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The Colonel's Lady
The Author
William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874. He originally qualified as a surgeon but soon became a full-time writer of plays, short stories, and novels. In both world wars he served as a British Intelligence agent, and travelled widely in the South Seas and the Far East, incorporating many of his experiences into his stories. He was a master storyteller and is still one of the most popular English authors of the twentieth century. Among his most famous novels are Of Human Bondage, The Moon and Sixpence, Cakes and Ale, and The Razor's Edge. He died in 1965.
The Story
The truth is generally thought to be a good thing; that is, when contrasted with a lie, which usually meets with moral disapproval. But the truth is sometimes uncomfortable, unwelcome, upsetting - especially in human relationships like marriage. And what is truth, anyway? Perhaps there are many kinds of truth, including what the English poet Keats called 'the truth of the imagination'.
Colonel George Peregrine does not usually trouble himself with questions like these. He is a decent, sensible follow, a well-respected country landowner, leading a contented, conventional life. There is, however, one secret disappointment in his life - his wife Evie. She's a lady and a good wife, of course, but no longer attractive and, really, very dull …
The Colonel's Lady
All this happened two or three years before the outbreak of the war.
The Peregrines were having breakfast. Though they were alone and the table was long they sat at opposite ends of it. From the walls George Peregrine's ancestors, painted by the fashionable painters of the day, looked down upon them. The butler brought in the morning post. There were several letters for the colonel, business letters, The Times, and a small parcel for his wife Evie. He looked at his letters and then, opening The Times, began to read it. They finished breakfast and rose from the table. He noticed that his wife hadn't opened the parcel.
'What's that?' he asked.
"Only some books.'
'Shall 1 open it for you?'
'If you like.'
He hated to cut string and so with some difficulty untied the knots.
'But they're all the same,' he said when he had unwrapped the parcel. 'What on earth d'you want six copies of the same book for?' He opened one of them. 'Poetry.' Then he looked at the title page. When Pyramids Decay, he read, by E.K. Hamilton. Eva (Catherine Hamilton: that was his wife's maiden name. He looked at her with smiling surprise. 'Have you written a book, Fvie? You are a slyboots.'
'1 didn't think it would interest you very much. Would you like a copy?'
'Well, you know poetry isn't much in my line, but - yes, I'd like a copy, I'll read it. I'll take it along to my study. I've got a lot to do this morning.'
He gathered up The Times, his letters, and the book, and went out. His study was a large and comfortable room, with a big desk, leather armchairs, and what he called 'trophies of the chase' on the walls. On the bookshelves were works of reference, books on farming, gardening, fishing, and shooting, and books on the last war, in which he had won an MC and a DSO*. For before his marriage he had been in the Welsh Guards*. At the end of the war he retired and settled down to the life of a country gentleman in the spacious house, some twenty miles from Sheffield, which one of his forebears had built in the reign of George III. George Peregrine had an estate of some fifteen hundred acres which he managed with ability; he was a Justice of the Peace* and performed his duties conscientiously. During the season he rode to hounds two days a week. He was a good shot, a golfer, and though now a little over fifty he could still play a hard game of tennis. He could describe himself with propriety as an all-round sportsman.
He had been putting on weight lately, but was still a fine figure of a man; tall, with grey curly hair, only just beginning to grow thin on the crown, frank blue eyes, good features, and a high colour. He was a public-spirited man, chairman of any number of local organizations and, as became his class and station, a loyal member of the Conservative Party. He looked upon it as his duty to see to the welfare of the people on his estate and it was a satisfaction to him to know that Evie could be trusted to tend the sick and succour the poor. He had built a cottage hospital on the outskirts of the village and paid the wages of a nurse out of his own pocket. All he asked of the recipients of his bounty was that at elections, county or general, they should vote for his candidate. He was a friendly man, affable to his inferiors, considerate with his tenants, and popular with the neighbouring gentry. He would have been pleased and at the same time slightly embarrassed if someone had told him he was a jolly good fellow. That was what he wanted to be. He desired no higher praise.
