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The Odd Women

G >> George Gissing >> The Odd Women




In no woman on earth could he have put perfect confidence. He
regarded them as born to perpetual pupilage. Not that their
inclinations were necessarily wanton; they were simply incapable of
attaining maturity, remained throughout their life imperfect beings,
at the mercy of craft, ever liable to be misled by childish
misconceptions. Of course he was right; he himself represented the
guardian male, the wife-proprietor, who from the dawn of
civilization has taken abundant care that woman shall not outgrow
her nonage. The bitterness of his situation lay in the fact that he
had wedded a woman who irresistibly proved to him her claims as a
human being. Reason and tradition contended in him, to his ceaseless
torment.

And again, he feared that Monica did not love him. Had she ever
loved him? There was too much ground for suspecting that she had
only yielded to the persistence of his entreaties, with just liking
enough to permit a semblance of tenderness, and glad to exchange her
prospect of distasteful work for a comfortable married life. Her
liking he might have fostered; during those first happy weeks,
assuredly he had done so, for no woman could be insensible to the
passionate worship manifest in his every look, his every word.
Later, he took the wrong path, seeking to oppose her instincts, to
reform her mind, eventually to become her lord and master. Could he
not even now retrace his steps? Supposing her incapable of bowing
before him, of kissing his feet, could he not be content to make of
her a loyal friend, a delightful companion?

In that mood he hastened towards Burlington House. Seeking Monica
through the galleries, he saw her at length--sitting side by side
with that man Barfoot. They were in closest colloquy. Barfoot bent
towards her as if speaking in an undertone, a smile on his face.
Monica looked at once pleased and troubled.

The blood boiled in his veins. His first impulse was to walk
straight up to Monica and bid her follow him. But the ecstasy of
jealous suffering kept him an observer. He watched the pair until he
was descried.

There was no help for it. Though his brain whirled, and his flesh
was stabbed, he had no choice but to take the hand Barfoot offered
him. Smile he could not, nor speak a word.

'So you have come after all?' Monica was saying to him.

He nodded. On her countenance there was obvious embarrassment, but
this needed no explanation save the history of the last day or two.
Looking into her eyes, he knew not whether consciousness of wrong
might be read there. How to get at the secrets of this woman's
heart?

Barfoot was talking, pointing at this picture and that, doing his
best to smooth what he saw was an awkward situation. The gloomy
husband, more like a tyrant than ever, muttered incoherent phrases.
In a minute or two Everard freed himself and moved out of sight.

Monica turned from her husband and affected interest in the
pictures. They reached the end of the room before Widdowson spoke.

'How long do you want to stay here?'

'I will go whenever you like,' she answered, without looking at him.

'I have no wish to spoil your pleasure.'

'Really, I have very little pleasure in anything. Did you come to
keep me in sight?'

'I think we will go home now, and you can come another day.'

Monica assented by closing her catalogue and walking on.

Without a word, they made the journey back to Herne Hill. Widdowson
shut himself in the library, and did not appear till dinner-time.
The meal was a pretence for both of them, and as soon as they could
rise from the table they again parted.

About ten o'clock Monica was joined by her husband in the
drawing-room.

'I have almost made up my mind,' he said, standing near her, 'to
take a serious step. As you have always spoken with pleasure of your
old home, Clevedon, suppose we give up this house and go and live
there?'

'It is for you to decide.'

'I want to know whether you would have any objection.'

'I shall do as you wish.'

'No, that isn't enough. The plan I have in mind is this. I should
take a good large house--no doubt rents are low in the
neighbourhood--and ask your sisters to come and live with us. I
think it would be a good thing both for them and for you.'

'You can't be sure that they would agree to it. You see that
Virginia prefers her lodgings to living here.'

Oddly enough, this was the case. On their return from Guernsey they
had invited Virginia to make a permanent home with them, and she
refused. Her reasons Monica could not understand; those which she
alleged--vague arguments as to its being better for a wife's
relatives not to burden the husband--hardly seemed genuine. It was
possible that Virginia had a distaste for Widdowson's society.

'I think they both would be glad to live at Clevedon,' he urged,
'judging from your sisters' talk. It's plain that they have quite
given up the idea of the school, and Alice, you tell me, is getting
dissatisfied with her work at Yatton. But I must know whether you
will enter seriously into this scheme.'

