AS days went on she became more than ever persuaded of the fatalism of
those suggestive, common words, “Yer never knows nothin’, do yer?” That
woman, with the soiled red lining to her kicked-up petticoat--that
woman, with the loosely sensuous mouth, big tongue, and rolling bright
eyes, had emerged from the gray routine of her particular suburban
corner, merely as a warning. Those comically meaningless words became a
gospel. She was always saying them, puzzling over them. They were on
her pale lips as she looked questioningly into Edred’s face. Once she
woke up and found herself saying them in her sleep. It was too stupid.
But, if only that persistent quoting of them, in silence, that
continual battering of them at the door of her distracted brain, would
bring solution! If she could take hold of some slight clew! She found
herself constantly longing for proof of Edred’s unfaithfulness. That,
she thought, would end her love--her reckless, shameful love for an
unworthy object: love that blows, terrible suggestions, the cruelest
words and looks could not kill. If she could free herself from that
horrid, paralyzing coil of Love!
She used to dog his steps with the patient sleuth-like tread of
an intent panther. She followed him into strange places often
enough--unseen. She was always watching, waiting. Other wives waited
and watched, hoping all the time that nothing was wrong, that they
still had faithful husbands, might still keep their homes together with
honor. But Pamela dogged Edred desperately--much more desperately than
she would have done had there been the smallest chance of happiness
left for them. She only fiercely prayed that there might be some
entanglement, that there was some other woman--weak, innocent, or
criminal--in the background. It meant so much more to her than mere
conjugal peace and trust; her experience had made her bitterly scornful
of married life: you could never successfully blend romance and joint
housekeeping. She was playing for a much higher, nobler stake--her own
independence. A wife was an individual first, a mere married woman
afterward. She was conscious from time to time of the absolute
isolation of each human being who treads the world.
One flesh! Bare hearts! What empty jargon! One could look into the
other one’s eyes and be breeding murder, worse than murder, all the
time. This life, the beings with whom we were accidentally thrown in
contact during our half-conscious sojourn--mere detail! There was a
splendid, terrifying isolation about everyone. Each alone! She used to
look at them curiously, speculatively; figures moving along the yellow
streets at night, in tender twos, in merry companies--and yet alone.
Each one shut in, cut off from all perfect communion, by the film of
his own individuality. Each brain its own secret world. Each body,
under such varying garments, absolutely its own, in spite of vows,
ardent protestations, respectable and legal shackles.
She used to brood thus, a little at random, as she warily trod the
streets behind that slim, carefully-dressed figure. She had become a
strange perversion. She loved her husband still, in a headlong, fierce
way. Yet she longed for him to commit himself, so that her love might
puff away, become impalpable, like smoke rising in a clear sky. There
was no chance for her, no freedom, no self-respect until she became
callous, until that hot, wayward heart of hers was dammed up. She had
read--in a girl’s superficial way--of first love as a potent thing. She
hadn’t known then that it could be such a sweeping, crowning,
involuntary thing--hadn’t dreamed that it could hold you in such grim,
iron grasp. She couldn’t get away from the magnetism of--the first. She
despised him; sometimes, for a clear moment, she loathed him. She
remembered that on one occasion it had been a keen struggle to throw
down the bread knife on the wooden platter instead of slitting it
through his long lean throat.
And yet! He had only to call the old playful, indulgent light into his
lazy eyes, only to carelessly flip at her some gesture or word of the
past, to bring her under his heel--quivering body, small subject soul.
It was horrible to be in such bondage to a man--just because he had
been first. Only because!
One night near Holywell Street she saw him meet a woman. She followed
them down the Strand, an odd, glad singing in her head. The moment had
come.
She studied that woman with a woman’s minute, critical eye. She wasn’t
satisfied. The woman was respectable, obviously, insolently
respectable. She looked like the mistress of a maid-of-all-work and a
flawless little house.
