CECILY'S RETURN
On alighting at Charing Cross, Cecily searched the platform for Reuben.
There could be no doubt of his coming to meet her, for she had written
to tell him that Mrs. Lessingham would at once go into the country from
another station, and she would thus be alone. But she looked about and
waited in vain. In the end she took a cab, parted with her companion,
and drove homewards.
It was more than a trivial disappointment. On the journey, she had felt
a longing for home, a revival of affection; she had tried to persuade
herself that this long separation would have made a happy change, and
that their life might take a new colour. Had Reuben appeared 'at the
station, she would have pressed his hand warmly. Her health had
improved; hope was again welcome. It came not like the hope of years
ago, radiant, with eyes of ecstasy; but sober, homely, a gentle smile
on its compassionate lips.
His failure would easily be explained; either he had mistaken the
train, or something inevitable had hindered him; possibly she had made
a slip of the pen in writing. Nearing home, she grew tremulous,
nervously impatient. Before the cab had stopped, she threw the door
open.
The servant who admitted her wore an unusual expression, but Cecily did
not observe this.
"Mr. Elgar is at home?"
"No, ma'am."
"When did he go out?"
"He has not been at home for three days, ma'am."
Cecily controlled herself.
"There are some parcels in the cab. Take them up stairs."
She went into the study, and stood looking about her. On the
writing-table lay some unopened letters, all addressed to her husband;
also two or three that had been read and thrown aside. Whilst she was
still at the mercy of her confused thoughts, the servant came and asked
if she would pay the cabman.
Then she ascended to the drawing-room and sat down. Had her letter gone
astray? But if he had not been home for three days, and, as appeared,
his letters were not forwarded to him, did not this prove (supposing a
miscarriage of what she had written) that he was not troubling himself
about news from her? If he had received her letter--and it ought to
have arrived at least four days ago--what was the meaning of his
absence?
She shrank from questioning the servants further. Presently, without
having changed her dress, she went down again to the library, and
re-examined the letters waiting to be read; and the handwriting was in
each case unknown to her. Then she took up the letters that were open.
One was an invitation to dine, one the appeal of some charitable
institution; last, a few lines from Mallard. He wrote asking Elgar to
come and see him--seemingly with no purpose beyond a wish to
re-establish friendly relations. Cecily read the note again and again,
wondering whether it had led to a meeting.
Why had not the housekeeper made her appearance? She rang the bell, and
the woman came. With as much composure as she could command, Cecily
inquired whether Mr. Elgar had spoken of her expected arrival. Yes, he
had done so; everything had been made ready. And had he left word when
he himself should be back? No; he had said nothing.
Naturally, she thought of going to the Spences'; but her dignity
resisted. How could she seek information about her husband from
friends? It was difficult to believe that he kept away voluntarily.
Would he not in any case have sent word, even though the excuse were
untruthful? What motive could he have for treating her thus? His last
letter was longer and kinder than usual.
She was troubling herself needlessly. The simple explanation was of
course the true one. He had been away in the country, and had arranged
to be back in time to meet her at the station; then some chance had
intervened. Doubtless he would very soon present himself. Her
impatience and anxiety would never occur to him; what difference could
a few hours make? They were not on such lover-like terms nowadays.
Compelling herself to rest in this view, she made a change of clothing,
and again summoned the housekeeper, this time for discussion of
domestic details. Cecily had no feminine delight in such matters for
their own sake; the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker were
necessary evils, to be put out of mind as soon as possible. She learned
incidentally that Reuben had been a great deal from home; but this did
not surprise her. She had never imagined him leading a methodical life,
between Belsize Park and the British Museum. That was not in his nature.