It was hard luck that he had no children. He would have been an excellent father, kindly but strict, and would have brought up his sons as gentlemen's sons should be brought up, sent them to Eton*, you know, taught them to fish, shoot, and ride. As it was, his heir was a nephew, son of his brother killed in a motor accident, not a bad boy, but not a chip off the old block, no, sir, far from it; and would you believe it, his fool of a mother was sending him to a co-educational school. Evie had been a sad disappointment to him. Of course she was a lady, and she had a bit of money of her own; she managed the house uncommonly well and she was a good hostess. The village people adored her. She had been a pretty little thing when he married her, with a creamy skin, light brown hair, and a trim figure, healthy too, and not a bad tennis player; he couldn't understand why she'd had no children; of course she was faded now, she must be getting on for live and forty; her skin was drab, her hair had lost its sheen, and she was as thin as a rail. She was always neat and suitably dressed, but she didn't seem to bother how she looked, she wore no nuke up and didn't even use lipstick; sometimes at night when she dolled herself up for a party, you could tell that once she'd been quite attractive, but ordinarily she was - well, the sort of woman you simply didn't notice. A nice woman, of course, a good wife , and it wasn't her fault if she was barren, but it was tough on a fellow who wanted an heir of his own loins; she hadn't any vitality, that's what was the matter with her. He supposed he'd been in love with her when he asked her to marry him, at least sufficiently in love for a man who wanted to marry and settle down, bill with time he discovered that they had nothing much in common She didn't care about hunting, and fishing bored her.
Naturally they'd drifted apart. He had to do her the justice to admit that she'd never bothered him. There'd been no scenes. They had no quarrels. She seemed to take it for granted that he should go his own way. When he went up to London now and then she never wanted to come with him. He had a girl there, well, she wasn't exactly a girl, she was thirty-five if she was a day, but she was blonde and luscious and he only had to wire ahead of time and they'd dine, do a show, and spend the night together. Well, a man, a healthy normal man had to have some fun in his life. The thought crossed his mind that if Evie hadn't been such a good woman she'd have been a better wife; but it was not the sort of thought that he welcomed and he put it away from him.
George Peregrine finished his Times and being a considerate fellow rang the bell and told the butler to take it to Evie. Then he looked at his watch. It was half past ten and at eleven he had an appointment with one of his tenants. He had half an hour to spare.
'I'd better have a look at Evie's book,' he said to himself.
He took it up with a smile. Evie had a lot of highbrow books in her sitting-room, not the sort of books that interested him, but if they amused her he had no objection to her reading them. He noticed that the volume he now held in his hand contained no more than ninety pages. That was all to the good. He shared Edgar Allan Poe's* opinion that poems should be short. But as he turned the pages he noticed that several of Evie's had long lines of irregular length and didn't rhyme. He didn't like that. At his first school, when he was a little boy, he remembered learning a poem that began: The boy stood on the burning deck, and later, at Eton, one that started: Ruin seize thee, ruthless king; and then there was Henry V*; they'd had to take that, one half. He stared at Evie's pages with consternation.
'That's not what I call poetry,' he said.
Fortunately it wasn't all like that. Interspersed with the pieces that looked so odd, lines of three or four words and then a line of ten or fifteen, there were little poems, quite short, that rhymed, thank God, with the lines all the same length. Several of the pages were just headed with the word Sonnet, and out of curiosity he counted the lines; there were fourteen of them. He read them. They seemed all right, but he didn't quite know what they were all about. He repeated to himself: Ruin seize thee, ruthless king.
'Poor Evie,' he sighed.
At that moment the farmer he was expecting was ushered into the study, and putting the book down he made him welcome. They embarked on their business.
'I read your book, Evie,' he said as they sat down to lunch. 'Jolly good. Did it cost you a packet to have it printed?'
'No, I was lucky. I sent it to a publisher and he took it.'
'Not much money in poetry, my dear,' he said in his good-natured, hearty way.
'No, I don't suppose there is. What did Bannock want to see you about this morning?'
Bannock was the tenant who had interrupted his reading of Evie's poems.
'He's asked me to advance the money for a pedigree bull he wants to buy. He's a good man and I've half a mind to do it.'
George Peregrine saw that Evie didn't want to talk about her book and he was not sorry to change the subject. He was glad she had used her maiden name on the title page; he didn't suppose anyone would ever hear about the book, but he was proud of his own unusual name and he wouldn't have liked it if some damned penny-a-liner* had made fun of Evie's effort in one of the papers.
