IT was past eleven and they were languidly pecking at breakfast. The
brick-red sun forced himself into the room, made the gorgeously
upholstered settee and chairs look faded, showed the green tarnish on
the great copper pots, the gray rim of dust on the delft which crowded
the shelves, and the darker layer which the housemaid had left in the
interstices of the elaborately carved furniture.
Pamela’s morning gown, of some clinging primrose stuff, had caught
London smuts in the loose ruffles of its sleeves. She lifted her cup
and the ruffles fell back, showing finger-and-thumb bruises on the
white flesh. She was sallow, blotchy, her eyes muddy and swollen. Edred
kept looking up from his paper and staring savagely; the weary face,
all quiver and traces of heavy tears, infuriated him.
“I don’t know what is coming over you,” he broke out at last. “You have
only two moods--the nagging or the maudlin.”
“Edred! I--I thought you’d say you were sorry for last night. Look!”
She held up her bare arm accusingly.
“Sorry!” His frank look of amazement was absolutely genuine. “What have
I to be sorry about?”
“Look!”
The white arm, with the ugly purple marks, quivered before his eyes.
“Pooh! you bruise with a touch. It’s nothing.”
“The things you said----”
“Said! You’d madden any man with your stiff airs of prudery.”
“I’ve begged you not to ask Milligan here.”
“I shall ask him as often as I like. He’s useful. You’ll please be
civil to everybody who’s useful--to Sutton in particular. You treat the
fellow as if he were----”
“The cur he is,” she concluded scornfully.
“You’re no good if you can’t help me to play my game. That is why you
are here, confound you,” he cried savagely. “You don’t think”--his
sneer was devilish--“that I married you because I had such a supreme
longing for fireside virtue.”
“They are all alike--your men,” she cried out passionately. “They
regard me as--as--I cannot finish.”
She buried her disfigured face in her hands. Every line of her shaking
body was crouching, subjective; she was a human hound with a brute for
a master, a brute on whom she fawned.
“It’s new for you to be so particular.”
“I--I don’t understand.” She lifted her face suddenly; let him see it
all grotesquely distorted, drawn out of shape.
“I repeat; it is new for you to be so particular. If you can throw
yourself into the arms of one man----”
“One man?”
“These mawkish airs of innocence don’t impress me. We’ve been quite
bare to each other for twelve months. You came here; forced yourself on
me. Why couldn’t you stay behind like a sensible, modest woman, and
marry Jethro? I was getting on perfectly well, wasn’t I? Did I look as
if I wanted you?”
“Edred!”
“That parrot cry will make me murder you some day. Be a woman, with a
clear head on your shoulders, not a sniveling fool. Be a wife to me.” A
queer, mocking expression contracted his thin mouth. “Help me when you
can. If you offend Milligan----”
“I’ll never speak to him again. Good Heavens! You don’t want me----”
He sprung up from the table, took her by the trembling shoulder, and
swung her round.
“I don’t care what the devil you do,” he said deliberately.
She looked weakly up into his face, saw that he meant it, and began to
shake and sob. This was the worst blow he could deal. He meant it!
Hitherto she had attributed his brutalities to business worry.
She cried violently, hopelessly. She was all tears. She had no spirit
left, except the spirit that vents itself in extravagant words.
Suddenly she darted to the open window.
“If I were to jump down,” she began desperately; her feverish hands
clawed round the ledge, her wild eyes turned inward to the room.
“It wouldn’t be a bad solution.”
She ran back, tried to catch him round the neck with her pleading arms,
murmured pet names, shivered, sobbed, shook, tried vainly, in the wrong
way, to win back the old, transient adoration.
He wrenched himself away, as he would have freed himself from a skein.
“I’m sick of these rows,” he said savagely. “Do as I wish. Mind what
you’re at with Sutton--he knows a precious deal that I’d rather he
didn’t. Play Milligan. A clever woman would do it all without
compromise, but you are a prude--one of those ardent, faithful prudes
that make a man curse. Hang it all, I don’t want your extravagant
devotion; I’m in need of help. I don’t care what you do so long as I
don’t know--that’s married fidelity up to date. Do you understand?”
“I can’t--I won’t! My life is one degradation; you don’t care. If I
were some shameful woman, not your wife----”
“By George! if you knew all, you’re little better. That jargon in the
church--Sutton to give you away, the verger as best man--didn’t put you
on a pedestal of virtue.”
“I won’t--I can’t!” she repeated desperately, linking and unlinking her
hands, looking up at him with the devoted, obstinate eyes of a dog who
is afraid.
“Then go. You are a burden, an irritant.”
“You mean that?”
