The Odd Women Part 74

Suddenly Virginia rose, stepped to Rhoda's side, and whispered a word or two. Rhoda turned pale; her eyes glared fiercely.

'And _still_ you believe her innocent?'

'She has sworn to me that she is innocent. She says that she has a proof of it which I shall see some day--and her husband also. A presentiment has fixed itself in her mind that she can't live, and before the end she will tell everything.'

'Her husband knows of this, of course--of what you have told me?'

'No. She has forbidden me to say anything--and how could I, Miss Nunn?

She has made me promise solemnly that he shall not be told. I haven't even told Alice. But she will know very soon. At the end of September she leaves her place, and will come to London to be with us--for a time at all events. We do so hope that we shall succeed in persuading Monica to go to the house at Clevedon. Mr. Widdowson is keeping it, and will move the furniture from Herne Hill at any moment. Couldn't you help us, dear Miss Nunn? Monica would listen to you; I am sure she would.'

'I'm afraid I can be of no use,' Rhoda answered coldly.

'She has been hoping to see you.'

'She has said so?'

'Not in so many words--but I am sure she wishes to see you. She has asked about you several times, and when your note came she was very pleased. It would be a great kindness to us--'

'Does she declare that she will never return to her husband?'

'Yes--I am sorry to say she does. But the poor child believes that she has only a short time to live. Nothing will shake her presentiment. "I shall die, and give no more trouble"--that's what she always says to me. And a conviction of that kind is so likely to fulfil itself. She never leaves the house, and of course that is very wrong; she ought to go out every day. She won't see a medical man.'

'Has Mr. Widdowson given her any cause for disliking him?' Rhoda inquired.

'He was dreadfully violent when he discovered--I'm afraid it was natural--he thought the worst of her, and he has always been so devoted to Monica. She says he seemed on the point of killing her. He is a man of very severe nature, I have always thought. He never could bear that Monica should go anywhere alone. They were very, very unhappy, I'm afraid--so ill-matched in almost every respect. Still, under the circ.u.mstances--surely she ought to return to him?'

'I can't say. I don't know.'

Rhoda's voice signified a conflict of feeling. Had she been disinterested her opinion would not have wavered for a moment; she would have declared that the wife's inclination must be the only law in such a case. As it was, she could only regard Monica with profound mistrust and repugnance. The story of decisive evidence kept back seemed to her only a weak woman's falsehood--a fiction due to shame and despair. Undoubtedly it would give some vague relief to her mind if Monica were persuaded to go to Clevedon, but she could not bring herself to think of visiting the suffering woman. Whatever the end might be, she would have not part in bringing it about. Her dignity, her pride, should remain unsullied by such hateful contact.

'I mustn't stay longer,' said Virginia, rising after a painful silence.

'I am always afraid to be away from her even for an hour; the fear of dreadful things that might happen haunts me day and night. How glad I shall be when Alice comes!'

Rhoda had no words of sympathy. Her commiseration for Virginia was only such as she might have felt for any stranger involved in sordid troubles; all the old friendliness had vanished. Nor would she have been greatly shocked or astonished had she followed Miss Madden on the way to the railway station and seen her, after a glance up and down the street, turn quickly into a public-house, and come forth again holding her handkerchief to her lips. A feeble, purposeless, hopeless woman; type of a whole cla.s.s; living only to deteriorate--

Will! Purpose! Was _she_ not in danger of forgetting these watchwords, which had guided her life out of youth into maturity? That poor creature's unhappiness was doubtless in great measure due to the conviction that in missing love and marriage she had missed everything.

So thought the average woman, and in her darkest hours she too had fallen among those poor of spirit, the flesh prevailing. But the soul in her had not finally succ.u.mbed. Pa.s.sion had a new significance; her conception of life was larger, more liberal; she made no vows to crush the natural instincts. But her conscience, her sincerity should not suffer. Wherever destiny might lead, she would still be the same proud and independent woman, responsible only to herself, fulfilling the n.o.bler laws of her existence.

A day or two after this she had guests to dine with her--Mildred Vesper and Winifred Haven. Among the girls whom she had helped to educate, these two seemed by far the most self-reliant, the most courageous and hopeful. In minor details of character they differed widely, and intellectually Miss Haven was far in advance. Rhoda had a strong desire to observe them as they talked about the most various subjects; she knew them well, but hoped to find in them some new suggestion of womanly force which would be of help to her in her own struggle for redemption.

It was seldom that either of them ailed anything. Mildred still showed traces of her country breeding; she was the more robust, walked with a heavier step, had less polish of manner. Under strain of any kind Winifred's health would sooner give way, but her natural vivacity promised long resistance to oppressing influences. Mildred had worked harder, and amid privations of which the other girl knew nothing. She would never distinguish herself, but it was difficult indeed to imagine her repining so long as she had her strength and her congenial friends.

Twenty years hence, in all probability, she would keep the same clear, steady eye, the same honest smile, and the same dry humour in her talk.

Winifred was more likely to traverse a lat.i.tude of storm. For one thing, her social position brought her in the way of men who might fall in love with her, whereas Mildred lived absolutely apart from the male world; doubtless, too, her pa.s.sions were stronger. She loved literature, spent as much time as possible in study, and had set her mind upon helping to establish that ideal woman's paper of which there was often talk at Miss Barfoot's.

