Chapter Thirteen.
Mrs Mallison Shocked.
Mrs Mallison possessed an insatiable curiosity. Its area, it is true, covered but a few square miles of country, for everything that happened outside Chumley was powerless to stir her to interest. Kingdoms might rise, kingdoms might fall, science might evolve the most marvellous of inventions, beneath a cataclysm of nature, whole provinces might be wrecked—Mrs Mallison listened to the announcement as she sipped her morning coffee, and murmured an automatic: “Dear! Dear! Tut! Tut!” the while she continued to ponder why Mrs Gainsby was hurrying to the early train wearing her best hat! Nothing that affected her neighbours was too trifling to engage her attention, and her mind, empty of so much, was a veritable storehouse for inconvenient numbers and dates. When the doctor’s chimney went on fire, she was able to declare that to her certain knowledge the sweep had not been on duty in that house since the third of March, the day of the blizzard, when Mrs Jones wanted him at the same time, because the weight of snow made her soot fall. The doctor’s wife had plainly been guilty of the folly of trying to save two-and-six. She knew to an hour the age of every one of the younger generations, and laboriously corrected lapses of memory on the part of relations or parents. It was impossible for one of her acquaintances to resurrect so much as a buckle without her instant and cordial recognition. “And the paste buckle that you had on your purple silk all those years ago—how well it comes in! ‘Keep a thing a dozen years, and it comes into fashion again,’ as my old mother used to say.”
She remembered the Vicar’s sermons when he preached them after a lapse of years, and the good man chid himself because the fact brought annoyance, rather than gratification. Not for the world would he have put it into words, but deep in his heart lay the thought that it was useless to remember precepts, which were not put into practice.
Within her own home Mrs Mallison’s curiosity reached its acutest pitch, so that it became sheer torture to her to be shut out from even the smallest happening. To overhear tags of conversation was insufferable, unless she were instantly supplied with the context. Thus to come into a room and hear a daughter say, “I always thought so,” was to know no peace until she had been enlightened as to the context of the statement. “What have you always thought, Teresa? Teresa, what do you always think?”
“Nothing, mother.”
“My dear! Nonsense. I heard you. As I opened the door I distinctly heard you say so. What were you talking about?”
“Nothing, mother. Nothing worth repeating, at any rate. You wouldn’t be interested.”
“My dear, I am always interested. How could I not be interested in my children’s thoughts? Wait till you are a mother yourself... You can’t possibly have forgotten in this short time. What do you always think?”
Then Teresa would set her lips and look obstinate, and Mary would come to the rescue.
“Teresa said that she always thought silk wore better than satin.”
There was a ferocious patience in the tone in which Mary responded to these calls, it was the patience of a wild beast which must submit or starve, but behind the submission a discerning observer might have observed the teeth and the claw. But then no discerning observer troubled about Mary Mallison. She was one of the women on whom the world turns its back.
As might naturally be expected, the arrival of the post-bag furnished Mrs Mallison with some of the most thrilling moments of her day, and her interest in the correspondence of others was even keener than in her own. If the recipient was out at the time the letter was delivered, she examined postmark and writing to discover the writer, and then set to work to anticipate the contents.
“Mrs Fenton writing to Mary... What can she have to say?... She’s at home, from the postmark... They never correspond. Dear me! ... Most peculiar! Perhaps it’s a subscription... Perhaps it’s a bazaar... Mary did once help her in a sale of work. Baskets, I remember—a stall of baskets. She wore a brown dress. She must certainly refuse. Too many calls at home. What does she want gadding over to Mayfield?... That! Madam Rose’s bill again for Teresa. The third time. Papa must speak to her. Gives the house a bad name. And... er... what’s this? I know the writing—do I know it? Is it a man or a woman? They all write alike nowadays. No crest. On such a good paper one would expect a crest. I must explain to Teresa that on no account can I allow her to correspond with men... Perhaps it is a schoolfellow...”
It was at the breakfast table one morning that the great news came, and it was imparted in a dull, legal-looking envelope addressed to the eldest daughter. Mrs Mallison’s eye caught the lawyer’s name on the flap of the envelope, and pounced on the significance.
“Ratcliffe and Darsie—Miss Brewster’s lawyers. She’s left you a legacy. I expected it, of course. Quite the right thing. Her own godchild, but I did not think we should hear so soon. Dear me! How much? She was not rich, so you can’t expect a large sum... Twenty pounds perhaps, to buy a ring. Most kind. Possibly a hundred... Mary! We are all waiting! Why don’t you speak? Quite a long letter. Read it out—read it out! Most inconsiderate to keep us waiting. How much is the legacy?”
