A Mummer's Wife Part 44

'Dinner is served. I shall bring the leg of mutton up when you ring.'

No answer was made to her, and the couple sat moodily looking at each other. After a pause d.i.c.k tried to be conciliatory, and in the most affectionate phrases he could select he besought Kate to make it up.

'I a.s.sure you, you're wrong,' he said. 'I've been after no woman. Do, for goodness' sake, make it up.'

Then approaching her chair, he tried to draw her toward him, but pulling herself away pa.s.sionately, she exclaimed:

'No, no; leave me alone--leave me alone--don't touch me--I hate you.'

This was not encouraging, but at the end of another silence he attempted to reason with her again. But it was useless; and worn and impatient he begged of her at least to come to dinner.

'If you aren't hungry, I am.'

There was no answer; lying back in her chair she sulked, deaf to all entreaty.

'Well, if you won't, I will,' he said, seating himself in her place.

Her eyes flashed with a dull lurid light, and walking close to the table, she looked at him steadily, fidgeting as she did so with the knives and gla.s.ses.

'I can't think how you treat me as you do; what have I done to you to deserve it? Nothing. But I shall be revenged, that I will; I can bear it no longer.'

'Bear what?' he asked despairingly.

'You know well enough. Don't aggravate me. I hate you! Oh yes,' she said, raising her voice, 'I do hate you!'

'Sit down and have some dinner, and don't be so foolish,' he said, trying to be jocular, as he lifted the cover from the soup.

'Eat with you? Never!' she answered theatrically. But the interest he showed in the steaming liquid annoyed her so much that, overcome by a sudden gust of pa.s.sion, she upset the tureen into his lap. d.i.c.k uttered a scream, and in starting back he overturned his chair. Although not scalding, the soup was still hot enough to burn him, and he held his thighs dolorously. The tablecloth was deluged, the hearthrug steamed; and, regardless of everything, Kate rushed past, accusing her husband of cruelty, of unfaithfulness, stopping only to reproach him with a desire to desert her. While d.i.c.k in dripping trousers asked what he had done to deserve having the soup flung over him, Kate's hair became unloosened and hung down her shoulders like a sheaf of black plumes. d.i.c.k thought of changing his trousers, but the intensity of her pa.s.sion detained him.

Stopping suddenly before the table, she poured out a tumbler of sherry, and drank it almost at a gulp. It was as nauseous to her taste as lukewarm water, and she yearned for brandy. It would sting her, would awaken the dull ache of her palate, and she knew well where the bottle was; she could see it in her mind's eye, the black neck leaning against the frame of the picture. Why should she not go and fetch it, and insult him with the confession of her sin? Was it not he who drove her to it? So Kate thought in her madness, and the lack of courage to execute her wishes angered her still further against the fat creature who lay staring at her, lying back in the armchair. She applied herself again to the sherry and swallowed greedily.

'For goodness' sake,' said d.i.c.k, who began to get alarmed, 'don't drink that! You'll get drunk.'

'Well, what does it matter if I do? It's you who drive me to it. If you don't like it, go to Miss Vane.'

'What! You've not finished with that yet? Haven't I told you twenty times that there's nothing between me and Miss Vane? I haven't spoken to her for the last three days.'

'That's a lie!' shrieked Kate. 'You went to meet her this morning. I saw you. Do you take me for a fool? But oh! I don't know how you can be such a beast! If you wanted to desert me, why did you ever take me away from Hanley? But you can go now, I don't want the leavings of that creature.'

Taken aback by what was nothing more than a random guess, d.i.c.k hesitated, and then, deciding that he might as well be caught out in two lies as in one, he said, as a sort of forlorn hope:

'If you saw us you must have seen that she was with Jackson, and that I didn't do any more than raise my hat.'

Kate made no answer; she was too excited to follow out the train of the simplest idea, and continued to rave incoherent statements of all kinds.

