MARGARET IN THE NET
I
In the early days of the New Year, when the _Pathshire_, after her
voyage to Woo-Sung, had proceeded to Hong Kong to refit, Margaret
found herself singularly alone at Wei-hai. Her mother and father were
with her, but their presence accentuated rather than lessened her
sense of isolation. She could never shake off her consciousness of
the opposition of their wishes to her own. They did not argue with
her or seek to persuade her. They gave her no opportunity to state
her case. Instead, by their kindness, by their consideration of all
her inessential interests, they made her understand that if she would
repent and make reparation they were ready to forgive and forget.
Forgive!... There were moments when she rebelled in her heart against
the idea that she stood in need of forgiveness. But her rebellion
lacked support and objective. If her mother had sought to persuade,
she too could have persuaded. But this tacit assumption that she had
done wrong and foolishly, this treatment of her as a child with whom
it were idle to negotiate, this slow pressure of silence and unwelcome
generosity--there was no fighting against these things.
She began to understand the secret of her father’s power over men. He
did not threaten, he gave no opening for retaliation; but he impressed
upon her continually and with infinite patience a sense of the extent
of his own resources and of her lack of resource. It was as if she
fought one possessed of unlimited reserves. She might hold out a month,
she might hold out a year, but the time would come when she would fail
and yield, and abandon all she had defended.
Why, then, struggle?... Was that the question that all the opponents
of her father were at last persuaded to ask themselves?... It would be
easier to yield. She had only to accept Ordith in order to escape for
ever from the intolerable atmosphere of coercion which filled her own
home. As Ordith’s wife she would be, in many respects, independent.
If she could but overcome her increasing fear of him, her instinctive
shrinking from his touch, her dread of his presence, she might be
happy.... And what was the alternative? So long as she was unmarried
she could never escape from her home. Her thoughts went out to John,
but there was no help in him. He was caught as she was caught. Through
different channels the power of Ibble’s was exercised over them both.
“Some day,” she said suddenly to her mother, “some day the young men
will break free.”
“As one gets older one learns the meaning of compromise. I have learnt
it myself,” Mrs. Fane-Herbert answered.
“That may have been true of the last generation.”
“It’s true for all time.”
“But don’t you feel, mother, that everything is going to change?
There’s going to be a catastrophe, a great breaking-up. And at first
it will be a tragedy--flat tragedy. We shall pay for all that’s gone
by--the young men will pay. And out of it will come----”
“Nothing will come of it. Revolution, chaos, a military dictatorship,
and then slowly back to a system essentially the same as the old.”
“I’m not speaking of a political revolution--only. Not a change of
means, but a change of motive.”
Mrs. Fane-Herbert smiled at her. “You strike truth, Margaret.” Then,
swiftly serious, she touched her daughter’s hand. “You know what you
are asking for--a revolution for Christ?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe that possible?”
“I----” For a moment Margaret could not speak. “It must be made
possible. It can’t go on like this. We must substitute the motive
of Sharing for the motive of Gain. It’s the only way out. It’s the
only way to stop the cruelty everywhere--in slums or in the Congo or
in Gunrooms--that horrible kind of cruelty which is half-excused by
a plea of the necessities of competition.... I suppose it does mean
a revolution for Christ.... Mother, why do you make it all seem so
difficult?”
“Because I didn’t want your father’s daughter to starve for a dream.
There is no leader for such a revolution.”
“But if Christ came again?”
“To end the world?”
“No; if He came now--as a man.”
The elder woman’s eyes filled with fear. Her white fingers trembled on
the necklace she wore.
“Did I ever give you that idea--that hope? Is it your own?”
“Yes, it is my own. Why do you ask? Why do you look like that, mother
dear? Are you afraid? What have I done wrong? Tell me.”
“I had that hope when I was a child. It is like knowledge of sunshine
in a darkened room. But you are tied down, Margaret. You can’t move.
You can’t pull back the curtains. It is terrible to be aware of one’s
own captivity.”
“‘_As the fishes that are snared in an evil net_,’” Margaret said.
“Mother, I don’t believe--I believe there _is_ a breaking free. I
believe----”
“Ah!”
It was like a cry, soft, from a great distance, almost inaudible.