“There is no legacy.”
Mrs Mallison’s breath forsook her, for it might be the quarter of a minute, then returned with renewed force and violence.
“What? Impossible! None? Then why write? A lawyer’s letter costs six and eightpence. There must be a reason. Mary—I insist!”
Mary lifted her colourless eyes, and looked her mother in the face.
“Miss Brewster left me no legacy. She left me her principal. Everything she had. I shall have five hundred a year.”
“God bless my soul!” cried the Major loudly. Teresa flushed scarlet over face and neck, and stared with distended eyes.
“Oh, Mary! I’m glad! How ripping.”
“Ripping, indeed. Is that the best word you can find for your sister’s good fortune?” Mrs Mallison raised her eyes in ecstatic rejoicing to the electric light ornament which decorated the centre of the ceiling. “Thank God that I have lived to see this day! I told papa when we chose her as godmother that it might be for the child’s benefit. Not likely to marry, and a settled income. We thought of your welfare, Mary, in your long clothes and see the result. And I made a point of inviting her once a year. She was devoted to you as a child—you remember the pink corals? but of late with her ill-health we have fallen apart, and she seemed indifferent. Nothing, even on your birthdays. Well! Well! what news! What thankfulness. All things work together. Five—hundred—a—year!” Her large body expanded in beatific realisation. “Five hundred—pounds. It’s marvellous how much a few hundreds mean after necessities have been provided. As I have said a hundred times—after a thousand, every hundred does the work of two... What about a brougham? We have always needed a second carriage. Papa and I are getting too old to drive in the open in winter, and Teresa goes out so much at night. It would be only the initial expense, for Johnson could do the work. He might need a new livery. And the little conservatory opening out of the drawing-room... That has been a long-felt want. So cheerful,—and you could look after the plants, dear. Such agreeable work! ... Five hundred,—about forty pounds a month, ten pounds a week, nearly thirty shillings a day. My dear, what riches! Quite a little millionaire... So apropos too, with a wedding in prospect. It would have been a strain out of a regular income, and one hesitates to break in on capital. Perhaps your rich sister will give you your trousseau, Teresa, who knows! Indeed I feel sure she will wish it. It doesn’t seem suitable for one sister to have so much, and the other nothing. You may not care to halve it, Mary, perhaps halving would be too much, but a hundred a year for Teresa. Oh, certainly a hundred. It is so nice for a young wife to have pin-money of her own... What about a brass tablet in the church? Quite a nice one for forty pounds, and she worshipped there in her youth... We must wear black, of course. Handsome black, only suitable. We could run up to town. Ah, Mary!” her voice grew arch and playful, “if it were not spring, I would remind you of my ambition for sables! Nothing looks so well as handsome black and a sable set. Never mind! Never mind. Christmas is coming! Dear me, quite a Portunatus cap! Only to wish, and the thing appears... Papa, you must tell Mary what you want next!”
Then Mary spoke, and if a peal of thunder had crashed through the sunlit room, the shock could not have been half so great.
“I shall not give,” said Mary slowly, “one penny to anybody. I shall keep every farthing for myself.”
Major Mallison gaped, Teresa screwed up her face and stared at her sister with a vivid kindling of interest. At last! At last! the dormant spirit had roused itself from its lethargy. Teresa felt a sympathy, an excitement, which had no element of self. She braced her knees under the table, and sent forth a telegraphic message of support.
“Go it, Mary!”
“Mary,” gasped Mrs Mallison deeply, “have you gone mad?”
“Oh, no,” said Mary calmly. “I may have been mad before. I’ve sometimes fancied I was, but I’m sane now, I’m more than sane... I’m free! I’ve been only a slave—a white slave.”
Mrs Mallison cast an agonised glance at the sideboard and bookcases, as if terrified of offending their susceptibilities. She held up protesting hands.
“Silence! Mary... Have you no decency?”
