“Masters put his hands in his pockets and looked politely down at her. By this time tears were pouring down her face. She looked terrified – as if someone had hit her. Masters said indifferently: ‘Is there anything else you’d like to know? If not, you had better collect your belongings from here and move into the kitchen.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I would like dinner every evening at eight. It is now seven-thirty.'”
The Governor paused and sipped his whisky. He said: “I’ve put all this together from the little that Masters told me and from fuller details Rhoda Masters gave to Lady Burford. Apparently Rhoda Masters tried every way to shake him – arguments, pleadings, hysterics. He was unmoved. She simply couldn’t reach him. It was as if he had gone away and had sent someone else to the house to represent him at this extraordinary interview. And in the end she had to agree. She had no money. She couldn’t possibly afford the passage to England. To have a bed and food she had to do what he told her. And so it was. For a year they lived like that, polite to each other in public, but utterly silent and separate when they were alone. Of course, we were all astonished by the change. Neither of them told anyone of the arrangement. She would have been ashamed to do so and there was no reason why Masters should. He seemed to us a bit more withdrawn than before, but his work was first-class and everyone heaved a sigh of relief and agreed that by some miracle the marriage had been saved. Both of them gained great credit from the fact, and they became a popular couple with everything forgiven and forgotten.”
“The year passed and it was time for Masters to go. He announced that Rhoda would stay behind to close the house, and they went through the usual round of farewell parties. We were a bit surprised that she didn’t come to see him off in the ship, but he said she wasn’t feeling well. So that was that until, in a couple of weeks, news of the divorce case began leaking back from England. Then Rhoda Masters turned up at Government House and had a long interview with Lady Burford, and gradually the whole story, including its really terrible next chapter, leaked out.”
The Governor swallowed the last of his whisky. The ice made a hollow rattle as he put the glass softly down. He said: “Apparently on the day before Masters left he found a note from his wife in the bathroom. It said that she simply must see him for one last talk before he left her for ever. There had been notes like this before and Masters had always torn them up and left the bits on the shelf above the basin. This time he scribbled a note giving her an appointment in the sitting-room at six o’clock that evening. When the time arrived, Rhoda Masters came meekly in from the kitchen. She had long since given up making emotional scenes or trying to throw herself on his mercy. Now she just quietly stood and said that she had only ten pounds left from that month’s housekeeping money and nothing else in the world. When he left she would be destitute.”
“‘You have the jewels I gave you, and the fur cape.'”
“‘I’d be lucky if I got fifty pounds for them.'”
“‘You’ll have to get some work.'”
“‘It’ll take time to find something. I’ve got to live somewhere. I have to be out of the house in a fortnight. Won’t you give me anything at all? I shall starve.'”
“Masters looked at her dispassionately. ‘You’re pretty. You’ll never starve.'”
“‘You must help me, Philip. You must. It won’t help your career having me begging at Government House.'”
“Nothing in the house belonged to them except a few odds and ends. They had taken it furnished. The owner had come the week before and agreed the inventory. There only remained their car, a Morris that Masters had bought second hand, and a radiogramophone he had bought as a last resort to try and keep his wife amused before she took up golf.”