During the few weeks that followed he thought it tactful not to ask Evie any questions about her venture into verse, and she never referred to it. It might have been a discreditable incident that they had silently agreed not to mention. But then a strange thing happened. He had to go to London on business and he took Daphne out to dinner. That was the name of the girl with whom he was in the habit of passing a few agreeable hours whenever he went to town.
'Oh, George,' she said, 'is that your wife who's written a book they're all talking about?' 'What on earth d'you mean?'
'Well, there's a fellow I know who's a critic. He took me out to dinner the other night and he had a book with him. "Got anything for me to read?" I said. "What's that?" "Oh, I don't think that's your cup of tea," he said. "It's poetry. I've just been reviewing it." "No poetry for me," I said. "It's about the hottest stuff I ever read," he said. "Selling like hot cakes. And it's damned good." '
'Who's the book by?' asked George.
'A woman called Hamilton. My friend told me that wasn't her real name. He said her real name was Peregrine. "Funny," I said, "I know a fellow called Peregrine." "Colonel in the army," he said. "Lives near Sheffield." '
'I'd just as soon you didn't talk about me to your friends,' said George with a frown of vexation.
'Keep your shirt on, dearie. Who d'you take me for? I just said: "It's not the same one." ' Daphne giggled. 'My friend said: "They say he's a regular Colonel Blimp*.” George had a keen sense of humour.
'You could tell them better than that,' he laughed. 'If my wife had written a book I'd be the first to know about it, wouldn't I?' 'I suppose you would.'
Anyhow the matter didn't interest her and when the colonel began to talk of other things she forgot about it. He put it out of his mind too. There was nothing to it, he decided, and that silly fool of a critic had just been pulling Daphne's leg. He was amused at the thought of her tackling that book because she had been told it was hot stuff and then finding it just a lot of bosh cut up into unequal lines.
He was a member of several clubs and next day he thought he'd lunch at one in St James's Street. He was catching a train back to Sheffield early in the afternoon. He was sitting in a comfortable armchair having a glass of sherry before going into the dining room when an old friend came up to him.
Well, old boy, how's life?' he said. 'How d'you like being the husband of a celebrity?'
George Peregrine looked at his friend. He thought he saw an unused twinkle in his eyes.
'I don't know what you're talking about,' he answered.
'Come off it, George. Everyone knows E.K. Hamilton is your
wife, Not often Я book of verse has a success like that. Look here, Henry Dashwood is lunching with me. He'd like to meet you.'
'W ho the devil is Henry Dashwood and why should he want to meet me?'
'Oh, my dear fellow, what do you do with yourself all the time
in the country? Henry's about the best critic we've got. He wrote
in wonderful review of Evie's book. D'you mean to say she didn't
Before George could answer his friend had called a man over.
A tall, thin man, with a high forehead, a beard, a long nose, and
a stoop, just the sort of man whom George was prepared to dislike
at first sight.Introductions were effected. Henry Dashwood sat
'Is Mrs Peregrine in London by any chance? I should very much lile in meet her,' he said. 'No, my wife doesn't like London. She prefers the country,'said George stiffly
'She wrote me a very nice letter about my review. I was pleased.
You know, we critics get more kicks than halfpence. I was simply bowled over by her book. It's so fresh and original, very modern without being obscure. She seems to be as much at her ease in free verse as in the classical metres.' Then because he was a critic he thought he should criticize. 'Sometimes her ear is a trifle at fault, but you can say the same of Emily Dickinson*. There are several of those short lyrics of hers that might have been written by Landor.
All this was gibberish to George Peregrine. The man was nothing but a disgusting highbrow. But the colonel had good manners and he answered with proper civility: Henry Dashwood went on as though he hadn't spoken.
'But what makes the book so outstanding is the passion that throbs in every line. So many of these young poets are so anaemic, cold, bloodless, dully intellectual, but here you have real naked, earthy passion; of course deep, sincere emotion like that is tragic -ah, my dear Colonel, how right Heine* was when he said that the poet makes little songs out of his great sorrows. You know, now and then, as I read and re-read those heart-rending pages I thought of Sappho*.'
This was too much for George Peregrine and he got up.
'Well, it's jolly nice of you to say such nice things about my wife's little book. I'm sure she'll be delighted. But I must bolt, I've got to catch a train and I want to get a bite of lunch.'
'Damned fool,' he said irritably to himself as he walked upstairs to the dining-room.
