The Odd Women Part 77

'Alice? You can't--I'll come--wait downstairs.'

She was still able to understand the situation, and able, she thought, to speak coherently, to disguise her condition. The things on the table must be put out of sight. In trying to do this, she upset her gla.s.s and knocked the empty bottle on to the floor. But in a few minutes bottle, gla.s.s, and spirit-kettle were hidden away. The sugar-basin she lost sight of; it still remained in its former place.

Then she opened the door, and with uncertain step went out into the pa.s.sage.

'Alice!' she called aloud.

At once both her sisters appeared, coming out of Monica's chamber.

Monica had partly dressed herself.

'Why have you come to-night?' Virginia exclaimed, in a voice which seemed to her own ears perfectly natural.

She tottered, and was obliged to support herself against the wall. The light from her room fell full upon her, and Alice, who had stepped forward to give her a kiss, not only saw, but smelt, that something very strange was the matter. The odour proceeding from the bedroom, and that of Virginia's breath, left small doubt as to the cause of delay in giving admittance.

Whilst Alice stood bewildered, Monica received an illumination which instantly made clear to her many things in Virginia's daily life. At the same moment she understood those mysterious hints concerning her sister in Widdowson's letters.

'Come into the room,' she said abruptly. 'Come, Virgie.'

'I don't understand--why has Alice come to-night?--what's the time?'

Monica took hold of the tottering woman's arm and drew her out of the pa.s.sage. The cold air had produced its natural effect upon Virginia, who now with difficulty supported herself.

'O Virgie!' cried the eldest sister, when the door was closed. 'What is the matter? What does it mean?'

Already she had been shedding tears at the meeting with Monica, and now distress overcame her; she sobbed and lamented.

'What have you been doing, Virgie?' asked Monica with severity.

'Doing? I feel a little faint--surprise--didn't expect--'

'Sit down at once. You are disgusting! Look, Alice.' She pointed to the sugar-basin on the table; then, after a rapid glance round the room, she went to the cupboard and threw the door open. 'I thought so. Look, Alice. And to think I never suspected this! It has been going on a long time--oh, a long time. She was doing it at Mrs. Conisbee's before I was married. I remember smelling spirits--'

Virginia was making efforts to rise.

'What are you talking about?' she exclaimed in a thick voice, and with a countenance which was changing from dazed astonishment to anger.

'It's only when I feel faint. Do you suppose I drink? Where's Alice?

Wasn't Alice here?'

'O Virgie! What _does_ it mean? How _could_ you?'

'Go to bed at once, Virginia,' said Monica. 'We're ashamed of you. Go back into my room Alice, and I'll get her to bed.'

Ultimately this was done. With no slight trouble, Monica persuaded her sister to undress, and got her into a rec.u.mbent position, Virginia all the time protesting that she had perfect command of her faculties, that she needed no help whatever, and was utterly at a loss to comprehend the insults directed against her.

'Lie quiet and go to sleep,' was Monica's last word, uttered contemptuously.

She extinguished the lamp and returned to her own room, where Alice was still weeping. The unexpected arrival had already been explained to Monica. Sudden necessity for housing a visitor had led to the proposition that Miss Madden, for her last night, should occupy a servant's bedroom. Glad to get away, Alice chose the alternative of leaving the house at once. It had been arranged that she should share Virginia's room, but to-night this did not seem advisable.

'To-morrow,' said Monica, 'we must talk to her very seriously. I believe she has been drinking like that night after night. It explains the look she always has the first thing in the morning. Could you have imagined anything so disgraceful?'

But Alice had softened towards the erring woman.

'You must remember what her life has been, dear. I'm afraid loneliness is very often a cause--'

'She needn't have been lonely. She refused to come and live at Herne Hill, and now of course I understand why. Mrs. Conisbee must have known about it, and it was her duty to tell me. Mr. Widdowson had found out somehow, I feel sure.'

She explained the reason of this belief.

'You know what it all points to,' said Miss Madden, drying her sallow, pimpled cheeks. 'You must do as your husband wishes, dearest. We must go to Clevedon. There the poor girl will be out of temptation.'

'You and Virgie may go.'

'You too, Monica. My dear sister, it is your duty.'

