jasper merton was a man who had been born with a curious kind of conscience. he was perpetually looking at it, dusting it, and seeing that it kept in what he considered perfect working order. in reality it only worked spasmodically and at unexpected intervals. he possessed, also, an enormous amount of that quality which is generally termed artistic sensitiveness, but which is most frequently a polite and pretty name for selfishness. he see-sawed between conscience and—it must be given its right name—selfishness, in a manner which made his life not only uncomfortable to himself, but almost equally uncomfortable to others.
he had, too, a skeleton which he kept in a cupboard, in other words, in a small—a very small—house in chiswick. that skeleton was a woman. she was his wife, and a secret.
none of his fellow-artists had ever dreamt of asking him if he were married. it never dawned on them to ask a man, who was apparently a bachelor and who obviously disliked the company of women, such a question; and he had no near relations to trouble their heads about him.
he was twenty-three when he married her, and she was eighteen. she was a slight, fair-haired girl with blue eyes and a lovable nature. he had worshipped her to the whole extent of his selfish disposition. at the end of a year a child had been born to them. it had lived two years—a toddling blue-eyed mite with fair hair like its mother. it had little caressing ways and soft baby cooings of laughter.
but one day the laughter had ceased, and from the nursery had come sounds of a child in anguish. a basin of boiling water had been left on the table by a careless nurse, and pulled over by a pair of small, clutching hands. a week of horror had followed. the child had lived for four days in agony, even drugs could not soothe its pain, or quiet the terrible sobbing voice. jasper had fled from the house.
when he had returned his wife had met him white and tearless.
“my baby’s at peace, thank god,” she had said. and then she had laughed. she had not slept except from momentary exhaustion for four nights and days.
later in the evening he had found her drunk in the dead child’s room. he had carried her from it and locked the door.
in the morning she had come to him and had tried to speak. his look of disgust had made speech impossible.
“jasper——” she had said brokenly.
“i—i can’t say anything,” he had stammered. and he had gone from her.
when he had returned in the evening it was to find her again drunk. this time in the dining-room.
that was the beginning. he had never been able to hide his disgust, his love had been killed. conscience, which held the word duty before him, spelling it with a capital, told him to make the best of things; his sensitiveness shrank from the woman as from something loathsome.
after the child’s funeral she had pulled herself partially together, and he had never found her in the same condition again. but she had lost all her old charm. she grew listless in manner, slovenly and untidy in dress. now and then she would look at him with the eyes of a dumb thing asking for help. he never saw her eyes. he had avoided looking at them. the sight of her—her untidy hair, her neglected dress—had offended his sensitive taste. little by little they had drifted mentally further apart. finally they had separated. even the separation had been gradual. first he had taken his small house in chiswick and the studio in chelsea, living at home, and going daily to his work. she had known what the outcome would be, but had said nothing. later he had begun to sleep at the studio, returning only for the week-end. he had spoken of the distance, making it an excuse.
and now there was only occasional visits, prompted entirely by conscience. he had left the studio to pay one of these visits that afternoon. an extraordinary priggishness of manner towards his fellow-men was an invariable preface to them.
as the tram bore him into the suburbs he gave a little shiver of disgust. the commonplace ugliness of the houses was an eyesore to him. he pictured the inhabitants as dull, well-meaning, ultra-respectable—leading a carpet-slipper, roast-beef, little-music-in-the-evenings—kind of life. he thought of the men as all old and fat, or young and conceited; of the women as thin and careworn, or flashy and bejewelled. his mental pictures were either extremely commonplace or extremely tawdry.
suddenly his conscience began to fidget. it was becoming uncomfortable. what right had he to feel like that, it said. they were every bit as good as he was. who was he to sit in judgment on his fellow-men?
he put the mental pictures aside. he said a little prayer for charity. then he looked at his conscience again, and satisfied himself that he had swept away the dust specks which had caused it a momentary uneasiness.
but he never thought of the poetry that might be hidden away in the lives passed within those ugly walls, nor listened for the old, old tunes of love and sorrow, hope and fear, birth and death, that were played for them as they were played for those who dwelt in infinitely more picturesque surroundings. and if he had heard the music he would probably have said that the metre was out of time, the notes old and cracked, or thin and tuneless.
at last he left the tram and turned up a side street. the houses in it were small, red brick, and each of a pattern exactly like the other. they stood a little way back from the pavement, separated from it by a low brick wall on top of which was an ugly iron railing. each of the tiny plots of ground in front of the houses was divided from the neighbouring plot by more iron railings. some of the plots were merely gravel, others grass, while a few had blossomed out into flower-beds gay with flowers.
he turned into one of the gravel plots and went up four steps to the front door. he rang the bell. his face was perfectly expressionless. it was like the face of a man who is self-hypnotized.
“your mistress in?” he said to the untidy woman who answered the door.
