Coquette

unrestrained in her admission of failure.She did not know ... she did not _know_. By herself she could donothing. And there was nobody to whom she could turn for succour. Hermother was useless, Mrs. Perce was useless. Her one support was MissSummers, and Miss Summers this evening had been unable to hide hertrepidation, but had sat licking her lips and blinking her eyes, whichheld such concern that she could in no way disguise the cause of hergloom. Miss Summers also, then, was full of foreboding; and Sally, tiedfast here, a child, thrown off her balance by illness and nervousexcitement, had lost confidence in her star.

  When she was calm again she slept; but in the morning the preoccupationreturned to her, and her head ached, and the tears filled her eyes asthough she were fighting against grief. And her first visit to Gagadisgusted her and made her feel the more miserable. She had often beenmore poignantly affected, but never had she experienced such a sense ofcomplete distaste for life. She was like a child given an impossibletask to perform; and instead of being able to rise on the wings of herarrogance as she was in the habit of doing, Sally was weighed down byleaden sickness and fear. She went slowly downstairs to have herbreakfast, and sat solitary in the big brown dining-room whichoverlooked a square of grass and a high wall. A dismal grey oppressedthe atmosphere, and an autumn chill. She could not eat, could only sniffdespairingly and drink a cup of tea and wander to the fire and lay herforehead against the mantelpiece, which was cooling indeed, but withoutcomfort. Its hard coldness was unbearable. Sally's arms crept up as apillow. She stared downwards at the dead fire.

  "O-o-oh!" she groaned bitterly. "I wish I was dead! I do wish I wasdead!" And at the sound of her wretched voice Sally once more gave waycompletely and began to sob aloud. She was beaten, and her spirit wasgone.

  xv

  And so more days passed, each filled with a sort of numbing dread. Sallythought of the business, of her future, of Toby--from whom she hadreceived several letter reflecting his moods of ferociousness andresentment,--and of the bonds which kept her tied to the house. She knewduring all this time no peace. She grew thinner, and began to take lesscare of herself. She was not aware of the beginning of a loss ofself-respect, but it was there. She--she who had always been so strictin regard to her toilette and dress, whatever her state of mind--wentdown to breakfast one morning in a kimono which she had found in Madam'swardrobe and shortened for herself. It was a proof that she no longercared for her appearance. She lay through the nights often onlyhalf-asleep, in a stupor which presently led her to an attitude almostof indifference to the needs of the day. And for the rest of the timeSally was so lethargic that it one morning occurred to her to think thatshe had caught from Gaga whatever was the unnamed illness from which hewas suffering. The thought once arisen, flew to her head. It became ahorror. She had heard of bad fruit corrupting fruit that was sound andthis was a new preoccupation for her. When Gaga would have kissed herlips she turned away in sudden nausea, fighting instinctively against asubjection which her indifference had hitherto made allowable. And shehad several times to invent an excuse to be alone, so active had herdistress become; and in these absences she would walk vehemently up anddown the dining-room until she was forced by exhaustion to sit or by amessage from Gaga to return to his room.

  "Why, whatever's _come_ to me?" she demanded. "It's awful! I'm ill."

  The doctor called every day to see Gaga, and spoke as though there was adefinite improvement in his patient's health. The medicine Gaga wastaking would finally give him strength. Already he was beginning to eatmore, and beginning also to retain what he had eaten.

  "It's nerves, you know," the doctor told Sally one day. "Mere nerves.Your husband's run down. He's not strong. He's had a shock. As soon ashe's well enough he ought to be got away for a holiday. You take himaway. About the end of next week, if he makes good progress. Take him tothe sea."

  "He hates it," cried Sally. "Upsets him."

  "Oh." The doctor considered. "Where did you go for your honeymoon?Penterby--well, that would do, if you can take drives to the sea. Hedoesn't want too bracing a place. And now, Mrs. Merrick, I've beennoticing _you_ lately. You're run down, too. We can't have you ill.You've been very plucky; but you've had a great strain, and all thisnursing has worn you out. I'm going to have a look at you...."