He got home in time for dinner and after Evie had gone to bed he went into his study and looked for her book. He thought he'd just glance through it again to see for himself what they were making such a fuss about, but he couldn't find it. Evie must have taken it away.
'Silly,' he muttered.
He'd told her he thought it jolly good. What more could a fellow be expected to say? Well, it didn't matter. He lit his pipe and read the Field till he felt sleepy. But a week or so later it happened that he had to go into Sheffield for the day. He lunched there at his club. He had nearly finished when the Duke of Haverel came in. This was the great local magnate and of course the colonel knew him, but only to say how d'you do to; and he was surprised when the Duke stopped at his table.
'We're so sorry your wife couldn't come to us for the weekend,' he said, with a sort of shy cordiality. 'We're expecting rather a nice lot of people.'
George was taken aback. He guessed that the Haverels had asked him and Evie over for the weekend and Evie, without saying a word to him about it, had refused. He had the presence of mind to say he was sorry too.
'Better luck next time,' said the Duke pleasantly and moved on.
Colonel Peregrine was very angry and when he got home he said to his wife:
'Look here, what's this about our being asked over to Haverel? Why on earth did you say we couldn't go? We've never been asked before and it's the best shooting in the county.'
'I didn't think of that. I thought it would only bore you.'
'Damn it all, you might at least have asked me if I wanted to go.'
'I'm sorry.'
He looked at her closely. There was something in her expression that he didn't quite understand. He frowned.
'I suppose / was asked?' he barked.
Evie flushed a little.
'Well, in point of fact you weren't.'
'I call it damned rude of them to ask you without asking me.'
'I suppose they thought it wasn't your sort of party. The Duchess is rather fond of writers and people like that, you know.
She's having Henry Dashwood, the critic, and for some reason he wants to meet me.'
'It was damned nice of you to refuse, Evie.'
'It's the least I could do,' she smiled. She hesitated a moment. 'George, my publishers want to give a little dinner party one day towards the end of the month and of course they want you to come too.'
'Oh, I don't think that's quite my mark. I'll come up to London with you if you like. I'll find someone to dine with.'
Daphne.
'I expect it'll be very dull, but they're making rather a point of it. And the day after, the American publisher who's taken my book is giving a cocktail party at Claridge's. I'd like you to come to that if you wouldn't mind.'
'Sounds like a crashing bore, but if you really want me to come I'll come.'
'It would be sweet of you.'
George Peregrine was dazed by the cocktail party. There were a lot of people. Some of them didn't look so bad, a few of the women were decently turned out, but the men seemed to him pretty awful. He was introduced to everyone as Colonel Peregrine, E.K. Hamilton's husband, you know. The men didn't seem to have anything to say to him, but the women gushed.
'You must be proud of your wife. Isn't it wonderful! You know, I read it right through at a sitting, I simply couldn't put it down, and when I'd finished I started again at the beginning and read it right through a second time. I was simply thrilled.'
The English publisher said to him:
'We've not had a success like this with a book of verse for twenty years. I've never seen such reviews.'
The American publisher said to him:
'It's swell. It'll be a smash hit in America. You wait and see.'
The American publisher had sent Evie a great spray of orchids. Damned ridiculous, thought George. As they came in, people were taken up to Evie, and it was evident that they said flattering things to her, which she took with a pleasant smile and a word or two of thanks. She was a trifle flushed with the excitement, but seemed quite at her ease. Though he thought the whole thing a lot of stuff and nonsense George noted with approval that his wife was carrying it off in just the right way.
'Well, there's one thing,' he said to himself, 'you can see she's л lady and that's a damned sight more than you can say of anyone else here.'
He drank a good many cocktails. But there was one thing that bothered him. He had a notion that some of the people he was introduced to looked at him in rather a funny sort of way, he couldn't quite make out what it meant, and once when he strolled by two women who were sitting together on a sofa he had the impression that they were talking about him and after he passed he was almost certain they tittered. He was very glad when the party came to an end.
In the taxi on their way back to their hotel Evie said to him:
'You were wonderful, dear. You made quite a hit. The girls simply raved about you: they thought you so handsome.'
'Girls,' he said bitterly. 'Old hags.'
'Were you bored, dear?'
'Stiff.'
She pressed his hand in a gesture of sympathy.
