Mrs. Thompson: A Novel

by W. B. Maxwell

The mistress did not invite the servant to sit at table this evening and help her through the lonely meal. Her thoughts were sufficient company.

At night she could not sleep. The contact with the fierce strong male had completely upset her—never in all her life had she been so handled by a man. And the extent of the contact seemed mysteriously to have multiplied the effect of its local violences; the dreaded grip of the powerful arms, the resistless pressure of the forcing hands, and the cruel hot print of his kisses were the salient facts in her memory of the embrace; but it seemed that from every point of the surface of her body while compelled to touch him a nerve thrill had been sent vibrating in her brain, and the diffused nerve-messages, concentrating there, had produced overwhelmingly intense disturbance.

And memory gave her back these sensations—the wide thrilling wave from surface to brain, and the explosion of the central nerve-storm flashing its rapid recognition back to the outer boundaries. Lying in her dark room she lived through the experience again—was forced to suffer the embrace not once but again and again.

It was dreadful that a man, simply by reason of his sex, should have this power, dreadful that he should abuse his power in thus treating a woman,—and most dreadful that of all women in the world the woman should be herself.

And she thought of the late Mr. Thompson's timid and maladroit caresses—inspired, monotonous, stereotyped endearments, totally devoid of nervous excitation, dutifully borne by her, day after day, month after month, throughout the long years.

But memory, doing its faithful and accurate work, failed to restore to her that glow of angry protest, that recoil of outraged dignity which she had felt when the young man took her in his arms. She could feel his arms about her still, but the sense of shame had gone.

Here in the darkened room she could see him—she could not help seeing him. Hot tears filled her eyes, she writhed and twisted, she tossed and turned, as the mental pictures came and went; but nothing could drive him away. He had taken possession of her thoughts; and she wept because she understood that he had not achieved this tyrannous rule to-day, or yesterday, but a long time ago, a disgracefully long time ago. In imagination she was watching him among the china and glass, when Woolfrey and the others showed her plainly how dangerous he really was—and it had begun then. Why else should she have felt such a wrathful discontent at the idea of his courting all the silly girls? In imagination, she could see him among the carpets, trundling the great rolls, fascinating, enthralling the rude customer,—and it seemed to her that it had begun even then. She and the shrew were one in their weakness; both had been hypnotised together. Mears said all the women in the shop had submitted to the spell—but not the silliest, most feather-headed slut of them all had fallen into such idiotic depths as those in which their proud and stately chief lay weeping.

She dried her eyes, got out of bed and drank water, stood at the open window, turned on the light, turned off the light, lay down again and tried desperately to sleep.

In a moment her cheeks were burning.—She could feel the hot kisses; she could hear the hurried words. "A face made to be kissed—setting one's blood on fire.... You are a woman all through—you are ripe for love."

Ah, if only one could give way to such a dream of rapture; if one could believe that the lost years might be recovered, that all one has missed in life—its passionate sweetness and its satisfying fullness—might be won by a miraculous interposition of fate. Nothing less than a miracle can bring back the wasted past.