Restless Earth/Chapter 10

On the morning of this tragic February day, at the moment when her husband ceased pacing the drawing-room in New Plymouth and sat to write the first abortive attempt at the letter which was to shut her out of his life, Grace Harley stood at the window of her room on the first floor of the Masonic Hotel in Napier.

She was dressed for the street in a neat summer frock which emphasised the daintiness of her small figure; her fingers were mechanically adjusting her georgette collar; her gaze was upon the glass-calm blue of the sea which showed between the tall Norfolk Island pines of the Marine Parade.

It was a glorious morning, and she was thinking how happy she had been during the glorious mornings of her honeymoon, when her every action and mood had found immediate reflection in the man who had been her willing slave. Now, the shimmering glory of the day added to her loneliness.

She sighed unhappily.

“My dear! My dear!” protested the little old lady who sat upon the bed, where she assisted Joan in the toilet of a large sleeping doll. “You mustn’t ​sigh like that on a day like this. God’s good sunshine is made to laugh in.”

Grace turned listlessly.

“I can’t help it, Miss Whipple. I try not to, but———”

She walked to the dressing-table, leaving the sentence unfinished. She surveyed her appearance in the mirror, thrusting a wisp of hair beneath her hat-brim with unsteady fingers.

Miss Whipple’s shrewd, darting, black eyes narrowed, and she regarded the back of Grace with her head held upon one side. She mumbled her thin lips between her toothless jaws for a few moments, then nodded her head slowly.

“You’re lonely!” she snapped.

Grace started and flushed, but made no denial.

“Mm—yes, I knew it. I knew it,” declared Miss Whipple, smiling at her own perspicacity. “The very moment I first set eyes on you, down there in the dining-room, I said to myself, ‘That young woman is lonely.’ And that’s the reason, my dear, why I made myself known to you. I know what loneliness is. I’ve had over fifty years of it.”

She rose to her feet with an audible effort and crossed the room to stand beside Grace. Her thin arm went round the younger woman’s shoulders, and the two gazed at each other’s reflection in the mirror.

“Yes, I am lonely,” admitted Grace slowly.

Her head drooped and she made a pretence of setting the dressing-table in order.

“But I have Joan,” she added, lifting her head again, and attempting to smile, “so perhaps I am not really as lonely as I feel. Perhaps the weather is affecting me. The days are very hot———”

“Of course the weather is affecting you,” declared Miss Whipple with emphasis. “You’re in love; and no person in love can enjoy such weather as this unless the other party is present. You’re wondering what he’s doing on this beautiful day. You imagine ​he’s thoroughly enjoying himself and sparing no thought for you. No doubt he’s thinking and behaving in a similar manner—making himself thoroughly miserable. Of course, it may be raining where he is,” she added hopefully.

Grace smiled ruefully into the wrinkled face of Miss Whipple.

“You would be a great comfort to me if things were as you suppose them to be,” she said. “As it is, you make me want to cry.”

Miss Whipple, the compleat angler of domestic secrets, was gratified by the progress made in the short time of her acquaintance with Mrs. Harley. She felt justified in using the gaff to land the inside story of this affair.

“You are in love?”

Grace nodded.

“With your husband?”

Grace nodded and blushed.

Miss Whipple turned to look at the child, who was too busy with her doll to care for the foolish talk of her elders.

“And you've been married about—six years,” judged the old lady.

“Ten,” corrected Grace quietly.

“Ten!” ..

Miss Whipple looked from the child to her mother with frank incredulity.

“Ten!” she repeated. “I have heard of such a thing, but I have hesitated to believe it. Ten years, and still in love! Dear me! Why, I had forgotten the man who broke my young heart within two years.”

“Had you married him it would have been different, perhaps,” hazarded Grace, smiling her sympathy.

“It most certainly would have been!” agreed the old lady, with decision. “I’d have killed the brute! Distance lends no enchantment to some views, my dear; it just gives them the correct perspective without atmospherics. Perhaps you’ll find that out.”

​“No! No!”

Grace shook her head in vigorous protest, and moved to the window again. Miss Whipple followed her.

“It—it’s all finished.”

“What’s all finished?” demanded Miss Whipple.

“My—our happiness. But I’ll never do other than love him. I can’t.”

“Then he can’t have hurt you very badly, my dear. Dogs are the only things which go on loving the men who ill-treat them.”

The shrewd old lady spoke softly, and with infinite understanding, close to Grace’s ear, while her old hand stole caressingly around the younger woman’s waist.

