'Would you give me a cigarette?'
'Oh, d'you smoke?' cried Lauria, with a bright look of pleasure. 'I was simply dying for a fag, but I didn't want to shock you.'
They lit up, and Miss Ley drew towards her another chair.
'D'you mind if I put my feet up? I always think that only quadrupeds should keep their longer extremities constantly dangling.'
With a faint smile, she essayed to make smoke-rings.
'You're all right,' said Lauria, with a little nod. 'I'm glad you came. I wanted to have a talk with someone who knew Reggie's mother. I suppose she's in a fury. I wanted him to tell her beforehand, but he didn't dare. Besides, he never does a thing straightforwardly if he can do it crooked. And as for lying – well, he's worse than a woman. You can tell his mother it'll take me all my time to make a gentleman of her son.'
Miss Ley smiled dryly.
'I have seldom seen a newly-married woman so keenly alive to the defects of her husband's character.'
'Reggie's not a bad boy really,' answered his wife, shrugging her shoulders, 'but he wants licking into shape.'
'I wonder why you married him?' asked the other, reflectively, knocking off the ash of her cigarette.
Lauria looked at her sharply, hesitating, then made up her mind to speak openly.
'You seem a good sort and a woman of the world; and, after all, I'm married, and you'll just have to make the best of me. Reggie's good-looking, isn't he?' She glanced at a photograph which stood on the chimneypiece. 'And I like him. You know, I've been on the stage eight years; I went on when I was sixteen. How much does that make me?'
'Twenty-seven, I should say,' answered Miss Ley with deliberation.
Lauria smiled good-naturedly.
'Nasty people say I'm twenty-eight; but, anyhow, I'm sick to death of the stage, and I want to get off it.'
'I thought you were going to play Juliet to Reggie's Romeo.'
'Yes, I can see myself! For one thing, I'm quite sure Reggie can't act for nuts, and when they start they all want to play Hamlet. Why, I never knew a super who carried a banner in a panto who didn't think that if he got his opportunity he'd be another Irving. Oh, I've heard it so often! Every girl I know has come to me and said: "Lauria, I feel I've got it in me, and I only want a chance." I'm sick of the whole thing. I don't want to go traipsing about the provinces, working like a nigger all the week, and travelling on Sundays, living in dingy apartments, and all the rest of it. I just let Reggie gas away, and it keeps him out of mischief to learn plays. I thought it would take his mother three months to come round, and by that time he'll be sick of it. I like Reggie, and when I've had him in hand for a few months I shall make a decent boy of him; but I don't pretend for a moment I'd have married him if I hadn't known that his mother had money.'
'You're a wise woman. In the first place, I can't think how you got him to marry at all. I never thought he'd do it.'
'My dear Miss Ley, I thought you were a woman of the world. Don't you know that if a girl of my age makes up her mind to marry a man, he must be awfully cute to save himself?'
'I confess I had often suspected it,' smiled Miss Ley.
'Of course, you have to choose your man. I saw Reggie was gone on me, and I led him a dance. You know, we've got a reputation for being wrong uns on the stage, but that's all rot. We're no worse than anyone else, only we've got more temptation, and when anything happens the papers take it up just because we're professional. But I've known how to take care of myself, and I just let Master Reggie understand that I wasn't going to be made a fool of. I played up to him for a fortnight, and then told him I wouldn't see him any more, and by that time he was fairly stage-struck, and so he asked me to marry him.'
'It sounds very simple. And how did you manage to tame him?'
'I just let him see that if he wanted to have a decent time he'd got to be nice to me, and he very soon tumbled to it. You wouldn't think it, but I've got a nasty temper when I'm roused. He looks up to me like anything, and he knows I don't mean to stand any nonsense. Oh, he'll be all right in six months.'
'And what do you want me to tell his mother?'
'Just tell her not to interfere. We're all right with regard to money, and when she calms down she can make us an allowance. Six hundred a year will do, and we'll take a house at Bournemouth. I don't want to live in London till I'm sure of Reggie.'
