The Three Sisters Part 3

Strictly speaking, it was his first wife, Mary Gwendolen, the one the children called Mother, who had begun it. She had made his first parish unendurable to him by dying in it. This she had done when Alice was born, thereby making Alice unendurable to him, too. Poor Mamie! He always thought of her as having, inscrutably, failed him.

All three of them had failed him.

His second wife, Frances, the one the children called Mamma (the Vicar had made himself believe that he had married her solely on their account), had turned into a nervous invalid on his hands before she died of that obscure internal trouble which he had so wisely and patiently ignored.

His third wife, Robina (the one they called Mummy), had run away from him in the fifth year of their marriage. When she implored him to divorce her he said that, whatever her conduct had been, that course was impossible to him as a churchman, as she well knew; but that he forgave her. He had made himself believe it.

And all the time he was aware, without admitting it, that, if the thing came into court, Robina's evidence might be a little damaging to the appearances of wisdom and patience, of austerity and dignity, which he had preserved so well. He had had an unacknowledged vision of Robina standing in the witness box, very small and shy, with her eyes fluttering while she explained to the gentlemen of the jury that she ran away from her husband because she was afraid of him. He could hear the question, "Why were you afraid?" and Robina's answer--but at that point he always reminded himself that it was as a churchman that he objected to divorce.

For his profession had committed him to a pose. He had posed for more than thirty years to his parish, to his three wives, to his three children, and to himself, till he had become unconscious of his real thoughts, his real motives, his real likings and dislikings. So that when he told himself that it would have been better if his third wife had died, he thought he meant that it would have been better for her and for his opinion of her, whereas what he really did mean was that it would have been better for himself.

For if Robina had died he could have married again. As it was, her infidelity condemned him to a celibacy for which, as she knew, he was utterly unsuited.

Therefore he thought of her as a cruel and unscrupulous woman. And when he thought of her he became more sorry for himself than ever.

Now, oddly enough, the Grande Polonaise had set Mr. Cartaret thinking of Robina. It was not that Robina had ever played it. Robina did not play. It was not the discords introduced into it by Alice, though Robina had been a thing of discords. It was that something in him, obscurely but intimately a.s.sociated with Robina, responded to that sensual and infernal tremor that Alice was wringing out of the Polonaise. So that, without clearly knowing why it was abominable, Mr. Cartaret said to himself that the tune Alice was playing was an abominable tune and must be stopped at once.

He went into the drawing-room to stop it.

And Essy, in the kitchen, raised her head and dried her eyes on her ap.r.o.n.

"If you must make a noise," said Mr. Cartaret, "be good enough to make one that is less--disturbing."

He stood in the doorway staring at his daughter Alice.

Her excitement had missed by a hairsbreadth the spiritual climax. It had held itself in for one unspeakable moment, then surged, crowding the courses of her nerves. Beaten back by the frenzy of the Polonaise, it made a violent return; it rose, quivering, at her eyelids and her mouth; it broke, and, with a shudder of all her body, split itself and fell.

The Vicar stared. He opened his mouth to say something, and said nothing; finally he went out, muttering.

"Wisdom and patience. Wisdom and patience."

It was a prayer.

Alice trailed to the window and leaned out, listening for the sound of hoofs and wheels. Nothing there but the darkness and stillness of the moors. She trailed back to the Erard and began to play again.

This time it was Beethoven, the Pathetic Sonata.

IX

Mr. Cartaret sat in his study, manfully enduring the Pathetic Sonata.

He was no musician and he did not certainly know when Alice went wrong; therefore, except that it had some nasty loud moments, he could not honestly say that the First Movement was disturbing. Besides, he had scored. He had made Alice change her tune.

Wisdom and patience required that he should be satisfied, so far. And, being satisfied, in the sense that he no longer had a grievance, meant that he was very badly bored.

He began to fidget. He took his legs out of the fender and put them back again. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, but without relief. He turned over his _Spectator_ to see what it had to say about the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, and found that he was not interested in what it had to say. He looked at his watch and compared it with the clock in the faint hope that the clock might be behindhand.

The watch and clock both agreed that it was not a minute later than fifteen minutes to ten. A whole quarter of an hour before Prayer-time.

There was nothing but Prayer-time to look forward to.

He began to fidget again. He filled his pipe and thought better about smoking it. Then he rang the bell for his gla.s.s of water.

After more delay than was at all necessary Essy appeared, bringing the gla.s.s of water on a plate.

She came in, soft-footed, almost furtive, she who used to enter so suddenly and unabashed. She put the plate down on the roll-top desk and turned softly, furtively, away.

The Vicar looked up. His eyes were large and blue as suspicion drew in the black of their pupils.

"Put it down here," he said, and he indicated the ledge of the bureau.

Essy stood still and stared like a half-wild creature in doubt as to its way. She decided to make for the bureau by rounding the roll-top desk on the far side, thus approaching her master from behind.

"What are you doing?" said the Vicar. "I said, Put it down here."

Essy turned again and came forward, tilting the plate a little in her nervousness. The large blue eyes, the stern voice, fascinated her, frightened her.

The Vicar looked at her steadily, remorselessly, as she came.

Essy's lowered eyelids had kept the stain of her tears. Her thick brown hair was loose and rumpled under her white cap. But she had put on a clean, starched ap.r.o.n. It stood out stiffly, billowing, from her waist. Essy had not always been so careless about her hair or so fastidious as to her ap.r.o.ns. There was a little strained droop at the corners of her tender mouth, as if they had been tied with string. Her dark eyes still kept their young largeness and their light, but they looked as if they had been drawn tight with string at their corners too.

All these signs the Vicar noted as he stared. And he hated Essy. He hated her for what he saw in her, and for her buxom comeliness, and for the softness of her youth.

"Did I hear young Greatorex round at the back door this evening?" he said.

Essy started, slanting her plate a little more.

"I doan knaw ef I knaw, sir."

"Either you know or you don't know," said the Vicar.

"I doan know, I'm sure, sir," said Essy.

The Vicar was holding out his hand for his gla.s.s of water, and Essy pushed the plate toward him, so blindly and at such a perilous slant that the gla.s.s slid and toppled over and broke itself against the Vicar's chair.

Essy gave a little frightened cry.

"Clever girl. She did that on purpose," said the Vicar to himself.

Essy was on her knees beside him, picking up the bits of gla.s.s and gathering them in her ap.r.o.n. She was murmuring, "I'll mop it oop. I'll mop it oop."

"That'll do," he said roughly. "That'll do, I tell you. You can go."