lady harman's mind was so greatly exercised by susan burnet's voluminous confidences that it was only when she returned to her own morning room that she recalled the pawning problem. she went back to sir isaac's study and found susan with all her measurements taken and on the very edge of departure.
"oh susan!" she said.
she found the matter a little difficult to broach. susan remained in an attitude of respectful expectation.
"i wanted to ask you," said lady harman and then broke off to shut the door. susan's interest increased.
"you know, susan," said lady harman with an air of talking about commonplace things, "sir isaac is very rich and—of course—very generous.... but sometimes one feels, one wants a little money of one's own."
"i think i can understand that, my lady," said susan.
"i knew you would," said lady harman and then with a brightness that was slightly forced, "i can't always get money of my own. it's difficult—sometimes."
and then blushing vividly: "i've got lots of things.... susan, have you ever pawned anything?"
and so she broached it.
"not since i got fairly into work," said susan; "i wouldn't have it. but when i was little we were always pawning things. why! we've pawned kettles!..."
she flashed three reminiscences.
meanwhile lady harman produced a little glittering object and held it between finger and thumb. "if i went into a pawnshop near here," she said, "it would seem so odd.... this ring, susan, must be worth thirty or forty pounds. and it seems so silly when i have it that i should really be wanting money...."
susan displayed a peculiar reluctance to handle the ring. "i've never," she said, "pawned anything valuable—not valuable like that. suppose—suppose they wanted to know how i had come by it."
"it's more than alice earns in a year," she said. "it's——" she eyed the glittering treasure; "it's a queer thing for me to have."
a certain embarrassment arose between them. lady harman's need of money became more apparent. "i'll do it for you," said susan, "indeed i'll do it. but——there's one thing——"
her face flushed hotly. "it isn't that i want to make difficulties. but people in our position—we aren't like people in your position. it's awkward sometimes to explain things. you've got a good character, but people don't know it. you can't be too careful. it isn't sufficient—just to be honest. if i take that——if you were just to give me a little note—in your handwriting—on your paper—just asking me——i don't suppose i need show it to anyone...."
"i'll write the note," said lady harman. a new set of uncomfortable ideas was dawning upon her. "but susan——you don't mean that anyone, anyone who's really honest—might get into trouble?"
"you can't be too careful," said susan, manifestly resolved not to give our highly civilized state half a chance with her.
6
the problem of sir isaac and just what he was doing and what he thought he was doing and what he meant to do increased in importance in lady harman's mind as the days passed by. he had an air of being malignantly up to something and she could not imagine what this something could be. he spoke to her very little but he looked at her a great deal. he had more and more of the quality of a premeditated imminent explosion....
one morning she was standing quite still in the drawing-room thinking over this now almost oppressive problem of why the situation did not develop further with him, when she became aware of a thin flat unusual book upon the small side table near the great armchair at the side of the fire. he had been reading that overnight and it lay obliquely—it might almost have been left out for her.
she picked it up. it was the taming of the shrew in that excellent folio edition of henley's which makes each play a comfortable thin book apart. a curiosity to learn what it was had drawn her husband to english literature made her turn over the pages. the taming of the shrew was a play she knew very slightly. for the harmans, though deeply implicated like most other rich and striving people in plans for honouring the immortal william, like most other people found scanty leisure to read him.
as she turned over the pages a pencil mark caught her eye. thence words were underlined and further accentuated by a deeply scored line in the margin.
"but for my bonny kate, she must with me.
nay; look not big, nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret;
i will be master of what is mine own:
she is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,
she is my household stuff, my field, my barn,
my horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing:
and here she stands, touch her whoever dare;
i'll bring mine action on the proudest he,
that stops my way in padua."
with a slightly heightened colour, lady harman read on and presently found another page slashed with sir isaac's approval....
her face became thoughtful. did he mean to attempt—petruchio? he could never dare. there were servants, there were the people one met, the world.... he would never dare....
what a strange play it was! shakespear of course was wonderfully wise, the crown of english wisdom, the culminating english mind,—or else one might almost find something a little stupid and clumsy.... did women nowadays really feel like these elizabethan wives who talked—like girls, very forward girls indeed, but girls of sixteen?...
she read the culminating speech of katherine and now she had so forgotten sir isaac she scarcely noted the pencil line that endorsed the immortal words.
"thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
thy head, thy sovereign; one who cares for thee,
and for thy maintenance commits his body
to painful labour both by sea and land,
to watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
while thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
and craves no other tribute at thy hands
but love, fair looks, and true obedience;
too little payment for so great a debt.
such duty as the subject owes the prince,
even such a woman oweth to her husband;
and when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
and not obedient to his honest will,
what is she but a foul contending rebel
and graceless traitor to her loving lord?
i am ashamed that women are so simple
to offer war, where they should kneel for peace;
my mind has been as big as one of yours,
my heat as great; my reason, haply, more,
to bandy word for word and frown for frown.
but now i see our lances are but straws;
our strength is weak, our weakness past compare,
seeming that most which we indeed least are...."
she wasn't indignant. something in these lines took hold of her protesting imagination.
she knew that so she could have spoken of a man.
but that man,—she apprehended him as vaguely as an anglican bishop apprehends god. he was obscured altogether by shadows; he had only one known characteristic, that he was totally unlike sir isaac. and the play was false she felt in giving this speech to a broken woman. such things are not said by broken women. broken women do no more than cheat and lie. but so a woman might speak out of her unconquered wilfulness, as a queen might give her lover a kingdom out of the fullness of her heart.
