Fidelity Part 29

The first feeling she had had when she suspected that her husband was drawn to that girl, Ruth Holland, was one of chagrin, a further hurt to pride. For her power to give pain would be cut off. Once she saw the girl's face light as Stuart went up to her for a dance. She knew then that the man who had that girl's love could not be hurt in the way she had been hurting. At first she was not so much jealous as strangely desolated. And then as time went on and in those little ways that can make things known to those made acute through unhappiness she came to know that her husband cared for this girl and had her love, anger at having been again stripped, again left there outraged, made her seize upon the only power left, that more sordid, more commonplace kind of power. She could no longer hurt by withholding herself; she could only hurt by standing in the way. Rage at the humiliation of being reduced to that fastened her to it with a hold not to be let go. All else was taken from her and she was left with just that. Somehow she reduced herself to it; she became of the quality of it.

Pride, or rather self-valuation, incapacity for self-depreciation, had never let her be honest with herself. As there were barriers shutting the world out from her hurt and humiliation, so too were there barriers shutting herself out. She did not acknowledge pain, loneliness, for that meant admission that she could not have what she would have. She thought of it as withdrawal, dignified withdrawal from one not fit. She had always tried to feel that her only humiliation was in having given to one not worth her--one lesser.

But in this reckless and curiously exciting mood of honesty tonight she got some idea of how great the real hurt had been. She knew now that when she came to know--to feel in a way that was knowing--that her husband loved Ruth Holland she suffered something much more than hurt to pride. It was pride that would not let her look at herself and see how she was hurt. And pride would not let her say one word, make one effort.

It was simply not in her to bring herself to _try_ to have love given her. And so she was left with the sordid satisfaction of the hurt she dealt in just being. That became her reason for existence--the ugly reason for her barren existence. She lived alone with it for so long that she came to be of it. Her spirit seemed empty of all else. It had kept her from everything; it had kept her from herself.

But now tonight she could strangely get to herself, and now she knew that far from Ruth Holland not mattering her whole being had from the first been steeped in hatred of her. Her jealousy had been of a freezing quality; it had even frozen her power to know about herself. When, after one little thing and then another had let her know there was love between her husband and this girl, to go to places where Ruth Holland was would make her numb--that was the way it was with her. Once in going somewhere--a part of that hideous doing things together which she kept up because it was one way of showing she was there, would continue to be there--she and Stuart drove past the Hollands', and this girl was out in the yard, romping with her dog, tusseling with him like a little girl.

She looked up, flushed, tumbled, panting, saw them, tried to straighten her hair, laughed in confusion and retreated. Stuart had raised his hat to her, trying to look nothing more than discreetly amused. But a little later after she--his wife--had been looking from the other window as if not at all concerned she turned her head and saw his face in the mirror on the opposite side of the carriage. He had forgotten her; she was taking him unawares. Up to that time she had not been sure--at least not sure of its meaning much. But when she saw that tender little smile playing about his mouth she knew it was true that her power to hurt him had reduced itself to being in his way. That she should be reduced to that made her feeling about it as ugly as the thing itself.

She did not sleep that night--after seeing Ruth Holland romping with her dog. She had cried--and was furious that she should cry, that it could make her cry. And furious at herself because of the feeling she had--a strange stir of pa.s.sion, a wave of that feeling which had seemed to her unlovely even when it was desired and that it was unbearably humiliating to feel unwanted. It was in this girl he wanted those things now; that girl who could let herself go, whom life rioted in, who doubtless could abandon herself to love as she could in romping with her dog. It tortured her to think of the girl's flushed, glowing face--panting there, hair tumbled. She cringed in the thought of how perhaps what she had given was measured by what this girl could give.

As time went on she knew that her husband was more happy than he had ever been before--and increasingly unhappy. Her torture in the thought of his happiness made her wrest the last drop of satisfaction she could from the knowledge that she could continue the unhappiness. Sometimes he would come home and she would know he had been with this girl, know it as if he had shouted it at her--it fairly breathed from him. To feel that happiness near would have maddened her had she not been able to feel that her very being there dealt unhappiness. It was a wretched thing to live with. Beauty had not come into her life; it would not come where that was.

And then she came to know that they were being cornered.

She--knowing--saw misery as well as love in the girl's eyes--a hunted look. Her husband grew terribly nervous, irritable, like one trapped. It was hurting his business; it was breaking down his health. Not until afterward did she know that there was also a disease breaking down his health. She did not know what difference it might have made had she known that. By that time she had sunk pretty deep into l.u.s.t for hurting, into hating.

