George Gissing
The Odd Women
Widdowson rose from his seat and stood stiffly.
'I see you don't understand me in the least. I am going to marry because, for the first time in my life, I have met the woman whom I can respect and love.'
'That's very nice and proper. But why shouldn't you respect and love a girl who belongs to good society?'
'Miss Madden is a lady,' he replied indignantly.
'Oh—yes—to be sure,' hummed the other, letting her head roll back. 'Well, bring her here some day when we can lunch quietly together. I see it's no use. You're not a sharp man, Edmund.'
'Do you seriously tell me,' asked Widdowson, with grave curiosity, 'that there are ladies in good society who would have married me just because I have a few hundreds a year?'
'My dear boy, I would get together a round dozen in two or three days. Girls who would make good, faithful wives, in mere gratitude to the man who saved them from—horrors.'
'Excuse me if I say that I don't believe it.'
Mrs. Luke laughed merrily, and the conversation went on in this strain for another ten minutes. At the end, Mrs. Luke made herself very agreeable, praised Monica for her sweet face and gentle manners, and so dismissed the solemn man with a renewed promise to countenance the marriage by her gracious presence.
When Rhoda Nunn returned from her holiday it wanted but a week to Monica's wedding, so speedily had everything been determined and arranged. Miss Barfoot, having learnt from Virginia all that was to be known concerning Mr. Widdowson, felt able to hope for the best; a grave husband, of mature years, and with means more than sufficient, seemed, to the eye of experience, no unsuitable match for a girl such as Monica. This view of the situation caused Rhoda to smile with contemptuous tolerance.
'And yet,' she remarked, 'I have heard you speak severely of such marriages.'
'It isn't the ideal wedlock,' replied Miss Barfoot. 'But so much in life is compromise. After all, she may regard him more affectionally than we imagine.'
'No doubt she has weighed advantages. If the prospects you offered her had proved more to her taste she would have dismissed this elderly admirer. His fate has been decided during the last few weeks. It's probable that the invitation to your Wednesday evenings gave her a hope of meeting young men.'
'I see no harm if it did,' said Miss Barfoot, smiling. 'But Miss Vesper would very soon undeceive her on that point.'
'I hardly thought of her as a girl likely to make chance friendships with men in highways and by-ways.'
'No more did I; and that makes all the more content with what has come about. She ran a terrible risk, poor child. You see, Rhoda, nature is too strong for us.'
Rhoda threw her head back.
'And the delight of her sister! It is really pathetic. The mere fact that Monica is to be married blinds the poor woman to every possibility of misfortune.' In the course of the same conversation, Rhoda remarked thoughtfully,—
'It strikes me that Mr. Widdowson must be of a confiding nature. I don't think men in general, at all events those with money, care to propose marriage to girls they encounter by the way.'
'I suppose he saw that the case was exceptional.'
'How was he to see that?'
'You are severe. Her shop training accounts for much. The elder sisters could never have found a husband in this way. The revelation must have shocked them at first.'
Rhoda dismissed the subject lightly, and henceforth showed only the faintest interest in Monica's concerns.
Monica meanwhile rejoiced in her liberation from the work and philosophic severities of Great Portland Street. She saw Widdowson somewhere or other every day, and heard him discourse on the life that was before them, herself for the most part keeping silence. Together they called upon Mrs. Luke, and had luncheon with her. Monica was not displeased with her reception, and began secretly to hope that more than a glimpse of that gorgeous world might some day be vouchsafed to her.
Apart from her future husband, Monica was in a sportive mood, with occasional fits of exhilaration which seemed rather unnatural. She had declared to Mildred her intention of inviting Miss Nunn to the wedding, and her mind was evidently set on carrying out this joke, as she regarded it. When the desire was intimated by letter, Rhoda replied with a civil refusal: she would be altogether out of place at such a ceremony, but hoped that Monica would accept her heartiest good wishes. Virginia was then dispatched to Queen's Road, and appealed so movingly that the prophetess at length yielded. On hearing this Monica danced with delight, and her companion in Rutland Street could not help sharing her merriment.
