Men and Wives Read online

  “I think it needs too much courage. I should be too cowering a soul to attempt it,” said Geraldine.

  “We have not decided what courage is,” said Kate.

  “Now I don’t understand this line of talk,” said Godfrey. “Here we are, happy, prosperous people, with all the good things that life can give us! And we sit posing and pretending we want to die, when what we want is to go on living, and getting the best out of everything as we always have. It is no good to disguise it.”

  “But it is natural to want to disguise that, Godfrey,” said Rachel.

  “I meant, I am content to wait for my appointed time,” said Godfrey.

  “Well, now we know what you meant,” said Rachel.

  “I always think that discussion whether it is better to be alive or dead is so irrelevant,” said Mrs. Christy, whose eyes had been darting from face to face. “Not only because we shall not be dead, but more truly living, so that the problem is non-existent; but because we shall go on developing our natures, and gaining more experience of the wonder of the universe, so that we shall not be dead, but more truly living.” Her gesture assigned her repetition to word rather than thought.

  “I knew it was better to be dead,” said Bellamy.

  “My dear husband is with me even more than he was in his lifetime,” said Agatha. “I don’t know if anything can be deduced from a truth under that head. For it is a truth.”

  “Mrs. Calkin, our time will come one day,” said Dominc. “It makes it easier to look forward to that it has come for some of us.”

  “It adds to the inevitability of it,” said Mellicent.

  “And that hardly wants adding to, does it?” said Rachel. “It seems to be established.”

  “Lady Hardisty, we know not on what day nor at what hour,” said Dominic, turning her words to true application.

  “No, that is it. You really don’t, when you are over seventy,” said Rachel.

  Dominic laughed before he knew it.

  “Comedy has tragedy behind it,” said Rachel.

  “Why, Harriet, you are deserting us, are you?” said Godfrey in a loud, light tone that had an announcing quality.

  “Now I am going to give my best to my own sex,” said Rachel. “That is thought to be such a rare thing, and it is so much the easier. It is no wonder that women are jealous of other women, when they so often see them at their highest; and men have so much excuse for despising women.”

  “Can’t I come with you?” said Gregory. “I am so young. I go with the women and children.”

  “No, sit down, little jackanapes,” said Godfrey. “They don’t want you. Why should they?”

  “No, but I want them,” said Gregory, holding on to the door. “I am such a boy.”

  “No, no, apron-strings,” said his father.

  “Gregory,” said Dominic, coming forward judicially, “I make no doubt that we should many of us give the palm to the gentler company, but we must follow the dictates of convention.”

  “Mr. Spong is a very cultured man,” said Rachel when they reached the drawing-room. “The contrast of Percy makes me notice it. Comparisons are only odious for one side.”

  “Yes, indeed they are,” said Geraldine, laughing with full comprehension.

  “I feel so sorry for poor Mr. Spong, now that he has lost his life-companion,” said Agatha. “I think he must have such a lonely home to go back to.”

  “Especially with his predilection for fair society,” said Geraldine.

  “I understand so well the void there is in his life,” concluded Agatha.

  “Spinsters are not supposed to have any understanding of a void!” said Geraldine.

  “My dear, it is much worse,” said Rachel. “I am a spinster in essence myself, as I did not marry until I was over fifty. A spinster is supposed not only to have understanding of a void, but to have nothing but a void to understand. It is bravest to look at it straight.”

  “I don’t find it much of an effort to show that courage,” said Geraldine.

  “Of course I see how civilised it is to be a spinster,” said Rachel. “I shouldn’t think savage countries have spinsters. I never know why marriage goes on in civilised countries, goes on openly. Think what would happen if it were really looked at, or regarded as impossible to look at. In the marriage service, where both are done, it does happen.”

  “It depends on one’s attitude to responsibilities,” said Agatha in a low, almost crooning voice. “Do we want fuller responsibilities, deeper happiness, heavier burdens? That is what it comes to.”