“Of course. I mean everything.”
He flung himself out of the room. Presently she heard him leave the
flat with Sutton.
She fell down on the settee, cuddling into the stuffed corners for
comfort. She shivered all over. She was cold. She ached with misery.
She told herself that she was a coward. She knew perfectly well, as
well as he did, that her heroics, her dramatic attitudes and words of
palpable restraint, were only pose. A woman who meant suicide wouldn’t
talk about it. She despised herself for that rush to the window--as he
despised her. He had told her to go; he didn’t want her. But she hadn’t
the courage to take him at his word. She loved him. She was perfectly
willing to crawl, to cringe to him--for the sake of an occasional rough
caress.
What a life it had been! She looked back along the year. She recalled
his first few ardent weeks, his gradual cynicism and disregard, the
constant vinegar lash of his reckless tongue, the frequent heavy blows.
What a strange, disreputable, luxurious life they led, the three of
them! She included Sutton without hesitation. He was only a dependent
in externals. Edred seemed more than half afraid of him. Sutton knew
every money-making shuffle, every risky deal of the game.
She gazed wildly about her. Everything was luxurious, slovenly, lonely.
She hadn’t an engagement to fill the day, hadn’t a woman friend in the
world. Then, fleetly, her thoughts ran back with deep affection to
those women she had known once--kin, perhaps--the Turles and Crisps,
and Jaynes and Furlongers. Simple women! She had laughed at them, been
scornful of them, been bored to death by them. At the moment she longed
for them. She pictured them individually in their lonely, comfortable
homes, with their traditional, simple, brainless occupations. She
thought of them singly. Each one had her special reputation among her
neighbors--for a particular jelly, good butter, or savory pickles.
She knew dozens of men. They came to the flat with Edred; sometimes
they came when he was out, when they knew perfectly well that he was
certain to be in the City. Milligan especially cultivated that trick.
Her outraged virtue lighted to a cruel fire. She thought fiercely that
if Milligan came up the stairs that day she would find courage to kill
him.
Yes, dozens of men! They gave her flowers, once or twice a jewel. They
paid her dubious compliments, discussed music-hall artistes, told queer
stories in her presence. They flattered, ignored, or shocked her, as it
suited the mood of the moment. She occupied exactly the position of a
beautiful, expensive lap-dog, whose ears every visitor may pull, to
whom every visitor may toss a lump of sugar.
London outside was gay and hot--all blue and yellow, all dust and eager
noise. The top-heavy omnibus swung by, with gayly dressed women on the
garden seats, fluttering bows of ribbon on the drivers’ whips. The big
hats of the women, piled with feathers and imitation roses, made her
think of her blazing flower borders at Folly Corner. She sat up, wiped
her burning eyes, into which her bitter sorrow seemed to have corroded.
She thought very calmly of Jethro--thought of the slow, easeful,
reflective life which she had so lightly, so gladly, thrown out of
reach. A year ago! They would have married--had a child, perhaps. His
simple words--“A little son to come with me and beat in shooting-time;
they soon grow up”--rippled in her throbbing head. A child! She might
have had her own child by now. The dreadful ache of a barren woman
caught her.
She walked up and down the untidy room, her primrose trail dragging
over the dusty carpet. She rang the bell, but no one came to clear. She
hadn’t a duty in the world. It was hardly noon yet. If she crawled back
to her bed and sobbed away the day, if she went headlong down through
the oriel window--it made no difference. She was perfectly free to do
exactly as she chose.
She walked up and down in her misery and indecision, the August sun
streaming into the room, where the bacon on the table was caked in a
translucent layer of white grease, and the crumpled _serviettes_ were
tossed to the floor.
All her love, her passion, her folly, and heartlessness had ended in
this--a mere vulgar marriage row. Row was the word he had used. Just an
underbred squabble--they had plenty. They had flung words at each
other--the usual taunts of an ill-sorted couple.
She knew he’d come in as usual at night--Sutton behind, with his false
air of subservience; Milligan at his side, his eyes roving about for
her. She knew she’d put on her freshest dress. She knew. She was a
miserable, plastic fool, hopelessly committed. Already she was no
longer angry with Edred; only bitterly, sorely pained and degraded.
If she could only travel past caring! But every bitter word of his
found its frightful billet in her heart; every foul word pierced like a
pointed weapon. Her love was riddled with the cruelest wounds, but not
one was vital. She loved him. He had told her to go. Go! She laughed,
picking up his pipe and kissing the stem ardently.
The gay rattle and careless chaff ran under her yawning window. She
started up suddenly and put on her out-of-door things. She went down
the wide staircase thoughtfully, wondering what on earth she should do
with the day.
