CHAPTER VI
ROSE SUMMERS had gone, and during the week which separated her departure from Mayne’s expected visit, Cecily spent the long solitary days in the garden. Early every morning Robert cycled to the station. There was always a little fuss and confusion before he started. Robert was more helpless than most men. He could never find anything. His cigarette-case was lost, and when it was discovered by Cecily under a heap of papers in his study, there were no cigarettes left. She must open a fresh box; she must run to find his notes without which he could not get on at the Museum. Always, since their marriage, Cecily had been at hand to perform these little services, which had gradually become a matter of habit to both of them.
For the last few days, however, as she ran from the dining-room to the study, and from the study to the flagged courtyard, where Robert was feverishly busy at the last moment,adjusting bicycle screws, and blowing up tires, Cecily’s mind was active. She thought of early days, and of the joy of discovering that Robert was such a child, needing so much care, and, in little things, so dependent upon her. She remembered his kisses, his words of extravagant praise when she found one of the many things he had lost, the brightening of his eyes when he saw her running downstairs.
To-day, just as he was started, she had found a note-book he had evidently intended to take, lying on the hall table, and she had dashed out with it. He had travelled a few paces down the lane when she called to him, and with an irritable exclamation he had dismounted and returned, wheeling his bicycle with one hand, and reaching for the book with the other.
“It didn’t matter,” he muttered, and absent-mindedly took the book without thanks, and rode off.
Cecily stood leaning upon the gate, watching his retreating figure. Presently her lips parted in a bitter smile. “No. It didn’t matter. He won’t use notes to-day,” she thought, and quietly retraced her steps up the flagged path, through the hall, and out into the garden.
She went at once to her favorite seat under the beech tree and sat down. For the last fewdays she had done this almost mechanically. It seemed impossible to do anything else. She idly sat there with a book on her lap, and let thoughts sweep through her mind. Thoughts and memories—memories of past caresses, of intimate talks, when she and Robert had been really one; when to disassociate her mind from Robert’s would have seemed an absurdity at which to smile. She and Robert had beenlike that—she could not even to herself phrase it otherwise. And it was possible that he could forget, ignore, wipe it all out, and begin again with some one else; begin the same dear words, the same intimacies, convey to this other woman the same belief that it was she, she, out of all the world, whomattered, who meant the heart of life to him?
Though the process of disillusion, of the overshadowing of her happiness, had been a gradual one, this fresh knowledge had the effect of reviving with intolerable poignancy the memory of the early sunshine, the early sense of being blessed above all women. It placed that memory in bitter contrast to her outlook of to-day.
“Fool that I was!” she whispered, drawing in her breath with a spasm of physical pain. “What a fool!” Her partly realizedthoughts ran on, ran high, like tumultuous waves. “It’s a common experience. Why should I escape? Men are like that. I knew it theoretically. Why should I have thought that Robert——” And then would come the impotent rush of protest and despair. It was just that! He wasRobert, and mad, childish, futile as it was, it was just that which made the truth impossible.
She looked round her. The sunshine on the grass was hateful, the warm blue sky an insult. All beauty was a lie, a meaningless, soulless lie, like the love of men and women, which held no faith, no steadfastness, no pity even.
She thought of her five years of married life. Five years of self-immolation in which she had known no desires, no ambitions, no joys except through the desires, the ambitions, the joys of her husband. “All wasted, all no good,—no good,” she wailed unconsciously in her misery, saying the words half aloud. She sprang to her feet, and began to pace restlessly to and fro between the borders of flowers she had planted and tended. The sight of them reminded her of how they had come into their existence. She remembered how she had fought to still some of her firstheartaches with the planting of these lilies, the pruning of that rose-bush. It had been a relief to work hard, manually, while she hoped that the old glamour would return and once more descend upon their lives. Now the roses mocked her with their glowing, passionate faces.
“What shall I do? What shall I do?” Over and over again the despairing question welled up into her mind.
It was out of these long blue summer days, which for her held nothing but chaotic memories, rebellious and hopeless thought, that self-condemnation and a resolve grew slowly in Cecily’s mind. She had been wrong, wrong so to sink her individuality. It had been one of those mistakes for which one suffers more than for one’s sins. She had been lacking in self-respect. It was time she found herself again—a miserable, shattered, helpless self, it was true, but a self for all that. From the outset she had dismissed the idea of telling her husband of Rose’s unconscious revelation. With a sick prevision she had imagined the whole scene, heard his “reasons” for not having told her of a “perfectly harmless friendship.”... Women were so deplorably jealous; they could not take large views; theyrefused to believe in ennobling companionships; they deliberately stunted their spiritual growth by attributing base motives.... There was no need to sketch out further the inevitable line of defence. She knew Robert’s powers of rhetoric, she knew now whence came the influence which had lately directed its nature, and with a weary sigh she recognized the futility of provoking a discussion. It would be enough to take the step she intended, without assigning any specific reason. “Diana is coming to-morrow,” she reflected. “It must be settled between us before she comes.”
