THE PURPLE LETTER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3808, 8 March 1927, Page 81

THE PURPLE LETTER.

By

“Aurora.”

In her salmon-pink evening gown Mrs Newlywed stepped quietly into the library, the frou-frou of her silken underskirt, like the scurrying of dry leaves before a light breeze, being the only sound she made. Her husband, head of a great commercial .firm, remained as immobile as a granite statue, seated before his roll-top desk by a largo window. Evidently he was unaware of the entrance of hi-s pretty young wife. His broad back was towards the door, and the door had stood ajar. When Mrs Newlywed reached her husband’s chair she stopped, and spoke in a voice musical and alluring. “I’m ready now, Jack, dear.” “Jack, dear,” who was .perusing a white sheet of foolscap, his beringed hand to his head, his elbow upon 'the desk, made no answer. As mute and motionless as an efiigy, he remained. “Jack, dear, I’m ready,” repeated the wife, her beaming little oval face horribly transfigured by a frown and a p.ut. She stroked caressingly her Jack's sleek, ebony black hair. Mr Newlywed thereupon started, as >f he had heard that he had lost a £lOOO. His hand fell to the paper-littered desk, as though it were an ingot of lead. He turned round his thin, worried face, in which 45 years of life had left a disfiguring impression. “Oh, you're ready, Phyllis. Why, yes.” Mr Newlywed took one of Phyllis’s well-manicured, shapely hands in his, and looked steadily into his wife's flashing, brown eyes. “I wonder if mother—your mother—will excuse me being a little late for dinner,” he faltered, momentarily casting his steel blue eyes downward upon the hand he clasped and shook affectionately. “I’ve just discovered I’ve left a rather important letter in the office? I must reply to it to-night, so I'll have to pop along and get it. I’ll be round as soon as ever I can, though.” Phyllis’s face fell. The light of expectant bliss in it vanished, was snuffed as a candle. “Can't your letter wait till morning, .lack,” in a voice that was distant and cold. “Hardly, m'dear. Business is business, you see; it must always come before pleasure.” “H’m,” said Phyllis haughtily, stiffening her supple body. “You should remember, Jack, that your wife comes before business after business hours.” Newlywed, who was rather inexperienced in the ways of women in general and wives in particular, having only been wedded for the first time, for little more than six weeks, was eager to confess he had been a little inconsiderate. “Well, really, dearest, I’m awfully sorry,” said he. “I know I shouldn't talk shop after office hours, but if you were a. man instead of a pretty girl, you might understand ” Mr Newlywed stopped abruptly. He seemed at a loss as to what to say next. •‘Well, understand what? I don’t understand you, Jack, at all,” interposed Phyllis, withdrawing her hand sharply from her husband’s encircling fingers. “I thought you loved me once, Jack. I thought once you said you did, and I believed you. I really thought you were fond of me during th(* honeymoon. But ever since we’ve come home and settled down, you’ve been treating me as if 1 were the kitchen-maid.” "Phyllis, Phyllis,” implored Jack, much perturbed,' “don’t go on like this . . can’t you'understand . . .. don't you see . . . Phyllis ...” But Phyllis went on ignoring her husband's words. "Every day you are showing me you are beginning to forget your marriage promises.’’ “How?” asked Newlywed abruptly, wheeling round in his swivel-chair arid scattering the papers on his desk. “ lou’ve always got some excuse, always something to attend to before nus. Never ready when I’m ready. Got to sec the bank. Always somebody ringing you up. And this confounded business. Nothing but business.” “My dear, where do you fancy we would be living if it wasn't for business ? ” “ I don't know and I don't care,” said •Phyllis petulantly. “ If it hadn’t been for business, Phyllis, there would be gio. car, no house in its own grounds—aiul no fine dresses.” “ Then I should never have married you.” At this jucture the peremptory ring of a telephone bell came from the hall/ outside, and Mr Newlywed rose suddenly and went to answer the call. Fortunate it was perhaps that ring it did, for thus was relieved an extremely awkward situation. But perhaps it was a grave misfortune, fdf no sooner , had Phyllis’s husband vacated his chair than Phyllis, standing directly behind it, her eyes resting in an idle way upon the desk, perceived obtruding from among the white business documents a purple sheet of writing paper. The colour was unusual—unusual for a letter to be in her husband’s, a man’s, possession. It arrested her attention . instantly. A heavy’ perfume hung over the desk. The writing upon the mis-si-e . was small, neat; certainly a feminine hand. The page was nearly filled, and Phyllis, doubting the veracity of her senses, saw near the top the words: . “My Dearest Jackie,” and up the last line of the page: “Will meet you as arranged.” These appeared in Phyllis’s i vision to be written several times larger