She hadn’t the right atmosphere. She took Edred’s arm, hanging on it
stolidly and looking at other women on the pavements with a sort of
virtuous sneer, seeming to say, “I have a perfect right; can any of you
say as much?” They might have been an aggressively respectable married
couple from South London going to dine at a restaurant by way of
dissipation.
As a matter of fact they turned in at one. Pamela watched Edred push
back the heavy door and gravely stand aside for his companion to pass
in first. There was no eagerness in his attitude; he seemed quite used
to it, not exactly weary, but coldly stolid. He wore the settled air of
a married man--the mild, contented, resigned air of doom, which so many
husbands wear. He was neither unhappy nor happy; he took this evening
meal in the crush and steam and the hurry of waiters as a matter of
course. Why not?
She didn’t pretend to understand him--or her. They were an odd couple.
Nothing stealthy, illicit, ecstatic about them, when there should have
been a suggestion of all three emotions!
The woman wore brown--the frump’s unfailing refuge: it was a hot,
reddish sort of brown; her hat, anxious to be in the fashion, was
painfully skewered to her head by many pins. There were fresh touches
of pink about her at ridiculously unwanted spots. She looked pleased,
shy; like a child dressed for a party.
Pamela followed them up between the line of tables, between the greedy
line of eaters, some gluttonously bending over the plates, some waiting
with an air of impatience, some replete and leaning back, quizzing and
smoking. In the long mirrors she could see the reflection of all
three--such a dramatic three: Edred, with his sheepish, sleepy air; the
strange woman, all pink and brown and narrow airs of virtue as she
looked at--and apparently suspected--every other woman a little smarter
than herself. Last of the three Pamela saw her own tall figure,
stylishly attired, the abundant dull hair bunching out beneath her
toque with the big ostrich plumes. The set and selection of her gown
was in such good, if rather striking, taste, that the over-fed and
quickly-feeding men looked after her, their faces lighting up.
The intangible feeling of shame, of smirching, which was becoming
common to her, caught at her then. She fancied she read insult in the
admiration of these many strange men.
She looked at herself again and was bound to admit that there was not
so very much difference between her costume, her carriage, and the
carriage and costume of others present whose vocation was unmistakable.
The ultra-fashionable woman sails perilously near the wind in
appearance. She felt quite angry with her expensive garments. She
followed still, through the glass, the movements of the woman in pink
and brown. She seemed to shout, in every seam of her dowdy frock, in
every gleaming button of her badly-cut gloves, “respectable married
virtue.” She!--_she!_
The world was whirling round the wrong way.
She followed her quarry, every sense alert so that Edred might not
discover her. When the two settled at a table she deftly slipped aside
and took the one immediately behind them. So that they were sitting
back to back, she and that shameful woman with the perplexing insolent
air of calm virtue. The back of her beautifully-cut and braided
heliotrope coat was within a few inches of the contemptible little
brown bodice with the crisp pink bow at the neck and the pink-lined
ends, like lopping rabbit-ears, at the waist.
The waiter came up. Beneath her breath and mechanically she ordered a
steak, her ears strained all the time to hear what they would order.
Edred said:
“Calves’-head? You have never tasted it--as they serve it here.”
“It’s rather rich,” came a common voice dubiously.
Odd! Her voice, like her frock, like her little pursed mouth and hard
eyes, was respectable. Aggressively respectable! Women like that had no
right to appear respectable; to do so was an additional aggravation.
Wasn’t their _existence_ enough? The jealous fire was rising, was
already burning, a steady white light, at her heart. But she was very
glad, of course. Confused, conflicting thoughts kept running in her
head.
When the steak came she could not eat it; there was enough for two men.
She just played with her knife and fork, dipping deeply into the bottle
of red wine she had ordered.
“I knew it would be too rich,” the voice of the brown woman said
reproachfully. “It’s too bad of you to spoil my dinner, when you know
my stomach’s not strong. Nasty, bilious stuff! I can’t touch another
bit.”
