A VISION OF SIN
Maud Enderby's life at home became ever more solitary. Such daily
intercourse as had been established between her mother and herself grew
less and less fruitful of real intimacy, till at length it was felt by
both to be mere form. Maud strove against this, but there was no
corresponding effort on the other side; Mrs. Enderby showed no dislike
for her daughter, yet unmistakably shunned her. If she chanced to enter
the sitting-room whilst Maud was there, she would, if possible, retreat
unobserved; or else she would feign to have come in quest of something,
and at once go away with it. Maud could not fail to observe this, and
its recurrence struck a chill to her heart. She had not the courage to
speak to her mother; a deadweight of trouble, a restless spirit of
apprehension, made her life one of passive endurance; she feared to
have the unnatural conditions of their home openly recognised. Very
often her thoughts turned to the time when she had found refuge from
herself in the daily occupation of teaching, and, had she dared, she
would gladly have gone away once more as a governess. But she could not
bring herself to propose such a step. To do so would necessitate
explanations, and that was what she dreaded most of all. Whole days,
with the exception of meal-times, she spent in her own room, and there
no one ever disturbed her. Sometimes she read, but most often sat in
prolonged brooding, heedless of the hours.
Her father was now constantly away from home. He told her that he
travelled on business. It scarcely seemed to be a relief to him to rest
awhile in his chair; indeed, Paul had grown incapable of resting. Time
was deepening the lines of anxiety on his sallow face. His mind seemed
for ever racked with painful calculation. Mrs. Enderby, too, spent much
time away from the house, and Maud knew nothing of her engagements. One
thing, however, Maud could not help noticing, and that was that her
mother was clearly very extravagant in her mode of living. New and
costly dresses were constantly being purchased, as well as articles of
luxury for the house. Mrs. Enderby had of late provided herself with a
_femme de chambre_, a young woman who arrayed herself with magnificence
in her mistresses castoff dresses, and whose appearance and demeanour
had something the reverse of domestic. Maud almost feared her. Then
there was a hired brougham constantly in use. Whenever Mrs. Enderby
spent an evening at home, company was sure to be entertained; noisy and
showy people filled the drawing-room, and remained till late hours.
Maud did not even see their faces, but the voices of one or two men and
women became only too familiar to her; even in the retirement of her
room she could not avoid hearing these voices, and they made her
shudder. Especially she was conscious of Mr. Rudge's presence; she knew
his very step on the stairs, and waited in feverish apprehension for
the first notes of an accompaniment on the piano, which warned her that
he was going to sing. He had a good voice, and it was often in request.
Sometimes the inexplicable dread of his singing was more than she could
bear; she would hurry on her walking-attire, and, stealing like a
shadow down the stairs, would seek refuge in pacing about the streets
of the neighbourhood, heedless of weather or the hour.
Mrs. Enderby never came down to breakfast. One morning, when Paul
happened to be at home, he and Maud had finished that meal in silence,
and Maud was rising to leave the room, when her father checked her. He
leaned over the table towards her, and spoke in an anxious undertone.
"Have you noticed anything a little--a little strange in your mother
lately, Maud? Anything in her way of speaking, I mean--her general
manner?"
The girl met his look, and shook her head. The approach to such a
conversation affected her as with a shock; she could not speak.
"She has very bad nights, you know," Paul went on, still in a tone just
above a whisper, "and of late she has been taking chloral. It's against
my wish, but the relief makes it an irresistible temptation. I fear--I
am afraid it is having some deleterious effect upon her; she seemed to
be a little--just a little delirious in the night, I thought."
There was something horrible in his voice and face as he uttered these
words; he shuddered slightly, and his tongue seemed to labour for
utterance, as though he dreaded the sound of his own speech.
Maud sat unmoving and silent.
"I thought, also," Paul went on, "that she appeared a little strange
last evening, when the people were here.--You weren't in the
drawing-room?"
Maud shook her head again.
"Do you--do you think," he asked, "she is having too much excitement? I
know she needs a life of constant variety; it is essential to her. I'm
sure you understand that, Maud? You--you don't misjudge her?"
"No, no; it is necessary to her," said the girl mechanically.
"But," her father pursued, with still lower voice, "there is always the
danger lest she should over-exert herself. Last night I--I thought I
noticed--but it was scarcely worth speaking of; I am so easily alarmed,
you know."
Maud tried to say something, but in vain.
"You--you won't desert her--quite--Maud?" said her father in a tone of
pleading. "I am obliged to be so much away--God knows I can't help it.
And then I--I wonder whether you have noticed? I seem to have little
influence with her."
He stopped, but the next moment forced himself to utter what was in his
mind.