'I hope you won't mind if we wait and go down by the afternoon train. I've got some things to do in the morning.'
'No, that's all right. Shopping?'
'I do want to buy one or two things, but I've got to go and be photographed. I hate the idea, but they think I ought to be. For America, you know.'
He said nothing. But he thought. He thought it would be a shock to the American public when they saw the portrait of the homely, desiccated little woman who was his wife.-.He'd always been under the impression that they liked glamour in America.
He went on thinking, and next morning when Evie had gone out he went to his club and up to the library. There he looked up recent numbers of The Times Literary Supplement, the New Statesman, and the Spectator. Presently he found reviews of Evie's book. He didn't read them very carefully, but enough to see that they were extremely favourable. Then he went to the bookseller's in Piccadilly where he occasionally bought books. He'd made up his mind that he had to read this damned thing of Evie's properly, but he didn't want to ask her what she'd done with the copy she'd given him. He'd buy one for himself. Before going in he looked in the window and the first thing he saw was a display of When Pyramids Decay. Damned silly title! He went in. A young man came forward and asked if he could help him.
'No, I'm just having a look round.' It embarrassed him to ask for Evie's book and he thought he'd find it for himself and then take it to the salesman. But he couldn't see it anywhere and at last, finding the young man near him, he said in a carefully casual tone: 'By the way, have you got a book called When Pyramids Decay?'
'The new edition came in this morning. I'll get a copy.'
In a moment the young man returned with it. He was a short, rather stout young man, with a shock of untidy carroty hair and spectacles. George Peregrine, tall, upstanding, very military, towered over him.
'Is this a new edition then?' he asked.
'Yes, sir. The fifth. It might be a novel the way it's selling.'
George Peregrine hesitated a moment.
'Why d'you suppose it's such a success? I've always been told no one reads poetry.'
'Well, it's good, you know. I've read it myself.' The young man, though obviously cultured, had a slight Cockney accent, and George quite instinctively adopted a patronizing attitude. 'It's the story they like. Sexy, you know, but tragic'
George frowned a little. He was coming to the conclusion that the young man was rather impertinent. No one had told him anything about there being a story in the damned book and he had not gathered that from reading the reviews. The young man went on:
'Of course it's only a flash in the pan, if you know what I mean. The way I look at it, she was sort of inspired like by a personal experience, like Housman was with The Shropshire Lad*. She'll never write anything else.'
'How much is the book?' said George coldly to stop his chatter. 'You needn't wrap it up, I'll just slip it into my pocket.'
The November morning was raw and he was wearing a greatcoat.
At the station he bought the evening papers and magazines and he and Evie settled themselves comfortably in opposite corners of a first-class carriage and read. At five o'clock they went along to the restaurant car to have tea and chatted a little. They arrived. They drove home in the car which was waiting for them. They bathed, dressed for dinner, and after dinner Evie, saying she was tired out, went to bed. She kissed him, as was her habit, on the forehead. Then he went into the hall, took Evie's book out of his greatcoat pocket and going into the study began to read it. He didn't read verse very easily and though he read with attention, every word of it, the impression he received was far from clear. Then he began at the beginning again and read it a second time. He read with increasing malaise, but he was not a stupid man and when he had finished he had a distinct understanding of what it was all about. Part of the book was in free verse, part in conventional metres, but the story it related was coherent and plain to the meanest intelligence. It was the story of a passionate love affair between an older woman, married, and a young man. George Peregrine made out the steps of it as easily as if he had been doing a sum in simple addition.
Written in the first person, it began with the tremulous surprise of the woman, past her youth, when it dawned upon her that the young man was in love with her. She hesitated to believe it. She thought she must be deceiving herself. And she was terrified when on a sudden she discovered that she was passionately in love with him. She told herself it was absurd, with the disparity of age between them nothing but unhappiness could come to her if she yielded to her emotion. She tried to prevent him from speaking but the day came when he told her that he loved her and forced her to tell him that she loved him too. He begged her to run away with him. She couldn't leave her husband, her home; and what life could they look forward to, she an ageing woman, he so young? How could she expect his love to last? She begged him to have mercy on her. But his love was impetuous. He wanted her, he wanted her with all his heart, and at last trembling, afraid, desirous, she yielded to him. Then there was a period of ecstatic happiness. The world, the dull, humdrum world of every day, blazed with glory. Love songs flowed from her pen. The woman worshipped the young, virile body of her lover. George flushed darkly when she praised his broad chest and slim flanks, the beauty of his legs and the flatness of his belly.