than the rest erf the letter. Indeed, they alone seemed the only writing upon that purple sheet -rf writing paper. Here was tragedy, spelled before her. She stood as if rooted to the thick Axminster carpet. She was bereft of power to move her limbs. She felt the blood mantling hot in her cheeks. Her heart suddenly started into rapid, powerful pulsations that Miook her frame as if a heavy sledge-hammer were pounding her body from within. She tried to utter a cry—a cry of pain, of jealous passion, of desolation, a cry of grief—but she could not. Her tongue was lifeless. She could only stand and gaze like one possessed at this criminating, torturing letter. All of a sudden animation was restored to her with a great overwhelming impulse, a great accession of strength. Her brain was in a. ferment of excitement. The room, its costly plenishings, careered before her in a mad swirl, as if plucked into the centre of a maelstrom. She heard her husband’s voice—her husband’s voice?—no, not hers any longer —answering a call, the voice of the man that had poured into her easily believing ears words* of love and of devotion. He was speaking to whom ? To the one he loved? . . . “My Dearest Jackie.” . . . Who dared call her husband. Jackie? Jackie, a term of endearment, a tacit signal between heart and heart. She could not bear it. She flung up her-"slender white arms. She covered her face, her eyes, as if to blind herself, from the awful truth. The truth contained in her husband’s words, his actions, his hesitancy. Business. The word kept beating at her temples, kept hissing at her like a viper. She was encircled by its sinuous body. She' was in its coils. She was powerless, lost, abandoned by the lifegiving essence of love. The bitter hatred that rose within her for this unknown woman burned her own flesh like searing irons. She could not bear it. She beat her temples with her clenched hands. She dropped to her knees before a deep couch, to which she had staggered, and buried her face in her hands. Tears started to her eyes out of the depth of the misery of her soul.

Why had she married that man? Why had she not accepted her father’s advice? Why had her mother exerted that uncanny power over him and caused him, as if acted upon by some magical power, to recant his words—those words which refused her permission to marry Jack? “A worldly man.” These were the very words her father had used. She saw her father again as he had sat erect, defiant, by the fireside, when he repulsed her soul-filled entreaties for his consent. “Too fond of the dollars. I don’t like those men.” So he went on. Why had she thrown herself at her mother’s feet in tears? If she had had the power to forecast the future! Alas! she was only human. She saw it all now with a vividness that terrified her. Those moments of preoccupation, those lame excuses, that limitless cloak—business. There were more than she who had seen it, she felt sure. The Petersons, for instance. Only two evenings ago the same thing had happened. Same lame excuse. Tell George there’s a cargo of raw material due to arrive to-morrow; in fact, there’s several arriving This week. Yes, that was the way he put it. George wouldn’t mind, of course, if he was late for dinner. They knew one another so well. They had been close companions at school. But Phyllis was sure George did mind. His face had betrayed it. And George hacj, several cargoes arriving within the next few days also. And he didn’t spend all the evening back in the office. No, like a sensible husband, he remained with his wife. Phyllis saw the meaning of that phone message received half-way through dinner, which said “Tell my dearest (my dearest, if you please) that I won’t manage along this evening at all. Terrible amount of work to get through.” What was his staff for? Terrible amount of— Terible amount of falsehoods. George said very little about it—too little to be natural.

Phyllis’s girl friends had begun to talk. They thought it extremely funny. They were pitying poor Phyllis’ both by looks and actions. They never said anything either further than—“ Where ’is your husband?” and “Oh, back at the office,” with an uplift of their pencilled eyebrows, 'when Phyllis, a little sadly, enlightened them. Phyllis saw the reason now why Jack's sister was coming to stay with them. She would be here in a couple of days to divert her attention, to hold her virtually a captive while her husband went on with his affair of stealth. Phyllis beat the cushions and sobbed bitterly. Why ever had she married that man, she kept on repeating to herself. Hark! What was that? His voice uttering the words, “I’ll be there, dear; I’ll be there.” Jack was still on the phone and speaking to the woman he— It was his voice, and the tiled hall rang with its echoes. Perfidious monster. Jack would return again to her side, to pour into her ears false words of adoration, of his innocence. She would never believe him; not now, not after the written and the spoken evidence—irrefutable testimony of his infidelity. She would leave his roof, his mansion with its many acres. She would go out into the hard world and meet the fusilade of heartless taunts that would fall cruelly

