She had tried to follow, she had tried, as a mere matter of fairness, to consider what he had to say. But she had not grasped, in the beginning, what he was talking about, and she had soon lost the thread of his words from mere weariness. The last thing that she wanted was to argue with him. She could not argue—she would only say things that she did not mean—they would squabble—it would all be vulgar and horrible! She wished he would go away now so that she could cry—give way—not have to think. She could not think about it——
She started, for someone was knocking at the door. A moment later her maid came in, discreetly radiant. "I've put out the lilac dress, ma'am," she said, "and it's close on half-past three."
Mary stared at the woman until she heard James say, in his usual pleasant voice, "Well, my dear, I'll leave you to dress. If I see Rosemary I will send her to you." Then, with an effort, she smiled too, but she thought to herself as she rose slowly from the sofa that it was easy for James—he was accustomed to lying.
When Rosemary came in ten minutes later she found her mother completely absorbed, to all appearances, in the process of putting on the lilac dress. For a moment she did not turn round to greet her daughter; when she did Rosemary was shocked by her white face. "How she minds!" she thought, and then she felt a sudden shyness and embarrassment at the idea that her mother should mind. They kissed one another then and Rosemary disengaged herself and stroked the satin of her mother's sleeve.
"I love you in fine clothes, mother," she said, "you are one of the people who can wear them. You ought to have big flounced skirts and a stiff stomacher embroidered with pearls."
Mary did not answer. She had seen Rosemary's hesitation and she could not trust herself with speech.
A few hours ago she might have spoken to some purpose—she might have warned the child, have told her what men are like, what marriage is. But now it was too late. Rosemary was married. Beautiful, fresh, untouched as she was, she belonged to a man, and in an hour he would take her away into his cruel man's world. This lovely child whose body Mary had made, who only a few years ago had lain, a little soft laughing thing, on Mary's lap, was to be at the mercy of a man—she was to see the whole of life through his love—her children were to be his children. She would give herself to him, and in return, if he chose to sin, he would lie to her. One of James's sentences, distorted, came back to Mary's mind,—a woman's purity of thought, her serenity of soul, is her husband's luxury—he likes to have that sort of woman about his house——
The tumult of her mind was stilled for a moment by Rosemary's voice. "Won't you sit down, mother darling—you've been standing too much, you're trembling. You'll have to stand presently——"
But Mary would not sit. She preferred instead to go downstairs and see whether everything was ready for her guests. Rosemary followed her, feeling a little indifferent and detached. One ought, she told herself, to get married without telling people, then one would not have a tiresome day like this, all odds and ends and fussing. She wished she had not let all these people come to stare at her—even the hired footmen looked her over as though she were a horse at a show. Regarded reasonably, it was a disgusting idea. If one were to imagine a country where all weddings were private, what would the inhabitants think of our barbarous customs? One ought to get married on a mountain, or a cliff by the sea, and smell the fresh wind instead of pink roses from a florist's shop—though even pink roses were better than the millinery that was coming.
When they went into the dining-room they found Anthony. He was standing by the buffet, eating an enormous ice, while the maid who had served him looked on in an attitude of romantic adoration. At the sight of him Rosemary's dissatisfaction sank away. His absorption in his ice seemed to her, suddenly, the most charming, touching thing she had ever seen. What a baby he was—coming into the dining-room to eat ices before anyone had arrived! What a ridiculous boy he looked with his bright fair hair!—As she walked towards him she felt that there were tears in her eyes.
Mary saw their friendly greeting and turned away, swept by a bitter anger and jealousy. It seemed to her horrible that Anthony, the man, the pursuer, the captor, should be eating ices. He might at least have had the decency to exult over his prey. To Mary at that moment the whole world was a vast sacrificial altar raised to the lust and the cruelty of men. She did not remember that only yesterday she too had thought Anthony a friendly and delightful creature.
A few minutes later cousins began to arrive, and Mary, found herself standing by the drawing-room door, talking. "Well, Mary," all her old friends began, "to think—" and to one after another of them she answered, "We're all so fond of him!" "Yes, I'm sure they'll be very happy."
The pretty room, Mary's room, was filling with people, people who had come there to laugh and look animated and say stupid things because Rosemary was married. It did not matter much now what anybody said, one could not hear it. It seemed to Mary that she was screaming, but as nobody noticed her she supposed that she could not be talking louder than anyone else.
Behind her left shoulder she could hear James's laugh. He was talking too, everyone was telling him how well he looked. She heard him say, "Yes—both gone now—it makes a man feel old—" and a sudden wave of misery made her tremble. What did it matter to James—what were daughters to a man! It was she who was old, she who was left lonely and desolate, left to James who stroked her hair and lied to her.
There were fewer people coming now, and she crossed the room to speak to Anthony's mother. Anthony's mother was sitting on a sofa, calm, superior, but triumphant. Her eye travelled slowly over the chattering crowd with an air of august approval. "See what a fuss these people make," she seemed to say, "how they dress up, rejoice, invite their friends, because their girl has succeeded in catching my son! See how they have decked out the fortunate creature herself so that she may seem beautiful and pleasing!" Mrs. Hastings was a tall lady with a dignified nose, and she bent over Mary when she had made room for her on the sofa. "How charming dear Rosemary looks!" she began. "Her frock suits her so well"—the garment in question had been chosen by Laura—"everyone is saying how ridiculously young they both are——"
Mary followed the lady's imposing eye to where, between groups of people, she could see Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Hastings. It was true that they both of them looked absurdly young. Something in Rosemary's flushed laughing face sent the blood to Mary's heart. She was a child, only a child, and here in this hot, noisy room she was saying good-bye to her freedom. And there was nothing, nothing that anyone in the world could do—Rosemary was married!
Mrs. Hastings, having received no answer to a further remark, turned round again to survey her hostess. "Hysterical, poor woman," she thought. "She has never struck me as a person with much strength of will—one of your clinging little women." "I am sure they will be very happy," she said, in a voice that was certain to arrest attention, "for I have always thought that Tony would make an excellent husband."
An excellent husband—of course! What more could any woman want—an excellent husband like James! Mary smiled faintly. "Oh, yes, I'm sure, and they are so very fond of each other," she answered.
At this point someone else came up to Mrs. Hastings and Mary was able to rise and to go in search of Anthony's principal uncle. Rosemary's future depended on him too, for he was the head of Anthony's firm. As she looked about the room Mary caught words and sentences from the roar of conversation that echoed back from the walls and the ceiling. All these people were busy over their own affairs, their clothes, their engagements, their gossip. They did not care—Mary wished suddenly that there had been a wedding in church. That, at least, would have been serious, she could have prayed for her daughter. Then she laughed at herself. What good would praying have been? Her own mother, who believed in God, had prayed for her every day, and yet she could not spare her this——.
The important uncle, who called Mary, "My dear lady," told her that she looked thoroughly worn out.
At last the moment came when she was to bid Rosemary good-bye. As she kissed her, Mary felt an impulse to throw her arms round Rosemary, to hold her fast, to defy them all—it seemed impossible that she should go away like this, while everybody laughed and looked curious and pleased. But even while the thought was in her mind she found that she had let the child go, that Rosemary was kissing James. "Of course—he's her father," Mary said to herself.—A moment later Rosemary was gone.