'Very well,' answered Miss Ley. 'I'll say that, and I'll say besides that she ought to thank her stars Reggie has found a decent woman. I have no doubt in a little while you'll make him into quite a respectable member of society.'
'Here he comes with the milk!'
Reggie entered, and together they began to make tea. When Miss Ley departed Lauria sent him downstairs to show her out.
'Ain't she a ripper?' he exclaimed. 'And I tell you what, Miss Ley, she's a real good sort. Tell the mater that she's not beneath me at all.'
'Beneath you! My dear boy, she's worth six of you. And I dare say under her charge you'll turn into a very passable imitation of a gentleman, after all.'
Reggie looked at her with tragic countenance, flung back his head, and pressed both hands to his manly bosom.
'"Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!" ' he cried.
'For goodness' sake, hold your tongue!' she interrupted quickly.
She gave him her hand, and while pressing it he leaned forward confidentially and exclaimed:
'I'll have grounds
More relative than this. The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.'
12
MEANWHILE things with Basil and Jenny had gone from bad to worse. There had been no power in their reconciliation to pacify the Fates, and presently another violent quarrel proved that under no circumstances could they live without discord. Basil, training his tongue to silence whatever the provocation, maintained over himself the most careful restraint; but it was very irksome, and in his breast there arose gradually a blind and angry hatred for Jenny because she made him suffer such unspeakable torture. They had so fallen out of sympathy that he never realized how ardent her love for him still was, and that she tormented him only on this account. So passed the summer, for Basil, crippled with debts, felt bound to remain in chambers through the vacation on the chance of picking up a stray brief which no one else was on hand to take.
A profound depression settled upon him, and he brooded hopelessly over the future. What had it to offer but a continuance of this unceasing pain? He looked into the years dragging out their weary length, and it seemed to him impossible to live under such conditions. Only his passion for Hilda Murray supported him, for therein he seemed to find strength to face the world, and at the same time resignation. He had learnt to ask for little from the gods, and was content to love without hope of reward. He was immensely grateful for her friendship, and felt that she understood and sympathized with his distress. Mrs Murray spent the summer abroad, but wrote often, and her letters made him happy for days. In his solitary walks he analysed his feelings endlessly, telling himself that they were very pure; and just because he thought of her so much it seemed to him that he grew better and simpler. In October she returned, and two days later Basil called upon her, but was grievously disappointed to find Mr Farley already on the scene. Basil detested the Vicar of All Souls, detecting in him a rival who lay under no such disadvantage as himself. Mr Farley was still a handsome man, with the air and presence of a person of importance. His conversation smacked of the diner-out who could discuss urbanely all the topics used at the tables of the cultured. He was diverting and easy, knowing well the discreet thing to say; and about his manner towards Mrs Murray was a subtle but significant flattery. Basil was hugely annoyed by the familiarity with which he used the woman whom himself could only treat quite formally. They appeared to have little understandings which made him furiously jealous. Hilda had busied herself in certain charitable concerns of the Vicar of All Souls, and with much laughter they discussed the variou
s amusing things to which these had given rise.
Basil went home sullen and resentful, thinking through the whole evening of Hilda, whom he had left with Mr Farley, and when he went to bed gained no repose. He heard the hours strike one after the other, and turned from side to side restlessly, striving to get a little sleep; his love now was uncontrollable, and he was mad with grief and pain. He tried not to think of Hilda, but each subject he forced upon his brain gave way to her image, and in hopeless woe he asked himself how he could bear with life. He tried to reason, saying that this height of passion could only be temporary, and in a very few months he would look upon the present madness with scorn; he tried to soothe his aching heart by turning his emotion to literary uses, and set himself to describe his agony in words, as though he were going to write it in a novel. But nothing served. When the clock struck five he was thankful that only three hours remained before he could reasonably get up. He thought to read, but had not the heart to do anything which should disturb the bitter-sweet of his contemplation. Next morning at breakfast Jenny noticed that his eyes were heavy with want of rest, his mouth drawn and haggard, and with jealous intuition guessed the cause. She sought to make him angry, and the opportunity coming, made some spiteful remark; but he was listless; he looked up wearily, too exhausted to reply. They ate breakfast in silence, and then with heavy heart he set out for his daily work.
