“Rather a long probation,” Mrs. Wynne observed.
Marion got up. Her voice was gone, her eyes did not flash now, but dimmed with sudden, smarting tears. She stood a moment, looking at the others, then hurried from the room.
So that was what her mother had been plotting. She had asked Mrs. Wynne to say something; the meeting of their eyes betrayed it . . . When one was being given such a chance! If Bergsma knew, he wouldn’t think so highly of his lady-secretary. Rather common, a sordid rise, as if she were indeed a servant! That was just the difference it made, to be a lady. But mother was a lady too, if Mrs. Wynne was a little too shrewd to be “quite-quite . . .” However, there was no time to worry about it; she had a bigger job tonight than she had ever had before—a symphony, a Danish one, produced by a Society on their special Sunday night for the innermost circle (Bergsma was out of town). She must keep fit for that. And supper—Sunday supper here, with her mother!
Could she stand it? All the time that hateful incident would hover, of the eyes that met and parted furtively . . . No; she couldn’t go through supper.
When Mrs. Cameron came up to change her dress, she found a note upon the pin-cushion.
Marion was supping at a little restaurant, “quite nice and respectable,” close to the hall where her job lay; she would be home at the usual hour.
Her mother was asleep, or seemed to be asleep, when she came in. There was no cocoa.
* * *
Quite without warning it came—the letter in which Bergsma said he had decided to dispense with a secretary for the present.
Marion read it at breakfast. She managed not to cry out; if she turned white, nobody saw her, in the pre-occupation with their food which, at breakfast especially, was a source of continual unrest among the boarders. She put the letter in her belt, and blindly took a plate displaying a poached egg. Marion cut her egg mechanically; it flowed over the toast, and something in the sight made her feel sick . . . She would have to tell her mother after breakfast. It would be dreadful; her mother would gush out, like the egg. But the thing could not be hidden: better get it told as soon as possible.
“Come up to our room a moment, mother, before you read the paper,” Marion said, when Mrs. Cameron had finished. She had smuggled her own streaming plate away, before it could be noticed that she had not touched the egg except to cut it.
“Are you staying in this morning, then?” Mrs. Cameron said, wondering.
“Yes,” Marion answered, and a bitter wave of woe swept into her. She would be staying in all mornings now . . . She mounted the steep stairs before her mother, the distress increasing as she went, until at the last landing (for their room was at the very top) she broke down, and stood with her face hidden, trembling.
“What’s the matter?” Mrs. Cameron called sharply from the flight below; she had seen through the balusters.
Without answering, Marion went into their room. When the little staring face appeared, she silently held out the letter.
Mrs. Cameron began to read. Almost as soon as she began, her daughter broke out crying—weakly, the sound muffled by her covering hands.
“What is it, mother, what can I have done? Oh, tell me, tell me!” Marion sobbed.
“Don’t cry, Marion,” Mrs. Cameron said quickly. “Whatever you do, don’t cry.”
She was feeling for a prop to clutch at—there was nothing but their pride: they must not cry.
That man, whom she had always thought so common—that man had done this to them! She dropped the letter; Bergsma’s cheque fell out. Money—his . . . she could have stamped upon the cheque.
“Oh, Marion, do not cry. Remember what you are—and what he is!” she added fiercely. But the fierceness died. Soon she was crying too, because she could not bear to cry. Their sobs were audible outside, for Mrs. Cameron had forgotten to shut the door; a sloppy servant came and stared into the room. It had not been “done” yet, and the girl’s face grew sulky—now they’d stop her doing it, and she was to get out so soon as she had finished upstairs.
Mrs. Cameron went to the door, and locked it. “I saw that horrid Annie staring in,” she gulped.
Then she did not know what to say. Annie would be cross if they delayed her, and Annie could make a lot of difference to the boarders’ comfort. But Marion would certainly not be able to come downstairs for some time yet. She had thrown herself upon her unmade bed; her sobs grew deeper every minute. Mrs. Cameron had never, since the baby-years, heard Marion cry until today.
“Oh, mother, tell me what I can have done,” she kept on moaning.
Was it not an occasion for the tact?
