A lady and her husband

by Amber Reeves Blanco White

If Mary had been another business man James would have cursed her and put her out of his mind until the moment had come for decisive action. But she was not a business man, she was his wife; his whole moral universe was sensitive to her behaviour.

He could not believe in the depth and reality of Mary's feelings. He saw her merely determined to get her own way, and moved by a woman's natural love of scenes. To him the effort she had made, when she gave up her scheme for increasing the waitresses' wages, had seemed perfectly natural. He had imagined that his arguments had shown her how foolish she had been. He had no time himself for brooding over emotions, and he felt no sympathy for people who did. Now, laboriously, he thought out a test for Mary. If she sulked because of what he had done, it was tiresome, but she was within her rights. If she allowed such a thing to affect their business relations she would be palpably, outrageously in the wrong. He was not aware, unfortunate smarting man, how greatly he longed to put her in the wrong. The idea of a business interview, which she could hardly refuse to grant, revealed itself to him merely as a means for making her treat him in a normal manner. He would be very kind and patient, and after a little she would forget that they weren't on their usual terms. He would give her, to begin as well as end with kindness, a whole day to recover herself and to get rid of her headache. For a whole day he would allow this wretched state of things to go on. For a whole day the head of the house would remain downstairs in disgrace, deprived of the pleasant greeting and intercourse that were his by right. If he had ever known anything of Mary that could hardly fail to impress her, and the scheme, as he would unfold it to her, could hardly fail either to touch her imagination. She would be pleased by his proposal to give all the girls a day's wages to celebrate it. He need not worry, everything would come right, but he could not shake off an annoying uneasiness.

Mary, meanwhile, was unaware of his chagrin and his penance. In twenty-four hours, then, he was going to force on her another discussion—in twenty-four hours the fight would begin again. The talking, the appeals to her feelings—she seemed to remember nothing of her life with James but endless hours of talking. And this time the talking would be of vital importance. Somehow, before it began, she must ensure that she should not give way. Somehow she must arm herself. And she did not even know where to look for her information. Miss Percival was gone, even Rosemary and Anthony were gone. It was impossible that she should make up her mind in a day, and a day that might well be interrupted, if James's spirits rose, by baskets of flowers.

It became very plain to her that the present state of affairs was unendurable. She must do something. She could not remain like this, lurking in her rooms, quivering with the dread of hearing James's hand on the door. She must have, for one thing, more time—time to recover herself, time to decide her duty towards the girls. She must have quiet too, in which she could think. For the last few months she had thrown herself, deliberately, on her feelings. Well, this was what her feelings had done for her. Now she must think, not with the happy excitement of the autumn, but slowly, painfully, confusedly, she must think herself out of this tangle of suffering. She must shut out the feelings that clamoured at her mind, anger, disgust, probably, if she knew it, jealousy; she must detach herself, she must consider herself as if she were another woman. It would not be easy to do. She had cherished her feelings, loved them, indulged them, until they were not easy to deny, but no other way would be fair either to herself or to James.

To succeed she must relieve herself from the burden of fear that lay on her as long as she was in James's house. While he might come upon her at any moment her feelings were her master. She could not but shrink from him, she could not see the lilies and the pink ribbon of his basket without disgust. She must go away. It was not a new idea. It had been in her mind the day before, and that morning when she awoke. Then she had put it aside as too strange to be worthy of scrutiny. Now, after the added pressure of James's letter, it did not seem strange, but familiar and feasible. "I could do it," she told herself. Then for a moment her thoughts seemed to stop, to shrink in fear. When the fear passed she knew that she had decided. She would go.

Now that her decision was made its grounds came very clearly before her mind. There was no other way of escape from the ugliness of foolish, wordy quarrels between her and James. She could not think and make an important choice under such influences. The harshness and resentment of dispute would warp her judgment and twist her estimates.

A knock at the door made her start violently for fear lest it might be James who had changed his mind. The door opened on a maid who had come for her breakfast tray, but the start, with its accompanying pang of fear and dismay, was the best of reasons, Mary felt, for carrying out her decision. And yet even now she knew that it was not her only reason. She did not go as some women might have gone, desperately and in despair. She had suffered, and been afraid, but she did not go broken or maimed. She had chosen to go, she went of her deliberate will; below the sharp sorrow of her wounded love new life was stirring. She rang for Penn to dress her, and while she lay waiting this faint excitement grew. Never for a moment, she thought, had she been free. Now she was to know freedom.

While she was being dressed she put everything from her mind but the details of her plan. Practically there was no great difficulty. Rosemary was gone. Laura did not need her. The issue lay simply between her and James. As for what she should do, she must stay in London to be near the information she needed. She would not be longer than she could help in a hotel where people come and go, she would find a tiny furnished house or a little flat. She would live very simply; it would not be right, she felt, to pamper herself while she was doing such an unusual thing.

When Penn's ministrations were over she left the house on foot and walked to Oxford Street, where she took a passing taxi. She had decided to go to a house agent from whom she had once or twice taken houses for shooting and summer holidays. She would not need to give him another reference, and James was not likely to make a search for her that would involve asking questions of house agents. At the thought of a search she felt a little quiver of fear, then she forced herself to think again of the matter in hand. Until she was safe in her flat she must consider nothing else but getting there.

At the house agent's she told the young man behind the counter that she wanted to take, as soon as possible, a small furnished flat in Chelsea. It was all very simple. Chelsea, in February, seemed lavish of furnished flats, all small, all delightfully situated, all ready for her immediate occupation. Even when she had rejected the handsomely furnished and the cosy she left the office with a substantial bundle of permits.