At the usual hour she had luncheon. Shortly after, when her patience
was yielding to fears--fears which, in truth, she had only masked with
the show of explanation--a letter was brought in. But nothing to the
purpose. It came from Zillah Denyer, who began with apologies for
writing, and expressed uncertainty whether Mrs. Elgar had yet returned
from abroad; then went on to say that her sister Madeline had been
suffering dreadfully of late. "Perhaps you know that Mrs. Travis has
left us. Madeline has missed her company very much, and often longs to
see the face of some visitor. She speaks of the one visit you paid her,
and would so like to see you again. Forgive me for asking if you could
spare half an hour. The evening is best; I venture to say this, as you
came in the evening before."
Cecily forgot herself for a few minutes in sorrows graver than her own.
Her impression after the one visit had been that Madeline would not
greatly care for her to repeat it; this, it seemed, was a mistake. So
Mrs. Travis had left her lodgings? She heard of it for the first time.
About half-past three there sounded the knock of a visitor at the house
door. Expecting no one, Cecily had given no directions; the
parlour-maid hurried upstairs to ask if she was "at home." She replied
that the name must first be announced to her.
It was Mrs. Travis. Cecily hesitated, but decided to receive her.
Though the intercourse between them had been resumed, it was with a
restraint on both sides that seemed to forbid the prospect of
friendship. They had met two or three times only; once it was in the
Denyers' house, and on that occasion Cecily had renewed her
acquaintance with the family and sat a little with Madeline. Interest
in each other they certainly felt, but not in like degrees; Mrs. Travis
showed herself more strongly attracted to Cecily than Cecily was to
her, as it had been from the first. That this was the attraction of
simple liking and goodwill, Cecily could never quite convince herself.
Mrs. Travis always seemed to be studying her, and sometimes in a spirit
of curiosity that was disagreeable. But at the same time she was so
manifestly in need of sympathetic companionship, and allowed such sad
glimpses into her own wrecked life, that Cecily could not reject her,
nor even feel with actual coldness.
"Have you been home long?" the visitor asked, as they shook hands.
"A few hours only."
"Indeed? You have arrived to-day?"
They sat down. Mrs. Travis fixed her eyes on Cecily.
"I hardly hoped to find you."
"I should have let you know that I was back."
Their conversations were accustomed to begin awkwardly, constrainedly.
They never spoke of ordinary topics, and each seemed to wait for a
suggestion of the other's mood. At present Cecily was uneasy under her
visitor's gaze, which was stranger and more inquisitive than usual.
"So you have left the Denyers'?" she said.
"From whom did you hear?"
"I have just had a note from Zillah Denyer, about Madeline. She merely
mentions that you are no longer there."
"I ought to go and see them; but I can't to-day."
"Have you been in London all the time?"
"Yes.--I have gone back to my husband."
It was spoken in a matter-of-fact tone (obviously assumed) which was
very incongruous with the feeling it excited in Cecily. She could not
hear the announcement without an astonished look.
"Of your own free will?" she asked, in a diffident voice. "Oh yes. That
is to say, he persuaded me."
Their eyes met, and Cecily had an impulse of distrust, more decided
than she had ever felt. She could not find anything to say, and by
keeping silence she hoped the interview might be shortened.
"You are disposed to feel contempt for me," Mrs. Travis added, after a
few moments.
"No one can judge another in such things. It is your own affair, Mrs.
Travis."
"Yes, but you despise me for my weakness, naturally you do. Had you no
suspicion that it would end again in this way?"
"I simply believed what you told me."
"That nothing would induce me to return to him. That is how women talk,
you know. We are all very much the same."
Again Cecily kept silence. Mrs. Travis, observing her, saw an offended
look rise to her face.
"I mean, we are few of us, us women, strong enough to hold out against
natural and social laws. We feel indignant, we suffer more than men can
imagine, but we have to yield. But it is true that most women are wise
enough not to act in my way. You are quite right to despise me."
"Why do you repeat that? It is possible you are acting quite rightly.
How should I be able to judge?"
