Free The Dividing Stream by Francis King Page A

deliberately to humiliate himself, began to pick up and sort the possessions she had strewn everywhere on chairs, floor, and bed. Dirty underclothes lay on clean dresses which the maid had brought the day previously from the laundry; her last night’s evening-dress had been chucked in one corner; on the dressing-table there was a handkerchief stained with lipstick, a confusion of bottles, pieces of soggy cotton-wool and odds and ends of paper, and littered among them, the whole contents of one of her jewel-cases. Suppose the maid had come in and taken something? And if she had, would Karen have ever missed it? Max began to take up the rings, brooches and necklaces and place them one by one in their crocodile-and-gold box. He liked Karen to dress well; and since, in spite of her untidiness, she succeeded in doing so, he never for a moment grudged her the money thus spent. But without being mean, he was naturally careful of money, and it grieved him that she should waste and spoil what he gave her by her indifference to its value. Whereas his own straitened upbringing had made him always ‘‘careful”, on Karen the same sort of upbringing had had the precisely opposite effect; marrying Max, she had decided that she would never again worry about money.
    Sorting out the jewellery, Max came on a circular diamond-and-ivory brooch, in an old-fashioned setting, which he stared at for many seconds, holding it in both hands. It was one of the few, perhaps the only really valuable piece of jewellery he had given to Ethel; and when he had become engaged to Karen, it was the first of his many presents to her. The brooch had been his mother’s. Karen had never really cared for it and had talked of having it reset, without ever doing so; but when, the year previously, he had suggested that, since she never wore it, they might give it to Pamela, his daughter, on her sixteenth birthday, Karen at once refused. From then on she had worn the brooch at increasingly long intervals.
    Unlike Karen, Ethel had never cared for jewellery, putting on the same few pieces day after day. There was her engagement ring, which he had bought for forty dollars because she wouldn’t let him spend more, her wedding-ring, a cultured pearl necklace, a hideous spray of flowers in jet and pearl—the bequest of an aunt—some diamond ear-studs, and of course this brooch. When she died, bleeding stanchlessly after child-birth, she whispered ‘‘I’ve nothing to leave you, dear. Just my few bits and pieces. And of course the kids.’’ He had told Karen this story and she had at once turned away, making him think she was smiling, because the remark had struck her as sentimental. But then she turned back; her eyes were full of tears, and he felt strangely and pleasantly relieved.
    Having put the brooch away among the rest of the jewellery, Max set about collecting the soiled handkerchiefs, scraps of paper and cotton-wool. Ethel had been so tidy, so irritatingly tidy. (‘‘What’s the matter, darling?’’ ‘‘I can’t find my socks. I do wish you’d leave things where I put them.’’ ‘‘ But they’re not lost, darling.’’ And the socks would invariably be produced.) She wore heavily starched white blouses, her skin always smelled vaguely of coal-tar soap, and after each meal she would go into the bathroom to brush her teeth. She kept a Christmas-card list, sent and received.…
    But now his whole being went out to the dead woman, as sometimes in the lonely years before he had met her, his whole being would go out to his dead mother. Yet, while he thought of her, it was only half her features that he saw. Strangely, the rest were the girl Lena’s.

Chapter Six
    ‘‘I hope you don’t feel too uncomfortable after the luxury of your Packard,’’ Mrs. Maskell said.
    ‘‘No, of course not,’’ Karen assured her.
    ‘‘They’re plucky little cars, these Hillman Minxes.’’ On the back of ‘‘ Tiny’’ Maskell’s head there was a