Chapter XII: Part II: I (6)

“You starved his instincts—the natural desire of a boy for gaiety and amusement, the natural craving of youth for love. You applied to him the standards of a woman of fifty. A wise mother lets her son go his own way, and shuts her eyes to youthful peccadillos; but you made all these peccadillos into deadly sins. After all, moralists talk a deal of nonsense about the frailty of mankind. When you come to close quarters with vice, it’s not really so desperately wicked as all that. A man may be a very good fellow though he does sit up late and occasionally drink more than is discreet, gamble a little and philander with ladies of doubtful fame. All these things are part of human nature, when youth and hot blood are joined together, and for some of them foreign nations, wiser than ourselves, have made provision.”

“I wish I’d never had a son!” cried Mrs. Bassett. “How much luckier you are than I!”

Miss Ley got up, and a curious expression came over her face.

“Oh, my dear, don’t say that! I tell you, that even though I know Reggie to be idle and selfish and dissolute, I would give all I have in the world if he were only mine. There’s not a soul on this wide earth that cares for me—except Frank, because I amuse him—and I’m so dreadfully lonely. I’m growing old. Often I feel so old I wonder how I can continue to live, and I want someone so badly to whom it’s not a matter of absolute indifference if I’m well or ill, dead or alive. Oh, my dear, thank God for your son!”

“I can’t now I know he’s wicked and vicious.”

“But what is vice, and what is wickedness? Are you sure we know? I suppose I have been a virtuous woman. I’ve done nobody any harm; I’ve helped a good many; I’ve done the usual moral things that women do; and when anything was possible that I particularly wanted, I’ve withstood because it was ingrained in me that nice things were naughty. But sometimes I think I’ve wasted my life, and I dare say I should be a better woman if I hadn’t been so virtuous. When I look back now it’s not the temptations I fell to that I regret, but the temptations I resisted. I’m an old woman, and I’ve never known love, and I’m childless and forsaken. Oh, Emily, if I had my time over again I promise you I wouldn’t be so virtuous. I would take all the good that life offered, without thinking too much of propriety. And above all things I would have a child.”

“Mary, what are you saying?”

Miss Ley shrugged her shoulders, and was silent; her voice was broken, and she could not trust herself to speak. But Mrs. Bassett’s thoughts went back to the injury which Reggie had done her, and she gave Miss Ley his letter to read.

“There’s not a word of regret in it. He seems to have no shame and no conscience. He was married on the very day of my operation, when I might have died any moment. He must be absolutely heartless.”

“D’you know what I would do if I were you?” asked Miss Ley, pleased to get away from her own emotions. “I would go to him, and ask forgiveness for all the harm you’ve done him.”

“I? Mary, you must be mad! What need have I for forgiveness?”

“Think it over. I have an idea that presently it will occur to you that you never gave the boy a chance. I’m not sure whether you don’t owe him a good deal of reparation; anyhow, you can’t undo the marriage, and it’s just possible it may be the saving of him.”

“You’re not going to ask me to receive an actress as my daughter-in-law?”

“Fiddledidee! She’ll make your son a much better wife than a duchess.”

When Mrs. Barlow-Bassett showed her friend Reggie’s letter. Miss Ley carefully noted the address, and next day, in the afternoon, proceeded to call upon the new-married couple. They lived in a somewhat shabby lodging-house in the Vauxhall Bridge Road—that long, sordid street—and Miss Ley was shown into an attic which served as sitting-room. It was barely fitted with tawdry furniture, much the worse for wear, but to give a homelike air photographs were pinned on the wall, each with a sprawling flourish for a signature, of persons connected with the stage, but unknown to fame. When Miss Ley entered, Reggie, dressed in a suit of somewhat pronounced pattern, with a Homburg tweed hat on his head, was reading the _Era_, while his wife stood in front of the glass doing her hair. Notwithstanding the late hour, she still wore a dressing-gown of red satin, covered with inexpensive lace, which was certainly neither very new nor very clean. Miss Ley’s appearance caused some embarrassment, and it was not without awkwardness that Reggie made the necessary introduction.

“Excuse me being in such a state,” said Mrs. Reggie, gathering up her hairpins, “but I was just going to dress.”

She was a little woman, plainly older than her husband, and to Miss Ley’s astonishment, by no means pretty; her eyes were handsome, used with full knowledge of their power, and her black hair very fine; but chiefly noticeable was a singular determination of manner, a shrewishness about the mouth, which suggested that if she did not get her own way someone would suffer. She looked rather suspiciously at Miss Ley, but treated her with sufficient cordiality to indicate a readiness to be friendly if the visitor did not prove hostile.

“I only heard you were married yesterday,” Miss Ley hastened to say as affably as possible, “and I was anxious to make your wife’s acquaintance, Reggie.”

“You’ve not come from the mater?” he asked.

“No.”

“I suppose she’s in a hell of a wax.”

“Reggie, don’t swear; I don’t like it,” said his wife.

Miss Ley shrugged her shoulders and smiled vaguely. Since she was not offered a chair, she looked round for the most comfortable, and sat down. Mrs. Reggie glanced uncertainly from her husband to Miss Ley, and then at her own disarranged dress, hesitating whether to leave the pair alone or to sacrifice her appearance.

“I am untidy,” she said.

