CHAPTER IX
Sofar as women are concerned it has left me severely alone. Times out of number in the ambling course of these pages I have wished that it were otherwise. Now was ever the wish of a man more completely gratified than mine?
Suddenly to find myself with this child of a woman in my house, confined to my own bed, with such prospect before her is presented to my mind an attitude of incomparable bewilderment. Had the infant been placed in my arms then and there I should have known no better how to behave or what to do. For the first day I was as one who has lost his way in an elaborate maze. Turn which path I would, there seemed no way out of the business. I, whose knowledge of women was that which is attained at a respectful distance, had in one moment found myself, as it were, the expectant father of a child, with all his anxieties, all his apprehensions and alarms.
I had to learn to walk tip-toe in my room. Moxon being absent I was sent out for medicines, the prescriptions of which made me grow hot as I handed them over the chemist's counter. It is at times like these, I found, that a man realizes the utter littleness of his being. He is no more than a slave, attendant at the court of the highest monarch in the world.
A nurse was immediately sent for. Her deprivations of the previous days had made Clarissa's condition precarious. She could not be moved.
When I had explained everything to Perowne he nodded his head, then he scratched it.
"How are you going to explain it to the nurse?" he asked. "Some of these women are touchy creatures. They have their ideas of babies born out of wedlock."
"Do you mean to say she'd make it uncomfortable for Clarissa?" I asked.
"Of course, you need not explain anything," he replied. "There's no essential reason why you should. Let her suspect if she likes."
"And show her suspicions! My Lord! You ought to know the judgment of a virtuous woman who barely suspects her sister of folly. Do you think I'd let that poor child suffer all the thousand little stings and arrows from the tongue of a woman who imagines her sex has been outraged? You know what she'd say. You know the way she'd say it. Never with a word. No—by Jove—if she says Mrs. Bellairs to me, I'll say Mrs. Bellairs to her."
He shrugged his shoulders and went away. I now almost believe he has guessed nothing. And how easily would a woman have known. It was but poor satisfaction, whatever way you looked at it. But I was determined that not the slightest measure of reproach should ever reach Clarissa's ears. She had followed her Fate. God knows she has paid the woman's utmost penalty. I can conceive no greater price. In no man's reckoning enters such a sum of atonement as this. He pays with remorse, with shame and with dishonor; but what are these beside two living eyes that gaze and gaze and gaze into your own as long as the days run on from one year to another?
There came no judgment to my mind of her. I know no man, and certainly no woman, who is qualified to judge of another in such an issue as this. It is the greatest law that Nature has made, and God—if you would differentiate between them two—has laid down His seal upon it in the little village of Bethlehem. It may violate then a million times the earthly social law; but who is there to sit in judgment over God?
And besides all this, it was Clarissa. In the heart of me, I almost think I thanked the bitter cause that had sent her thither. It brought so much that I could do for her, more than I had ever had the opportunity for doing for any other woman in the world. Surely I had cause for gratitude there.
When the nurse arrived I was more determined than before that the truth of Clarissa's condition should never be known. Nurse Barham was elderly, but unmarried—a woman of florid face and thin lips, who, having helped at the birth of so many children, had lost all proportion of romance, and, never knowing such romance of her own, had come to regard life with bitter calculation.
Immediately after my interview with her I sent for Mrs. Bullwell before they could find opportunity to exchange their confidences.
"Mrs. Bullwell," said I, "I don't know what your morals are, but that lady upstairs is my wife."
"Glory, sir!" was all she exclaimed.
"If that's an expression of praise," said I, "or satisfaction, so much the better. But you understand it, don't you? To Nurse Barham, to me, to everybody in this house, that lady is Mrs. Bellairs, and if I hear of your spreading the faintest suspicion of her being anything else, we shall have to find another place for you."
She clasped her hands as though she would pray to God that such catastrophe might never befall her. Her moral sense came second, and with an impulsive gesture she laid a fat, red hand upon my arm.
"But you will marry the poor thing, won't you, sir?" she begged. "You will marry her when it's all over?"
I took hold of the fat, red hand. There are not many moments in life when one can do these things, preserving that dignity we choose to call essential; there are not many moments, but, undoubtedly, this was one. I took hold of the fat, red hand.
"I suppose that would make you quite happy, Mrs. Bullwell," I said.
"It would, sir—believe me, there's no happiness in this world, not without you have the marriage-lines."
"But once you've got those," said I.
Her expression became ecstatic then; whereupon I gently let go her hand.
"You'd be much happier then, sir," said she.
"I should," said I.