“I’m not going to ask you for your confidence, my dear—although it does one good sometimes to spread one’s troubles a little; makes them look a lot thinner—but I’d like to tell you this: if your husband ever loved you he’ll never forget you. I’ve studied my own sex for many long years—more years than I care to talk about—and I know the kind of women men love and the kind they think they love. If I were you, I’d have faith in the future, my dear. I take it he has gone crazy over some other woman?”

The abrupt question startled Grace.

“Please! Please!” she protested tearfully, clasping her hands tightly together and turning to face the old lady.

Miss Whipple smiled gently and patted the trembling hands.

“I thought so,” she said. “He’s been pretty tardy over the matter. This is the first time, of course?”

Grace looked despairingly into the little black eyes which looked at her so keenly, then she sobbed—and the black-clothed shoulder of the little old lady absorbed the tears which had been held back too long.

“There, there, my dear,” murmured Miss Whipple, her thin fingers gently stroking Grace’s bowed ​neck. “You’ve done the right thing, I’m sure.”

She waited, expecting a question; then, as Grace remained silent, she went on:

“You’ve left him. That was a wise thing to do. It was the right thing to do. You’ve always done the right thing, because right is instinctive in you. If I can recognise that, how much more clearly will he recognise it, now that he has had time to think? His recognition, and his recollection, will poison his love for the other woman.”

Grace lifted her head.

“But you don’t understand,” she cried brokenly. “He let me go———”

“Which proves his manhood, my dear. He would have been only half a man had he lied to keep you, or ordered you to stay. He knows you are the injured party, and he accepts your judgment of the case. You’ve taken the child from him. Do you think he is glad of that, too?”

“I don’t know; I don’t know. When a man is infatuated with a woman he is blind to everything else———”

“But he’s not deaf, my dear. When a child’s voice has sounded in a home an echo is left there. I imagine James Harley to be peculiarly sensitive to echoes.”

“You know my husband?” asked Grace in surprise, as she dried her eyes.

“I’ve never met him, but I’ve seen his photograph often, and, of course, I’ve read his stories. Everybody takes an interest in writers, no one more than Mrs. Grundy. Mrs. Grundy noticed in the papers that you were staying in Napier, and she promptly whispered her opinion as to why you were here without your husband. And she’s not far wrong, it seems.”

“Do they say I’ve left him because of some other woman?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

​Grace straightened angrily and her eyes flashed.

“I won’t have it!” she cried. “What right has anyone to talk of him? Is it anyone’s business but ours?”

“Somebody remarked that all the world loves a lover, my dear, but that’s only true of the lover who runs off the rails,” returned Miss Whipple, shaking her white head wisely. “Ordinarily, the world envies a lover, but sneers at him for a fool. You must expect the world to show its love for you by pitying you both.”

Grace turned away, dabbing her cheeks as she peered uncertainly into the brilliant sunshine.

“You think he—he will change his mind?” she asked.

“The most comforting thing in a home is the fire which burns on the hearth,” answered Miss Whipple gently. “A man merely gets a lot of excitement out of a fire which starts in somebody else’s bedroom. When that goes out, he shivers to death; unless his own hearth fire———”

“His own hearth-fire must go out if it is too long neglected.”

“Then he must re-kindle it—if he can. But James Harley’s hearth-fire hasn’t gone out, and very soon he will realise how lucky he is in that respect.”

Grace shook her head sadly, as though she doubted.

There was a pause in the conversation, during which Grace gazed out to sea, her thoughts upon the home she had left, perhaps for ever. Her eyes were dry now, but her breath still caught in her throat occasionally—faint echoes of her sobs. Miss Whipple stood beside her, meditatively fingering her old-fashioned jade necklace and sighing enviously at intervals. Joan whispered to her doll childishly.

“What would you advise me to do?” asked Grace at last.

“I?” exclaimed Miss Whipple, smiling. “Why, my dear, I’ve never been married.”

​“But it is evident that you have studied people—married people.”

Miss Whipple laughed shortly in a high key.

“Oh, of course, I’ve done that. Most old maids study married people. It’s their greatest joy in life. They like to convince themselves they’ve missed very little by staying single. But, as for advice———”

“Should I go back to him? I’ve had a miserable month. Sometimes I think I’ve been a fool—and a coward—to leave him alone to fight the other woman.”

Miss Whipple pursed her lips and considered the question gravely.