Well! He might have chosen a handsomer, a more refined woman. Little
common narrow creature! He might have given her a more worthy rival
while he was about it.
“Where did I put my gloves? No, I couldn’t look at pudding; it would
just about finish me. Cheese? If _you_ like--not for me. I’ll have a
liqueur by and by; not that beastly green stuff we had last time.
Cherry brandy. I can’t have lost the gloves.”
She twirled round suddenly, putting her hands behind her and anxiously
fumbling. Pamela wheeled round too, grasping the handle of her umbrella
by way of excuse. Their eyes met. The quick, respectable, scandalized
expression shot into those of the brown woman.
Pamela flinched and flushed. It wasn’t pleasant to be mistaken--by her,
too. The wretch--the little, common, hypocritical wretch! How dare she?
Their eyes met: the malevolent stare in the pink and brown woman’s,
the eager, wide look in Pamela’s. She photographed on her alert brain
every line of that face--the face which Edred found more comely than
hers. It was long and thin, but quite youthful; she judged her to be
about twenty-five. The eyes were hot brown, like the gown, and set
close together. They were restless eyes, curiously restless. They roved
about perpetually, seeming miserably to search for something which
never came. It was like a monkey’s face--a pink, unlined monkey face.
There was cunning in it, spite, and a kind of dumb pathos. A very
curious woman for a rival!
She fished up the ginger-colored gloves. They were shamefully new; one
or two of the buttons were still covered with tissue-paper.
Edred had finished his meal; he was smoking, his head back, his eyes
dreamy. Pamela knew the attitude very well; it usually followed a good
dinner. Her heart ached for herself. The little woman fussily put on
her gloves, drew down her veil, settled her fluttering ends of pink
satin. Then she, too, fell back on the red seat and began to look idly
about her, passing audible comments on people whose appearance invited
the acid of her tongue.
“And there’s that woman behind,” she said presently, in a distinct
whisper. “Just behind me. Look--when she isn’t looking. How silly you
are! Always looking the wrong way. Didn’t I say _behind?_”
“Never mind. I’ll take your word for her,” he returned.
“But do look. I’m sure she’s--you know. Half of them are in this place.
Disgraceful, overdressed things!”
He turned with sudden curiosity. Pamela was still twisted round on the
seat. She was staring savagely at that impudent brown hat, with the
ferocious spiked pins which stuck out in all directions. Edred turned.
He saw her--saw her haggard face peering through the smoke and vulgar
glitter of the place. As, for that one supreme moment, they stared
spellbound at each other, the second woman said impatiently:
“Come on. We shall be late. The last time you took me to the theater we
were late.”
Pamela started up, slipped past the tables, past the rows of diners.
Near the door the waiter stood in her path. She dropped a coin in his
hand and hurried on. Once outside the door of that place, under the
cool sky in a dark side street, she took to her heels like a
pickpocket. She was afraid of Edred, more afraid than she had ever
been. There had been a new, ugly threat on his face. It would be
something more than words this time. After all, words were not the
worst. Her flesh was tender; she dreaded that he would beat her.
She turned, panting like a closely-pressed hare, into the Strand, held
up her umbrella to the first hansom, and hustled in.
“Marquise Mansions,” she called up to the driver. “I’ll give you double
fare if you drive very quickly.”
The horse seemed to fly through the moving, brilliant streets. Before
her heart ceased its mad, quick beat of terror and apprehension, the
crude red wall of Marquise Mansions was in sight.
She went up to the flat, locked herself in her bedroom, dragged off her
tight gown, kicked away her shoes, unfastened the piquant hat from her
fair hair--and hid everything. She rolled the things in a rough bundle
and shot them far under the bed.
When Edred burst in ten minutes later, she was half lying in a low
chair by the drawing-room window, with a novel in her hands. The lace
and cashmere of her tea-gown spread softly about her ankles like the
delicate tail of some exquisite foreign bird.