_Thursday Night, December 5th_.
That lie awoke in me suspicion of the child I had married. I began to
doubt her, yet never ceased to love her. She had all my heart, and must
have it till the end. But the calm of love was to be succeeded by love’s
tumult and agony. A strangeness was creeping over Margot. It was as if
she took a thin veil in her hands, and drew it over and all around her,
till the outlines I had known were slightly blurred. Her disposition,
which had been so clear cut, so sharply, beautifully defined, standing
out in its innocent glory for all men to see, seemed to withdraw itself,
as if a dawning necessity for secrecy had arisen. A thin crust of
reserve began to subtly overspread her every act and expression. She
thought now before she spoke; she thought before she looked. It seemed
to me that she was becoming a slightly different person.
The change I mean to imply is very difficult to describe. It was not
abrupt enough to startle, but I could feel it, slight though it was.
Have you seen the first flat film of waveless water, sent by the
incoming tides of the sea, crawling silently up over the wrinkled brown
sand, and filling the tiny ruts, till diminutive hills and valleys are
all one smooth surface? So it was with Margot. A tide flowed over her
character, a waveless tide of reserve. The hills and valleys which I
loved disappeared from my ken. Behind the old sweet smile, the old frank
expression, my wife was shrinking down to hide herself, as one escaping
from pursuit hides behind a barrier. When one human being knows another
very intimately, and all the barricades that divide soul from soul have
been broken down, it is difficult to set them up again without noise and
dust, and the sound of thrust-in bolts, and the tap of the hammer that
drives in the nails. It is difficult, but not impossible. Barricades
can be raised noiselessly, soundless bolts--that keep out the soul--be
pushed home. The black gauze veil that blots out the scene drops, and
when it is raised--if ever--the scene is changed.
The real Margot was receding from me. I felt it with an impotence of
despair that was benumbing. Yet I could not speak of it, for at first I
could hardly tell if she knew of what was taking place. Indeed, at this
moment, in thinking it over, I do not believe that for some time she had
any definite cognisance of the fact that she was growing to love me
less passionately than of old. In acts she was not changed. That was the
strange part of the matter. Her kisses were warm, but I believed them
premeditated. She clasped my hand in hers, but now there was more
mechanism than magic in that act of tenderness. Impulse failed within
her; and she had been all impulse? Did she know it? At that time I
wondered. Believing that she did not know she was changing, I was at the
greatest pains to guard my conduct, lest I should implant the suspicion
that might hasten what I feared. I remained, desperately, the same as
ever, and so, of course, was not the same, for a deed done defiantly
bears little resemblance to a deed done naturally. I was always
considering what I should say, how I should act, even how I should
look. To live now was sedulous instead of easy. Effort took the place
of simplicity. My wife and I were gazing furtively at each other through
the eye-holes of masks. I knew it. Did she?
At that time I never ceased to wonder. Of one thing I was certain,
however--that Margot began to devise excuses for being left alone. When
we first came home she could hardly endure me out of her sight. Now she
grew to appreciate solitude. This was a terrible danger signal, and I
could not fail to so regard it.
Yet something within me held me back from speaking out. I made no
comment on the change that deepened day by day, but I watched my wife
furtively, with a concentration of attention that sometimes left me
physically exhausted. I felt, too, at length, that I was growing morbid,
that suspicion coloured my mind and caused me, perhaps, to put a wrong
interpretation on many of her actions, to exaggerate and misconstrue
the most simple things she did. I began to believe her every look
premeditated. Even if she kissed me, I thought she did it with a
purpose; if she smiled up at me as of old, I fancied the smile to be
only a concealment of its opposite. By degrees we became shy of each
other. We were like uncongenial intimates, forced to occupy the same
house, forced into a fearful knowledge of each other’s personal habits,
while we knew nothing of the thoughts that make up the true lives of
individuals.
And then another incident occurred, a pendant to the incident of
Margot’s strange denied visit to the room she affected to fear. It was
one night, one deep dark night of the autumn--a season to affect even a
cheerful mind and incline it towards melancholy. Margot and I were now
often silent when we were together. That evening, towards nine, a dull
steady rain set in. I remember I heard it on the window-panes as we sat
in the drawing-room after dinner, and remarked on it, saying to her that
if it continued for two or three days she might chance to see the floods
out, and that fishermen would descend upon us by the score.
I did not obtain much response from her. The dreariness of the weather
seemed to affect her spirits. She took up a book presently, and appeared
to read; but, once in glancing up suddenly from my newspaper, I thought
I caught her gaze fixed fearfully upon me. It seemed to me that she was
looking furtively at me with an absolute terror. I was so much affected
that I made some excuse for leaving the room, went down to my den, lit
a cigar, and walked uneasily up and down, listening to the rain on the
window. At ten Margot came in to tell me she was going to bed. I wished
her good-night tenderly, but as I held her slim body a moment in my arms
I felt that she began to tremble. I let her go, and she slipped from
the room with the soft, cushioned step that was habitual with her. And,
strangely enough, my thoughts recurred to the day, long ago, when I
first held the great white cat on my knees, and felt its body shrink
from my touch with a nameless horror. The uneasy movement of the woman
recalled to me so strongly and so strangely the uneasy movement of the
animal.