Monica kept silence.

'Please answer me.'

'Why have you thought of it?'

'I don't think I need explain. We have had too many unpleasant
conversations, and I wish to act for the best without saying things
you would misunderstand.'

'There is no fear of my misunderstanding. You have no confidence in
me, and you want to get me away into a quiet country place where I
shall be under your eyes every moment. It's much better to say that
plainly.'

'That means you would consider it going to prison.'

'How could I help? What other motive have you?'

He was prompted to make brutal declaration of authority, and so cut
the knot. Monica's unanswerable argument merely angered him. But he
made an effort over himself.

'Don't you think it best that we should take some step before our
happiness is irretrievably ruined?'

'I see no need for its ruin. As I have told you before, in talking
like that you degrade yourself and insult me.'

'I have my faults; I know them only too well. One of them is that I
cannot bear you to make friends with people who are not of my kind.
I shall never be able to endure that.'

'Of course you are speaking of Mr. Barfoot.'

'Yes,' he avowed sullenly. 'It was a very unfortunate thing that I
happened to come up just as he was in your company.'

'You are so very unreasonable,' exclaimed Monica tartly. 'What
possible. harm is there in Mr. Barfoot, when he meets me by chance
in a public place, having a conversation with me? I wish I knew
twenty such men. Such conversation gives me a new interest in life.
I have every reason to think well of Mr. Barfoot.'

Widdowson was in anguish.

'And I,' he replied, in a voice shaken with angry feeling, 'feel
that I have every reason to dislike and suspect him. He is not an
honest man; his face tells me that. I know his life wouldn't bear
inspection. You can't possibly be as good a judge as I am in such a
case. Contrast him with Bevis. No, Bevis is a man one can trust; one
talk with him produces a lasting favourable impression.'

Monica, silent for a brief space, looked fixedly before her, her
features all but expressionless.

'Yet even with Mr. Bevis,' she said at length, 'you don't make
friends. That is the fault in you which causes all this trouble. You
haven't a sociable spirit. Your dislike of Mr. Barfoot only means
that you don't know him, and don't wish to. And you are completely
wrong in your judgment of him. I have every reason for being sure
that you are wrong.'

'Of course you think so. In your ignorance of the world--'

'Which you think very proper in a woman,' she interposed
caustically.

'Yes, I do! That kind of knowledge is harmful to a woman.'

'Then, please, how is she to judge her acquaintances?'

'A married woman must accept her husband's opinion, at all events
about men.' He plunged on into the ancient quagmire. 'A man may know
with impunity what is injurious if it enters a woman's mind.'

'I don't believe that. I can't and won't believe it.'

He made a gesture of despair.

'We differ hopelessly. It was all very well to discuss these things
when you could do so in a friendly spirit. Now you say whatever you
know will irritate me, and you say it on purpose to irritate me.'

'No; indeed I do not. But you are quite right that I find it hard to
be friendly with you. Most earnestly I wish to be your friend--
your true and faithful friend. But you won't let me.'

'Friend!' he cried scornfully. 'The woman who has become my wife
ought to be something more than a friend, I should think. You have
lost all love for me--there's the misery.'

Monica could not reply. That word 'love' had grown a weariness to
her upon his lips. She did not love him; could not pretend to love
him. Every day the distance between them widened, and when he took
her in his arms she had to struggle with a sense of shrinking, of
disgust. The union was unnatural; she felt herself constrained by a
hateful force when he called upon her for the show of wifely
tenderness. Yet how was she to utter this? The moment such a truth
had passed her lips she must leave him. To declare that no trace of
love remained in her heart, and still to live with him--that was
impossible! The dark foresight of a necessity of parting from him
corresponded in her to those lurid visions which at times shook
Widdowson with a horrible temptation.

'You don't love me,' he continued in harsh, choking tones. 'You wish
to be my _friend_. That's how you try to compensate me for the loss
of your love.'

He laughed with bitterness.

'When you say that,' Monica answered, 'do you ever ask yourself
whether you try to make me love you? Scenes like this are ruining my
health. I have come to dread your talk. I have almost forgotten the
sound of your voice when it isn't either angry or complaining.'

Widdowson walked about the room, and a deep moan escaped him.

'That is why I have asked you to go away from here, Monica. We must
have a new home if our life is to begin anew.'