She saw that this love was going to wreck his life. His happiness was going to break him. If the world came to know it would be known that her husband did not want her, that he wanted someone else. She smarted under that--and so fortified herself the stronger in an appearance of unconcern. She could better bear exposure of his uncaringness for her than let him suspect that he could hurt her. And they would be hurt! If it became known it would wreck life for them both. The town would know then about Ruth Holland--that wanton who looked so spiritual! They would know then what the girl they had made so much of really was! She would not any longer have to listen to that talk of Ruth Holland as so sweet, so fine!

And so she waited; sure that it would come, would come without her having given any sign, without her having been moved from her refuge of unconcern--she who had given and not been wanted! That week before Edith Lawrence's wedding she knew that it was coming, that something was happening. Stuart looked like a creature driven into a corner. And he looked sick; he seemed to have lost hold on himself. Once as she was pa.s.sing the door of his room it blew a little open and she saw him sitting on the bed, face buried in his hands. After she pa.s.sed the door she halted--but went on. She heard him moving around in the night; once she heard him groan. Instinctively she had sat up in bed, but had lain down again--remembering, remembering that he was groaning because he did not want her, because she was in the way of the woman he wanted.

She saw in those days, that week before Edith Lawrence's wedding, that he was trying to say something to her and could not, that he was wretched in his fruitless attempts to say it. He would come where she was, sit there white, miserable, dogged, then go away after having said only some trivial thing. Once--she was always quite cool, unperturbed, through those attempts of his--he had pa.s.sionately cried out, "You're pretty superior, aren't you, Marion? Pretty d.a.m.ned serene!" It was a cry of desperation, a cry from unbearable pain, but she gave no sign. Like steel round her heart was that feeling that he was paying now.

After that outburst he did not try to talk to her; that was the last night he was at home. He came home at noon next day and said he was going away on a business trip. She heard him packing in his room. She knew--felt sure--that it was something more than a business trip. She felt sure that he was leaving. And then she wanted to go to him and say something, whether reproaches or entreaties she did not know; listened to him moving around in there, wanted to go and say something and could not; could only sit there listening, hearing every smallest sound. She heard him speak a surly word to a servant in the hall. He never spoke that way to the servants. When he shut the front door she knew that he would not open it again. She got to the window and saw him before he pa.s.sed from sight--carrying his bag, head bent, stooped. He was broken, and he was going away. She knew it.

Even tonight she could not let herself think much about that afternoon, the portentous emptiness, the strangeness of the house; going into his room to see what he had taken, in there being tied up as with panic, sinking down on his bed and unable to move for a long time.

She had forced herself to go to Edith Lawrence's wedding. And she knew by Ruth Holland's face that it was true something was happening, knew it by the girl's face as she walked down the aisle after attending her friend at the altar, knew it by her much laughter, by what was not in the laughter. Once during the evening she saw Edith put her arm around Ruth Holland and at the girl's face then she knew with certainty, did not need the letter that came from Stuart next day. She had the picture of Ruth Holland now as she was that last night, in that filmy dress of pale yellow that made her look so delicate. She was helped through that evening by the thought that if she was going to be publicly humiliated Ruth Holland would be publicly disgraced. She would have heard the last about that fine, delicate quality--about sweetness and luminousness!

They would know, finally, that she was not those things she looked.

And after it happened the fact that they did know it helped her to go on. She went right on, almost as if nothing had happened. She would not let herself go away because then they would say she went away because she could not bear it, because she did not want them to see. She must stay and show them that there was nothing to see. Forcing herself to do that so occupied her as to help her with things within. She could not let herself feel for feeling would show on the surface. Even before herself she had kept up that manner of unconcern and had come to be influenced by her own front.

And so the years went by and her life had been made by that going on in apparent unconcern, and by that inner feeling that she was hurting them by just being in life. It was not a lovely reason for being in life; she had not known what a poor thing it was until that boy came and forced her to look at herself and consider how little she had.

She rose and stood looking into the mirror above the fireplace. It seemed to her that she could tell by her face that the desire to do harm had been her reason for living.

Several hours had gone by while she sat there given over to old things.

She wished she had a book, something absorbing, something to take her away from that other thinking that was lying in wait for her--those thoughts about what there was for her to live with in the years still to be lived. The magazine she had picked up could not get any hold on her; that was why, though she had made it clear she did not want to be disturbed, there was relief in her voice as she answered the tap at her door.

She frowned a little though at sight of Mrs. Hughes standing there deferential but visibly excited. She had that look of trying not to intrude her worthiness as she said: "Excuse me, Mrs. Williams, for disturbing you, but there is something I thought you ought to know." In answer to the not very cordial look of inquiry she went on, "It's about Lily; she says she won't have a doctor, but--she needs one."

