The Emancipated

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"Very much. Just talk as if you were going over it in your memory.
Don't mind if I close my eyes; I shan't be asleep; it helps me to
imagine, that's all."

Mrs. Travis did as she was asked. Now and then Madeline put a
question. When at length there came a pause, she said abruptly:

"I suppose it seems dreadful to you, to see me lying here like
this?"

"It makes me wish I had it in my power to relieve you."

"But does it seem dreadful? Could you bear to imagine yourself in
the same case? I want you to tell me truthfully. I'm not an
uneducated girl, you know; I can think about life and death as
people do nowadays."

Mrs. Travis looked at her curiously.

"I can imagine positions far worse," she answered.

"That means, of course, that you could not bear to picture yourself
in this. But it's strange how one can get used to it. The first year
I suffered horribly--in mind, I mean. But then I still had hope. I
have none now, and that keeps my mind calmer. A paradox, isn't it?
It's always possible, you know, that I may feel such a life
unendurable at last, and then I should hope to find a means of
bringing it to an end. For instance, if we become so poor that I am
too great a burden. Of course I wouldn't live in a hospital. I don't
mean I should be too proud, but the atmosphere would be intolerable.
And one really needn't live, after one has decided that it's no
use."

"I don't know what to say about that," murmured Mrs. Travis.

"No; you haven't had the opportunity of thinking it over, as I have.
I can imagine myself reaching the point when I should not care to
have health again, even if it were offered me. I haven't come to
that yet; oh no! To-night I am feeling dreadfully what I have lost--not
like I used to, but still dreadfully. Will you tell me
something about yourself? What kind of books do you like?"

"Pretty much the same as you do, I should fancy. I like to know what
new things people are discovering, and how the world looks to clever
men. But I can't study; I have no perseverance. I read the reviews a
good deal."

"You'd never guess the last book I have read. It lies on the chest
of drawers there--a treatise on all the various kinds of
paralysis. The word 'paralysis' used to have the most awful sound to
me; now I'm so familiar with it that it has ceased to be shocking
and become interesting. What I am suffering from is called
_paraplegia_; that's when the lower half of the body is affected; it
comes from injury or disease of the spinal cord. The paralysis
begins at the point in the vertebral column where the injury was
received. But it tends to spread upward. If it gets as far as
certain nerves upon which the movements of the diaphragm depend,
then you die. I wonder whether that will be my case?"

Mrs. Travis kept her eyes on the girl during this singular little
lecture; she felt the fascination which is exercised by strange
mental phenomena.

"Do you know Italy?" Madeline asked, with sudden transition.

"I have travelled through it, like other tourists."

"You went to Naples?"

"Yes."

"If I close my eyes, how well I can see Naples! Now I am walking
through the Villa Nazionale. I come out into the Largo Vittoria,
where the palm-trees are--do you remember? Now I might go into the
Chiatamone, between the high houses; but instead of that I'll turn
down into Via Caracciolo and go along by the sea, till I'm opposite
the Castel dell' Ovo. Now I'm turning the corner and coming on to
Santa Lucia, where there are stalls with shells and ices and fish. I
can smell the Santa Lucia. And to think that I shall never see it
again, never again.--Don't stay any longer now, Mrs. Travis. I
can't talk any more. Thank you for being so kind."

In a week's time it had become a regular thing for Mrs. Travis to
spend an hour or two daily with Madeline. Their conversation was
suitable enough to a sick-chamber, yet strangely unlike what is wont
to pass in such places. On Madeline's side it was thoroughly morbid;
on that of her visitor, a curious mixture of unhealthy speculation
and pure feeling. Mrs. Travis was at first surprised that the
suffering girl never seemed to think of ordinary religion as a
solace. She herself had no fixity of faith; her mind played
constantly with creeds of negation; but she felt it as an unnatural
thing for one of Madeline's age to profess herself wholly without
guidance on so dark a journey. And presently she began to doubt
whether the profession were genuine. The characteristic of the
family was pretence and posing; Mrs. Denyer and Barbara illustrated
that every time they spoke. Not impossibly Madeline did but declare
the same tendency in her rambling and quasi-philosophic talk. She
was fond of warning Mrs. Travis against attributing to her the
common prejudices of women. And yet, were it affectation, then the
habit must be so inextricably blended with her nature as to have
become in practice a genuine motive in the mind's working. Madeline
would speculate on the difference between one of her "culture" in
the circumstances and the woman who is a slave of tradition; and a
moment after she would say something so profoundly pathetic that it
brought tears to her companion's eyes.

