The Merry-go-round

by W. Somerset Maugham

She folded him in her arms, and with a firmness not becoming her appearance, fashioned somewhat in the grand style, let him go with dry eyes and with smiling lips. But Mrs. Bassett had exaggerated a little the perils of her condition; she bore the operation admirably, and after the first two days proceeded without interruption to complete recovery. Reggie wrote with considerable regularity from Brighton, where it appeared the tutor had established himself for the summer, and gave his mother accounts of the work he did; he went into considerable detail, and, indeed, seemed so industrious that Mrs. Bassett was minded to remonstrate with his tutor. After all, it was holiday time, and scarcely fair that Reggie’s goodwill should be thus taken advantage of. Towards the end of the month she was well enough to move back to her own house, and the morning after her return came downstairs in a very contented frame of mind, rejoicing in her new health and in the splendid summer weather. Carelessly she opened her Morning Post, and as usual ran her eye down the announcements of birth, death, and marriage. Suddenly it caught her own name, and she read the following intelligence:

BARLOW-BASSETT—HIGGINS,—On the 30th ult., at St. George’s, Hanover Square, W., Reginald, only son of the late Frederick Barlow-Bassett, to Annie (Lauria Galbraith), second daughter of Jonathan Higgins, of Wimbledon.

For a moment Mrs. Bassett did not understand, and she read the paragraph twice, hopelessly mystified, before she realized that it announced to the world in general the marriage of her son. The date of the occurrence was the day after her operation, and on that very morning Reggie had called at Wimpole Street to inquire after her. The butler was still in the room, and helplessly Mrs. Bassett handed him the paper.

“D’you know what this means?” she asked.

“No, madam.”

Her first thought was that it must be a practical joke; and then, what was the meaning of that second name in parentheses—Lauria Galbraith? She rang for the servant, and told him at once to send a wire, which she directed to Reggie at Brighton, asking for an explanation of the extraordinary announcement; after breakfast she telegraphed to her solicitor and to the tutor’s London address. The tutor’s reply came first, to the effect that he had not seen Reggie since July; and in answer to her second question, he added that himself had been in London all the summer. At length Mrs. Bassett began to understand that something awful had happened. She went into Reggie’s room, and coming upon a locked drawer, had it broken open; she found in it a writing-case, and with horror and indignation turned out a motley collection of bills, pawn-tickets, and letters. She examined them all carefully, and first discovered that accounts for which she had given money were unpaid, and that others, enormous to her economical view, existed of which she knew nothing; then from the pawntickets she learned that Reggie had pledged his father’s watch, all his own trinkets, a dressing-case she had given him, and numberless other things. For an instant she hesitated at the letters, but only for an instant; it seemed her right now to know the worst, and little by little it dawned upon her that hitherto she had lived in a strange fool’s paradise. First there came epistles from duns, polite, supplicatory, menacing; then a couple of writs, smacking inexperienced eye of prison bars and unimagined penalties; letters from women in various writings, most of them ill-spelt, and the cheap stationery betrayed the sender’s rank. With frowning brow she read them, horrified and aghast; some were full of love, others of anger, but all pointed distinctly to Reggie’s polygamous tendency. At length came a bundle whereof the paper was quite different—thick, expensive, scented; and though not at once recognising the hand when she opened the first, Mrs. Bassett cried out; on the left side, at the top, in little letters of gold, surrounded by a scroll, was the name Grace, and though there was no address she knew that they were from Mrs. Castillyon. She read them all, and her dismay tamed to abject shame and anger. It appeared that this woman had given Reggie cheques and bank-notes. One letter said, “I hope you can change the cheque”; another, “So sorry you’re hard up; here’s a fiver to go on with”; a third, “What a pig-dog your mother is to be so mean! What on earth does she spend her money on?” At first they were with passion, but soon began to complain of unkindness or cruelty, and one letter after another was filled with bitter reproaches.

Mrs. Bassett took the whole contents of the writing-case, and locked them in her own cabinet, then hurried to Reggie’s tutor. Here she discovered that what she already suspected was true. She went home again, and called the upper servants. It humiliated her enormously that she must catechize them on the conduct of her son, but now she had no scruples. At first they would say nothing, but by dint of promise and threat she extracted the full story of how Reggie had lived during the last two years. At length, as a final blow, came an epistle from Reggie himself.

“371, Vauxhall Bridge Road.

“MY DEAR MATER,
“You will have seen in this morning’s Post that I was married at the end of last month to Miss Higgins, professionally known as Lauria Galbraith, and we are now staying at the above address. I am sure you will like Lauria, who is the best woman in the world, and has saved me from going to the dogs. You might let us have a line to say when we can come and see you. Lauria is most anxious to make your acquaintance, I should tell you that I have decided to chuck the Bar, and I am going on the stage. Lauria and I have got an engagement for the autumn tour of The Knave of Hearts, and we have come up to town for rehearsals. I am sure this will meet with your approval, because law is a rotten profession, awfully overcrowded, and as Lauria says, on the stage there is always room for talent. I know I shall get on, and Lauria and I hope in a few years to run our own company. I am working very hard, for although I’m only walking on in this drama, (I wouldn’t have accepted the offer, only Lauria has a ripping part, and, of course, as I hadn’t been on the stage before, I had to take what I could get,) I am learning Hamlet. Lauria and I think of giving some recitations of that and Romeo and Juliet in town next spring.

“Your affectionate son,
“REGGIE.