The Odd Women Part 72

Rhoda got back again to Chelsea on the appointed Sat.u.r.day afternoon.

Miss Barfoot knew when she would arrive, but was not at home to meet her, and did not return till a couple of hours had pa.s.sed. They met at length as if nothing remarkable had occurred during the three weeks.

Mary, if she felt any solicitude, effectually concealed it; Rhoda talked as if very glad to be at home again, explaining her desertion of the lake country by the bad weather that prevailed there. It was not till after dinner that the inevitable subject came up between them.

'Have you seen Everard since you went away?' Miss Barfoot began by asking.

So he had not been here to tell his story and plead his cause--or it seemed not.

'Yes, I saw him at Seascale,' Rhoda replied, without sign of emotion.

'Before or after that news came?'

'Both before and after. I showed him your letter, and all he had to say was that he knew nothing of the affair.'

'That's all he has to say to me. I haven't seen him. A letter I sent to his address was answered, after a week, from a place I never heard of--Arromanches, in Normandy. The shortest and rudest letter I ever had from him. Practically he told me to mind my own business. And there things stand.'

Rhoda smiled a little, conscious of the extreme curiosity her friend must be feeling, and determined not to gratify it. For by this time, though her sunken cheeks were hard to reconcile with the enjoyment of a summer holiday, she had matured a resolve to betray nothing of what she had gone through. Her state of mind resembled that of the ascetic who has arrived at a morbid delight in self-torture. She regarded the world with an intense bitterness, and persuaded herself not only that the thought of Everard Barfoot was hateful to her soul, but that s.e.xual love had become, and would ever be, to her an impure idea, a vice of blood.

'I suppose,' she said carelessly, 'Mr. Widdowson will try to divorce his wife.'

'I am in dread of that. But they may have made it up.'

'Of course you have no doubt of her guilt?'

Mary tried to understand the hard, austere face, with its touch of cynicism. Conjecture as to its meaning was not difficult, but, in the utter absence of information, certainty there could be none. Under any circ.u.mstances, it was to be expected that Rhoda would think and speak of Mrs. Widdowson no less severely than of the errant Bella Royston.

'I have _some_ doubt,' was Miss Barfoot's answer. 'But I should be glad of some one else's favourable opinion to help my charity.'

'Miss Madden hasn't been here, you see. She certainly would have come if she had felt convinced that her sister was wronged.'

'Unless a day or two saw the end of the trouble--when naturally none of them would say any more about it.'

This was the possibility which occupied Rhoda's reflections as long as she lay awake that night.

Her feelings on entering the familiar bedroom were very strange. Even before starting for her holiday she had bidden it good-bye, and at Seascale, that night following upon the "perfect day," she had thought of it as a part of her past life, a place abandoned for ever, already infinitely remote. Her first sensation when she looked upon the white bed was one of disgust; she thought it would be impossible to use this room henceforth, and that she must ask Miss Barfoot to let her change to another. Tonight she did not restore any of the ornaments which were lying packed up. The scent of the room revived so many hours of conflict, of hope, that it caused her a sick faintness. In frenzy of detestation she cursed the man who had so disturbed and sullied the swift, pure stream of her life.

Arromanches, in Normandy--? On Sunday she sought the name on a map, but it was not marked, being doubtless too insignificant. Improbable that he had gone to such a place alone; he was enjoying himself with friends, careless what became of her. Having allowed all this time to go by he would never seek her again. He found that her will was the equal of his own, and, as he could not rule her, she was numbered among the women who had afforded him interesting experiences, to be thought of seriously no more.

During the next week she threw herself with energy upon her work, stifling the repugnance with which at first it affected her, and seeming at length to recover the old enthusiasm. This was the only way of salvation. Idleness and absence of purpose would soon degrade her in a sense she had never dreamt of. She made a plan of daily occupation, which by leaving not a vacant moment from early morning to late at night, should give her the sleep of utter weariness. New studies were begun in the hour or two before breakfast. She even restricted her diet, and ate only just enough to support life, rejecting wine and everything that was most agreeable to her palate.

She desired to speak privately with Mildred Vesper, and opportunity might have been made, but, as part of her scheme of self-subdual, this conversation was postponed until the second week. It took place one evening when work was over.

'I have been wanting to ask you,' Rhoda began, 'whether you have any news of Mrs. Widdowson.'

'I wrote to her not long ago, and she answered from a new address. She said she had left her husband and would never go back to him.'

Rhoda nodded gravely.

'Then what I had heard was true. You haven't seen her?'

'She asked me not to come. She is living with her sister.'

'Did she give you any reason for the separation from her husband?'

'None,' answered Mildred. 'But she said it was no secret; that every one knew. That's why I haven't spoken to you about it--as I should have done otherwise after our last conversation.'

'The fact is no secret,' said Rhoda coldly. 'But why will she offer no explanation?'

Mildred shook her head, signifying inability to make any satisfactory reply, and there the dialogue ended; for Rhoda could not proceed in it without appearing to encourage scandal. The hope of eliciting some suggestive information had failed; but whether Mildred had really disclosed all she knew seemed doubtful.