So things continued through the autumn, and with November the winter set in cold, dark, and wet. Coming home in the evenings, Basil's heart sank when he entered the street in which was his house; he felt sick with the sordid regularity of all those little dwellings exactly like one another. Miss Ley, perhaps ironically, had once remarked that life in a suburb must be quite idyllic; and Basil laughed savagely when he thought that only the milk-cart and the barrel-organ disturbed the romantic seclusion. He loathed his neighbours, with whom he knew Jenny discussed him, and shuddered with horror at their narrow lives, from which was excluded firmly all that made existence comely and urbane.
It was inevitable that quarrels should occur between the pair, notwithstanding Basil's determination to avoid friction, and of late these on both sides were grown more bitter. On a certain occasion, taking up his letters, he noticed that one had already been opened, and then somewhat clumsily fastened down; he glanced at Jenny, who was watching him, but she quickly dropped her eyes. Her suspicions had been aroused evidently because of the pink paper; Private was written above the address, and on the back was a golden initial. It was merely an offer from a money-lender to accommodate him with any sum between five pounds and five thousand, and he could not help a little laugh of scorn because Jenny, on steaming it open, had found nothing but an impudent circular: when she heard this she coloured furiously. She waited for him to speak, but he, only wondering why she had not the sense altogether to suppress that communication, said nothing. In a minute or two he gathered up his correspondence, and taking some paper, walked towards the door.
'Where are you going?' she asked abruptly. 'Can't you write in here?'
'Certainly, if it pleases you, but I have some rather bothering letters, and I want to be perfectly quiet.'
She flung aside the work on which she was engaged, and faced him angrily, stung to the quick by the indifference of his tone and manner.
'I suppose you have no objection to my talking to you when I want to say something? You seem to think I'm only fit to see after the house and mend your clothes, and after that I can go and sit in the kitchen with the servant.'
'D'you think it's worth while making a scene? We seem to have said all this before so many times.'
'I want to have it out.'
'We've been having it out twice a week for the last six months,' he answered, bored to extinction, 'and we've never got anywhere yet.'
'Am I your wife or not, Basil?'
'You have your marriage lines carefully locked up to prove it.' He looked at her reflectively, putting back the letters in his desk. 'They say the first year of marriage is the worst; ours has been bad enough, in all conscience, hasn't it?'
'I suppose you think it's my fault?'
She spoke aggressively, with a sort of brutal sneer, but somehow it seemed no longer to affect him; he was able in a manner to look on this scene with a curious detachment, as though he were a spectator at a theatre watching players acting their parts.
'After all, I tried my best to make you happy.'
'Well, you haven't succeeded very well. Did you think I was likely to be happy when you left me alone all day and half the night for the swell friends for whom I'm not good enough?'
He shrugged his shoulders.
'You know very well that I scarcely ever see any of my old friends.'
'Except Mrs Murray, eh?' she interrupted.
'I've seen Mrs Murray a dozen times in the last year.'
'Oh, you needn't tell me that; I know it. She's a lady, isn't she?'
Basil stared coolly at his wife; though asking himself why that name had occurred to her, it never dawned on him that she could suspect how violent was his passion. But he meant to ignore the charge.
'My work takes me away from you,' he said. 'Think how bored you'd be if I were always here.'
'A precious lot of good your work does,' she cried scornfully. 'You can't earn enough money to keep us out of debt.'
'We are in debt, but we share that very respectable condition with half the nobility and gentry in the kingdom.'
'All the neighbours know that we've got bills with the tradesmen.'