The ceremony was performed at a church at Herne Hill. By an odd arrangement—like everything else in the story of this pair, a result of social and personal embarrassments—Monica's belongings, including her apparel for the day, were previously dispatched to the bridegroom's house, whither, in company with Virginia, the bride went early in the morning. It was one of the quietest of weddings, but all ordinary formalities were complied with, Widdowson having no independent views on the subject. Present were Virginia (to give away the bride), Miss Vesper (who looked decidedly odd in a pretty dress given her by Monica), Rhoda Nunn (who appeared to advantage in a costume of quite unexpected appropriateness), Mrs. Widdowson (an imposing figure, evidently feeling that she had got into strange society), and, as friend of the bridegroom, one Mr. Newdick, a musty and nervous City clerk. Depression was manifest on every countenance, not excepting Widdowson's; the man had such a stern, gloomy look, and held himself with so much awkwardness, that he might have been imagined to stand here on compulsion. For an hour before going to the church, Monica cried and seemed unutterably doleful; she had not slept for two nights; her face was ghastly. Virginia's gladness gave way just before the company assembled, and she too shed many tears.
There was a breakfast, more dismal fooling than even this species of fooling is wont to be. Mr. Newdick, trembling and bloodless, proposed Monica's health; Widdowson, stern and dark as ever, gloomily responded; and then, that was happily over. By one o'clock the gathering began to disperse. Monica drew Rhoda Nunn aside.
'It was very kind of you to come,' she whispered, with half a sob. 'It all seems very silly, and I'm sure you have wished yourself away a hundred times. I am really, seriously, grateful to you.'
Rhoda put a hand on each side of the girl's face, and kissed her, but without saying a word; and thereupon left the house. Mildred Vesper, after changing her dress in the room used by Monica, as she had done on arriving, went off by train to her duties in Great Portland Street. Virginia alone remained to see the married couple start for their honeymoon. They were going into Cornwall, and on the return journey would manage to see Miss Madden at her Somerset retreat. For the present, Virginia was to live on at Mrs. Conisbee's, but not in the old way; henceforth she would have proper attendance, and modify her vegetarian diet—at the express bidding of the doctor, as she explained to her landlady.
Though that very evening Everard Barfoot made a call upon his friends in Chelsea, the first since Rhoda's return from Cheddar, he heard nothing of the event that marked the day. But Miss Nunn appeared to him unlike herself; she was absent, had little to say, and looked, what he had never yet known her, oppressed by low spirits. For some reason or other Miss Barfoot left the room.
'You are thinking with regret of your old home,' Everard remarked, taking a seat nearer to Miss Nunn.
'No. Why should you fancy that?'
'Only because you seem rather sad.'
'One is sometimes.'
'I like to see you with that look. May I remind you that you promised me some flowers from Cheddar?'
'Oh, so I did,' exclaimed the other in a tone of natural recollection. 'I have brought them, scientifically pressed between blotting-paper. I'll fetch them.'
When she returned it was together with Miss Barfoot, and the conversation became livelier.
A day or two after this Everard left town, and was away for three weeks, part of the time in Ireland.
'I left London for a while,' he wrote from Killarney to his cousin, 'partly because I was afraid I had begun to bore you and Miss Nunn. Don't you regret giving me permission to call upon you? The fact is, I can't live without intelligent female society; talking with women, as I talk with you two, is one of my chief enjoyments. I hope you won't get tired of my visits; in fact, they are all but a necessity to me, as I have discovered since coming away. But it was fair that you should have a rest.'
'Don't be afraid,' Miss Barfoot replied to this part of his letter. 'We are not at all weary of your conversation. The truth is, I like it much better than in the old days. You seem to me to have a healthier mind, and I am quite sure that the society of intelligent women (we affect no foolish self-depreciation, Miss Nunn and I) is a good thing for you. Come back to us as soon as you like; I shall welcome you.'
It happened that his return to England was almost simultaneous with the arrival from Madeira of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Barfoot. Everard at once went to see his brother, who for the present was staying at Torquay. Ill-health dictated his choice of residence; Thomas was still suffering from the results of his accident; his wife had left him at a hotel, and was visiting relatives in different parts of England. The brothers exhibited much affectionate feeling after their long separation; they spent a week together, and planned for another meeting when Mrs. Thomas should have returned to her husband.