She was in the garden that evening in her usual seat, when she saw her husband coming towards her across the grass. Her hands grew suddenly cold, and a nervous trembling seized her. More than anything she dreaded the possibility of a scene with Robert; exhortations, counsels of perfection, all the dialectical machinery he would bring to bear to prove the unreasonableness of her attitude—to put her in the wrong.
“And the mere fact that it’s come to be a matter of reason means that, from my point of view, there’s nothing further to be said.” So she mentally opposed the forthcomingargument while she watched his approach. He came slowly, his hands in his pockets, his eyes absent-mindedly fixed upon the grass. A half smile was on his lips. Bitterness rose and swelled like a flood in his wife’s heart. Her trembling ceased. How transparent he was! He was like a child. For a moment contempt, a woman’s contempt for unsuccessful concealment, was her predominant emotion.
“How much better I could do it!” was her mocking comment.
He sank into a basket-chair near the tea-table, and absently took the cup she offered him.
“Have you had a tiring day?” Cecily asked, picking up some needlework.
For a moment he did not reply. Evidently the sense of her question had not yet reached his preoccupied brain.
“Tiring?” he repeated at last, with a start. “Oh, yes. But I’ve nearly come to the end of it, thank goodness. I sha’n’t go up after to-morrow.”
“I’ve taken Mrs. Taylor’s rooms for Philippa Burton,” pursued Cecily after a moment, working steadily.
“Oh! Let me see, when does she come?”She could have smiled at the quick turn of his head, and the carelessness of his voice. “Decent rooms?” he went on, dropping lumps of sugar into his tea.
“Very nice, I think. That sugar will begin to show at the top if you don’t stop.” Robert flushed, and dropped the sugar-tongs with a clatter.
“I’ve heard from Diana. She’s coming to-morrow.”
Robert leaned back in his chair, frowning, and felt for his cigarette-case. “I can’t think why you asked Diana,” he observed, irritably, “with Mayne coming, and—Miss Burton. She’ll expect to be asked up to dinner and things, I suppose. It’ll make a lot of work for the servants.”
“You are very considerate—for the servants.”
He moved restlessly and glanced at her, as he lighted his cigarette.
“Well, you know best, of course,” he began.
“Robert,” said Cecily, suddenly, “there’s something I want to say. And I want to say it before Diana comes, so that we—we may understand each other, and things may go smoothly—as I want them to go.”
His start of apprehension was not lost uponher. It had the effect of making her want to scream with laughter, and she tightened her grasp on the arm of her chair and went on quickly.
“We’ve been coming to this for a long time. Let us speak frankly this once, and afterwards let the matter alone. All that you’ve been saying lately, about the wider scope and broader interests necessary for your intellectual growth is just another way of explaining that you’re bored with me.”
“Now, my dear girl!” ejaculated Robert, relief making his tone almost jocular.
“No, please, Robert, let me finish. I’m not complaining, you understand, or pleading, or doing anything futile of that sort. I’m merely stating the fact—and accepting it. I want to do what I can, to—to make things more interesting for you. All this summer we shall have visitors. In the autumn, when we go to town, it should not be difficult to see very little of one another. But we needn’t wait for that. Let us be free now. I mean, let us give up pretending to be lovers. We shall then, perhaps, be better friends.”
For a moment before he began to speak he looked at her uncertainly. Then he broke into the torrent of speech she had dreaded.
Wasn’t it time to take a broader outlook? Why did she resent any attempt on his part to widen the horizon of their married life? What had he done to be treated in this fashion?... But, of course, if she wished this state of things, so let it be. He could not coerce her. He respected her rights as an individual. That was, in fact, his whole philosophy of existence,—individual freedom, individual liberty, the expression of oneself....
“I regret it, of course, but if you wish it, that is enough. It is your doing, remember—entirely yours. If you choose to put your own interpretation upon views of life which, in all sincerity, for our mutual benefit I have tried to make you share, I have nothing to say. Must a man necessarily be bored with his wife because he wishes a wider outlook for her, as well as for himself?” He paused indignantly on the question.
Cecily took up her embroidery. “Not necessarily, perhaps,” she said, “though he generally is. But need we say any more, Robert? The thing is settled, isn’t it?”
“By you, remember,” returned Robert, “in utter unreason, in——”
“Never mind how, so long as itissettled,” murmured Cecily.
He rose, and walked away, while mechanically with a sort of feverish haste, Cecily went on working. His words rang in her ears, false and insincere. His eyes had spoken truth, and in them she had read relief. In the beech tree, above her head, a thrush began to sing. Cecily listened to the first low, passionate notes, then letting her work fall into a heap on the grass, she sprang to her feet and hurried blindly towards the house, and the shelter of her own room. There she crouched against the bed, and drew the counterpane up till it covered her ears.