“I’m sorry if the word shocks you. Perhaps it would be better to say a useful maid. I’ve been a useful maid at thirty pounds a year, and no holiday nor nights out. I’ve done what I’ve been told to do, from morning till night, and from night till morning when it has been necessary, but I’ve had no life of my own. I’m thirty-two, and I’ve never even invited a friend to tea without first having to ask permission. I have no corner of my own to which I can invite a friend—not a corner in the world—except a tireless bedroom. Every servant in the house has had more freedom than I have had. I have not been free even to think. It was useless, for what I thought was never noticed. Nobody troubled about what I thought. I was just Mary—a useful machine. Nobody takes any notice of a machine, except to keep it oiled. Nobody expects it to be sad, or in pain, or lonely, or discouraged, or tired of turning round and round in the same small space. Nobody suspects it of having a heart... but it has all the same, and when it has a chance of breaking free—it does not let it go. This money is my chance. A woman brought up as I have been is powerless without money, and I have had none. I’ve never had a penny piece in my life for which I’ve not had to say thank you. The money you have given me has never been looked upon as my right, as payment for work... yet I have worked hard. I have given you my whole life.”
“You have done your duty in the position in which it has pleased God to place you,” said Mrs Mallison with dignity. As Mary’s excitement had increased, she had grown quieter, and her face showed signs of mental shock. Not the news of the legacy itself had been so startling as this sudden outbreak on the part of the silent, patient daughter. Nor was her distress in any sense affected. According to her lights she had been a good mother, careful of colds and draughts, of food and raiment. Five minutes ago she would have declared her conscience to be free of reproach so far as Mary was concerned; it was paralysing to discover that she had been looked upon as a heartless task-mistress. Her exultation of a moment before was replaced by pain and discomfort, and her voice took the deeper tone of earnestness.
“You have fulfilled your duty in the place in which it has pleased God to place you... and have done the work He set you to do.”
“Are you so sure of that?” Mary asked, and Mrs Mallison had an agonised conviction that the girl was going to turn atheist into the bargain!
“Then why did He make me with a woman’s heart, with a woman’s natural longing? Why did He give me the instinct to crave for someone of my own, who would put me first, instead of nowhere at all. Someone who would care. And it isn’t only people that a woman wants,—it’s things! What had I of my own? The clothes I wear. Nothing more. No pauper in the land is poorer than I have been! If this is my appointed place and I have done my duty in it, why am I so empty and tired? Poor Mary Mallison! whom everyone pities, and nobody wants. Oh, yes! you may think I don’t know how people talk of me, but I do know! You say it yourself quite often. ‘Poor Mary.’ Why am I poor Mary... whose fault is it that I have missed my chance?”
“I think you are forgetting yourself, Mary. You talk very strangely, very—indelicately, I must say. I suppose you mean that you are not married. You can hardly call that my fault!”
“I am not so sure. What chance did you give me? If I’d been a boy you would have sent me to college, and paid money to give me a start, but I was only a girl, and it was cheaper to have a governess than to send me to a good school. So I was educated at home, and made no friends. That meant no visits, no change, but just Chumley always Chumley, and the five or six young men I’d known all my life. I could count up on two hands all the marriageable men I have met in the last ten years. It bored you to entertain, so we had no young people here till Teresa came home. I was not pretty nor clever, but I should have made a good wife. Some man might have loved me... If you had given me a chance I might have been happy now, living in my own home.”
There was a dead silence. Mrs Mallison was too shocked to speak. Of all her emotions this was predominant. She was shocked. Shocked that a spinster daughter should openly regret marriage and a mate, shocked that such feelings should find vent in words, shocked that a man—albeit her own husband—should be present to hear such sentiments emerge from virgin lips. Shocked for Teresa, the bride, down whose cheeks large tears were rolling. Mrs Mallison believed them to be tears of shame, but in reality they betokened the purest sympathy and regret.
Major Mallison stared with glassy eyes. Suddenly he cleared his throat and spoke, and the sound of his voice caused yet another shock to the hearers. Another dumb creature had found his voice.
“The girl is right,” he said. “She speaks the truth. I wish she had spoken before.” He paused for a moment painfully rumpling the tablecloth. “It would have been kinder to speak out, Mary. I should have endeavoured to meet you. But thirty-two is not old. You can still enjoy your life. As for the money, I wish you all to understand one thing: I require no help, and I accept no help. What is necessary and suitable for my household, I can supply. I have done so in the past, and can do so for the future. Your fortune is your own, Mary. Do with it as you please. We need no contribution. You hear that, Margaret? You understand?”
“Yes, Henry, I understand. I am learning to understand a great many things this morning.”
The old man rose feebly, and stood plucking at the edge of the tablecloth. It was evident that there was something more which he was trying to say. Mary looked up, and their eyes met.
“All these years,” said her father slowly, “while you have been silent, running after your mother, serving us all, appearing so patient,—has there been bitterness in your heart, Mary? Bitterness and rebellion?”