An engagement called Everard back to town. He was to be present at the wedding of his friend Micklethwaite, now actually on the point of taking place. The mathematician had found a suitable house, very small and of very low rental, out at South Tottenham, and thither was transferred the furniture which had been in his bride's possession since the death of her parents; Micklethwaite bought only a few new things. By discreet inquiry, Barfoot had discovered that 'Fanny,' though musically inclined, would not possess a piano, her old instrument being quite worn out and not worth the cost of conveyance; thus it came to pass that, a day or two before the wedding, Micklethwaite was astonished by the arrival of an instrument of the Cottage species, mysteriously addressed to a person not yet in existence, Mrs. Micklethwaite.
'You scoundrel!' he cried, when, on the next day, Barfoot presented himself at the house. 'This is your doing. What the deuce do you mean? A man who complains of poverty! Well, it's the greatest kindness I ever received, that's all. Fanny will be devoted to you. With music in the house, our blind sister will lead quite a different life. Confound it! I want to begin crying. Why, man, I'm not accustomed to receive presents, even as a proxy; I haven't had one since I was a schoolboy.'
'That's an audacious statement. When you told me that Miss Wheatley never allowed your birthday to pass without sending something.'
'Oh, Fanny! But I have never thought of Fanny as a separate person. Upon my word, now I think of it, I never have. Fanny and I have been one for ages.'
That evening the sisters arrived from their country home. Micklethwaite gave up the house to them, and went to a lodging.
It was with no little curiosity that, on the appointed morning, Barfoot repaired to South Tottenham. He had seen a photograph of Miss Wheatley, but it dated from seventeen years ago. Standing in her presence, he was moved with compassion, and with another feeling more rarely excited in him by a woman's face, that of reverential tenderness. Impossible to recognize in this countenance the features known to him from the portrait. At three-and-twenty she had possessed a sweet, simple comeliness on which any man's eye would have rested with pleasure; at forty she was wrinkled, hollow-cheeked, sallow, indelible weariness stamped upon her brow and lips. She looked much older than Mary Barfoot, though they were just of an age. And all this for want of a little money. The life of a pure, gentle, tender-hearted woman worn away in hopeless longing and in hard struggle for daily bread. As she took his hand and thanked him with an exquisite modesty for the present she had received, Everard felt a lump rise in his throat. He was ashamed to notice that the years had dealt so unkindly with her; fixing his look upon her eyes, he gladdened at the gladness which shone in them, at the soft light which they could still shed forth.
Micklethwaite was probably unconscious of the poor woman's faded appearance. He had seen her from time to time, and always with the love which idealizes. In his own pathetic phrase, she was simply a part of himself; he no more thought of criticizing her features than of standing before the glass to mark and comment upon his own. It was enough to glance at him as he took his place beside her, the proudest and happiest of men. A miracle had been wrought for him; kind fate, in giving her to his arms, had blotted out those long years of sorrow, and to-day Fanny was the betrothed of his youth, beautiful in his sight as when first he looked upon her.
Her sister, younger by five years, had more regular lineaments, but she too was worn with suffering, and her sightless eyes made it more distressing to contemplate her. She spoke cheerfully, however, and laughed with joy in Fanny's happiness. Barfoot pressed both her hands with the friendliest warmth.
One vehicle conveyed them all to the church, and in half an hour the lady to whom the piano was addressed had come into being. The simplest of transformations; no bridal gown, no veil, no wreath; only the gold ring for symbol of union. And it might have happened nigh a score of years ago; nigh a score of years lost from the span of human life—all for want of a little money.
'I will say good-bye to you here,' muttered Everard to his friend at the church door.
The married man gripped him by the arm.
'You will do nothing of the kind.—Fanny, he wants to be off at once!—You won't go until you have heard my wife play something on that blessed instrument.'
So all entered a cab again and drove back to the house. A servant who had come with Fanny from the country, a girl of fifteen, opened the door to them, smiling and curtseying. And all sat together in happy talk, the blind woman gayest among them; she wished to have the clergyman described to her, and the appearance of the church. Then Mrs. Micklethwaite placed herself at the piano, and played simple, old-fashioned music, neither well nor badly, but to the infinite delight of two of her hearers.
'Mr. Barfoot,' said the sister at length, 'I have known your name for a long time, but I little thought to meet you on such a day as this, and to owe you such endless thanks. So long as I can have music I forget that I can't see.'