Then Mary had to say good-bye to her guests, to thank them for having put on their best clothes and made their well-meant noises. They all decided, and told her so, that she needed a rest and a change—weddings are trying affairs. Finally, last of all, Harry and Laura said they must get back to Giles.
"Do lie down, mother dear," Laura said, "and we'll see you and father at dinner later."
Mary had forgotten that they were dining with Laura—it seemed now a very good opportunity for separating herself from James. She didn't think that she would come after all, she told them, she would probably go to bed early. But James would come.
James assented. It seemed to him, too, an excellent idea.
For a moment they all stood at the door, looking at the disordered room. The floor was littered with the pink petals of the florist's roses, and on a chair lay a white fur scarf that some woman had forgotten.
"I'll come round to-morrow and help you cut up the cake," Laura told Mary, kissing her.
Harry shrugged his shoulders. "What we want in weddings," he said, "is a little decent grossness!"
Laura turned to him. "Come, Harry, I can see that mother is exhausted—" As they went, James on their heels, Mary laughed. Harry knew that he was the captor, right enough.
MARY'S household were relieved when they learned next morning that she did not feel well enough to see anyone or to leave her bed. James hoped that she was thinking things over and growing to see them in a more reasonable light. Trent thought that all women are always the better for a rest. The servants welcomed an interval between the excitements of the wedding and the discipline of their mistress's eye. Mary herself was not so pleased. To feel ill is in itself unpleasant, and though she was glad that she need not yet resume the routine of her life she would have liked to have something to think about. She tried to read books and then, as books seemed uninteresting and were troublesome to hold, she endeavoured to fix her mind on cheerful subjects. Giles was a splendid boy—big for his age already and growing finely. Dear Laura was very happy, and everybody said that her looks were improved. Rosemary had looked lovely and was having beautiful weather—Mary's prejudice against Anthony had lessened in the night. But these dutiful attempts did not succeed. Her carefully chosen thoughts seemed to have no cohesion, no persistence; they melted away, even when she repeated them aloud to make them impressive, and left her with the nervous sense of fear that heralded—she soon learned to recognise it—a return to the problem of her relations with James. She did not want to consider them yet; it was not fair, she told herself, to give scope to the pessimism that comes of lying in bed, but even when she had made every allowance she could the more she considered them the less hopeful they seemed. There was left to her, now, no ground at all on which she and James could take a common stand. There was no aspect of his life of which she could think with pride or from which she could take comfort. James, however she looked at him, was a failure, a sham.
She did not wish to pass judgment on James, to be unkind and unforgiving. She would forgive as soon as she could, she would do her best to make herself forgive. But it wasn't easy, she told herself, as she moved uneasily under the bed-clothes, to forgive such a deception as James had practised on her. It was not so much the actual lies he must have told, the smiles, the affection, the attitude of candour he must have assumed—what she resented was the false conception of himself that he had forced on her. She realised now that she had not, in her heart, forgiven him for the surrender she had already made. Believing herself bound by the fact that she was James's wife she had put aside her judgment and her conscience, she had renounced her wonderful adventure into the world of fact, of knowledge, of ordered thought. She had shut herself again into the narrow circle of her emotional life, she had tried to live again, at second-hand, through Laura's feelings, James's feelings, Rosemary's feelings. That James as a husband might remain unblemished in goodness and wisdom she had resolved to know nothing of James the public employer.
James for his part had not so much accepted her sacrifice as not noticed it, and now it was wasted. She knew now what her husband's goodness and wisdom were. He was neither honest, nor loyal, nor pure—he was a loose man, stained, unscrupulous; a man—she told herself this because it made her suffer—a man no better than the men who preyed on Florrie Wilson. He had dishonoured the most sacred and intimate thing in her life. He had given a strange woman the right to jeer at her, to despise her as a wife who was not able to keep her husband. Even now, though she wasn't likely to be a person who lived in her memories, James's mistress might sometimes remember and laugh to herself. "He fell so easily," the red-haired woman could say, "I hardly needed to hold out my hand!" Perhaps she had felt sorry for Mary.
For a moment Mrs. Heyham lay rigid, holding this picture in her mind. Then a dread of her own thoughts came so strongly upon her that she knew she must get up, ill or well, and find a way to banish them. She would send for Miss Percival, she told herself, and talk to her. She would tell her that she did not mean to go on with the Holiday Home. Perhaps Miss Percival would have something to talk about. She might have been reading an interesting book. She would not tell Mary, at least, that she looked as if she needed a change, or ask her whether she wasn't feeling lonely.
After making her resolve Mary lay for a moment or two longer without moving. She was certainly feeling tired, though she told herself now that the matter went no deeper than feeling, and she wanted, before she left the subject, to make one more effort to think kindly of James. But the nearest that she could come to kindness was an absence of hatred, a cold instead of a passionate disgust. She was not angry with him, she shrank from the intimacy of anger, but she told herself that his personality, his presence, must not affect her again. She would think of him as an indifferent person, far from her life. There was a certain relief in the conviction which came to her that this was possible. She felt herself, in a queer, cold fashion, free of him.
She did get up after lunch, and just as she had finished dressing she became aware of pleasing wails in her sitting-room. She opened the door quickly and saw, before she was noticed, Miss Percival holding Giles while Giles's nurse condescended to stand by. The secretary's face was not as a rule expressive of passing emotions, but now for the second time Mary saw it transfigured. Any girl can feel a sudden tenderness for a kitten or a pretty baby, but it was not tenderness that had broken down Miss Percival's smooth reserve. Mary could see that, but before she could decide what emotion it was that had made this profound disturbance the nurse had turned to her.
"I beg your pardon, ma'am, I didn't see you!" Mary smiled at her. "How well baby looks, nurse! He is a credit to you. And how happy he seems with Miss Percival. She must have had plenty of practice in holding babies."
Miss Percival started, and while the nurse acknowledged with the air of one who confers a favour that he did look happy, she came forward and held the baby out to his grandmother. "He is a beautiful boy," she said, in what Mary believed was not quite her normal voice.
Mary was glad to take Giles into her arms. He at least stood for the future, for promise, for hope. There was no more blemish yet on his life than on his charming little body. She bent over him and kissed the sweet-smelling shawl that sheltered his ridiculous head. Giles seemed to share her contentment, for when he had blinked at her once or twice he went quietly and confidently to sleep.
The three women stood for a little looking down at him while the nurse talked in a whisper of his strength, his beauty, and his accomplishments. "I'm certain he knows his mother already," she said, and Mary answered, "And you too, nurse, I expect he knows you, too!"
The nurse saw fit to confirm this expectation. "There have been times when I've thought so," she assured them. "I've never seen a more intelligent baby, and a boy too, girls are generally sharper than boys!"
"Yes," said Miss Percival, "one of life's false beginnings, a tragedy we don't mind because it's always there."
Mary and the nurse both looked at her, Mary with surprise and the nurse with disapproval. There was something, to the nurse's mind, very betwixt and between about a secretary.
Mary, as there was nothing else that she wished to say, asked carelessly what Miss Percival had meant. The nurse looked down at her cloak. She would not, in Mary's place, have encouraged any future expression of what might well turn out a deplorable opinion.
Miss Percival put her hands on the table behind her and leaned back on them a little before she spoke. "Oh, I don't know," she said then, "but most young women seem to me such spoiled thwarted things. Girls, if they've had any sort of chance, are fine creatures. I think they may seem hard from the outside, but in their hearts they long to be noble and pure and spiritual, only, poor things, they don't know what nobility and purity are."
