to see you' (it ran), 'though you have behaved so very badly. Yes, perhaps I can help you. I don't know. I am rather afraid I made mischief with your wife; but she annoyed me, and I have, as you well know, the temper of Beelzebub. Really, I am very fond of Amelie, but she is not very fond of me. Deeply pathetic, but I shall get over it.

'Yours ever,
'D. E.'

'P.S.—Thank you so much for the charming dressing-bag you sent me. I use it constantly. It has your crest and initials on it, so that I am constantly reminded of you. By the way, I shall give it you hot when we meet, so it is only fair you should be warned.'