Chapter 7

She had had no intention of betraying Kitty. Kitty, she imagined, had sufficiently betrayed herself. And if she hadn't, as long as Kitty chose to behave like a dubious person, she could hardly be surprised if persons by no means dubious refused to be compromised. She, Miss Keating, was in no way responsible for Kitty Tailleur. Neither was she responsible for what other people thought of her. That was all, in effect, that she had intimated to Miss Lucy.

She did not say what she herself precisely thought, nor when she had first felt that uncomfortable sensation of exposure, that little shiver of cold and shame that seized her when in Kitty Tailleur's society. She had no means of measuring the lengths to which Kitty had gone and might yet go. She was simply possessed, driven and lashed by her vision of Kitty as she had seen her yesterday; Kitty standing at the end of the garden, on the watch for Mr. Lucy; Kitty returning, triumphant, with the young man at her heels.

She had seen Kitty with other men before, but there was something in this particular combination that she could not bear to think of. All the same, she had lain awake half the night thinking of it. She had Kitty Tailleur and Mr. Lucy on her nerves.

She had desired a pretext for approaching Miss Lucy, and poor Kitty was a pretext made to her hand. Nothing could be more appealing than the spectacle of helpless innocence struggling with a problem as terrible as Kitty. Miss Keating knew all the time that as far as she was concerned there was no problem. If she disliked being with Kitty she had nothing to do but to pack up and go. Kitty had said in the beginning that if she didn't like her she must go.

That course was obvious but unattractive. And the most obvious and most unattractive thing about it was that it would not have brought her any further with the Lucys. It would, in fact, have removed her altogether from their view.

But she had done for herself now with the Lucys. She should have kept her nerves to herself, rasped, as they were to a treacherous tenuity. And as the state of her nerves was owing to Kitty, she held Kitty responsible for the crisis. She writhed as she thought of it. She writhed as she thought of Mr. Lucy. She writhed as she thought of Kitty; and writhing, she rubbed her own venom into her hurt.

Of course she would have to leave Kitty now.

But, if she did, the alternatives were grim. She would have either to go back to her own people, or to look after somebody's children, or an invalid. Her own people were not interested in Miss Keating. Children and invalids demanded imperatively that she should be interested in them. And Miss Keating, unfortunately, was not interested in anybody but herself.

So interested was she that she had forgotten the old lady who sat knitting in the window, who, distracted by Miss Lucy's outburst, had let her ball roll on to the floor. It rolled away across the room to Miss Keating's feet, and there was a great tangle in the wool. Miss Keating picked up the ball and brought it to the old lady, winding and disentangling it as she went.

"Thank you; my wool is a nuisance to everybody," said the old lady. And she began to talk about her knitting. All the year round she knitted comforters for the deep-sea fishermen, gray and red and blue. When she was tired of one colour she went to another. It would be red's turn next.

Miss Keating felt as if she were being drawn to the old lady by that thin thread of wool. And the old lady kept looking at her all the time.

"Your face is familiar to me," she said. (Oddly enough, the old lady's face was familiar to Miss Keating.) "I have met you somewhere; I cannot think where."

"I wonder," said Miss Keating, "if it was at Wenden, my father's parish?"

The old lady's look was sharper. "Your father is the vicar of Wenden?"

"Yes."

"I thought so."

"Do you know him?" The ball slipped from Miss Keating's nervous fingers and the wool was tangled worse than ever.

"No, no; but I could tell that you were----" she hesitated. "It was at Ilkley that I met you. It's coming back to me. You were not then with Mrs. Tailleur, I think? You were with an invalid lady?"

"Yes; I was until I broke down."

"May I ask if you knew Mrs. Tailleur before you came to her?"

"No. I knew nothing of her. I know nothing now."

"Oh," said the old lady. It was as if she had said: that settles it.

The wool was disentangled. It was winding them nearer and nearer.

"Have you been with her long?"

"Not more than three months."

There were only five inches of wool between them now. "Do you mind telling me where you picked her up?"