“I believe,” said Mrs. Cameron, “that you were getting to write so well that he was jealous.”
But Marion only groaned. “Oh, mother!” on a different note of anguish.
“Mrs. Wynne says your articles really seem like making fun of him sometimes—they are so alike.”
“Mrs. Wynne!”
“She was your idol, Marion, before . . . all this.”
The tact seemed to be working, for Marion suddenly sat up. Her face was blurred, but it could show that she was cross, her mother thought—and then she saw that Marion was not cross, but desperate.
“It’s no use,” said Marion. “There’s no good talking about it. The servant is dismissed, with a quarter’s salary in lieu of notice.”
Mrs. Cameron’s eyes burned. “Extra salary! How dare he?”
“I’ll throw his cheque back in his face,” the girl said, getting off the bed.
“Not in his face, Marion—you wouldn’t go there?”
“Mother!” Marion groaned again.—They were hunted from their room at last, for Annie knocked at the door violently.
Mrs. Cameron put on her hat before she yielded; she was going out to do some shopping, for she couldn’t settle to the morning paper now. When she came back, in half-an-hour, Marion still was sitting at a table in the drawing-room, her face buried in her hands, as she had been when Mrs. Cameron had left her . . . It all began again, and through the whole day it went on. The letter to Bergsma must be written—a dignified, ladylike letter. Marion made draft upon draft: they were not torn up as they accumulated, for in each there was a phrase that seemed essential to her solace—one of gratitude, of meek reproach, of sad affection. But to every phrase like this, her mother objected. “No, not that, Marion—please, not that.”
So it went on, and they got crosser and crosser. Tea in their bedroom—their own China tea—was the one change from the hot, dingy, saddle-backed drawing-room. The house-tea was in the lounge as usual; they rarely went down. This hotel was their poverty’s consent—a place so typical of its kind as to be almost mythical; no aggravation of the cheap private hotel’s horrors was absent. But tea in their room did not refresh them. They drank cups down like poison-cups; Marion could “touch nothing,” though Mrs. Cameron had specially, that morning, bought some favourite and expensive cakes. Would tomorrow be as bad, the older woman wondered. At any rate, the letter would be sent by then, and Marion might pick up some courage after it had gone.
After dinner Mrs. Wynne came in. The final draft had not been written yet, and they had lingered in the lounge—each shrinking from renewal.
“Shall we tell her?” Mrs. Cameron said in a whisper, as Mrs. Wynne came towards them, threading her way among the chairs. “Just as you like,” said Marion, weakly. “She’ll have to know some day.”
But in her heart she knew that she desired to tell. Despite that incident about the salary, Marion still liked Mrs. Wynne. With her much wider knowledge of the world she might throw light on Bergsma’s action, and anyhow one couldn’t talk or think of any other subject. Mrs. Cameron, on her side, wanted to hear Bergsma blamed “as he deserved”; so eagerly they welcomed Mrs. Wynne, and quickly transferred her and themselves to the drawing-room.
“You can smoke there—nobody ever enters it but ourselves,” Mrs. Cameron assured her.
Sunk in the saddle-back Chesterfield wi
th her cigarette, Mrs. Wynne sat listening. Her expressive monkey-face said more than she did, for at first she only murmured sympathetically.
But Marion, watching her face, asked suddenly, “Have you ever heard that Mr. Bergsma was . . . was given to dismissing secretaries without notice?” She laughed—a wretched little laugh, most sadly changed from the big note of other days.
Mrs. Wynne said, “Not exactly that.”
“Then what?” said Marion.
“I may as well tell you. He is a ‘woman’s man,’ they say; attractive to women, I mean. I shouldn’t have supposed so, but that’s his reputation. And there’s a Mrs. Bergsma, you see. Have you ever met her?”
“She has come into the study once or twice,” said Marion coldly, and wished she had not asked her question.
“She may be jealous.”
“Jealous—of me!”
“Not of you personally. It’s common enough, you know, with these men’s wives.”
“But Mr. Bergsma never . . .”
Mrs. Cameron interrupted Marion. “You said it yourself.”
“Said what, mother?”