II
For several weeks Margaret would lie awake through the early hours
of the night. At first she strove to think connectedly, to lay plans
and make resolves; but always she would fall to wondering whether her
mother, whose girlhood must have been strangely like her own, had made
these very decisions, and, when the test came, had failed to give them
effect. And by this wonder her mind was carried towards acceptance
of the inevitable. There would come blank periods in her thought
when, oppressed by what seemed a clear perception of the futility of
effort, she would see her own life as a cockleshell adrift upon the
seas of Time. She had no recollection of a Departure, no sure hope of
a Landfall. God had closed His eyes, was sleeping; and she was alone,
unguarded, unperceived.
Unperceived. This thought clung to her through the night on which
her father told her that Ordith was coming on the morrow. It made
easy the acceptance of ease. She lived in the moment, noticing with
unprecedented pleasure certain details of her room’s appearance--the
soft roughness of the blankets, the beading on the brass handles of her
dressing-table, the pale lights of blue and gold that mingled in the
bevel of her mirror. She undressed slowly. Once, with her hands and
arms raised above her head and her chin thrown back, she watched the
light and shadow move over her bosom and throat as she drew breath....
A sudden weakness overcame her; her arms dropped; she was surprised by
the strange, wild expression in her reflected eyes. Her face seemed
thinner, her eyes more deeply set; upon her lips pallor had fallen.
This would be her appearance when she was older; this, a little
accentuated, would be her appearance as she lay dead.... Something she
wore brushed and hissed against the eiderdown. She turned quickly and
laid her outspread hand upon the bed, so that light billows of satin
rose between her white fingers. She touched her arm with a slow caress.
With her nail she caused a long, shrill sound to issue from the silk.
Frightened by the unknown spirit that possessed her, she stood in
the middle of the room, swaying from her feet, her lips parted, her
eyes wide. The intolerable stillness within, the lifeless folds of
the flowered curtains, that would hang in just those folds though she
slept, though she died, laid some spell upon her, and she strained her
ears for the low murmuring of the sea. A board creaked beneath her.
There, close to her, in her own room, were evil presences--or was it
that a Presence was withdrawn and the room empty, and she alone?
Unperceived.... She crouched beside her bed because as a child she had
thus knelt to pray. The scent of linen, the pressure of her finger-tips
upon her forehead, the fragrance of her own hair--why did these
memories of Childhood’s bedtimes come back to her now with mockery and
sadness? Their significance was changed, and their sweetness gone from
them.
“O God, make me pray. Take away this insistence of touch and sound and
sight. Make me believe the Spirit is powerful still, and can prevail
... and shall prevail; and that life is not just living in the body and
the hour. And give me----”
It was as if she had been speaking to one who, unperceived, had gone
from the room. She had not been heard. Throughout the prayer she had
been thinking how the pile of the carpet was pressed down by her knees.
For long she remained kneeling, her face hidden, her hair dark over her
hands. She knew what she would do: she would take Ordith. She might be
afraid at first, but soon he would win her, soothe her. Of course she
would take him; that had been planned, preordained.
She was almost asleep. Her weight pressed the edge of the bed....
Ordith would teach her, hold her. She would give herself----“God,
why am I so hedged round--forsaking what is lovely, though I see its
loveliness--like all the young, because I must. Jesus, pull me out of
this even now--so late--even now.”
Her lashes moved against her palms. The light came through the pink
edges of her fingers.... Was that only hypocrisy? Was she willing,
after all? A tremor of excitement ran over her, and she pressed her
elbows into the bed and shut her eyes again.... Anyhow, in fifty years
it wouldn’t matter.... And Christ would not come again. It was foolish
to--to starve for a dream.
The room was cold. Her shoulders were bare, and her feet. This physical
consciousness was like the touch of a hand.
III
Throughout the morning Margaret looked forward to her encounter
with Ordith with that mixture of passivity and restlessness which
alternately lulls and excites the sensitive boy who, something of a
hero among his schoolmates, awaits his flogging. After breakfast Ordith
and her father disappeared; after lunch they disappeared again. She and
her mother, possessed by a common thought which neither would express,
faced each other in a silence that was half-nervous, half-determined.
Early in the afternoon her mother complained of a headache, and went to
her room.
“You might have my tea brought up to me, Margaret.”
“Poor mother!” Margaret thought. “She’s hoping that I am going to be
sensible. Ought I to tell her I am going to be sensible--just to set
her mind at rest?”