“Good heavens! it’s so refreshing to find someone who doesn’t dress till late in the day. When I take off my dressing-gown I put on invariably a sense of responsibility. Do sit down and tell me all about your plans.”

Miss Ley had the art of putting people at their ease, and the bride succumbed at once to the elder woman’s quiet but authoritative way. She glanced at her husband.

“Reggie, take off your hat,” she said peremptorily.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot.”

When he removed this headgear Miss Ley noticed that his hair was very long, worn with a dramatic flamboyance. His speech was deliberate, with a certain declamatory enunciation which vastly amused his old friend; his nails were none too clean, and his boots needed polish.

“What does the mater think of my going on the stage?” he asked, passing his hand with a fine gesture through his raven locks. “It’s the best thing I could do, isn’t it, Lauria? I feel that I’ve found my vocation. Nature intended me for an actor. It’s the only thing I’m fit for—an artistic career. Tell my mother that I will sacrifice everything to my art. I hope you’ll come and see me play.”

“It will give me great pleasure.”

“Not in this piece. I only—walk on, don’t you know. But in the spring Lauria and I are going to give a series of recitations.”

He rose to his feet, and standing in front of the fireplace, stretched out one dramatic hand.

“‘To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?’”

He bellowed the words at the top of his voice, uttering each syllable with profound and dramatic emphasis.

“By Jove!” he said, “what a part! They don’t write parts like that now. An actor has no chance in a modern play, where there’s not a speech more than two lines long.”

Miss Ley looked at him with astonishment, for it had never occurred to her that such a development could possibly be his; then, glancing quickly at Lauria, she fancied that a slight ironical smile trembled on her lips.

“I tell you,” said Reggie, beating his chest, “I feel that I shall be a great actor. If I can only get my chance, I shall just stagger creation. I must go and see Basil Kent, and ask him to write a play for us, Lauria.”

“And are you going to stagger creation too?” asked Miss Ley, blandly turning to Mrs. Reggie.

The young woman restrained her merriment no longer, but burst into such a hearty peal of laughter that Miss Ley began to like her.

“Will you stay to tea, Miss Ley?”

“Certainly; that is why I came.”

“That’s fine. I’ll make you some tea in less than no time. Reggie, take the can, and go out and get half a pint of milk.”

“Yes, my dear,” he replied obediently, putting on his tweed hat with a rakish swagger, and taking from a table littered with papers, articles of apparel, and domestic utensils a small milk-can.

“How much money have you got in your pocket?”

He pulled out some coppers and one silver coin.

“One and sevenpence halfpenny.”

“Then, you’ll have one and sixpence halfpenny when you come home. You can buy a packet of straighters for threepence, and mind you’ re back in ten minutes.”

“Yes, dear.”

He walked out meekly, and closed the door behind him. Mrs. Reggie went to the door and looked out.

“His mother brought him up very badly,” she explained, “and he’s not above listening at keyholes.”

Miss Ley, shaking with inward laughter, had listened to the scene with amazement. Lauria continued her apologetic explanations.

“You know, I have to keep a sharp eye on his money because he’s rather inclined to tipple. I’ve got him out of it, but I’m always afraid he’ll drop into a pub if I don’t look out. His mother must be about the biggest fool you’ve met, isn’t she?”

Mrs. Reggie glanced at a box of cigarettes, and the other, noticing the yellow on her forefinger, concluded she was an eager smoker; it was easy to put her in comfort.

“Would you give me a cigarette?”

“Oh, d’you smoke?” cried Lauria, with a bright look of pleasure. “I was simply dying for a fag, but I didn’t want to shock you.”

They lit up, and Miss Ley drew towards her another chair.

“D’you mind if I put my feet up? I always think that only quadrupeds should keep their longer extremities constantly dangling.”

With a faint smile, she essayed to make smoke-rings.

“You’re all right,” said Lauria, with a little nod. “I’m glad you came. I wanted to have a talk with someone who knew Reggie’s mother. I suppose she’s in a fury. I wanted him to tell her beforehand, but he didn’t dare. Besides, he never does a thing straightforwardly if he can do it crooked. And as for lying—well, he’s worse than a woman. You can tell his mother it’ll take me all my time to make a gentleman of her son.”

Miss Ley smiled dryly.

“I have seldom seen a newly-married woman so keenly alive to the defects of her husband’s character.”

“Reggie’s not a bad boy really,” answered his wife, shrugging her shoulders, “but he wants licking into shape.”

“I wonder why you married him?” asked the other, reflectively, knocking off the ash of her cigarette.

Lauria looked at her sharply, hesitating, then made up her mind to speak openly.

“You seem a good sort and a woman of the world; and, after all, I’m married, and you’ll just have to make the best of me. Reggie’s good-looking, isn’t he?” She glanced at a photograph which stood on the chimneypiece. “And I like him. You know, I’ve been on the stage eight years; I went on when I was sixteen. How much does that make me!”

“Twenty-seven, I should say,” answered Miss Ley with deliberation.

Lauria smiled good-naturedly.

“Nasty people say I’m twenty-eight; but, anyhow, I’m sick to death of the stage, and I want to get off it.”

“I thought you were going to play Juliet to Reggie’s Romeo.”

