A Mummer's Wife Part 43

And thus encouraged he told her that in the so-and-so company the part of the Countess might be had for the asking.

'Only they play to-morrow night.'

'Oh, to-morrow night! It would be dreadful to act so soon after my poor baby's death, wouldn't it?'

'I can't see why. We shall be as sorry for it in a week's time as now, and yet one must get to work some time or other.'

d.i.c.k considered this a very telling argument, and, not wishing to spoil its effect, he remained silent, so as to give Kate time to digest the truth of what he had said. He waited for her to ask him when he would take her to see the manager, but she said nothing, and he was at last obliged to admit that he had made an appointment for to-morrow. She whined a bit but accompanied him to the theatre. The manager was delighted with her appearance. He told her that the photo that d.i.c.k had forwarded did not do her justice; and, handing her the script, he said:

'Now you must make your entrance from this side.'

'What's the cue?'

'Here it is. I think I shall now beat a retreat in the direction of home.'

'Ah! I see.'

And, striving to decipher the ma.n.u.script, Kate walked towards the middle of the stage. 'I haven't seen the Duke for twenty-four hours, and that means misery.'

'You'll get a laugh for that if you'll turn up your eyes a bit,' said d.i.c.k.

Then, turning to the manager, he murmured, 'I wish you'd seen her as Clairette. The notices were immense. But I must be off now to my own show.'

This engagement relieved the Lennoxes for the time being of their embarra.s.sments. At four they dined, at six bade each other good-bye, and repaired to their respective theatres. d.i.c.k was playing in drama, Kate in _opera bouffe_; and something before a quarter to eleven she expected him to meet her at the stage-door of the Prince's. On this point she was very particular; if he were a few moments late she questioned him minutely as to where he had been, what he had been doing, and little by little the jealousies and suspicions which her marriage had appeased returned, and tortured her night and day. At first the approach of pain was manifested by a nervous anxiety for her husband's presence. She seemed dissatisfied and restless when he was not with her, and after breakfast in the mornings, when he took up his hat to go out, she would beg of him to stay, and find fault with him for leaving her. He reasoned with her very softly, a.s.suring her that he had the most important engagements. On one occasion it was a man who had given him an appointment in order to speak with him concerning a new theatre, of which he was to have the entire management; another time it was a man who was writing a drama, and wanted a collaborator to put the stage construction right; and as these seances of collaboration occupied both morning and afternoon, Kate was thrown entirely on her own resources until four o'clock. The first two or three novels she had read during her convalescence had amused her, but now one seemed so much like the other that they ended by boring her; and, too excited to be able to fix her attention, she often read without understanding what she was reading: on one side the memory of her baby's death preyed upon her--she still could not help thinking that it was owing to her neglect that it had died--on the other, the thought that her husband was playing her false goaded her to madness. Sometimes she attempted to follow him, but this only resulted in failure, and she returned home after a fruitless chase more dejected than ever.

'Ah! if the baby had not died, there would have been something to live for,' she murmured to herself a thousand times during the day, until at last her burden of remorse grew quite unbearable, and she thought of the brandy the doctor had ordered her. Since her engagement to play the Countess she had forgotten it, but now a strange desire seized her suddenly as if she had been stung by a snake. There was only a little left in the bottle, but that little cheered and restored her even more than she had expected. Her thoughts came to her more fluently, she ate a better dinner, and acted joyously that night at the theatre. 'There's no doubt,' she said to her self, 'the doctor was right. What I want is a little stimulant.' Of the truth of this she was more than ever convinced when next morning she found herself again suffering from the usual melancholy and dulness of spirits. The very sight of breakfast disgusted her, and when d.i.c.k left she wandered about the room, unable to interest herself in anything, with a yearning in her throat for the tingling sensation that brandy would bring; and she longed for yesterday's lightness of conscience. But there was neither brandy nor whisky in the house, not even a gla.s.s of sherry. What was to be done? She did not like to ask the landlady to go round to the public-house. Such people were always ready to put a wrong interpretation upon everything. But Mrs. Clarke knew that the doctor had ordered her to take a little brandy when she felt weak. All the same, she determined to wait until dinner-time.

Half an hour of misery pa.s.sed, and then, excited till she could bear with the craving for drink no longer, she remembered that it would be very foolish to risk her health for the sake of a prejudice. To obey the doctor's orders was her first duty--a consoling reflection that relieved her mind of much uncertainty; and ringing the bell, she prepared her little speech.

'Oh! Mrs. Clarke, I'm sorry to trouble you, but--I'm feeling so weak this morning--and, if you remember, the doctor ordered me to take a little brandy when I felt I wanted it. Do you happen to have any in the house?'

'No, ma'am, I haven't, but I can send out for it in a minute. And you do look as if you wanted something to pick you up.'

'Yes,' said Kate, throwing as much weakness as she could into her voice, 'somehow I've never felt the same since my confinement.'

'Ah! I know well how it pulls one down. If you only knew how I suffered with my third baby!'

'I can well imagine it.'