Taking it all round, that was not such a difficult situation. I have passed through worse. It was played moreover with a woman. By no means did I relish so much the thought of telling Moxon when he returned. However, it had to be done, and when the next day he arrived back from Ireland I collared him before even a sight of Nurse Barham was permitted him.
"Moxon," said I, "here—in my room."
He came obediently and I shut the door. When I turned round, every single word I had prepared to say was gone out of my head. And I had made it up so excellently, contriving Moxon should have been spared all confusion and I what little dignity I liked to call my own. But there it was, the whole elaborate preparation had vanished. All that I could think of was that I was no longer sleeping in my own bed, but in Moxon's. It seemed more necessary then to inform him of that than of anything else, and somehow or other I stammered it out.
"But it's all right," I added quickly, when I saw the utter consternation in his face. "It's all right. You can find a room for me to-morrow, somewhere near and I'll sleep out. It's better that I should sleep out—at least, I suppose it is. I don't exactly know what the husband would do under these circumstances; I suppose he'd remain in the house."
At that moment, when Moxon's face was such a picture as memory will make graphic to my mind for the rest of my life, Nurse Barham opened the door, and in the astringent acid of her voice she said:
"Mrs. Bellairs would like to see you for a moment, sir—as soon as you can come up. It must only be for a moment."
I looked at Moxon. I know just how I looked. I meant to. He never said a word; he just watched me as I followed the nurse out of the room. When I reached the door I turned back.
"You can stay here, Moxon," said I, "in this room till I come downstairs again."
Then as I climbed up to my bedroom, all thoughts of the difficulties of that situation went clean from me. Clarissa wanted to speak to me, and I could not stop the beating of my heart. This was the first time I had seen her since we had laid her tired little head on my pillow, when I had left the room with the vision of her closed eyes and the transparent whiteness of her cheeks. That vision had lasted with me till now. Now I was to see her awake; but her head would still be on my pillow.
At the door I paused, partly, I confess, to control the confusion of my emotions.
"How long may I stay?" I whispered.
"I'll come back in five minutes," the nurse replied, as she opened the door. I crept upon the tips of my toes into the room, and she closed the door after me. She closed it far less gently than I should have done, for at the sound of it, Clarissa raised her head from the pillow. Directly she saw it was me, she let it fall back again. Perhaps it was my fancy, but I think a warm flush swept over her cheeks. Doubtless she was timid; but she could not have been so timid as was I. I crept quietly to the side of the bed, and it seemed then, in that still room, as though my heart, beating, were the only thing that moved or broke the silence.
"Are you better?" I whispered.
My body found a chair on which to seat itself.
At last I saw two eyes, full of remorse, looking at me from out of a little window made up by the bedclothes.
"Will you—will you ever forgive me?" she said, faintly.
"Forgive what?" said I. "You mustn't talk like that. Are you worrying yourself all these hours with the idea that you've got to find forgiveness? You'll never get well that way. Besides, what is there to forgive?"
"I'm in your bed," she whispered. "Where do you sleep?"
"Is that all!" said I, laughing. "Why, do you imagine that I'm one of those fussy beggars who can't turn in anywhere but to their own bed and their own pillow? It is comfortable though; isn't it?"
She nodded her head and squeezed down under the clothes. How could that devil ever have left her!
"But that's not all," she continued, presently, from the little hive of bedclothes within which she lay curled; "that's not all. You haven't heard what the nurse calls me."
"I have indeed," said I, "but don't be angry with me for that. It couldn't be helped. It was the only way. I did it because of the nurse. I think she's a silly woman. At any rate, she wouldn't have understood. It's a false position for you I know. But you mustn't be angry with me. I did it for the best."
I suppose her illness had made her weak; but even then I cannot quite understand it, for when I said that she buried her face in the pillows and all her body shook with weeping. Of course, the nurse came in at that moment. I might have expected it. I believe they have an uncanny way of knowing when they are not wanted; moreover, if they see the faintest sign of affection they will put a stop to it. No doubt they are quite right. They hate it. This creature must have hated it more than most, for when she found Clarissa crying she turned on me in the severest contempt.
"Why have you been making her cry?" she said. "Surely she's weak enough without distressing her like that!"
Upon my soul I felt a fool. The man who is swayed between two emotions is bound to fall between them and look ridiculous. I wanted to turn the detestable woman out of the house straight away. On the other hand, there was Clarissa crying her heart out, and I knew well enough it was bad for her.
"Will you kindly go now?" she continued. "I can't have my patient unset like this."