“Yes, I can see myself! For one thing, I’m quite sure Reggie can’t act for nuts, and when they start they all want to play Hamlet. Why, I never knew a super who carried a banner in a panto who didn’t think that if he got his opportunity he’d be another Irving. Oh, I’ve heard it so often! Every girl I know has come to me and said: “Lauria, I feel I’ve got it in me, and I only want a chance.” I’m sick of the whole thing. I don’t want to go traipsing about the province’s, working like a nigger all the week, and travelling on Sundays, living in dingy apartments, and all the rest of it. I just let Reggie gas away, and it keeps him out of mischief to learn plays. I thought it would take his mother three months to come round, and by that time he’ll be sick of it. I like Reggie, and when I’ve had him in hand for a few months I shall make a decent boy of him; but I don’t pretend for a moment I’d have married him if I hadn’t known that his mother had money.”

“You’re a wise woman. In the first place, I can’t think how you got him to marry at all. I never thought he’d do it.”

“My dear Miss Ley, I thought you were a woman of the world. Don’t you know that if a girl of my age makes up her mind to marry a man, he must be awfully cute to save himself?”

“I confess I had often suspected it,” smiled Miss Ley.

“Of course, you have to choose your man. I saw Reggie was gone on me, and I led him a dance. You know, we’ve got a reputation for being wrong uns on the stage, but that’s all rot. We’re no worse than anyone else, only we’ve got more temptation, and when anything happens the papers take it up just because we’re professional. But I’ve known how to take care of myself, and I just let Reggie understand that I wasn’t going to be made a fool of. I played up to him for a fortnight, and then told him I wouldn’t see him any more, and by that time he was fairly stage-struck, and so he asked me to marry him.”

“It sounds very simple. And how did you manage to tame him?”

“I just let him see that if he wanted to have a decent time he’d got to be nice to me, and he very soon tumbled to it. You wouldn’t think it, but I’ve got a nasty temper when I’m roused. He looks up to me like anything, and he knows I don’t mean to stand any nonsense. Oh, he’ll be all right in six months.”

“And what do you want me to tell his mother?”

“Just tell her not to interfere. We’re all right with regard to money, and when she calms down she can make us an allowance. Six hundred a year will do, and we’ll take a house at Bournemouth. I don’t want to live in London till I’m sure of Reggie.”

“Very well,” answered Miss Ley. “I’ll say that, and I’ll say besides that she ought to thank her stars Reggie has found a decent woman. I have no doubt in a little while you’ll make him into quite a respectable member of society.”

“Here he comes with the milk!”

Reggie entered, and together they began to make tea. When Miss Ley departed Lauria sent him downstairs to show her out.

“Ain’t she a ripper?” he exclaimed. “And I tell you what, Miss Ley, she’s a real good sort. Tell the mater that she’s not beneath me at all.”

“Beneath you! My dear boy, she’s worth six of you. And I dare say under her charge you’ll turn into a very passable imitation of a gentleman, after all.”

Reggie looked at her with tragic countenance, flung back his head, and pressed both hands to his manly bosom.

“‘_Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!_’” he cried.

“For goodness’ sake, hold your tongue!” she interrupted quickly.

She gave him her hand, and while pressing it he leaned forward confidentially and exclaimed:

“‘I’ll have grounds More relative than this. The play’s the thing Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.’”

XII

Meanwhile things with Basil and Jenny had gone from bad to worse. There had been no power in their reconciliation to pacify the Fates, and presently another violent quarrel proved that under no circumstances could they live without discord. Basil, training his tongue to silence whatever the provocation, maintained over himself the most careful restraint; but it was very irksome, and in his breast there arose gradually a blind and angry hatred for Jenny because she made him suffer such unspeakable torture. They had so fallen out of sympathy that he never realized how ardent her love for him still was, and that she tormented him only on this account. So passed the summer, for Basil, crippled with debts, felt bound to remain in chambers through the vacation on the chance of picking up a stray brief which no one else was on hand to take.

A profound depression settled upon him, and he brooded hopelessly over the future. What had it to offer but a continuance of this unceasing pain? He looked into the years dragging out their weary length, and it seemed to him impossible to live under such conditions. Only his passion for Hilda Murray supported him, for therein he seemed to find strength to face the world, and at the same time resignation. He had learnt to ask for little from the gods, and was content to love without hope of reward. He was immensely grateful for her friendship, and felt that she understood and sympathized with his distress. Mrs. Murray spent the summer abroad, but wrote often, and her letters made him happy for days. In his solitary walks he analyzed his feelings endlessly, telling himself that they were very pure; and just because he thought of her so much it seemed to him that he grew better and simpler. In October she returned, and two days later Basil called upon her, but was grievously disappointed to find Mr. Farley already on the scene. Basil detested the Vicar of _All Souls_, detecting in him a rival who lay under no such disadvantage as himself. Mr. Farley was still a handsome man, with the air and presence of a person of importance. His conversation smacked of the diner-out who could discuss urbanely all the topics used at the tables of the cultured. He was diverting and easy, knowing well the discreet thing to say; and about his manner towards Mrs. Murray was a subtle but significant flattery. Basil was hugely annoyed by the familiarity with which he used the woman whom himself could only treat quite formally. They appeared to have little understandings which made him furiously jealous. Hilda had busied herself in certain charitable concerns of the Vicar of _All Souls_, and with much laughter they discussed the various amusing things to which these had given rise.

