One late afternoon we rode into the mountains. We were going into one of the villages for dinner, where Madame had told us we could see some Provencal dancing.

We set off, promising ourselves a ride home by moonlight We were very gay and happy as we rode along, and we sang together a song which Monsieur, Madame’s husband, had taught us. The words were set to the Maid of Aries music, and was about the three wise men coming to Bethlehem. Whenever I hear the tune I am back on that rough mountain path singing, with Bevil beside me … a happy moment which was, in a way, a finale to the complete contentment But, perhaps fortunately, I did not know this then.


Trois grands rob,

Modestes tous les trois,

Brillaient chacun comme un soleil splendide;

Trois grands rois,

Modestes tous les trois,

Etincelaient sur lews blancs palefrois.

Le plus savant

Chevauchait devant,

Mais, chaque nuit, une etoile d’or les guide;

Le plus savant

Chevauchait devant:

J’ai vu flotter sa longue barbe au vent


Bevil, singing out of tune in his atrocious British accent, made me laugh immoderately, and he cried: “Well, you do better, Harriet Menfrey.”

“That won’t be difficult,” I retorted. “There’s so little competition.”

And as I sang he told me: “Your voice isn’t half bad, sweetheart. And you speak the language like a native.”

So we went on singing until we came to the little village, where we were warmly welcomed by Madame and Monsieur. We had been expected, they told us. They would have been disappointed if the English milord and his bride did not come to visit them. Madame from our hotel mothered us, but she gossiped about us evidently. In any case in that small dining room we were given the place of honor near the violins which would provide the music for the dancers.

Food was served with the ceremony to which we had become accustomed; the wine was brought and poured as though it were nectar of the gods, and Madame and her waiter watched us as though they were admitting us to paradise, while we tasted the highly spiced food and declared it to be delicious.

It promised to become one of many happy evenings until the English couple came into the room. Immediately I noticed Devil’s astonishment; and as the woman’s eyes fell on him she stopped short—as surprised as he was. She was delighted, too.

As she approached our table, I noticed her bright, honey-colored hair and long, grey eyes, that her lips were smiling, her body voluptuous, and that in spite of this she walked with a jungle grace which was made more obvious because her companion moved clumsily beside her and was inclined to be chubby.

Bevil had risen.

“Am I dreaming?” she asked. “Pinch me, Bobby … then I shall wake up.”

“I hope it’s not a nightmare,” said Bevil.

“It’s the nicest sort of dream. What are you doing here, Bevil?”

Bevil was smiling at me. “This is an old friend,” he began.

She grimaced. “Did you hear that, Bobby? An old friend. I don’t like the description. It could be ambiguous.”

“Only to the blind,” replied Bevil.

“You should introduce us, my dear,” said Bobby.

“Of course,” put in Bevil. “This is my wife.”

The woman’s gray eyes swept over me, and I fancied they missed little.

“This is my husband.”

Then she laughed, as though it were a great joke that Bevil should have a wife and she a husband.

“Don’t tell me,” she went on, “that you’re having a honeymoon, too.”

“It calls for some sort of celebration, I’m sure,” said Bevil. He turned to me. “Lisa and I knew each other … a long time ago.”

Madame was at our table. “You are friends? You would like to dine together?”

“What fun!” cried Lisa. “Now, Bevil, you can tell me all.”

Madame signed to the waiter to bring chairs, and soon we were all seated round the table, and the fuss of serving began. She was Lisa Dunfrey, Bevil told me. Not now, she reminded him. There was Bobby. Lisa Manton. “You know,” she said, “Manton Biscuits. Bobby makes them, don’t you, darling. Not personally, of course. Merely profitably. But, Bevil, this is so amusing. Both honeymooning at the same place!”

I wish that Bobby and I could have found it so amusing. He hated it as much as I did, for she turned her attention to Bevil and left him to me.

The weather was glorious, said Bobby. What did I think of the mountain scenery? How did I like French food?

He was no more interested in my answers than I was In his questions; we were both listening to the conversation of his wife and my husband; and none of us paid any real attention to the Provencal dancers who performed so charmingly for our pleasure.

I knew the look which came into Bevil’s eyes when he was . attracted by a woman; I had seen that look for me; now it was there because of Lisa. If Bobby and I had not been there, would they have resumed a relationship which they both seemed to look back on with nostalgia? I wondered.

At one point she turned to me and said: “So you’re Sir Edward Delvaney's daughter. I saw the announcement in the papers, and I remember thinking that it would be a very suitable match for Bevil.”

“Thank you,” I replied. “I hope yours is as suitable.”

She laughed and looked into her glass. “Oh yes. Isn’t that satisfactory. All so suitably married—all at the honeymoon stage together. And Bevil has his politics ..."

“And you your biscuits,” I replied.

She surveyed me coolly and turned back to Bevil. I gazed at the dancers, not seeing them; instead seeing Bevil and this woman together making love. Was this a foretaste of the future? Would I now and then meet friends of Bevil’s and suffer the acute jealousy which was tormenting me now?

I thought the evening would never end; but at last there was no longer any excuse for staying, and we left them there to return to our hotel. I was relieved to feel the night air, but I had lost my peace of mind.

We did not sing as we rode back. Bevil was silent—still, I believed, in the past.

“How well did you know her?” I asked.