I lit a second cigar. It was near midnight when it was smoked out, and I
turned down the lamp and went softly up to bed. I undressed in the room
adjoining my wife’s, and then stole into hers. She was sleeping in the
wide white bed rather uneasily, and as I leaned over her, shading the
candle flame with my outspread hand, she muttered some broken words that
I could not catch. I had never heard her talk in her dreams before. I
lay down gently at her side and extinguished the candle.
But sleep did not come to me. The dull, dead silence weighed upon
instead of soothing me. My mind was terribly alive, in a ferment;
and the contrast between my own excitement and the hushed peace of my
environment was painful, was almost unbearable. I wished that a wind
from the mountains were beating against the window-panes, and the
rain lashing the house in fury. The black calm around was horrible,
unnatural. The drizzling rain was now so small that I could not even
hear its patter when I strained my ears. Margot had ceased to mutter,
and lay perfectly still. How I longed to be able to read the soul hidden
in her sleeping body, to unravel the mystery of the mind which I had
once understood so perfectly! It is so horrible that we can never open
the human envelope, take out the letter, and seize with our eyes upon
its every word. Margot slept with all her secrets safeguarded, although
she was unconscious, no longer watchful, on the alert. She was so
silent, even her quiet breathing not reaching my ear, that I felt
impelled to stretch out my hand beneath the coverlet and touch hers ever
so softly. I did so.
Her hand was instantly and silently withdrawn. She was awake, then.
“Margot,” I said, “did I disturb you?”
There was no answer.
The movement, followed by the silence, affected me very disagreeably.
I lit the candle and looked at her. She was lying on the extreme edge
of the bed, with her blue eyes closed. Her lips were slightly parted. I
could hear her steady breathing. Yet was she really sleeping?
I bent lower over her, and as I did so a slight, involuntary movement,
akin to what we call a shudder, ran through her body. I recoiled from
the bed. An impotent anger seized me. Could it be that my presence was
becoming so hateful to my wife that even in sleep her body trembled when
I drew near it? Or was this slumber feigned? I could not tell, but I
felt it impossible at that moment to remain in the room. I returned to
my own, dressed, and descended the stairs to the door opening on to the
terrace. I felt a longing to be out in the air. The atmosphere of the
house was stifling.
Was it coming to this, then? Did I, a man, shrink with a fantastic
cowardice from a woman I loved? The latent cruelty began to stir within
me, the tyrant spirit which a strong love sometimes evokes. I had been
Margot’s slave almost. My affection had brought me to her feet, had
kept me there. So long as she loved me I was content to be her captive,
knowing she was mine. But a change in her attitude toward me might rouse
the master. In my nature there was a certain brutality, a savagery,
which I had never wholly slain, although Margot had softened me
wonderfully by her softness, had brought me to gentleness by her
tenderness. The boy of years ago had developed toward better things, but
he was not dead in me. I felt that as I walked up and down the terrace
through the night in a wild meditation. If my love could not hold
Margot, my strength should.
I drew in a long breath of the wet night air, and I opened my shoulders
as if shaking off an oppression. My passion for Margot had not yet drawn
me down to weakness; it had raised me up to strength. The faint fear
of her, which I had felt almost without knowing it more than once, died
within me. The desire of the conqueror elevated me. There was something
for me to win. My paralysis passed away, and I turned toward the house.
And now a strange thing happened. I walked into the dark hall, closed
the outer door, shutting out the dull murmur of the night, and felt in
my pocket for my matchbox. It was not there. I must inadvertently have
laid it down in my dressing-room and left it. I searched about in the
darkness on the hall table, but could find no light. There was nothing
for it, then, but to feel my way upstairs as best I could.
I started, keeping my hand against the wall to guide me. I gained the
top of the stairs, and began to traverse the landing, still with my hand
upon the wall. To reach my dressing-room I had to pass the apartment
which had been my grandmother’s sitting-room.
When I reached it, instead of sliding along a closed door, as I had
anticipated, my hand dropped into vacancy.
The door was wide open. It had been shut, like all the other doors
in the house, when I had descended the stairs--shut and locked, as it
always was at night-time. Why was it open now?
I paused in the darkness. And then an impulse seized me to walk forward
into the room. I advanced a step; but, as I did so, a horrible low cry
broke upon my ears out of the darkness. It came from immediately in
front of me, and sounded like an expression of the most abject fear.
My feet rooted themselves to the ground.
“Who’s there?” I asked.
There came no answer.
I listened for a moment, but did not hear the minutest sound. The desire
for light was overpowering. I generally did my writing in this room,
and knew the exact whereabouts of everything in it. I knew that on the
writing-table there was a silver box containing wax matches. It lay on
the left of my desk. I moved another step forward.
There was the sound of a slight rustle, as if someone shrank back as I
advanced.
I laid my hand quickly on the box, opened it, and struck a light. The
room was vaguely illuminated. I saw something white at the far end,
against the wall. I put the match to a candle.