Basil went home sullen and resentful, thinking through the whole evening of Hilda, whom he had left with Mr. Farley, and when he went to bed gained no repose. He heard the hours strike one after the other, and turned from side to side restlessly, striving to get a little sleep; his love now was uncontrollable, and he was mad with grief and pain. He tried not to think of Hilda, but each subject he forced upon his brain gave way to her image, and in hopeless woe he asked himself how he could bear with life. He tried to reason, saying that this height of passion could only be temporary, and in a very few months he would look upon the present madness with scorn; he tried to soothe his aching heart by turning his emotion to literary uses, and set himself to describe his agony in words, as though he were going to write it in a novel. But nothing served. When the clock struck five he was thankful that only three hours remained before he could reasonably get up. He thought to read, but had not the heart to do anything which should disturb the bitter-sweet of his contemplation. Next morning at breakfast Jenny noticed that his eyes were heavy with want of rest, his mouth drawn and haggard, and with jealous intuition guessed the cause. She sought to make him angry, and the opportunity coming, made some spiteful remark; but he was listless; he looked up wearily, too exhausted to reply. They ate breakfast in silence, and then with heavy heart he set out for his daily work.

So things continued through the autumn, and with November the winter set in cold, dark, and wet. Coming home in the evenings, Basil’s heart sank when he entered the street in which was his house; he felt sick with the sordid regularity of all those little dwellings exactly like one another. Miss Ley, perhaps ironically, had once remarked that life in a suburb must be quite idyllic; and Basil laughed savagely when he thought that only the milk-cart and the barrel-organ disturbed the romantic seclusion. He loathed his neighbours, with whom he knew Jenny discussed him, and shuddered with horror at their narrow lives, from which was excluded firmly all that made existence comely and urbane.

It was inevitable that quarrels should occur between the pair, notwithstanding Basil’s determination to avoid friction, and of late these on both sides were grown more bitter. On a certain occasion, taking up his letters, noticed that one had already been opened, and then somewhat clumsily fastened down; he glanced at Jenny, who was watching him, but she quickly dropped her eyes. Her suspicions had been aroused evidently because of the pink paper; _Private_ was written above the address, and on the back was a golden initial. It was merely an offer from a money-lender to accommodate him with any sum between five pounds and five thousand, and he could not help a little laugh of scorn because Jenny, on steaming it open, had found nothing but an impudent circular: when she heard this she coloured furiously. She waited for him to speak, but he, only wondering why she had not the sense altogether to suppress that communication, said nothing. In a minute or two he gathered up his correspondence, and taking some paper, walked towards the door.

“Where are you going?” she asked abruptly, “Can’t you write in here?”

“Certainly, if it pleases you, but I have some rather bothering letters, and I want to be perfectly quiet.”

She flung aside the work on which she was engaged, and faced him angrily, stung to the quick by the indifference of his tone and manner.

“I suppose you have no objection to my talking to you when I want to say something? You seem to think only fit to see after the house and mend your clothes, after that I can go and sit in the kitchen with the servant.”

“D’you think it’s worth while making a scene? We seem to have said all this before so many times.”

“I want to have it out.”

“We’ve been having it out twice a week for the last six months,” he answered, bored to extinction, “and we’ve never got anywhere yet.”

“Am I your wife or not, Basil?”

“You have your marriage lines carefully locked up to prove it.” He looked at her reflectively, putting back the letters in his desk. “They say the first year of marriage is he worst; ours has been bad enough, in all conscience, hasn’t it?”

“I suppose you think it’s my fault?”

She spoke aggressively, with a sort of brutal sneer, but somehow it seemed no longer to affect him; he was able in a manner to look on this scene with a curious detachment, as though he were a spectator at a theatre watching players acting their parts.

“After all, I tried my best to make you happy.”

“Well, you haven’t succeeded very well. Did you think I was likely to be happy when you left me alone all day and half the night for the swell friends for whom I’m not good enough?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“You know very well that I scarcely ever see any of my old friends.”

“Except Mrs. Murray, eh?” she interrupted.

“I’ve seen Mrs. Murray a dozen times in the last year.”

“Oh, you needn’t tell me that; I know it. She’s a lady, isn’t she?”

Basil stared coolly at his wife; though asking himself why that name had occurred to her, it never dawned on him that she could suspect how violent was his passion. But he meant to ignore the charge.

“My work takes me away from you,” he said. “Think how bored you’d be if I were always here.”

“A precious lot of good your work does,” she cried scornfully. “You can’t earn enough money to keep us out of debt.”

“We are in debt, but we share that very respectable condition with half the nobility and gentry in the kingdom.”

“All the neighbours know that we’ve got bills with the tradesmen.”

Basil flushed and tightened his lips.

“I’m sorry that you shouldn’t have made so good a bargain as you expected when you married me,” he replied acidly.

“I wonder what you do succeed in. Your book was very successful, wasn’t it? You thought you were going to set the Thames on fire, and it fell flat, flat, flat!”

“That is a fate which has befallen better books than mine,” he answered, with a laugh.

“It deserved it.”

“I didn’t expect you to appreciate it. Unfortunately, it’s not given to all of us to write about wicked earls and beautiful duchesses.”

“The papers praised it, didn’t they?”

