Majendie could never be angry with any woman for more than five minutes.
And this time he understood his wife better than she knew. He had seen,
as Edith had said, "everything."
But Anne was convinced that he never would see. She said to herself, "He
thinks me hard, and obstinate, and cruel."
She crept into bed in misery that suggested a defeated thing. The outward
eye would never have perceived that the pale woman quivering under the
eider-down was inspired with an indomitable purpose, the salvation of
a weak man from his weakness. To be sure, she had been worsted in her
encounter by something that conveyed the illusion of superior moral
force. But that there was any strength in her husband that could be
described as moral Anne would not have admitted for a moment. She
believed herself to be crushed, grossly, by the superior weight of moral
deadness that he carried.
It was, it always had been, his placidity that caused her most despair.
But whereas, at the time of their first rupture, it had made him utterly
impenetrable, she now took it simply as one more sign of his inability to
understand her. She argued that he would never have remained so calm if
he had realised the sincerity of her determination to repudiate Mr.
Gorst. Of course she didn't expect him to appreciate the force and the
fine quality of her feeling. Still, he might at least have known that, if
she had found it hard to pardon her own husband his lapses in the past,
she would not be likely to accept a recent and notorious evildoer.
She tried to forget that in this she herself had been wounded as a woman
and a wife. It was the offence to heaven that she minded, rather than her
own mere human hurt. Still, he had asked her to share his house and the
sad burden of it (her thought touched gently on the sadness and the
burden); and it was the least he could do to keep it undefiled by such
presences. He ought to have known what was due to the woman he had
married. If he did not, she said to herself sorrowfully, he must learn.
She never doubted that he would learn completely when he was once
persuaded that she had meant what she had said; when he saw that he was
driving her out of the house by inviting Mr. Gorst into it. To her the
question was of supreme importance. Whatever happiness was now left to
them must stand or fall by the expulsion of the prodigal.
If she had examined herself, Anne would have found that she hardly knew
which she really wished for more: that Majendie would at once surrender
to her view and leave off inviting Gorst, or that he would invite him at
once, and thus give her an occasion for her protest. That Majendie was
peaceable and disinclined to fight she gathered from the fact that he had
not invited him at once.
At last, one morning, he looked up quietly from his breakfast, and
remarked that he had invited Gorst (he laid a slightly irritating stress
upon the name) to dinner on Friday.
The day was Tuesday.
"And is he coming?" said Anne.
"He is," said Majendie.
When Friday came, Anne remarked at breakfast that she was going to dine
with Mrs. Eliott.
"I thought you would," said Majendie.
She had hoped that he would think she wouldn't.
They dined at seven o'clock in Thurston Square, and at half-past seven in
Prior Street, so that she would be well out of the house before Gorst
came into it. It was raining heavily. But Anne looked upon the rain as
her ally. Walter would be ashamed to think he had driven her out in such
weather.
He insisted on accompanying her to the Eliotts' door.
"Not a nice evening for turning out," said he as he opened his umbrella
and held it over her.
"Not at all," said she significantly.
At ten o'clock he came to fetch her in a cab.
Now, the cab, the escort, and the sheltering umbrella somewhat diminished
the grievance of her enforced withdrawal from her home. And Majendie's
manner did still more to take the wind out of the proud sails of her
tragic adventure. But Anne herself was a sufficiently pathetic figure as
she appeared under his umbrella, descending from the Eliotts' doorstep,
with delicate slippered feet, gathering her skirts high from the bounding
rain, and carrying in her hands the boots she had not waited to put on.
Majendie uttered the little tender moan with which he was used to greet a
pathetic spectacle.
"He sounds," said Anne to herself, "as if he were sorry."
He looked it, too; he seemed the very spirit of contrition, as he sat in
the cab, with Anne's boots on his knees, guarding them with a caressing
hand. But she detected an impenitent brilliance in his eye as he stood
in the lamplight and helped her off with the mackintosh which dripped
with its passage from the cab to their doorstep.