Hot stuff, Daphne's friend had said. It was that all right. Disgusting.
There were sad little pieces in which she lamented the emptiness of her life when as must happen he left her, but they ended with a cry that all she had to suffer would be worth it for the bliss that for a while had been hers. She wrote of the long, tremulous nights they passed together and the languor that lulled them to sleep in one another's arms. She wrote of the rapture of brief stolen moments when, braving all danger, their passion overwhelmed them and they surrendered to its call.
She thought it would be an affair of a few weeks, but miraculously it lasted. One of the poems referred to three years having gone by without lessening the love that filled their hearts. It looked as though he continued to press her to go away with him, far away, to a hill town in Italy, a Greek island, a walled city in Tunisia, so that they could be together always, for in another of the poems she besought him to let things be as they were. Their happiness was precarious. Perhaps it was owing to the difficulties they had to encounter and the rarity of their meetings that their love had retained for so long its first enchanting ardour. Then on a sudden the young man died. How, when or where George could not discover. There followed a long, heartbroken cry of bitter grief, grief she could not indulge in, grief that had to be hidden. She had to be cheerful, give dinner-parties and go out to dinner, behave as she had always behaved, though the light had gone out of her life and she was bowed down with anguish. The last poem of all was a set of four short stanzas in which the writer, sadly resigned to her loss, thanked the dark powers that rule man's destiny that she had been privileged at least for a while to enjoy the greatest happiness that we poor human beings can ever hope to know.
It was three o'clock in the morning when George Peregrine finally put the book down. It had seemed to him that he heard Evie's voice in every line, over and over again he came upon turns of phrase he had heard her use, there were details that were as familiar to him as to her: there was no doubt about it; it was her own story she had told, and it was as plain as anything could be that she had had a lover and her lover had died. It was not anger so much that he felt, nor horror or dismay, though he was dismayed and he was horrified, but amazement. It was as inconceivable that Evie should have had a love affair, аnd a wildly passionate one at that, as that the trout in a glass case over the chimney piece in his study, the finest he had ever caught, should suddenly wag its tail. He understood now the meaning of the amused look he had seen in the eyes of that man he had spoken to at the club, he understood why Daphne when she was talking about the book had seemed to be enjoying a private joke, and why those two women at the cocktail party had tittered when he strolled past them.
He broke out into a sweat. Then on a sudden he was seized with fury and he jumped up to go and awake Evie and ask her sternly for an explanation. But he stopped at the door. After all, what proof had he? A book. He remembered that he'd told Evie he thought it jolly good. True, he hadn't read it, but he'd pretended he had. He would look a perfect fool if he had to admit that. 'I must watch my step,' he muttered.
He made up his mind to wait for two or three days and think it all over. Then he'd decide what to do. He went to bed, but he couldn't sleep for a long time.
'Evie,' he kept on saying to himself. 'Evie, of all people.' They met at breakfast next morning as usual. Evie was as she always was, quiet, demure, and self-possessed, a middle-aged woman who made no effort to look younger than she was, a woman who had nothing of what he still called It. He looked at her as he hadn't looked at her for years. She had her usual placid serenity. Her pale blue eyes were untroubled. There was no sign of guilt on her candid brow. She made the same little casual remarks she always made.
'It's nice to get back to the country again after those two hectic days in London. What are you going to do this morning?'
It was incomprehensible.
Three days later he went to see his solicitor. Henry Blane was an old friend of George's as well as his lawyer. He had a place not far from Peregrine's and for years they had shot over one another's preserves. For two days a week he was a country gentleman and for the other five a busy lawyer in Sheffield. He was a tall, robust fellow, with a boisterous manner and a jovial laugh, which suggested that he liked to be looked upon essentially as a sportsman and a good fellow and only incidentally as a lawyer. But he was shrewd and worldly-wise. 'Well, George, what's brought you here today?' he boomed as the colonel was shown into his office. 'Have a good time in London? I'm taking my missus up for a few days next week.
How's Evie?'
'It's about Evie I've come to see you,' said Peregrine, giving him a suspicious look. 'Have you read her book?'
