Somerset Maugham - Sixty-Five Short Stories

As soon as she saw him back so early she guessed that he had come to tell her that he had won his match. He was like a child in his self-satisfaction over one of these small triumphs. He was a kindly, simple creature and she knew that his pleasure at winning was not only on his own account, but because he thought it must give her pleasure too. It was rather sweet of him to hurry home in order to tell her all about it without delay.

'Well, how did your match go?' she said as soon as he came lumbering into the sitting-room.

'I won.'

'Easily?'

'Well, not as easily as I should have. I was a bit ahead, and then I stuck, I couldn't do a thing, and you know what Douglas is, not at all showy, but steady, and he pulled up with me. Then I said to myself, well, if I don't buck up I shall get a licking. I had a bit of luck here and there, and then, to cut a long story short, I beat him by seven.'

'Isn't that splendid? You ought to win the cup now, oughtn't you?'

'Well, I've got three matches more. If I can get into the semi-finals I ought to have a chance.'

Violet smiled. She was anxious to show him that she was as much interested as he expected her to be.

'What made you go to pieces when you did?'

His face sagged.

'That's why I came back at once. I'd have scratched only I thought it wasn't fair on the fellows who'd backed me. I don't know how to tell you, Violet.'

She gave him a questioning look.

'Why, what's the matter? Not bad news?'

'Rotten. Knobby's dead.'

For a full minute she stared at him, and her face, her neat friendly little face, grew haggard with horror. At first it seemed as though she could not understand.

'What do you mean?' she cried.

'It was in the paper. He died on board. They buried him at sea.'

Suddenly she gave a piercing cry and fell headlong to the floor. She had fainted dead away.

'Violet,' he cried, and threw himself down on his knees and took her head in his arms. 'Boy, boy.'

A boy, startled by the terror in his master's voice, rushed in, and Saffary shouted him to bring brandy. He forced a little between Violet's lips. She opened her eyes, and as she remembered they grew dark with anguish. Her face was screwed up like a little child's when it is just going to burst into tears. He lifted her up in his arms and laid her on the sofa. She turned her head away.

'Oh, Tom, it isn't true. It can't be true.'

'I'm afraid it is.'

'No, no, no.'

She burst into tears. She wept convulsively. It was dreadful to hear her. Saffary did not know what to do. He knelt beside her and tried to soothe her. He sought to take her in his arms, but with a sudden gesture she repelled him.

'Don't touch me,' she cried, and she said it so sharply that he was startled.

He rose to his feet.

'Try not to take it too hard, sweetie,' he said. 'I know it's been an awful shock. He was one of the best.'

She buried her face in the cushions and wept despairingly. It tortured him to see her body shaken by those uncontrollable sobs. She was beside herself. He put his hand gently on her shoulder.

'Darling, don't give way like that. It's so bad for you.'

She shook herself free from his hand.

'For God's sake leave me alone,' she cried. 'Oh, Hal, Hal.' He had never heard her call the dead man that before. Of course his name was Harold, but everyone called him Knobby. 'What shall I do?' she wailed. 'I can't bear it. I can't bear it.'

Saffary began to grow a trifle impatient. So much grief did seem to him exaggerated. Violet was not normally so emotional. He supposed it was the damned climate. It made women nervous and high-strung. Violet hadn't been home for four years. She was not hiding her face now. She lay, almost falling off the sofa, her mouth open in the extremity of her pain, and the tears streamed from her staring eyes. She was distraught.

'Have a little more brandy,' he said. 'Try to pull yourself together, darling. You can't do Knobby any good by getting in such a state.'

With a sudden gesture she sprang to her feet and pushed him aside. She gave him a look of hatred.

'Go away, Tom. I don't want your sympathy. I want to be left alone.'

She walked swiftly over to an arm-chair and threw herself down in it. She flung back her head and her poor white face was wrenched into a grimace of agony.

'Oh, it's not fair,' she moaned. 'What's to become of me now? Oh, God, I wish I were dead.'

'Violet.'

His voice quavered with pain. He was very nearly crying too. She stamped her foot impatiently.

'Go away, I tell you. Go away.'

He started. He stared at her and suddenly gasped. A shudder passed through his great bulk. He took a step towards her and stopped, but his eyes never left her white, tortured face; he stared as though he saw in it something that appalled him. Then he dropped his head and without a word walked out of the room. He went into a little sitting-room they had at the back, but seldom used, and sank heavily into a chair. He thought. Presently the gong sounded for dinner. He had not had his bath. He gave his hands a glance. He could not be bothered to wash them. He walked slowly into the dining-room. He told the boy to go and tell Violet that dinner was ready. The boy came back and said she did not want any.

'All right. Let me have mine then,' said Saffary.

He sent Violet in a plate of soup and a piece of toast, and when the fish was served he put some on a plate for her and gave it to the boy. But the boy came back with it at once.

'Mem, she say no wantchee,' he said.