  “Of course we do,” said Kate. “That is everything. And you are recognised as having it, which is better.”

  “Do you want to marry?” said Geraldine in an astonished tone.

  “I think perhaps I ought to want it. I may be one of those people who ask too little for themselves. I am told that I lose myself in books, and losing oneself surely shows too little sense of importance.”

  “Oh, I admit I show that sort of self-effacement,” said Geraldine.

  “I make that admission, too, Miss Dabis,” said Mrs. Christy, glancing at Harriet. “It is such an instinct with me as to be almost a necessity, to lose myself in the masters of bygone days, especially in those in affinity with myself. I think we owe such a debt to the minds that illumine the past.”

  “An hour with a book,” murmured Gregory.

  “Gregory, I did not know you were here,” said Harriet.

  “I told you I was going to be, Mother.”

  “Yes, he was quite open about it, Harriet,” said Rachel. “I wish I had realised it. He couldn’t do more than tell us. He did hear mention of the marriage service, but we could so easily have gone farther and quoted from it. Everyone knows the parts that would have served. He was so full of faith in us, and it is a pity to shake young confidence. But I think I did go farther than anyone else.”

  “Yes, you did,” said Gregory, in a grateful tone.

  ’Now our opportunity has gone,” said Rachel. “I hear the voices of the men. I shall have Gregory to tea, and Percy shall not be with me, only the girls.”

  “Well, here we are!” said Godfrey. “Gregory, you young scaramouch, we missed you almost at once, but we thought they would send you out if they did not want you. So you have been listening to the ladies’ chit-chat, have you?”

  “That is what it was,” said Rachel, “and I am afraid he did listen.”

  “Only such a little while,” said Gregory. “They have joined us so soon.”

  “Well, Gregory, we cannot allow you a monopoly of the fair companionship,” said Dominic. “We elders must assert ourselves.”

  “I did not assert myself,” said Gregory.

  “No, he did not!” said Geraldine, looking round and laughing.

  Dominic walked consciously across the floor. “Jermyn, I trust I shall not be thought guilty of monotony in my enquiries, but I find it in me to ask again after the progress of your flights of fancy. I trust my interest will be my excuse for my frequency in overstepping the boundary between your world and mine.”

  “Thanks very much. I have been going slowly of late. I hope my verse will see the light of day before long, and it is halting work getting anything into its final shape. One will have burnt one’s boats after that.”

  “Well, Jermyn, I hope you will have burnt nothing more serious than a little midnight oil. But when you have finished your book—it is the same book, by the way, that you were engaged upon when last I conversed with you?”

  “The very same, and not a book yet at all.”

  “When you have reached its conclusion, is it your plan to turn to the ambition which is perhaps your mother’s as much as your own, and revert to the more exacting field of genuine scholarship?”

  “My plan is what it has always been.”

  “Yes, but, Jermyn, have you considered that the giving of yourself at this period of your life is a serious proposition? That you will never again have the boundless energy, the power to reco
up after strenuous effort, that will be yours for the next few years? Or, if I may adopt a somewhat personal note, the opportunity to fulfil at trifling cost to yourself the dearest wishes of her whom it must mean more than anything to you to gratify? It is only in youth that such opportunities come.”

  “I have considered it finally long ago. I hope my mother will find some satisfaction in any success that may be mine.”

  Dominic stood and drew a deep breath in rising above his feelings.

  “Harriet, it is Matthew I want to have a word with this evening,” said Sir Percy. “I haven’t had a talk with him ever since I can remember. I don’t like your boy, Matthew, to be such a stranger to me.”

  “He is more of a stranger to me,” said Harriet, who was crossing the room and did not pause to reply.

  Sir Percy became as one who had not spoken, and Harriet continued her way to her youngest son, who was sitting on the floor, leaning his head against Agatha.

  “Gregory, are you coming to have a talk with your mother?”

  Agatha looked up with an emotional change of face.

