The Pest 5

The Pest 5

So far, in her dealings with him, she did not think that she had made

any error. She had shown no interest in him, which she believed was the

best way to pique him into feeling interest in her. She had talked of

herself, had told him enough to enable him to see clearly how

dissatisfied she was with her present lot. She now felt that all that

remained for her to do was to persuade him that she was worth winning,

not merely for her beauty, but because she could add to the

attractiveness and pleasure of his life. She, however, did not know

anything of his way of life, and did not even know whether any other

woman held the place she wished to obtain for herself.

 

He had vaguely said that he was willing to help her; he had shown

anxiety by at once calling when she had failed to go to him; but, since

then, silence. The next move was left to her, and with all her care she

might make a false one. She knew that he was emotional, and conjectured

that, once roused, no scruple of conventional morality would be a

hindrance to him in achieving his desire.

 

If she were to approach him again now, without any reasonable excuse for

doing so, she feared that she might fail to gain his help, and such a

failure would mean lasting defeat. There was no means that she could

think of by which she could bring him to her. To wait indefinitely was

not only dangerous but repugnant to her daily intensifying longing for

escape from her present life. So far, she had considered only two of the

three factors in the case—herself and Maddison. It remained to be

proved whether or not she could work her will by the instrumentality of

her husband.

 

She knew his intense devotion to her, but that, great as it was, it

weighed nothing against his sense of right and wrong. She did not hold

the first place in his life: that was given to his work. Love, health,

comfort, success—all were nothing in the scales against duty. Further,

even if he were willing to give up all for her, he could neither help

her ambitions nor satisfy her longings, the chief of which, indeed, was

to be free from him.

 

More than once he had spoken to her almost sternly of her idleness and

unwillingness to assist him. Was it not possible in this connection to

bring about some breach between them? In some indefinite way she felt a

desire to quarrel with him. At this very time he was constantly urging

her to join the small band of women who, under his guidance, were

laboring to bring something of decency and comfort into the lives of the

wretched dwellers in some notorious slum property in the parish. She

steadfastly refused. It was not work which she could or would do.

 

When this thought came to her, she was engaged upon some accounts, which

he had asked her to have complete for an important meeting in the

evening.

 

She closed the books almost untouched, feeling fairly confident that

this remissness would lead to remonstrance on his part, which she could

make an excuse for defiance.

 

Coming home late in the afternoon, Squire found her, as often he had

done of late, sitting idly in the dusk by the window, looking out at the

dreary prospect. The fire had sunk low, and the glowing coals shed but a

dim light over the room.

 

He was tired, physically and mentally, and a stir of anger came to him

to find her sitting there thus, knowing that she knew that he considered

this idleness wrong.

 

He sat down heavily in the worn armchair, and began to unlace his boots;

his feet would be rested by an hour or so of slippers.

 

“I’m very tired,” he said; but she made no answer.

 

“How have you got on with the accounts?” he asked after a pause. “I

suppose they were all right?”

 

“I don’t know. I haven’t touched them.”

 

“Not touched them!” he exclaimed, aghast, and turning sharply to her.

“Not touched them! You—knew they must be ready for to-night!”

 

“Yes, I knew.”

 

She stood up, let the blinds down, pulled to the curtains viciously, and

then went over to the chimney-piece for the matches. She struck a light

and turned up the gas, which blazed up into a shrieking flame, and, in

turning it low, she turned it out. She lit the gas again, and then stood

leaning against the table, watching his face of amazement.

 

“I don’t understand,” he said, looking at her with puzzled eyes. “You

knew they must be done, and you haven’t touched them? You’re not ill?”

 

“No, quite well. It’s just this, Edward, this life is killing me; you

must change it. I’ve done my best to stand it, but I can’t go on with it

any longer.”

 

“Change it—change it! How can we change it, even if it was right to?”

 

“Right! Right! Right!” she repeated fiercely. “Who made _you_ the judge

of what is right for _me_? You’re my husband, but that doesn’t make you

my judge. You live your own life, and I must live mine; and this life

you try to make me lead is not mine. Stop!—listen to me first. You’re

so blinded with self-satisfaction, so obstinately sure that you’re

right, that you’ve forgotten all about me. I’ve become just a mere item

in your existence, a part of yourself. You’ve forgotten that I’ve a

self, or you couldn’t really believe that this life would satisfy me.