'I have no faith in mere change of place. You would be the same man.
If you cannot command your senseless jealousy here, you never would
anywhere else.'

He made an effort to say something; seemed to abandon it; again
tried, and spoke in a thick, unnatural voice.

'Can you honestly repeat to me what Barfoot was saying to-day, when
you were on the seat together?'

Monica's eyes flashed.

'I could; every word. But I shall not try to do so.'

'Not if I beseech you to, Monica? To put my mind at rest--'

'No. When I tell you that you might have heard every syllable, I
have said all that I shall.'

It mortified him profoundly that he should have been driven to make
so humiliating a request. He threw himself into a chair and hid his
face, sitting thus for a long time in the hope that Monica would be
moved to compassion. But when she rose it was only to retire for the
night. And with wretchedness in her heart, because she must needs go
to the same chamber in which her husband would sleep. She wished so
to be alone. The poorest bed in a servant's garret would have been
thrice welcome to her; liberty to lie awake, to think without a
disturbing presence, to shed tears of need be--that seemed to her
a precious boon. She thought with envy of the shop-girls in Walworth
Road; wished herself back there. What unspeakable folly she had
committed! And how true was everything she had heard from Rhoda Nunn
on the subject of marriage! The next day Widdowson resorted to an
expedient which he had once before tried in like circumstances. He
wrote his wife a long letter, eight close pages, reviewing the cause
of their troubles, confessing his own errors, insisting gently on
those chargeable to her, and finally imploring her to cooperate with
him in a sincere endeavour to restore their happiness. This he laid
on the table after lunch, and then left Monica alone that she might
read it. Knowing beforehand all that the letter contained, Monica
glanced over it carelessly. An answer was expected, and she wrote
one as briefly as possible.

'Your behaviour seems to me very weak, very unmanly. You make us
both miserable, and quite without cause. I can only say as I have
said before, that things will never be better until you come to
think of me as your free companion, not as your bond-woman. If you
can't do this, you will make me wish that I had never met you, and
in the end I am sure it won't be possible for us to go on living
together.'

She left this note, in a blank envelope, on the hall table, and went
out to walk for an hour.

It was the end of one more acute stage in their progressive discord.
By keeping at home for a fortnight. Monica soothed her husband and
obtained some repose for her own nerves. But she could no longer
affect a cordial reconciliation; caresses left her cold, and
Widdowson saw that his company was never so agreeable to her as
solitude. When they sat together, both were reading. Monica found
more attraction in books as her life grew more unhappy. Though with
reluctance Widdowson had consented to a subscription at Mudie's, and
from the new catalogues she either chose for herself, necessarily at
random, or by the advice of better-read people, such as she met at
Mrs. Cosgrove's. What modern teaching was to be got from these
volumes her mind readily absorbed. She sought for opinions and
arguments which were congenial to her mood of discontent, all but of
revolt.

Sometimes the perusal of a love-story embittered her lot to the last
point of endurance. Before marriage, her love-ideal had been very
vague, elusive; it found scarcely more than negative expression, as
a shrinking from the vulgar or gross desires of her companions in
the shop. Now that she had a clearer understanding of her own
nature, the type of man correspondent to her natural sympathies also
became clear. In every particular he was unlike her husband. She
found a suggestion of him in books; and in actual life, already,
perhaps something more than a suggestion. Widdowson's jealousy, in
so far as it directed itself against her longing for freedom, was
fully justified; this consciousness often made her sullen when she
desired to express a nobler indignation; but his special prejudice
led him altogether astray, and in free resistance on this point she
found the relief which enabled her to bear a secret self-reproach.
Her refusal to repeat the substance of Barfoot's conversation was,
in some degree, prompted by a wish for the continuance of his
groundless fears. By persevering in suspicion of Barfoot, he
afforded her a firm foothold in their ever-renewed quarrels.

A husband's misdirected jealousy excites in the wife derision and a
sense of superiority; more often than not, it fosters an unsuspected
attachment, prompts to a perverse pleasure in misleading. Monica
became aware of this; in her hours of misery she now and then gave a
harsh laugh, the result of thoughts not seriously entertained, but
tempting the fancy to recklessness. What, she asked herself again,
would be the end of it all? Ten years hence, would she have subdued
her soul to a life of weary insignificance, if not of dishonour? For
it was dishonour to live with a man she could not love, whether her
heart cherished another image or was merely vacant. A dishonour to
which innumerable women submitted, a dishonour glorified by social
precept, enforced under dread penalties.