Miss Keating remembered with compunction that it was Kitty who had picked _her_ up. Picked her up, as it were, in her arms, and carried her away from the dreadful northern Hydropathic where she had dropped, forlorn and exhausted, in the trail of her opulent invalid.

"It was at Matlock, afterward. Why?"

"Because, my dear--you must forgive me, but I could not help hearing what that young lady said. She was so very--so very unrestrained."

"Very ill-bred, I should say."

"Well, I should not have said that. You couldn't mistake the Lucys for anything but gentlepeople. Evidently I was meant to hear. I've no doubt she thinks us all very unkind."

"Unkind? Why?"

"Because we have--have not exactly taken to Mrs. Tailleur; if you'll forgive my saying so."

Miss Keating's smile forgave her. "People do not always take to her. She is more a favourite, I think, with men." She gave the ball into the old lady's hands.

The old lady coughed slightly. "Thank you, my dear. I dare say _you_ have thought it strange. We are such a friendly little community here; and if Mrs. Tailleur had been at all possible----"

"I believe," said Miss Keating, "she is very well connected. Lord Matcham is a most intimate friend of hers."

"That doesn't speak very well for Lord Matcham, I'm afraid."

"I wish," said Miss Keating, "you would be frank with me."

"I should like to be, my dear."

"Then, please--if there's anything you think I should be told--tell me."

"I think you ought to be told that we all are wondering a little at your being seen with Mrs. Tailleur. You are too nice, if I may say so, and she is--well, not the sort of person you should be going about with."

Miss Keating's mouth opened slightly.

"Do you know anything about her?"

"I know less than you do. I'm only going by what Colonel Hankin says."

"Colonel Hankin?"

"Mrs. Hankin, I should say; of course I couldn't speak about Mrs. Tailleur to _him_."

"Has he ever met her?"

"Met her? In society? My dear!--he has never met her anywhere."

"Then would he--would he really know?"

"It isn't only the Colonel. All the men in the hotel say the same thing. You can see how they stare at her."

"Oh, those men!"

"You may depend upon it, they know more than we do."

"How can they? How--how do they tell?"

"I suppose they see something."

Miss Keating saw it, too. She shuddered involuntarily. Her knees shook under her. She sat down.

"I'm sure I don't know what it is," said the old lady.

"Nor I," said Miss Keating faintly.

"They say you've only got to look at her----"

A dull flush spread over Miss Keating's face. She was breathing hard. Her mouth opened to speak; a thick sigh came through it, but no words.

"I've looked," said the old lady, "and I can't see anything about her different from other people. She dresses so quietly; but I'm told they often do. They're very careful that we shouldn't know them."

"They? Oh, you don't mean that Mrs. Tailleur--is----"

"I'm only going by what I'm told. Mind you, I get it all from Mrs. Hankin."

Miss Keating, who had been leaning forward, sat suddenly bolt upright. Her whole body was shaking now. Her voice was low but violent.

"Oh--oh--I knew it--I knew. I always felt there was something about her."

"I'm sure, my dear, you didn't _know_."

"I didn't. I didn't think it was that; I only thought she wasn't nice. I thought she was fast, or she'd been divorced, or something--something terrible of that sort."

She still sat bolt upright, gazing open-eyed, open-mouthed at the terror. She was filled with a fierce excitement, a sort of exultation. Then doubt came to her.

"But surely--surely the hotel people would know?"

"Hotel people never know anything that isn't their interest to know. If there were any complaint, or if any of the guests were to leave on account of her, Mrs. Tailleur would have to go."

"And has there been any complaint?"

"I believe Mr. Soutar--the clergyman--has spoken to the manager."

"And the manager?"

"Well, you see, Mr. Soutar is always complaining. He complained about the food, and about his bedroom. He has the cheapest bedroom in the hotel."

Miss Keating was thinking hard. Her idea was that Kitty Tailleur should go, and that she should remain.

"Don't you think if Colonel Hankin spoke to the manager----"

"He wouldn't. He's much too kind. Besides, the manager can't do anything as long as she behaves herself. And now that the Lucys have taken her up----. And then, there's you. Your being with her is her great protection. As she very well knew when she engaged you."