"I am not acting rightly," said the other, with bitterness. "Two
courses are open to a woman in my position. Either she must suffer in
silence, care nothing for the world's talk, take it for granted that,
at any cost, she remains under her husband's roof; or she must leave
him once and for ever, and regard herself as a free woman. The first is
the ordinary choice; most women are forced into it by circumstances;
very few have courage and strength for the second. But to do first one
thing, then the other, to be now weak and now strong, to yield to the
world one day and defy it the next, and then to yield again,--that is
base. Such a woman is a traitor to her sex."
Cecily did not lift her eyes. She heard the speaker's voice tremble,
and could not bear to look at her face. Her heart was sinking, though
she knew not exactly what oppressed her. There was a long silence; then
Cecily spoke.
"If your husband persuaded you to return, it must have been that you
still have affection for him."
"The feeling is not worthy of that name."
"That is for yourself to determine. Why should we talk of it?"
Looking up, Cecily found the other's eyes again fixed on her. It was as
though this strange gaze were meant to be a reply.
"Would it not be better," she continued, "if we didn't speak of these
things? If it could do any good--But surely it cannot."
"Sympathy is good--offered or received."
"I do sympathize with you in your difficulties."
"But you do not care to receive mine," replied Mrs. Travis, in an
undertone.
Cecily gazed at her with changed eyes, inquiring, offended, fearful.
"What need have I of your sympathy, Mrs. Travis?" she asked distantly.
"None, I see," answered the other, with a scarcely perceptible smile.
"I don't understand you. Please let us never talk in this way again."
"Never, if you will first let me say one thing. You remember that Mr.
Elgar once had doubts about my character. He was anxious on your
account, lest you should be friendly with a person who was not all he
could desire from the moral point of view. He did me justice at last,
but it was very painful, as you will understand, to be suspected by one
who embodies such high morality."
There was no virulence in her tone; she spoke as though quietly
defending herself against some unkindness. But Cecily could not escape
her eyes, which searched and stabbed.
"Why do you say this?"
"Because I am weak, and therefore envious. Why should you reject my
sympathy? I could be a better friend to you than any you have. I myself
have no friend; I can't make myself liked. I feel dreadfully alone,
without a soul who cares for me. I am my husband's plaything, and of
course he scorns me. I am sure he laughs at me with his friends and
mistresses. And you too scorn me, though I have tried to make you my
friend. Of course it is all at an end between us now. I understand your
nature; it isn't quite what I thought."
Cecily beard, but scarcely with understanding. The word for which she
was waiting did not come.
"Why," she asked, "do you speak of offering me sympathy? What do you
hint at?"
"Seriously, you don't know?"
"I don't," was the cold answer.
"Why did you go abroad without your husband?"
It came upon Cecily with a shock. Were people discussing her, and thus
interpreting her actions?
"Surely that is my own business, Mrs. Travis. I was in poor health, and
my husband was too busy to accompany me."
"That is the simple truth, from _your_ point of view?"
"How have you done me the honour to understand me?"
Mrs. Travis examined her; then put another question.
"Have you seen your husband since you arrived?"
"No, I have not."
"And you don't know that he is being talked about everywhere--not
exactly for his moral qualities?"
Cecily was mute. Thereupon Mrs. Travis opened the little sealskin-bag
that lay on her lap, and took out a newspaper. She held it to Cecily,
pointing to a certain report. It was a long account of lively
proceedings at a police-court. Cecily read. When she had come to the
end, her eyes remained on the paper. She did not move until Mrs. Travis
put out a hand and touched hers; then she drew back, as in repugnance.
"You had heard nothing of this?"
Cecily did not reply. Thereupon Mrs. Travis again opened her little
bag, and took out a cabinet photograph. It represented a young woman in
tights, her arms folded, one foot across the other; the face was
vulgarly piquant, and wore a smile which made eloquent declaration of
its price.
"That is the 'lady,'" said Mrs. Travis, with a slight emphasis on the
last word.