She paused, but Mary, holding Giles a little closer, gave her a smile that encouraged her to go on. "Well, we don't exactly tell them, do we?" There was a freedom, a recklessness, about Miss Percival's choice of words that struck Mary as unusual. "Because after all, they're here in the world to please men, and most men wouldn't know what to do with a really noble wife. So we lie to them, and tell them to mind their manners, and our clear bright eager little girls learn to chatter at tea-parties. I've watched it again and again. As they grow up something seems to go out of them. The pressure is too strong I suppose. They can't stand up against what's wanted of them." She stopped suddenly, though the pitch of her voice had not suggested an ending.
This time Mary did not look up. Miss Percival's words had taken Mary back, to the youth of her own daughters. Surely Rosemary had not been spoiled! To-day Rosemary was Tony's wife—She stared at the baby without seeing him.
Meanwhile the nurse too was considering the problem of girls. It was one of the wise arrangements of Providence, the nurse felt, that most girls did want to be good, else who'd help their mothers look after the house and mind the younger children? If they turned, later on, into giggling gawks whose thoughts ran on nothing but the men, Providence had surely designed that too, or no girl with a good place and her self-respect would be fool enough to marry. Still, in one way, now that it was put to her, the muse could see that it was a pity. Life was very different when you came to it from what you had thought it would be. The nurse could have married where she pleased herself, for she was a kindly, good-looking woman and she had saved. But she had not wished to run the risk—a man might seem steady enough while he was courting, and when you were married he'd take to drink or waste your money, or run after other women. There wasn't, if you looked at it squarely, much good to be got out of men, forever misbehaving themselves or pestering you for something.
Then her thoughts went back to the great day of her life, the day on which she had been confirmed. She had come home and knelt down by the bed she shared with her sister in a passion of gratitude and devotion to God. And when her mother had called her for tea, she had found that the boys had drawn a vulgar picture on the back of the beautiful card she had been given by the lady from the Church. Her mother had given the boys a clout on the head, but they had called her a sneak and a dirty mean beast and her day had been spoiled, and after that she had gone into service.
At this point she remembered suddenly where she was. It was startling to find that she had been so carried away, and the sense of surprise made her feel a need for action. She stepped forward and told Mary, decidedly, that she ought to be taking Baby home. As she went out she looked curiously again at Miss Percival. Miss Percival was quite right—women in this world have a poor time of it, especially when you consider that men will be just as well off as their wives in the next, but it wasn't for a paid dependant to say so.
Left alone, Mary and the paid dependant did not speak for a little. Then Miss Percival turned to her employer with a movement of decision. "Mrs. Heyham," she said, "I've been meaning for some time to tell you that I think I ought to resign my position."
Mary was very much taken aback, "Oh, why, Miss Percival?"
Miss Percival did not seem to find a ready answer, and when at last she spoke, it was with an unusual effect of hesitation. "I don't feel as if I am serving any useful purpose," she brought out.
Mary sat down and asked her companion to take a seat. She did not feel convinced, from Miss Percival's tone, that this was her real reason, and she wanted to know what the real reason was. "I can't agree to lose you in this light fashion," she said, "we must talk it over. As to a purpose, you are earning your living!"
"Oh, but, Mrs. Heyham, I don't feel that I am," she was told. "I do nothing."
"You do more than you think—in any case, won't you let me decide how much you do?"
Miss Percival shook her head. "It's true," she admitted, "that I have to earn my living, but I've always determined to earn it, if I possibly could, by doing something useful. I came to you because I thought I should hear about tea-shops and things from a new point of view, and because Miss Heyham—Mrs. Hastings—said it was possible you might wish to carry out some reforms. And now I think I have learned all that I shall learn."
"And the reforms have come to nothing!" Mary finished for her.
"Well, there are plenty of people who could do the work for the Holiday Home better than I should. You really need someone who is thoroughly keen about it." Miss Percival spoke with a tinge of reluctance, as though she were trying, by her frankness, to urge herself on.
Mary was aware by this time that she would be exceedingly sorry to lose Miss Percival. She had grown fond of the capable young woman, and she felt that at this moment she was more than ever in need of unromantic capacity. Moreover—it had not occurred to her before—there was now no reason why the question of the waitresses should not be treated on its merits. It would be as well, she told herself bitterly, if somebody gained something from the ruin of her happiness.
"As a matter of fact," she said, "I was going to tell you, when you sprang this mine upon me, that you must prepare yourself for being worked very hard. I am not going on with the Holiday Home, and I haven't given up, though I know it looked as if I had, the matter of wages. If you desert me now, Miss Percival, you will be deserting on the eve of a serious engagement. I never wanted you more."
But Miss Percival still seemed doubtful. "There is another difficulty," she said, "but it's personal. I can't very well explain—" She looked at Mary anxiously, as if she would like to say something but was afraid of its reception.
Mary gathered that Miss Percival's mind was troubled. She leaned forward kindly. "Tell me anything you care to if it's a difficulty," she said; "we have worked together for more than a year now, and you ought to know whether it's likely that I can help you!"
Miss Percival laughed, and Mary thought the laugh was strained. "There'll be no question of your wanting to keep me when you've heard what I've got to say," she said. Then she looked Mary in the face. "The fact is, I came here for a definite purpose, and I'm going because I can see that I have made you very unhappy. I came here to make you unhappy, really, but not in this way. When your daughter told me what you wanted me for I thought that here at last was a chance of getting something done. I meant to open your eyes, to make you understand the connection between your luxury and the sweating of those underpaid exhausted girls. Of course, you might have been a fool or a coward, or a painted lady, but I thought that if you were a decent woman you couldn't see these girls suffer and fold your hands again and do nothing for them. So I came, and when I saw you I knew it would be all right, so I stayed. But now I can see you are ill, and terribly unhappy. I don't feel that I've done wrong in edging you on. There was a chance that those girls of yours might gain by it, and of course, so far as that goes, you rich people deserve to be unhappy, but I can't stay and watch you!" She jumped up from her chair, and went to the mantelpiece, where Mary could not see her face. "Of course, I don't pretend that you wouldn't have found out a good deal for yourself," she went on, as Mary said nothing, "but I feel that I've stood at your elbow the whole time, underlining it all and rubbing it in, never letting you miss things, and now I think that perhaps I was the wrong person, and I've done it the wrong way. I ought to have helped you more, and tried to think out with you what ought to be done and how we could best set about it. But I left all that to you. I haven't helped you at all. I told myself that I didn't want to bias you, only to show you the truth. But it wasn't that really. I was angry and I gave way to my feelings. I expect we could have persuaded Mr. Heyham if I had made you take me into your confidence. But I couldn't bear that you should manipulate him and be tactful with him. I hated him, I wanted you to fight him, and hurt him, and get the better of him. And of course he has won, and the person who has been hurt is you."
Mary stared at her painfully, but she could only see the back of Miss Percival's head. "Why do you hate my husband?" she asked.
