Mary Cholmondeley

“ He shut the door, said "Home" to the coachman, and turned away.
The carriage drove off.
Then something in Marion snapped. Her other self, the poor woman in her whom she had denied and starved and brow-beaten, pounced upon her and called out suddenly, desperately:
"Forgive him. What is life without him? Think of the last ten years. Has there been one day in all those grinding years when you have not longed to see him? Has there ever been one day when you would not have given up your ease and luxury for a cottage with him? And now he has come back into your life. He still loves you. ”

“ Many men had wished to marry Aunt Emmy; not only sedentary professional men in long frock-coats, full to the brim of the best food, like Uncle Tom; but nice, lean, hungry-looking, open-air men who were majors, or country squires, or something interesting of that kind, whose clothes sat well on them, and who drew up in the Row on little skittish, curveting polo-ponies when Aunt Emmy and I walked there. ”

“ But others go through life, and spend themselves on it, piece by piece, with ardour as they go. These are the teachers—only they never teach. They know. If we want to learn anything, we can watch them. And some of us, again—and this is the hardest fate of all—come into life inadequately equipped, not provisioned for a prolonged journey. What little we have, and what little there is of us, we expend on the first part of life, and having nothing left for middle age.
Such a woman was Marion. She had talent, and she had, besides—as the manager beside her had divined—one live play in her. ”

“ I am never believed now. And I don't care if I'm not. I don't deserve to be. But I suppose you can see that I was not always a tramp on the highway. And, at any rate, that is what I am now, and what I shall remain, unless I drift into prison again, which God forbid, for I should suffocate in a cell after the life in the open air which I am accustomed to."
She shivered a little, as if she who seemed devoid of fear quailed at the remembrance of her cell.
"You are wondering how I have fallen so low," she said. "Do you remember Kipling's lines—
"We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung? ”

“ Marion had the theatre to herself except for a few whisperers in the back row of the stalls—her maid, an attendant, one or two actors of minor parts who did not appear in the first act, and a few costumiers.
It was fiercely cold, and she had not slept for several nights. She wished she had never been born.
A magnificent-looking woman, wearing her chin tilted slightly upwards, was squeezing herself and an immense fur coat towards her along the stalls, and sat down beside her. This was Lenore, the leading lady. ”

“ But Aunt Emmy had not moved mentally by a hair's-breadth. All her expansion, if expansion it could be called, had taken form in her house and garden. I had not been a week under her roof before I found that Mr. Kingston occupied exactly the same position in her life as he had done in Pembridge Square. She had brought down her romance to adorn her new home just as she had brought down Ole Scorpio, in cotton wool. Each had their niche. ”

“ How Miss Collett could! How anybody could! Yet Uncle Tom always talked as if he had only to choose among the flower of English womanhood, and the stouter and more repellent he grew the more communicative and conscientious he became about his fear of raising expectations in female bosoms which he might not be able to gratify. ”

“ The worst of it is that with the academic or clerical prig, when the mind has long been permitted to run in a deep, platitudinous groove from which it is at last powerless to escape, the resemblance to a prig in fiction is sometimes more than fanciful. It is real. For there is no doubt that prigs have a horrid family likeness to each other, whether in books or in real life. I have sometimes felt as the puzzled mother of some long-lost Tichborne might feel. Each claimant to the estates in turn seems to acquire a look of the original because he is a claimant. ”

“ She poor soul—poor soul—on the lowest.
The clock on the mantelpiece chimed eleven.
She started slightly, looked at it, and then at me, as if uncertain of her surroundings, and the shrewd, sardonic look came back to her face.
"I am keeping you up," she said, rising. "I think your strong coffee has gone to my head. This outburst of autobiography is a poor return for all your kindness. I had no idea it was so late or that I could be so garrulous, and I must make a very early start to-morrow. Shall I go into the kitchen and put on my own clothes again? They must be quite dry by now." ”

“ I dare say I have never felt it, though I should have liked to take care of Lenore, and not let her work so hard, and make a garden for her. She loves flowers and running water. I made the garden just on the chance, but she has never seen it. Down in Sussex it is, with a little old-world cottage in it. It is a pretty place. Pergola; small cascade with rustic bridge; fishpond, with green-tiled floor to show up the gold-fish. And a rose garden. I should have liked her to see it. But she and Delacour! ”

“ And sure enough, in a broken shaft of sunshine which straggled out for a moment, I saw two dark figures steal towards the cottage under cover of the wall.
"Why are they there?" I said, gaping at such a strange sight. For I had been many months at Rufford, and I had never seen a policeman.
"They are lying in wait for some one," she said.
It flashed back across my mind how at luncheon that day the vicar had said that a female convict had escaped from Ipswich gaol, and had been traced to Bealings, and, it was conjectured, was lurking in the neighbourhood of Woodbridge. ”

“ I have not found life an ardent feast of tumultuous joy. But I do realise that it has been embellished by the acquaintance of a larger number of delightful prigs than falls to the lot of most. I have much to be thankful for. Having got hold of the character of this lady, I piloted her through courtship and marriage. I gleefully invented all her sayings on these momentous occasions, and described the wedding and the abhorrent bridegroom with great minuteness. ”

“ She was not my real aunt, but her father was my great-uncle, and I always called her Aunt Emmy. Great-uncle Thomas and Uncle Tom were persons to be avoided, stout, heavy, bullet-headed, bull-necked, throat-clearing men, loud nose-blowers, loud soup-eaters, who reeked of tobacco when it [108] was my horrid duty to kiss them, and who addressed me in jocular terms when they remembered my existence, of which I was always loth to remind them. With these two horrors, whom she loved, Aunt Emmy lived. ”