There was something in her manner, something excited and yet grim, that Mrs. Williams did not understand. But then she did not much trouble herself to understand Mrs. Hughes, she was always appearing to see some hidden significance in things. "I'll go up and see her," she said.

After the visit she came down to telephone for her doctor. She saw that the girl was really ill, and she had concluded from her strange manner that she was feverish. Lily protested that she wanted to be let alone, that she would be all right in a day or two; but she looked too ill for those protestations to be respected.

She telephoned for her own doctor only to learn that he was out of town.

Upon calling another physician's house she was told that he had the grip and could not go out. She then sat for some minutes in front of the 'phone before she looked up a number in the book and called Dr. Deane Franklin. When she rose after doing that she felt as if her knees were likely to give way. The thought of his coming into her house, coming just when she had been living through old things, was unnerving. But she was really worried about the girl and knew no one else to call whom she could trust.

When he came she was grateful to him for his professional manner which seemed to take no account of personal things, to have no personal memory. "I'd like to see you when you come down, doctor," she said as Mrs. Hughes was taking him to the maid's room on the third floor.

She was waiting for him at the door of her upstairs sitting-room. He stepped in and then stood hesitatingly there. He too had a queer grim look, she thought.

"And what is the trouble?" she asked.

He gave her a strange sideways glance and snapped shut a pocket of the bag he carried. Then he said, brusquely: "It's a miscarriage."

She felt the blood surging into her face. She had stepped a little back from him. "Why--I don't see how that's possible," she faltered.

He smiled a little and she had a feeling that he took a satisfaction in saying to her, grimly, "Oh, it's possible, all right."

She colored anew. She resented his manner and that made her collect herself and ask with dignity what was the best thing to do.

"I presume we'd better take her to the hospital," he said in that short way. "She's been--horribly treated. She's going to need attention--and doubtless it would be disagreeable to have her here."

That too she suspected him of finding a satisfaction in saying. She made a curt inquiry as to whether the girl would be all right there for the night. He said yes and left saying he would be back in the morning.

She escaped Mrs. Hughes--whom now she understood. She did not go up again to see Lily; she could not do that then. She was angry with herself for being unnerved. She told herself that at any other time she would have been able to deal sensibly with such a situation. But coming just when things were all opened up like that--old feeling fresh--and coming from Deane Franklin! She would be quite impersonal, rational, in the morning. But for a long time she could not go to sleep. Something had intruded into her guarded places. And the things of life from which she had withdrawn were here--in her house. It affected her physically, almost made her sick--this proximity of the things she had shut out of her life. It was invasion.

And she thought about Lily. She tried not to, but could not help wondering about her. She wondered how this had happened--what the girl was feeling. Was there someone she loved? She lay there thinking of how, just recently, this girl who lived in her house had been going through those things. It made her know that the things of life were all the time around one. There was something singularly disturbing in the thought.

Next morning she went up to see Lily. She told herself it was only common decency to do that, her responsibility to a person in her house.

As she opened the door Lily turned her head and looked at her. When she saw who it was her eyes went sullen, defiant. But pain was in them too, and with all the rest something wistful. As she looked at the girl lying there--in trouble, in pain, she could see Lily, just a little while before, laughing and singing at her work. Something she had not felt in years, that she had felt but little in her whole life, stirred in her heart.

"Well, Lily," she said, uncertainly but not unkindly.

The girl's eyes were down, her face turned a little away. But she could see that her chin was quivering.

"I'm sorry you are ill," Mrs. Williams murmured, and then gave a little start at the sound of her own voice.

The girl turned her head and stole a look. A moment later there were tears on her lashes.

"We'll have to get you well," said Mrs. Williams in a practical, cheerful voice. And then she abruptly left the room. Her heart was beating too fast.

Mrs. Hughes lay in wait for her as she came downstairs. "May I speak to you, Mrs. Williams?" she asked in a manner at once deferential and firm.

"She's to be taken away, isn't she?" she inquired in a hard voice.

For a moment Mrs. Williams did not speak. She looked at the woman before her, all tightened up with outraged virtue. And then she heard herself saying: "No, I think it will be better for Lily to remain at home."

After she had heard herself say it she had that feeling that her knees were about to give way.

For an instant Mrs. Hughes' lips shut tight. Then, "Do you know what's the matter with her?" she demanded in that sharp, hard voice.

"Yes," replied Mrs. Williams, "I know."

"And you're going to keep such a person in your house?"

"Yes."