Miss Percival's reply came slowly. "I don't hate him particularly. I hate all men when they're powerful and using their power to be cruel to women. And that's most of them—nearly always, whether they mean to or not." She turned abruptly. Her face was white, and to Mary, attending to her closely, it seemed strange. It must have owed its look of firm intelligence, Mary felt, to some trick of self-control, for now that this was broken by emotion Miss Percival looked crudely, pitiably young. "I have tried not to feel like that," she was saying, "I don't want to hate them. I know—I've told myself over and over again that hate is ugly, and clumsy, and sterile! I've tried my best to tear myself free of it, but I haven't ever succeeded. It only comes back again. I hate them—I hate them from the bottom of my soul."
Mary looked at her almost with respect. There never had been in her own muddled life, she felt, a passion as compelling as this. It was wrong, it was deplorable, but it had the dignity of defiance and revolt. She became conscious of a sympathetic excitement that was dispelling her weariness, filling her again with the warmth of life. In the face of Miss Percival's rebellion she could not be afraid any more that she herself would lack courage to protest.
"You must have some reason," she suggested, "this sort of feeling does not come of itself!"
Miss Percival shook her head. "I don't know how it came," she said, "though I could find a hundred reasons—I can see a fresh reason in every man I meet! When I look at their faces in the street, in a 'bus, anywhere, their mean stupid faces—men who get their ideals out of the halfpenny papers, men who think about money on an office stool all day, and then go home and treat some woman as an inferior—I wonder that any woman has ever loved a man. They're ugly, they're greedy, they're coarse-minded!" She shuddered, and crossed her hands across the front of her throat. "I hate them for everything," she said, "for their cruelty, for their insolence—look what they've done! They've taken the whole world and made it theirs; everything we have in it is only ours, now, because they choose to give it to us. We haven't even a right to our own children. And if we don't like what they give, if we loathe it, if we're in anguish, they don't care. They're not interested in us, they don't want to know what we are in ourselves, or what we think of our lives, it saves them trouble to call us mysteries. They're our masters, and they're strangers to us; they're our masters, and if we show that we are unhappy, they're bored! To one another they're civilised people, but to us to whom they've denied their civilisation they're savages,—arrogant, intolerant, vain, angry with anything that disturbs their comfort."
She paused for a moment and let her hands fall to her sides. When she spoke again, she spoke more slowly. "But what I hate them most for isn't that—I despise them for what they are. I hate them most for what they've made of us. We love them and their children, so we are at their mercy. We have always tried to fulfil their plans for us, to be the kind of women who would please them. And see what has pleased them—see what they've praised in us! I don't mean working-women, but women whose husbands can afford to have the kind of wife they like. Look at most of us, narrow, uneducated, barbarous, trivial, content to let life go by while we humour from day to day a man who looks down on women. If we've an instinct for order and organisation we use it to see that the cook keeps the kitchen clean, if we love beauty we embroider tea-cosies or hunt in shops for pretty dresses, if we've more emotion in us than our man has an appetite for we're allowed to work it off, sensibly and with moderation, in a religion he doesn't take seriously. If we were like that in our hearts it wouldn't matter, but we're not; in our hearts we have pity and love and understanding. But men are more cunning than we are, and stronger, and they've all the money—and they use the best that is in us, our religion, our love, to degrade us— Indeed it's time that some of us hated men!" She stood trembling for a moment, then she turned and laid her face against the cool marble of the mantelpiece.
Mary had meant, when the secretary stopped, to say something in protest. What Miss Percival had said was exciting and courageous, but it wasn't fair and it wasn't true. It is one's duty to be fair. But the tired gesture with which so much anger came to an end, the droop of Miss Percival's defiant head, made Mary forget her protest in compassion. "Poor child," she said, "poor child!" and crossing the room she put her arm round the secretary's shoulders.
The young woman did not move for a moment, then she yielded, and Mary found herself soothing a passion of tears. She was surprised, but after a minute she was not puzzled. If Miss Percival's emotional nature had been so stirred by holding Giles it was because, in the past, she had loved a baby. If she hated men it was because, in the past, some man had been cruel to her. Probably her lover, the baby's father, had deserted her. For some reason it did not occur to Mary that Miss Percival had been more than essentially married.
She was wrong. When presently Miss Percival recovered her self-control and moved back a little from the shelter of Mary's shoulder, she explained. "I beg your pardon," she said first. "I have behaved disgracefully. It was baby, I'm afraid. He seemed such a jolly little creature on my arm—I have wanted one so, and I never had one. I am married really, you know, only I don't live with my husband."
Mary did not feel angry with Miss Percival for having deceived her. Instead she moved forward as if to comfort her again, but the secretary, who was wiping her eyes, pretended not to see the outstretched hand.
"That was what made me bitter in the beginning, I suppose," she said. "If men cared for anything but their own pleasure and freedom they would not let people like my husband marry girls of eighteen." She checked a final sob and crossed the room to the table where she had left her gloves and her leather despatch case. Then she came back to Mary. "I know of a very good secretary who wants a place, Mrs. Heyham," she said. "She is a most capable woman, with every qualification."
Mary broke in on her. "But, Miss Percival, are you really sure that you need go? I really meant it when I said that I never had needed you more. And now that I know your real opinions it makes things so much simpler."
Miss Percival shook her head. "I'm afraid it's no use, Mrs. Heyham. After what I've said to-day you wouldn't be able to trust me. You see, I know myself that what I feel isn't just. I'm twisted—I can't be fair—I take things too hardly. I'm afraid I'm no good really except for finding out abuses and stirring people up. I hate shifts and compromises. No, I must go back to investigation. Besides I've never worked for a private employer before, and I don't like it. I can't go on taking wages from Mr. Heyham that he wouldn't pay if he knew what I feel about him. Most people can accommodate themselves to any abuse as soon as they know the doer in private life. I can't—to me a big employer who sweats his workers is just that. When one of the girls is ill and gets into trouble I feel that he is directly responsible. I can't shrug my shoulders and put it all on to the system. Please, will you let me go now? I'm sorry I've made such an idiot of myself. Of course, I know I owe you a month's wages in lieu of notice."
This brought Mary to her feet. "My dear Miss Percival—of course not!" she said, and then she paused. What the secretary had said was true. Mary could not feel comfortably sure of her again. One does not want a secretary who indulges in outbursts of undisciplined hatred, however sorrowful may be the past that has given rise to them. Besides, what Miss Percival had said of James applied also, in some measure, to Mary. Even if she had handed over her judgment to James she was still responsible. "I'm afraid you're right," she said at last, "I suppose I must let you go. I'm exceedingly sorry to lose you—I shall miss you very much. You'll tell me, won't you, how you are getting on, and if I want to engage a fresh secretary, I'll write for your friend's address." She held out her hand.
Miss Percival shook it. "I'm sorry to go," she said. "You have been very kind to me," then she turned away and went quickly out of the room.
Mary drew her chair nearer to the fire. She felt cold again now, and confused and disappointed. She had hoped to find strength and support from Miss Percival, and now Miss Percival was gone. She was gone, and she had left Mary nothing but another picture of suffering and evil. Mary did not know what Miss Percival's story had been, but to change her as it had clearly changed her, it must, Mary felt, have been abominable. There was something wrong about this question of men and women, something twisted and wrong underneath the comforting appearance of everyday social life. She had always known that there are wicked men and terribly wicked women, but she had always thought of them as outside, exceptional, far away. Now, everywhere she looked, she saw ugliness and suffering and sin. She did not know why it was so, she was ignorant, and she felt suddenly that she did not want, she could not bear, to know the truth. It was morbid, horrible, far removed from the decency, the kindliness, the order, of an honourable life. Why should she fill her mind with thoughts like these, with suspicions, with guesses at vice and ugliness?—it was only now, it seemed to her, that she realised how odious, how degrading such thoughts were. She would never be able to get back, she felt, to her normal dignity and sanity. Suddenly, though she had not been thinking of him, she was swept by a wave of anger against James. It was James, while he pretended to love her, who had dragged her into all this!