“That he might have been in love with the other one who spoke Dutch. You know he did, Marion.” Marion saw a smile—at once repressed—break on the visitor’s lips. But there was no stopping Mrs. Cameron; the Dutch episode was told, with “Marion’s” explanation of it, and in that vein the dialogue developed, while Marion sat and writhed. There was a transition to the other theory of jealousy—Bergsma’s jealousy of the articles. Mrs. Wynne rejected it.
“A writer with . . . with his sort of style” (Marion wondered what that meant) “would never notice.”
There were no more smiles, no looks exchanged with Mrs. Cameron, yet Mrs. Wynne preserved an air of knowing something that they didn’t know. Soon she went away, a little bored perhaps, for they had talked of nothing else. Then Mrs. Cameron and Marion went to bed, the letter still unwritten. Mrs. Wynne had said there was no hurry; Bergsma would anticipate a short delay. It galled Mrs. Cameron—she would have liked to finish with him; but Marion seemed relieved, and indeed neither could have faced an evening like the day. So they went up to bed, quite early.
. . . A separate room—a room in which she could have cried herself to sleep! But Marion must be quiet every night—there never would be one when she might cry.
Soon after the candle was put out, her mother spoke.
“Are you awake, Marion? Mrs. Wynne thinks you’re in love with Mr. Bergsma, I am sure.”
No answer from the other bed.
“You’re not asleep; I heard you move the pillow—that’s what she thinks. I never liked her, but she was your friend, so I said nothing. After all, I daresay it’s a blessing the connection is ended.”
“Anything that gives rise to gossip . . . I should have thought of that; I blame myself. However, it’s all over now, and Neil need never know how it happened. We can let him think that the work had got too hard for you, as indeed I think it had. And with no rise in salary! Do you remember how Mrs. Wynne remarked on that?”
But her voice had got drowsy; soon she was asleep. Marion for a long while did not dare to move. She lay, like a dead body, stiff and straight, and thought how like she was to one, except that the dead body would be dead. It would not wake next morning, and the morning after that, nor go to bed next night and lie so still because it feared to set its mother talking of how it was believed to be in love with Mr. Bergsma, but how Neil need never know.
Miss Cameron had been working too hard, Dr. Ferguson said; she would have had to take a long rest anyhow—she could not have gone on at that rate.
Marion peered at him suspiciously, and found him peering in a similar way at her. He was a good-looking pompous man, her mother’s contemporary. Marion felt that he would be on her mother’s side. She could not have accounted for the feeling, nor till now would it have come to her—there had been no “sides” till now. But as he peered at her, she found herself reflecting:
“He’ll call mother wonderful, too, like Colonel Morris and the Admiral.” Though Dr. Ferguson had attended the Camerons for years, he knew nothing of their lives except their ailments and their poverty; he now was obviously impressed when he heard that Marion had been working with Bergsma. It was his foible to be up-to-date, as he still called it; Bergsma’s work appealed to him—there had been a new Scriabin piece lately: “the Theosophical School,” said Dr. Ferguson, with pride, looking at Marion more respectfully. “Exacting work, no doubt, yours must have been.”
“I was only his secretary,” Marion said.
“‘Only!’” said Mrs. Cameron. She was standing, very upright, at the foot of the bed, gazing pathetically from the doctor’s face to Marion’s, like a child who knew that it was like a child.
Marion groaned. “Be quiet, mother”; and at the same instant her conviction of the doctor’s partisanship changed. He was on her side! He had been peering at her still more closely, but when Mrs. Cameron spoke he turned his head and peered at her. His eyes lit up with a quick gleam; he prevented Mrs. Cameron from going on by going on himself with animation, ordaining change of air as soon as Marion was well enough (“and rich enough,” said Marion, but he took no notice); in the meantime she was to see her friends, not read nor write at all, not brood, but look forward instead of backwards, make the best of life . . . Marion lay and listened. She knew what would happen when her mother and the doctor left the bedroom. He would be told about the extra work, and the not-extra salary, and her too faithful mimicry of Bergsma’s style. Perhaps he would not be told of Mrs. Wynne’s imputed theory, but she wasn’t sure: mother was so . . . so foolish! That was the amazing word that came to her, and Marion’s thoughts diverged. Her mother foolish—she who had done such marvels with her tact, who had carried her big son and her big daughter on its shoulders, as it were. “Minnie Cameron’s a wonderful woman.” Had there ever been a Colonel or an Admiral, among their large acquaintance in the sort, who had not at some time said that to Marion? And Neil too: he was always saying how wonderful mother was . . . was she?