I went, as quietly too as I had come. But when I got downstairs I could have cheerfully kicked anything that came in my way. It was a bad prospect for Moxon. I nearly slammed the door as I came in, but remembered just in time. At a violent strain I caught it just before it closed.
Things cut both ways in life. At least that is what I find. This little burst of irritation went far towards making it easier for me to tell Moxon. I flung the information at him then.
"Now," said I, when I had finished, "if this sort of establishment has become one with which you have no desire to be connected, don't hesitate to say so. I don't know when the child will be born—nobody knows. It's supposed to be in three months' time; but however long it is, if it were the whole nine months, Miss Fawdry would still stay here under my protection till it was over. To begin with, she's ill. She can't be moved. And when she's well again the position will be no different. I tell you this plainly, because I don't want there to be any misunderstanding. Of course, when she's well again she may say that she doesn't wish to stay. That'll be a different matter. I shall do my best to persuade her, and so long as she's here under these circumstances she's Mrs. Bellairs. Now, you've heard this, if you don't want to stay on I'd sooner you said so. I know your ideas about this sort of thing. You remember my asking you that night last April, when I sent you to fetch a taxi for that woman who was drenched with rain, you remember my asking you if you would refuse to help a woman in trouble."
"Do you happen to remember my answer, sir?"
"Well,"—upon my soul, for the minute, it had gone clean out of my mind—"I don't remember the exact words," said I. "I fancy you disapproved."
"Excuse me, sir, but I think I remarked that to my knowledge I hadn't said nothing about no woman."
I suppose if two negatives make an affirmative, one may take it that three in the ordinary course of progression revert to the former order of things. He had said nothing about a woman. I did remember that. I remembered also how that tactful observation had nonplussed me. It had much the same effect now. I felt that I was losing ground, and dignity with it too; for dignity, after all, is only the ground you stand upon. There was only one thing to do, to return as quickly as possible to what I had been saying.
"Well, you see the situation," said I; "if you wish to get another place, I shall be pleased to give you the best possible recommendation."
Of course, I could see that it was a terrible shock to him. To any man who would preserve an attitude of disapproval towards all women, it would be an uncomfortable position in which to find himself. I sympathized with him sincerely, but there was no help for it. I had to put it that way for his own sake, though I knew well what his answer would be. He no more disapproves of women than do I. It is only this attitude which he adopts as a counterblast for the want of approval in women for him. Even Mrs. Bullwell he treats with a stern aloofness of manner, though I have known him take a vase of daffodils which I had condemned as faded and place them in her kitchen. He was careful enough to tell her that it was by my instructions. She thanked me for them herself, but I said nothing to him. And now to have to accept the circumstance of a woman in the house, to be compelled to speak of her as Mrs. Bellairs, to know that she was occupying my bed, that in the near future she would be performing that most terrible of all functions—which I have heard him thank God was left only to women to do—the bringing of a child into the world; to be driven to all this and still to maintain his dignity as a man who has avowed his superior toleration of the whole sex—it was a bad business for Moxon. He did not like the look of it at all.
But I had given him the only loophole for escape. To tell the honest truth, I could not possibly have done without him, and putting it this way, laying myself under an obligation to him should he consent to remain, was the only method I could devise on the moment for keeping him with me.
"What are you going to decide?" said I.
"Well, sir," and he paused. It is this way he gathers weight for his utterances. "I think I know my place. I shouldn't question anything you do, sir, not if I was to be in your service for a hundred years."
"That means you're going to question it now," said I.
"Not at all, sir, I was only going to say that you're the best judge of what you do."
"When any one says that," I observed, "they mean you are the very worst judge possible. Go on. It's extremely interesting to hear what you say and know what you mean. I am behaving extremely injudiciously—well?"
This was far too much for Moxon. To have all his tactful diplomacy shorn of its tinsel wrappings and before his very eyes was more than he could bear. His wit, moreover, was not equal to it. At last I had nonplussed him. His last effort was merely atour de force; but it was too good for me.
"Do you want me to go, sir?" said he.
Well, I had to throw up my hand then. In a matter of this kind some one or the other has to make a sacrifice of dignity. I have never been engaged in such an encounter where both retained it till the end.
"Want you to go," said I. "Upon my soul, I don't know what I should do without you."
A big smile of gratitude spread all over his face. It was as good as if he had held out his hand, and far more respectful.
"Well, if there's anything I can do for Mrs. Bellairs, sir—"
Of course, this was overdoing it. He meant well, but you can see yourself that it was overdoing it. Accordingly, he got no more than he deserved. I sent him out to the chemist with an awful prescription.