At this moment her maid came into the room. "It's the master on the telephone, ma'am," she said, "and he wants to know how you are. He rang up this morning, ma'am, but I thought you were asleep."
Mary waited for a little before she answered. James was parading this affection, she supposed, either to impress the servants, or because, after all these years of deceit, he had grown into a mechanical habit of gallantry. She told Penn to thank Mr. Heyham for his message and to say that she was up and feeling better.
The door shut behind the woman and Mary was alone with her injury. That very evening, she reminded herself, she would have to meet James. If he was bent on maintaining a show of smooth appearances he would certainly come to her even if she stopped in her room. But she had not decided what she would say when she saw him or how she would behave. She had changed—she knew that—and with this change they would both have to reckon. The sum of her pain and grief was not merely an anger or a disappointment, something had grown hard in her, she thought, which before had been facile. But how, she wondered, was she to put her feeling into words that would make it clear to James? To make James hear she would have to say something in set terms, something definite, something that she could repeat in the same words when he had finished talking—she would have to stand up, she could see, to flood after flood of talk. And she had nothing prepared and definite, nothing but her sense of outrage, of detachment and loss. She could not face James and say to him, "I see you with different eyes. My compliance towards you, my happy acceptance of you, have gone!" That would mean nothing to a man like James. And yet if she did not speak, if she let him even for one evening impose his own attitude and take hers for granted, he would run away with his advantage and refuse her, ever afterwards, a chance of meeting him fairly. Now, he did not know what he had to expect from her—to a certain extent he was open to what she might say—but once he had made his assumptions no words of hers would ever penetrate them, and something must penetrate. They could not live any more as they had lived. She had given herself up to the old James, hidden herself in him from her own conscience and from the world; now they were separate.
The clock struck, and its four strokes reminded her that Julius Trent, her vagabond brother, was coming to see her. He had been in town for the wedding, and had said that he would look her up early that afternoon. A talk with Julius meant probably a talk about money, but Mary felt to-day that to be in the presence of his affection was worth more than a little money. She had always believed that Julius was fond of her, although he was so very unlucky. Julius's work in life was to show other people how they might manage their business more efficiently than they did, and as far as his profession went, he told Mary, he didn't do so badly—it wasn't that. Unfortunately his instinct, so just and true where the affairs of others were concerned, could not be trusted to an equal extent in his own. Whenever Julius backed a horse the horse lost—pulled, Julius said—and whenever he promoted a company it went bankrupt before his genius for efficiency had had a fair chance of coming into play. In these circumstances he came to see Mary two or three times a year, generally with some scheme in his pocket for reorganising the Imperial which he offered her free, gratis, and for nothing from her affectionate brother. In her heart Mary was deeply attached to Julius.
He did not come, this afternoon, as early as she expected him, and when he did come he seemed subdued and did not produce any scheme. "How are you, my dear?" he said. "You're not looking up to much." And then, having settled himself in a comfortable chair, he stared thoughtfully into the fire.
"How is Milly?" Mary asked him. Milly was the lady to whom, Julius said, he was engaged to be married. She acted in provincial companies and while they were trying to save enough money to marry decently Julius in the intervals of business followed her about the country. Mary had offered once to call upon her when she was near London but Milly, it appeared, was proud. She wasn't going to be called upon until she could receive Mrs. Heyham in a house of her own—being a lady, really, the conditions of provincial touring galled her.
Julius nodded. "Ah, yes, poor old Milly!" He looked, Mary thought, a little nervous.
"I hope there's nothing the matter with Milly?" Mary asked. "I thought she was getting on so well!"
Julius coughed and fidgeted in his chair. "Fact is," he said, "I've something to ask you! Now, don't you start thinking it's money this time, it isn't! No, poor old Milly and me are going to do it at last. She's come into a little money and we're going to be married next month!" He looked anxiously at his sister.
Mary hastened to congratulate him. "My dear Julius, what delightful news! I am so pleased! What is it you want to ask me? Do you want to marry her from here, perhaps? You know I'll be only too glad to do anything I can!" It would not matter a bit now the girls were both married, and James had decided long ago that any marriage would be better for Julius than this trailing about. They both believed that responsibility sobers a man.
He shook his head. "Thanks, old girl!" he said. "It isn't that. It's rather difficult to explain. You see—well—now she's going to get married Milly wants to make a break with it all. She doesn't want everyone to know that she's been on the stage and we've been engaged all these years. She says it makes it look as if we weren't getting on, and it makes her feel old, do you see? So the idea is that we've only been engaged since the spring, and her name isn't Milly, it's Esther. She's dropping her old name; you see, it was sort of half a stage name. Well, what I wanted to know was, could you play up to that? You can't think how it would please her! She's rather a sensitive little woman you see, and she can't bear being crossed. Just to call her Esther and to talk as if we'd only met this spring—she'll tell you all about her father and all that— Of course I know it sounds ridiculous, but actresses you know, well they have their whims and there you are!" His anxiety, by this time, was unconcealed.
Mary laughed. "Why shouldn't I if it will make her happy? Of course I will!" She felt herself very tolerant, very sympathetic towards people who were hoping to be happy. Poor old Julius! If after all these years he still wanted his Milly why shouldn't she help to make things easy for him?
Julius breathed deeply, leaned back, and crossed his legs. "You always were a bit of a brick, Mary!" he told her. "You can't think what a load that's taken off my mind! Not that you're likely to meet Esther for a bit; we're going to be married in Liverpool, and then we're off south for the honeymoon. But I just thought I'd put it to you at once!" His look was now as cheerful as his smile. It had been as a matter of fact an awkward moment. Since he had first told his sister of his romantic engagement to Milly Milns that lady's name had come in useful for several young women who had replaced her in his affections although he had never been engaged to them. Running up north or down west to see Milly had been a delightful reason for not being always where one was expected to be. Now that he was engaged again, this time in a business-like fashion, to Miss Esther Moss, he would have dropped the legend of Milly, if he had not, only six weeks before when there had seemed no chance of the excellent Esther's yielding to him, accepted a cheque from Mary to give poor little Milly a rest by the sea after a serious illness. It was only fair to Mary, he thought, that she should believe she was getting something for her money. Otherwise she might feel that the rest by the sea had been wasted. That would be a pity, for though Esther besides her charms had a satisfying income he had found her, so far, the sort of woman who manages her own affairs. For that matter he wasn't a man who would care to depend altogether on his wife.
"How is James getting on with the reconstruction of the business?" he asked now. "He seems pretty cheery about it. I offered him my help—for nothing, too—but he said he had got it all practically arranged!"
"The reconstruction?" Mary asked, puzzled by his change of subject. Julius stared at her. "The reconstruction of the business—turning it into a public company. You can't mean to say that he hasn't told you yet."
Mary interrupted him. She didn't want Julius to think that James kept her in the dark. "Oh, yes, of course he told me—I'm rather stupid about these things—what does a reconstruction of that sort exactly mean, Julius? What is it? What effect does it have?"