"I think my feet are wet," said she.
"There's a splendid fire in the study," said he.
He drew up a chair, and made her sit in it, and took off her shoes and
stockings, and dried them at the fire. He held her cold feet in his hands
to warm them. Then he stooped down and laid his face against them and
kissed them. And she heard again his low, tender moan, and took it for
a cry of contrition. He rose from his knees and laid his hand on her
shoulder. She looked up, prepared to receive his chivalrous submission,
to gather into her bosom the full harvest of her protest, and then
magnanimously forgive.
It was not surrender, certainly not surrender, that she saw in the
downward gaze that had drawn her to him. His eyes were dancing, dancing
gaily, to some irresistible measure in his head.
"It was worth while, wasn't it?" said he.
"What was worth while?"
"Getting your feet wet, for the pleasure of not dining with Gorst?"
There were moments, Anne might have owned, when he did not fail in
sympathy and comprehension. Had she been capable of self-criticism, she
would have found that her attitude of protest was a moral luxury, and
that moral luxuries were a necessity to natures such as hers. But Anne
had a secret, cherishing eye on martyrdom, and it was intolerable to her
to be reminded in this way that, after all, she was only a spiritual
voluptuary.
Still more intolerable was the large indulgence of her husband's manner.
He seemed positively to pander to her curious passion, while preserving
an attitude of superior purity. He multiplied her opportunities. A week
had hardly passed before Mr. Gorst dined in Prior Street again, and Anne
again took refuge in Thurston Square.
This time Majendie made no comment on her action. He seemed to take it
for granted.
But Anne, standing up heroically for her principle, was sustained by a
sense of moving in a divine combat. Every time she dined in Thurston
Square, she felt that she had thrown down her gage; every time that
Majendie invited Gorst, she felt that he stooped to pick it up. Thus
unconsciously she breathed hostility, and was suspicious of hostility in
him.
When she announced, at breakfast one Monday, that she had asked the
Eliotts, the Gardners, Canon Wharton, and Miss Proctor, for dinner on
Wednesday, she uttered each name as if it had been a challenge, and
looked for some irritating maneuver in response. He would, of course,
proclaim that he was going to dine with the Hannays, or he would effect
a retreat to Mr. Gorst's rooms, or to his club.
But Majendie lacked her passion and her inspiration. He simply said he
was delighted to hear it, and that he would make a point of being at
home. He would have to give up an engagement which he would not have made
if he had known. But that did not greatly matter.
They came, the Eliotts and the rest, and Miss Proctor again pronounced
him charming. To be sure, he was not half so amusing as he had been on
his first appearance in Thurston Square; but it was only becoming that
he should repress himself a little at his own table and in the presence
of the Canon. _He_, the Canon, was brilliant, if you like.
For that night the Canon was, as usual, all things to all men, and
especially to all women. He was the man of the world for Miss Proctor;
the fine epicure of books for Mrs. Eliott; for Mr. Eliott and Dr.
Gardner, the broad-minded searcher and enthusiast, the humble
camp-follower of the conquering sciences. "You are the pioneers,"
said he; "you go before us on the march. But we keep up, we keep up.
We can step out--cassock and all."
But he spread out all his spiritual lures for Mrs. Majendie. His eyes
seemed more than ever to pursue her, to search her, to be gazing
discreetly at the secret of her soul. They drew her with the clear and
candid flattery of their understanding. She could feel the clever little
Canon taking her in and making notes on her. "Sensitive. Unhappy.
Intensely spiritual nature. Too fine and pure for _him_." And over the
unhallowed, half-abandoned table, flushed slightly with Majendie's good
wine, the Canon drew up his chair to his host, and stretched his little
legs, and let his spirit expand in a rosy, broad humanity. As he had
charmed the spiritual woman he saw in Anne, so he laid himself out to
flatter the natural man he saw in Majendie. And Majendie leaned back in
his chair, and gazed at the Canon, the remarkable, the clever, the
versatile little Canon, with half-closed eyelids veiling his contemptuous
eyes. (He confided to Hannay, later on, that the Canon, in his
after-dinner moments, made him sick.)