Mrs. Travis never spoke of her personal affairs; Madeline could
supply no food for the curiosity of her mother and sister when they
questioned her about the long private conversations. The lodger
received no visitors, and seldom a letter. In the morning she went
out for an hour, generally towards the heath; occasionally she was
from home until late at night. About the quality of the attendance
given her she was wholly indifferent; in spite of frequent
inconveniences, she made her weekly payments without a word of
dissatisfaction. She had a few eccentricities of behaviour which the
Denyers found it difficult to reconcile with the refinement of her
ordinary conduct. Once or twice, when the servant went into her
sitting-room the first thing in the morning, she was surprised to
find Mrs. Travis lying asleep on the couch, evidently just as she
had come home the previous night, except that her bonnet was
removed. It had happened, too, that when some one came and knocked
at her door during the day, she vouchsafed no answer, and yet made
the sound of moving about, as if to show that she did not choose to
be disturbed, for whatever reason.

The household went its regular way. Mrs. Denyer sat in her wonted
idle dignity, or scolded the hard-driven maid-of-all-work, or
quarrelled fiercely with Barbara. Barbara was sullen, insolent,
rebellious against fate, by turns. Up in the still room lay poor
Madeline, seldom visited by either of the two save when it was
necessary. All knew that the position of things had no security;
before long there must come a crisis worse than any the family had
yet experienced. Unless, indeed, that one hope which remained to
them could be realized.

One afternoon at the end of July, mother and daughter were sitting
over their tea, lamenting the necessity which kept them in London
when the eternal fitness of things demanded that they should be
preparing for travel. They heard a vehicle draw up before the house,
and Barbara, making cautious espial from the windows, exclaimed that
it was Mr. Musselwhite.

"He has a lot of flowers, as usual," she added, scornfully, watching
him as he paid the cabman. "Go into the back room, mamma. Let's say
you're not at home to-day. Send for the teapot, and get some more
tea made."

There came a high-bred knock at the front door, and Mrs. Denyer
disappeared.

Mr. Musselwhite entered with a look and bearing much graver than
usual. He made the proper remarks, and gave Barbara the flowers for
her sister then seated himself, and stroked his moustache.

"Miss Denyer," he began, when Barbara waited wearily for the
familiar topic, "my brother, Sir Grant, died a week ago."

"I am very grieved to hear it," she replied, mechanically, at once
absorbed in speculation as to whether this would make any change
that concerned her.

"It was a long and painful illness, and recovery was known to be
impossible. Yet I too cannot help grieving. As you know, we had not
seen much of each other for some years, but I had the very highest
opinion of Sir Grant, and it always gave me pleasure to think of him
as the head of our family. He was a man of great abilities, and a
kind man."

"I am sure he was--from what you have told me of him."

"My nephew succeeds to the title and the estate; he is now Sir
Roland Musselwhite. I have mentioned him in our conversations. He is
about thirty-four, a very able man, and very kind, very generous."

There was a distinct tremor in his voice; he pulled his moustache
vigorously. Barbara listened with painful eagerness.

"If you will forgive me for speaking of my private circumstances,
Miss Denyer, I should like to tell you that for some years I have
enjoyed only a very restricted income; a bachelor's allowance--
really it amounted to nothing more than that. In consequence of
that, my life has been rather unsettled; I scarcely knew what to do
with myself, in fact; now and then time has been rather heavy on my
hands. You may have noticed that, for I know you are observant."

He waited for her to say whether she had or had not observed this
peculiarity in him.

"I have sometimes been afraid that was the case," said Barbara.

"I quite thought so." He smiled with gratification. "But now--if I
may speak a little longer of these personal matters--all that is
altered, and by the very great kindness, the generosity, of my
nephew Sir Roland. Sir Roland has seen fit to put me in possession
of an income just three times what I have hitherto commanded. This
does not, Miss Denyer, make me a wealthy man; far from it. But it
puts certain things within my reach that I could not think of
formerly. For instance, I shall be able to take a modest house,
either in the country, or here in one of the suburbs. It's my wish
to do so. My one great wish is to settle down and have something
to--to occupy my time."

Barbara breathed a faint approval.