Julius grinned. "Well, it's a way of making money, that's what it is. Suppose I have a business that's making twenty thousand a year and is worth £250,000 and I want to make a little money out of it! Well, I have articles written about it to say how good it is and puff it up a bit, and I explain that if only I had £100,000 or so to extend it a little it would soon be making forty thousand a year and it would be worth £500,000. And with luck I get a lot of people to buy it from me at that valuation, and give me a salary as well as managing director and off I go and put the money into gilt-edged securities. And there I am you see, very comfortable, nothing to do but keep the shareholders quiet for a year or two until something turns up trumps. Not that James is the sort of man to take them in," he added, determined to do the handsome thing even though James had refused to make him a director of the new company.
Mary thought this over for a moment. "You sell it for more than it's worth," she said.
Her brother demurred. "For what I can get—perfectly square and above-board—legitimate business. Of course it depends a lot on how the shares are placed on the market. That's what I said to James when I saw him the other day—" His face clouded a little at the memory of his interview with James.
Mary hesitated, and then decided to get what information she could. "What happens to the staff?" she asked, "to the employees, the people like our waitresses?"
Julius shrugged his shoulders. "Out of the frying-pan into the fire, poor devils. Must get dividends somehow. Depends a bit on whether the shareholders are patient or not. Interests of the shareholders come first, of course." He sighed. Nobody could hold sounder views than he. James had been unreasonable about the directorship considering where the money came from. There ought to have been one of the Trents on the Board.
Mary considered this slowly. "If the capital is larger and the profits are the same the dividends will be smaller," she said. "I see. So there is a temptation to get it back out of the wages."
"You may call it a temptation if you like. There's nothing else to get it out of, in a properly run business," her brother agreed. "Mind you, those girls only spend their money on finery. If they were to save it now for when they get married it would be another matter. Well, well, it's a hard world!"
Mary turned the subject to Julius's plans for his wedding and for his subsequent life with Esther.
WHEN her brother had gone Mary sat for some time trying to adjust her ideas to the new situation. She had not, until now, taken James's plans very seriously. James had so many plans. But if Julius was right these particular plans were plans no longer, they were arrangements.
She did not trust Julius, when it occurred to her to call his word in question, but his phrase "the interests of the shareholders" struck her as familiar and significant. There was very little in the way of long hours and low wages and bad conditions that the interests of the shareholders would not cover. She could see too that a managing director whose pockets were well lined with the shareholders' money might feel himself under an almost quixotic obligation to restore the prosperity which he had endangered. "The interests of the shareholders"—how smoothly, how easily, it would come from James's lips, and how conscious he would be, as he said it, of his virtue and honesty!
If she was right and if Julius was right he must not be given a chance of saying it. She would have to find courage and strength enough to stop him. But first, before she spoke to him about it, she must collect some reliable information. She could not go to James and defy his wishes on the strength of some casual remarks made by Julius. She would go to the London Library, when her head was not aching so badly, and find out there if there was anything written upon the subject. She could not remember anything to the point in the books that she had read. It was a pity that Miss Percival had gone; even Rosemary and Anthony might have helped her.
She was leaning back in her chair, tired and in pain, when she was again interrupted by her maid, half hidden this time by an elaborate basket of flowers. A young man from the office had brought them, she said, and a message from the master that he was sorry he would be kept late.
Mary could see that the young man had chosen the basket himself, guided probably by the florist's assistant. It was wreathed with pink satin ribbon elegantly fringed, and over the edge of it fell trails of smilax enriched with gardenias. Mary told Penn to put it down on a table in the corner. How tactless James was, she thought, to treat her like this! What good did he think he would do, except to his messenger? She could imagine the pride of the young man from the office as he chose the flowers with the strongest scent. Perhaps some day, when his salary was raised, he would go to a suburban shop and buy a basket of flowers as like it as he could for a little girl at the Hammersmith Alhambra. She called her maid back from the door—she would go to bed now, and think about dinner in bed.
James, meanwhile, was getting through his work as fast as he could in order to see Mary before she went to sleep. He felt extraordinarily sorry for Mary. He couldn't bear to think of the bad time the poor little thing must be having. The night before, and that morning, he had been angry with himself and therefore a little inclined to be annoyed with her. He had been a fool to tell her the truth, and she had behaved in a melodramatic and hysterical manner. But his anger with himself, under the pressure of business, diminished to an occasional uneasy pang, and his kind heart filled instead with solicitude for Mary. Women are hysterical creatures—one must take it and leave it at that. The thing had been a nasty shock for Mary, a very nasty shock indeed. He must be patient with her poor little attempts at scolding and make things up to her in every way he could. She had convinced herself, probably, that he didn't love her. Well, he had got to show her that he did. Women, he told himself, respond to affectionate violence. His policy then was to overwhelm her with love. He had neither the time nor the inclination to search his heart in any thorough manner, but he accepted easily enough the standpoint that he had been to blame. Of course he had been to blame. There could be no doubt about it, but that was no reason for worrying himself. A little patience, a little tact, and it would all come right. It was not for him to take things too seriously—poor little Mary, bless her, would do that for both of them.
He could say this the more cheerfully because to his honest belief he had not been to blame in the least. He had felt himself at the time to be behaving in a perfectly natural manner. He and Greta had been good friends once, he couldn't have snubbed her and wounded her pride. He was a kind man, he could not keep all his kindness for Mary. Afterwards he had known no protest of conscience that had not been settled by the necklace which was now Mary's favourite. Men are men, and Mary, if she only knew it, was a damned lucky woman. He had obeyed the promptings of his good nature in being decent to poor old Greta, nobody had been hurt by it, certainly not Mary—in fact for some time afterwards he had felt particularly fond of her. Her horror when she had heard of it, he saw now, was of a piece with her reluctant, fastidious approach to the sensual side of life and of human nature. As far as life and human nature went he regarded her views as altogether unsound, but he approved of them as the views of his wife and indeed of the wives and daughters of all decent men. It was this ignorance on the part of women that made decent men feel tender and chivalrous—he had always tried to be chivalrous towards Mary. Now, unhappy little creature, she was suffering, actually ill, because of his blundering tongue. She was paying now for her years of comfortable blindness. Well, that was wrong. There was a great deal of sin and misery in this world, but Mary was one of the women who, by common agreement, are relieved from suffering their share.
He was unable to imagine now why he had hesitated to lie to Mary. It had been a shocking lack of self-control. His real remorse for having made Mary suffer he mistook for an admission that he had been to blame in the beginning.
In his lunch hour, and when he paused for a belated tea, he wondered what he could do to comfort her. He particularly wanted her comforted because in a day or two he would have to ask for her consent to the reconstruction of the Imperial. It was an appalling nuisance that the two matters ran together like this. He decided finally, supposing she were in bed, to have dinner before he saw her, for he was aware as a general principle that one is never at one's tenderest and most persuasive between one's dinner and a hard day's work.
When he was cleaned and comfortable, fed and soothed, he went lightly up the stairs to Mary's room. At the door he paused for a moment. "Poor little thing!" he thought. "Now, you brute, be kind to her!"
Mary had heard his footstep, and had quickly turned out the light. He could not see, as he leaned over the bed, the anxiety on her face.
He felt for her hand. "Little mother," he said when he held it, "have you forgiven me?"
