by George Moore
‘The other day when I came into the drawing-room she didn’t say a word. I waited and waited to see if she would speak — no, not a word. She sat reading. Occasionally she would look up, stare at the ceiling, and then take a note. I wonder what she put down on that slip of paper? But when I spoke she seemed glad to talk, and she told me about Oxford. It evidently was the pleasantest time of her life. It must have been very curious. There were a hundred girls, and they used to run in and out of each other’s rooms, and they had dances; they danced with each other, and never thought about men. She told me she never enjoyed any dances so much as those; and they had a gymnasium, and special clothes to wear there — a sort of bloomer costume. It must have been very jolly. I wish I had gone to Oxford. Girls dancing together, and never thinking about men. How nice!
‘At Oxford they say that marriage is not the only mission for women — that is to say, for some women. They don’t despise marriage, but they think that for some women there is another mission. When I spoke to Mrs. Fargus about her marriage, she had to admit that she had written to her college friends to apologise — no, not to apologise, she said, but to explain. She was not ashamed, but she thought she owed them an explanation. Just fancy any of the girls in Sutton being ashamed of being married!’
The darkness was thick with wandering scents, and Mildred’s thoughts withered in the heat. She closed her eyes; she lay quite still, but the fever of the night devoured her; the sheet burned like a flame; she opened her eyes, and was soon thinking as eagerly as before.
She thought of the various possibilities that marriage would shut out to her for ever. She reproached herself for having engaged herself to Alfred Stanby, and remembered that Harold had been opposed to the match, and had refused to give his consent until Alfred was in a position to settle five hundred a year upon her. … Alfred would expect her to keep house for him exactly as she was now keeping house for her brother. Year after year the same thing, seeing Alfred go away in the morning, seeing him come home in the evening. That was how her life would pass. She did not wish to be cruel; she knew that Alfred would suffer terribly if she broke off her engagement, but it would be still more cruel to marry him if she did not think she would make him happy, and the conviction that she would not make him happy pressed heavily upon her. What was she to do? She could not, she dared not, face the life he offered her. It would be selfish of her to do so.
The word ‘selfish’ suggested a new train of thought to Mildred. She argued that it was not for selfish motives that she desired freedom. If she thought that, she would marry him to-morrow. It was because she did not wish to lead a selfish life that she intended to break off her engagement. She wished to live for something; she wished to accomplish something; what could she do? There was art. She would like to be an artist! She paused, astonished at the possibility. But why not she as well as the other women whom she had met at Mrs. Fargus’? She had met many artists — ladies who had studios — at Mrs. Fargus’.
She had been to their studios and had admired their independence. They had spoken of study in Paris, and of a village near Paris where they went to paint landscape. Each had a room at the inn; they met at meal times, and spent the day in the woods and fields. Mildred had once been fond of drawing, and in the heat of the summer night she wondered if she could do anything worth doing. She knew that she would like to try. She would do anything sooner than settle down with Alfred. Marriage and children were not the only possibilities in woman’s life. The girls she knew thought so, but the girls Mrs. Fargus knew didn’t think so.
And rolling over in her hot bed she lamented that there was no escape for a girl from marriage. If so, why not Alfred Stanby — he as well as another? But no, she could not settle down to keep house for Alfred for the rest of her life. She asked herself again why she should marry at all — what it was that compelled all girls, rich or poor, it was all the same, to marry and keep house for their husbands. She remembered that she had five hundred a year, and that she would have four thousand a year if her brother died — the distillery was worth that. But money made no difference. There was something in life which forced all girls into marriage, with their will or against their will. Marriage, marriage, always marriage — always the eternal question of sex, as if there was nothing else in the world. But there was much else in life. There was a nobler purpose in life than keeping house for a man. Of that she felt quite sure, and she hoped that she would find a vocation. She must first educate herself, so far she knew, and that was all that was at present necessary for her to know.
‘But how hot it is; I shan’t be able to go out in the cart to-morrow. … I wish everything would change, especially the weather. I want to go away. I hate living in a house without another woman. I wish Harold would let me have a companion — a nice elderly lady, but not too elderly — a woman about forty, who could talk; some one like Mrs. Fargus. When mother was alive it was different. She has been dead now three years. How long it seems! … Poor mother! I wish she were here. I scarcely knew much of father; he went to the city every morning, just as Harold does, by that dreadful ten minutes past nine. It seems to me that I have never heard of anything all my life but that horrible ten minutes past nine and the half-past six from London Bridge. I don’t hear so much about the half-past six, but the ten minutes past nine is never out of my head. Father is dead seven years, mother is dead three, and since her death I have kept house for Harold.’
Then as sleep pressed upon her eyelids Mildred’s thoughts grew disjointed. … ‘Alfred, I have thought it all over. I cannot marry you. … Do not reproach me,’ she said between dreaming and waking; and as the purple space of sky between the trees grew paler, she heard the first birds. Then dream and reality grew undistinguishable, and listening to the carolling of a thrush she saw a melancholy face, and then a dejected figure pass into the twilight.
II.