Basil flushed and tightened his lips.
'I'm sorry that you shouldn't have made so good a bargain as you expected when you married me,' he replied acidly.
'I wonder what you do succeed in. Your book was very successful, wasn't it? You thought you were going to set the Thames on fire, and it fell flat, flat, flat!'
'That is a fate which has befallen better books than mine,' he answered, with a laugh.
'It deserved it.'
'I didn't expect you to appreciate it. Unfortunately, it's not given to all of us to write about wicked earls and beautiful duchesses.'
'The papers praised it, didn't they?'
'The unanimity of their blame was the only thing that consoled me. I often wonder if the reviewer who abuses you realizes what pleasure he causes to the wife of your bosom.'
It was Basil's apparent indifference to her taunts, his disdain and bitter sarcasm, that made Jenny lose all restraint. Often she could not see the point of his replies, but vaguely felt that he laughed at her; and then her passionate wrath knew no limits.
'Oh, I've learnt to know you so well since the baby died,' she said, clenching her hands. 'You've got no cause to set yourself up on a pedestal. I know what you are now; I was such a fool as to think you a hero. You're merely a failure. In everything you try you're a miserable failure.'
He faced her steadily, but a look of complete despair came into his eyes, for she had voiced with sufficient emphasis the thought which for so many months had wormed its way into his soul, destroying all his energy; he saw the future like a man condemned to death, for whom the beauty of life is only bitterness.
'Perhaps you're right, Jenny,' he replied. 'I dare say I'm only a rotten failure.'
He walked up and down the room, reflecting bitterly, and then stared out of the window at the even row of houses, somehow more sordid than ever in the dim light of gas-jets. He shuddered when he looked round this parlour, so common, so uninteresting; and like a sudden rush of water overwhelming, came the recollection of all the misery he had suffered within those four walls. Jenny had again taken up her sewing, and was hemming dusters; he sat down beside her.
'Look here, Jenny, I want to have a rather serious talk with you. I should like you to listen quietly for a few minutes, and I want to put away all passion and temper, so that we may discuss the matter quite reasonably. We don't seem able to get on very well, and I see no chance of things going any better. You're unhappy, and I'm afraid I'm
not very happy, either; I don't want to seem selfish, but I can't do any work or anything while this sort of thing continues. And I feel that all these quarrels are so awfully degrading. Don't you think it would be better for both of us if we lived apart for a bit? Perhaps later on we might try again.'
While he spoke Jenny had watched with startled eyes, but, though vaguely alarmed, did not till quite the end understand to what his words tended. Then she could scarcely answer.
'D'you mean to say you want to separate? And what'll you do?'
'I should go abroad for awhile.'
'With Mrs Murray?' she cried excitedly. 'Is that it? You want to go away with her. You're sick of me. You've had all you want out of me, and now I can go. The fine lady comes along, and you send me away like a housemaid. D'you think I can't see that you're in love with her? You'd sacrifice me without a thought to save her a moment's unpleasantness. And because you love her you hate me.'
'How can you talk such nonsense! You've no right to say things like that.'
'Haven't I? I suppose I must shut my eyes and say nothing. You're in love with her. D'you think I've not seen it in these months? That's why you want to leave me.'
'It's impossible for us to live together,' he answered desperately. 'We shall never agree, and we shall never be happy. For God's sake, let us separate and have done with it.'
Basil was standing up now, and Jenny went up to him, close, so that they stood face to face.
'Look here, Basil: will you swear that you're not in love with that woman?'
'Certainly,' he answered scornfully.
'It's a lie.... And she's just as much in love with you as you are with her.'
'What d'you mean by that?' he cried, the blood running to his head and his heart beating painfully. He seized her wrists. 'What d'you mean, Jenny?'
'D'you think I haven't got eyes in my head? I saw it that day she came here. D'you suppose she came to see me? She despises me because I'm not a lady. She came here to please you; she was polite to me to please you; she asked me to go and see her to please you.'