Outside the door she heard them whispering. Why didn’t her mother take the doctor to the ever-empty drawing-room? He couldn’t know there was a place that they might, practically, call their own sitting-room, but Mrs. Cameron knew it; and wasn’t whispering supposed to be the thing most fatal to a patient’s nerves? “No rise in her salary”: she could have sworn she caught the words. There could be no need to tell him that; the work would have been just as hard if she had had the bigger salary. But it was vain to torment one’s-self; mother always did what she “thought right.” And as Marion lay and strained her ears, the certainty grew stronger that Mrs. Cameron would put the other view before him—the view that Marion might have been in love with Bergsma. She would think that, also, right. Perhaps it was; perhaps a doctor should be told such things about a helpless, useless daughter who would be a burden again now, instead of a breadwinner. And she had been so proud of earning her own living! Hot tears ran down her cheeks. As a secretary pure and simple, she would not have broken down. It was the hard work, late hours, excitement, mental strain, and—and Bergsma’s growing crossness and aloofness, his avoidance of her, even while he used her; the thick eyes that had not flashed for her this many a day, but always deadened, deadened more and more with each infrequent interview. How she had watched to see the eyes light up, the way they used, when she had “done” some concert more capably than usual—and the eyes never had, though still he sent her: “in case there should be something startling that I’d better do myself, and then I can write-up your article.” That had meant that she must take even more pains than usual, lest Bergsma be “let down,” and ignore a masterpiece. But Marion had not minded, or would not have minded, if . . . And then had come the letter.
They had not sent back the cheque. Mrs. Wynne had said it would be futile and undignified; they couldn’t bandy money about—Bergsma would insist, it would be horribly uncomfortable; and the “s
alary in lieu of notice” was the proper thing for him to do. So a colourless letter had gone, in which the phrases of affection and reproach were all left out. It had had the effect of making Bergsma write again, holding forth vague hopes that some day he would be able to resume Miss Cameron’s “invaluable services.” There had been discussions on what he meant by that. Marion said, “Nothing”; Mrs. Cameron (commenting with much sarcasm on invaluable) hoped so, but was afraid he did mean something. That went on for days and nights; inspirations on what Bergsma meant would flock in the darkness. But the breakdown had mercifully come at last, and had done this for Marion—she might cry in her bed now. It was called part of her illness. Without the illness, another explanation of her melancholy had been showing itself as imminent. “I shall begin to think that your friend Mrs. Wynne was right.”
Those words had been said one day, in a flurry of temper, at teatime. Marion could go out of the room then; but if they should be said and added to, at night, when the candle was extinguished . . .
Mrs. Cameron came back, brisk and brave and pathetic.
“The doctor thinks we shall have rain at last. I’m glad for your sake, Marion; this room gets so hot. The sun is cheerful, but the rain will make things fresh again.”
“Did you talk about the weather all that time?” asked Marion.
“Of course we talked of you a little; he had to tell me about your diet. But, Marion, dear, you know there are other things in the world besides your trouble.”
“Oh yes—the weather,” Marion said.
“Invalids are never told what the doctor says about them. You must not be unreasonable, Marion.”
Marion fixed her eyes upon the little face, like a ventriloquist’s puppet’s face. It looked back at her, and the lips drew together, with a kind of peevish patience. “You’ve been crying. The doctor says (as you insist on being told what he says) that I mustn’t let you cry, on any account.”
“Then of course you mustn’t, mother. How are you going to stop me? Shall I tell you what I was crying about? It was about never being alone. I’m going to ask the doctor to order me a separate bedroom. The extra-quarter’s salary will pay for it. It will do me more good than any other change.”
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