§ ii
She went home, to dress for a euchre party which was to be given in her honour. She felt numb and cold, ready to die of despair. Everyone was against her. No one understood, no one cared, what she suffered. She had appealed in vain to all the people who loved her, and they had all said—“Continue to suffer. It is best for you.”
She had gone to her father for his support in the piano battle.
“Buy me a piano of my own, Father!” she had entreated. “Send it to me as a present. Then the disagreeable old thing can’t object.”
“But, my dear!” said her father. “When in Rome—you know! If I were you, I should avoid conflicts. There’s no use exasperating your mother-in-law. The wisest course is to conciliate.”
She had gone to her mother, to pour out all her misery at living under the domination of a strange woman, at not being mistress in her husband’s house. But her mother had no comfort to give.
“I don’t see what’s to be done, chickabiddy,” she said. “You can’t expect Gilbert to leave his mother alone at her age. It can’t be cured, so it must be endured.”
Gilbert was still more hopeless. When he saw her dejected, weary, full of nervous excitement and irritability after her long day of emptiness, his remedy was the theatre; and when even that didn’t enliven her, he too became irritable. He was beginning to lose patience with her, he was willing now to admit that she was peculiar. And he felt that he was justified....
Justified in doing things which she never mentioned to anyone. They had had quarrels, the very memory of which appalled her. She remembered coarse words he had used, brutal expressions, sneers, gibes. He was always very sorry, always apologized, he said he had the devil’s own temper; but Claudine could not forget them. She was neither quick to anger nor quick to forgive. When her temper was aroused, she was cold and contemptuous and often childishly indignant, but she was never fierce, never cruel. She could not understand or forgive his absolute loss of dignity.
And she could not understand what he called his weakness! She remembered the first time he had revealed it as one remembers a nightmare, the very thought of it brought back the incredulous horror she had felt. He hadn’t come home to dinner that night, he had sent a telegram, “Detained on business. Will not be home till late,” and Claudine and the old lady had sat down at the table alone, in that sort of hostile intimacy which had grown upon them. After dinner they had gone up to sit in the old lady’s room where it would be cosier for two lone women, the old lady with a book and Claudine with the fancy-work she had taken to in desperation.
Just before bed-time Gilbert came in, flushed, jolly, anxious to talk. He had sat down and entertained them with a long account of the dinner he had attended, and the speeches he had heard.
“Best thing for business,” he said. “You get to know just the men you need to know. It was an impromptu thing, but wonderfully well done.”
And he told them everything he had had to eat.
“And by the way,” he said, “They had some oyster pâtés that were the best things of their kind I’ve ever eaten, bar none. I spoke to the waiter, and he packed me a couple in a box and I brought them home. They’re downstairs with my overcoat. Will you get them, Claudine?”
She did so, and he opened the box and took the pâtés out.
“Just try this!” he said, offering one to Claudine.
“I couldn’t eat it now, thank you, Gilbert,” she said. “To-morrow I’d enjoy—”
“No! Nonsense! Eat it now! I want you to!”
She shook her head, smiling.
“To oblige me!” said Gilbert in a grieved voice.
The idea of gracefully yielding, of doing something she didn’t want to do, never occurred to Claudine.
“No, thank you!” she said, more firmly.
“I insist!” said Gilbert.
That made her laugh, she thought he was rather funny, anyway, with his excessive garrulousness and his oyster Pâtés. She was about to answer him with a good-humoured joke, when she saw his face suddenly change, and grow convulsed with rage. She hardly heard what he said, she was so startled. He jumped to his feet and addressed her in a furious trembling voice, and suddenly took the pâtés, on their little frilled paper plates, and threw them on the carpet and stamped on them.
His mother got up and came near to him.
“Gilbert! Gilbert!” she whispered, patting his shoulder. “You’d better get to bed, my boy!”
He threw a savage glance at Claudine and walked unsteadily away. The old lady bent over her cherished carpet, regarding the damage with distress.
“Dear! Dear!” she said. “I don’t know....”
She never looked at Claudine, standing behind her, wringing her hands, her teeth chattering with a sort of nervous chill.
“I don’t know!” she said again. “I suppose I’d better leave it so until the morning. Then in the daylight, perhaps....”
As she straightened herself she met the eyes of her daughter-in-law.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Let me stay with you!” cried Claudine.
The old lady looked at her with frigid contempt.
“You go to Gilbert!” she said. “Your place is with your husband.”
“No!” cried Claudine, desperately. “I can’t!”
“You go!” said the old lady. “Quick! I’ll have none of this under my roof.”
And she went so far as to take her by the arm and hurry her out of the room. But there was no cause to be worried about any further scene; Gilbert had gone to sleep, fully dressed, on the bed.