The Pest 36

The Pest 36

The next day her head ached rackingly, and she had but dim recollections

of what she had done the night before. She remembered getting out a

bottle of wine, which she and Bobby had drunk together; remembered

having become uproariously merry; then quarrelsome over something he had

said or done; then madly merry again; she dimly remembered his embrace

and his going away in the dim gray of the early morning, making some

excuse about having to go back to his rooms to dress as he had to be at

the office early. Her head ached and her eyes were heavy and hot. Her

clothes were wildly tossed about the room and one of his white gloves

stared at her ridiculously as it lay on the dark carpet. Several

sovereigns lay on the dressing table. She rang the bell and the maid

brought her tea, which seemed tasteless, and a letter from Maddison,

which she threw impatiently aside, unopened.

 

The day seemed endless.

 

Mrs. Harding came down to her in the afternoon.

 

“Well, you’re a nice cup of tea, you are; you demure little monkey, do

you often carry on like that?”

 

“If I did, I suppose I shouldn’t have such a beastly headache.”

 

“Don’t know so much about that; I’m a pretty hardened vessel, but a

drink too much always gets back at you in the morning, I find. I don’t

feel too bright myself, and I don’t look much of a beauty,” she said,

looking into the glass. “This life knocks spots out of one, there’s no

doubt, but it’s the only one worth living—merry if it is short. Had a

hair of the dog that bit? If not, why not? I’ll have one too, he bit me

a bit.”

 

“Help yourself; you’ll find it on the sideboard in the next room.”

 

“Feel so cheap as all that? Buck up! Have one with me, and you’ll soon

feel spry again.”

 

Marian did not refuse.

 

“What are you doing to-night?” asked Mrs. Harding. “I’m dining out with

my old man, who’s just wired me he gets back this afternoon, or we could

have had a lark together somewhere.”

 

“I’m not doing anything.”

 

“How’s your young man? George’s been away a long time. Wouldn’t he be

wild if he knew what a rollicking time the mouse has when the cat’s

away. It’s just like men; they expect us to be jolly when they want us,

and we jolly well have to be—but as for being jolly when they’re

away—oh, Lord, no, that’s shocking. My lord may carry on with as many

as he likes, but one woman one man. Thank goodness, they’re easily

bamboozled.”

 

Mrs. Harding did not remain for long. She did not care for dull company,

which Marian undoubtedly was this afternoon. She felt a trifle mean,

too. She did not know for what purpose Davis desired the information he

had asked her to obtain, but believed it to be for Maddison, and knew

that if such was the case, Marian’s next meeting with him would not be

pleasant.

 

Marian did not go out that day or the next, spending her time reading

and dozing over the fire. She hoped to hear from West, but no message of

any sort came from him.

 

On the third day, she dressed early in the afternoon, and went in the

omnibus down to Regent Street. As she stepped on to the pavement at

Oxford Circus, she knocked against a man who was passing. He did not

notice her, but she recognized West, and with him the woman she had seen

at the Gaiety. They were evidently absorbed in one another, so much so

that he did not apologize to Marian for an accident which was more than

half his fault. Her first impulse was to walk up to him and speak to

him. Then a sickening sense of the difference between the other woman

and herself stopped her; they could not be rivals. She had set her wares

before West, and if he did not wish to buy them, she could not force him

to do so.

 

She went slowly on past the shops, to look into the windows of which was

usually a pleasure to her, but now she saw nothing except a vague throng

going to and fro; she heard vaguely the roar of the traffic; she was

looking vaguely straight ahead at her future, and listening to its call.

This was then the end of her ambitions? Well, after all, did it matter

so much to her? There were other joys in life, and while she retained

her beauty, she need not want for luxury and ease. The future called to

her and her vicious blood soon answered almost gladly, almost eagerly;

she had sipped already at the cup of unruly pleasures, she would drink

deep of it now. The thought of reckless, unrestrained, unlicensed

enjoyment intoxicated her. As she passed a painted, over-dressed

Frenchwoman, she thanked God that she was not such as that one. Not such

to look at; but the very relics of decency in her seemed to drive her on

to acting like the lowest of them all. As for Maddison—she would write

and tell him she was tired of him. He would probably make a scene, but

that would not hurt her, and then she would be free.

 

She turned up a side street and went into a public-house to which Mrs.

Harding had once taken her late at night and which had then been crowded

with men and women. The saloon bar, with its pretentious decorations,

was empty and looked seedy and shabby by the light of day. She ordered a

liqueur of brandy and sipped it slowly, listening the while to a heated

controversy between two cabmen in the next compartment. As she went out

of the heavy swing doors, a man passed quickly by; he looked at her

surprised—she recognized Mortimer. She watched him as he walked on and

round the corner into Regent Street, and then followed in the same

direction, but did not catch sight of him again.

 

She was utterly at a loss what to do to while away the afternoon. Later

on she intended to dine and then go to a music-hall. Meanwhile, the

hours would hang heavy on her hands. The spirit she had drunk, too

strong and none too pure, filled her with spurious energy that a sharp

walk soon dispelled, leaving behind a feeling half of nausea, half of

faintness. She laughed as she remembered Mrs. Harding’s invariable

remedy on similar occasions, and went into another public-house, but

this time did not drink the brandy neat. A man was leaning over the bar

talking familiarly with the barmaid, and he turned to look inquisitively

at Marian. When she raised her glass to drink he did the same, looking

at her insolently, and followed her when she left the place.

