Mrs. Cameron began to cry.
“Oh, mother, that’s not tactful, is it, showing me a bad example?” Marion loathed herself, yet could not stop. It was too much for her—the triple wreck, of herself and Bergsma and her mother.
The doctor would not order the separate room. He gave all sorts of unconvincing reasons, very cheerily. Marion lay and looked at him.
“I shall torment myself till I find out the real reason,” she said. “Will that be good for me?”
He laughed. “You have far too much intelligence, Miss Cameron. You won’t waste your mental strength like that.”
“I have no use for my intelligence,” said Marion. “I have no use for my mental strength. One way of wasting them is as good as another.”
“Oh, nonsense, nonsense!” laughed the doctor. “What you’ve got to do is to get well, and then see if you haven’t a use for them. Mr. Bergsma’s not the only busy man who needs a secretary.”
A cunning look came in Marion’s face. “And he may ‘resume my invaluable services,’” she said, fixing her eyes on her mother.
Mrs. Cameron winced, but she stood bravely up to Marion’s eyes. “Well, all right, darling, if he does.” She smiled pathetically.
The cunning look died out. “I’m not mad, I tell you both!” cried Marion. The doctor took her wrist between his fingers. “What put that brilliant idea into your head, may I inquire?”
“You two!” Marion shrieked, and tore her wrist away. “You two think I am. That’s why you won’t let me have a room to myself, and that’s why mother grins and pretends she wouldn’t rather die than ever let me work again for Mr. Bergsma. She hated him, you know,” she told the doctor in a sudden mood of confidence, “and all because he forgot to open the drawing-room door for her one day!” She sank back on the pillow. “That was why, just that”; and she began to sob and moan . . .
But as time went on, she did get better. Her strength came back, and with it, self-control. It was not often now that she sneered at, or “flew at,” her mother; she only lay and watched her, with a smile. Mrs. Cameron did not like the smile, but she avoided looking—it was the most tactful thing to do. And when Marion got better and could be up, and better still could come out for little walks, the smile, though it was there sometimes, was not so frequent. It, like the crying, had been part of her illness, and that was nearly over; the smile would disappear when all the illness did, and everything would be as it had been before, except that the horrid Bergsma connection would be done with. Neil need never know that Marion had, for a while, been so—so overstrained that Dr. Ferguson had warned Mrs. Cameron not to let her be alone even for a moment. Neil need never know, and that was all that mattered . . . She looked at Marion complacently, one day in Kensington Gardens; but instantly she looked away again. Marion’s eyes were fixed on her; the smile was there.
“You’re a wonderful woman, mother,” Marion said. “You’ve got me over it.”
“Over what, Marion?” Mrs. Cameron faltered, off her guard.
“My passion for Mr. Bergsma.”
“Don’t be wicked!” the old woman exclaimed. Marion was nearly well now; there was no need to humour her to this extent.
“And my suicidal tendency, too,” continued Marion. “I wonder which I ought to be most grateful for. Which do you think?”
“I am not aware that either of those things was the matter with you, I assure you, Marion, and neither is Dr. Ferguson. You exaggerate your illness absurdly.”
“You and Dr. Ferguson exaggerated it too, then. I often heard you both; I was able to get out of bed, you know. I always thought you should have taken him down to the drawing-room instead of whispering outside my door, but it didn’t seem to occur to you, and as it was convenient to me, I said nothing . . . Well, mother, if I can’t believe in your wisdom any more, I can believe in your pluck. It’s just as good; I don’t know that it isn’t better. But I hope you didn’t tell anyone besides the doctor that I was in love with Mr. Bergsma.”
The little puppet-face was convulsed in the effort not to cry. “I never could have dreamed that my daughter would listen.”
“I was mad, you see.”
“You were not, Marion, so don’t bring that up as an excuse. You were not mad, only overstrained. You exaggerate everything. I only told the doctor what your own friend, Mrs. Wynne, had said—or what she thought, at any rate. I never thought so myself.”
“You should have thought so, mother. It was true. That was why he dismissed me. He didn’t want his secretary to have a passion for him.”
“Don’t use that wicked word! And about that man, with his flat face and horrid collars—they were never clean.”