from the rouged lips of her fortunate friends. Phyllis rose to her feet with a sudden impulse and darted to the door. She would take flight as a frightened bird from a tormentor’s cage. But the way was barred. Hie footfalls of her husband were sounding through the hall like the trampling of a jailer in a gloomy prison. And the figure of the man she spurned as her- husband stood before her in the doorway. I hyliis stopped instantly," and recoiled from her husband as from a poisonous adder. “Phyllis, whatever is the matter?” Phyllis was dumb. She drew breath quickly. .Mr Newlywed advanced towards bis wife his brow deeply shadowed. Phyllis at the same time retreated into an angle of the room lit only by the green-shaded reading lamp upon the desk. “Phyllis,” began the husband, showing evident signs of much alarm. — “Don’t come near me.” “What’s the matter, dear?” He came up to her quickly, looked down into her tearful eyes that glistened like dew-filled flower cups. “Don’t come near m e or I’ll ” Phyllis threatened, her voice strangely strident, so unlike hers. Jack stopped instantly, as if his progress was arrested by some unseen material ooject. , “Phyllis, are you ill? What ” “Don’t come a step nearer me. I can’t bear it.” “Whatever has happened?” “Whatever has happened? You know what has happened. Don’t-stand before me and pretend vou know nothin" ” “Nothing? What ” , ° •‘les nothing. I hate vou with all mv heart. I hate you.” Her voice rang through the loftv room like the ring of cold iron, and ’echoed away into the corridors and niches of the old house which had rung centuries before with the clast of steel and the oaths of not heads. Newlywed attempted to speak, but his voice was unheard. “Don’t make excuses. Don’t say you are ignorant. I won’t believe a word you sav. A know now why you—. You’re deceitful. You are lying to me. You don t love me.. She could not control her tears. ni C^r^ as s P® ec^^ess - was appalled. I hyliis, as if retorting to a remark of her Lusband s went on between her sobbing. “You are a worthless creature. No, you can t blind me. I have seen it . . . the letter ''. . . and the telephone. i heard .... I won’t live with vou another moment.” She raised her hands above her head, lhe room was careering madly round her. xliere was ringing in it now a fiendish peal of laughter. It came from her husband’s thin mouth, from the lips she could no longer kiss. It was heartless, mocking, cruel. She knew he cared not a straw what came of her. She was only a woman bought with his gold like the stucco figures on his mantel-shelf. He was approaching her again—he was upon her, grasping her soft white shoulders. She struggled and freed herself. She made a great effort to maintain tier self-control. “Y’ou are my husband? You!” She pulled off her diamond engagement ring and the plain chaste wedding ring above it. Casting them in his face with all her might, she cried with great vehemence between passionate sobbing—‘-'No longer. Take them back again. I am not your wife. Give them to the woman vou love.” Having emitted those words with wild abandonment. Phyllis darted past her husband holding the cheek she had bruised and but. lately caressed. She went out into the dimly lighted hall, picked up her black satin evening cloak threw it hurriedly about her, and passed out into the black night and the torrential rain. Outside the front door the Daimler, half obscured in a sweeping mist, was waiting for Phyllis and her husband—waiting to sweep them both, rather roll them smoothly, to the wife’s former home. The chauffeur at once opened the door to Phyllis, and displayed softly illumined the car’s luxurious interior. But Phyllis, denying its comfort, turned away from it and, without word or sign of recognition, swept past the man down the broad, tree-lined avenue in full flight like a bird alarmed. Not until she had gained the lodge gate, which stood wide open, did Phyllis drop into an easy walking pace, for she was terribly afraid her husband would come out after her and take her back by force. As it was, she was not yet relieved, and expected every minute to hear the sound of the car behind her with tlte same intent. On sire went down this roadway, down that, turning into this half-deserted byway, clinging to the shadow of a wall with fear of recognition when anyone came up behind or approached and passed her. But though she presented a strange, startling figure to the passersby’, no one seemed to take more than a fleeting glance at her bedraggled finery, her soaked uncovered hair. And no one she passed- was known to her, either intimately or by sight. On she went, walking quickly, splashing in the puddles collected in the rough, ill-made paths, her objective being her mother’s abode, that refuge in tlie storm besetting her heart. Since Phyllis’s old home lay in the opposite outskirts of the great industrial town, and she desired to reach it by the least frequented ways, it was several hours before she arrived there. Thoroughly tired out with the mental torment she had lately endured she flung herself down upon the sopping bank of rank weed which started by the garden wall of the house, and with a quickset hedge on its summit enclosed a ploughed field.