‘What a fright I am looking! I did not get to sleep till after two o’clock; the heat was something dreadful, and to-day will be hotter still. One doesn’t know what to wear.’
She settled the ribbons in her white dress, and looked once again in the glass to see if the soft, almost fluffy, hair, which the least breath disturbed was disarranged. She smoothed it with her short white hand. There was a wistful expression in her brown eyes, a little pathetic won’t-you-care-for-me expression which she cultivated, knowing its charm in her somewhat short, rather broad face, which ended in a pointed chin: the nose was slightly tip-tilted, her teeth were white, but too large. Her figure was delicate, and with quick steps she hurried along the passages and down the high staircase. Harold was standing before the fireplace, reading the Times, when she entered.
‘You are rather late, Mildred. I am afraid I shall lose the ten minutes past nine.’
‘My dear Harold, you have gone up to town for the last ten years by that train, and every day we go through a little scene of fears and doubts; you have never yet missed it, I may safely assume you will not miss it this morning.’
‘I’m afraid I shall have to order the cart, and I like to get a walk if possible in the morning.’
‘I can walk it in twelve minutes.’
‘I shouldn’t like to walk it in this broiling sun in fifteen. … By the way, have you looked at the glass this morning?’
‘No; I am tired of looking at it. It never moves from “set fair.”’
‘It is intolerably hot — can you sleep at night?’
‘No; I didn’t get to sleep till after two. I lay awake thinking of Mrs. Fargus.’
‘I never saw you talk to a woman like that before. I wonder what you see in her. She’s very plain. I daresay she’s very clever, but she never says anything — at least not to me.’
‘She talks fast enough on her own subjects. You didn’t try to draw her out. She requires drawing out. … But it wasn’t so much Mrs. Fargus as having a woman in the house. It makes one’s life so different; one feels more at ease. I think I ought to have a companion.’
; ‘Have a middle-aged lady here, who would bore me with her conversation all through dinner when I come home from the City tired and worn out!’
‘But you don’t think that your conversation when you “come home from the City tired and worn out” has no interest whatever for me; that this has turned out a good investment; that the shares have gone up, and will go up again? I should like to know how I am to interest myself in all that. What has it to do with me?’
‘What has it to do with you! How do you think that this house and grounds, carriages and horses and servants, glasshouses without end, are paid for? Do I ever grumble about the dressmakers’ bills? — and heaven knows they are high enough. I believe all your hats and hosiery are put down to house expenses, but I never grumble. I let you have everything you want — horses, carriages, dresses, servants. You ought to be the happiest girl in the world in this beautiful place.’
‘Beautiful place! I hate the place; I hate it — a nasty, gaudy, vulgar place, in a vulgar suburb, where nothing but money-grubbing is thought of from morning, noon, till night; how much percentage can be got out of everything; cut down the salaries of the employees; work everything on the most economic basis; it does not matter what the employees suffer so long as seven per cent. dividend is declared at the end of the year. I hate the place.’
‘My dear, dear Mildred, what are you saying? I never heard you talk like this before. Mrs. Fargus has been filling your head with nonsense. I wish I had never asked her to the house; absurd little creature, with her eternal talk about culture, her cropped hair, and her spectacles glimmering. What nonsense she has filled your head with!’
‘Mrs. Fargus is a very clever woman. … I think I should like go to Girton.’
‘Go to Girton!’
‘Yes, go to Girton. I’ve never had any proper education. I should like to learn Greek. Living here, cooped up with a man all one’s life isn’t my idea. I should like to see more of my own sex. Mrs. Fargus told me about the emulation of the class-rooms, about the gymnasium, about the dances the girls had in each other’s rooms. She never enjoyed any dances like those. She said that I must feel lonely living in a house without another woman.’
‘I know what it’ll be. I shall never hear the end of Mrs. Fargus. I wish I’d never asked them.’
‘Men are so selfish! If by any chance they do anything that pleases any one but themselves, how they regret it.’
Harold was about the middle height, but he gave the impression of a small man. He was good-looking; but his features were without charm, for his mind was uninteresting — a dry, barren mind, a somewhat stubbly mind — but there was an honest kindliness in his little eyes which was absent from his sister’s. The conversation had paused, and he glanced quickly every now and then at her pretty, wistful face, expressive at this moment of much irritated and nervous dissatisfaction; also an irritated obstinacy lurked in her eyes, and, knowing how obstinate she was in her ideas, Harold sincerely dreaded that she might go off to Girton to learn Greek — any slightest word might precipitate the catastrophe.
‘I think at least that I might have a companion,’ she said at last.
‘Of course you can have a companion if you like, Mildred; but I thought you were going to marry Alfred Stanby?’
‘You objected to him; you said he had nothing — that he couldn’t afford to marry.’
‘Yes, until he got his appointment; but I hear now that he’s nearly certain of it.’
‘I don’t think I could marry Alfred.’
‘You threw Lumly over, who was an excellent match, for Alfred. So long as Alfred wasn’t in a position to marry you, you would hear of no one else, and now — but you don’t mean to say you are going to throw him over.’