"You may wonder, Miss Denyer, why I trouble you with these details.
Perhaps I might be pardoned for doing so, if I spoke with--with a
desire for your friendly sympathy. But there is more than that in my
mind. The day is come, Miss Denyer, when I am able to say what I
would gladly have said before our parting at Naples, if it had been
justifiable in me. That is rather a long time ago, but the feeling I
then had has only increased in the meanwhile. Miss Denyer, I desire
humbly to ask if you will share with me my new prosperity, such as
it is?"

The interview lasted an hour and a quarter. Mrs. Denyer panted with
impatience in the back parlour. Such an extended visit could not but
have unusual significance. On hearing the door of the other room
open, she stood up and listened. But there was no word in the
passage, no audible murmur.

The front door closed, and in two ticks of the clock Barbara came
headlong into the parlour. With broken breath, with hysterical
laughing and sobbing, she made known what had happened. It was too
much for her; the relief of suspense, the absolute triumph, were
more than she could support with decency. Mrs. Denyer shed tears,
and embraced her daughter as if they had always been on the fondest
terms.

"Go up and tell Maddy!"

But, as not seldom befalls, happiness inspired Barbara with a
delicacy of feeling to which as a rule she was a stranger.

"I don't like to, mamma. It seems cruel."

"But you can't help it, my dear; and she must know tomorrow if not
to-day."

So before long Barbara went upstairs. She entered the room softly.
Madeline had her eyes fixed on the ceiling, and did not move them as
her sister approached the bed.

"Maddy!"

Then indeed she looked at the speaker, and with surprise, so
unwonted was this tone on Barbara's lips. Surprise was quickly
succeeded by a smile.

"I know, Barbara; I understand."

"What? How can you?"

"I heard a cab drive up, and I heard a knock at the door. 'That's
Mr. Musselwhite,' I thought. He has been here a long time, and now I
understand. You needn't tell me."

"But there's a good deal to tell that you can't have found out,
quick as you are."

And she related the circumstances. Madeline listened with her eyes
on the ceiling.

"We shall be married very soon," Barbara added; "as soon as a house
can be chosen. Of course it must be in London, or very near. We
shall go somewhere or other, and then, very likely, pay a formal
visit to the 'place in Lincolnshire.' Think of that! Sir Roland
seems a good sort of man; he will welcome us. Think of visiting at
the 'place in Lincolnshire'! Isn't it all like a dream?"

"What will mamma do without you?"

"Oh, Zillah is to come home. We'll see about that."

"I suppose he forgot to bring me some flowers today?"

"No But I declare I forgot to bring them up. I'll fetch them at
once."

She did so, running downstairs and up again like a child, with a
jump at the landings. The flowers were put in the usual place.
Madeline looked at them, and listened to her sister's chatter for
five minutes. Then she said absently:

"Go away now, please. I've heard enough for the present."

"You shall have all sorts of comforts, Maddy."

"Go away, Barbara."

The sister obeyed, looking back with compassion from the door. She
closed it softly, and in the room there was the old perfect
stillness. Madeline had let her eyelids fall, and the white face
against the white pillows was like that of one dead. But upon the
eyelashes there presently shone a tear; it swelled, broke away, and
left a track of moisture. Poor white face, with the dark hair softly
shadowing its temples! Poor troubled brain, wearying itself in idle
questioning of powers that heeded not!

CHAPTER V

MULTUM IN PARVO

Elgar's marriage had been a great success. For a year and a half,
for even more than that, he had lived the fullest and most
consistent life of which he was capable; what proportion of the sons
of men can look back on an equal span of time in their own existence
and say the same of it?

Life with Cecily gave predominance to all the noblest energies in
his nature. He loved with absolute sincerity; his ideal of womanhood
was for the time realized and possessed; the vagrant habit of his
senses seemed permanently subdued; his mind was occupied with high
admirations and creative fancies; in thought and speech he was
ardent, generous, constant, hopeful. A happy marriage can do no more
for man than make unshadowed revelation of such aspiring faculty as
he is endowed withal. It cannot supply him with a force greater than
he is born to; even as the happiest concurrence of healthful
circumstances cannot give more strength to a physical constitution
than its origin warrants. At this period of his life, Reuben Elgar
could not have been more than, with Cecily's help, he showed
himself. Be the future advance or retrogression, he had lived the
possible life.

Whose the fault that it did not continue? Cecily's, if it were
blameworthy to demand too much; Elgar's, if it be wrong to learn
one's own limitations.