“No,” she answered slowly, “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you. No man cares to know that he is being hunted. He likes to believe that he is the hunter. That’s elementary. And you must remember that he doesn’t think he’s ‘fighting’ the other woman. He thinks he’s fighting himself; and when a man’s fighting himself it is as well to leave him a clear space in which to do it.”

“But she’s not leaving him a clear space,” said Grace bitterly. “She isn’t the type.”

“She’s a huntress, eh?”

“She cannot help herself.”

“Then she’s liable to come off second best, my dear,” decided Miss Whipple positively. “No. I wouldn’t go back, if I were you.”

“But I can’t stand it much longer,” cried Grace, wringing her hands. “I can’t! I can’t!”

“Now, now, my dear!” Miss Whipple hurried to comfort her. “Everything will happen for the best. I’m sure it will all come right. Go and do your shopping, my dear. You’ll feel much better. I think you’re very wise in telling me all about it. Two heads are better than one, even in these matters, and while you’re away I will think of a plan. I think old Catherine Whipple may be useful, despite her years and her rheumatism.”

Miss Whipple laughed complacently as she eyed ​Grace’s appearance with maternal criticism, smoothing a wrinkle in Grace’s frock here and there with deft touches.

“I’m glad I had the courage to speak to you down in the dining-room,” she added, “although it was terribly presumptuous of me. But you did look as though you needed a friend. You will believe I’m your friend?”

Grace did believe it, and said so gratefully.

“That’s all right, then,” said the old lady, fussily urging Grace to the door. “Now, run along and do your shopping, and if you’re not back for lunch———”

“I’ll be back for lunch,” Grace assured her, “I’ll catch the twelve o’clock bus from Hastings. I couldn’t think of foisting Joan upon you all day. It’s awfully kind of you to———”

“Not a bit of it, my dear. I’d be delighted to look after the child. You mustn’t hurry on my account. Joan will be quite happy with me. Won’t you, dear?” she added, turning to run her fingers through Joan’s curls.

“No,” answered Joan, bluntly, shaking her head irritably at the old lady’s touch.

“Joan!” expostulated Grace.

“Why not?” asked Miss Whipple, smiling in amusement.

“I don’t like you,” answered Joan promptly. “You’re all wrinkled and funny, and you made my mummy cry.”

“My dear child———”

“So you did. I haven’t been listening to you—it’s rude to listen—but I’ve been looking at you.”

Grace lifted the child in her arms and laughed rather shakily.

“Joan, dear, you mustn’t speak to Miss Whipple like that. She won’t love you.”

“Well, I don’t love her,” replied Joan sullenly. “And she is all wrinkled and funny.”

“Joan!”

​“Of course, I am,” agreed Miss Whipple heartily. “But I’m just like you inside, dear.”

“No, you’re not,” disagreed Joan, frowning. “You’ve got no teeth.”

Grace slapped the child gently upon the arm.

“You’re a naughty, rude girl, Joan,” she chided. “I’m afraid you’re becoming spoiled.”

“A little spoiling is good for a child sometimes,” smiled Miss Whipple. “Now, you run along, my dear, and I’ll make my peace with Joan.

“You must let Miss Whipple mind you, Joan,” ordered Grace, as she set the child upon her feet again. “And mind, no mischief, young lady.”

“Can’t I go with you, mummy?” pleaded the child, clinging to her mother’s skirts. “I’m afraid.”

Grace frowned and Miss Whipple raised her eyebrows.

“Afraid?” asked Grace.

“I won’t hurt you, child,” declared Miss Whipple. “I won’t eat you.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Joan told the old lady contemptuously. “You’re too old.”

“Then of what are you afraid, dear?” asked Grace in quick concern, going down upon one knee to hold the child by her elbows and look into her troubled eyes.

“I don’t know, mummy. It’s something here, I think.”

Joan spoke very softly and placed both hands upon her pinafore.

“A pain, dear?” asked Grace, covering both small hands with one of hers.

“No—no, mummy. Just a sort of—shaky feeling.”

“You haven’t been eating something you shouldn’t?”

“No, mummy.”

Grace studied the child’s face for a moment.

“Let me see your tongue?”

​The tongue was a healthy pink. Grace shook her head doubtfully.

“I’m not sick, mummy,” protested the child. “I’m just—just frightened.”

Grace rose to her feet slowly, Joan clinging to her skirt.

“Perhaps I had better not go,” she said to Miss Whipple. “I’ve never known Joan to say she was frightened before. Perhaps she is sickening for something.”