'Barfoot is the finest fellow on earth,' exclaimed Micklethwaite. 'At least, he would be if he understood Trilinear Co-ordinates.'
'Are you strong in mathematics, Mrs. Micklethwaite?' asked Everard.
'I? Oh dear, no! I never got much past the Rule of Three. But Tom has forgiven me that long ago.'
'I don't despair of getting you into plane trigonometry, Fanny. We will gossip about sines and co-sines before we die.'
It was said half-seriously, and Everard could not but burst into laughter.
He sat down with them to their plain midday meal, and early in the afternoon took his leave. He had no inclination to go home, if the empty flat could be dignified with such a name. After reading the papers at his club, he walked aimlessly about the streets until it was time to return to the same place for dinner. Then he sat with a cigar, dreaming, and at half-past eight went to the Royal Oak Station, and journeyed to Chelsea.
CHAPTER XIII
DISCORD OF LEADERS
A disappointment awaited him. Miss Barfoot was not well enough to see any one. Had she been suffering long? he inquired. No; it was only this evening; she had not dined, and was gone to her room. Miss Nunn could not receive him.
He went home, and wrote to his cousin.
The next morning he came upon a passage in the newspaper which seemed to suggest a cause for Miss Barfoot's indisposition. It was the report of an inquest. A girl named Bella Royston had poisoned herself. She was living alone, without occupation, and received visits only from one lady. This lady, her name Miss Barfoot, had been supplying her with money, and had just found her a situation in a house of business; but the girl appeared to have gone through troubles which had so disturbed her mind that she could not make the effort required of her. She left a few lines addressed to her benefactress, just saying that she chose death rather than the struggle to recover her position.
It was Saturday. He decided to call in the afternoon and see whether Mary had recovered.
Again a disappointment. Miss Barfoot was better, and had been away since breakfast; Miss Nunn was also absent.
Everard sauntered about the neighbourhood, and presently found himself in the gardens of Chelsea Hospital. It was a warm afternoon, and so still that he heard the fall of yellow leaves as he walked hither and thither along the alleys. His failure to obtain an interview with Miss Nunn annoyed him; but for her presence in the house he would not have got into this habit of going there. As far as ever from harbouring any serious thoughts concerning Rhoda, he felt himself impelled along the way which he had jokingly indicated in talk with Micklethwaite; he was tempted to make love to her as an interesting pastime, to observe how so strong-minded a woman would conduct herself under such circumstances. Had she or not a vein of sentiment in her character? Was it impossible to move her as other women are moved? Meditating thus, he looked up and saw the subject of his thoughts. She was seated a few yards away, and seemingly had not yet become aware of him, her eyes were on the ground, and troubled reverie appeared in her countenance.
'I have just called at the house, Miss Nunn. How is my cousin to-day?'
She had looked up only a moment before he spoke, and seemed vexed at being thus discovered.
'I believe Miss Barfoot is quite well,' she answered coldly, as they shook hands.
'But yesterday she was not so.'
'A headache, or something of the kind.'
He was astonished. Rhoda spoke with a cold indifference. She had risen, and showed her wish to move from the spot.
'She had to attend an inquest yesterday. Perhaps it rather upset her?'
'Yes, I think it did.'
Unable to adapt himself at once to this singular mood of Rhoda's, but resolved not to let her go before he had tried to learn the cause of it, he walked along by her side. In this part of the gardens there were only a few nursemaids and children; it would have been a capital place and time for improving his intimacy with the remarkable woman. But possibly she was determined to be rid of him. A contest between his will and hers would be an amusement decidedly to his taste.
'You also have been disturbed by it, Miss Nunn.'
'By the inquest?' she returned, with barely veiled scorn. 'Indeed I have not.'
'Did you know that poor girl?'
'Some time ago.'
'Then it is only natural that her miserable fate should sadden you.'
He spoke as if with respectful sympathy, ignoring what she had said.
'It has no effect whatever upon me,' Rhoda answered, glancing at him with surprise and displeasure.
'Forgive me if I say that I find it difficult to believe that. Perhaps you—'
She interrupted him.
'I don't easily forgive anyone who charges me with falsehood, Mr. Barfoot.'
'Oh, you take it too seriously. I beg your pardon a thousand times. I was going to say that perhaps you won't allow yourself to acknowledge any feeling of compassion in such a case.'