But she did not move. She let the silence of the room close round her.
Presently, after many hours it seemed, the door of her father’s room
opened and shut, footsteps sounded in the hall, and Ordith entered.
“Alone?” he said.
It was strange that she felt so calm, so decided, so completely
mistress of herself. A twist of annoyance because he asked so
unnecessary a question--that was all.
“Are you ready for tea?” she asked.
“Indeed I am.”
“So you lay aside the burdens of state. Is father coming?”
“I expect he is.”
“I don’t,” she said, under her breath. Then, aloud: “I’ll go and ask
him. You might ring.”
She looked into her father’s room. He was sitting by his desk, a spiral
of blue smoke rising from the ash-tray at his side.
“Tea, father?”
“Yes, you might send in a cup to me. No milk, no sugar, and strong,
_doushka_. I’m dead tired.”
He had used the Russian word which had been his pet name for her in the
nursery, which she could not remember his having used since she was a
child. She went to him and stood by his chair, wishing she could love
him.
“You are not ill, father?”
“No--no.”
“I think you ought not to work so much. Surely you have earned a rest?”
“I couldn’t retire, darling. You don’t understand.”
“I’m beginning to understand--how it holds you. Couldn’t--wouldn’t it
be possible, father, for you to throw your mind back to the old days
and what seemed worth while then?”
“We are not young twice,” he said, trying to laugh.
“No ... but that’s true of the young as well as of the old.”
He would not understand her. She withdrew a pace from him and steeled
herself.
“You want me to marry Nick,” she said, and went on: “You know what it
means, and that he doesn’t love me. And you know what that means.”
“I think he does love you.”
“Physically.... I’m going to say it, father. I’m going to be straight
this once.... A girl can tell what a man’s thinking about her. And if
it’s ... what Nick thinks ... it’s like being stripped--there--in the
middle of the room.” When her breath came more evenly, she said: “And
when you think that the girl was once a little child extraordinarily
in touch with Christ, made for sunshine and flowers, and warm
affection--almost a part of Him, wondering for the first time about
stars and distances, and so--without fear--about death, and love, and
time----” She broke off. “That’s the chance, the raw material of the
spirit. And then fear creeps in, and the craving for power--they creep
into the nursery. We start compromising because others compromise; we
are cruel in self-defence, evil for the sake of good--and our motives
are confused until we don’t know what’s right or wrong. Our seeing of
Christ is out of focus, and we talk--honestly as honesty goes--of a
man’s being ‘too Christian,’ of ‘adapting Christianity to the needs of
the day.’ And so at last I don’t think badly of you for wanting me to
go--in there.” She made a gesture towards the room where Ordith was. “I
make excuses for you. It seems quite reasonable. And, more amazing, you
don’t think badly of me for consenting.... Yes,” she added, meeting his
quick glance, “I do consent. You needn’t worry.”
IV
She returned to Ordith with high confidence. The Chinese boy who had
laid the table was sent to her father with tea, and she gave orders
that a tray should be taken to her mother’s room. When the boy had
gone, she leaned over the fire with hands outstretched.
“Cold?” Ordith said. “Sit by the fire, then--there, on that long thing.
I’ll manage tea.”
From his chair he could look down upon her. For a time they scarcely
spoke. He was content to watch her; she to submit. His empty cup
tinkled on the saucer as he set it down.
“Do smoke.”
He leaned forward.
“Have you forgiven me?”
“Yes.” She would not give him the pleasure of a fight.
“Quite?”
“Quite.”
Unprepared for this acquiescence, he was disconcerted. She smiled as,
without looking at him, she became aware that he was ill at ease. For
the last time, perhaps, he was suppliant now. Soon no mysteries would
divide him from her. Soon----
But she liked him for being afraid, for his embarrassment, his
momentary helplessness.
“You old fool, Nick!”
“For doubting? Then--Margaret, I’m ghastly afraid of frightening you.
But I do love you. I do love you, Margaret. You’re different from
me--on a different plane--that’s what makes it difficult. But I love
you, body and soul. Margaret----”
“And soul!”
The implication stung. “You mean----”
“Never mind what I mean. I’m not quite sure myself. I don’t care.”
He could not wait to think it out. Perhaps she had meant nothing. He
said:
“You know what I am asking.”
“I don’t love you,” she said, before he could speak, “nor you me.”