But she was so young, and life abounds in unexpected changes.





CHAPTER XX

THE FIRST LIE




Mrs. Cosgrove was a childless widow, with sufficient means and a
very mixed multitude of acquaintances. In the general belief her
marriage had been a happy one; when she spoke of her deceased
husband it was with respect, and not seldom with affection. Yet her
views on the matrimonial relation were known to be of singular
audacity. She revealed them only to a small circle of intimates;
most of the people who frequented her house had no startling
theories to maintain, and regarded their hostess as a good-natured,
rather eccentric woman, who loved society and understood how to
amuse her guests.

Wealth and position were rarely represented in her drawing-room;
nor, on the other hand, was Bohemianism. Mrs. Cosgrove belonged by
birth and marriage to the staid middle class, and it seemed as if
she made it her object to provide with social entertainment the kind
of persons who, in an ordinary way, would enjoy very little of it.
Lonely and impecunious girls or women were frequently about her; she
tried to keep them in good spirits, tried to marry them if marriage
seemed possible, and, it was whispered, used a good deal of her
income for the practical benefit of those who needed assistance. A
sprinkling of maidens who were neither lonely nor impecunious served
to attract young men, generally strugglers in some profession or
other, on the lookout for a wife. Intercourse went on with a minimum
of formalities. Chaperonage--save for that represented by the
hostess herself--was as often as not dispensed with.

'We want to get rid of a lot of sham propriety'--so she urged to
her closer friends. 'Girls must learn to trust themselves, and look
out for dangers. If a girl can only be kept straight by incessant
watchfulness, why, let her go where she will, and learn by
experience. In fact, I want to see experience substituted for
precept.'

Between this lady and Miss Barfoot there were considerable
divergences of opinion, yet they agreed on a sufficient number of
points to like each other very well. Occasionally one of Mrs.
Cosgrove's _protegees_ passed into Miss Barfoot's hands, abandoning
the thought of matrimony for study in Great Portland Street. Rhoda
Nunn, also, had a liking for Mrs. Cosgrove, though she made no
secret of her opinion that Mrs. Cosgrove's influence was on the
whole decidedly harmful.

'That house,' she once said to Miss Barfoot, 'is nothing more than a
matrimonial agency.'

'But so is every house where many people are entertained.'

'Not in the same way. Mrs. Cosgrove was speaking to me of some girl
who has just accepted an offer of marriage. "I don't think they'll
suit each other," she said, "but there's no harm in trying."'

Miss Barfoot could not restrain a laugh.

'Who knows? Perhaps she is right in that view of things. After all,
you know, it's only putting into plain words what everybody thinks
on all but every such occasion.'

'The first part of her remark--yes,' said Rhoda caustically. 'But
as for the "no harm in trying," well, let us ask the wife's opinion
in a year's time.'

* * * * * * * * * *

Midway in the London season on Sunday afternoon, about a score of
visitors were assembled in Mrs. Cosgrove's drawing-rooms--there
were two of them, with a landing between. As usual, some one sat at
the piano, but a hum of talk went on as undercurrent to the music.
Downstairs, in the library, half a dozen people found the quietness
they preferred, and among these was Mrs. Widdowson. She had an album
of portraits on her lap; whilst turning them over, she listened to a
chat going on between the sprightly Mr. Bevis and a young married
woman who laughed ceaselessly at his jokes. It was only a few
minutes since she had come down from the drawing-room. Presently her
eyes encountered a glance from Bevis, and at once he stepped over to
a seat beside her.

'Your sisters are not here to-day?' she said.

'No. They have guests of their own. And when are you coming to see
them again?'

'Before long, I hope.'

Bevis looked away and seemed to reflect.

'Do come next Saturday--could you?'

'I had better not promise.'

'Do try, and'--he lowered his voice--'come alone. Forgive me for
saying that. The girls are rather afraid of Mr. Widdowson, that's
the truth. They would so like a free gossip with you. Let me tell
them to expect you about half-past three or four. They will rise up
and call me blessed.'

Laughing, Monica at length agreed to come if circumstances were
favourable. Her talk with Bevis continued for a long time, until
people had begun to leave. Some other acquaintance then claimed her,
but she was now dull and monosyllabic, as if conversation had
exhausted her energies. At six o'clock she stole away unobserved,
and went home.

