A year passed. It was June again.
For more than a year there had been rumors of changes in Morfe. The
doctor talked of going. He was always talking of going and nobody had
yet believed that he would go. This time, they said, he was serious,
it had been a toss-up whether he stayed or went. But in the end he
stayed. Things had happened in Rowcliffe's family. His mother had died
and his wife had had a son.
Rowcliffe's son was the image of Rowcliffe.
The doctor had no brothers or sisters, and by his mother's death he
came into possession both of his father's income and of hers. He had
now more than a thousand a year over and above what he earned.
On an unearned thousand a year you can live like a rich man in
Rathdale.
Not that Rowcliffe had any idea of giving up. He was well under forty
and as soon as old Hyslop at Reyburn died or retired he would step
into his practice. He hadn't half enough to do in Morfe and he wanted
more.
Meanwhile he had bought the house that joined on to his own and thrown
the two and their gardens into one. They had been one twenty years
ago, when the wide-fronted building, with its long rows of windows,
was the dominating house in Morfe village. Rowcliffe was now the
dominating man in it. He had given the old place back its own.
And he had spent any amount of money on it. He had had all the
woodwork painted white, and the whole house repapered and redecorated.
He had laid down parquet flooring in the big square hall that he had
made and in the new drawing-room upstairs; and he had bought a great
deal of beautiful and expensive furniture.
And now he was building a garage and laying out a croquet ground and
tennis lawns at the back.
He and Mary had been superintending these works all afternoon till a
shower sent them indoors. And now they were sitting together in the
drawing-room, in the breathing-space that came between the children's
hour and dinner.
Mary had sent the children back to the nursery a little earlier than
usual. Rowcliffe had complained of headache.
He was always complaining of headaches. They dated from his marriage,
and more particularly from one night in June eight years ago.
But Rowcliffe ignored the evidence of dates. He ignored everything
that made him feel uncomfortable. He had put Gwenda from him. He had
said plainly to Mary (in one poignant moment not long before the birth
of their third child), "If you're worrying about me and Gwenda, you
needn't. She was never anything to me."
That was not saying there had never been anything between them, but
Mary knew what he had meant.
He said to himself, and Mary said that he had got over it. But he
hadn't got over it. He might say to himself and Mary, "She was never
anything to me"; he might put her and the thought of her away from
him, but she had left her mark on him. He hadn't put her away. She was
there, in his heavy eyes and in the irritable gestures of his hands,
in his nerves and in his wounded memory. She had knitted herself into
his secret being.
Mary was unaware of the cause of his malady. If it had been suggested
to her that he had got into this state because of Gwenda she would
have dismissed the idea with contempt. She didn't worry about
Rowcliffe's state. On the contrary, Rowcliffe's state was a
consolation and a satisfaction to her for all that she had endured
through Gwenda. She would have thought you mad if you had told her so,
for she was sorry for Steven and tender to him when he was nervous or
depressed. But to Mary her sorrow and her tenderness were a voluptuous
joy. She even encouraged Rowcliffe in his state. She liked to make it
out worse than it really was, so that he might be more dependent on
her.
And she had found that it could be induced in him by suggestion. She
had only to say to him, "Steven, you're thoroughly worn out," and he
_was_ thoroughly worn out. She had more pleasure, because she had more
confidence, in this lethargic, middle-aged Rowcliffe than in Rowcliffe
young and energetic. His youth had attracted him to Gwenda and
his energy had driven him out of doors. And Mary had set herself,
secretly, insidiously, to destroy them.
It had taken her seven years.
For the first five years it had been hard work for Mary. It had meant,
for her body, an ignominious waiting and watching for the moment when
its appeal would be irresistible, for her soul a complete subservience
to her husband's moods, and for her mind perpetual attention to his
comfort, a thousand cares that had seemed to go unnoticed. But in the
sixth year they had begun to tell. Once Rowcliffe had made up his
mind that Gwenda couldn't be anything to him he had let go and through
sheer exhaustion had fallen more and more into his wife's hands, and
for the last two years her labor had been easy and its end sure.
She had him, bound to her bed and to her fireside.
He said and thought that he was happy. He meant that he was extremely
comfortable.
* * * * *
"Is your head very bad, Steven?"
He shook his head. It wasn't very bad, but he was worried. He was
worried about himself.
From time to time his old self rose against this new self that was
the slave of comfort. It made desperate efforts to shake off the
strangling lethargy. When he went about saying that he was getting
rusty, that he ought never to have left Leeds, and that it would do
him all the good in the world to go back there, he was saying what he
knew to be the truth. The life he was leading was playing the devil
with his nerves and brain. His brain had nothing to do. Hard work
might not be the cure for every kind of nervous trouble, but it was
the one cure for the kind that he had got.
He ought to have gone away seven years ago. It was Gwenda's fault that
he hadn't gone. He felt a dull anger against her as against a woman
who had wrecked his chance.
He had a chance of going now if he cared to take it.
He had had a letter that morning from Dr. Harker asking if he had
meant what he had said a year ago, and if he'd care to exchange his
Rathdale practice for his old practice in Leeds. Harker's wife was
threatened with lung trouble, and they would have to live in the
country somewhere, and Harker himself wouldn't be sorry for the
exchange. His present practice was worth twice what it had been ten
years ago and it was growing. There were all sorts of interesting
things to be done in Leeds by a man of Rowcliffe's keenness and
energy.
"Do you know, Steven, you're getting quite stout?"
"I do know," he said almost with bitterness.
"I don't mean horridly stout, dear, just nicely and comfortably
stout."
"I'm _too_ comfortable," he said. "I don't do enough work to keep me
fit."
"Is that what's bothering you?"
He frowned. It was Harker's letter that was bothering him. He said so.
For one instant Mary looked impatient.
"I thought we'd settled that," she said.
Rowcliffe sighed.
"What on earth makes you want to go and leave this place when you've
spent hundreds on it?"
"I should make pots of money in Leeds."
"But we couldn't live there."
"Why not?"
"It would be too awful. My dear, if it were a big London practice I
shouldn't say no. That might be worth while. But whatever should we
have in Leeds?"
"We haven't much here."
"We've got the county. You might think of the children."
"I do," he said mournfully. "I do. I think of nothing else but the
children--and you. If you wouldn't like it there's an end of it."
"You might think of yourself, dear. You really are not strong enough
for it."
He felt that he really was not.
He changed the subject.
"I saw Gwenda the other day."
"Looking as young as ever, I suppose?"
"No. Not quite so young. I thought she was looking rather ill."
He meditated.
"I wonder why she never comes."
He really did wonder.
* * * * *
"It's a quarter past seven, Steven."
He rose and stretched himself. They went together to the night nursery
where the three children lay in their cots, the little red-haired
girls awake and restless, and the dark-haired baby in his first sleep.
They bent over them together. Mary's lips touched the red hair and the
dark where Steven's lips had been.
They spent the evening sitting by the fire in Rowcliffe's study. The
doctor dozed. Mary, silent over her sewing, was the perfect image of
tranquillity. From time to time she looked at her husband and smiled
as his chin dropped to his breast and recovered itself with a start.