'I don't acknowledge what I don't feel. I will bid you good-afternoon.'
He smiled at her with all the softness and persuasiveness of which he was capable. She had offered her hand with cold dignity, and instead of taking it merely for good-bye he retained it.
'You must, you shall forgive me! I shall be too miserable if you dismiss me in this way. I see that I was altogether wrong. You know all the particulars of the case, and I have only read a brief newspaper account. I am sure the girl didn't deserve your pity.'
She was trying to draw her hand away. Everard felt the strength of her muscles, and the sensation was somehow so pleasant that he could not at once release her.
'You do pardon me, Miss Nunn?'
'Please don't be foolish. I will thank you to let my hand go.'
Was it possible? Her cheek had coloured, ever so slightly. But with indignation, no doubt, for her eyes flashed sternly at him. Very unwillingly, Everard had no choice but to obey the command.
'Will you have the kindness to tell me,' he said more gravely, 'whether my cousin was suffering only from that cause?'
'I can't say,' she added after a pause. 'I haven't spoken with Miss Barfoot for two or three days.'
He looked at her with genuine astonishment.
'You haven't seen each other?'
'Miss Barfoot is angry with me. I think we shall be obliged to part.'
'To part? What can possibly have happened? Miss Barfoot angry with you?'
'If I must satisfy your curiosity, Mr. Barfoot, I had better tell you at once that the subject of our difference is the girl you mentioned. Not very long ago she tried to persuade your cousin to receive her again—to give her lessons at the place in Great Portland Street, as before she disgraced herself. Miss Barfoot, with too ready good-nature, was willing to do this, but I resisted. It seemed to me that it would be a very weak and wrong thing to do. At the time she ended by agreeing with me. Now that the girl has killed herself, she throws the blame upon my interference. We had a painful conversation, and I don't think we can continue to live together.'
Barfoot listened with gratification. It was much to have compelled Rhoda to explain herself, and on such a subject.
'Nor even to work together?' he asked.
'It is doubtful.'
Rhoda still moved forward, but very slowly, and without impatience.
'You will somehow get over this difficulty, I am sure. Such friends as you and Mary don't quarrel like ordinary unreasonable women. Won't you let me be of use?'
'How?' asked Rhoda with surprise.
'I shall make my cousin see that she is wrong.'
'How do you know that she is wrong?'
'Because I am convinced that you must be right. I respect Mary's judgment, but I respect yours still more.'
Rhoda raised her head and smiled.
'That compliment,' she said, 'pleases me less than the one you have uttered without intending it.'
'You must explain.'
'You said that by making Miss Barfoot see she was wrong you could alter her mind towards me. The world's opinion would hardly support you in that, even in the case of men.'
Everard laughed.
'Now this is better. Now we are talking in the old way. Surely you know that the world's opinion has no validity for me.'
She kept silence.
'But, after all, is Mary wrong? I'm not afraid to ask the question now that your face has cleared a little. How angry you were with me! But surely I didn't deserve it. You would have been much more forbearing if you had known what delight I felt when I saw you sitting over there. It is nearly a month since we met, and I couldn't keep away any longer.'
Rhoda swept the distance with indifferent eyes.
'Mary was fond of this girl?' he inquired, watching her.
'Yes, she was.'
'Then her distress, and even anger, are natural enough. We won't discuss the girl's history; probably I know all that I need to. But whatever her misdoing, you certainly didn't wish to drive her to suicide.'
Rhoda deigned no reply.
'All the same,' he continued in his gentlest tone, 'it turns out that you have practically done so. If Mary had taken the girl back that despair would most likely never have come upon her. Isn't it natural that Mary should repent of having been guided by you, and perhaps say rather severe things?'
'Natural, no doubt. But it is just as natural for me to resent blame where I have done nothing blameworthy.'
'You are absolutely sure that this is the case?'
'I thought you expressed a conviction that I was in the right?'
There was no smile, but Everard believed that he detected its possibility on the closed lips.
'I have got into the way of always thinking so—in questions of this kind. But perhaps you tend to err on the side of severity. Perhaps you make too little allowance for human weakness.'
'Human weakness is a plea that has been much abused, and generally in an interested spirit.'
This was something like a personal rebuke. Whether she so meant it, Barfoot could not determine. He hoped she did, for the more personal their talk became the better he would be pleased.
