The Odd Women Part 41

'So you ought to think yourself. But when we get back again, how will it be? You won't be angry with me? I really don't think I can live again as we were doing.'

'Not live as--'

His brow darkened; he looked at her in astonishment.

'We ought to have more enjoyment,' she pursued courageously. 'Think of the numbers of people who live a dull, monotonous life just because they can't help it. How they would envy us, with so much money to spend, free to do just what we like! Doesn't it seem a pity to sit there day after day alone--'

'Don't, my darling!' he implored. 'Don't! That makes me think you don't really love me.

'Nonsense! I want you to see what I mean. I am not one of the silly people who care for nothing but amus.e.m.e.nt, but I do think we might enjoy our lives more when we are in London. We shan't live for ever, you know. Is it right to spend day after day sitting there in the house--'

'But come, come; we have our occupations. Surely it ought to be a pleasure to you to see that the house is kept in order. There are duties--'

'Yes, I know. But these duties I could perform in an hour or two.'

'Not thoroughly.'

'Quite thoroughly enough.'

'In my Opinion, Monica, a woman ought never to be so happy as when she is looking after her home.'

It was the old pedantic tone. His figure, in sympathy with it, abandoned an easy att.i.tude and became awkward. But Monica would not allow herself to be alarmed. During the past week she had conducted herself so as to smooth the way for this very discussion. Unsuspecting husband!

'I wish to do my duty,' she said in a firm tone, 'but I don't think it's right to make dull work for oneself, when one might be living. I don't think it _is_ living to go on week after week like that. If we were poor, and I had a lot of children to look after as well as all the housework to do, I believe I shouldn't grumble--at least, I hope I shouldn't. I should know that I ought to do what there was no one else to do, and make the best of it. But----'

'Make the best of it!' he interrupted indignantly. 'What an expression to use! It would not only be your duty, dear, but your privilege!'

'Wait a moment, Edmund. If you were a shopman earning fifteen s.h.i.+llings a week, and working from early morning to late at night, should you think it not Only your duty but your privilege?'

He made a wrathful gesture.

'What comparison is there? I should be earning a hard livelihood by slaving for other people. But a married woman who works in her own home, for her husband's children--'

'Work is work, and when a woman is overburdened with it she must find it difficult not to weary of home and husband and children all together. But of course I don't mean to say that my work is too hard.

All I mean is, that I don't see why any one should _make_ work, and why life shouldn't be as full of enjoyment as possible.'

'Monica, you have got these ideas from those people at Chelsea. That is exactly why I don't care for you to see much of them. I utterly disapprove of--'

'But you are mistaken. Miss Barfoot and Miss Nunn are all for work.

They take life as seriously as you do.'

'Work? What kind of work? They want to make women unwomanly, to make them unfit for the only duties women ought to perform. You know very well my opinions about that kind of thing.'

He was trembling with the endeavour to control himself, to speak indulgently.

'I don't think, Edmund, there's much real difference between men and women. That is, there wouldn't be, if women had fair treatment.'

'Not much difference? Oh, come; you are talking nonsense. There's as much difference between their minds as between their bodies. They are made for entirely different duties.'

Monica sighed.

'Oh, that word Duty!'

Pained unutterably, Widdowson bent forward and took her hand. He spoke in a tone of the gravest but softest rebuke. She was giving entertainment to thoughts that would lead her who knew whither, that would undermine her happiness, would end by making both of them miserable. He besought her to put all such monstrous speculations out of her mind.

'Dear, good little wife! Do be guided by your husband. He is older than you, darling, and has seen so much more of the world.'

'I haven't said anything dreadful, dear. My thoughts don't come from other people; they rise naturally in my own head.'

'Now, what do you really want? You say you can't live as we were doing.

What change would you make?'

'I should like to make more friends, and to see them often. I want to hear people talk, and know what is going on round about me. And to read a different kind of books; books that would really amuse me, and give me something I could think about with pleasure. Life will be a burden to me before long if I don't have more freedom.'

'Freedom?'

'Yes, I don't think there's any harm in saying that.'

'Freedom?' He glared at her. 'I shall begin to think that you wish you had never married me.'

'I should only wish that if I were made to feel that you shut me up in a house and couldn't trust me to go where I chose. Suppose the thought took you that you would go and walk about the City some afternoon, and you wished to go alone, just to be more at ease, should I have a right to forbid you, or grumble at you? And yet you are very dissatisfied if I wish to go anywhere alone.'

'But here's the old confusion. I am a man; you are a woman.'

'I can't see that that makes any difference. A woman ought to go about just as freely as a man. I don't think it's just. When I have done my work at home I think I ought to be every bit as free as you are--every bit as free. And I'm sure, Edmund, that love needs freedom if it is to remain love in truth.'

He looked at her keenly.

'That's a dreadful thing for you to say. So, if I disapprove of your becoming the kind of woman that acknowledges no law, you will cease to love me?'

'What law do you mean?'

'Why, the natural law that points out a woman's place, and'--he added, with shaken voice--'commands her to follow her husband's guidance.'

'Now you are angry. We mustn't talk about it any more just now.'

She rose and poured out a gla.s.s of water. Her hand trembled as she drank. Widdowson fell into gloomy abstraction. Later, as they lay side by side, he wished to renew the theme, but Monica would not talk; she declared herself too sleepy, turned her back to him, and soon slept indeed.

That night the weather became stormy; a roaring wind swept the Channel, and when day broke nothing could be seen but cloud and rain. Widdowson, who had rested little, was in a heavy, taciturn mood; Monica, on the other hand, talked gaily, seeming not to observe her companion's irresponsiveness. She was glad of the wild sky; now they would see another aspect of island life--the fierce and perilous surges beating about these granite sh.o.r.es.

They had brought with them a few books, and Widdowson, after breakfast, sat down by the fire to read. Monica first of all wrote a letter to her sister; then, as it was still impossible to go out, she took up one of the volumes that lay on a side-table in their sitting-room, novels left by former lodgers. Her choice was something or other with yellow back.

Widdowson, watching all her movements furtively, became aware of the pictured cover.

'I don't think you'll get much good out of that,' he remarked, after one or two efforts to speak.

'No harm, at all events,' she replied good-humouredly.

'I'm not so sure. Why should you waste your time? Take "Guy Mannering,"