  “It is a party, and we do not talk to our family,” said Gregory.

  Harriet went on with an even step to the hall, where she paused and lifted her hands to her head. Matthew had come out before her, and was reading a letter at the table.

  “The post has come, has it, my dear?” said his mother.

  “Yes, the post has come,” said Matthew, speaking as if at the end of his endurance. “And I am reading a letter from Camilla. And I will read a letter when I choose, and where I choose, and from whom I choose.”

  Harriet recoiled with fear in her eyes, and in a moment went suddenly and swiftly up the stairs. Matthew returned to the drawing-room, where Dominic was engaging in talk with Mrs. Christy.

  “You may consider, Mrs. Christy, my criticism misplaced in a guest in the house; but I find myself out of sympathy with the trend of modern conversation. Taking it as instanced by the bandying of words upon such a subject as taking our own lives, I venture that my host and hostess would be with me.”

  Mrs. Christy glanced about her, and offered the degree of response suitable to the conditions, by a gesture.

  “I always think it is a proof of sex equality that women commit suicide as well as men,” said Geraldine, sauntering up in boldness.

  “I don’t mind anything about suicide but leaving letters afterwards,” said Mellicent. “It is ill-conducted to write a letter, and go at once beyond the risk of an answer.”

  “And why even refer to it?” said Griselda. “It can’t matter what we do, if it is reasonable to do that.”

  Dominic stood dubious before the result of his words.

  “It is a satisfying subject,” said Rachel. “It makes us feel we are talking about ourselves. We have the importance of making a decision and the credit of settling on the nobler side. And I feel so equal to other people, with suicide possible for them and not for me. I may not have less life before me than they have.”

  “I choose the nobler side!” cried Geraldine.

  “The years are not too many, and there is a great deal to be done,” said Agatha, setting out her own point of view. “Gregory, is that your mother calling you?”

  Harriet’s voice was coming from the staircase, unfamiliar, repressed, imploring, with at once a guarded and urgent sound.

  “Gregory, Gregory! Come to me, come to me. I need you, I need you, my son.”

  “Whatever is it?” said Jermyn.

  “Nothing. Mother! One of her moods,” said Godfrey. “My wife does not sleep too well,” he added to his guests. “It gives us all great concern. My youngest son has the best touch with her. She is right to call for him. We have to be content to serve her in different ways.”

  Chapter XI

  Gregory Had Reached the floor above and was leading his mother back into her room.

  “Gregory,” she said in a rapid, breathless voice, clinging to his arm and keeping her eyes down, “I have done something I should not have done. I have taken what will do me harm, what will part me from you if it does its work. I cannot face it, now I come to it. I want to stay with you all. I must have my life; I am only fifty-six; I thought I was old. Do something to save me. Send for Antony this instant. In a second it may be too late.”

  “Do you mean you have swallowed something dangerous?” said her son.

  “Yes, I have. I have taken something that is fatal, and its action must be stopped. Send for Antony, if you want to save your mother. You want to save me, don’t you?”

  “What is the thing to do at once? Have you taken the first precautions?”

  “No, no, send for him, send for him,” said Harriet. “I can’t be left to manage this for myself, not this. I am in mortal danger, and I am alone, alone. How alone we are when we do it! I never knew. I wish I had known. Send for him, himself; that is what he said. I will do anything in the world you say, I will do it instantly—I want to do it, don’t I?—if you will once do that.”

  Gregory rushed downstairs and into the drawing-room.

  “Mother feels very ill! She wants Dufferin sent for this moment. She is very frightened. How can we get him at once?”

  “Haslam, my horses are the fastest,” said Sir Percy, suddenly seeming another man. “They are best in my own hands, and they should be ready, as this is our hour to leave. I will be back with Dufferin in the shortest possible time. Meanwhile we will leave you your house to yourselves. Rachel, you will stay; you may be of use.”