The conversation then came to a pause, and Mrs. Clarke, not seeing her way to any further family confidences, said:

'What shall I send for, ma'am--half a pint? The grocer round the corner keeps some very nice brandy.'

'Yes, that will do,' said Kate, seeing an unending perspective of drinks in half a pint.

'Shall I put that down in the bill, or will you give me the money now, ma'am?'

This was very awkward, for Kate suddenly remembered that she had given over her salary to d.i.c.k this week without keeping anything out of it. There was no help for it now, and putting as bold a face on it as she could, she told Mrs. Clarke to book it. What did it matter whether d.i.c.k saw it or not? Had not the doctor told her she required a little stimulant?

Henceforth brandy-drinking became an established part of Kate's morning hours. Even before d.i.c.k was out of bed she would invent a pretext for stealing into the next room so that she might have a nip on the sly before breakfast. The bottle, and a packet of sweetstuff to take the smell off her mouth, were kept behind a large oleograph representing Swiss scenery. The fear that d.i.c.k might pop out upon her at any moment often nearly caused her to spill the liquor over the place; but existence was impossible without brandy, and she felt she was bound to get rid of the miserable moods of mind to which she woke. Before eleven o'clock d.i.c.k was out of the house, and this left Kate four hours of lonely idleness staring her blankly in the face. Sometimes she practised a little music, but it wearied her. She had courage for nothing now, and brandy and water was the only thing that killed the dreariness that ached in heart and head. Many half-pint bottles had succeeded the first, and, ashamed to admit her secret drinking, she now paid the landlady regularly out of her own money. When funds were low, a little bill was run up, and this was produced and talked over when the two women were having a gla.s.s together of a morning. To pay these debts Kate had to resort to lying. All kinds of lies had to be concocted. Her first idea was to tell d.i.c.k she intended to continue her music lessons. He would never, she was sure, ask her a question on the subject; but d.i.c.k, who was still hard pressed for money, begged of her to wait until they were better off before incurring new expenses, and, annoyed, she fell back on the subject of clothes, and when he asked her if she could not manage to go on with what she had for a bit, it astonished him to see the mad rage into which she fell instantly. Was it not her own money? Had she not earned it, and was he going to rob her of it? Did he only keep her to work for him? If so, she'd very soon put that to rights by chucking up her engagement; then he would be forced to keep her; she wasn't going to be bullied. In his usual kind way d.i.c.k tried to calm her, explaining to her their position, telling her of his projects; but the fear of discovery was a fixed thought in her mind, and she refused to listen to reason until he put his hand in his pocket and gave her two pounds ten. This was just the sum required to pay what she owed at the Ayre Arms. And seeing her difficulties removed, her better nature a.s.serted itself. She begged of d.i.c.k to forgive her, pleading that she had lost her temper, and didn't know what she was saying.

For an instant she thought of confessing the truth, then the idea died in a resolution to amend. It was not worth speaking of; she was getting stronger, and would soon need no more stimulants.

For two days Kate kept to her promise; instead of sitting at home, she called on one of the ladies of the theatre, and pa.s.sed a pleasant morning with her. She paid visits to other members of the company, and went out shopping with them. But when three or four met at the corner of a street, after a few introductory remarks, a drink was generally proposed--not as men would propose it, but slyly, and with much affectation; and skirting furtively along the streets, a quiet bar would be selected, and then, 'What will you have, dear?' would be whispered softly. 'A drop of gin, dear.' On one of these occasions Kate only just escaped getting drunk. As luck would have it, d.i.c.k did not return home to dinner, and a good sleep and a bottle of soda-water pulled her together, so that she was able to go down to the theatre and play her part without exciting observation. And this decided her not to trust herself again to the temptation of her girl friends. She asked d.i.c.k to allow her to accompany him sometimes. He made a wry face at this proposal, hesitated, and explained that his collaborator suffered no one to interrupt their seances; he was a timid man, and couldn't work in the presence of a third person. Kate only sighed, but although she did not attempt to dispute the veracity of this statement, she felt that it was cruel that she should be left alone hour after hour. But she deceived herself with resolutions and hopes that she would require no more brandy.

In her heart of hearts she knew that she would not be able to resist, and, docile as the sheep under the butcher's hand, she recognized her fate, and accepted it. A fresh bill was run up at the grocer's, and the mornings were pa.s.sed in a state of torpor. Without getting absolutely drunk, she drank sufficiently to confuse her thoughts, to reduce them to a sort of nebulae, enough to blend and soften the lines of a too hard reality to a long sensation of tickling, in which no idea was precise, no desire remained long enough to grow to a pain, but caressed and pa.s.sed away. Sometimes, of course, she overdosed herself, but on these occasions, when she found consciousness slipping a little too rapidly from her, she was cunning enough to go and lie down. And living, as she did, in constant fear of detection, she endowed the simplest words and looks with a double meaning, and she could not help hating d.i.c.k if he asked her questions or dared to accuse her of being sleepy and heavy about the eyes. Did he intend to insult her--was that it? If so, she wasn't going to stand it. One day he stood before the oleograph, apparently examining with deep interest the different aspects of the Swiss scenery. In reality, his thoughts were far away, but Kate, who did not know this, grew so nervous and angry, that it was with difficulty she kept calm.