I’m young. Am I to have no fun in life? No amusements, no gayety, no

pleasure, no friends? Am I to go on living here, seeing nobody worth

seeing, going nowhere, just drudging along in this dismal hole?”

 

She stopped, panting, and he broke in——

 

“I can’t listen to you, Marian. Do you understand what you’re saying?”

 

“Yes, yes,” she interrupted, “I understand; it’s you who can’t. Can’t?

Won’t—won’t! I sometimes wonder if you’re a man or a mere machine?”

 

“If you knew how much you are hurting me, Marian, you’d know how much of

a man I am. Don’t you think I’ve seen how discontented you are, but you

wouldn’t take my advice; you wouldn’t try to do what I know would make

you happy. You’re—you’re so selfish; you criticise everything by

whether it brings happiness to you. You have everything that I have, and

could share everything with me, and be quite content and happy. But you

do nothing; you keep outside my life and won’t let me help you.”

 

“I’ve heard all this before! What’s the use of preaching to me? Keep

your sermons for those who agree with you. You’ve talked like this at me

till I’m sick of hearing you.”

 

“Why not do as I ask you—work?”

 

“Why should I work?” she asked fiercely.

 

“Is it really you, Marian? I thought you so different.”

 

“I was different when you married me; I was a baby then, an ignorant

fool of a girl. I’ve grown into a woman, but you haven’t noticed it.”

 

“A woman has more heart——”

 

“Copy-book platitudes won’t help us.”

 

“Don’t you love me?” he asked, straining eagerly toward her for the

reply.

 

“No. I never did.”

 

“You never loved me?” he stammered, standing up and leaning heavily on

the back of the chair. “You said you did—why did you marry me?”

 

“I suppose I thought I loved you—because I was lonely, poor; because I

didn’t understand what love was; because I didn’t love anyone else;

because I didn’t know any other man. If we’d gone on living down there

in the country, I daresay I should have gone on vegetating. But you

dragged me up here, and I’ve woken up. You said I was selfish. What

about you? You knew what you were bringing me to and never stopped to

think whether it would be good for me, this dull, stupid life, with

nothing to care for, nothing to hope for, nothing to do.”

 

“You never really loved me? Oh, my God, why am I punished like this?”

 

He dropped his arms helplessly, standing before her, looking at her

bewildered, as though struggling to shake himself free from some

oppressive dream.

 

“Selfish again,” she said. “Your punishment! What about mine? You’ve

often preached that there is no real happiness in life but to do your

duty. Haven’t you done yours?”

 

“I can’t have.... What can I do?”

 

“Free me from this existence. Go away from here; somewhere there is

life——”

 

“You know I can’t leave my work.”

 

“Others can do it.”

 

“If we all said that? You know I can’t leave my appointed work.”

 

Marian sat down and beat with her clenched fists upon the table.

 

“Can’t you see anyone’s life but your own?” she exclaimed fiercely. “You

make me loathe you when you talk that way. Can’t you be a bit practical?

Don’t you understand that things can’t go on like this? That you’re

killing me? You’ve no pluck; I believe you’d be quite content to live

all your life in these dingy lodgings. You say you love me——”

 

“I do—I do——”

 

“And won’t do a thing to make me happy! We can’t go on living together

like this. Can we? Don’t you see we can’t?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“That something must be done to change it.”

 

“Wait, wait, let me think!” he said, tramping about the room; “let me

think, let me think. No, Marian, I can’t go away; I must stop here and

go on with my work. You see, dear, you’ve never really tried my way; if

you worked hard all day like I do you’d have no time to be unhappy.”

 

“Why should I _work_?”

 

“Why shouldn’t you? That’s what we all have to do. And there’s so much

work. You don’t know, I didn’t like to tell you, how it handicaps me,

people knowing that you do nothing to help me. How can I urge them on

when my wife does nothing? Then—what is it you want?”

 

“If I told you, oh! I know what you’d say. The same old sermons—the

things I do want wouldn’t make me happy, the things I don’t would.

You’ve made up your mind what I ought to do and you _are_ so certain

you’re right.”

 

“It’s not what _I_ think——”

 

“Yes, yes, it _is_ what you think; what others believe is right when you

agree with them. I don’t agree with you. Your beliefs don’t make me

happy.”

 

He sat down opposite her and began idly tracing with his finger the

pattern on the shabby green cloth. She waited, wondering what he would

say. So far there had been little more than a repetition of previous

scenes between them. At last, after what seemed to her an interminable silence, he said—