The landlady came up to ask when she should bring up the leg of mutton, but she went away frightened. There was no dinner that day. Amid screams and violent words the evening died slowly, and the room darkened until nothing was seen but the fitful firelight playing on d.i.c.k's hands; but still the vague form of the woman pa.s.sed through the shadows like a figure of avenging fate. Would she never grow tired and sit down? d.i.c.k asked himself a thousand times. It seemed as if it would never cease, and the incessant repet.i.tion of the same words and gestures turned in the brain with the mechanical movement of a wheel, dimming the sense of reality and producing the obtuse terror of a nightmare. But from this state of semi-consciousness he was suddenly awakened by the violent ringing of the bell.

'What do you want? Can I get you anything?'

Kate did not deign to answer him. When the landlady appeared, she said:

'I want some more sherry; I'm dying of thirst.'

'You shall not have any more,' said d.i.c.k, interposing energetically. 'Mrs.

Clarke, I forbid you to bring it up.'

'I say she shall,' replied Kate, her face twitching with pa.s.sion.

'I say she shall not.'

'Then I'll go out and get it.'

'No, I'll see you don't do that,' said d.i.c.k, getting between her and the door. As he did so he turned his back to speak to the landlady, and Kate, taking the opportunity, seized a handful of the frizzly hair and almost pulled him to the ground. Twisting round he took her by the wrist and freed himself, but this angered and still further excited her.

'You'd better let her have her way,' the landlady said. 'I won't bring up much, and it may put her to sleep.'

d.i.c.k, who at the moment would have given half his life for a little peace, nodded his head affirmatively, and went back to his chair. He did not know what to do. Never had he witnessed so terrible a scene before. Since three or four days back this quarrel had been working up crescendo; and when the landlady brought up the sherry, Kate seized the decanter, and, complaining that it was not full, resumed her drinking.

'So you see I did get it, and I'll get another bottle if I choose. You think that I like it. Well, you're mistaken; I don't, I hate it. I only drink it because you told me not, because I know that you begrudge it to me; you begrudge me every bit that I put into my mouth, the very clothes I wear. But it was not you who paid for them. I earned the money myself, and if you think to rob me of what I earn you're mistaken. You shan't. If you try to do so I shall apply to the magistrate for protection. Yes, and if you dare to lay a hand on me I shall have you locked up. Yes, yes--do you hear me?' she screamed, advancing towards him, spilling as she did the gla.s.s of wine she held in her hand over her dress. 'I shall have you locked up, and I should love to do so, because it was you who ruined me, who seduced me, and I hate you for it.'

She spoke with a fearful volubility, and her haranguing echoed in d.i.c.k's ears with the meaningless sound of a water-tap heard splas.h.i.+ng on the flagstones of an echoing courtyard.

Sometimes he would get up, determined to make one more effort, and in his gentlest and most soothing tones would say:

'Now look here, dear; will you listen to me? I know you well, and I know you're a bit excited; if you will believe me----'

But it was no use. She did not seem to hear him; indeed, it almost seemed as if her ears had become stones. Her hands were clenched, and dragging herself away from him, she would resume her tigerish walk. Sometimes d.i.c.k wondered at the strength that sustained her, and the thrill of joy that he experienced was intense when, about two o'clock, after eight or ten hours of the terrible punishment, he noticed that she seemed to be growing weary, that her cries were becoming less articulate. Several times she had stopped to rest, her head sank on her bosom, and every effort she made to rouse herself was feebler than the preceding one. At length her legs gave way under her, and she slipped insensible on the floor.

d.i.c.k watched for a time, afraid to touch her, lest by some horrible mischance she should wake up and recommence the terrible scene that had just been concluded, and at least half an hour elapsed before he could muster up courage to undress her and put her to bed.

XXV

Next morning Kate was duly repentant and begged d.i.c.k to forgive her for all she had said and done. She told him that she loved him better than anything in the world, and she persuaded him that if she had taken a drop too much, it was owing to jealousy, and not to any liking for the drink itself.