“ Now, how about Colonel Stoddart?"
My heart beat suddenly. I was beginning to see life—at last.
"There is nothing to say about him," said Aunt Emmy.
"A good chap, and a gentlemanly chap," said Uncle Tom urbanely, leaning back in his chair. "Eton, the 'varsity, and all that sort of thing. Quite one of ourselves. Old family, and a warm man. And suitable in age. My age. Thirty-nine. (Uncle Tom was really forty-one.) You're no chicken yourself, you know, Emmy. Thirty-eight, though I own you don't look it, my dear. Well, what's the matter with Colonel Stoddart, I should like to know?" ”

“ The violins caught up the words and dinned them over and over again into Marion's ears. Women like Maggie, women [160] with deep hearts like herself—for was not Maggie herself?—they always suffered, always suffered, always!—said the violins.
The manager suddenly appeared in front of the curtain and walked swiftly over the little bridge from the stage to the stalls. He was a small, sturdy, thin-lipped, choleric man, who looked as if he were made up of energy; energy distilled and bottled. ”

“ The following year I suddenly married a soldier, the only young man I knew, and I knew him very slightly, and went out to India with him. I did not forget Aunt [129] Emmy, we corresponded regularly; but I was young and my life was a very full one. I had seen nothing of the world till I married. I had a child. The years rushed past, joyful, miserable, vivid, surprising, happy years, in spite of the fact that my husband was not remarkably like Lord K——in appearance, and not in the least like the "plaister saint" with whom I had hurried to the altar on such slight provocation. ”

“ Don't go back to this wandering, [71] aimless life. Work for others, interest in others, that is what you need, what I need, what we all need to take us out of ourselves, to make us forget our own misery."
"I have half forgotten mine already," she said. "To-night I remembered it again. But I have long since put it from my mind. I think the moment for a change of clothing in the kitchen has arrived."
She spoke quietly, but as if her last word were final. I found it impossible to continue the subject.
"You will never escape in those clothes," I said. "You haven't the ghost of a chance. ”

“ The life of contemplation and meditation is more suited to my highly strung nature than that of adventure and intrigue.
My servant brought in the lamp, and I hurriedly sat on the key while she did so. [43] Then she drew the curtains in the little houseplace, locked the outer door, and went back to the kitchen.
There are two doors to my cottage—the front door with the porch leading to the lane, and the back door out of the scullery which opens into my little slip of garden. At the bottom of the garden is a disused stable, utilised by me to store wood in, and old boxes. ”

“ No one has ever injured me. But if I had the cruellest in the world, I would not condemn him, if he were a morphia maniac, to sudden enforced abstinence and prison life. And I could not die. I am very strong by nature. I could neither die nor live. ”

“ She was caked with mud and dirt from head to foot, an appalling figure in the lamplight. The rain dripped from her hair, her sinister clothing, her whole person. She looked as if she must have hidden in a wet ditch. I gazed horror-struck at my speckless matting and pale Oriental rugs. I had never allowed a child or dog in the house for fear of the matting, except of course my poor Lindo, who had died a few months previously, and whom I had taught to wipe his feet on the mat. ”

“ You see, mother was dead, and your Uncle Thomas had become more dependent on me than he was quite aware until there was a question of my leaving him. Men are like that, my love. They need a woman all the time to look after them, and listen to their talk, and keep vexatious things away. And he was always a most tender father. He said he could not bear the thought of his only daughter roughing it in Australia. He said he would withdraw his opposition if—if—Bob (Bob was his name) came home with a sufficient fortune to keep me in comfort in England. ”

“ Marion did not speak. She was horrified.
"She would marry Delacour," said the manager. "I begged her to marry me. Over and over again I asked her. But she said I could do without her, and Delacour couldn't. They fell in love with each other at this very play when it was first put on. I saw it coming, and it spelt disaster for her. But it was the real thing; and when the real thing comes, we all have to knock under to it. It doesn't come often. Most of us are quite incapable of it. ”

“ It was at luncheon, to which I came in late. Uncle Thomas was in bed with gout, and Uncle Tom did not consider me of enough consequence to matter. He had not realised even now that I was a grown-up woman. Looking back after all these years, I am not sure that he was not astute enough to hope that I might prove an ally.
"What you have got to do, Emmy, is to think of the future," he was saying, scooping all the visible eggs out of an aspic pie. "It's no manner of use living only in the present. You think this comfortable home will go on for ever, where you have lived in luxury. ”

“ She is dying, and they both know it. But she does not mind. She has saved him. That was the point. She is perfectly happy. She does not care about anything else. He is a great actor. She has lived to see him recognised. Some women wouldn't have risked it. But I suppose a woman will take any risk if she loves, at least, women like Lenore will."
"And does he—in spite of this—does he love her still?" said Marion, with dry lips.
The manager was silent.
"I did not think any one could care as much for Lenore as I did," he said at last, "but Delacour does—he cares more." ”

“ I ventured one day. "Perhaps he wishes to forget it for a little while."
"My dear," said Aunt Emmy rebukingly, "when you are as old as I am, you will know that the only thing men really care [145] to talk of is their business. My dear father always talked of stocks, and shares, and—and bonuses. He said I could not understand about them, as indeed I could not, but it interested me very much to listen. And your Uncle Tom, as you may remember"—I did indeed—"did the same. It is natural that Mr. Kingston's mind should dwell on agricultural subjects." ”

“ To associate oneself with the sins of others, to show one's own scar, is not this sometimes the only way to comfort those overborne in the battle of life? Had I not chronicled my own failing in the matter of truthfulness when I foolishly and wickedly took blame on myself for the fault of one dear to me, in my first book, "With Broken Wing"? ”

“ It is perhaps impossible for those who do not write fiction to form any conception how easily an erroneous idea gains credence that some one has been "put in a book"; or, if the idea has once been entertained, how impossible it is to eradicate it. ”