"I was engaged for _that_?"

"There can be very little doubt of it."

"Oh! then nobody thinks that I knew it? That I'm like her?"

"Nobody _could_ think that of you."

"What am I to do? I'm so helpless, and I've no one to advise me. And it's not as if we really knew anything."

"My dear, I think you should leave her."

"Of course I shall leave her. I can't stay another day. But I don't know how I ought to do it."

"Would you like to consult Colonel Hankin?"

"Oh no; I don't think I could bear to speak about it to him."

"Well--and perhaps he would not like to be brought into it, either."

"Then what reason can I give her?"

"Of course you cannot tell her what you've heard."

Miss Keating was silent.

"Or if you do, you must please not give me as your informant."

"I will not do that."

"Nor--please--Colonel and Mrs. Hankin. We none of us want to be mixed up with any unpleasant business."

"You may trust me," said Miss Keating. "I am very discreet."

She rose. The old lady held her with detaining eyes.

"What shall you do when you have left her?"

"I suppose I shall have to look for another place."

"You are not going home, then?"

Miss Keating's half-smile hinted at renunciation. "I have too many younger sisters."

"Well, let me see. I shall be going back to Surbiton the day after to-morrow. How would it be if you were to come with me?"

"Oh, Mrs.--Mrs.----" The smile wavered, but it held its place.

"Mrs. Jurd. If we suited each other you might stay with me, at any rate for a week or two. I've been a long time looking out for a companion."

Miss Keating's smile was now strained with hesitation. Mrs. Jurd was not an invalid, and she was interested in Miss Keating. These were points in her favour. On the other hand, nobody who could do better would choose to live with Mrs. Jurd and wind wool and talk about the deep-sea fishermen.

"I am living," said Mrs. Jurd, "with my nephew at Surbiton. I have to keep his house for him."

"Then do you think you would really need any one?"

"Indeed I do. My nephew isn't a companion for me. He's in the city all day and out most evenings, or he brings his friends in and they get smoking."

Miss Keating's smile was now released from its terrible constraint. A slight tremor, born of that deliverance, passed over her face, and left it rosy. But having committed herself to the policy of hesitation she had a certain delicacy in departing from it now.

"Are you quite sure you would care to have _me_?"

"My dear, I am quite sure that I don't care to have any one who is not a lady; and I am quite sure that I am talking to a lady. It is very seldom in these days that one can be sure."

Miss Keating made a little bow and blushed.

After a great deal of conversation it was settled that she should exchange the Cliff Hotel for the Métropole that night, and that she should stay there until she left Southbourne for Surbiton, with Mrs. Jurd.

When Colonel and Mrs. Hankin looked in to report upon the weather, this scheme was submitted to them as to supreme judges in a question of propriety.

Mrs. Tailleur was not mentioned. Her name stood for things that decorous persons do not mention, except under certain sanctions and the plea of privilege. The Colonel might mention them to his wife, and his wife might mention them to Mrs. Jurd, who might pass them on with unimpeachable propriety to Miss Keating. But these ladies were unable to discuss Mrs. Tailleur in the presence of the Colonel. Still, as none of them could do without her, she was permitted to appear in a purified form, veiled in obscure references, or diminished to an innocent abstraction.

Miss Keating, Mrs. Jurd said, was not at all satisfied with her--er--her present situation.

The Colonel lowered his eyes for one iniquitous instant while Mrs. Tailleur, disguised as Miss Keating's present situation, laughed through the veil and trailed before him her unabashed enormity.

He managed to express, with becoming gravity, his approval of the scheme. He only wondered whether it might not be better for Miss Keating to stay where she was until the morning, that her step might not seem so precipitate, so marked.

Miss Keating replied that she thought she had been sufficiently compromised already.

"I don't think," said the Colonel, "that I should put it that way."

He felt that by putting it that way Miss Keating had brought them a little too near what he called the verge, the verge they were all so dexterously avoiding. He would have been glad if he could have been kept out of this somewhat perilous debate, but, since the women had dragged him into it, it was his business to see that it was confined within the limits of comparative safety. Goodness knew where they would be landed if the women lost their heads.

He looked gravely at Miss Keating.

That look unnerved her, and she took a staggering step that brought her within measurable distance of the verge.

The Colonel might put it any way he liked, she said. There must not be a moment's doubt as to her attitude.

Now it was not her attitude that the Colonel was thinking of, but his own. It had been an attitude of dignity, of judicial benevolence, of incorruptible reserve. Any sort of unpleasantness was agony to a man who had the habit of perfection. It was dawning on him that unless he exercised considerable caution he would find himself mixed up in an uncommonly disagreeable affair. He might even be held responsible for it, since the dubiousness of the topic need never have emerged if he had not unveiled it to his wife. So that, when Miss Keating, in her unsteadiness, declared that there must not be a moment's doubt as to her attitude, the Colonel himself was seized with a slight vertigo. He suggested that people (luckily he got no nearer it than that)--people were, after all, entitled to the benefit of any doubt there might be.

Then, when the danger was sheer in front of them, he drew back. Miss Keating, he said, had nobody but herself to please. He had no more light to throw on the--er--the situation. Really, he said to himself, they couldn't have hit on a more serviceable word.

He considered that he had now led the discussion to its close, on lines of irreproachable symbolism. Nobody had overstepped the verge. Mrs. Tailleur had not once been mentioned. She might have disappeared behind the shelter provided by the merciful, silent decencies. Colonel Hankin had shown his unwillingness to pursue her into the dim and undesirable regions whence she came.

Then suddenly Miss Keating cried out her name.

She had felt herself abandoned, left there, all alone on the verge, and before any of them knew where they were she was over it. Happily, she was unaware of the violence with which she went. She seemed to herself to move, downward indeed, but with a sure and slow propulsion. She believed herself challenged to the demonstration by the Colonel's attitude. The high distinction of it, that was remotely akin to Mr. Lucy's, somehow obscured and degraded her. She conceived a dislike to this well-behaved and honourable gentleman, and to his visible perfections, the clean, silver whiteness and the pinkness of him.

His case was clear to her. He was a man, and he had looked at Kitty Tailleur, and his sympathies, like Mr. Lucy's, had suffered an abominable perversion. His judgment, like Mr. Lucy's, had surrendered to the horrible charm. She said to herself bitterly, that she could not compete with _that_.

She trembled as she faced the Colonel. "Very well, then," said she, "as there is no one to help me I must protect myself. I shall not sleep another night under the same roof as Mrs. Tailleur."

The three winced as if the name had been a blow struck at them. The Colonel's silver eyebrows rose bristling. Mrs. Hankin got up and went out of the room. Mrs. Jurd bent her head over her knitting. None of them looked at Miss Keating; not even the Colonel, as he spoke.

"If you feel like that about it," said he, "there is nothing more to be said."

He rose and followed his wife.

Upstairs, when their bedroom door had closed on them, he reproved her very seriously for her indiscretion.

"You asked me," said he, "what I thought of Mrs. Tailleur, and I told you; but I never said you were to go and hand it on. What on earth have you been saying to those women?"

"I didn't say anything to Miss Keating."

"No, but you must have done to Mrs. What's-her-name?"

"Not very much. I don't like talking about unpleasant subjects, as you know."

"Well, somebody's been talking about them. I shouldn't wonder, after this, if poor Mrs. Tailleur's room were wanted to-morrow."

"Oh, do you think they'll turn her out?"

She was a kind woman and she could not bear to think it would come to that.

The Colonel was silent. He was sitting on the bed, watching his wife as she undid the fastenings of her gown. At that moment a certain brief and sudden sin of his youth rose up before him. It looked at him pitifully, reproachfully, with the eyes of Mrs. Tailleur.

"I wish," said Mrs. Hankin, "we hadn't said anything at all."

"So do I," said the Colonel. But for the life of him he couldn't help saying something more. "If she goes," he said, "I rather think that young fellow will go, too."

"And the sister?"

"Oh, the sister, I imagine, will remain."