Saffary ate his dinner alone. He ate from habit, solidly, through the familiar courses. He drank a bottle of beer. When he had finished the boy brought him a cup of coffee and he lit a cheroot. Saffary sat still till he had finished it. He thought. At last he got up and went back into the large veranda which was where they always sat. Violet was still huddled in the chair in which he had left her. Her eyes were closed, but she opened them when she heard him come. He took a light chair and sat down in front of her.

'What was Knobby to you, Violet?' he said.

She gave a slight start. She turned away her eyes, but did not speak.

'I can't quite make out why you should have been so frightfully upset by the news of his death.'

'It was an awful shock.'

'Of course. But it seems very strange that anyone should go simply to pieces over the death of a friend.'

'I don't understand what you mean,' she said.

She could hardly speak the words and he saw that her lips were trembling.

'I've never heard you call him Hal. Even his wife called him Knobby.'

She did not say anything. Her eyes, heavy with grief, were fixed on vacancy.

'Look at me, Violet.'

She turned her head slightly and listlessly gazed at him.

'Was he your lover?'

She closed her eyes and tears flowed from them. Her mouth was strangely twisted.

'Haven't you got anything to say at all?'

She shook her head.

'You must answer me, Violet.'

'I'm not fit to talk to you now,' she moaned. 'How can you be so heartless?'

'I'm afraid I don't feel very sympathetic at the moment. We must get this straight now. Would you like a drink of water?'

'I don't want anything.'

'Then answer my question.'

'You have no right to ask it. It's insulting.'

'Do you ask me to believe that a woman like you who hears of the death of someone she knew is going to faint dead away and then, when she comes to, is going to cry like that? Why, one wouldn't be so upset over the death of one's only child. When we heard of your mother's death you cried of course, anyone would, and I know you were utterly miserable, but you came to me for comfort and you said you didn't know what you'd have done without me.'

'This was so frightfully sudden.'

'Your mother's death was sudden, too.'

'Naturally I was very fond of Knobby.'

'How fond? So fond that when you heard he was dead you didn't know and you didn't care what you said? Why did you say it wasn't fair? Why did you say, "What's going to become of me now?"?'

She sighed deeply. She turned her head this way and that like a sheep trying to avoid the hands of the butcher.

'You musn't take me for an utter fool, Violet. I tell you it's impossible that you should be so shattered by the blow if there hadn't been something between you.'

'Well, if you think that, why do you torture me with questions?'

'My dear, it's no good shilly-shallying. We can't go on like this. What d'you think I'm feeling?'

She looked at him when he said this. She hadn't thought of him at all. She had been too much absorbed in her own misery to be concerned with his.

'I'm so tired,' she sighed.

He leaned forward and roughly seized her wrist.

'Speak,' he cried.

'You're hurting me.'

'And what about me? D'you think you're not hurting me? How can you have the heart to let me suffer like this?'

He let go of her arm and sprang to his feet. He walked to the end of the room and back again. It looked as though the movement had suddenly roused him to fury. He caught her by the shoulders and dragged her to her feet. He shook her.

'If you don't tell me the truth I'll kill you,' he cried.

'I wish you would,' she said.

'He was your lover?'

'Yes.'

'You swine.'

With one hand still on her shoulder so that she could not move he swung back his other arm and with a flat palm struck her repeatedly, with all his strength, on the side of her face. She quivered under the blows, but did not flinch or cry out. He struck her again and again. All at once he felt her strangely inert, he let go of her and she sank unconscious to the floor. Fear seized him. He bent down and touched her, calling her name. She did not move. He lifted her up and put her back into the chair from which a little while before he had pulled her. The brandy that had been brought when first she fainted was still in the room and he fetched it and tried to force it down her throat. She choked and it spilt over her chin and neck. One side of her pale face was livid from the blows of his heavy hand. She sighed a little and opened her eyes. He held the glass again to her lips, supporting her head, and she sipped a little of the neat spirit. He looked at her with penitent, anxious eyes.

'I'm sorry, Violet. I didn't mean to do that. I'm dreadfully ashamed of myself. I never thought I could sink so low as to hit a woman.'

Though she was feeling very weak and her face was hurting, the flicker of a smile crossed her lips. Poor Tom. He did say things like that. He felt like that. And how scandalized he would be if you asked him why a man shouldn't hit a woman. But Saffary, seeing the wan smile, put it down to her indomitable courage. By God, she's a plucky little woman, he thought. Game isn't the word.

'Give me a cigarette,' she said.

He took one out of his case and put it in her mouth. He made two or three ineffectual attempts to strike his lighter. It would not work.

'Hadn't you better get a match?' she said.

For the moment she had forgotten her heart-rending grief and was faintly amused at the situation. He took a box from the table and held the lighted match to her cigarette. She inhaled the first puff with a sense of infinite relief.

'I can't tell you how ashamed I am, Violet,' he said. 'I'm disgusted with myself. I don't know what came over me.'

'Oh, that's all right. It was very natural. Why don't you have a drink? It'll do you good.'

Without a word, his shoulders all hunched up as though the burden that oppressed him were material, he helped himself to a brandy and soda. Then, still silent, he sat down. She watched the blue smoke curl into the air.