“Oh yes, they were clean, but they were lower than the men you know would wear. That’s all, mother . . . I used to watch for a look from the flat face—was it flat? I suppose so. I only saw his eyes.” She spoke in a deep musing tone, with no smile now; she had forgotten her mother.
Mrs. Cameron stood up. “It’s nearly lunch-time.”
The girl looked at her again. “Won’t you let me talk about my passion, a little now and then?”
“Oh, Marion,” the other moaned, returning. “How can you torment me so? It’s cruel of you!”
She sat down again. “You frighten me, indeed you do.” Her voice shattered into sobs.
The girl sat unmoved. “We’re like two dead bodies tied together. We don’t love each other any more, yet we must be for ever side by side . . . I think I won’t forgive you for curing the tendency to suicide, mother. The passion’s different—I can brood on that. I can think of his flat face, and wonder why a man with a flat face was not more flattered—there’s a joke. But he’s a woman’s man, isn’t he? He’s tired of passionate secretaries, I suppose. That was why he snubbed my Dutch; it would have been dangerous to speak in his own language with a yearning secretary—”
Mrs. Cameron got up again, her pink cheeks glistening. “I won’t listen to you. It’s disgraceful—that’s what it is. You ought to be ashamed.”
“Haven’t I been ashamed enough? Let me glory in my shame now, for a change.” She got up too. “Come home to lunch, mother. Tuesday . . . it will be mutton-hash to-day, and treacle-pudding. That will be so nice; we’ll easily forget this painful scene. Yes, let’s go—home.”
Mrs. Cameron pointed out the beauty of the autumn tints as they went through the Gardens.
Marion looked at each example; then looked at her mother, with the smile.
* * *
That phase also passed. Marion felt abominable while it lasted; it was like daggers into a doll, and the daggers hurt this doll. They made no difference, moreover; Mrs. Cameron said the same kind of things between-times.
Mother and daughter went away together for their change of air, returned, and Marion was nearly well. The doctor still came sometimes, but now as though he were a friend, vigilant and interested. He seemed, as she had felt before, to be Marion’s friend rather than her mother’s; but Marion did not care; she cared for nothing. In the passage of the months her bitterness had grown beneath the outward self-control; she had one watchword now—concealment of all feeling.
“I feel nothing, but if you must feel hide it—hide everything about you, all you think and are.”
It became a trial of skill. She paid visits with her mother, watching for good opportunities for lies about herself, especially the lie of being lazy, glad to cease breadwinning and be entirely dependent, hanging as it were upon her mother’s arm like a spoilt child.
Mrs. Cameron’s friends began to disapprove; Marion perceived it, fostered it. The plan of the Minnie party was that Marion now should teach the many languages—such work could always be procured. Marion refused to try for pupils, not saying that she liked best to be lazy—that would have spoilt the game. She let it be inferred, amid glances of concern at the sad change in her.
The glances of concern pleased Mrs. Cameron. They made her feel a wonderful woman again.
Duri
ng the later Bergsma period there had been a certain obscuration—Marion had been so prominent with her “inside” knowledge of musical events, her acquaintance with the virtuosi, her own remarkable development in capacity and self-reliance. But now people saw again that Minnie was the heroine, with her bravery and cheer, her patience with the lazy daughter. She loved to take the lazy daughter out to tea, to come into a room thus followed, and display her pluck and tact. But as the months drew out and she felt firmer on the pedestal, an insidious change began. At some houses there would sound again a note of interest in Marion rather than in Minnie.
Mrs. Wynne’s was one of these. The dark monkey-face would turn and dwell, observing silently but intently taking in. She would talk about music, that inhibited topic on which Marion, lamentably and surprisingly, still enjoyed to talk. Tactless of Mrs. Wynne! It brought the whole thing up again—the buried past, with all its mystery and invidiousness; and besides, “Marion would never try for pupils, while she was encouraged to remember those horrible days,” said Mrs. Cameron to her friends.