She faced him suddenly.
“There’s one question I want to ask you, Nick,” she said evenly.
“Whatever your answer may be it will not affect my answer. So the
truth.... If I consented to be your mistress, would that be enough?
Would it?”
“Good God, Margaret! what a question! No, a thousand times, no!”
“Put aside the business aspect of this marriage. Think of the personal
only. What is it you want in me?”
“All of you.”
“Body and soul?”
“Yes.”
She bowed her head. “I wonder if you believe that. I think you
do.” Then, in a flash, “Oh, Nick, we do lie to ourselves! I was
wrong in a way. It’s possession you want, isn’t it?--abstract
possession--ownership--gain!”
“Is that wrong?”
“You’re a man,” she said simply, and, with caught breath, “Thank God
for that!”
He was careful, in the light of his experience, not to approach her,
not to touch her. This time she should come to him.
“Come, Margaret,” he said; “don’t let us be fools.”
She looked across at him. So she was to move towards his chair, and sit
at his feet--and sit at his feet. He would touch her hair, her hands,
her shoulders. That would be yielding. That would be, very quietly, the
end....
That would be extraordinarily like an oleograph--“in the firelight.”
She thrilled to laughter, and slowly, like recognition of an unfamiliar
acquaintance, laughter came. It was as if she had wakened from some
ridiculous nightmare; as if a shaft of light had fallen across a dim
room, revealing countless absurdities that the dark had concealed. And
laughter fled suddenly--stifled her a moment, and was gone.
In the stillness, she remembered--as something long passed--the sharp
sound of her merriment. Looking round the room, she saw the piano
standing open, and beneath its polished lid the black keys and the
white. First it was their sharp contrast that seemed to interest her;
then, as her attention dwelt on them, they assumed a certain power of
reminiscence, of suggestion, as if they were symbolic of something
outside themselves, something in the past peculiarly significant to
her. With a mental process similar to that by aid of which dream and
reality are separated until they stand recognizably on either side
of the line between sleep and waking, with the laborious thought of
one struggling against the last influence of a drug, she remembered
how those black and white notes had imprinted themselves on her
consciousness when, on that other occasion, Ordith had so nearly
mastered her. The days intervening between that time and the present
ran before her in swift procession. She saw herself as she was then;
as she was now--then, fighting, determined, clear in mind; now, with
even her will gone. By subtle process she had been changed, for the
circumstances were unaltered. Slowly, day by day, by patience, by
silence, by implied menace, by the bluff on which her father’s power
depended, her fortress, unknown to her, had been undermined. Her father
had come very near to winning, very near.
He should not win!
If she had not seen herself as a figure in an oleograph and laughed....
The ways of salvation!
She laughed again. Ordith, with the first laugh still ringing in his
ears, moved as if to come to her. But, on the instant, the tension that
had held her failed. With the sob, not of a woman but of a little girl,
she drooped and trembled and hid her face in her hands. She was crying
like a child who, having come through some great fear, breaks down
under confidence restored: tears of relief, of sanity snatched back,
held--just held.
“Margaret!”
She dropped her hands, raised her head. Her eyes were swimming and
glistening with tears, her cheeks flushed as if with happy excitement.
“Oh, leave me alone, Nick--please--please! Nick--please. Promise you
will leave me alone always.... I’m frightened. You could get anything
you wanted at last. But you don’t want me--not really. It’s so much to
me; so little to you. Please, Nick, is this the end?”
“If you wish it.”
She seized his hands between hers. “Even if he persuades?”
“Yes.”
“Your word? He’s so strong....”
“My word.... Margaret--oh, you child!--I do care for you now more than
ever.”
Suddenly he kissed her.
“There.... Have your own way. I’m not a devil, Margaret dear. But your
seeing is different from mine--and your gods, I think. They won’t have
us together.”
“No.” She looked up with sudden curiosity. “Nick, you are superstitious
like all great men? You--you wouldn’t have me now if I asked you? Would
you? Would you?”
He smiled at her with understanding, and admitted, “No.”
“Something--inside you--says ‘No’?”
He nodded.
“Then I’m safe--quite safe.”
This amazing childlikeness!
“As your gods keep you,” he said.
And she, with the embarrassment of one who returns a formal
congratulation, answered: “And yours ... and yours, Nick. You’ve been
good.”