She hailed the first omnibus that came rocking down Piccadilly. She got
inside and sat near the door. There were only two other passengers--a
middle-aged man and his more middle-aged wife. Pamela watched them
languidly, in the mood to study other people. Her own life held nothing
now but empty days and distasteful evenings. Dinner-time was
coming--with Milligan, other men, perhaps--all the people who somehow
made her feel contemptible, passively immoral. Their insults were so
delicate, so flattering, that she could not resent them: to resent
would be an admission. She just studied the dilemma of the middle-aged
woman, who was very nervous, who expressed her preference for trams.
“I’ll go nearer the door. Then, if there should be a spill, I could
jump out.”
She rustled along the seat, the stiff folds of her brocaded black
skirt seeming to share her terror. Then she peppered the conductor with
anxious queries, asking him if he didn’t think the driver was drunk.
“Lor’, mum! he’s drove the ’bus for twenty year,” came the not
altogether reassuring answer.
“You think he’s really sober? But, oh conductor”--her voice rose to a
shriek as the horses swerved--“I do wish I was on the Underground. I
insist on getting out.”
He rang his bell viciously and bundled her off the step. Her husband
followed, looking keenly annoyed. Pamela smiled--scenting a marriage
row. Then the blinding tears gushed to her eyes and burned there
without falling. Marriage row! A vulgar, trivial squabble! She lived in
a rain of them.
“I’ll go outside,” she said, with a sudden desire for the sky above her
head and the dry air on her face. She went with a sure foot up the
steps and along the roof, the omnibus still moving, and took the one
spare seat immediately behind the driver. Once she had been proud of
her coolness and dispatch in climbing an omnibus. That was in the old
days, when money was scarce and skirts shabby at the hem: the days when
she had carved at table, accompanied songs, and made herself generally
useful (attractive, so the advertisement stipulated) at the stuffy
boarding-house near the British Museum. Edred had been one of the
boarders--had paid thirty shillings a week, which was as much as he
could afford out of his two pounds five weekly. Those were the days
before he became a--number. She thought of it all, as she was carried
by Kensington Gardens--occasional nights at a music-hall, merry waiting
at pit doors, Sunday jaunts to Hampton Court--with a fresh summer gown,
a smart cheap hat, and a constant dread of a shower.
The women on the seat immediately opposite were talking volubly. They
both had cheap black jackets with very big buttons and outstanding
sleeves. One, as she talked, kept licking her lips and constantly
popping out her tongue with odd vivacity and archness. The other, an
older woman, with a severe expression, took an occasional solemn swig
at a bottle which was genteelly wrapped to the nose in a confectioner’s
paper bag.
As the vivacious woman wriggled on the seat she afforded occasional
peeps of a rusty quilted petticoat with a red flannel lining.
“She done it on the Monday as we see her on the Sunday,” Pamela heard
her say mysteriously.
She fell to wondering _what_ she had done: something very reprehensible
certainly, judging from the shocked expression of the elder woman, who
nodded sourly and tilted her paper bag.
“She says to me, ‘Why don’t you take in a lodger?--some young lady as
is engaged all day in business. There’s the spare room a-goin’
beggin’,’ she says. But I aint goin’ to do it, Mrs. Whitbourn; would
you? Oh, ’e’s a good ’usban’. But there!”--the dusty head with the
black chip hat shook sideways and the quick tongue lolled out--“you
never knows nothin’, do yer?”
“No, yer never does,” confirmed the solemn woman.
“Lor’! ’ere we are at the church. Well, good-by, Mrs. Whitbourn. See
you again some day.”
They kissed lusciously; the sateen petticoat with the frowsy red lining
whisked away.
Pamela stared straight in front of her thoughtfully.
“Yer never knows nothin’, do yer? No, yer never does,” kept striking in
her head.
“Yer never does.”
She didn’t. Strange, that a suspicion of the particular wrong which
Edred might do her had never before occurred to her. Had she found the
secret of his coldness and unconcern--in another woman? Was there
somebody else?
First, a fierce, instinctive jealousy swept her; then she wished
ardently that it might be so. That might be the deathblow of her mad,
headlong love for him.
She went to the very end of the journey, then took another omnibus
back. At Bond Street she alighted and walked down to the dainty shop
where she usually had tea. The woman’s words still haunted her.
“Yer never knows nothin’, do yer?”
One might go on for a lifetime, in a nest of different worlds like
London, and never know. That was perfectly true. She turned her sleeve
up furtively and drank in the angry purple of the bruises on her wrist.
Was another woman responsible for them? It was a new idea and a very
enticing one.