‘Stephen, are you listening? I put up a fight, I swear it! I swear I put up a fight—I was only nineteen when I got my first job—nineteen’s not so awfully old, is it, Stephen?’
Stephen said: ‘Go on,’ and her voice sounded husky.
‘Oh, my dear—it’s so dreadfully hard to tell you. The pay was rotten, not enough to live on—I used to think that they did it on purpose, lots of the girls used to think that way too—they never gave us quite enough to live on. You see, I hadn’t a vestige of talent, I could only dress up and try to look pretty. I never got a real speaking part, I just danced, not well, but I’d got a good figure.’ She paused and tried to look up through the gloom, but Stephen’s face was hidden in shadow. ‘Well then, darling—Stephen, I want to feel your arms, hold me closer—well then, I—there was a man who wanted me—not as you want me, Stephen, to protect and care for me; God, no, not that way! And I was so poor and so tired and so frightened; why sometimes my shoes would let in the slush because they were old and I hadn’t the money to buy myself new ones—try to think of that, darling. And I’d cry when I washed my hands in the winter because they’d be bleeding from broken chilblains. Well, I couldn’t stay the course any longer, that’s all. . . .’
The little gilt clock on the desk ticked loudly. Tick, tick! Tick, tick! An astonishing voice to come from so small and fragile a body. Somewhere out in the garden a dog barked—Tony, chasing imaginary rabbits through the darkness.
‘Stephen!’
‘Yes, my dear?’
‘Have you understood me?’
‘Yes—oh, yes, I’ve understood you. Go on.’
‘Well then, after a while he turned round and left me, and I just had to drag along as I had done, and I sort of crocked up—couldn’t sleep at night, couldn’t smile and look happy when I went on to dance—that was how Ralph found me—he saw me dance and came round to the back, the way some men do. I remember thinking that Ralph didn’t look like that sort of man; he looked—well, just like Ralph, not a bit like that sort of man. Then he started sending me flowers; never presents or anything like that, just flowers with his card. And we had lunch together a good few times, and he talked about that other man who’d left me. He said he’d like to go out with a horsewhip—imagine Ralph trying to horsewhip a man! They knew each other quite well, I discovered; you see, they were both in the hardware business. Ralph was out after some big contract for his firm, that was why he happened to be in New York—and one day he asked me to marry him, Stephen. I suppose he was really in love with me then, anyhow I thought it was wonderful of him—I thought he was very broad-minded and noble. Good God! He’s had his pound of flesh since; it gave him the hold over me that he wanted. We were married before we sailed for Europe. I wasn’t in love, but what could I do? I’d nowhere to turn and my health was crocking; lots of our girls ended up in the hospital wards—I didn’t want to end up that way. Well, so you see why I’ve got to be careful how I act; he’s terribly and awfully suspicious. He thinks that because I took a lover when I was literally down and out, I’m likely to do the same thing now. He doesn’t trust me, it’s natural enough, but sometimes he throws it all up in my face, and when he does that, my God, how I hate him! But oh, Stephen, I could never go through it all again—I haven’t got an ounce of fight left in me. That’s why, although Ralph’s no cinch as a husband, I’d be scared to death if he really turned nasty. He knows that, I think, so he’s not afraid to bully—he’s bullied me many a time over you—but of course you’re a woman so he couldn’t divorce me—I expect that’s really what makes him so angry. All the same, when you asked me to leave him for you, I hadn’t the courage to face that either. I couldn’t have faced the public scandal that Ralph would have made; he’d have hounded us down to the ends of the earth, he’d have branded us, Stephen. I know him, he’s revengeful, he’d stop at nothing, that weak sort of man is often that way. It’s as though what Ralph lacks in virility, he tries to make up for by being revengeful. My dear, I couldn’t go under again—I couldn’t be one of those apologetic people who must always exist just under the surface, only coming up for a moment, like fish—I’ve been through that particular hell. I want life, and yet I’m always afraid. Every time that Ralph looks at me I feel frightened, because he knows that I hate him most when he tries to make love—’ She broke off abruptly.
And now she was crying a little to herself, letting the tears trickle down unheeded. One of them splashed on to Stephen’s coat sleeve and lay there, a small, dark blot on the cloth, while the patient arms never faltered.