“The unanimity of their blame was the only thing that consoled me. I often wonder if the reviewer who abuses you realizes what pleasure he causes to the wife of your bosom.”

It was Basil’s apparent indifference to her taunts, his disdain and bitter sarcasm, that made Jenny lose all restraint. Often she could not see the point of his replies, but vaguely felt that he laughed at her; and then her passionate wrath knew no limits.

“Oh, I’ve learnt to know you so well since the baby died,” she said, clenching her hands. “You’ve got no cause to set yourself up on a pedestal. I know what you are now; I was such a fool as to think you a hero. You’re merely a failure. In everything you try you’re a miserable failure.”

He faced her steadily, but a look of complete despair came into his eyes, for she had voiced with sufficient emphasis the thought which for so many months had wormed its way into his soul, destroying all his energy; he saw the future like a man condemned to death, for whom the beauty of life is only bitterness.

“Perhaps you’re right, Jenny,” he replied’ “I dare say I’m only a rotten failure.”

He walked up and down the room, reflecting bitterly, and then stared out of the window at the even row of houses, somehow more sordid than ever in the dim light of gas-jets. He shuddered when he looked round this parlour, so common, so uninteresting; and like a sudden rush of water overwhelming, came the recollection of all the misery he had suffered within those four walls. Jenny had again taken up her sewing, and was hemming dusters; he sat down beside her.

“Look here, Jenny, I want to have a rather serious talk with you. I should like you to listen quietly for a few minutes, and I want to put away all passion and temper, so that we may discuss the matter quite reasonably. We don’t seem able to get on very well, and I see no chance of things going any better. You’re unhappy, and I’m afraid I’m not very happy, either; I don’t want to seem selfish, but I can’t do any work or anything while this sort of thing continues. And I feel that all these quarrels are so awfully degrading. Don’t you think it would be better for both of us if we lived apart for a bit? Perhaps later on we might try again.”

While he spoke Jenny had watched with startled eyes, but, though vaguely alarmed, did not till quite the end understand to what his words tended. Then she could scarcely answer.

“D’you mean to say you want to separate? And what’ll you do?”

“I should go abroad for awhile.”

“With Mrs. Murray?” she cried excitedly. “Is that it! You want to go away with her. You’re sick of me. You’ve had all you want out of me, and now I can go. The fine lady comes along, and you send me away like a housemaid. D’you think I can’t see that you’re in love with her? You’d sacrifice me without a thought to save her a moment’s unpleasantness. And because you love her you hate me.”

“How can you talk such nonsense! You’ve got no right to say things like that.”

“Haven’t I? I suppose I must shut my eyes and say nothing. You’re in love with her. D’you think I’ve not seen it in these months? That’s why you want to leave me.”

“It’s impossible for us to live together,” he answered desperately. “We shall never agree, and we shall never be happy. For God’s sake, let us separate and have done with it.”

Basil was standing up now, and Jenny went up to him, close, so that they stood face to face.

“Look here, Basil: will you swear that you’re not in love with that woman?”

“Certainly,” he answered scornfully.

“It’s a lie. . . . And she’s just as much in love with you as you are with her.”

“What d’you mean by that?” he cried, the blood running to his head and his heart beating painfully. He seized her wrists. “What d’you mean, Jenny?”

“D’you think I haven’t got eyes in my head? I saw it that day she came here. D’you suppose she came to see me? She despises me because I’m not a lady. She came here to please you; she was polite to me to please you; she asked me to go and see her to please you.”

“It’s absurd. Of course she came. She was an old friend of mine.”

“I know that sort of friend. D’you think I didn’t see the way she looked at you, and how she followed you with her eyes? She simply hung on every word you said. When you smiled she smiled; when you laughed she laughed. Oh, I should think she was in love with you; I know what love is, and I felt it. And when she looked at me, I knew she hated me because I’d robbed her of you.”

“Oh, what a dog’s life it is we lead!” he cried, unable to contain himself. “We’ve both been utterly wretched, and it can’t go on. I do my best to hold myself in, but sometimes I feel it’s impossible. I shall be led to saying things that we shall both regret. For Heaven’s sake, let us part.”

“No. I won’t consent.”

“We can’t go on having these awful quarrels. It was a horrible mistake that we ever married. You must see that as well as I. We’re utterly unsuited to one another, and the baby’s death removed the only necessity that held us together.”

“You talk as if we only remained together because it I was convenient.”

“Let me go, Jenny; I can’t stand it any more,” he cried passionately. “I feel as if I shall go mad.” He stretched out his hands, appealing. “I did my best for you a year ago. I gave you all I had to give; it was little enough, in all conscience. Now I ask you to give me back my freedom.”

She was perfectly distracted; it had never occurred to her for a moment that things would go so far.

“You only think of yourself!” she exclaimed. “What’s to become of me?”

“You’ll be much happier,” he answered eagerly, thinking she would yield. “It’s the best thing for both of us.”

“But I love you, Basil.”

“You!” He stared at her with dismay and consternation. “Why, you’ve tortured me for six mouths beyond all endurance. You’ve made all my days a burden to me. You’ve made my life a perfect hell.”

She stared at him, sheer panic in her eyes; each word was like a death-blow, and she gasped and shuddered. Like a hunted thing, she looked this way and that for means of escape, but nothing offered; and then, groping strangely, seeking to hide herself, she staggered to the door.

