Mary Wells

“ At Guildford station I gathered, after ignominious enquiries, that the Justins had booked to London. I had two days of nearly frantic inactivity at home, and then pretended business that took me to London, for fear that I should break out to my father. I came up revolving a dozen impossible projects of action in my mind. I had to get into touch with Mary, at that my mind hung and stopped. All through the twenty-four hours my nerves jumped at every knock upon my door; this might be the letter, this might be the telegram, this might be herself escaped and come to me. ”

“ But Mary, I urged, to forget Mary is a treason, an ingratitude, seeing that she loved me. But the stillness did not command me to forget her, but only to turn my face now to the great work that lies before mankind. And that work? That work, so far as your share goes, is first to understand, to solve, and then to achieve, to work out in the measure of yourself that torment of pity and that desire for order and justice which together saturate your soul. ”

“ It had occurred to me that if I could have Justin, Tarvrille, Guy or Philip traced I might get a clue to Mary's hiding-place. I remember a queer little office, a blusterous, frock-coated creature with a pock-marked face, iron-grey hair, an eyeglass and a strained tenor voice, who told me twice that he was a gentleman and several times that he would prefer not to do business than to do it in an ungentlemanly manner, and who was quite obviously ready and eager to blackmail either side in any scandal into which spite or weakness admitted his gesticulating fingers. ”

“ This would have outweighed a crime, and it made the wife's bowels yearn over the unfortunate girl. “Mary,” said she, “others must judge you; I am a wife, and can only see your fidelity to my poor husband. I don't know what I shall do without you, but I think it is my duty to send you to him if possible. You are sure he really loves you?”
“Me cross the seas after a young man?” said Mary Wells. ”

“ I felt I was taking up a weapon that Justin didn't deserve. Yet I argued with myself that the abduction of Mary justified any such course.
As I was still debating this I saw Philip. He was perhaps twenty yards ahead of me, he was paying off a hansom which had just put him down outside Blake's. "Philip," I cried, following him up the steps and overtaking him and seizing his arm as the commissionaire opened the door for him. "Philip! What have you people done with Mary? Where is Mary?"
He turned a white face to me. "How dare you," he said with a catch of the breath, "mention my sister?" ”

“ And perhaps in this story I have said enough for you to understand why Mary has identified herself with something world-wide, has added to herself a symbolical value, and why it is I find in the whole crowded spectacle of mankind, a quality that is also hers, a sense of fine things entangled and stifled and unable to free themselves from the ancient limiting jealousies which law and custom embody. For I know that a growing multitude of men and women outwear the ancient ways. ”

“ The color was creeping back into his face. Indignation had come into his voice, the first yellow lights of rising jealousy showed in his eyes.
"Stephen," I heard Mary say, "will you leave me to talk to my husband?"
"There is only one thing to do," I said. "What is the need of talking? We two are lovers, Justin." I spoke to both of them. "We two must go out into the world, go out now together. ”

“ And then, wrapped about in a dark velvet cloak, still in her white dinner dress, with shining, gleaming, glancing stones about her dear throat, warm and wonderful and glowing and daring, Mary came flitting out of the shadows to me.
"My dear," she whispered, panting and withdrawing a little from our first passionate embrace, "Oh my dear!... How did I come? Twice before, when I was a girl, I got out this way. By the corner of the conservatory and down the laundry wall. You can't see from here, but it's easy—easy. There's a tree that helps. ”

“ But I urged that that I could not do; there was the thought of Mary subjugated and weeping, the smarting memory of injury and defeat, the stains of subterfuge and discovery, the aching separation. No matter, the stillness answered, in the end all that is just to temper you for your greater uses.... I cannot forget, I insisted. Do not forget, but for the present this leads you no whither; this chapter has ended; dismiss it and turn to those other things. You are not only Stephen Stratton who fell into adultery; in these silences he is a little thing and far away ”

“ Justin walked with Lady Mary, and she was I saw an inch taller than his squat solidity. A tall lady in rose-pink had taken possession of Guy, Evesham and Lady Ladislaw made the two centres of a straggling group who were bandying recondite political allusions. Then came one or two couples and trios with nothing very much to say and active ears. Philip and I brought up the rear silently and in all humility. Even young Guy had gone over our heads. I was too full of a stupendous realization for any words. ”