His making definite choice of a subject whereon to employ his
intellect was at one and the same time a proof of how far his
development had progressed and a warning of what lay before him.
However chaotic the material in which he proposed to work, however
inadequate his powers, it was yet a truth that, could he execute
anything at all, it would be something of the kind thus vaguely
contemplated. His intellect was combative, and no subject excited it
to such activity as this of Hebraic constraint in the modern world.
Elgar's book, supposing him to have been capable of writing it,
would have resembled no other; it would have been, as he justly
said, unique in its anti-dogmatic passion. It was quite in the order
of things that he should propose to write it; equally so, that the
attempt should mark the end of his happiness.

For all that she seemed to welcome the proposal with enthusiasm,
Cecily's mind secretly misgave her. She had begun to understand
Reuben, and she foresaw, with a certainty which she in vain tried to
combat, how soon his energy would fail upon so great a task.
Impossible to admonish him; impossible to direct him on a humbler
path, where he might attain some result. With Reuben's temperament
to deal with, that would mean a fatal disturbance of their relations
to each other. That the disturbance must come in any case, now that
he was about to prove himself, she anticipated in many a troubled
moment, but would not let the forecast discourage her.

Elgar knew how his failure in perseverance affected her; he looked
for the signs of her disappointment, and was at no loss to find
them. it was natural to him to exaggerate the diminution of her
esteem; he attributed to her what, in her place, he would himself
have felt; he soon imagined that she had as good as ceased to love
him. He could not bear to be less in her eyes than formerly; a
jealous shame stung him, and at length made him almost bitter
against her.

In this way came about his extraordinary outbreak that night when
Cecily had been alone to her aunt's. Pent-up irritation drove him
into the extravagances which to Cecily were at first incredible. He
could not utter what was really in his mind, and the charges he made
against her were modes of relieving himself. Yet, as soon as they
had once taken shape, these rebukes obtained a real significance of
their own. Coincident with Cecily's disappointment in him had been
the sudden exhibition of her pleasure in society. Under other
circumstances, his wife's brilliancy among strangers might have been
pleasurable to Elgar. His faith in her was perfect, and jealousy of
the ignobler kind came not near him. But he felt that she was taking
refuge from the dulness of her home; he imagined people speaking of
him as "the husband of Mrs. Elgar;" it exasperated him to think of
her talking with clever men who must necessarily suggest comparisons
to her.

He himself was not the kind of man who shines in company. He had
never been trained to social usages, and he could not feel at ease
in any drawing-room but his own. The Bohemianism of his early life
had even given him a positive distaste for social obligations and
formalities. Among men of his own way of thinking, he could talk
vigorously, and as a rule keep the lead in conversation; but where
restraint in phrase was needful, he easily became flaccid, and the
feeling that he did not show to advantage filled him with disgust.
So there was little chance of his ever winning that sort of
reputation which would have enabled him to accompany his wife into
society without the galling sense of playing an inferior _role_.

In the matter of Mrs. Travis, he was conscious of his own
arbitrariness, but, having once committed himself to a point of
view, he could not withdraw from it. He had to find fault with his
wife and her society, and here was an obvious resource. Its very
obviousness should, of course, have warned him away, but his reason
for attacking Mrs. Travis had an intimate connection with the
general causes of his discontent. Disguise it how he might, he was
simply in the position of a husband who fears that his authority
over his wife is weakening. Mrs. Travis, as he knew, was a rebel
against her own husband--no matter the cause. She would fill
Cecily's mind with sympathetic indignation; the effect would be to
make Cecily more resolute in independence. Added to this, there was,
in truth, something of that conflict between theoretical and
practical morality of which his wife spoke. It developed in the
course of argument; he recognized that, whilst having all confidence
in Cecily, he could not reconcile himself to her associating with a
woman whose conduct was under discussion. The more he felt his
inconsistency, the more arbitrary he was compelled to be. Motives
confused themselves and harassed him. In his present mood, the
danger of such a state of things was greater than he knew, and of
quite another kind than Cecily was prepared for.

"What is all this about Mrs. Travis?" inquired Mrs. Lessingham, with
a smile, when she came to visit Cecily. Reuben was out, and the
ladies sat alone in the drawing-room.

Cecily explained what had happened, but in simple terms, and without
meaning to show that any difference of opinion had arisen between
her and Reuben.