How could she enter her mother's house in such a state, she asked herself? There were guests there this evening; people who were total strangers to her; people who were receiving their first impressions of the family. She could not disgrace her mother’s house, the home she had always loved, and loved now more dearly than ever. For her mother’s sake she would lie upon the soaking bank with the rain drenching and the wind buffeting her until the guests had departed. As she lay there think of her mother it occurred to her then and not before that her mother’s wedding gift, a diamond ring, lay upon the dressing table in her room. She could not lose this gift; it was very dear to her. And until she had it in her possession she could not rest. She must hold it, she must have it upon her finger, and that at this very moment, as he mother had placed it on her wedding-day. So accordingly she arose and tramped all the way back again to her husband’s house. She dared not hire a hackney vehicle; her condition was too degrading. Midnight had struck before she came upon the precincts of her Jack’s abode. Fortunate it was she had possession of the key of the carriage gate, and also that belonging to the front door, which she carried in her evening cloak, to allow the maids to retire before they returned. She must not be discovered. It was a daring adventrue to steal into the room where her husband, that monster, would be asleep. She opened the lodge gate as noiselessly as possible. The lodge itself was silent and dark, yet Phyllis feared the old a man with a particularly villainous face, who lived here, might have observed her enter from behind a drawn blind, and springing out with surprising agility, grab hold of her, and like a minion of the devil, bear her off to his master. As Phyllis sped up the avenue she was terrified of everything here now—house, trees, gardens. From behind the dark forms dart out. Her husband, a ghoul, big stems of gnarled oaks she saw human seemed to rise everywhere about her with hands outstretched to grasp her as he had done that evening and crush the ardent breath of life out of her fragile body in liis uncontrollable rage. At last she approached the house itself embovyered and lost almost in a protective clump of lime trees. It was as dark and as silent as the lodge, it was eerie. It had never been eerie before, though it was storied, and said to be haunted with the spirits of its old tenants. As Phyllis came up to the door she caught a glimpse of the lounge fire flickering through the space between blind and window frame. She inserted the heavy key in the big lock without a sound, turned it also without a sound, and swung open the massive door. Siu entered the house as if she was a night marauder. The hall was dark and filled with horrible pitch black figures, suits of ancient armour, which towered above her and seemed encasing human beings animated, with devliish intent, and that awaited only Phyllis stepping forward to Crowd around her and raise the weapons held in their mailed hands. She stood there half out of her wits, the low murmur of a voice disturbed the tense silence. As if some past owner of the place had risen from his grave and was gain in occupation, the voice grew louder until it seemed almost at Phyllis’s elbow. Phyllis was petrified with fear when she recognised the voice as that of her Jack’s. What he was saying she could not tell, though she was certain he was in strange company. Phyllis did not know whether to go forward, remain where she was till discovered, or dash again into the night. She was terror-stricken. She was brought to her senses sundenly by the sounding of another voice, this time, a woman’s. A. fit of jealous passion overcame Phyllis, that immediately prompted her footsteps toward tlie interior. The lounge door was ajar, but the room was unlit. The fire whicli* she had observed blinking fitfully from without glinted upon a piece of polished mahogany. A bronze statuette above it gleamed like a pag*n deity -on a pedestal, while a silver flower vase behind the statuette flashed like a signal out of a murkv night. It was as a dangerous zone within, and Phyllis listened with bated breath a moment before pasing on swiftly and catlike along the rambling corridor and up the oaken staircase to the bedroom—and the ring. Her husband was in the lounge with a member of the fair-sex, whose speech was so soft and low to be wellnigh inaudible. . Without switching on the electric light, Phyllis made for the dressing-table. She knew, without the guidance of her vision, where the ring hung upon the tree-stand. She put out her hand and her finger touched a bunch of keys. Jack’s keys. Immediately the desire possessed her to discover who was the writer of the disturbing letter. The desk key she knew ■tfas upon the bunch, and she instantly picked up the kevs as well as the ring. Phyllis crept downstairs again and cautiously entered the dark library. Closing to the door, she quickly made for the roll-top desk looming among the shadows of the room like a surly, monster that held fast a thrilling secret. She switched on the green-shaded reading lamp, unlocked the desk, rolled back the lid, and discovered the purple letter upon the white writing pad. Snatching it up with feverish fingers, she turned the letter over to read the signature. And to her intense relief, not unmixed with a certain dazed incredulity, Phyllis read : —“From your ever loving sister, Anne.” Having done so she dropped her eyes 1 to the desk and found another missive,

one inchoate, in her husband’s handwriting. It ran thus :— “My Darling Phyllis,— I am terribly upset. I can hardly write this note. - VVill you ever forgive me. How can I excuse myself? I can’t. I’ve been horrible, absolutely horrible to you since ever we came home and began to settle down. I frankly admit it. “Agitation and annoyance must have been responsible for your amazing action. • It has given me a great lesson, which I thoroughly deserved. “You evidently read Anne’s letter and didn’t see her signature". Also about the ’phone conversation, it was to Anne 1 was speaking. She was saying she would' arrive to-night instead of Thursday, and was asking me to come round to the station to meet her. She is here now, and naturally very much upset. I told her how it must have happened. . . .” Phyllis ran incontinently from the library and made for the lounge.—Weekly Scotsman.