  “Sir Godfrey,” said Dominic, “if words of sympathy could be of any avail, at this moment that has descended on you with crushing force and suddenness——”

  “But they can’t,” said Rachel, making a way for the family to come together. “It is just as you were going to say. Truth often goes without saying. You must know that, as you speak so much truth.”

  “I feel so useless,” said Mrs. Christy. “There is nothing more terrible than helplessness. If I could feel I had done some good, I could go with a light heart.”

  “Let Mr. Spong take you home, and go in that way,” said Rachel. “Don’t talk about helplessness when you can do so much. You are right that nothing would be more terrible. Mr. Spong, we may rely on you to see Mrs. Christy to her door?”

  “Lady Hardisty, it will be a privilege,” said Dominic, bowing in open recognition that his scheme of words must be lost.

  “I think we shall do what good we can by not troubling anyone to say good-bye,” said Agatha, moving to the door. “If there is anything in our power, we are in readiness.”

  “And in eagerness,” said Geraldine, looking back.

  “I will see you home. I will be as useful as Spong,” said Bellamy.

  “All kinds of people are the same at a time like this,” said Mellicent, when she was alone with her stepmother.

  “It is a good thing we are all helpful in trouble. I do admire human nature,” said Rachel. “I wish they would send for me. Your father will come back, and find I am not indispensable. In a few minutes it will be too late.”

  “Can you guess at all what it is?” said Mellicent.

  “No,” said Rachel. “Something was said at dinner. No, it was nothing; the sound of her voice brought it back to me. It was nothing, my dear. I cannot guess at all.”

  Harriet faced her family standing in the open space of her room, with a countenance of grave resolve and her eyes fixed and calm. She saw at a glance, marking to herself that her brain still worked in its normal way, that Gregory had told the truth. She walked to meet her husband, and stood with her hands on his shoulders.

  “Godfrey, my husband, if these should be our last moments together on earth, my word from my heart is that you have been utterly kind and good to me. It is the one word I could ever say. I give it to you to take with you, as the only thing that could be said to you by me.”

  Godfrey, who had been gazing into her face, made an effort to speak, and took her hand and held it.

  Har
riet left it in his, and turned to her children.

  “My Matthew, my Jermyn, my Gregory, my little boys and my grown sons, I say to you that you have been at the root of all my happiness. I would have had nothing changed in any one of you, no word you have said to me, no look you have given me, no action you have taken for my sake or in spite of me.” She put her gaze full on Matthew, to yield him the weight of her words, and giving her other hand to Gregory, to mark the open difference here, turned her eyes to her daughter.

  “Griselda, my sweet one, the sweetest thing my life has held——_” The mother’s voice broke; she snatched her hands from her husband and son, and held out her arms to Griselda, who rushed into them weeping. Godfrey threw his arms round the two as they stood locked together. Jermyn looked dazed, Gregory broke into open crying, and Matthew stood with his eyes on his mother, as if dreading to see some change in her. Rachel hastened into the room, followed closely by Dufferin.

  “It is nothing. It is nothing, I tell you. Stop this tragic acting, all of you. She has taken nothing that can harm her. Harriet, you are as normal as I thought! You took the tablet, and changed your mind. It would have been the wrong moment to change it if I had given you what you asked for. Of course I did not give it to you, when you came to me and explained you were not to be trusted with it. And I knew you didn’t want it; and now you know yourself; so you won’t come and ask for it again. Begging and crying for what you made that fuss about, when you thought you had it! I hope you see yourself as others see you. You can’t cut much of a figure in your own eyes.”

  “Was there nothing harmful in what she took?” said Jermyn.

  “Of course there was not. Should I give her what would harm her?” said Dufferin with guarded eyes on Harriet, who had sunk into a chair.

  “I am thankful, I am thankful,” said Harriet. “I could not face it when I had done it. I wanted to live.”

  “Well, you will know that another time,” said Dufferin. “I knew it about you this time. We all understand it easily. It is more or less what we all want.”