 

“Well, my dear, where are you off to?” he asked, slipping his hand

through her arm. “If you’ve nothing better to do—and what could be

better?—take me to tea at your place. Here’s a hansom; let’s jump in.”

 

For a moment she hesitated. Then, with a laugh and look, stepped with

him into the cab.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXV

 

 

THOUGH the days were lengthening out toward the spring, there were many

hours during each when the light was not clean and clear enough for

painting; these Maddison found unspeakably dreary. He was greatly

tempted often either to call Marian back to him or to run up to town to

see her, but he did not give way to the impulse, for he had determined

to test this plan of hers to the bitter end. He did not much believe

that she was right and that separation would enable him to do better

with his work. Rather to the opposite opinion he inclined, that constant

companionship would make them become one, all in all to each other, so

that no longer would her presence disturb him, but on the contrary would

inspire and spur him on to greater things than he had ever achieved

before.

 

The new picture, a view of the downs and the gray sea beyond, progressed

apace, but he was not satisfied with it. There was no defect in it that

he could name or which he felt he could amend, but there was something

lacking. The outward semblance was right; it was the inward spiritual

grace that was lacking. Probably no other than himself would notice it,

yet it hurt him. He felt as if some power had gone out of him, and that

he painted no longer with gusto or firm, imperative inspiration. His

skill had not deserted him, the coloring and the drawing satisfied his

exacting taste and his intimate knowledge of nature. But it was only the

outside of nature that he had caught and fixed; the heart of her was not

there, as it had been in the pictures that had brought him name and

fame. This was a dead thing—there was no life in it.

 

He could not understand why his love for Marian should have affected him

in this way or to so great an extent. Why should the absorption in her

of all his hopes in any degree depreciate his insight into and love of

nature? Surely a man might serve a woman and nature too? But though he

could not trace its working or even fix in what it lay, he knew that

some change had come over him, and that since he and Marian had been

together he was a different man. This love that he had fully counted on

to elevate and ennoble him, seemed to restrain him from reaching to that

which had before been easily within his grasp.

 

Perhaps, he sometimes thought, it was that he was not altogether free

from anxiety concerning her. To her this separation had not appeared to

be so miserable a thing as it was to him. She had suggested it, had

argued for it, had not admitted any of the drawbacks which he had seen

in it, and had absolutely refused to be shaken from her determination.

On the other hand, she might have felt it as deeply and as keenly as he

had done, while for his sake and to make it bearable for him, she had

just put on a brave face, smiling when tears would easily have come. If

this were so, how brave she had been and how cowardly he.

 

This thought had come to him one morning when he had found work

difficult, and was about to leave it for the day. It invigorated him; he

would not be outdone by her, or he would ever have to reproach himself

for not having faithfully abided by his word to work with all his might.

Work! Yes, not for himself, but for her. If that did not drive him on,

if that failed to inspire him, he was weak indeed.

Again and again, however, fears and doubts assailed him. He would wake

suddenly in the night, aroused by no apparent cause, and would start

thinking about her, wondering if she were well and happy. At first he

had written to her almost daily, until she had forbidden him to do so

any longer, urging that it was nearly, if not quite as harmful for him

to do this as to have her chattering and laughing by his side. Her

letters to him had grown more and more infrequent, shorter and shorter;

mere little messages now, that stimulated a hunger they did not do

anything to satisfy.

 

A curious change had come over his imaginings. In the early days after

her going away he had found no difficulty in conjuring up her face

before his mind’s eye. Gradually the image had grown vaguer and more

vague until at last, if he would think of her as she was, he had to look

at “The Rebel.” What memories the picture called back to him! The

meeting with her that foggy afternoon in Bond Street; years ago it

seemed, but in reality only a few brief months; the afternoon he had

first gone down to visit her at Kennington; the thought that he had then

that she was deliciously beautiful, and that he would love to have her

for his playmate; the birth of a better feeling, the growth of his deep

love for her; the finding her alone and lonely in that stuffy Bloomsbury

hotel; the long days and nights of delight that they had passed together

since. Again and again he reproached himself for little attentions that

he had failed to pay her, and for the few bitter words that he had

spoken to her once in a moment of irritation. He was so utterly unworthy

of her that in good truth he should have done for her all the little

that was in his power. He had kept her apart from his friends selfishly,

with the result that she must be very lonely now. He had written to

Mortimer asking him to do anything he could to relieve the monotony of

her existence. What a dear woman she was, he thought over and over

again, to put up with all the troubles and worries he had brought upon

her—all for love of him.

 

So whenever any slightest shadow of doubt of her entered his mind, he

gave it no resting-place there, but chased it away as an insult and a

deep wrong to the woman who had intrusted her life’s happiness to his

poor keeping.

 

As the picture drew near completion he worked every minute that the sun

gave to him, for when it was finished he would be free to go to her. It

was his letter telling her that but a few more days, a week at most,

kept them apart, which she had tossed aside unopened and had afterward

thrown upon the fire unread.