The sound of his voice, though she was waiting for it, made Mary start. When he had spoken she lay still for a moment confused and surprised. Why did he speak like this, what was going on in his mind? She could not tell in the least, she felt, what feelings were prompting him. She wished he would let go of her hand, the insistence of his touch was unpleasant. "I don't know, James," she said at last, "I have tried to!"
He sat down on the bed beside her and with his other hand stroked her cheek. "If you were to try a little harder," he asked, "couldn't you forgive me? Even although I don't deserve it?"
Mary moved her aching head further from his hand. She could not think, she felt, with these cigar-scented fingers against her face. "Yes,—I can forgive you, at least I think so," she told him, her whole mind bent on an effort to be honest, "but even if I forgive you, it will still be different."
James bent nearer her. "What will be different, little wife of mine? My love for you has never been different!" Then, as she did not answer, he slipped one arm under her shoulders and lifted her until her head lay against his neck. "Do you remember the last time you were ill?" he asked her, "how you said that I could take the pain away? The things that matter will never be different, Mary,—this isn't different!" and he kissed her softly.
For a moment Mary lay still. After the jar of pain which his movement had caused, it seemed so simple, so natural, to lie in the circle of James's familiar arm, to feel his kisses on her tired face, that for a moment she accepted it; then as his clasp grew tighter she realised what she was doing. She was accepting the warmth and comfort of his caresses exactly as he himself had accepted the kisses of the other woman. James felt her body stiffen. "Please don't kiss me," she said, "I had rather you didn't."
Her words shocked him, and he put her down. From her cold tired voice he realised that something was different. He got up from the bed and without thinking, mechanically, since the darkness oppressed him, he switched on the lamp of the bed.
Mary gave a little cry and covered her face with her hands, but not before James had seen it, white and ravaged, surrounded untidily by her ageing hair. A deep discouragement came over him. He felt as if the tie which had held her to him had slipped from his hand. The figure which lay quivering in the bright circle thrown by the lamp was unfamiliar and repellent, he could not imagine it as the body of his friend and his lover. "I beg your pardon," he said, "is the light too much for you? Shall I turn it down again?"
Mary moved her hands; he could see her dark eyes between them, and their puckered lids. "Yes, if you don't mind," she said, "my eyes are aching!"
James pressed the switch again and she was hidden. He stood still for a minute, his discouragement turning already into a practical perplexity. "You mean, I suppose," he said at last, "that you don't love me any more?"
Mary tried to answer truthfully. "I don't know," she said, "I expect I shall love you again when I've got more used to it, but I don't know if I shall ever love you like that!"
"My love doesn't matter then?" he pressed. "After all these years you've grown indifferent to it?"
Mary did not answer. She did not wish to say anything hard or bitter, but as the memory of his love rose before her she could see it only as a long tyranny, a hypocrisy, an exaction. James's discomfort deepened. "You women are not very merciful," he said.
Mary's thoughts were blotted out by a sudden rush of misery and impatience. If only James would go away—what use could there possibly be in talking like this! It was with an effort that she forced herself to answer him. "I'm sorry, James," she told him, "but I can't help it."
He fidgeted for a little with the edge of her quilt, but no fresh way of approach presented itself. Before Mary's obstinacy his mind seemed heavy. She was not in a state, he told himself, when she could be reasoned with. "Perhaps you'd rather I went?" he asked her, his uneasiness showing even in his voice.
Mary was not in a state, either, to notice the tones and inflections of people's voices. She assented at once. "Yes, please, James, I would—I really am sorry."
"Good-night then." He spoke quickly and turned away without waiting to hear whether she answered. Outside the door his doubt rose coldly before him. "I'm damned if I know what to do!" he said, and went downstairs.
Inside, Mary lay sobbing with her face in the pillow. Now that she had sent him away she was sorry for James. For a moment she saw him, not as her erring husband, but as a man who had asked for forgiveness and been refused. Then her sorrow turned to resentment again. If she had been cruel it was he who had made her cruel, it was he who had robbed her of her love for him!
As the night passed her tired mind became incapable of coherent thought. The image of James faded to a dim figure, menacing and oppressive, that would not let her rest or sleep. She had never longed for anything, she felt, as she longed for sleep. It seemed the last effort of James's tyranny that he should deny it her.
She slept towards daybreak, and was awakened next morning by Penn bringing her hot water and her letters. There was still no news from Rosemary, but on her breakfast tray, when it came, she found a note from James.
"I will not worry you to-day by trying to see you," it said, "if you had rather not. But if you are well enough I should be glad if you would fix a time for seeing me to-morrow, as there is a most important business matter I want to discuss with you. I hope you have had a good night, and are feeling better."
It was signed with his initials.
Mary stared dully at the familiar writing. So far as she could see it was meant as a threat. She could think of no other motive, for it seemed to her evident that James could, if he liked, have delayed the interview. The letter, on its face, could not show her the nervous impatience which had made the poor man take any positive step rather than admit, by doing nothing, that he was baffled.
If Mary had been another business man James would have cursed her and put her out of his mind until the moment had come for decisive action. But she was not a business man, she was his wife; his whole moral universe was sensitive to her behaviour.
He could not believe in the depth and reality of Mary's feelings. He saw her merely determined to get her own way, and moved by a woman's natural love of scenes. To him the effort she had made, when she gave up her scheme for increasing the waitresses' wages, had seemed perfectly natural. He had imagined that his arguments had shown her how foolish she had been. He had no time himself for brooding over emotions, and he felt no sympathy for people who did. Now, laboriously, he thought out a test for Mary. If she sulked because of what he had done, it was tiresome, but she was within her rights. If she allowed such a thing to affect their business relations she would be palpably, outrageously in the wrong. He was not aware, unfortunate smarting man, how greatly he longed to put her in the wrong. The idea of a business interview, which she could hardly refuse to grant, revealed itself to him merely as a means for making her treat him in a normal manner. He would be very kind and patient, and after a little she would forget that they weren't on their usual terms. He would give her, to begin as well as end with kindness, a whole day to recover herself and to get rid of her headache. For a whole day he would allow this wretched state of things to go on. For a whole day the head of the house would remain downstairs in disgrace, deprived of the pleasant greeting and intercourse that were his by right. If he had ever known anything of Mary that could hardly fail to impress her, and the scheme, as he would unfold it to her, could hardly fail either to touch her imagination. She would be pleased by his proposal to give all the girls a day's wages to celebrate it. He need not worry, everything would come right, but he could not shake off an annoying uneasiness.
Mary, meanwhile, was unaware of his chagrin and his penance. In twenty-four hours, then, he was going to force on her another discussion—in twenty-four hours the fight would begin again. The talking, the appeals to her feelings—she seemed to remember nothing of her life with James but endless hours of talking. And this time the talking would be of vital importance. Somehow, before it began, she must ensure that she should not give way. Somehow she must arm herself. And she did not even know where to look for her information. Miss Percival was gone, even Rosemary and Anthony were gone. It was impossible that she should make up her mind in a day, and a day that might well be interrupted, if James's spirits rose, by baskets of flowers.