"Can't you help me a little more, Maud? Couldn't you induce her to live
a little more--more restfully at times?"
She rose, pushing the chair back behind her.
"Father, I can't!" she cried; then burst into a passion of tears.
"God help us!" her father breathed, rising and looking at her in blank
misery. But in a moment she had recovered herself. They faced each
other for an instant, but neither ventured to speak again, and Maud
turned and left him.
Waymark came as usual, but now he seldom saw Mrs. Enderby. Maud
received him alone. There was little that was lover-like in these hours
spent together. They kissed each other at meeting and parting, but,
with this exception, the manner of both was very slightly different
from what it had been before their engagement. They sat apart, and
talked of art, literature, religion, seldom of each other. It had come
to this by degrees; at first there had been more warmth, but passion
never. Waymark's self-consciousness often weighed upon his tongue, and
made his conversation but a string of commonplaces; Maud was often
silent for long intervals. Their eyes never met in a steady gaze.
Waymark often asked himself whether Maud's was a passionless nature, or
whether it was possible that her reserve had the same origin as his
own. The latter he felt to be unlikely; sometimes there was a pressure
of her hands as their lips just touched, the indication, he believed,
of feeling held in restraint for uncertain reasons. She welcomed him,
too, with a look which he in vain endeavoured to respond to--a look of
sudden relief from weariness, of gentle illumination; it smote him like
a reproach. When the summer had set in, he was glad to change the still
room for the open air; they walked frequently about Regent's Park, and
lingered till after sunset.
One evening, when it was dull and threatened rain, they returned to the
house sooner than usual. Waymark would have taken his leave at the
door, as he ordinarily did, but Maud begged him to enter, if only for a
few minutes. It was not quite nine o'clock, and Mrs. Enderby was from
home.
He seated himself, but Maud remained standing irresolutely. Waymark
glanced at her from under his eyebrows. He did not find it easy to
speak; they had both been silent since they left the park, with the
exception of the few words exchanged at the door.
"Will you let me sit here?" Maud asked suddenly, pushing a footstool
near to his chair, and kneeling upon it.
He smiled and nodded.
"When will they begin the printing?" she asked, referring to his book,
which was now in the hands of the publisher who had undertaken it.
"Not for some months. It can't come out till the winter season."
"If it should succeed, it will make a great difference in your
position, won't it?"
"It might," he replied, looking away.
She sat with her eyes fixed on the ground. She wished to continue, but
something stayed her.
"I don't much count upon it," Waymark said, when he could no longer
endure the silence. "We mustn't base any hopes on that."
He rose; the need of changing his attitude seemed imperative.
"Must you go?" Maud asked, looking up at him with eyes which spoke all
that her voice failed to utter.
He moved his head affirmatively, and held out his hand to raise her.
She obeyed his summons, and stood up before him; her eyes had fixed
themselves upon his; he could not avoid their strange gaze.
"Good-bye," he said.
Her free hand rose to his shoulder, upon which it scarcely rested. He
could not escape her eyes, though to meet them tortured him. Her lips
were moving, but he could distinguish no syllable; they moved again,
and he could just gather the sense of her whisper.
"Do you love me?"
An immense pity thrilled through him. He put his arm about her, held
her closely, and pressed his lips against her cheek. She reddened, and
hid her face against him. Waymark touched her hair caressingly, then
freed his other hand, and went from the room.
Maud sat in thought till a loud ring at the door-bell made her start
and flee upstairs. The room in which she and Waymark sat when they were
by themselves was in no danger of invasion, but she feared the
possibility of meeting her mother to-night. Her father was away from
home, as usual, but the days of his return were always uncertain, and
Mrs. Enderby might perchance open the door of the little sitting-room
just to see whether he was there, as it was here he ordinarily employed
himself when in the house. From her bedroom Maud could hear several
people ascend the stairs. It was ten o'clock, but an influx of visitors
at such an hour was nothing remarkable. She could hear her mother's
laugh, and then the voice of a man, a voice she knew but too well--that
of Mr. Rudge.
Her nerves were excited. The night was close, and there were mutterings
of thunder at times; the cloud whence they came seemed to her to spread
its doleful blackness over this one roof. An impulse seized her; she
took paper and sat down at her desk to write. It was a letter to
Waymark, a letter such as she had never addressed to him, and which,
even in writing it, she was conscious she could not send. Her hand
trembled as she filled the pages with burning words. She panted for
more than he had given her; this calm, half-brotherly love of his was
just now like a single drop of water to one dying of thirst; she cried
to him for a deeper draught of the joy of life. The words came to her
without need of thought; tears fell hot from her eyes and blotted what
she wrote.