Mrs. Wynne’s Irish maid was another grievance. This little creature was “positively insulting” to Mrs. Cameron, one day soon after the return to London. It happened thus. Marion and her mother entered, and put down their umbrellas—Mrs. Cameron thrusting hers into the stand, Marion propping hers against the table. Bridget (she had an engaging cast in her right eye) gave swimming Irish looks at Marion, whose height and “style” she openly admired—she was far too free with both her eyes and tongue. Then she went towards the stairs, with no admiring glance for Mrs. Cameron, who had on a new grey toque. Marion, un-delayed by the small difficulty of getting an umbrella neatly into the narrow stand, had begun to ascend at Bridget’s heels, conversing with her.
Suddenly Mrs. Cameron called out: “Come back here, Marion.” The two on the stairs stopped short.
“Come back and put your umbrella in the proper place.”
“Oh, ma’am, it doesn’t matter,” Bridget cried. “The mistress never—”
“Come back here, Marion.” The face under the new toque was scarlet.
Marion, pale and silent, stood still on the stairs. Her eyes were dreadful. For an instant they met Bridget’s.
“Do you hear what I say?” the voice below vibrated shrilly.
“For heaven’s sake, mother . . .” Marion gasped, and came down from the stairs. She went by her mother, and put her umbrella into the stand.
“Oh, miss; oh, ma’am!” breathed Bridget, almost crying—but Mrs. Cameron was now on Marion’s stair, and was looking at her angrily. Bridget gulped, and went on to the drawing-room door. Her voice broke as she announced them. Mrs. Cameron pushed by her haughtily; Marion . . . Bridget never knew what Marion did, except that she did not break down, nor speak to Bridget, nor look angry, but—“Oh, ma’am,” said Bridget, choking, to her mistress, “it was awful! As if Mrs. Cameron wanted to shame her before me, turning her into a child like that. The umbrella—Miss Cameron went down and put it in the stand; I could hardly keep quiet when I saw her face. She’ll go mad, ma’am, if she can’t get away from her mother.”
Bridget’s agitation was so great that Mrs. Wynne, though she too thought it “awful,” tried to calm the girl and herself by saying that there was really nothing in it.
“Oh yes, ma’am, there was, and you’d know if you’d seen it. The way Mrs. Cameron looked at her—you wouldn’t believe the wickedness of it.”
“Nonsense; you’re fond of Miss Cameron; you exaggerate.”
“It’s well someone’s fond of her. You are yourself, ma’am. Is there no way you could get her away from that old—”
But this was decidedly too much; Mrs. Wynne dismissed the girl. She sat thinking. She had long perceived the trouble. The mother’s jealousy—innate and ineradicable—never roused by Marion till the Bergsma phase, and then appeased by the dismissal, now again was quickened by her daughter’s attitude. If Marion’s friends should show more interest in that than in the mother’s pluck and patience, the jealousy would crouch, a-stretch like a wild beast that sees its prey; and ah, that prey was visible! The daughter’s pride—what a long feasting meal . . . One knew such moods in these undeveloped women, these old children, with the cruelty and blindness of a child, but not the child’s inconsequence. No; the feast once begun, the wild beast would drive out the child; its prey would not be loosened till consumed. “And one can do not one least thing to save—unless indeed one should abandon Marion, and join with Mrs. Cameron! Shall I urge the poor girl to the teaching that she shrinks from? It might help; I’ll try it.”
When Mrs. Wynne next went to see them, in pursuance of her scheme, she found a message from the Bergsma quarter so absorbing Mrs. Cameron that even she—now almost openly cold-shouldered—was called into council.
The message had taken the shape of a visiting-card—Mrs. Bergsma’s, intimating change of address. It had come to Mrs. Cameron, not to Marion.
“Now what ought we to do?”
“Take no notice,” Mrs. Wynne said, at a venture. She had not yet surveyed the ground, but it seemed probable that this would please.
It did not please, and as that showed, the visitor began to see the rest. Marion sat by, silent. Not even by a look did she confess herself, but Mrs. Wynne’s nerves shuddered for her.
“There’s nothing in it,” Mrs. Wynne continued. “Mrs. Bergsma just went through her address-book, or someone else did for her, more likely. They’ll not expect a call.”