At the end of the week Miss Barfoot left home for her own holiday; she was going to Scotland, and would be away for nearly the whole of September. At this time of the year the work in Great Portland Street was very light; not much employment offered for the typewriters, and the pupils numbered only about half a dozen. Nevertheless, it pleased Rhoda to have the establishment under her sole direction; she desired authority, and by magnifying the importance of that which now fell into her hands, she endeavoured to sustain herself under the secret misery which, for all her efforts, weighed no less upon her as time went on.

It was a dreary make-believe. On the first night of solitude at Chelsea she shed bitter tears; and not only wept, but agonized in mute frenzy, the pa.s.sions of her flesh torturing her until she thought of death as a refuge. Now she whispered the name of her lover with every word and phrase of endearment that her heart could suggest; the next moment she cursed him with the fury of deadliest hatred. In the half-delirium of sleeplessness, she revolved wild, impossible schemes for revenging herself, or, as the mood changed, all but resolved to sacrifice everything to her love, to accuse herself of ign.o.ble jealousy and entreat forgiveness. Of many woeful nights this was the worst she had yet suffered.

It recalled to her with much vividness a memory of girlhood, or indeed of childhood. She thought of that figure in the dim past, that rugged, harsh-featured man, who had given her the first suggestion of independence; thrice her own age, yet the inspirer of such tumultuous emotion in her ignorant heart; her friend at Clevedon--Mr. Smithson. A question from Mary Barfoot had caused her to glance back at him across the years, but only for an instant, and with self-mockery. What she now endured was the ripe intensity of a woe that fell upon her, at fifteen, when Mr. Smithson pa.s.sed from her sight and away for ever. Childish folly! but the misery of it, the tossing at night, the blank outlook!

How contemptible to revive such sensations, with mature intellect, after so long and stern a discipline!

Dreading the Sunday, so terrible in its depressing effect upon the lonely and unhappy, she breakfasted as soon as possible, and left home--simply to walk, to exert herself physically, that fatigue and sleep might follow. There was a dull sky, but no immediate fear of rain; the weather brightened a little towards noon. Careless of the direction, she walked on and on until the last maddening church bell had ceased its clangour; she was far out in the western suburbs, and weariness began to check her quick pace. Then she turned back. Without intending it, she pa.s.sed by Mrs. Cosgrove's house, or rather would have pa.s.sed, when she saw Mrs. Cosgrove at the dining-room window making signs to her. In a moment the door opened and she went in. She was glad of this accident, for the social lady might have something to tell about Mrs. Widdowson, who often visited her.

'In mercy, come and talk to me!' exclaimed Mrs. Cosgrove. 'I am quite alone, and feel as if I could hang myself. Are you obliged to go anywhere?'

'No. I was having a walk.'

'A walk? What astonis.h.i.+ng energy! It never occurs to me to take a walk in London. I came from the country last night and expected to find my sister here, but she won't arrive till Tuesday. I have been standing at the window for an hour, getting crazy with _ennui_.'

They went to the drawing-room. It was not long before Mrs. Cosgrove made an allusion which enabled Rhoda to speak of Mrs. Widdowson. For a month or more Mrs. Cosgrove had seen and heard nothing of her; she had been out of town all the time. Rhoda hesitated, but could not keep silence on the subject that had become a morbid preoccupation of her mind. She told as much as she knew--excepting the suspicion against Everard Barfoot.

'It doesn't in the least surprise me,' said the listener, with interest. 'I saw they wouldn't be able to live together very well.

Without children the thing was impossible. Of course she has told you all about it?'

'I haven't seen her since it happened.'

'Do you know, I always have a distinct feeling of pleasure when I hear of married people parting. How horrible that would seem to some of our good friends! But it isn't a malicious pleasure; there's nothing personal in it. As I have told you before, I think, I led a very contented life with my husband. But marriage in general is _such_ a humbug--you forgive the word.'

'Of course it is,' a.s.sented Rhoda, laughing with forced gaiety.

'I am glad of anything that seems to threaten it as an inst.i.tution--in its present form. A scandalous divorce case is a delight to me--anything that makes it evident how much misery would be spared if we could civilize ourselves in this respect. There are women whose conduct I think personally detestable, and whom yet I can't help thanking for their a.s.sault upon social laws. We shall have to go through a stage of anarchy, you know, before reconstruction begins.

Yes, in that sense I am an anarchist. Seriously, I believe if a few men and women in prominent position would contract marriage of the free kind, without priest or lawyer, open and defiantly, they would do more benefit to their kind than in any other possible way. I don't declare this opinion to every one, but only because I am a coward. Whatever one believes with heart and soul one ought to make known.'

Rhoda wore a look of anxious reflection.

'It needs a great deal of courage,' she said. 'To take that step, I mean.'

'Of course. We need martyrs. And yet I doubt whether the martyrdom would be very long, or very trying, to intellectual people. A woman of brains who boldly acted upon her conviction would have no lack of congenial society. The best people are getting more liberal than they care to confess to each other. Wait until some one puts the matter to the test and you will see.'

Rhoda became so busy with her tumultuous thoughts that she spoke only a word now and then, allowing Mrs. Cosgrove to talk at large on this engrossing theme.

'Where is Mrs. Widdowson living?' the revolutionist at length inquired.