The Odd Women

'I must depend on you, it seems, for news of Everard,' said Miss Barfoot after dinner.

'I can only tell you,' Rhoda answered lightly, 'that he has travelled from the south of France to the north of Italy, with much observation of female countenances.'

'He informs you of that?'

'Very naturally. It is his chief interest. One likes people to tell the truth.'

* * * * * * * * * *

Barfoot was away until the end of April, but after that note from Parma he did not write. One bright afternoon in May, a Saturday, he presented himself at his cousin's house, and found two or three callers in the drawing-room, ladies as usual; one of them was Miss Winifred Haven, another was Mrs. Widdowson. Mary received him without effusiveness, and after a few minutes' talk with her he took a place by Mrs. Widdowson, who, it struck him, looked by no means in such good spirits as during the early days of her marriage. As soon as she began to converse, his impression of a change in her was confirmed; the girlishness so pleasantly noticeable when first he knew her had disappeared, and the gravity substituted for it was suggestive of disillusion, of trouble.

She asked him if he knew some people named Bevis, who occupied a flat just above his own.

'Bevis? I have seen the name on the index at the foot of the stairs; but I don't know them personally.'

'That was how I came to know that you live there,' said Monica. 'My husband took me to call upon the Bevises, and there we saw your name. At least, we supposed it was you, and Miss Barfoot tells me we were right.'

'Oh yes; I live there all alone, a gloomy bachelor. How delightful if you knocked at my door some day, when you and Mr. Widdowson are again calling on your friends.'

Monica smiled, and her eyes wandered restlessly.

'You have been away—out of England?' she next said.

'Yes; in Italy.'

'I envy you.'

'You have never been there?'

'No—not yet.'

He talked a little of the agreeables and disagreeables of life in that country. But Mrs. Widdowson had become irresponsive; he doubted at length whether she was listening to him, so, as Miss Haven stepped this way, he took an opportunity of a word aside with his cousin.

'Miss Nunn not at home?'

'No. Won't be till dinner-time.'

'Quite well?'

'Never was better. Would you care to come back and dine with us at half-past seven?'

'Of course I should.'

With this pleasant prospect he took his leave. The afternoon being sunny, instead of walking straight to the station, to return home, he went out on to the Embankment, and sauntered round by Chelsea Bridge Road. As he entered Sloane Square he saw Mrs. Widdowson, who was coming towards the railway; she walked rather wearily, with her eyes on the ground, and did not become aware of him until he addressed her.

'Are we travelling the same way?' he asked. 'Westward?'

'Yes. I am going all the way round to Portland Road.'

They entered the station, Barfoot chatting humorously. And, so intent was he on the expression of his companion's downcast face, that he allowed an acquaintance to pass close by him unobserved. It was Rhoda Nunn, returning sooner than Miss Barfoot had expected. She saw the pair, regarded them with a moment's keen attentiveness, and went on, out into the street.

In the first-class carriage which they entered there was no other passenger as far as Barfoot's station. He could not resist the temptation to use rather an intimate tone, though one that was quite conventional, in the hope that he might discover something of Mrs. Widdowson's mind. He began by asking whether she thought it a good Academy this year. She had not yet visited it, but hoped to do so on Monday. Did she herself do any kind of artistic work? Oh, nothing whatever; she was a very useless and idle person. He believed she had been a pupil of Miss Barfoot's at one time? Yes, for a very short time indeed, just before her marriage. Was she not an intimate friend of Miss Nunn? Hardly intimate. They knew each other a few years ago, but Miss Nunn did not care much about her now.

'Probably because I married,' she added with a smile.

'Is Miss Nunn really such a determined enemy of marriage?'

'She thinks it pardonable in very weak people. In my case she was indulgent enough to come to the wedding.'

This piece of news surprised Barfoot.

'She came to your wedding? And wore a wedding garment?'

'Oh yes. And looked very nice.'

'Do describe it to me. Can you remember?'

Seeing that no woman ever forgot the details of another's dress, on however trivial an occasion, and at whatever distance of time, Monica was of course able to satisfy the inquirer. Her curiosity excited, she ventured in turn upon one or two insidious questions.

'You couldn't imagine Miss Nunn in such a costume?'

'I should very much like to have seen her.'

'She has a very striking face—don't you think so?'

'Indeed I do. A wonderful face.'

Their eyes met. Barfoot bent forward from his place opposite Monica.

'To me the most interesting of all faces,' he said softly.

His companion blushed with surprise and pleasure.

'Does it seem strange to you, Mrs. Widdowson?'

'Oh—why? Not at all.'

All at once she had brightened astonishingly. This subject was not pursued, but for the rest of the time they talked with a new appearance of mutual confidence and interest, Monica retaining her pretty, half-bashful smile. And when Barfoot alighted at Bayswater they shook hands with an especial friendliness, both seeming to suggest a wish that they might soon meet again.