The tears brought her relief; she was able to throw her writing aside,
and by degrees to resume that dull, vacant mood of habitual suffering
which at all events could be endured. From this, too, there was at
times a retreat possible with the help of a book. She had no mind to
sleep, and on looking round, she remembered that the book she had been
reading in the early part of the day was downstairs. It was after
midnight, and she seemed to have a recollection of hearing the visitors
leave the house a little while ago; it would be safe to venture as far
as the sitting-room below.
She began to descend the stairs quietly. There was still a light in the
hall, but the quietness of the house reassured her. On turning an angle
of the stairs, however, she saw that the door of the drawing-room was
open, and that just within stood two figures--her mother and Mr. Rudge.
They seemed to be whispering together, and in the same moment their
lips met. Then the man came out and went downstairs. Mrs. Enderby
turned back into the drawing-room.
Maud stood fixed to the spot. Darkness had closed in around her, and
she clung to the banisters to save herself from the gulf which seemed
to yawn before her feet. The ringing of a bell, the drawing-room bell
summoning Mrs. Enderby's maid, brought her back to consciousness, and
with trembling limbs she regained her room. It was as though some
ghastly vision of the night had shaken her soul. The habit of her mind
overwhelmed her with the conviction that she knew at last the meaning
of that mystery of horror which had of late been strengthening its hold
upon her imagination. The black cloud which lowered above the house had
indeed its significance; the voices which wailed to her of sin and woe
were the true expression of things amid which she had been moving
unconsciously. That instinct which made her shrink from her mother's
presence was not without its justification; the dark powers which
circled her existence had not vainly forced their influence upon her.
Her first impulse was to flee from the house; the air breathed
pestilence and death, death of the soul. Looking about her in the
anguish of conflicting thoughts, her eyes fell upon the pages she had
written. These now came before her as a proof of contagion which had
seized upon her own nature; she tore the letter hastily into fragments,
and, striking fire with a match, consumed them in the grate. As she
watched the sparks go out, there came a rustling of dresses past her
door. She flung herself upon her knees and sought refuge in wild,
wordless prayer.
A fortnight after this Maud went late in the evening to the room where
she knew her father was sitting alone. Paul Enderby looked up from his
papers in surprise; it was some time since Maud had sought private
conversation with him. As he met her pale, resolute face, he knew that
she had a serious purpose in thus visiting him, and his look changed to
one of nervous anticipation.
"Do I disturb you, father?" Maud asked. "Could you spare me a few
minutes?"
Paul nodded, and she took a seat near him.
"Father, I am going to leave home, going to be a governess again."
He drew a sigh of relief; he had expected something worse than this.
Yet the relief was only for a moment, and then he looked at her with
eyes which made her soul fail for very compassion.
"You will desert me, Maud?" he asked, trying to convey in his look that
which he could not utter in words.
"Father, I can be of no help, and I feel that I must not remain here."
"Have you found a place?"
"This afternoon I engaged myself to go to Paris with a French family.
They have been in England some time, and want to take back an English
governess for their children."
Paul was silent.
"I leave the day after to-morrow," she added; at first she had feared
to say how soon she was to go.
"You are right," her father said, shifting some papers about with a
tremulous hand. "You are right to leave us. You at least will be safe."
"Safe?" she asked, under her breath.
He looked at her in the same despairing way, but said nothing.
"Father," she began, her lips quivering in the intensity of her inward
struggle, "can you not go away from here? Can you not take mother away?"
They gazed at each other, each trying to divine what it was that made
the other so pale. Did her father know?--Maud asked herself. Did Maud
know something more than he himself?--was the doubt in Paul's mind. But
they were thinking of different things.
"I can't, I can't!" the wretched man exclaimed, spreading out his arms
on the desk. "Perhaps in a few months--but I doubt. I can do nothing
now; I am helpless; I am not my own master. O God, if I could but go
and leave it all behind me!"
Maud could only guess at the meaning of this. He had already hinted to
her of business troubles which were crushing him. But this was a matter
of no moment in her sight. There was something more terrible, and she
could not force her tongue to speak of it.
"You fear for her?" Paul went on. "You have noticed her strangeness?"
He lowered his voice. "What can I do, Maud?"
"You are so much away," she said hurriedly, laying her hand on his arm.
"Her visitors--she has so many temptations--"
"Temptations?"
"Father, help her against herself!"
"My help is vain. There is a curse on her life, and on mine. I can only
stand by and wait for the worst."
She could not speak. It was her duty, clearly her imperative duty, yet
she durst not fulfil it. She had come down from her room with the fixed
purpose, attained after nights of sleepless struggle, of telling him
what she had seen. She found herself alone again, the task unfulfilled.
And she knew that she could not face him again.