His sensitivity had been sharpened during those last days of troubled thought and he was conscious of a faint change in the lawyer's expression. It was as though he were suddenly on his guard.
'Yes, I've read it. Great success, isn't it? Fancy Evie breaking out into poetry. Wonders will never cease.
George Peregrine was inclined to lose his temper.
'It's made me look a perfect damned fool.'
'Oh, what nonsense, George! There's no harm in Evie's writing a book. You ought to be jolly proud of her.'
'Don't talk such rot. It's her own story. You know it and everyone else knows it. I suppose I'm the only one who doesn't know who her lover was.'
'There is such a thing as imagination, old boy. There's no reason to suppose the whole thing isn't made up.'
'Look here, Henry, we've known one another all our lives. We've had all sorts of good times together. Be honest with me. Can you look me in the face and tell me you believe it's a made-up story?'
Harry Blane moved uneasily in his chair. He was disturbed by the distress in old George's voice.
'You've got no right to ask me a question like that. Ask Evie.'
'I daren't,' George answered after an anguished pause. 'I'm afraid she'd tell me the truth.'
There was an uncomfortable silence.
'Who was the chap?'
Harry Blane looked at him straight in the eye.
'I don't know, and if I did I wouldn't tell you.'
'You swine. Don't you see what a position I'm in? Do you think it's very pleasant to be made absolutely ridiculous?'
The lawyer lit a cigarette and for some moments silently puffed it.
'I don't see what I can do for you,' he said at last.
'You've got private detectives you employ, I suppose. I want you to put them on the job and let them find everything out.'
'It's not very pretty to put detectives on one's wife, old boy, and besides, taking for granted for a moment that Evie had an affair, it was a good many years ago and I don't suppose it would be possible to find out a thing. They seem to have covered their tracks pretty carefully.'
'I don't care. You put the detectives on. I want to know the truth.'
'I won't, George. If you're determined to do that you'd better consult someone else. And look here, even if you got evidence that Evie had been unfaithful to you what would you do with it? You'd look rather silly divorcing your wife because she'd committed adultery ten years ago.'
'At all events I could have it out with her.' 'You can do that now, but you know just as well as I do that 11 you do she'll leave you. D'you want her to do that?' George gave him an unhappy look.
'I don't know. I always thought she'd been a damned good wife to me. She runs the house perfectly, we never have any servant trouble; she's done wonders with the garden and she's splendid with all the village people. But damn it, I have my self-respect to think of. How can I go on living with her when I know that she was grossly unfaithful to me?' 'Have you always been faithful to her?'
'More or less, you know. After all, we've been married for nearly twenty-four years and Evie was never much for bed.'
The solicitor slightly raised his eyebrows, but George was too intent on what he was saying to notice.
'I don't deny that I've had a bit of fun now and then. A man wants it. Women are different.'
'We only have men's word for that,' said Harry Blane, with a faint smile.
'Evie's absolutely the last woman I'd have suspected of kicking over the traces. I mean, she's a very fastidious, reticent woman. What on earth made her write the damned book?'
'I suppose it was a very poignant experience and perhaps it was a relief to her to get it off her chest like that.'
'Well, if she had to write it why the devil didn't she write it under an assumed name?'
'She used her maiden name. I suppose she thought that was enough, and it would have been if the book hadn't had this amazing boom.'
George Peregrine and the lawyer were sitting opposite one another with a desk between them. George, his elbow on the desk, his cheek on his hand, frowned at his thought.
'It's so rotten not to know what sort of a chap he was. One can't even tell if he was by way of being a gentleman. I mean, for all I know he may have been a farm-hand or a clerk in a lawyer's office.'
Harry Blane did not permit himself to smile and when he answered there was in his eyes a kindly, tolerant look.
'Knowing Evie so well I think the probabilities are that he was all right. Anyhow I'm sure he wasn't a clerk in my office.'
'It's been a shock to me,' the colonel sighed. 'I thought she was fond of me. She couldn't have written that book unless she hated me.'
'Oh, I don't believe that. I don't think she's capable of hatred.'
'You're not going to pretend that she loves me.'
'No.'
'Well, what does she feel for me?'
Harry Blane leaned back in his swivel chair and looked at George reflectively.
'Indifference, I should say.'
The colonel gave a little shudder and reddened.
'After all, you're not in love with her, are you?'