The white thing was Margot. She was in her dressing-gown, and was
crouched up in an angle of the wall as far away from where I stood
as possible. Her blue eyes were wide open, and fixed upon me with an
expression of such intense and hideous fear in them that I almost cried
out.
“Margot, what is the matter?” I said. “Are you ill?”
She made no reply. Her face terrified me.
“What is it, Margot?” I cried in a loud, almost harsh voice, determined
to rouse her from this horrible, unnatural silence. “What are you doing
here?”
I moved towards her. I stretched out my hands and seized her. As I did
so, a sort of sob burst from her. Her hands were cold and trembling.
“What is it? What has frightened you?” I reiterated.
At last she spoke in a low voice.
“You--you looked so strange, so--so cruel as you came in,” she said.
“Strange! Cruel! But you could not see me. It was dark,” I answered.
“Dark!” she said.
“Yes, until I lit the candle. And you cried out when I was only in the
doorway. You could not see me there.”
“Why not? What has that got to do with it?” she murmured, still
trembling violently.
“You can see me in the dark?”
“Of course,” she said. “I don’t understand what you mean. Of course I
can see you when you are there before my eyes.”
“But----” I began; and then her obvious and complete surprise at my
questions stopped them. I still held her hands in mine, and their
extreme coldness roused me to the remembrance that she was unclothed.
“You will be ill if you stay here,” I said. “Come back to your room.”
She said nothing, and I led her back, waited while she got into bed, and
then, placing the candle on the dressing-table, sat down in a chair by
her side.
The strong determination to take prompt action, to come to an
explanation, to end these dreary mysteries of mind and conduct, was
still upon me.
I did not think of the strange hour; I did not care that the night was
gliding on towards dawn. I was self-absorbed. I was beyond ordinary
considerations.
Yet I did not speak immediately. I was trying to be quite calm, trying
to think of the best line for me to take. So much might depend upon our
mere words now. At length I said, laying my hand upon hers, which was
outside the coverlet:
“Margot, what were you doing in that room at such a strange hour? Why
were you there?”
She hesitated obviously. Then she answered, not looking at me:
“I missed you. I thought you might be there--writing.”
“But you were in the dark.”
“I thought you would have a light.”
I knew by her manner that she was not telling me the truth, but I went
on quietly:
“If you expected me, why did you cry out when I came to the door?”
She tried to draw her hand away, but I held it fast, closing, my fingers
upon it with even brutal strength.
“Why did you cry out?”
“You--you looked so strange, so cruel.”
“So cruel!”
“Yes. You frightened me--you frightened me horribly.”
She began suddenly to sob, like one completely overstrained. I lifted
her up in the bed, put my arms round her, and made her lean against me.
I was strangely moved.
“I frightened you! How can that be?” I said, trying to control a passion
of mingled love and anger that filled my breast. “You know that I love
you. You must know that. In all our short married life have I ever been
even momentarily unkind to you? Let us be frank with one another. Our
lives have changed lately. One of us has altered. You cannot say that it
is I.”
She only continued to sob bitterly in my arms. I held her closer.
“Let us be frank with one another,” I went on. “For God’s sake let us
have no barriers between us. Margot, look into my eyes and tell me--are
you growing tired of me?”
She turned her head away, but I spoke more sternly:
“You shall be truthful. I will have no more subterfuge. Look me in the
face. You did love me once?”
“Yes, yes,” she whispered in a choked voice.
“What have I done, then, to alienate you? Have I ever hurt you, ever
shown a lack of sympathy, ever neglected you?”
“Never--never.”
“Yet you have changed to me since--since----” I paused a moment, trying
to recall when I had first noticed her altered demeanour.
She interrupted me.
“It has all come upon me in this house,” she sobbed. “Oh! what is it?
What does it all mean? If I could understand a little--only a little--it
would not be so bad. But this nightmare, this thing that seems such a
madness of the intellect----”
Her voice broke and ceased. Her tears burst forth afresh. Such mingled
fear, passion, and a sort of strange latent irritation, I had never seen
before.
“It is a madness indeed,” I said, and a sense almost of outrage made my
voice hard and cold. “I have not deserved such treatment at your hands.”
“I will not yield to it,” she said, with a sort of desperation, suddenly
throwing her arms around me. “I will not--I will not!”
I was strangely puzzled. I was torn with conflicting feelings. Love and
anger grappled at my heart. But I only held her, and did not speak until
she grew obviously calmer. The paroxysm seemed passing away. Then I
said:
“I cannot understand.”
“Nor I,” she answered, with a directness that had been foreign to her
of late, but that was part and parcel of her real, beautiful nature. “I
cannot understand. I only know there is a change in me, or in you to
me, and that I cannot help it, or that I have not been able to help it.
Sometimes I feel--do not be angry, I will try to tell you--a physical
fear of you, of your touch, of your clasp, a fear such as an animal
might feel towards the master who had beaten it. I tremble then at
your approach. When you are near me I feel cold, oh! so cold and--and
anxious; perhaps I ought to say apprehensive. Oh, I am hurting you!”