Cecily looked for an instant only. There was perfect silence for a
minute or two after that; then Cecily rose. She did not speak; but the
other, also rising, said:
"I shouldn't have come if I had known you were still ignorant. But now
you can, and will, think the worst of me; from this day you will hate
me."
"I am not sure," replied Cecily, "that you haven't some strange
pleasure in what you have been telling me; but I know you are very
unhappy, and that alone would prevent me from hating you. I can't be
your friend, it is true; we are too unlike in our tempers and habits of
thought Let us shake hands and say good-bye."
But Mrs. Travis refused her hand, and with a look of bitter suffering,
which tried to appear resignation, went from the room.
Cecily felt a cold burden upon her heart. She sat in a posture of
listlessness, corresponding to the weary misery, numbing instead of
torturing, which possessed her now that the shock was over. Perhaps the
strange manner of the revelation tended to produce this result; the
strong self-control which she had exercised, the mingling of
incongruous emotions, the sudden end of her expectation, brought about
a mood resembling apathy.
She began presently to reflect, to readjust her view of the life she
had been living. It seemed to her now unaccountable that she had been
so little troubled with fears. Ignorance of the world had not blinded
her, nor was she unaware of her husband's history. But the truth was
that she had not cared to entertain suspicion. For a long time she had
not seriously occupied her mind with Reuben. Self-absorbed, she was
practically content to let happen what would, provided it called for no
interference of hers. Her indifference had reached the point of idly
accepting the present, and taking for granted that things would always
be much the same.
Yet she knew the kind of danger to which Reuben was exposed from the
hour when her indifference declared itself; it was present to her
imagination when he chose to remain alone in London. But such thoughts
were vague, impalpable. She had never realized a picture of such
degradation as this which had just stamped itself upon her brain. In
her surmises jealousy had no part, and therefore nothing was conceived
in detail. In the certainty that he no longer loved her with love of
the nobler kind, did it matter much what he concealed? But this
flagrant shame had never threatened her. This was indeed the
"experience" in which, as Reuben had insisted, she was lacking.
No difficulty in understanding now why he kept away. Would he ever
come? Or had he determined that their life in common was no longer
possible, and resolved to spare her the necessity of saying that they
were no longer husband and wife? Doubtless that was what he expected to
hear from her; his view of her character, which she understood
sufficiently well, would lead him to think that.
But she had no impulse to leave his house. The example of Mrs. Travis
was too near. Escape, with or without melodramatic notes of farewell,
never suggested itself. She knew that it was a practical impossibility
to make that absolute severance of their lives without which they were
still man and wife, though at a distance from each other; they must
still be linked by material interests, by common acquaintances. The end
of sham heroics would come, sooner or later, in the same way as to Mrs.
Travis. How was her life different from what it had been yesterday? By
an addition of shame and scorn, that was all; actually, nothing was
altered. When Reuben heard that she was remaining at home, he would
come to her. Perhaps they might go to live in some other place; that
was all.
Tea was brought in, but she paid no heed to it. Sunset and twilight
came; the room grew dusk; then the servants appeared with lamps. She
dined, returned to the drawing room, and took up a book she had been
reading on her journey. It was a volume of Quinet, and insensibly its
interest concentrated her attention. She read for nearly two hours.
Then she was tired of it, and began to move restlessly about. Again she
grew impatient of the uncertainty whether Reuben would return to-night.
She lay upon a couch and tried to forget herself in recollection of
far-off places and people. But instead of the pictures she wished to
form, there kept coming before her mind the repulsive photograph which
Mrs. Travis had produced. Though she had barely glanced at it, she saw
it distinctly--the tawdry costume, the ignoble attitude, the shameless
and sordid face. It polluted her imagination.
Jealousy, of a woman such as that? Had she still loved him, she must
have broken her heart to think that he could fall so low. If it had
been told her that he was overcome by passion for a woman of some
nobleness, she could have heard it with resignation; in that there
would have been nothing base. But the choice he had made would not
allow her even the consolation of reflecting that she felt no jealousy;
it compelled her to involve him in the scorn, if not in the loathing,
with which that portrait inspired her.