Widdowson had resigned himself, in appearance at all events, to
these absences. It was several weeks since he had accompanied his
wife to call upon any one; a sluggishness was creeping over him,
strengthening his disinclination for society. The futile endeavour
to act with decision, to carry Monica away into Somerset, resulted,
as futile efforts of that kind are wont to do, in increased
feebleness of the will; he was less capable than ever of exerting
the authority which he still believed himself to keep for the last
resort. Occasionally some days went by without his leaving the
house. Instead of the one daily newspaper he had been used to take
he now received three; after breakfast he sometimes spent a couple
of hours over the _Times_, and the evening papers often occupied him
from dinner to bedtime. Monica noticed, with a painful conflict of
emotions, that his hair had begun to lose its uniform colour, and to
show streaks that matched with his grizzled beard. Was _she_
responsible for this?

On the Saturday when she was to visit the Bevises she feared lest he
should propose to go with her. She wished even to avoid the
necessity of telling him where she was going. As she rose from
luncheon Widdowson glanced at her.

'I've ordered the trap, Monica. Will you come for a drive?'

'I have promised to go into the town. I'm very sorry.'

'It doesn't matter.'

This was his latest mode of appealing to her--with an air of
pained resignation.

'For a day or two I haven't felt at all well,' he continued
gloomily. 'I thought a drive might do me good.'

'Certainly. I hope it will. When would you like to have dinner?'

'I never care to alter the hours. Of course I shall be back at the
usual time. Shall _you_ be?'

'Oh yes--long before dinner.'

So she got away without any explanation. At a quarter to four she
reached the block of flats in which the Bevises (and Everard
Barfoot) resided. With a fluttering of the heart, she went very
quietly upstairs, as if anxious that her footsteps should not be
heard; her knock at the door was timid.

Bevis in person opened to her.

'Delighted! I thought it _might_ be--'

She entered, and walked into the first room, where she had been once
before. But to her surprise it was vacant. She looked round and saw
Bevis's countenance gleaming with satisfaction.

'My sisters will be here in a few minutes,' he said. 'A few minutes
at most. Will you take this chair, Mrs. Widdowson? How delighted I
am that you were able to come!'

So perfectly natural was his manner, that Monica, after the first
moment of consternation, tried to forget that there was anything
irregular in her presence here under these circumstances. As regards
social propriety, a flat differs in many respects from a house. In
an ordinary drawing-room, it could scarcely have mattered if Bevis
entertained her for a short space until his sisters' arrival; but in
this little set of rooms it was doubtfully permissible for her to
sit _tete-a-tete_ with a young man, under any excuse. And the fact
of his opening the front door himself seemed to suggest that not
even a servant was in the flat. A tremor grew upon her as she
talked, due in part to the consciousness that she was glad to be
thus alone with Bevis.

'A place like this must seem to you to be very unhomelike,' he was
saying, as he lounged on a low chair not very far from her. 'The
girls didn't like it at all at first. I suppose it's a retrograde
step in civilization. Servants are decidedly of that opinion; we
have a great difficulty in getting them to stay here. The reason
seems to me that they miss the congenial gossip of the area door. At
this moment we are without a domestic. I found she compensated
herself for disadvantages by stealing my tobacco and cigars. She
went to work with such a lack of discretion--abstracting half a
pound of honeydew at a time--that I couldn't find any sympathy for
her. Moreover, when charged with the delinquency, she became
abusive, so very abusive that we were obliged to insist upon her
immediate departure.'

'Do you think she smoked?' asked Monica laughingly.

'We have debated that point with much interest. She was a person of
advanced ideas, as you see; practically a communist. But I doubt
whether honeydew had any charms for her personally. It seems more
probable that some milkman, or baker's assistant, or even
metropolitan policeman, benefited by her communism.'

Indifferent to the progress of time, Bevis talked on with his usual
jocoseness, now and then shaking his tawny hair in a fit of laughter
the most contagious.

'But I have something to tell you,' he said at length more
seriously. 'I am going to leave England. They want me to live at
Bordeaux for a tune, two or three years perhaps. It's a great bore,
but I shall have to go. I am not my own master.'

'Then your sisters will go to Guernsey?'

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