Red Pottage | Page 5

alone. She flung herself face
downwards on the sofa. Her attitude had the touch of artificiality which
was natural to her.
The deluge had arrived, and unconsciously she met it, as she would
have made a heroine meet it had she been a novelist, in a white
dressing-gown and pink ribbons in a stereotyped attitude of despair on
a divan.
Conscience is supposed to make cowards of us all, but it is a matter of
common experience that the unimaginative are made cowards of only
by being found out.
Had David qualms of conscience when Uriah fell before the besieged
city? Surely if he had he would have winced at the obvious parallel of
the prophet's story about the ewe lamb. But apparently he remained
serenely obtuse till the indignant author's "Thou art the man"
unexpectedly nailed him to the cross of his sin.
And so it was with Lady Newhaven. She had gone through the
twenty-seven years of her life believing herself to be a religious and
virtuous person. She was so accustomed to the idea that it had become
a habit, and now the whole of her self-respect was in one wrench torn
from her. The events of the last year had not worn it down to its last
shred, had not even worn the nap off. It was dragged from her intact,
and the shock left her faint and shuddering.
The thought that her husband knew, and had thought fit to conceal his
knowledge, had never entered her mind, any more than the probability

that she had been seen by some of the servants kneeling listening at a
keyhole. The mistake which all unobservant people make is to assume
that others are as unobservant as themselves.
By what frightful accident, she asked herself, had this catastrophe come
about? She thought of all the obvious incidents which would have
revealed the secret to herself--the dropped letter, the altered
countenance, the badly arranged lie. No. She was convinced her secret
had been guarded with minute, with scrupulous care. The only thing
she had forgotten in her calculations was her husband's character, if,
indeed, she could be said to have forgotten that which she had never
known.
Lord Newhaven was in his wife's eyes a very quiet man of few words.
That his few words did not represent the whole of him had never
occurred to her. She had often told her friends that he walked through
life with his eyes shut. He had a trick of half shutting his eyes which
confirmed her in this opinion. When she came across persons who were
after a time discovered to have affections and interests of which they
had not spoken, she described them as "cunning." She had never
thought Edward "cunning" till to-night. How had he, of all men,
discovered this--this--? She, had no words ready to call her conduct by,
though words would not have failed her had she been denouncing the
same conduct in another wife and mother.
Gradually "the whole horror of her situation"--to borrow from her own
vocabulary--forced itself upon her mind like damp through a gay
wall-paper. What did it matter how the discovery had been made! It
was made, and she was ruined. She repeated the words between little
gasps for breath. Ruined! Her reputation lost! Hers--Violet Newhaven's.
It was a sheer impossibility that such a thing could have happened to a
woman like her. It was some vile slander which Edward must see to.
He was good at that sort of thing. But no, Edward would not help her.
She had committed--She flung out her hands, panic-stricken, as if to
ward off a blow. The deed had brought with it no shame, but the
word--the word wounded her like a sword.
Her feeble mind, momentarily stunned, pursued its groping way.

He would divorce her. It would be in the papers. But no. What was that
he had said to Hugh--"No names to be mentioned; all scandal avoided."
She shivered and drew in her breath. It was to be settled some other
way. Her mind became an entire blank. Another way! What way? She
remembered now, and an inarticulate cry broke from her. They had
drawn lots.
Which had drawn the short lighter?
Her husband had laughed. But then he laughed at everything. He was
never really serious, always shallow and heartless. He would have
laughed if he had drawn it himself. Perhaps he had. Yes, he certainly
had drawn it. But Hugh? She saw again the white, set face as he passed
her. No; it must be Hugh who had drawn it--Hugh, whom she loved.
She wrung her hands and moaned, half aloud:
"Which? Which?"
There was a slight movement in the next room, the door was opened,
and Lord Newhaven appeared in the door-way. He