‘I don’t know what I shall do.’
‘Well, I have no time to discuss the matter with you now. It is seven minutes to nine. I shall only have just time to catch the train by walking very fast. Good-bye.’
‘Please, mam, any orders to-day for the butcher?’
‘Always the same question — how tired I am of hearing the same words. I suppose it is very wicked of me to be so discontented,’ thought Mildred, as she sat on the sofa with her key-basket in her hand; ‘but I have got so tired of Sutton. I know I shouldn’t bother Harold; he is very good and he does his best to please me. It is very odd. I was all right till Mrs. Fargus came, she upset me. It was all in my mind before, no doubt; but she brought it out. Now I can’t interest myself in anything. I really don’t care to go to this tennis party, and the people who go there are not in the least interesting. I am certain I should not meet a soul whom I should care to speak to. No, I won’t go there. There’s a lot to be done in the greenhouses, and in the afternoon I will write a long letter to Mrs. Fargus. She promised to send me a list of books to read.’
There was nothing definite in her mind, but something was germinating within her, and when the work of the day was done, she wondered at the great tranquillity of the garden. A servant was there in a print dress, and the violet of the skies and the green of the trees seemed to be closing about her like a tomb. ‘How beautiful!’ Mildred mused softly; ‘I wish I could paint that.’
A little surprised and startled, she went upstairs to look for her box of water-colours; she had not used it since she left school. She found also an old block, with a few sheets remaining; and she worked on and on, conscious only of the green stillness of the trees and the romance of rose and grey that the sky unfolded. She had begun her second water-colour, and was so intent upon it as not to be aware that a new presence had come into the garden. Alfred Stanby was walking towards her. He was a tall, elegantly dressed, good-looking young man.
‘What! painting? I thought you had given it up. Let me see.’
‘Oh, Alfred, how you startled me!’
He took the sketch from the girl’s lap, and handing it back, he said:
‘I suppose you had nothing else to do this afternoon; it was too hot to go out in the cart. Do you like painting?’
‘Yes, I think I do.’
They were looking at each other — and there was a questioning look in the girl’s eyes — for she perceived in that moment more distinctly than she had before the difference in their natures.
‘Have you finished the smoking cap you are making for me?’
‘No; I did not feel inclined to go on with it.’
Something in Mildred’s tone of voice and manner struck Alfred, and, dropping his self-consciousness, he said:
‘You thought that I’d like a water-colour sketch better.’
Mildred did not answer.
‘I should like to have some drawings to hang in the smoking-room when we’re married. But I like figures better than landscapes. You never tried horses and dogs, did you?’
‘No, I never did,’ Mildred answered languidly, and she continued to work on her sky. But her thoughts were far from it, and she noticed that she was spoiling it. ‘No, I never tried horses and dogs.’
‘But you could, dearest, if you were to try. You could do anything you tried. You are so clever.’
‘I don’t know that I am; I should like to be.’
They looked at each other, and anxiously each strove to read the other’s thoughts.
‘Landscapes are more suited to a drawing-room than a smoking-room. It will look very well in your drawing-room when we’re married. We shall want some pictures to cover the walls.’
At the word marriage, Mildred’s lips seemed to grow thinner. The conversation paused. Alfred noticed that she hesitated, that she was striving to speak. She had broken off her engagement once before with him, and he had begun to fear that she was going to do so again. There was a look of mingled irresolution and determination in her face. She continued to work on her sky; but at every touch it grew worse, and, feeling that she had irretrievably spoilt her drawing, she said:
‘But do you think that we shall ever be married, Alfred?’
‘Of course. Why? Are you going to break it off?’<
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‘We have been engaged nearly two years, and there seems no prospect of our being married. Harold will never consent. It does not seem fair to keep you waiting any longer.’
‘I’d willingly wait twenty years for you, Mildred.’
She looked at him a little tenderly, and he continued more confidently. ‘But I’m glad to say there is no longer any question of waiting. My father has consented to settle four hundred a year upon me, the same sum as your brother proposes to settle on you. We can be married when you like.’
She only looked at the spoilt water-colour, and it was with difficulty that Alfred restrained himself from snatching it out of her hands.
‘You do not answer. You heard what I said, that my father had agreed to settle four hundred a year upon me?’
‘I’m sure I’m very glad, for your sake.’
‘That’s a very cold answer, Mildred. I think I can say that I’m sure of the appointment.’
‘I’m glad, indeed I am, Alfred.’
‘But only for my sake?’
Mildred sat looking at the water-colour.
‘You see our marriage has been delayed so long; many things have come between us.’
‘What things?’
‘Much that I’m afraid you’d not understand. You’ve often reproached me,’ she said, her voice quickening a little, ‘with coldness. I’m cold; it is not my fault. I’m afraid I’m not like other girls. … I don’t think I want to be married.’
‘This is Mrs. Fargus’ doing. What do you want?’
‘I’m not quite sure. I should like to study.’
‘This must be Mrs. Fargus.’
‘I should like to do something.’