“ Mrs. Bracken shrugged her shoulders. "It's the dumbwaiter," she yawned. "Your bird has gone up to Mr. Wells or possibly higher. If it's Mr. Wells I don't suppose you'll see the bird again. He's a very peculiar man."
Mary Rose did not wait to hear another word. With Aunt Kate's big blue and white checked apron on, the dish mop in her hand, and a great fear in her heart, she dashed up the stairs and pounded on the door of the apartment above. Mr. Wells came himself and if he had looked cross and forbidding the night before he looked a thousand times crosser and more forbidding now. ”

“ She had contrived a rapid indignation against Mary and myself.
"I didn't know Mary had had any child at all," I said.
"This makes two," said the Fürstin, and held up a brace of fingers, "with scarcely a year and a half between them. Not much more anyhow.... It was natural, I suppose. A natural female indecency. I don't blame her. When a woman gives in she ought to do it thoroughly. But I don't see that it leaves you much scope for philandering, Stephen, does it?... And there you are, and here is Rachel. And why don't you make a clean job of your life?..." ”

“ I perceived Mary's name flung to the four winds of heaven.
"You idiot, Philip!" I cried. "I don't know your sister. I've not seen her—scarcely seen her for years. [Pg 182] I ask you—I ask you for a match-box or something and you hit me."
"If you dare to speak to her——!"
"You fool!" I cried, going nearer to him and trying to make him understand. But he winced and recoiled defensively. "I'm sorry," I said to the commissionaire who was intervening. "Lord Maxton has made a mistake." ”

“ For unless you think of her as being a girl, if you let your present knowledge of her fill out this part in our story, you will fail to understand the proportions of these two in my life. So I shall write of her here as Rachel More, as if she were someone as [Pg 137] completely dissociated from yourself as Lady Mary; as if she were someone in the story of my life who had as little to do with yours.
I had met her in September. The house my father lived in is about twelve miles away from your mother's home at Ridinghanger, and I was taken over by Percy Restall in his motor-car. ”

“ And then Marjorie forced Mr. Magnet to introduce her to Mr. Bunford Paradise. She had a bright idea-61- of sitting between Prunella and Mary at the lunch table, but a higher providence had assigned her to a seat at the end between Julia—or was it Kate?—and Mr. Magnet. However, one of the undergraduates was opposite, and she saved herself from undertones by talking across to him boldly about Newnham, though she hadn't an idea of his name or college. From that she came to tennis. ”

“ I suppose I thought of Mary—just as I had left her—always."
I remained with my mind filled with confused images of Mary, memories, astonishment....
I perceived the Fürstin was talking.
"Maundering about," she was saying, "like a huntsman without a horse.... You've got work to do—blood in your veins. I'm not one of your ignorant women, Stephen. You ought to have a wife...."
"Rachel's too good," I said, at the end of a pause and [Pg 256] perceiving I had to say something, "to be that sort of wife."
"No woman's too good for a man," said the Fürstin von Letzlingen with conviction. ”

“ Wells!" Mary Rose took his hand and squeezed it. "That's a lot. I'm sure you can get a splendid bird."
"Well, get one then," snapped Mr. Wells.
"You mean for Becky?" Mary Rose could scarcely believe her two small ears. "I'll be glad to." She regarded him with an admiration that should have made him feel enveloped in a soft warm mantle. "I'll tell her it's a present from a kind gentleman who wants to be her friend. Sometime I'll take you to see her. What shall we name her bird? You think and I'll think and then tonight we can choose. It must have something to do with music, you know. ”

“ She greeted Justin's remark, I remember, with the little yelp of laughter that characterized that set. I think too there was someone else in the group; but I cannot clearly recall who....
Presently as I and Philip made unreal conversation together I saw Mary disengage herself and come towards us. It was as if a princess came towards a beggar. Absurd are the changes of phase between women and [Pg 66] men. A year or so ago and all of us had been but "the children" together ”

