AT FIRST SIGHT I knew this was a woman to whom class distinctions were meaningless. Though beautifully dressed in the height of fashion she looked at me as gladly and frankly as a housemaid who has been tipped half a crown and chucked under the chin behind her mistress’s back. I knew she was seeing and welcoming the natural Wedderburn inside the solicitor. I hid my confusion under a chilly mask which may have struck you as bad manners, but my heart beat so hard that I feared you might hear the pounding. In matters of the heart it is best to be direct. When left with her I said, “May I see you again, soon, without anyone else knowing?”
She looked startled, but nodded. I said, “Is your bedroom at the back of the house?”
She smiled and nodded. I said, “Will you put a lit candle on the sill tonight when everyone else here is in bed. I will bring a ladder.”
She laughed and nodded. I said, “I love you.”
She said, “I’ve got another lad who does that,” and was prattling about her fiancé when you returned, Mr. Baxter. Her guile astonished and excited me. To this day I can hardly believe it.
But though I foolishly believed I had deceived you, I never tried to deceive her. I exposed all my past iniquities more frankly and fully than I have courage and space to do here
(“Thank goodness for that!” muttered Godwin fervently.)
because (blind fool that I was) I believed we would soon be man and wife! I had never before heard of a man-loving middle-class woman in her twenties who did NOT want marriage, especially to the man she eloped with. I was so sure Bella would soon be my bride that, by a piece of harmless chicanery, I obtained a passport on which we were named as husband and wife. This was to facilitate our honeymoon on the continent which I meant to start as soon as the civil contract was signed. And I swear with hand on heart that monetary gain had no part in my determination to turn Bella Baxter into Bella Wedderburn. I admit that your manner when ordering your will made me feel that you were perhaps not long for this world, but I was sure you would at least live long enough to see us return from our honeymoon. The most I expected from you sir, in the financial line, was a small steady allowance enabling me to support Bella in the style she enjoyed with you. A few thousand per annum would easily have done it, and Bella’s way of talking suggested there was no limit to your generosity where she — the woman you pretend to be your niece — is concerned. You must both be laughing heartily at how cunningly you have duped me! For when we boarded the London train on that soft summer evening I had arranged to break our journey at Kilmarnock13 where I had persuaded a local registrar to wait up for us, receive us in his home and unite us. Imagine my consternation when before we reached Crossmyloof she declared she COULD NOT MARRY ME BECAUSE SHE WAS ENGAGED TO ANOTHER!!!! I said, “Surely that is in the past?”
She said, “No — in the future.”
I said, “Where does that leave me?”
She said, “Here and now, Wedder,” and embraced me. She was a Houri, a Mahomet’s paradise. I bribed the guard to give us a complete first-class carriage to ourselves. It was not an express train, so it MUST have stopped at Kilmarnock, Dumfries, Carlisle, Leeds and all stations north of Watford Junction, but I knew only the motion and brief pauses in our pilgrimage of passion. I was man enough for her, but the pace was terrific.
“Is this causing you pain, McCandless?” asked Baxter.
“Go on!” I told him, hiding my face in my hands, “Go on!”
“Then I will, but remember he is exaggerating.”
At last the rattle of points, shriek of whistles and decreasing rhythm of the wheels showed that our coal-fired steed was panting to a halt in the southern terminus of the Midland line. As we adjusted our clothing she said, “I can’t wait to do that all over again in a proper bed.”
Feeling sure our Acts of Union had obliterated all feeling for the other man I again asked her to marry me. She said in a surprised way, “Don’t you remember my answer to that one? Let us go to the station hotel and order a huge breakfast. I want porridge and bacon and eggs and sausages and kippers and heaps of buttered toast and pints of sweet hot milky tea. And you must eat a lot too!”
I needed the hotel. The previous day had been a strenuous one and I had now not slept for twenty-four hours. Bella seemed as fresh as when we left Glasgow. As we approached the reception desk I stumbled, clung to her arm for support and heard her say, “My poor man is exhausted. We shall need to have breakfast served in our room.”
And so it befell that while Bella ate her huge breakfast I removed my coat, shoes, collar and lay down for a brief nap on top of the bed. I had many dreams, but the only one I remember is entering a barber’s shop to be shaved by Mary Queen of Scots. She coated my face and throat with warm soapy lather and had just begun removing it when I woke to find I was really being shaved by Bella. I lay naked in bed, my shoulders and head supported by pillows with a towel spread over them. Bella, wearing a silk négligé, was stroking my cheeks with the honed edge of my razor. She laughed aloud to see how wide I opened my eyes.
She said, “I’m taking your bristles off to make you as smooth and sweet and handsome as you were last night, Wedder, because it is almost night again. Don’t look so terrified, I’m not going to slash you! I’ve shaved off a lot of hair around wounds and suppurations in the carcasses of dogs, cats and an old mongoose. What a sound sleeper you are! You never opened your eyes this morning when I undressed you and slid you between the sheets. Guess where I’ve been today! Westminster Abbey and Madame Tussaud’s and a matinée performance of Hamlet. How wonderful to hear ordinary soldiers and princes and grave-diggers talking poetry! I wish that I talked poetry all the time. I also saw a lot of ragged little children and I gave them some of the money I took from your pockets before I went out. Now I’ll wipe your face with these soft warm cloths, and help you into your nice quilted dressing-gown, and you can sit up for half an hour before bedtime and eat the tasty supper I have ordered, for we must maintain your strength, Wedder.”
I arose in that dazed state felt by all who oversleep from exhaustion and waken when they usually retire. The supper was a collation of cold meats, pickles and salad with an apple tart and two bottles of India Export Ale. There was coffee from a pot kept hot on a trivet by the fire. Growing livelier and more alert I glanced at my Fate who had curled herself snakelike in the easy chair across the table from me. She gazed upon me with a smile of such peculiar meaning that I shuddered with awe, dread and intense desire. Her naked shoulders were white against the dishevelled black cloak of her hair, her softly heaving. .