In this company Rhoda felt her old ambitions regaining their power over her. To these girls she was an exemplar; it made her smile to think how little they could dream of what she had experienced during the last few weeks; if ever a moment of discontent a.s.sailed them, they must naturally think of her, of the brave, encouraging words she had so often spoken. For a moment she had deserted them, abandoning a course which her reason steadily approved for one that was beset with perils of indignity. It would shame her if they knew the whole truth--and yet she wished it were possible for them to learn that she had been pa.s.sionately wooed. A contemptible impulse of vanity; away with it!

There was a chance, it seemed to her, that during Miss Barfoot's absence Everard might come to the house. Mary had written to him; he would know that she was away. What better opportunity, if he had not dismissed her memory from his thoughts?

Every evening she made herself ready to receive a possible visitor. She took thought for her appearance. But the weeks pa.s.sed by, Miss Barfoot returned, and Everard had given no sign.

She would set a date, a limit. If before Christmas he neither came nor wrote all was at an end; after that she would not see him, whatever his plea. And having persuaded herself that this decision was irrevocable, she thought it as well to gratify Miss Barfoot's curiosity, for by now she felt able to relate what had happened in c.u.mberland with a certain satisfaction--the feeling she had foreseen when, in the beginning of her acquaintance with Everard, it flattered her to observe his growing interest. Her narrative, to which Mary listened with downcast eyes, presented the outlines of the story veraciously; she told of Everard's wish to dispense with the legal bond, of her own indecision, and of the issue.

'When your letter came, could I very well have acted otherwise than I did? It was not a flat refusal to believe him; all I asked was that things should be cleared up before our marriage. For his own sake he ought to have willingly agreed to that. He preferred to take my request as an insult. His unreasonable anger made me angry too. And now I don't think we shall ever meet again unless as mere acquaintances.'

'I think,' commented the listener, 'that he behaved with extraordinary impudence.'

'In the first proposal? But I myself attach no importance to the marriage ceremony.'

'Then why did you insist upon it?' asked Mary, with a smile that might have become sarcastic but that her eye met Rhoda's.

'Would you have received us?'

'In the one case as readily as in the other.'

Rhoda was silent and darkly thoughtful.

'Perhaps I never felt entire confidence in him.'

Mary smiled and sighed.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE BURDEN OF FUTILE SOULS

'My own dearest love, if I could but describe to you all I have suffered before sitting down to write this letter! Since our last meeting I have not known one hour of quietness. To think that I missed you when you called and left that note--for it was you yourself, was it not? The journey was horrible, and the week that I have spent here--I a.s.sure you I have not slept for more than a few minutes at a time, and I am utterly broken down by misery. My darling'--etc. 'I regard myself as a criminal; if _you_ have suffered a thousandth part of what _I_ have, I deserve any punishment that could be devised. For it has all been my fault. Knowing as I did that our love could never end in happiness, it was my duty to hide what I felt. I ought never to have contrived that first meeting alone--for it _was_ contrived; I sent my sisters away on purpose. I ought never'--etc. 'The only reflection that can ever bring me comfort is that our love has been pure. We can always think of each other without shame. And why should this love ever have an end? We are separated, and perhaps shall never see each other again, but may not our hearts remain for ever true? May we not think'--etc.

'If I were to bid you leave your home and come to me, I should be once more acting with base selfishness. I should ruin your life, and load my own with endless self-reproach. I find that even mere outward circ.u.mstances would not allow of what for a moment we dreamt might be possible, and of that I am _glad_, since it helps me to overcome the terrible temptation. Oh, if you knew how that temptation'--etc. 'Time will be a friend to both of us, dearest Monica. Forget each other we never can, we _never_ will. But our unsullied love'--etc.

Monica read it through again, the long rigmarole. Since the day that she received it--addressed to 'Mrs. Williamson' at the little stationer's by Lavender Hill--the day before she consented to accompany her sister into new lodgings--the letter had lain in its hiding-place.

Alone this afternoon, for Virginia was gone to call on Miss Nunn, alone and miserable, every printed page a weariness to her sight, she took out the French-stamped envelope and tried to think that its contents interested her. But not a word had power of attraction or of repulsion.

The tender phrases affected her no more than if they had been addressed to a stranger. Love was become a meaningless word. She could not understand how she had ever drifted into such relations with the writer. Fear and anger were the sole pa.s.sions surviving in her memory from those days which had violently transformed her life, and it was not with Bevis, but her husband, that these emotions were connected.

Bevis's image stood in that already distant past like a lay figure, the mere semblance of a man. And with such conception of him his letter corresponded; it was artificial, lifeless, as if extracted from some vapid novel.

But she must not destroy it. Its use was still to come. Letter and envelope must go back again into hiding, and await the day which would give them power over human lives.

Suffering, as always, from headache and la.s.situde, she sat by the window and watched the people who pa.s.sed along--her daily occupation.

This sitting-room was on the ground floor. In a room above some one was receiving a music lesson; every now and then the teacher's voice became audible, raised in sharp impatience, and generally accompanied by a clash upon the keys of the piano. At the area gate of the house opposite a servant was talking angrily with a tradesman's errand boy, who at length put his thumb to his nose with insulting significance and scampered off. Then, at the house next to that one, there stopped a cab, from which three busy-looking men alighted. Cabs full of people were always stopping at that door. Monica wondered what it meant, who might live there. She thought of asking the landlady.

Virginia's return aroused her. She went upstairs with her sister into the double-bedded room which they occupied.

'What have you heard?'

'He went there. He told them everything.'

'How did Miss Nunn look? How did she speak?'