  Sally was conscious of a sinking of the heart.

  "I'm quite all right!" she protested. She could not have told whatintuition had created this panic; but her heart had begun instantly tothump in her breast, and she became, as she had done once before, almostdizzy. She could not say anything more. She submitted to hisexamination, and answered his questions. It was an ordeal, and shewatched his serious face with its cold eyes, and felt his chilly hand,and guessed at what he would say. The doctor seemed appallingly slow,appallingly deliberate and immovable and ruthless in his perceptions.She was terrified. The room wavered before her; and her fright grewgreater and greater. He was very patient. She felt strange trust in him;but always the same dread, which made her teeth chatter a little. Soonhe had finished; and then he looked at her with a slight smile and anod.

  "Yes," he said, reflectively. "Oh, there's nothing to be alarmed aboutat all. Nothing. All you've got to do is to take care of yourself, andnot worry; and it will do you good to get away. Women in your condition,especially if it's the first, often...."

  "_My_ condition!" exclaimed Sally. It was like a blow. "Doctor!"

  "Nothing to be alarmed at," he repeated. "You'll be very happy after abit. You know, you're going to have a baby." He stood away from her,smiling in a friendly way.

  "A baby!" Sally was shaken from head to foot. She stared at the doctorin an extremity of horror. "A baby!"

  He patted her arm. Before she was able to collect herself he had gone--abusy doctor with a long round and a large practice. Sally sat lookingat the fire. Then she rose. A scream came to her lips. Again and againshe shuddered. A baby! A baby! Toby's baby!

  xvi

  The news confirmed what Sally had never consciously thought, but whatshe now felt she had known for days. If anything had been needed tocomplete her despair it was this. She felt suicidal. She could haveborne illness, even failure in the business, even all the complicationsof distress which she had been already experiencing; but the knowledgeof ultimate disgrace so inevitable drove her mad. Vainly Sally's mindflew in every direction for relief--the doctor might be wrong; thecoming of babies could be prevented; perhaps Gaga might never know--shecould persuade him to go away, could go away herself, could do a hundredthings to tide over the difficulty. And at the end of all thesetwistings of the mind she would find herself still terribly in danger,and would fight against hideous screaming fits by lying on the floor oron a couch and crushing her handkerchief into her mouth. She was quiteovercome by her new disaster, the fruit of wild temptation, and theconsequence of her whole course of action. Used as Sally was to meetingevery emergency with cool shrewdness, she could not bring to her presentsituation the necessary philosophy, because she was ill, andfear-stricken, and made crazy by the impossibility of finding a solutionto her anxieties.

  Hour after hour was spent with horrible nightmarish imaginings, infrenzied self-excuses and improvised expedients. And never did therecome one moment of peace in the midst of all this panic. Sally had nofriend. More and more she began to realise this. She had no friend. Shehad made use of people, they were fond of her, would submit to her; butshe had no friend. More than anything in the world she now needed afriend. There was nobody in whom she could confide, from whose love andsympathy she could draw the strength which at this point she so greatlyneeded. She had a husband, a lover, a mother--to none of these could shego with the truth. It needed all Sally's egotism to make the truth seemcapable of justification, or indeed to make it seem even credible, sodifferent is the standard by which we judge our own actions from thatwhich we apply to others. Sally saw everything so much in relation toall that she had ever thought and felt that she could not understand howher impulses might horrify one coming to them only after translationin
to action. She only knew that she could not betray herselfunreservedly to anybody with the hope of being found innocent. Theknowledge made her at first full of terror; and the terror and thesuccessive elaborate self-explanation, given to an unresponsive silencewhich she could easily suppose to be hostile, made her obstinate; thenshe became the more passionately afraid. She could have stormed, lied,wriggled; but she could never hope to escape the consequences that shedreaded.

  At times Sally could not bear to be with Gaga at all. She told him shewas ill, and that the doctor said she must go out; and in spite of hisprotests she would run from the house and walk rapidly for an hour aboutKensington, and even into Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. The weathermade no