“Know whom?” he queried unnecessarily.

“The beautiful Lisa.”

“Oh, I just knew her.”

It told me nothing, yet I imagined it told me so much.

When we reached the hotel, Madame wanted to know if we had enjoyed the dancing. Bevil was unusually quiet, but I managed to reply brightly that it had been a most illuminating evening.

Bevil made love to me fiercely that night, and I asked myself as we lay in the darkness: Is it Lisa to whom be is making love? Am I the substitute?

We didn’t meet them again, and in a few days Bevil had recaptured his high spirits and I was able to hide my misgivings. The honeymoon continued, but nothing was quite the same.

7

We had been in Provence six weeks. It was a long honeymoon. November was with us and the rainy weather had set in. It fell in torrents, bouncing up and down on the balcony and flooding the bedroom; the clouds completely blotted out the mountains and the sea, and without the sun there was a decided chill in the air. It was time to leave for home.

It was good to be back in Menfreya. My spirits were lifted by my first glimpse of the house, and as we drove under the old clock tower I told myself that I was going to be happy in my new home. I was determined to be all that Bevil wanted in a wife.

It soon became clear that a ministerial crisis was brewing. Balfour had replaced Salisbury as Prime Minister not long after the new King’s coronation, and Chamberlain, with his following, was threatening to resign over Protectionist proposals. I must understand these problems thoroughly if I were going to be of any real help. The duty of a politician was to make laws which would improve the well-being of the country; it seemed to me that that was a noble ambition. I was fired with enthusiasm. When I told him this he kissed me and said I was going to be the ideal politician’s wife. He would grow enthusiastic over some wrong which in his view was a particular evil. He would discuss the problems with me, and I found myself caught up in his zeal.

He took his duties so seriously. In the town of Lamella he had chambers, and there, when be was in Cornwall, he spent two mornings a week so that those whom be represented in Parliament might come to see him with any problems they wished to discuss. I sometimes went there with him and, to my delight, found that I could be of use and that he realized It Then I forgot that honeymoon incident which had so disturbed me; I was even able to tell myself I had imagined the Whole thing.

Bevil’s career began to obsess me as it did him. I was delighted to find that, although he was ambitious—he dreamed of Cabinet office and the ultimate prize of the premiership— he really had the good of his constituents at heart and was determined to make himself as accessible as possible. This meant a great deal of hard work; there was a constant stream of people to see, a tremendous amount of correspondence; and although William Lister was very efficient, there were many ways in which I could make myself useful.

I was happier than I had ever been.

It has always astonished me how changes come into one’s life. The gradual change becomes acceptable, but sudden shock, presenting itself without warning to shatter the existence so completely that nothing will ever be the same again, makes me uneasily aware of the perpetual uncertainties of life.

That is what happened to me on that April morning. There were wild violets under the hedges and cowslips in the meadows, and I was waking every morning to find my room full of sunshine and the sound of the waves as they slowly advanced and retreated in a steady, soothing rhythm.

It was Bevil's day for receiving people in his Lansella chambers, and I was alone that morning as he had work to do there with William Lister. I went down to deviled kidneys and bacon which were in a chafing dish on the sideboard. Breakfast was from seven-thirty till nine at Menfreya, and this morning, as neither of my parents-in-law were down and Bevil had already left, I was alone. I was studying the papers carefully when one of the servants brought in the letters and laid them on the table.

I glanced at them, and the handwriting on one of them made me catch my breath.

Gwennan’s!

I slit open the envelope. There was a Plymouth address at the top of the letter. I read:

“Dear Harriet, This is like old times, isn’t it? I expect you’ve been wondering what has been happening to me all this time. I am about to satisfy your curiosity, if you still have it and want it satisfied. This is between us two. I want to see you first and in secret Will you come to this address either today or tomorrow. I shall be here. There is a condition. You must come alone and tell no one. I hope you will. I rely on you.

Gwennan.

P.S. It’s easy to find. When you come out of the station turn right, then turn left as far as you can go. Turn right again and you’ll see it. No. 20. I shall be waiting.”

She knew then that I was at Menfreya; she knew that I was married to Bevil, for the letter was addressed to Mrs. Menfrey. I was thankful that I had been alone when I received it.

As I walked through those streets, which grew more and more squalid with every step, I was being prepared for what I should find. Number 20 was a three-storied house in the final stages of decay. The front door was open, and as I stepped into a hall an old woman called out to me. She was sitting in a rocking chair in a room on the right, the door of which was wide open. I saw a line of washing in the room and several children in ragged garments.

“I want Mrs. Bellairs,” I told her.

“Right at the top,” she said.

I felt sickened as I mounted those rickety stairs; it wasn’t the smell; it wasn’t the obvious dirt and poverty; it was the fear of what I should find when I opened that door beyond which Gwennan was waiting for me.

I knocked. I heard her voice, with the lilt in it which was so like Bevil’s.

“Harriet So you came … you angel!”

“Gwennan.” I stood there staring at her. Where was my beautiful Gwennan with the scornful, flashing eyes, the springing, tawny hair, the Menfrey look? In her place was an emaciated woman, so gaunt that it took me some seconds to assure myself that it was Gwennan. Her body was wrapped in a dressing gown that might once have been gay. I noticed it was torn in places.