“Nonsense, my dear, nonsense,” replied Miss Whipple impatiently. “The child is probably hungry. She has a little sinking feeling, that’s all. Go and do your shopping. Nothing can happen in the little while you’ll be away.”

“Do you think you will be all right until I come back, Joan?” asked Grace anxiously.

“I—I think so, mummy. But I’d rather go with you.”

Joan looked pleadingly into her mother’s eyes, and Grace was about to give way to the child when Miss Whipple intervened. The old lady pounced upon Joan and held her to her bosom so tightly that the jade necklace pressed painfully upon the child’s cheek. Joan protested noisily.

“There’s nothing wrong with the child,” insisted the old lady as Joan fought to free herself. “Run along, do. You have two minutes to catch the bus. You’ll miss it if you don’t hurry.”

Grace kissed the angry Joan, exhorted her to behave, and hurried from the room with a word of farewell to Miss Whipple.

“You’re a nasty old woman!” she heard Joan shriek as she hurried along the passage to the stairs. “I don’t want you! I want mummy!”

Grace hesitated at the head of the stairs.. She turned to retrace her steps. Then she remembered the purpose of her errand, and, with an insistent honking of a motor-horn to support her resolution, she hastened down the stairs and into the sunshine.

​Miss Whipple pacified the child with wheedling words and a new shilling; but, wheedled she never so skilfully, she could win no retraction of Joan’s dislike. The child remained obstinately sullen, whispering to her doll her opinion of her guardian, refusing to be drawn into a discussion of the wonderful things a new shilling would buy.

The old lady lapsed into silence after a few minutes of fruitless cajolling. She sat on the bed and looked at the uninspiring wall before her, shaking her head from time to time. She was thinking of “a plan.”

Catherine Whipple was filled with good intentions. All her life she had been thus. She lived to do good to others, especially to those others whose domestic affairs had gone awry. To her a broken romance was as pitiable as an injured animal, and as deserving of charitable aid. Life had denied her a husband and had given her riches. It had made of her a dangerous busybody, perverting her maternal instincts to a mothering of the entire human race. She made it her business to get to the “heart of the trouble” in any matrimonial muddle which came within her ken, and did her best to “smooth things out” with an entire disregard for the wishes of the parties most concerned. On one or two occasions she had been harshly rebuffed, but her maternal bosom bore the blows unharmed.

The case of the Harleys aroused all her compassion. When Grace Harley had walked shyly into the dining-room some ten days before, Catherine Whipple had immediately discerned upon her face the infallible signs of domestic unhappiness. The old lady shied at the term “conjugal infelicity”—“domestic unhappiness” was infinitely more respectable.

She had lost no time in making the young woman’s acquaintance, and now she was experiencing a warm feeling of self-satisfaction. She had read the signs aright, and now she had her reward. Would it not be the crowning achievement of a worthy life, ​she asked herself, if she, Catherine Whipple, were directly instrumental in bringing about the reconciliation of that delightful author, James Harley, with his equally delightful wife? Might she not thus save a genius from disaster?

Sitting upon the bed she decided that it would, and that she might.

Her active old mind, as mischievous as a child’s, conceived a plan. She rose, and, with an injunction to Joan to play nicely for a little while, she went to her own room, which adjoined Grace Harley’s.

There, with an air of a conspirator, behind a locked door, she wrote a message to James Harley, Author, New Plymouth, upon the hotel stationery, signing herself “A Sincere Friend,” and fully believing it to be true.

She stole from the hotel to post it, walking on tiptoes to the stairs lest Joan should hear her.

She was away for over half-an-hour, for she held exaggerated ideas on the penalty which she would suffer were she detected in the act of posting an anyonymous letter, and it was some time before she had found a sufficiently deserted letter-box.

Joan met her on the stairs. The long silence had puzzled the child, who, failing to find her temporary guardian in her proper place, was descending to make enquiries.

“Where have you been?” demanded Joan, halting on the stairs and regarding Miss Whipple with suspicion.

The old lady felt and looked uncomfortably guilty.

“Just out for a breath of fresh air,” she lied, as she continied to mount the stairs slowly.

“What do you want fresh air for?”

Miss Whipple had not time in which to think of another lie, for at that moment the earth shook.

The huge building lifted bodily, as though some giant shoulder beneath it had given a violent heave, then it sank as suddenly; and the roar of falling masonry drowned the shriek with which Miss Whipple made her entry into the eternal shadows.