The two pairs of eyes held one another in a steady gaze.
“Yes,” Mary said.
“Ah!” the Major winced. “That hurts me,” he said slowly. “That hurts me, Mary!”
He turned and left the room. Mrs Mallison stood up in her turn, and began rolling up her napkin before putting it into its silver ring. She reserved her parting shot until her husband was out of hearing.
“Well, Mary, I hope you are satisfied. You have turned our rejoicings into bitterness and revilings, and sorely hurt and distressed your poor father. I fear your fortune will bring you no blessing.”
The door closed loudly, and the sisters were left alone, abashed and discomfited. When our minds are overflowing with the consciousness of our own grievances, it is always irritating to be forced to realise that there are two sides to every question, and that we ourselves are not altogether without blame. Mary Mallison had so long been in subjection to her parents, that the consciousness of their serious displeasure overwhelmed for the moment the smart of her own injuries. She was still obstinate, still determined, but her conscience was pricked, and she was unheroically afraid.
“Oh, Trissie... they are cross! Do you think they will ever forgive me?”
“Don’t be a rotter, Mary,” the younger sister cried scornfully. “I was thankful to hear you assert yourself at last. For goodness’ sake don’t give one bleat, and then relapse back into the old rut. Of course they are cross! What else did you expect? Did you expect them to be pleased? If you are going to break loose and lead an independent life you must be strong enough not to mind crossness.”
“Yes, but I can’t, and besides—father was sad! That’s worse than being cross. I felt miserable when he said that!”
“Well! he was right!” Teresa pronounced with characteristic certainty. “It was sneakish to go on pretending.—It wasn’t patience at all, it was sheer funk. It would have been better for you, and everyone concerned, if you’d spoken out years ago. You would have had more freedom, and mother would have been less of a bully.”
“It would have been better if I’d been born with a different disposition, a disposition which would have let me speak,” Mary said bitterly. “I am a coward, as you say, and nothing but a shock like this morning’s news could have wound me up to speak. It seems hard that people should have such different dispositions.”
“Humph!” Teresa mumbled vaguely. She was not interested in the difference of temperament; she was interested in Mary’s fortune, and how she was going to use it. She pushed aside her cup and plate, leant her arms on the table, and cupped her chin in her hands.
“Look here, Mary—what are you going to do?”
“I’m going away.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know! Anywhere. London. Paris. It doesn’t matter very much. I want just to be away from Chumley, and to be free. To go where I like, and do as I like.”
“Alone?”
Mary’s face twitched.
“I have no friends.”
“You have acquaintances. They would be glad... lots of people would be glad to go with you.”
“No! They are part of the old life. They would stare and take notes. They would write home and gossip. It would be no use going away—I should not escape. The old atmosphere would be round me all the time. I shall go alone.”
Teresa sat silent, striving to grasp the extraordinary idea of Mary on her own, Mary going forth into the world, staying in hotels, wandering about bustling streets, alone, always alone... There was something pathetic in the prospect which pierced even to the preoccupied, girlish heart. She frowned, and racked her brains for illuminating suggestions. Where could Mary go? What could Mary do? To stay alone in an hotel, with no occupation to help one through the aimless hours, would be desolation, yet the mental searchings brought no solution. Honestly, Teresa could not think of one thing outside the Chumley radius, in which Mary took a flicker of interest. In imagination she entered a great restaurant, heard the babble of voices, the flare of the band, and beheld in a corner the dun-coloured figure of Mary, seated in solitary state at a flower-decked table. She saw the other visitors stream forth to their various pleasures, and Mary creep silently up the stairs. She saw Mary’s face peering disconsolately through dusty panes.
Breed a bird in a cage, and rear it there, and at the age of maturity throw open the door. The bird will fly and as it flies it will sing. It has its moment of joy, but when the moments have passed into days, its lifeless body falls to the ground. Liberty may come too late.
Teresa looked at her sister with puzzled, unhappy eyes.
“Mary! I don’t like it. You ought not to go alone. Those big places can be so desolate. You see all the other people talking and laughing together, and feel like a pelican in the wilderness. What would you do from morning till night? Don’t think I’m hinting; I wouldn’t come with you if you asked me, because of Dane, but do take someone! If you go alone, you’ll be bored to death.”
Mary rose from the table, the precious envelope in her hand, and turned towards the door.
“Very well, then,” she said quietly, “I will be bored. But I’ll be bored in my own way.”