“Give me time to think it over,” she said hoarsely.

Next morning at breakfast Basil, with elaborate politeness, spoke of trivial things, but Jenny noticed that he kept his eyes averted, and it cut her to the quick because he used her as he might a chance acquaintance. It seemed then that even stony silence would have been more easy to endure. Rising from the table, he asked whether she had considered his proposal.

“No; I didn’t think you really meant it.”

He shrugged his shoulders, and did not answer. He made ready to go out, and she watched him with trembling heart, hoping with most sickening anguish that he would say one kind word to her before he left.

“You’re going very early this morning,” she remarked.

“I’ve got to devil a case at eleven, and I want to see someone before I go into court.”

“Who?”

He coloured and looked away.

“My solicitor.”

This time it was she who kept silence; but when he went out into the street she watched him from the window, carefully, so that he should not see her if he looked up. But he never turned back. He walked slowly with bowed shoulders, as though he were very tired; then she gave way to her bitter sorrow and wept uncontrollably. She did not know what to do, and more than ever before needed advice. On a sudden she made up her mind to see Frank Hurrell; for during the summer he had come fairly often to Barnes, and she had been always grateful for his sober kindness; him at least she could trust, and unlike the others, he would not scorn her because she was of mean birth. Part of her difficulties arose from the fact that of late she had grown quite out of sympathy with her own people, seeing things from a different standpoint, so that it impossible to appeal to their sympathy; she was a stranger to all the world, disaccustomed now to her own class, and still outside that into which she had married. Desperately she fancied that the very universe stood against her, and it appeared vaguely that she struggled like a drowning man against the overwhelming waters of humanity.

Jenny hurriedly dressed, and took the train to Waterloo. She did not know at what time Frank went out, and was terrified at the thought of missing him. But her training prevented her from taking a cab, and she got into a ’bus. It seemed to crawl along, and the minutes were hours; each stoppage drove her to such a pitch of nervous exasperation that she could scarcely sit still, and only persuaded herself with difficulty that, however slowly it went, the omnibus must go faster than she could walk. Arrived at length, Jenny to her great relief found that Frank was in, but he was so obviously surprised to see her that for a moment, disconcerted, she knew not how to explain her visit.

“May I speak to you for a few minutes? I won’t keep you long.”

“By all means. Where is Basil?”

He made her sit down, and tried to take from her the umbrella which she held firmly; but she refused to be parted from it, and sat on the edge of the chair, ill at ease, with the awkward formality of a person unused to drawing-rooms. To Frank, seeking to make her comfortable, she seemed like a housekeeper applying for a situation.

“Can I trust you?” she broke out abruptly, with an effort “I’m in awful trouble. You’re a good sort, and you’ve never looked down on me because I was a barmaid. Tell me I can trust you. There’s no one I can speak to, and I feel if I don’t speak I shall go off my head.”

“But, good heavens! what’s the matter?”

“Everything’s the matter. He wants to separate. He’s gone to his solicitor to-day. He’s going to turn me out in the street like a servant; and I shall kill myself—I tell you I’ll kill myself.” She wrung her hands, and the tears rolled down her cheeks. “Before you we’ve always kept up appearances, because he was ashamed to let you see how he regrets having married me.”

Frank knew well enough that for some months things had not gone very smoothly with the pair, but it had never occurred to him that they were come to such a pass. He did not know what to say nor how to reassure her.

“It’s nonsense. It can only be a little passing quarrel. After all, you must expect to have those.”

“No, it isn’t. I shouldn’t mind if I thought he loved me, but he doesn’t. He calls it a dog’s life, and he’s right.” She hesitated, but only for an instant. “Will you tell me the truth if I ask you something—on your honour?”

“Of course.”

“Is there anything between Basil and Mrs. Murray?”

“No, certainly not!” he cried emphatically. “How can such an idea have come to you!”

“You wouldn’t tell me if there was,” she answered distractedly; and now the words, which before had come so hardly, poured out in a disordered torrent. “You’re all against me because I’m not a lady. . . . Oh, I’m so unhappy! I tell you he’s in love with Mrs. Murray. The other day he was going to dine there, and you should have seen him! He was so restless he couldn’t sit still; he looked at his watch every minute. His eyes simply glittered with excitement, and I could almost hear his heart beating. He was there twice last week, and twice the week before.”

“How d’you know?”

“Because I followed him. If I’m not ladylike enough for him, I needn’t play the lady there. You’re shocked now, I suppose?”

“I wouldn’t presume to judge you,” he answered quietly.

“He never loved me,” she went on, feverish and overwrought. “He married me because he thought it was his duty. And then, when the baby died—he thought I’d entrapped him.”

“He didn’t say so.”

“No,” she shouted hysterically, “he never says anything; but I saw it in his eyes.” She clasped her hands passionately, rocking to and fro. “Oh, you don’t know what our life is. For days he never says a word except to answer my questions. And the silence simply drives me mad. I shouldn’t mind if he blackguarded me; I’d rather he hit me than simply look and look. I could see he was keeping himself in, and I knew it was getting towards the end.”

“I’m very sorry,” said Frank helplessly.

Even to himself the words sounded formal and insincere, and Jenny broke out vehemently.