"You have heard of it from Mrs. Travis herself?" she asked, in
conclusion.

"Yes. She expressed no resentment, however; spoke as if she thought
it a little odd, that was all. But what has Reuben got into his
head?"

"It seems he has heard unpleasant rumours about her."

"Then why didn't he come and speak to me? She is absolutely
blameless: I can answer for it. Her husband is the kind of man--
Did you ever read Fielding's 'Amelia'? To be sure; well, you
understand. I much doubt whether she is wise in leaving him; ten to
one, she'll go back again, and that is more demoralizing than
putting up with the other indignity. She has a very small income of
her own, and what is her life to be? Surely you are the last people
who should abandon her. That is the kind of thing that makes such a
woman desperate. She seems to have made a sort of appeal to you. I
am but moderately in her confidence, and I believe she hasn't one
bosom friend. It's most fortunate that Reuben took such a whim. Send
him to me, will you?"

Cecily made known this request to her husband, and there followed
another long dialogue between them, the only result of which was to
increase their mutual coldness. Cecily proposed that they should at
once leave town, instead of waiting for the end of the season; in
this way all their difficulties would be obviated. Elgar declined
the proposal; he had no desire to spoil her social pleasures.

"That is already done, past help," Cecily rejoined, with the first
note of bitterness. "I no longer care to visit, nor to receive
guests."

"I noticed the other day your ingenuity in revenging yourself."

"I say nothing but the simple truth. Had you rather I went out and
enjoyed myself without any reference to your wishes?"

"From the first you made up your mind to misunderstand me," said
Reuben, with the common evasion of one who cannot defend his course.

Cecily brought the dispute to an end by her silence. The next
morning Reuben went to see Mrs. Lessingham, and heard what she had
to say about Mrs. Travis.

"What is your evidence against her?" she inquired, after a little
banter.

"Some one who knows Travis very well assured me that the fault was
not all on his side."

"Of course. It is more to the point to hear what those have to say
who know his wife, Surely you acted with extraordinary haste."

With characteristic weakness, Elgar defended himself by detailing
the course of events. It was not he who had been precipitate, but
Cecily; he was never more annoyed than when he heard of that foolish
letter.

"Go home and persuade her to write another," said Mrs. Lessingham.
"Let her confess that there was a misunderstanding. I am sure Mrs.
Travis will accept it. She has a curious character; very sensitive,
and very impulsive, but essentially trustful and warm-hearted. You
should have heard the pathetic surprise with which she told me of
Cecily's letter."

"I should rather have imagined her speaking contemptuously."

"It would have been excusable," replied the other, with a laugh.
"And very likely that would have been her tone had it concerned any
one else. But she has a liking for Cecily. Go home, and get this
foolish mistake remedied, there's a good boy."

Elgar left the house and walked eastward, into Praed Street. As he
walked, he grew less and less inclined to go home at once. He could
not resolve how to act. It would be a satisfaction to have done with
discord, but he had no mind to submit to Cecily and entreat her to a
peace.

He walked on, across Edgware Road, into Marylebone Road, absorbed in
his thoughts. Their complexion became darker. He found a perverse
satisfaction in picturing Cecily's unhappiness. Let her suffer a
little; she was causing _him_ uneasiness enough. The probability was
that she derided his recent behaviour; it had doubtless sunk him
still more in her estimation. The only way to recover his lost
ground was to be as open with her as formerly, to confess all his
weaknesses and foolish motives; but his will resisted. He felt
coldly towards her; she was no longer the woman he loved and
worshipped, but one who had asserted a superiority of mind and
character, and belittled him to himself. He was tired of her
society--the simple formula which sufficiently explains so many
domestic troubles.

He would have lunch somewhere in town; then see whether he felt
disposed to go home or not.

In the afternoon he loitered about the Strand, looking at portraits
in shop-windows and at the theatre-doors. Home was more, instead of
less, repugnant to him. He wanted to postpone decision; but if he
returned to Cecily, it would be necessary to say something, and in
his present mood he would be sure to make matters worse, for he felt
quarrelsome. How absurd it was for two people, just because they
were married, to live perpetually within sight of each other! Wasn't
it Godwin who, on marrying, made an arrangement that he and his wife
should inhabit separate abodes, and be together only when they
wished? The only rational plan, that. Should he take train and go
out of town for a few days? If only he had some one for company; but
it was wearisome to spend the time in solitude.

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