George Peregrine did not answer directly.
'It's been a great blow to me not to have any children, but I've never let her see that I think she's let me down. I've always been kind to her. Within reasonable limits I've tried to do my duty by her.'
The lawyer passed a large hand over his mouth to conceal the smile that trembled on his lips.
'It's been such an awful shock to me,' Peregrine went on. 'Damn it all, even ten years ago Evie was no chicken and God knows she wasn't much to look at. It's so ugly.' He sighed deeply. 'What would you do in my place?'
'Nothing.'
George Peregrine drew himself bolt upright in his chair and he looked at Harry with the stern set face that he must have worn when he inspected his regiment.
'1 can't overlook a thing like this. I've been made a laughing-stock. I can never hold up my head again.'
'Nonsense,' said the lawyer sharply, and then in a pleasant, kindly manner, 'listen, old boy: the man's dead; it all happened a long while back. Forget it. Talk to people about Evie's book, rave about it, tell 'em how proud you are of her. Behave as though you had so much confidence in her, you knew she could never have been unfaithful to you. The world moves so quickly and people's memories are so short. They'll forget.' I shan't forget.'
'You're both middle-aged people. She probably does a great deal more for you than you think and you'd be awfully lonely without her. I don't think it matters if you don't forget. It'll be all to the good if you can get it into that thick head of yours that there's a lot more in Evie than you ever had the gumption to see.' 'Damn it all, you talk as if I was to blame.' 'No, I don't think you were to blame, but I'm not so sure that Evie was either. I don't suppose she wanted to fall in love with this boy. D'you remember those verses right at the end? The impression they gave me was that though she was shattered by his death, in a strange sort of way she welcomed it. All through she'd been aware of the fragility of the tie that bound them. He died in the full flush of his first love and had never known that love so seldom endures; he'd only known its bliss and beauty. In her own bitter grief she found solace in the thought that he'd been spared all sorrow.'
'All that's a bit above my head, old boy. I see more or less what
you mean.'
George Peregrine stared unhappily at the inkstand on the desk.
He was silent and the lawyer looked at him with curious, yet sympathetic, eyes.
'Do you realize what courage she must have had never by a sign to show how dreadfully unhappy she was?' he said gently.
Colonel Peregrine sighed.
'I'm broken. I suppose you're right; it's no good crying over spilt milk and it would only make things worse if I made a fuss.'
'Well?'
George Peregrine gave a pitiful little smile.
'I'll take your advice. I'll do nothing. Let them think me a damned fool and to hell with them. The truth is, I don't know what I'd do without Evie. But I'll tell you what, there's one thing I shall never understand till my dying day: what in the name of heaven did the fellow ever see in her?'
Notes
an MC and a DSO
Military Cross and Distinguished Service Order; medals won for bravery in war
the Welsh Guards
a famous military regiment in the British army
Justice of the Peace
a person who is not trained as a lawyer but who acts as a judge (unpaid) in a local law court, which deals with less serious crimes
Eton
a famous public school (fee-paying) for boys from upper-class families
Edgar Allan Рое
an American writer famous for his poetry and short stories
Henry V
a play by Shakespeare, often studied by schoolchildren
penny-a-liner
(derogatory) a journalist who is paid by the number of lines written
Colonel Blimp
(derogatory) a person who is ridiculously pompous and conservative (especially an old army officer)
Emily Dickinson, Landor, Heine, Sappho
all famous poets (American, English, German, ancient Greek)
A Shropshire Lad
a volume of lyric poems written by the English poet A.E. Housman
Discussion
Language Focus
• George Peregrine as a typical, very conventional country gentleman
• Evie as a woman who is no longer young or attractive.
the outbreak of the war slyboots forebear
to tend the sick to succour the poor to be affable to inferiors
to drift apart to take for granted tenant
odd to embark on discreditable
hot stuff to keep the shirt on to pull smb’s leg
a celebrity gibberish to make fuss about
to gush a smash hit flattering things
to titter desiccated to be impertinent
malaise love affair to put the detective on
fastidious reticent
2 Rephrase these colloquial expressions in your own words:
Did it cost you a packet? I've half a mind to do it
I don't think that's your cup of tea Selling like hot cakes
Hot stuff Come off it
I must bolt I must watch my step
All that's a bit above my head It's no good crying over spilt milk
Activities