The argument began, went on; and Mrs. Wynne knew horror. All cruelty seemed in it, all base vengeance, all that once meant woman; each word seemed chosen to retaliate for that brief spell of bliss and glory; yet as the listener looked into the little face, she told herself that she, like Bridget, was imputing that which was not in its owner’s competence. This could be only sheer stupidity; the worst evil was not there. But then again some glance, some word, abominable, would upset the milder judgment.
“What does Marion say?” her friend broke out at last, unable longer to fight single-handed. She turned to the dumb girl and saw her quiver momentarily, then constrain herself to sit impassive as before. But it were kindlier to force her speech, and Mrs. Wynne persisted.
“Tell me, Marion,” she entreated, casting aside caution, putting all her friendship into the low tone. It was as if she challenged the fell mother for the daughter’s voice. No answer came. The girl’s eyes met hers for an instant, and she caught her breath. What a look—what weary wastes of suffering . . . And yet admitted the thing was trivial—almost certainly, a mere card-leaving: they would not be admitted, no one ever was home on chance, in London. But Mrs. Wynne could understand the girl’s repugnance.
“I can’t see why Marion should be with you, if you wish to go,” she repeated, for this had been of course the first thing she had said.
“It is only through her that I ever knew these people”—yes, the tone, the look . . . “It is for her sake that I wish to go.”
“But if she doesn’t want it? Such morbid nonsense! ‘Hanging round the house,’ she calls it. I think it is we who confer the favour by calling.”
But as if this, in its absurdity, were the breaking point, Marion spoke at last.
“Mother has never consented to recognize Mr. Bergsma as a social being. He’s only a common little man with a crushed collar to her. ‘No one’ goes to his house; ‘no one’ knows the Bergsma.”
She smiled—the old smile which had frightened Mrs. Cameron, but now had lost its power.
“I don’t profess to understand the society in which people like the Bergsmas move. I leave that to you . . . and your friends.”
There was a silence.
“Could you, Marion?” Mrs. Wynne then murmured. “Could you go, I mean. It wouldn’t be a case of getting in, I’m sure.” Marion, having spoken at all, seemed to have abandoned wholly her new attitude, for she gave her friend an overwhelming answer. “I could go, but I won’t. I won’t be dragged there at mother’
s chariot-wheels.” She stood up. “Now you know, mother. I dare say you’ll say you don’t understand, but I’ll explain another time. Don’t drag Mrs. Wynne into a scene like this morning’s. She wouldn’t like it. Let her off the rest.”
But the teeth were firm in the flesh now, and Mrs. Wynne heard all the rest. She heard that Marion was still absurdly ‘sorry for herself’ and that her friends encouraged her, while Mrs. Cameron’s were more and more disgusted every day; that “that man” would imagine, if no one else did, all that their omission to call might signify; that indeed his wife could not be blamed if she had been suspicious, and her card was intended for a delicate hint that, having nipped the thing in the bud, she was prepared to resume a friendly acquaintance. “Anything more disgusting, more indecent, than Marion’s whole behaviour since that man cast her off . . .”
And Marion stood and heard, without the smile, and said at last in a pause:
“The most devoted and most tactful mother, you can see—and Mrs. Bergsma is to see. How do you know I haven’t been ‘hanging round the house’ in secret, mother? Mr. Bergsma cast me off, as you say, but men do that and women hang about them, still. Perhaps that’s why I stick at going to call—how do you know it isn’t?”
But this was a bad slip.
“I know,” said Mrs. Cameron, “because I’ve never let you out of my sight for a single instant, and never intend to.”
Mrs. Wynne saw Marion pale at that. She exclaimed after a moment: “But Dr. Ferguson said yesterday that I’m to have a room to myself, in future. They’re getting it ready now; you know they are.” Her voice was harsh with fear.
“They’re not getting it ready. I countermanded it, after this morning’s ‘scene,’ as you call it.”
The girl sank on a chair. Her face was terrible to see, but Mrs. Wynne did not see it—she had hidden her own. She sat, crumpled into a heap, in her corner of the sofa. Marion looked at her, then at her mother. Mrs. Cameron was by the tea-table; she was picking biscuits from a plate and nibbling at them, and then dropping them; her face was red and angry, but exultant.
Homefront Horrors Page 27