Mrs. Thompson: A Novel

by W. B. Maxwell

While she was kneeling in the church, thanking God for having given him to her, he was rolling fast away—with that loud man and the two shrill young women.

It was late in the afternoon—the close of the brilliant sun-lit day, and the Hove lawns were still crowded. The sky preserved its clear blue, unspoilt by the faint white stains of cloud; the sea sparkled; and the shadows thrown by the green chairs and the iron railings crept imperceptibly across the grass. Behind the railings the long façades of the white houses stretched westward like a perspective-drawing; and down the broad road a motor fizzed past every moment, changed to a black speck, and vanished. The gaiety and life of the hours was lasting bravely. Coloured flags floated above the pier; and from the monstrous protuberance at its far end, the glass and iron castle of the tourist mob, light flashed as though striking mirrors; a band was playing at a distance; and the Worthing steamboat, as it hurriedly approached, made a rhythmic beating on the water.

Mrs. Marsden, in possession of a penny chair, sat alone, and watched the crowd that had been walking all day long. She felt absolutely lost in the crowd; and it seemed to her, coming from her quiet country town, that the world could not contain so many people.

She watched them with tired eyes. All sorts: fine ladies and gentlemen; visitors and residents—down the scale to mere shopgirls and housemaids; pale men who toiled indoors, bronzed men who lived in the open air; Jews and Jewesses; smiling matrons, sour-visaged spinsters; girls with powdered faces and immense hats—whom she classed as actresses, and judged to be no better than they ought to be,—lounging and simpering beside sawny cavaliers.

She watched the various couples—boys and girls, men and women, young and old; and she saw that every couple was of corresponding, suitable age: tottering old men and white-haired wrinkled dames—thinking of their golden weddings; fat paunchy men in the prime of life with gorgeous mature consorts; lithe and athletic men with long-legged, striding, game-playing mates; and so on, like with like, or each the normal complement of the other.

It happened that, while she watched with a growing intentness, there passed no Mays and Decembers. An old man and his daughter—or just possibly his wife! But no young man with a middle-aged woman. Not even a son escorting his mother. Age has no claim on youth.

Then she saw the roaming solitary men who were seeking love or adventure; saw how they stared at the girls,—stopped and turned,—with their eyes wistfully followed the graceful gracious forms.

And no man in all the vast crowd looked at her. Not even the purple-cheeked veterans. None gave her the aldermanic approving glance that might seem to say, "There's a well-preserved woman—not yet quite devoid of charm." Not even a glance of curiosity. It was as if for a penny the chair had rendered her invisible.