On half a dozen different pretexts she had tried to get him away from the picture, and fearing every moment that he would look behind it or touch it, she caught up a plate from the table and dashed it to the ground. The crash caused d.i.c.k to jump round, and she began her tirade, beginning with the question, was she so utterly beneath his notice that he couldn't answer a question? Almost every day a dispute of this sort arose: she was always being poked up by some new fear of discovery, and engendered, if not hatred, a fierce resentment; and to deceive herself as to the true reason she criticized his conduct and manner of life bitterly and pa.s.sionately from every point of view. Jealousy was natural to her, and she was more subject than ever to attacks of it. Once or twice it had blazed into flame, but circ.u.mstances had quenched it for the time being. Now there was nothing to oppose it, and all things served as fuel.

She was conscious of no wrongdoing, she believed, and believed sincerely, that she was acting legitimately in defence of her own interests. She was certain that d.i.c.k was deceiving her, and the want of moral courage in the man, which forced him to tell lies--lies in which he was sometimes found out--tended to confirm her in this belief. For a few days past she had been preparing for a quarrel, but the time for fight had not yet come, and she chafed under the delay. At last her chance came. He kept her waiting half an hour at the stage-door. Where had he been? What had he been doing all this while? were the questions she put to him in many different forms as they walked home. He sought to pacify his wife, a.s.suring her he had been detained by his manager, who wanted to speak with him concerning a new production; he told a long story regarding the arrangement of some of the processions. But Kate would not accept any of these excuses, and, convinced he had been after a woman, she stuck to her opinion, and the bickering continued for an hour or more, to end as it had begun. These sudden silences were very welcome, for d.i.c.k had many things to think out; and nothing more was said until they got up to their room, and then d.i.c.k, as usual, forgetful of even the immediate past, began to speak of his manager's intentions regarding a new piece. But he did not get far before he was brought to a sudden standstill by a fresh explosion of wrath.

'What have I done now?' he asked.

'Done! Do you suppose I want to hear about that woman?'

'What woman!'

'Oh! you needn't do the innocent with me!'

'Really! I give you my word----'

'Your word! a nice thing, indeed!'

'Well, what do you want me to do?'

'To leave me in peace,' said Kate, breaking the string of her stays.

d.i.c.k was very tired, and, without attempting to argue the point further, undressed and got into bed. In bed the quarrel was resumed; it was continued, and for an hour or more, he lying with his head turned close to the wall, hers dancing over the extreme edge of the pillow.

'Why don't you go away and leave me? I cannot think how you can be so cruel, and to me, who gave up everything for you!'

It was the wail of petulant anger; but as yet she showed no violence, and her temper did not overcome her until her husband, worn out by two hours of unceasing lamentations, begged of her to allow him to go to sleep. Her mood was different in the morning, and it was not until she had paid a couple of visits to the blue Swiss mountains that she became again taciturn. d.i.c.k did not as yet suspect his wife of confirmed drunkenness; he merely thought that she had grown lately very ill-tempered, and that a jealous woman was about the most distressing thing in existence; and, anxious to avoid another scene, he hurried through his breakfast. She watched him eating in silence, knowing well he was counting the minutes till he could get away.

At last she said:

'Will you take me to church to-day?'

'My dear, I'm afraid I've an appointment, but I'll try to come back if I can,' and a few minutes later he slipped away, leaving her to invite the landlady to come up and have a gla.s.s with her if she felt so inclined. But feeling somewhat out of humour for the conversation of that respectable woman, she put on her hat and ran after her husband, determined to watch him. But he was already out of sight, and after roaming aimlessly about for some time she turned into a church, and sat through the whole of the service without once attempting to fix her attention on what was going on; her thoughts were on d.i.c.k, but to stand and to kneel was in itself a relief, and when church was over she returned home, after visiting several public houses, slightly boozed.

'Mrs. Clarke, has my husband come in?'

'I haven't heard him, Mrs. Lennox,' was the answer that came up the kitchen stairs.

This was unfortunate, for her heart that had been softening towards him tightened into bitterness, and madness was near the thought that at the moment she was patiently waiting dinner for him he might be in the arms of another woman. She told the landlady, who came upstairs a second time in hope of a sociable gla.s.s, that she might bring the soup up (they always had soup on Sundays); if Mr. Lennox didn't choose to come in for his meals he might go without them. At that moment a ring at the door was heard, and, throwing himself in an armchair, d.i.c.k said he was tired.

'I dare say you are; I can easily understand that,' was the curt reply.

An expression of pain pa.s.sed over his face.

'Goodness me, Kate!' he said in a perplexed voice. 'You don't mean to say you're angry still!'

No attention was paid to the landlady, who was placing the soup on the table, and she, being pretty well accustomed to their quarrels, said with an air of indifference as she left the room: