A CASE OF NECESSITY
Mrs. Maxon's memory of the evening on which she administered to her
husband his "awful facer" was capricious. It preserved as much of the
preliminary and the accidental as of the real gist of the matter. They
dined out at the house of a learned judge. The party was exclusively
legal, but the conversation of the young barrister who fell to her lot
did not partake of that complexion. Fortune used him in the cause of
irony. Much struck by his companion's charms--she was strung up, looked
well, and talked with an unusual animation--and by no means imputing to
himself any deficiency in the same direction, he made play with a pair
of fine dark eyes, descanted jocularly on the loneliness of a bachelor's
life, and ventured sly allusions to Mr. Cyril Maxon's blessed lot.
"I hope he knows his luck!" said the young barrister. Well, he would
know it soon, at all events, Winnie reflected.
In the drawing-room afterwards, a fat gushing woman gave the other side
of it. "We must be better friends, my dear," said she. "And you mustn't
be jealous if we all adore your clever, handsome, rising husband."
Such things are the common trivialities of talk. Both the fat woman and
the young barrister had happened often before. But their appearance
to-night struck on Winnie Maxon's sense of humour--a bitter, twisted
humour at this moment. She would have liked to cry "Oh, you fools!" and
hurl her decision in her husband's face across the drawing-room.
Compliments on our neighbour's private felicity are of necessity
attended with some risk. Why are we not allowed to abide on safe ground
and say: "I beg leave to congratulate you on the amount of your income
and to hope that it may soon be doubled"? Only the ruined could object
to that, and treading on their corns is no serious matter.
On the drive home--the judge lived in a remote part of Kensington--Cyril
Maxon was perversely and (as it seemed to his wife) incredibly fertile
in plans for the days to come. He not only forecast his professional
career--there he was within his rights--but he mapped out their joint
movements for at least three years ahead--their houses for the summer,
their trips abroad, their visits to the various and numerous members of
the Maxon clan. He left the future without a stitch of its dark mantle
of uncertainty. Luckily he was not a man who needed much applause or
even assent; he did not consult; he settled. His long, thoroughly
lawyer-like, indisputably handsome and capable profile--he had a habit
of talking to his wife without looking at her--chained the attention of
her eyes. Was she really equal to a fight with that? A shadowy
full-bottomed wig seemed even now to frame the face and to invest it
with the power of life and death.
"Then the year after I really do mean to take you to Palestine and
Damascus."
Not an idea that even of Cyril Maxon the rude gods might make sport!
"Who knows what'll happen three years hence?" she asked in gay tones,
sharply cut off by a gasp in the throat.
"You've a cold?" he asked solicitously. He was not lacking in kindly
protective instincts. Yet even his solicitude was peremptory. "I can't
have you taking any risks."
"It's nothing," she gasped, now almost sure that she could never go
through with her task. Even in kindness he assumed a property so
absolute.
The brougham drew up at their house. "Nine-fifteen sharp to-morrow,"
Cyril told the coachman. That was no less, and no more, certain than
Palestine and Damascus. He went through the hall (enlivened with prints
of Lord Chancellors surviving and defunct) into his study. She followed,
breathing quickly.
"I asked the Chippinstalls to dine next Wednesday. Will you send her a
reminder to-morrow morning?" He began to fill his pipe. She shut the
door and sat down in a chair in front of the fireplace.
There had always seemed to her something crushing in this workshop of
learning, logic, and ambition. To-night the atmosphere was overwhelming;
she felt flattened, ground down; she caught for her breath. He had lit
his pipe and now glanced at her, puzzled by her silence. "There's
nothing else on on Wednesday, is there?"
"Cyril, we're not happy, are we?"
He appeared neither aggrieved nor surprised at her sudden plunge; to her
he seemed aggressively patient of the irrational.
"We have our difficulties, like other married couples, I suppose. I hope
they will grow less as time goes on."
"That means that I shan't oppose you any more?"
"Our tastes and views will grow into harmony, I hope."
"That mine will grow into harmony with yours?"
He smiled, though grimly. Few men really mind being accused of
despotism, since it savours of power. "Is that such a terrible thing to
happen to my wife?"
"We're not happy, Cyril."
"Marriage wasn't instituted for the sole purpose of enabling people to
enjoy themselves."
"Oh, I don't know what it was instituted for!"
"You can look in your Prayer Book."
Her chin rested on her hands, her white sharp elbows on her knee. The
tall, strong, self-reliant man looked at her frail beauty. He was not
without love, not without pity, but entirely without comprehension--nor
would comprehension have meant pardon. Her implied claim clashed both
with his instinct and with his convictions. The love and pity were not
of a quality to sustain the shock.
"I wish you'd go and see Attlebury," he went on. Attlebury was, as it
were, the keeper of his conscience, an eminent clergyman of extreme High
Church views.
"Mr. Attlebury can't prevent me from being miserable. Whenever I
complain of anything, you want to send me to Mr. Attlebury!"
"I'm not ashamed of suggesting that you could find help in what he
represents on earth."
She gave a faint plaintive moan. Was heaven as well as this great world
to be marshalled against her, a poor little creature asking only to be
free? So it seemed.
"Or am I to gather that you have become a sceptic?" The sarcasm was
heavily marked. "Has a mind like yours the impudence to think for
itself?" So she translated his words--and thereby did him no substantial
injustice. If his intellect could bend the knee, was hers to be defiant?
"I had hoped," he went on, "that our great sorrow would have made a
change in you."
The suggestion seemed to her to be hitting below the belt. She had seen
no signs of overwhelming sorrow in him.
"Why?" she asked sharply. "It made none in you, did it?"
"There's no need to be pert."
"When you say it to me, it's wisdom. When I say it to you, it's
pertness! Yes, that's always the way. You're perfect already--I must
change!"
"This is becoming a wrangle. Haven't we had enough of it?"
"Yes, Cyril, enough for a lifetime, I think." At last she raised her
head, and let her hands fall on her lap. "At least I have," she added,
looking at him steadily.
He returned her glance for a moment, then turned away and sat down at
his writing-table. Several letters had come by the late post, and he
began to open them.
He had made her angry; her anger mastered her fears.
"I was brought up to think as you do," she said. "To think that once
married was married for ever. I suppose I think so still; and you know
I've respected my--my vows. But there are limits. A woman can't be asked
to give up everything. She herself--what she owes to herself--must come
first--her own life, her own thoughts, her freedom, her rights as a
human being."
He was reading a letter and did not raise his eyes from it.
"Those are modern views, I suppose? Old-fashioned folk would call them
suggestions of the Devil. But we've had this sort of discussion several
times before. Why go over it again? We must agree to differ."
"If you would! But you don't, you can't, you never will. You say that
to-night. You'll begin drilling me to your march and cutting me to your
pattern again to-morrow morning."
He made no reply at all. He went on reading letters. He had signified
that the discussion was at an end. That ended it. It was his way; if he
thought enough had been said, she was to say no more. It had happened
thus a hundred times--and she had inwardly cried "Inkpat!"
Well, this time--at last--she would show him that the topic was not
exhausted. She would speak again, and make him speak. Malice possessed
her; she smiled at the grave-faced man methodically dealing with his
correspondence. For the first time there came upon her a certain
satisfaction in the actual doing of the thing; before, she had dreaded
that to her heart, however much she desired the freedom it would bring.
To hit back once--once after five long years!
"Oh, about the Chippinstalls," she said. "You can have them, of course,
but I shan't be here."
He turned his head quickly round towards her. "Why not?"
"I'm going to the Stephen Aikenheads' to-morrow."
"It's not been your habit to pay visits alone, nor to arrange visits
without consulting me. And I don't much care about the atmosphere that
reigns at Aikenhead's." He laid down his letters and smiled at her in a
constrained fashion. "But I don't want to give you a fresh grievance.
I'll stretch a point. How long do you want to be away?"
He was trying to be kind; he actually was stretching a point, for he had
often decried the practice of married women--young and pretty married
women--going a-visiting without their husbands; and he had just as often
expressed grave disapproval of her cousin, Stephen Aikenhead. For him a
considerable stretch! Her malice was disarmed. Even a pang of that pity
which she had declared crushed to death reached her heart. She stretched
out her slim arms to him, rather as one who begs a great boon than as
the deliverer of a mortal defiance.
"Cyril, I'm never coming back."
For a full minute he sat silent, looking steadily at her. Incapable as
he was of appreciating how she had arrived at, or been driven to, this
monstrous decision, yet he had perception enough and experience enough
to see that she was sincere in it and set on it; and he knew that she
could give effect to it if she chose. In that minute's silence he fought
hard with himself; he had a mighty temptation to scold, a still mightier
to flout and jeer, to bring his heavy artillery of sarcasm to bear. He
resisted and triumphed.
He looked at the clock. It was a quarter-past twelve.
"You'll hardly expect me to deal with such a very important matter at
this hour of the night, and without full consideration," he said. "You
must know that such separations are contrary to my views, and I hope you
know that, in spite of the friction which has arisen, I have still a
strong affection for you."
"I shan't change my mind, Cyril. I shan't come back."
He kept the curb on himself. "I really would rather not discuss it
without more consideration, Winnie--and I think I have a right to ask
you to give it a little more, and to hear what I have to say after
reflection. Is that unfair? At least you'll admit it's a serious step?"
"I suppose it's fair," she murmured impatiently. She would have given
the world to be able to call it grossly unfair. "But it's no use," she
added, almost fierce in her rejection of the idea that her
determination might weaken.
"Let us both think and pray," he said gravely. "This visit of yours to
the Aikenheads' may be a good thing. It'll give you time to reflect, and
there'll be no passing causes of irritation to affect your calmer
judgment. Let us treat it as settled that you stay with them for a
fortnight--but treat nothing else as settled to-night. One thing
more--have you told anybody about this idea?"
"Only Hobart Gaynor. I went and asked him whether I could do it if I
wanted to. I told him I meant to do it."
"He'll hold his tongue. Mention it to nobody else, please."
"I won't till--till it's settled." She smiled. "We've actually agreed on
one or two things! That's very unusual in our wrangles, Cyril."
He came up to her and kissed her on the forehead. "For God's sake,
think! You don't in the least know what it means to you--or to me
either."
She drew her head quickly back; a bitter retort was on the tip of her
tongue. "Yes--but I know what life with you means!" She did not utter
it; there was a pinched weariness in his face which for the moment
disarmed her. She sighed disconsolately, turned away from him, and
drifted out of the room, her shoulders bent as though by great fatigue.
She had suffered one or two transient pangs of pity; having feared a
storm, she had experienced relief at his moderation, but gave him no
credit for it. She did not understand how hard it was to him. She was
almost inclined to hold it a device--an exhibition (once again
exhibited) of how much wiser, more reasonable, and more thoughtful he
was than the happy-go-lucky being to whom he was mated. She carried her
grievances out of the room on her bowed shoulders--just as heavy as
ever, just as insupportable.
The handsome, clever, rising man was left face to face with what he
feared and hated most in this world--a failure. He had fallen in love
with the pretty body; he had never doubted that he could shape and model
the malleable mind. Why not? It was in no way a great or remarkable
mind. She was not very talented, nor exceptionally strong-willed, nor
even very obstinate. Nor ungoverned, nor ultra-emotional, nor unmoral.
She was a woman more than ordinarily attractive, but hardly more than
ordinary in other respects. And, looking back on five years, he realized
the enormous and constant pains he had taken with her. It had been
matter of conscience as well as matter of pride; when the two join
forces, what is left to fight them? And they constantly form an
alliance. Defeat threatened even this potent confederation--defeat at
the hands of one whom he counted little more than a charming wilful
child.
Charming? Softer emotions, offspring of memory, suffered a resurrection
not in the end charged with much real import. He was of the men who
satisfy emotion in order to quiet it; marriage was in his view--and in
the view of authorities in which he believed--better than being in love
as well as different from it. In the sense appropriate to voluptuaries,
he had never been in love at all. What remained, then, to combat his
profound distaste and disapproval for all she now advanced, her claims,
pretensions, and grievances? In the end two disparate, yet closely
allied forces--loyalty to a great cause and hatred of personal defeat.
Let him make himself champion of the cause: the two became one. Could
heaven and he conjoined succumb to any onslaught?
He faced his theory logically and boldly. "She is my wife. I'm as
responsible for her as I am for myself. She may deny that--I can't."
For good or evil, for joy or pain, one flesh, one mind, one spirit,
_usque in æternum_. There was the high uncompromising doctrine.
His wife did not consciously or explicitly dissent from it. As she had
told him, she was bred to it. Her plea was simply that, be it right or
be it wrong, she could not live up to it. She could observe the
prohibitions it implied--she had kept and would keep her restraining
vows--but she could no longer fulfil the positive injunctions. If she
sought at all for an intellectual or speculative justification, it was
as an afterthought, as a plea to conciliate such a friend as Hobart
Gaynor, or as a weapon of defence against her husband. To herself her
excuse was necessity. If she had given that night the truest account in
her power of what she felt, she would have said that she was doing
wrong, but that she could not help it. There were limits to human
endurance--a fact of which Divine Law, in other matters besides that of
marriage, has not been considered by the practice (as apart from the
doctrine) of Christendom at large to take adequate account.