'Don't use that word to me!' exclaimed the other angrily. 'It is _not_ my duty. It can be no woman's duty to live with a man she hates-or even to make a pretence of living with him.'

'But, dearest--'

'You mustn't begin this to-night, Alice. I have been ill all day, and now my head is aching terribly. Go downstairs and eat the supper they have laid for you.'

'I couldn't touch a morsel,' sobbed Miss Madden. 'Oh, everything is too dreadful! Life is too hard!'

Monica had returned to bed, and lay there with her face half hidden against the pillow.

'If you don't want any supper,' she said in a moment, 'please go and tell them, so that they needn't sit up for you.'

Alice obeyed. When she came up again, her sister was, or pretended to be, asleep; even the noise made by bringing luggage into the room did not cause her to move. Having sat in despondency for a while, Miss Madden opened one of her boxes, and sought in it for the Bible which it was her custom to make use of every night. She read in the book for about half an hour, then covered her face with her hands and prayed silently. This was _her_ refuge from the barrenness and bitterness of life.

CHAPTER XXIX

CONFESSION AND COUNSEL

The sisters did not exchange a word until morning, but both of them lay long awake. Monica was the first to lose consciousness; she slept for about an hour, then the pains of a horrid dream disturbed her, and again she took up the burden of thought. Such waking after brief, broken sleep, when mind and body are beset by weariness, yet cannot rest, when night with its awful hush and its mysterious movements makes a strange, dread habitation for the spirit--such waking is a grim trial of human fort.i.tude. The blood flows sluggishly, yet subject to sudden tremors that chill the veins and for an instant choke the heart.

Purpose is idle, the will impure; over the past hangs a shadow of remorse, and life that must yet be lived shows lurid, a steep pathway to the hopeless grave. Of this cup Monica drank deeply.

A fear of death compa.s.sed her about. Night after night it had thus haunted her. In the daytime she could think of death with resignation, as a refuge from miseries of which she saw no other end; but this hour of silent darkness shook her with terrors. Reason availed nothing; its exercise seemed criminal. The old faiths, never abandoned, though modified by the breath of intellectual freedom that had just touched her, rea.s.serted all their power. She saw herself as a wicked woman, in the eye of truth not less wicked than her husband declared her. A sinner stubborn in impenitence, defending herself by a paltry ambiguity that had all the evil of a direct lie. Her soul trembled in its nakedness.

What redemption could there be for her? What path of spiritual health was discoverable? She could not command herself to love the father of her child; the repugnance with which she regarded him seemed to her a sin against nature, yet how was she responsible for it? Would it profit her to make confession and be humbled before him? The confession must some day be made, if only for her child's sake; but she foresaw in it no relief of mind. Of all human beings her husband was the one least fitted to console and strengthen her. She cared nothing for his pardon; from his love she shrank. But if there were some one to whom she could utter her thoughts with the certainty of being understood--

Her sisters had not the sympathetic intelligence necessary for aiding her; Virginia was weaker than she herself, and Alice dealt only in sorrowful commonplaces, profitable perhaps to her own heart, but powerless over the trouble of another's. Among the few people she had called her friends there was one strong woman--strong of brain, and capable, it might be, of speaking the words that go from soul to soul; this woman she had deeply offended, yet owing to mere mischance.

Whether or no Rhoda Nunn had lent ear to Barfoot's wooing she must be gravely offended; she had given proof of it in the interview reported by Virginia. The scandal spread abroad by Widdowson might even have been fatal to a happiness of which she had dreamt. To Rhoda Nunn some form of reparation was owing. And might not an avowal of the whole truth elicit from her counsel of grat.i.tude--some solace, some guidance?

Amid the tremors of night Monica felt able to take this step, for the mere chance of comfort that it offered. But when day came the resolution had vanished; shame and pride again compelled her to silence.

And this morning she had new troubles to think about. Virginia was keeping her room; would admit no one; answered every whisper of appeal with brief, vague words that signified anything or nothing. The others breakfasted in gloom that harmonized only too well with the heavy, dripping sky visible from their windows. Only at midday did Alice succeed in obtaining speech with her remorseful sister. They were closeted together for more than an hour, and the elder woman came forth at last with red, tear-swollen eyes.