“Oh, don’t you pity me, too. I’ve had a great deal too much pity; I don’t want it. Basil married me from pity. Oh, God, I wish he hadn’t! I can’t stand the unhappiness.”

“You know, Jenny, he’s a man of honour, and he’d never do anything that wasn’t straight.”

“Oh, I know he’s a man of honour,” she cried bitterly. “I wish he had a little less of it; one doesn’t want a lot at fine sentiments in married life—they don’t work.” She stood up and beat her breast. “Oh, why couldn’t I fall in love with a man of my own class? I should have been so much happier. I used to be so proud that Basil wasn’t a clerk or something in the City. He’s right—we shall never be happy. It isn’t a matter of yesterday, or to-day, or to-morrow. I can’t alter myself. He knew I wasn’t a lady when he married me. My father had to bring up five children on two-ten a week. You can’t expect a man to send his daughters to a boarding-school at Brighton on that, and have them finished in Paris. . . . He doesn’t say a word when I do something or say something a lady wouldn’t, but he purses up his lips and looks. Then I get so mad I do things just to aggravate him. Sometimes I try to be vulgar. One learns a good deal in a bar in the City, and I know so well the things that’ll make Basil curl up. I want to get a bit of revenge out of him sometimes, and I know exactly where he’s raw and where I can hurt him. You should see the way he looks when I don’t eat properly, or call a man a Johnny.”

“It opens up endless possibilities of domestic unhappiness,” answered Frank dryly.

“Oh, I know it isn’t fair to him, but I lose my head. I can’t always be refined. Sometimes I can’t help breaking out; I feel I must let myself go.”

Her cheeks were flaming, and she breathed rapidly. Never before had she disclosed her heart so completely to anyone, and Frank, watching her keenly, could not understand this curious mingling of love and hate.

“Why don’t you separate, then?” he asked.

“Because I love him.” Her voice, hard and metallic before, grew suddenly so tender that the change was extraordinary; the bitterness went out of her face. “Oh, you don’t know how I love him! I’d do anything to make him happy; I’d give my life if he wanted it. Oh, I can’t say it, but when I think of him my heart burns so that sometimes I can hardly breathe. I can never show him that he’s all in the world to me; I try to make him love me, and I only make him hate me. What can I do to show him? Ah, if he only knew, I’m sure he’d not regret that he married me. I feel—I feel as if my heart was full of music, and yet something prevents me from ever bringing it out.”

For awhile they sat in silence.

“What is it you wish me to do?” asked Frank at last.

“I want you to tell him I love him. I can’t; I always make a mess of it. Tell him he’s all in the world to me, and I _will_ try to be a good wife to him. Ask him not to leave me, and say that I mean everything for the best.” She paused and dried her eyes. “And couldn’t you go to Mrs. Murray and tell her? Ask her to have mercy on me. Perhaps she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Ask her not to take him away from me.”

She seized his hands in appeal, and he had no power to resist.

“I’ll do my best. Don’t be too downhearted. I’m sure it’ll all come right and you’ll be very happy again.”

She tried to smile through her tears and to thank him, but her voice refused to help her, and she could only press his hands. With a sudden impulse she bent down and kissed them; then quickly, leaving him strangely moved, went out.

XIII

Jenny had not given Frank a very easy task, and when she was gone he cursed her irritably—her father, mother, husband, and all her stock. He knew Mrs. Murray fairly well, had treated her in illness, and also gone somewhat frequently to the house in Charles Street; but, for all that it was awkward to attack her on a subject of so personal a nature, and he was aware that he lay himself open to an unpleasant rebuke. He shrugged his shoulders, making up his mind to call on her that afternoon and say his say.

“She can snub me till she’s blue in the face,” he muttered.

Ignorant of what was in store, Hilda Murray, coming in from luncheon, went into her drawing-room, and since the day was wet and dismal, ordered the curtains, to be drawn, the lights to be turned on. She relished enormously the warm and comfortable cosiness of that room, furnished pleasantly, with a good deal of taste, if without marked originality; there were dozens of such apartments in Mayfair, with the same roomy, chintz-covered chairs, Chippendale tables and marquetry cabinets, with the same pictures on the walls. Wealth was there without ostentation, art without eccentricity; and Mr. Farley, the Vicar of _All Souls_, who came early, recognised with sleek content that a woman who dwelt in such a room must possess a due sense of the proprieties and a gratifying belief in the importance of the London clergy. Meeting her for the first time a year before in Old Queen Street, the amiable parson had quickly grown intimate with Hilda. The robust common-sense of Protestantism has made it lawful for the clerical bosom to be affected in due measure by the charms of fair women, and the Vicar of _All Souls_ had ever looked upon a good marriage as the culmination of his parochial activities. Hilda was handsome, rich, and sufficiently well born to be the equal of a minister of Christ who stayed with Duchesses for three days at a time; nor could he think she was quite indifferent to his attentions. Mr. Farley determined to abandon the imperfect state of single blessedness, falling like a ripe apple at the feet of this comely and opulent widow; and as Othello, making love to Desdemona, poured into her astonished ears brave tales of pillage and assault, of hairbreadth ’scapes and enterprises perilous, the Rev. Collinson Farley spoke of charities and sales of work, encounters with churchwardens, and the regeneration of charwomen. Hilda took great interest in _All Souls_, and willingly presented the church with an entire set of hassocks, so that, as the Vicar said, the pious should have no excuse for not kneeling at their prayers; somewhat later she consented to take a stall at a bazaar for getting a new organ; and then, the Rubicon of philanthropy once crossed, her efforts were untiring. These things brought them constantly together and afforded endless matter for conversation; but Mr. Farley flattered himself he was a brilliant talker, and it would have been contrary to all his principles to allow their intercourse to be confined to affairs of business. The claims of culture were not forgotten. He lent Hilda books, and went with her to picture-galleries and to exhibitions; sometimes they read Tennyson together, at others visited the theatre and discussed the moral aspects of the English drama; on fine mornings they frequently studied the Italian masters in Trafalgar Square or the Elgin marbles at the British Museum. Mr. Farley had a vast fund of information, and could give historic details or piquant anecdotes about every work of art; and Hilda, with a woman’s passion for being lectured, found him in consequence an entertaining and instructive friend. But it had never occurred to her that any warmer feeling agitated the heart which lay beneath his immaculate silk waistcoat, and it was not without alarm that now she found the conversation verging to topics that before they had never touched upon. Mr. Farley had at length made up his mind, and since he was not a man to hesitate from feelings of diffidence, went straight to the point.