“ Filmer would permit THAT for a moment,” said Lady Mary.
“But if Mr. Filmer's nerve is run—It might even be dangerous for him to attempt—” Hickle coughed.
“It's just because it's dangerous,” began the Lady Mary, and felt she had made her point of view and Filmer's plain enough.
Conflicting motives struggled for Filmer.
“I feel I ought to go up,” he said, regarding the ground. He looked up and met the Lady Mary's eyes. “I want to go up,” he said, and smiled whitely at her. He turned towards Banghurst. ”

“ Then Guy was opening the door for her and she stood in the doorway. She was in dark furs wrapped about her, but in the instant I could see how ill she was and how broken. She came a step or so towards me and then stopped short, and so we stood, shyly and awkwardly under Guy and Tarvrille's eyes, two yards apart. "You see," she said, and stopped lamely.
"You and I," I said, "have to part, Mary. We—— We are beaten. Is that so?"
"Stephen, there is nothing for us to do. We've offended. We broke the rules. We have to pay." ”

“ The tall man with the nervous, irritable face and the little girl with the birdcage in her hand. She did not say that she had called him a crosspatch, and kindly Discretion whispered in Mr. Wells' ear that it would be wise to leave well enough alone. Without another word he stalked by Mary Rose down the stairs.
Mary Rose followed meekly. "It's a lucky thing, Jenny Lind, that you were not on his dumbwaiter. ”

“ A girl should be smaller than a man. You are a man, Stephen—almost.... You must be near six feet.... Here's Guy with the box of balls."
She flitted about the tennis court before me, playing with Philip against Guy and myself. She punished some opening condescensions with a wicked vigor—and presently Guy and I were straining every nerve to save the set. She had a low close serve I remember that seemed perfectly straightforward and simple, and was very difficult to return.
§ 6
All that golden summer on the threshold of my manhood was filled by Mary. I loved her with the love of a boy and a man. ”

“ Wells was really a little abashed.
[218] “Good boy!” cried Dr. Paul. “It takes an artist to do a thing up brown. You didn’t live four years in Paris for nothing, Marc.”
Mary Lee, with housewifely care, insisted that the remains of the feast should be packed away for future use and then while the older ladies rested under the shade of the trees, the younger ones declared for exploring the surroundings. They broke up into separate parties which went in different directions to meet later for the trip home.
Mr. Wells tossed his sketching kit into his canoe and looked a little hesitatingly at Nan. ”

“ Anthony, she went off with him to another room.
“I know a story,” began Cissy, but Janet Field, in Marybelle's absence, took the helm.
“No, Cissy,” she said lightly, glancing at Edith Wesley's white face, “no more stories to-night. I forbid it. Marybelle's announcement party mustn't be turned into a spookfest, And it's time for supper, anyway.”
“Supper, hooray!” cried Bellamy, “Nothing like foods to drive away spooks. Mrs. Wesley, come along o' me. A loaf of bread and a jug of wine will bring back the rose of youth to your pale cheeks.” ”

“ Marjorie had broiled the steak to the proverbial turn, fried the onions to an odoriferous brown, and made a potful of her celebrated coffee; and now, flushed with success and Hester’s fire, she sat on the edge of the kitchen table, her iron spoon still in her hand, like a scepter.
“Whe-e-w!” said Helen, coming out. “You must be cooking comparisons out here, they’re so odorous.”
“In onion is strength,” replied Betty.
“Why don’t you take something for that punning habit, Betty? Really, it’s getting worse, I think. Oh, I wish Nan and the Matron would come! I am so starved.” ”

“ He stood up and went to the hearthrug, and his mother reflected that this was exactly what all men did at just this phase of a discussion. Then things ceased to be sensible.
From overhead he said to her: “I want to get away from this complication, this servitude. I want to do some—some work. I want to get my mind clear and my hands clear. I want to study government and the big business of the world.”
“And she's in the way?”
He assented.
“You men!” said Lady Marayne after a little pause. “What queer beasts you are! Here is a woman who is kind to you. She's fond of you. ”