The Odd Women Part 26

Rhoda laughed.

'You regret that it isn't done?'

'I prefer to say that I approve it when it is done without disregard of common humanity. There's my friend Orchard. With him it was suicide or freedom from his hateful wife. Most happily, he was able to make provision for her and the children, and had strength to break his bonds. If he had left them to starve, I should have _understood_ it, but couldn't have approved it. There are men who might follow his example, but prefer to put up with a life of torture. Well, they _do_ prefer it, you see. I may think that they are foolishly weak, but I can only recognize that they make a choice between two forms of suffering.

They have tender consciences; the thought of desertion is too painful to them. And in a great number of cases, mere considerations of money and the like keep a man bound. But conscience and habit--detestable habit--and fear of public opinion generally hold him.'

'All this is very interesting,' said Rhoda, with grave irony.

'By-the-bye, under the head of detestable habit you would put love of children?'

Barfoot hesitated.

'That's a motive I oughtn't to have left out. Yet I believe, for most men, it is represented by conscience. The love of children would not generally, in itself, be strong enough to outweigh matrimonial wretchedness. Many an intelligent and kind-hearted man has been driven from his wife notwithstanding thought for his children. He provides for them as well as he can--but, and even for their sakes, he must save himself.'

The expression of Rhoda's countenance suddenly changed. An extreme mobility of facial muscles was one of the things in her that held Everard's attention.

'There's something in your way of putting it that I don't like,' she said, with much frankness; 'but of course I agree with you in the facts. I am convinced that most marriages are hateful, from every point of view. But there will be no improvement until women have revolted against marriage, from a reasonable conviction of its hatefulness.'

'I wish you all success--most sincerely I do.'

He paused, looked about the room, and stroked his ear. Then, in a grave tone,--

'My own ideal of marriage involves perfect freedom on both sides. Of course it could only be realized where conditions are favourable; poverty and other wretched things force us so often to sin against our best beliefs. But there are plenty of people who might marry on these ideal terms. Perfect freedom, sanctioned by the sense of intelligent society, would abolish most of the evils we have in mind. But women must first be civilized; you are quite right in that.'

The door opened, and Miss Barfoot came in. She glanced from one to the other, and without speaking gave her hand to Everard.

'How is your patient?' he asked.

'A little better, I think. It is nothing dangerous. Here's a letter from your brother Tom. Perhaps I had better read it at once; there may be news you would like to hear.'

She sat down and broke the envelope. Whilst she was reading the letter to herself, Rhoda quietly left the room.

'Yes, there is news,' said Miss Barfoot presently, 'and of a disagreeable kind. A few weeks ago--before writing, that is--he was thrown off a horse and had a rib fractured.'

'Oh? How is he going on?'

'Getting right again, he says. And they are coming back to England; his wife's consumptive symptoms have disappeared, of course, and she is very impatient to leave Madeira. It is to be hoped she will allow poor Tom time to get his rib set. Probably that consideration doesn't weigh much with her. He says that he is writing to you by the same mail.'

'Poor old fellow!' said Everard, with feeling. 'Does he complain about his wife?'

'He never has done till now, but there's a sentence here that reads doubtfully. "Muriel," he says, "has been terribly upset about my accident. I can't persuade her that I didn't get thrown on purpose; yet I a.s.sure you I didn't."'

Everard laughed.

'If old Tom becomes ironical, he must be hard driven. I have no great longing to meet Mrs. Thomas.'

'She's a silly and a vulgar woman. But I told him that in plain terms before he married. It says much for his good nature that he remains so friendly with me. Read the letter, Everard.'

He did so.

'H'm--very kind things about me. Good old Tom! Why don't I marry? Well, now, one would have thought that his own experience--'

Miss Barfoot began to talk about something else. Before very long Rhoda came back, and in the conversation that followed it was mentioned that she would leave for her holiday in two days.

'I have been reading about Cheddar,' exclaimed Everard, with animation.

'There's a flower grows among the rocks called the Cheddar pink. Do you know it?'

'Oh, very well,' Rhoda answered. 'I'll bring you some specimens.'

'Will you? That's very kind.'

'Bring _me_ a genuine pound or two of the cheese, Rhoda,' requested Miss Barfoot gaily.

'I will. What they sell in the shops there is all sham, Mr.

Barfoot--like so much else in this world.'

'I care nothing about the cheese. That's all very well for a matter-of-fact person like cousin Mary, but _I_ have a strong vein of poetry; you must have noticed it?'

When they shook hands,--

'You will really bring me the flowers?' Everard said in a voice sensibly softened.

'I will make a note of it,' was the rea.s.suring answer.

CHAPTER XI

AT NATURE'S BIDDING

The sick girl whom Miss Barfoot had been to see was Monica Madden.

With strange suddenness, after several weeks of steady application to her work, in a cheerful spirit which at times rose to gaiety, Monica became dull, remiss, unhappy; then violent headaches attacked her, and one morning she declared herself unable to rise. Mildred Vesper went to Great Portland Street at the usual hour, and informed Miss Barfoot of her companion's illness. A doctor was summoned; to him it seemed probable that the girl was suffering from consequences of overstrain at her old employment; there was nervous collapse, hysteria, general disorder of the system. Had the patient any mental disquietude? Was trouble of any kind (the doctor smiled) weighing upon her? Miss Barfoot, unable to answer these questions, held private colloquy with Mildred; but the latter, though she pondered a good deal with corrugated brows, could furnish no information.

In a day or two Monica was removed to her sister's lodgings at Lavender Hill. Mrs. Conisbee managed to put a room at her disposal, and Virginia tended her. Thither Miss Barfoot went on the evening when Everard found her away; she and Virginia, talking together after being with the invalid for a quarter of an hour, agreed that there was considerable improvement, but felt a like uneasiness regarding Monica's state of mind.

'Do you think,' asked the visitor, 'that she regrets the step I persuaded her to take?'

'Oh, I _can't_ think that! She has been so delighted with her progress each time I have seen her. No, I feel sure it's only the results of what she suffered at Walworth Road. In a very short time we shall have her at work again, and brighter than ever.'

Miss Barfoot was not convinced. After Everard's departure that evening she talked of the matter with Rhoda.

'I'm afraid,' said Miss Nunn, 'that Monica is rather a silly girl. She doesn't know her own mind. If this kind of thing is repeated, we had better send her back to the country.'

'To shop work again?'

'It might be better.'