That he merely had ceased to love her, what right had she to blame him?
The very word of "blame" was unmeaning in such reference. In this, at
all events, his fatalism had become her own way of thinking. To talk of
controlling love is nonsensical; dead love is dead beyond hope. But
need one sink into a slough of vileness?
At midnight she went to her bedroom. He would not come now.
Sleep seemed far from her, and yet before the clock struck one she had
fallen into a painful slumber. When she awoke, it was to toss and
writhe for hours in uttermost misery. She could neither sleep nor
command a train of thoughts. At times she sobbed and wailed in her
suffering.
No letter arrived in the morning. She could no longer read, and knew
not how to pass the hours. In some way she must put an end to her
intolerable loneliness, but she could not decide how to act. Reuben
might come today; she wished it, that the meeting might be over and
done with.
But the long torment of her nerves had caused a change of mood. She was
feverish now, and impatience grew to resentment. The emotions which
were yesterday so dulled began to stir in her heart and brain. Walking
about the room, unable to occupy herself for a moment, she felt as
though fetters were upon her; this house had become a prison; her life
was that of a captive without hope of release.
There came in her a sudden outbreak of passionate indignation at the
unequal hardships of a woman's lot. Often as she had read and heard and
talked of this, she seemed to understand it for the first time; now
first was it real to her, in the sense of an ill that goads and
tortures. Not society alone was chargeable with the injustice; nature
herself had dealt cruelly with woman. Constituted as she is, limited as
she is by inexorable laws, by what refinement of malice is she endowed
with energies and desires like to those of men? She should have been
made a creature of sluggish brain, of torpid pulse; then she might have
discharged her natural duties without exposure to fever and pain and
remorse such as man never knows.
She asked no liberty to be vile, as her husband made himself; but that
she was denied an equal freedom to exercise all her powers, to enrich
her life with experiences of joy, this fired her to revolt. A woman who
belongs to the old education readily believes that it is not to
experiences of joy, but of sorrow, that she must look for her true
blessedness; her ideal is one of renunciation; religious motive is in
her enforced by what she deems the obligation of her sex. But Cecily
was of the new world, the emancipated order. For a time she might
accept misery as her inalienable lot, but her youthful years, fed with
the new philosophy, must in the end rebel.
Could she live with such a man without sooner or later taking a taint
of his ignobleness? His path was downwards, and how could she hope to
keep her own course in independence of him? It shamed her that she had
ever loved him. But indeed she had not loved the Reuben that now was;
the better part of him was then predominant. No matter that he was
changed; no matter how low he descended; she must still be bound to
him. Whereas he acknowledged no mutual bond; he was a man, and
therefore in practice free.
Yet she was as far as ever from projecting escape. The unjust law was
still a law, and irresistible. Had it been her case that she loved some
other man, and his return of love claimed her, then indeed she might
dare anything and break her chains. But the power of love seemed as
dead in her as the passion she had once, and only once, conceived. She
was utterly alone.
Morning and noon went by. She had exhausted herself with ceaseless
movement, and now for two or three hours lay on a couch as if asleep.
The fever burned upon her forhead and in her breath.
But at length endurance reached its limits. As she lay still, a thought
had taken possession of her--at first rejected again and again, but
always returning, and with more tempting persistency. She could not
begin another night without having spoken to some one. She seemed to
have been foresaken for days; there was no knowing how long she might
live here in solitude. When it was nearly five o'clock, she went to her
bedroom and prepared for going out.
When ready, she met the servant who was bringing up tea.
"I shall not want it," she said. "And probably I shall not dine at
home. Nothing need be prepared."
She entered the library, and took up from the writing-table Mallard's
note; she looked at the address that was on it.
Then she left the house, and summoned the first vacant cab.