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They arrived at Dover just after five. They were to spend the night there, and cross to the Continent on the following day. Theo entered their sitting room in the hotel with Vincent close behind her. He had a couple of evening papers in his hand which he threw down on the table. Two of the hotel servants brought in the luggage and withdrew.
Theo turned from the window where she had been standing looking out. In another minute they were in each other’s arms.
There was a discreet tap on the door and they drew apart again. ‘Damn it all,’ said Vincent, ‘it doesn’t seem as though we were ever going to be alone.’
Theo smiled. ‘It doesn’t look like it,’ she said softly. Sitting down on the sofa, she picked up one of the papers.
The knock proved to be a waiter bearing tea. He laid it on the table, drawing the latter up to the sofa on which Theo was sitting, cast a deft glance round, inquired if there were anything further, and withdrew.
Vincent, who had gone into the adjoining room, came back into the sitting room.
‘Now for tea,’ he said cheerily, but stopped suddenly in the middle of the room. ‘Anything wrong?’ he asked.
Theo was sitting bolt upright on the sofa. She was staring in front of her with dazed eyes, and her face had gone deathly white.
Vincent took a quick step towards her. ‘What is it, sweetheart?’
For answer she held out the paper to him, her finger pointing to the headline.
Vincent took the paper from her. ‘FAILURE OF HOBSON, JEKYLL AND LUCAS,’ he read. The name of the big city firm conveyed nothing to him at the moment, though he had an irritating conviction in the back of his mind that it ought to do so. He looked inquiringly at Theo.
‘Richard is Hobson, Jekyll and Lucas,’ she explained. ‘Your husband?’
‘Yes.’
Vincent returned to the paper and read the bald information it conveyed carefully. Phrases such as ‘sudden crash’, ‘serious revelations to follow’, ‘other houses affected’ struck him disagreeably.
Roused by a movement, he looked up. Theo was adjusting her little black hat in front of the mirror. She turned at the movement he made. Her eyes looked steadily into his.
‘Vincent – I must go to Richard.’
He sprang up.
‘Theo – don’t be absurd.’
She repeated mechanically: ‘I must go to Richard.’
‘But, my dear –’
She made a gesture towards the paper on the floor.
‘That means ruin – bankruptcy. I can’t choose this day of all others to leave him.’
‘You had left him before you heard of this. Be reasonable!’
She shook her head mournfully.
‘You don’t understand. I must go to Richard.’
And from that he could not move her. Strange that a creature so soft, so pliant, could be so unyielding. After the first, she did not argue. She let him say what he had to say unhindered. He held her in his arms, seeking to break her will by enslaving her senses, but though her soft mouth returned his kisses, he felt in her something aloof and invincible that withstood all his pleadings.
He let her go at last, sick and weary of the vain endeavour. From pleading he had turned to bitterness, reproaching her with never having loved him. That, too, she took in silence, without protest, her face, dumb and pitiful, giving the lie to his words. Rage mastered him in the end; he hurled at her every cruel word he could think of, seeking only to bruise and batter her to her knees.
At last the words gave out; there was nothing more to say. He sat, his head in his hands, staring down at the red pile carpet. By the door, Theodora stood, a black shadow with a white face.
It was all over.
She said quietly: ‘Goodbye, Vincent.’
He did not answer.
The door opened – and shut again.
The Darrells lived in a house in Chelsea – an intriguing, old-world house, standing in a little garden of its own. Up the front of the house grew a magnolia tree, smutty, dirty, begrimed, but still a magnolia.
Theo looked up at it, as she stood on the doorstep some three hours later. A sudden smile twisted her mouth in pain.
She went straight to the study at the back of the house. A man was pacing up and down in the room – a young man, with a handsome face and a haggard expression.
He gave an ejaculation of relief as she came in.
‘Thank God you’ve turned up, Theo. They said you’d taken your luggage with you and gone off out of town somewhere.’
‘I heard the news and came back.’
Richard Darrell put an arm about her and drew her to the couch. They sat down upon it side by side. Theo drew herself free of the encircling arm in what seemed a perfectly natural manner.
‘How bad is it, Richard?’ she asked quietly.
‘Just as bad as it can be – and that’s saying a lot.’
‘Tell me!’
He began to walk up and down again as he talked. Theo sat and watched him. He was not to know that every now and then the room went dim, and his voice faded from her hearing, while another room in a hotel at Dover came clearly before her eyes.
Nevertheless she managed to listen intelligently enough. He came back and sat down on the couch by her.
‘Fortunately,’ he ended, ‘they can’t touch your marriage settlement. The house is yours also.’
Theo nodded thoughtfully.
‘We shall have that at any rate,’ she said. ‘Then things will not be too bad? It means a fresh start, that is all.’
‘Oh! Quite so. Yes.’
But his voice did not ring true, and Theo thought suddenly: ‘There’s something else. He hasn’t told me everything.’
‘There’s nothing more, Richard?’ she said gently. ‘Nothing worse?’ He hesitated for just half a second, then: ‘Worse? What should there be?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Theo.
‘It’ll be all right,’ said Richard, speaking more as though to reassure himself than Theo. ‘Of course, it’ll be all right.’
He flung an arm about her suddenly.
‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he said. ‘It’ll be all right now that you’re here. Whatever else happens, I’ve got you, haven’t I?’
She said gently: ‘Yes, you’ve got me.’ And this time she left his arm round her.
He kissed her and held her close to him, as though in some strange way he derived comfort from her nearness.
‘I’ve got you, Theo,’ he said again presently, and she answered as before: ‘Yes, Richard.’
He slipped from the couch to the floor at her feet. ‘I’m tired out,’ he said fretfully. ‘My God, it’s been a day. Awful! I don’t know what I should do if you weren’t here. After all, one’s wife is one’s wife, isn’t she?’
She did not speak, only bowed her head in assent.
He laid his head on her lap. The sigh he gave was like that of a tired child.
Theo thought again: ‘There’s something he hasn’t told me. What is it?’
Mechanically her hand dropped to his smooth, dark head, and she stroked it gently, as a mother might comfort a child.
Richard murmured vaguely: ‘It’ll be all right now you’re here. You won’t let me down.’
His breathing grew slow and even. He slept. Her hand still smoothed his head.
But her eyes looked steadily into the darkness in front of her, seeing nothing.
‘Don’t you think, Richard,’ said Theodora, ‘that you’d better tell me everything?’
It was three days later. They were in the drawing room before dinner.
Richard started, and flushed.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he parried.
‘Don’t you?’
He shot a quick glance at her.
‘Of course there are – well – details.’
‘I ought to know everything, don’t you think, if I am to help?’
He looked at her strangely. ‘What makes you think I want you to help?’
She was a little astonished.
‘My dear Richard, I’m your wife.’
He smiled suddenly, the old, attractive, carefree smile.
‘So you are, Theo. And a very good-looking wife, too. I never could stand ugly women.’
He began walking up and down the room, as was his custom when something was worrying him.