They did so not later than the following Monday. Remembering what Mrs. Widdowson had said of her intention to visit Burlington House, Barfoot went there in the afternoon. If he chanced to encounter the pretty little woman it would not be disagreeable. Perhaps her husband might be with her, and in that case he could judge of the terms on which they stood. A surly fellow, Widdowson; very likely to play the tyrant, he thought. If he were not mistaken, she had wearied of him and regretted her bondage—the old story. Thinking thus, and strolling through the rooms with casual glances at a picture, he discovered his acquaintance, catalogue in hand, alone for the present. Her pensive face again answered to his smile. They drew back from the pictures and sat down.

'I dined with our friends at Chelsea on Saturday evening,' said Barfoot.

'On Saturday? You didn't tell me you were going back again.'

'I wasn't thinking of it just at the time.'

Monica hinted an amused surprise.

'You see,' he went on, 'I expected nothing, and happy for me that it was so. Miss Nunn was in her severest mood; I think she didn't smile once through the evening. I will confess to you I wrote her a letter whilst I was abroad, and it offended her, I suppose.'

'I don't think you can always judge of her thoughts by her face.'

'Perhaps not. But I have studied her face so often and so closely. For all that, she is more a mystery to me than any woman I have ever known. That, of course, is partly the reason of her power over me. I feel that if ever—if ever she should disclose herself to me, it would be the strangest revelation. Every woman wears a mask, except to one man; but Rhoda's—Miss Nunn's—is, I fancy, a far completer disguise than I ever tried to pierce.'

Monica had a sense of something perilous in this conversation. It arose from a secret trouble in her own heart, which she might, involuntarily, be led to betray. She had never talked thus confidentially with any man; not, in truth, with her husband. There was no fear whatever of her conceiving an undue interest in Barfoot; certain reasons assured her of that; but talk that was at all sentimental gravely threatened her peace—what little remained to her. It would have been better to discourage this man's confidences; yet they flattered her so pleasantly, and afforded such a fruitful subject for speculation, that she could not obey the prompting of prudence.

'Do you mean,' she said, 'that Miss Nunn seems to disguise her feelings?'

'It is supposed to be wrong—isn't it?—for a man to ask one woman her opinion of another.'

'I can't be treacherous if I wished,' Monica replied. 'I don't feel that I understand her.'

Barfoot wondered how much intelligence he might attribute to Mrs. Widdowson. Obviously her level was much below that of Rhoda. Yet she seemed to possess delicate sensibilities, and a refinement of thought not often met with in women of her position. Seriously desiring her aid, he looked at her with a grave smile, and asked,—

'Do you believe her capable of falling in love?'

Monica showed a painful confusion. She overcame it, however, and soon answered.

'She would perhaps try not—not to acknowledge it to herself.'

'When, in fact, it had happened?'

'She thinks it so much nobler to disregard such feelings.'

'I know. She is to be an inspiring example to the women who cannot hope to marry.' He laughed silently. 'And I suppose it is quite possible that mere shame would withhold her from taking the opposite course.'

'I think she is very strong. But—'

'But?'

He looked eagerly into her face.

'I can't tell. I don't really know her. A woman may be as much a mystery to another woman as she is to a man.'

'On the whole, I am glad to hear you say that. I believe it. It is only the vulgar that hold a different opinion.'

'Shall we look at the pictures, Mr. Barfoot?'

'Oh, I am so sorry. I have been wasting your time—'

Nervously disclaiming any such thought, Monica rose and drew near to the canvases. They walked on together for some ten minutes, until Barfoot, who had turned to look at a passing figure, said in his ordinary voice—

'I think that is Mr. Widdowson on the other side of the room.'

Monica looked quickly round, and saw her husband, as if occupied with the pictures, glancing in her direction.

CHAPTER XIX

THE CLANK OF THE CHAINS

Since Saturday evening Monica and her husband had not been on speaking terms. A visit she paid to Mildred Vesper, after her call at Miss Barfoot's, prolonged itself so that she did not reach home until the dinner-hour was long past. On arriving, she was met with an outburst of tremendous wrath, to which she opposed a resolute and haughty silence; and since then the two had kept as much apart as possible.

Widdowson knew that Monica was going to the Academy. He allowed her to set forth alone, and even tried to persuade himself that he was indifferent as to the hour of her return; but she had not long been gone before he followed. Insufferable misery possessed him. His married life threatened to terminate in utter wreck, and he had the anguish of recognizing that to a great extent this catastrophe would be his own fault. Resolve as he might, he found it impossible to repress the impulses of jealousy which, as soon as peace had been declared between them, brought about a new misunderstanding. Terrible thoughts smouldered in his mind; he felt himself to be one of those men who are driven by passion into crime. Deliberately he had brooded over a tragic close to the wretchedness of his existence; he would kill himself, and Monica should perish with him. But an hour of contentment sufficed to banish such visions as sheer frenzy. He saw once more how harmless, how natural, were Monica's demands, and how peacefully he might live with her but for the curse of suspicion from which he could not free himself. Any other man would deem her a model of wifely virtue. Her care of the house was all that reason could desire. In her behaviour he had never detected the slightest impropriety. He believed her chaste as any woman living She asked only to be trusted, and that, in spite of all, was beyond his power.

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 if 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.