“Mrs. Murray,” he said, “I have a matter of some importance which I desire to impart to you.”

“More charities, Mr. Farley?” she cried. “You’ll ruin me.”

“You are a veritable angel of mercy, and your purse is ever open to the needs of the parish; but on this occasion it is of a more personal matter that I desire to speak.” He stood up and went to the fireplace, against which he stood so that no heat should enter the room at all. “I feel it my duty to preface the question I am about to ask by some account of my position and of my circumstances. I think it better to run the risk of being slightly tedious than to fail to make myself perfectly clear.”

Certainly Hilda could not help seeing to what his words tended, and after the first moment of consternation was seized with an almost irresistible desire to laugh. Perhaps because her love for Basil was so great, she had never dreamed that another man could desire her; and Mr. Farley in this connection had not for a moment occupied her thoughts. When she looked at him now, well dressed, his gray hair carefully done, his hands manicured, with his easy assurance and his inclination to obesity, the Vicar of _All Souls_ seemed a profoundly ridiculous object. Gravely, with deliberation, he set out the advantages of his state, and not without decorum explained that he was no penniless fortune-hunter. It was a fair exchange that he offered, and many women would have been grateful, Hilda knew she should stop him, but had not the readiness; nor was she without a malicious desire to know in what precise terms he would make the proposal. He paused abruptly, smiled, and stepped forward.

“Mrs. Murray, I have the honour to ask you to be my wife.”

Now she was confronted by the necessity to answer, and with all her heart wished she had possessed strength of mind to prevent the man from going so far.

“I’m sure I feel enormously flattered,” she replied awkwardly. “It never struck me that you—cared for me in that way.”

He put out a deprecating hand,

“I don’t want an immediate answer, Mrs. Murray. It’s a matter that requires grave consideration, and we’re neither of us children to plunge into marriage recklessly. It’s a great responsibility that we are proposing to take on ourselves, but I should like you to reflect on the real good that you could do as my wife. Do you remember that beautiful passage in Tennyson: ‘And hand in hand we will go towards higher things’?”

The door opened, and the Vicar of _All Souls_ was able to conceal his annoyance only because he was a very polite man; but Hilda, enormously relieved, turned to Frank Hurrell, the incoming visitor, with the greatest cordiality. Frank had been to Basil’s chambers, but not finding him, was come to Charles Street resolved, whatever the cost, to speak with Mrs. Murray about Jenny. It looked, however, as though the opportunity would not present itself, for other callers appeared, and the conversation became general. In a little while Basil was announced, and Frank saw Mrs. Murray’s hurried, anxious glance. With one sweep of her eyes she took in his whole person, his harassed air, his stem pallor and deep depression. She spoke laughingly, but he scarcely smiled, gazing at her with such an expression of anguish that her heart was horribly troubled. It was very painful to see his utter wretchedness. At length Frank found himself with Hilda out of earshot of the others.

“Basil looks very ill, doesn’t he? His wife came to see me this morning. I dare say you remember that he was married about a year ago.”

Mrs. Murray coloured, and stared at Frank with cold suspicion. She tightened her lips, wondering what he had in mind.

“I went down to see her,” she answered frigidly. “She seemed to me vulgar and pretentious. I’m afraid I can take no great interest in her.”

“She loves Basil with all her heart, and she’s desperately unhappy.” He looked steadily at Mrs. Murray, and dropped his voice, so that it seemed no sound issued from his mouth; but Hilda heard every word so emphatically that it struck her heart as though with a hammer. “She asked me to give you a message. She knows that Basil—loves you, and she begs you to have mercy on her.”

For a moment Hilda could not reply.

“Don’t you think it’s rather impertinent of you to say such things to me?” she returned, uttering the words disjointedly, as though she forced them out one by one.

“Excessively,” he answered. “And I wouldn’t have ventured only she told me her love was like music in her heart, and something prevented it from ever coming out. It seemed to me that for a rather stupid, narrow, common woman to have got hold of a thought like that she must have gone through a perfect hell of suffering. And I was sorry.”

“And d’you think I’ve not suffered?”