d.i.c.k adopted the theory willingly (every man is reluctant to believe that his wife is a drunkard), and deceived by the credulity with which he had accepted the excuse, Kate resolved to conquer her jealousy, and if she could not conquer it, she would endure it. Never would she seek escape from it through spirit again. And had she remained in Manchester, or had she even been placed in surroundings that would have rendered the existence of a fixed set of principles possible, she might have cured herself of her vice. But before two months her engagement at the Prince's came to an end, and d.i.c.k's at the Royal very soon followed. They then pa.s.sed into other companies, the first of which dealt with Shakespearean revivals. d.i.c.k played Don John successfully in _Much Ado About Nothing_, the Ghost in _Hamlet_, the Friar in _Romeo and Juliet_. Kate on her side represented with a fair amount of success a series of second parts, such as Rosalind in _Romeo_, Bianca in _Oth.e.l.lo_, Sweet Ann Page in the _Merry Wives_. It is true there were times when her behaviour was not all that could be desired, sometimes from jealousy, sometimes from drink; generally from a mixture of the two; but on the whole she managed very cleverly, and it was not more than whispered, and always with a good-natured giggle, that Mrs. Lennox was not averse to a gla.s.s.

From the Shakespearean they went to join a dramatic company, where houses were blown up, and s.h.i.+ps sank amid thunder and lightning. d.i.c.k played a desperate villain, and Kate a virtuous parlourmaid, until one night, having surprised him in the act of kissing the manager's wife, she ran off to the nearest pub, and did not return until she was horribly intoxicated, and staggered on to the stage calling him the vilest names, accusing him at the same time of adultery, and pointing out the manager's wife as his paramour.

There were shrieks and hysterics, and d.i.c.k had great difficulty in proving his innocence to the angry impresario. He spoke of his honour and a duel, but as the lady in question was starring, the benefit of the doubt had to be granted her, and on these grounds the matter was hushed up. But after so disgraceful a scandal it was impossible for the Lennoxes to remain in the company. d.i.c.k was very much cut up about it, and without even claiming his week's salary, he and his wife packed up their baskets and boxes and returned to Manchester. And there he entered into a quant.i.ty of speculations, of the character of which she had not the least idea; all she knew was, that she never saw him from one end of the day to the other. He was out of the place at ten o'clock in the morning, and never returned before twelve at night. These hours of idleness and solitude were hard to bear, and Kate begged of d.i.c.k to get her an engagement. But he was afraid of another shameful scene, and always gave her the same answer--that he had as yet heard of nothing, but as soon as he did he would let her know. She didn't believe him, but she had to submit, for she could never muster up courage to go and look for anything herself, and the long summer days pa.s.sed wearily in reading the accounts of the new companies, and the new pieces produced. This sedentary life, and the effects of the brandy, which she could now no longer do without, soon began to tell upon her health, and the rich olive complexion began to fade to sickly yellow. Even d.i.c.k noticed that she was not looking well; he said she required change of air, and a few days after, he burst into the room and told her gaily that he had just arranged a tour to go round the coast of England and play little comic sketches and operettas at the pier theatres. This was good news, and the next few days were fully occupied in trying over music, making up their wardrobes, and telegraphing to London for the different books from which they would make their selections. A young man whom d.i.c.k had heard singing in a public-house proved a great hit. He wrote his own words, some of which were considered so funny that at Scarborough and Brighton he frequently received a couple of guineas for singing a few songs at private houses after the public entertainment. Afterwards he appeared at the Pavilion, and for many years supplied the axioms and aphorisms that young Toothpick and Crutch was in the habit of using to garnish the baldness of his native speech.

For a time the sea proved very beneficial to Kate's health, but the never-ending surprises and expectations she was exposed to finished by so straining and sharpening her nerves that the stupors, the a.s.suagements of drink, became, as it were, a necessary make-weight. Her love for d.i.c.k pressed upon and agonized her; it was like a dagger whose steel was being slowly reddened in the flames of brandy, and in this subtilization of the brain the remotest particles of pain detached themselves, until life seemed to her nothing but a burning and unbearable frenzy. She did not know what she wanted of him, but with a longing that was nearly madness she desired to possess him wholly; she yearned to bury her poor aching body, throbbing with the anguish of nerves, in that peaceful hulk of fat, so calm, so invulnerable to pain, marching amid, and contented in, its sensualities, as a gainly bull grazing amid the pastures of a succulent meadow.