Anne heard nothing more of Mr. Gorst for over a fortnight. It was on a
Saturday, and Majendie asked her suddenly, during luncheon, if she
thought the Eliotts would be disengaged that evening.
"Why?"
"Because I've asked Gorst" (again that disagreeable emphasis) "to dine
to-night."
"Very well. I will ask Mrs. Eliott if she can have me."
"Can you?"
"Perfectly."
"Oh--and I must prepare you for something quite horrible. Some time, you
know" (he smiled provokingly), "I shall have to ask the Hannays. Do you
think you can arrange that?"
"I shall have to," said she.
This time (it was the third) she was obliged to take Mrs. Eliott into her
confidence. She fairly flung herself on her friend's mercy.
"I feel as if I were making use of you," said she.
"My dear, make any use of me you please. I'm always here. You can come to
me any time you want to escape."
"To escape?" Anne's face flew a colour that was a flag of defiance to
any reflection on her husband. She would be loyal to him as long as she
lived. Not one of her friends should know of her trouble and her fear.
"From your Gorsts and Hannays and people."
"Oh, from them." Anne felt that she was shielding him.
Mrs. Eliott marked the flag of defiance and the attitude of defence. If
Anne had meant to "give him away," she could not have given him more
lavishly. Mrs. Elliott's sad inward comment was that there was more in
all this than met the eye.
And Anne's life now continued on this rather uncomfortable footing. The
Hannays came to dinner, and she dined with Mrs. Eliott. The Ransomes
came, and she dined with Mrs. Eliott. Mr. Gorst came (for the fourth
time in as many weeks), and she dined with Mrs. Eliott. She began to
wonder whether the Eliotts' hospitality would stand the strain. She also
wondered whether her other friends in Thurston Square were wondering; and
what Canon Wharton must think of it. It had not occurred to her to wonder
what Mr. Gorst would think.
At first he thought nothing of it. When he found that he had not to
encounter the terrible eyes of Mrs. Majendie, Mr. Gorst's relief was so
great that it robbed him of reflection. And when he began to think, he
merely thought that Majendie had asked him because his wife was absent,
rather than that Majendie's wife was absent because he had been asked.
Majendie had calculated on this. He was not in the least distressed by
Anne's absences. He believed that she was thoroughly enjoying both her
own protest and Mrs. Eliott's society. And the arrangement really solved
the problem nicely. Otherwise the whole thing was trivial to him. He
remained unaware of the tremendous spiritual conflict that was being
waged round the person of the unhappy Gorst.
But Christmas was now at hand and Christmas brought the problem back
again in a terrific form. For ten years poor Gorst had dined with his
friends in Prior Street on Christmas Day. His presence was considered
by Edith to borrow a peculiar significance and sanctity from the
festival. Did they not celebrate on that day the birth of the Divine
Humanity, the solemn advent of redeeming love? Punctually on Christmas
Day the prodigal returned from his farthest wanderings, and made for
Prior Street as for his home. He had never missed a Christmas. And how
could they expel him now? His coming was such a sacred and established
thing, that he had spoken of it to Edith as a certainty. And it was as
a certainty that Edith spoke of it to Majendie.
She asked him how they were to break the news to Anne.
"Better not break it at all," said he. "Just let him come."
"If he does," said Edith, "she'll walk straight out of the house."
"Oh no, she won't."
"Yes, she will. On principle. I understand her."
"I confess I don't."
"But I believe," said she, "if you explained it all to her, she'd give in
for once."
Rather against his judgment, he endeavoured to explain, "We simply can't
not ask him, you know."
"Ask him by all means. But I shall have to put myself on the Gardners, or
the Proctors, for the Eliotts are away."
"Don't be absurd. You know you won't be allowed to do anything of the
sort."