'I, for one,' he said, 'very seldom urge that plea, whether in my own defence or another's. But it answers to a spirit we can't altogether dispense with. Don't you feel ever so little regret that your severe logic prevailed?'
'Not the slightest regret.'
Everard thought this answer magnificent. He had anticipated some evasion. However inappropriately, he was constrained to smile.
'How I admire your consistency! We others are poor halting creatures in comparison.'
'Mr. Barfoot,' said Rhoda suddenly, 'I have had enough of this. If your approval is sincere, I don't ask for it. If you are practising your powers of irony, I had rather you chose some other person. I will go my way, if you please.'
She just bent her head, and left him.
Enough for the present. Having raised his hat and turned on his heels, Barfoot strolled away in a mood of peculiar satisfaction. He laughed to himself. She was certainly a fine creature—yes, physically as well. Her out-of-door appearance on the whole pleased him; she could dress very plainly without disguising the advantages of figure she possessed. He pictured her rambling about the hills, and longed to be her companion on such an expedition; there would be no consulting with feebleness, as when one sets forth to walk with the everyday woman. What daring topics might come up in the course of a twenty-mile stretch across country! No Grundyism in Rhoda Nunn; no simpering, no mincing of phrases. Why, a man might do worse than secure her for his comrade through the whole journey of life.
Suppose he pushed his joke to the very point of asking her to marry him? Undoubtedly she would refuse; but how enjoyable to watch the proud vigour of her freedom asserting itself! Yet would not an offer of marriage be too commonplace? Rather propose to her to share his life in a free union, without sanction of forms which neither for her nor him were sanction at all. Was it too bold a thought?
Not if he really meant it. Uttered insincerely, such words would be insult; she would see through his pretence of earnestness, and then farewell to her for ever. But if his intellectual sympathy became tinged with passion—and did he discern no possibility of that? An odd thing were he to fall in love with Rhoda Nunn. Hitherto his ideal had been a widely different type of woman; he had demanded rare beauty of face, and the charm of a refined voluptuousness. To be sure, it was but an ideal; no woman that approached it had ever come within his sphere. The dream exercised less power over him than a few years ago; perhaps because his youth was behind him. Rhoda might well represent the desire of a mature man, strengthened by modern culture and with his senses fairly subordinate to reason. Heaven forbid that he should ever tie himself to the tame domestic female; and just as little could he seek for a mate among the women of society, the creatures all surface, with empty pates and vitiated blood. No marriage for him, in the common understanding of the word. He wanted neither offspring nor a 'home'. Rhoda Nunn, if she thought of such things at all, probably desired a union which would permit her to remain an intellectual being; the kitchen, the cradle, and the work-basket had no power over her imagination. As likely as not, however, she was perfectly content with single life—even regarded it as essential to her purposes. In her face he read chastity; her eye avoided no scrutiny; her palm was cold.
One does not break the heart of such a woman. Heartbreak is a very old-fashioned disorder, associated with poverty of brain. If Rhoda were what he thought her, she enjoyed this opportunity of studying a modern male, and cared not how far he proceeded in his own investigations, sure that at any moment she could bid him fall back. The amusement was only just beginning. And if for him it became earnest, why what did he seek but strong experiences?
Rhoda, in the meantime, had gone home. She shut herself in her bedroom, and remained there until the bell rang for dinner.
Miss Barfoot entered the dining-room just before her; they sat down in silence, and through the meal exchanged but a few sentences, relative to a topic of the hour which interested neither of them.
The elder woman had a very unhappy countenance; she looked worn out; her eyes never lifted themselves from the table.
Dinner over, Miss Barfoot went to the drawing-room alone. She had sat there about half an hour, brooding, unoccupied, when Rhoda came in and stood before her.
'I have been thinking it over. It isn't right for me to remain here. Such an arrangement was only possible whilst we were on terms of perfect understanding.'
'You must do what you think best, Rhoda,' the other replied gravely, but with no accent of displeasure.
'Yes, I had better take a lodging somewhere. What I wish to know is, whether you can still employ me with any satisfaction?'
'I don't employ you. That is not the word to describe your relations with me. If we must use business language, you are simply my partner.'
'Only your kindness put me into that position. When you no longer regard me as a friend, I am only in your employment.'