He was never unkind to her; the soft sleek manner that had won her remained ever the same, but she would have preferred a blow. It would have been something to have felt the strength of his hand upon her. She wanted an emotion; she longed to be brutalized. She knew when she tortured him with reproaches she was alienating from herself any affection he might still bear for her; but she found it impossible to restrain herself. There seemed to be a devil within her that goaded her until all power of will ceased, and against her will she had to obey its behests. A blow might exorcise this spirit. Were he to strike her to the ground she thought she might still be saved; but, alas! he remained as kind and good-natured as ever; and to disguise her drunkenness she had to exaggerate her jealousy. The two were now mingled so thoroughly in her head that she could scarcely distinguish one from the other. She knew there were women all around him; she could see them ogling him out of the little boxes at the side of the stage. How they could be such beasts, she couldn't conceive. They stood for hours behind the scenes waiting for him, and she was told they had come for engagements. Baskets of food, pork pies and tongue, came for him, but these she pitched out of the window; and she soundly boxed the ears of one little wretch, whom she had found loitering about the stage-door. Kate was right sometimes in her suspicions, sometimes wrong, but in every case they accentuated the neurosis, occasioned by alcohol, from which she was suffering. Still, by some extraordinary cunning, she contrived for some time to regulate her drinking so that it should not interfere with business, and on the rare occasions when d.i.c.k had to apologize to the public for her non-appearance she insisted that it was not her fault; and from a mixture of vanity and a wish to conceal his wife's shame from himself, d.i.c.k continued to persuade himself that his wife had no real taste for drink, and never touched it except when these infernal fits of jealousy were upon her. But the words that had come into his mind--'except when these infernal fits of jealousy are upon her'--called up many vivid memories; one especially confounded him. He had seen her frightened to cross the dressing-room lest she might fall, glancing from the table to the chair, calculating the distance. It was on his lips to ask her if she did not feel too ill to appear that day: that perhaps it would be better for him to go before the curtain and apologize to the public. But he had not dared to say anything, and to his astonishment she was able to overcome the influence of the drink (if she had taken any), and he had never heard her sing and dance better. How she had managed it he did not know. 'All the same,' he said, 'drink will get the upper hand of her and conquer her if she doesn't make up her mind to conquer it. The day will come when she will not be able to go on the stage, or will go on and fall down.' d.i.c.k shut his eyes to exclude from them the horrible spectacle. She would then be an unmitigated burden on his hands. 'Not a pleasant prospect', he said to himself.

He had now been in the provinces for some years and had lived down the memory of many disastrous managements. He had managed the tour of the Morton and c.o.x's Opera Company very successfully till the crash came. 'But it will be the success that will be remembered and not the crash when I return to London. Many changes must have happened in town. Many new faces and many old faces that absence will make new again. If only Kate were not so jealous. If I could cure her of jealousy I could cure her of drink.' And he thought of all the notices she had had for Clairette, for Serpolette, for Olivette. He would like to see her play the d.u.c.h.ess. At that moment his thoughts returned to the last time he had seen her, about half an hour ago; the memory was not a pleasant one, and he was glad that he had run out of the house and come down to the pier. And in the silence and solitude of the pier at midday he asked himself again why he should not return to town and take his chance of getting into a new company or being sent out to manage another provincial tour. In London he might be able to persuade his wife to go into a home, and he fell to thinking of the men and women who he had heard had been cured of drunkenness. His thoughts melted into dreams and then, pa.s.sing suddenly out of dreams into words, he said: 'She will never consent to go into a home, and if she did she would only be thinking all the time that I'd put her there so that I might be after another woman.'

His thoughts were interrupted by a lancinating pain in his feet, and he withdrew into the shade, and resting the heel of the right boot on the toe of the left, a position that freed him from pain for the time being, he looked round and seeing everywhere a misted sky filled with an inner radiance, he said: 'To-day will be the hottest day we've had yet, and there won't be a dozen people in the theatre; everybody will be too hot to leave their houses.' There was languor in the incoming wave. 'We shan't have five pounds in the theatre,' he muttered to himself, and catching sight of one of the directors he continued, 'And those fellows won't think of the heat, but will put down the falling off in the audience to our performance.

Never,' he added after a pause, 'have I seen the pier so empty,' and he wondered who the woman was coming towards him.