"There's nothing else left for me to do."
He looked at her gravely; but his speech was light, for it was not in him
to be weighty. "Don't you think that, at this holy season, for the sake
of peace, and good-will, and all the rest of it, you might drop it just
for once? And let the poor chap have a happy Christmas?"
She seemed to be considering it. "You think me very hard," said she.
"Oh no, no, not hard." But he was wondering for the first time what this
wife of his was made of.
"Yes, hard. I don't want you to think me hard. If you could understand
why I cannot meet that man--what it means to me--the effect it has on
me."
"What," he said, "is the precise effect?" He was really interested. He
had always been curious to know how different men affected different
women, and to get his knowledge at first hand.
"It's the effect," said she, "of being brought into contact with
something terribly painful and repulsive, the effect of intense
suffering--of unbearable disgust."
He listened with his thoughtful, interested air. "I know. The effect that
your friend Canon Wharton sometimes has on me."
"I see no resemblance between Canon Wharton and your friend Mr. Gorst."
"And I see no resemblance between my friend Mr. Gorst and Canon Wharton."
She was silent, gathering all her strength to deliver her spirit's last
appeal.
"Dear," said she (for she wished to be very gentle with him, since he had
thought her hard), "dear, I wonder if you ever realise what the thing we
call--purity is?"
He blushed violently.
"I only know it's one of those things one doesn't speak about."
"I must speak," said she.
"You needn't," he said curtly; "I understand all right."
"If you did you wouldn't ask me. All the same, Walter--" She lifted to
him the set face of a saint surrendered to the torture--"If you compel
me--"
"Compel you? I can't compel you. Especially if you're going to look like
that."
"It's no use," he said to Edith. "First she talks of dining with the
Gardners--"
"She will, too--"
"No. She'll stay--if I compel her."
"Oh, I see. That's worse. She'd let him see it. He wouldn't enjoy his
Christmas if he came."
"No, poor fellow, I really don't think he would. She's awfully funny
about him."
"You still think her funny?"
"My dear--it's the only way to take her. I'm sorry, but I can't let
Charlie spoil her Christmas; nor," he added, "Anne his."
So Mr. Gorst did not come to Prior Street that Christmas. There came
instead of him whole sheaves and stacks of flowers, Christmas roses and
white lilies, the sacred flowers which, at that festival, the poor
prodigal brought as his tribute to his adored and beloved lady.
He spent the greater part of his Christmas Day in the society of Mr. Dick
Ransome, and the greater part of his Christmas Night in the society of
pretty Maggie Forrest, the new girl in Evans's shop who had sold him the
Christmas roses and the lilies. "For," said he, "if I can't go and see
Edie, I'll go and see Maggie." And he enjoyed seeing Maggie as much as it
was possible to enjoy anything that was not seeing Edie.
And Edie lay among her Christmas roses and her lilies, and smiled, with
a high courage, at Nanna, at Majendie, and Anne; and did her best to make
everybody believe that she was having a very happy Christmas. But at
night, when it was all over, Majendie held a tremulous and tearful Edie
in his arms.
"Don't think me a brute, darling," he said. "I would have insisted, only
if he'd come to-day he'd have found out he wasn't wanted."
"I know; and he never would have come again."
He didn't come. For Canon Wharton enlightened Mrs. Hannay, and Mrs.
Hannay enlightened Mr. Hannay, and Mr. Hannay enlightened Mr. Gorst.
"Of course," said the prodigal, "if she walks out of the house when
I walk into it, I can't very well go."
"Well, not at present, perhaps, for the sake of peace," said Hannay. "It
strikes me poor old Majendie's in a pretty tight place with that wife of
his."
So, for the sake of peace, Mr. Gorst kept away from Prior Street and his
Edie, and spent a great deal of time in Evans's shop, cultivating the
attention of Miss Forrest.
And, for the sake of peace, Majendie kept silence, and his sister
concealed her trembling and her tears.