It became very plain to her that the present state of affairs was unendurable. She must do something. She could not remain like this, lurking in her rooms, quivering with the dread of hearing James's hand on the door. She must have, for one thing, more time—time to recover herself, time to decide her duty towards the girls. She must have quiet too, in which she could think. For the last few months she had thrown herself, deliberately, on her feelings. Well, this was what her feelings had done for her. Now she must think, not with the happy excitement of the autumn, but slowly, painfully, confusedly, she must think herself out of this tangle of suffering. She must shut out the feelings that clamoured at her mind, anger, disgust, probably, if she knew it, jealousy; she must detach herself, she must consider herself as if she were another woman. It would not be easy to do. She had cherished her feelings, loved them, indulged them, until they were not easy to deny, but no other way would be fair either to herself or to James.
To succeed she must relieve herself from the burden of fear that lay on her as long as she was in James's house. While he might come upon her at any moment her feelings were her master. She could not but shrink from him, she could not see the lilies and the pink ribbon of his basket without disgust. She must go away. It was not a new idea. It had been in her mind the day before, and that morning when she awoke. Then she had put it aside as too strange to be worthy of scrutiny. Now, after the added pressure of James's letter, it did not seem strange, but familiar and feasible. "I could do it," she told herself. Then for a moment her thoughts seemed to stop, to shrink in fear. When the fear passed she knew that she had decided. She would go.
Now that her decision was made its grounds came very clearly before her mind. There was no other way of escape from the ugliness of foolish, wordy quarrels between her and James. She could not think and make an important choice under such influences. The harshness and resentment of dispute would warp her judgment and twist her estimates.
A knock at the door made her start violently for fear lest it might be James who had changed his mind. The door opened on a maid who had come for her breakfast tray, but the start, with its accompanying pang of fear and dismay, was the best of reasons, Mary felt, for carrying out her decision. And yet even now she knew that it was not her only reason. She did not go as some women might have gone, desperately and in despair. She had suffered, and been afraid, but she did not go broken or maimed. She had chosen to go, she went of her deliberate will; below the sharp sorrow of her wounded love new life was stirring. She rang for Penn to dress her, and while she lay waiting this faint excitement grew. Never for a moment, she thought, had she been free. Now she was to know freedom.
While she was being dressed she put everything from her mind but the details of her plan. Practically there was no great difficulty. Rosemary was gone. Laura did not need her. The issue lay simply between her and James. As for what she should do, she must stay in London to be near the information she needed. She would not be longer than she could help in a hotel where people come and go, she would find a tiny furnished house or a little flat. She would live very simply; it would not be right, she felt, to pamper herself while she was doing such an unusual thing.
When Penn's ministrations were over she left the house on foot and walked to Oxford Street, where she took a passing taxi. She had decided to go to a house agent from whom she had once or twice taken houses for shooting and summer holidays. She would not need to give him another reference, and James was not likely to make a search for her that would involve asking questions of house agents. At the thought of a search she felt a little quiver of fear, then she forced herself to think again of the matter in hand. Until she was safe in her flat she must consider nothing else but getting there.
At the house agent's she told the young man behind the counter that she wanted to take, as soon as possible, a small furnished flat in Chelsea. It was all very simple. Chelsea, in February, seemed lavish of furnished flats, all small, all delightfully situated, all ready for her immediate occupation. Even when she had rejected the handsomely furnished and the cosy she left the office with a substantial bundle of permits.
The first flat that she visited had often been let for short periods, and it seemed a little weary of the life. The second had shelves for photographs and vases hanging down the back of its cottage piano. The third looked on to a garage, the fourth was both expensive and unusual, but she decided that it would do. There was very little furniture in it, for one thing. For another, it reminded her of Rosemary.
The lady who showed it to Mary was younger and more friendly than such ladies are wont to be. She was Mrs. Jenkins, the porter's wife, and she had a sister who for twelve shillings a week would come in every day and do for Mrs. Heyham with pleasure. The sister herself would willingly have taken less, but Jenkins had his ideas on the subject. He had his ideas, it seemed, on several subjects, for his wife went on to explain that she hoped that Mrs. Heyham would not want a hot meal in the middle of the day, as the hour before half-past one engaged all the skill of both ladies in the preparation of dinner for the porter.
Mary thanked Mrs. Jenkins and returned to the agent's office. She had chosen a flat, it appeared, whose owner was in London. The agent would telephone through at once, and find out if she would accept Mrs. Heyham's offer. If she did accept, as the agent thought she would—Mary had made no difficulties about the price, and had offered to pay the first quarter in advance—and if, further, Mrs. Heyham was willing to let the firm make the inventory for both parties, there was no reason why she should not go in, if she wished it, that very afternoon.
Mary was willing to let the firm do anything that would spare her a night at a hotel. She had never been alone at a hotel, and she was afraid of meeting people she knew, of being stared at when she went to engage her room. With house agents, and their inventories and documents, on the other hand, she was familiar.
The agents produced the form of agreement in use on the estate, and Mary signed it. She would come back, she told the man, at half-past three. That, she thought, would allow her an ample margin of time before James came home, and it would not be too late for a respectable woman to arrive at a hotel if the lady to whom the flat belonged should resent being hurried. Meanwhile she could pack and then write her letter to James.
Her packing did not take long. She decided to take very little with her, as she did not want Penn to think that she was going away for more than a few days.
The letter, when she sat down before her desk, was as difficult to write as she had expected. Mary could write charming notes, and her correspondence had been much valued by her aunts in her younger days for the clever amusing way in which she told funny stories about the children. But she had not the habit of expressing her conclusions in written words or of stating an argument. She would have liked this letter to James to be a close expression of herself. She would have liked it to soften the shock it must inflict by a manner of wording that should recall her to him at her most normal, her kindest, her most familiar. "It mustn't seem excited," she told herself, "I must write as if I were doing the usual sensible thing,"—but she knew that she was asking too much of her own skill.
"My dear James," she left it at last, "I am sending this to the office so that you need not let the servants know what has happened. When you get home you will find that I have gone away. The reason that I am going is that I want to think things over and decide what I ought to do before I see you again. I want to decide freely, for myself, and when you are with me I cannot think. You said I was cruel—I don't want to be cruel, but when we are talking together I can think of nothing but not giving way to you against my will. It is very difficult for me to resist you when you are there. I have decided to go to-day because you ask me to let you see me to-morrow. I suppose what you want to see me about is turning the business into a public company. I am very sorry, James, but I cannot consent until I know a little more about it. I don't believe it will be for the good of the employees. I want to find that out before I talk it over with you. And I think too, that I was wrong when I told you that I would give way to you on the question of wages. I thought then that it was my duty to give way because you were my husband. Now I feel that perhaps I ought to have thought first of my duty to the girls. I want to decide that too before I see you again. And besides that I do not think, after what you told me the other day, that I could go back to our ordinary life together just yet. You would want me to, and we should quarrel about it and grow bitter towards one another. It would be so terrible if that happened. But if only I can have time to think it over, I feel that perhaps I shall be able to see a way out. It will all come to seem more ordinary and I shall not mind so much of course. You will feel that I ought to have asked you first whether I might go. I couldn't, James. I felt that I could not bear another argument so soon. And I should not have changed my mind. I will send my address to the bank so that they can forward letters. I shall have gone from Victoria before this reaches you."
A regard for the dignity of the occasion made her sign it with her whole name.
It was the sort of letter, she told herself as she sealed its envelope, that a school-girl might have written. In her own mind she had discussed the matter until reason lay piled upon reason and explanation upon explanation. But her words, laboriously chosen, seemed, when she had read them through, to have lost their meaning. It was impossible to guess how much of her thought they would make clear to James.