“yes, sir. will you come into the sitting-room? i’ll tell ’er.”
jasper went into the sitting-room. he stood on the hearthrug in the attitude of a stranger. the tea-things had not been cleared away, they were still on the table, which was covered with a white cloth showing various grease spots. the tea-things themselves were on a black tin tray with the enamel scratched off in two or three places. there was a loaf of bread on the table, a pat of soft-looking butter on a plate, a pot of strawberry jam from which the spoon had fallen making a red smear on the cloth, and a remnant of stale cake.
the furniture in the room was not ugly, but the whole place had a desolate look. a french novel in a yellow paper cover lay open face downwards on a small table near the hearthrug. jasper picked it up, glanced at the title, and put it down again with a little movement of disgust.
the door opened and a woman came in. she was wearing a loose and rather shabby brown dress; her hair, which was really a beautiful pale gold, looked unbrushed and uncared for. she wore it parted and in an untidy knot at the nape of her neck. the only neat thing about her were her hands, which were small hands, the nails polished and manicured.
“oh, it’s you, jasper,” she said, and she sat down. she did not even offer to shake hands.
“how do you do, bridget,” he said gravely.
she laughed. “is that a gentle reminder to me of my manners, or a query as to my health? i’m all right, thanks.”
jasper stood irresolute. this nonchalant attitude of his wife pained him. she was usually more apathetic.
“won’t you sit down,” she said politely, “that is if you wish to stay for your usual hour.”
jasper put his hat and stick on the sofa and sat down on a chair near the table. his eye fell on the tray.
“why don’t you get a new one,” he said half irritably, “or at least cover it with a tea-cloth? i hate these black, scratched things. i don’t keep you short of money.”
she glanced towards the offending article.
“you don’t often see it, do you?” she queried. “i’m used to it; besides, i haven’t an artistic eye. emma shall take it away if it displeases you.”
she rang the bell, and the woman who had opened the front door appeared.
“take away the tea-things,” said bridget carelessly. “mr. merton doesn’t like to see them.”
the woman piled the things on to the tray, and gathered the cloth in a bundle under one arm. she left the room with them.
there was a silence.
“well,” said bridget encouragingly, “five minutes of the hour have gone.”
jasper moved impatiently. “i don’t know what is the matter with you this evening, bridget. i don’t know you in this mood.”
she raised her eyebrows with a slightly mocking expression.
“do you ever notice my moods? that is news to me. i was waiting for the usual lectures.”
jasper frowned. “i don’t want to lecture you. i don’t come here to lecture you. i have only sometimes asked you to keep your hair tidy and wear becoming dresses. there’s nothing in the way of a lecture about that.”
she shrugged her shoulders. “it’s hardly worth while to trouble, is it? no one sees me but you, and then only four times a year.”
“your own self-respect——” he began.
she looked at him.
“i lost that,” she said quietly, “long ago.”
“it is never too late,” he said. there was now a touch of priggishness in his manner. conscience had given him a little push.
“isn’t it?” she said. “i think it is. you showed me that.”
“i?” jasper was frankly amazed.
“yes, you.”
“i don’t understand what you mean. i tried to help you. i’ve begged you again and again to dress decently, to care for your appearance. i——”
“you left me.” the words were perfectly quiet. they were the mere statement of a fact.
“i—i—— our life together was a misery,” he stammered. “i tried for two years to help you. i——
“how did you try to help me?” she asked. “by talking calm platitudes through a kind of moral disinfectant sheet—which you held between us, unable, for all your high faluting words, to keep the disgust out of your voice, the loathing out of your eyes. i had offended your fastidious taste—yes, i know i had seemed horrible, that i was horrible; but how ten thousand times more horrible do you think i felt to myself? and yet i knew i had some excuse.”
“excuse,” he said sternly, strong in his moral self-righteousness, “excuse for lying drunk in the room with our dead child.” he shuddered. the memory of the sight filled him with horror.
she put her hand over her eyes. it was shaking.
“listen,” she said, “you shall have the truth for once, though i am not speaking it in justification of myself. have you ever thought of those four days and nights of torture, when every cry of anguish my baby uttered was like a red-hot needle piercing my heart and brain? have you thought that there were moments when i felt in my wild misery that i must fly from the sound of them, but that her baby-hands were seeking mine, her voice calling in vain to me to help her. you shudder? you shuddered then and fled. the sensitiveness of your nature could not stand the sight and sounds of agony. when at last it ceased, and reason told me my baby [pg 80]was at peace, i still heard her voice. the doctor had sent me to bed. i could not rest. i got up. i saw you. you went to your own room to weep. i had gone through the agony alone. i was to go through the grief alone. i was faint when i took the brandy. i did not know it would affect me as it did. i was worn out, and it went to my head. i heard her voice again. i thought it real that time. i stumbled upstairs to the room where you found me. in the morning i remembered what had happened. i loathed myself. i came to you and saw the same loathing in your eyes. the next few days i drank purposely to gain oblivion, and i hated myself for doing it more than you can ever have hated me. but one night i thought i saw my baby——” she paused. “i never took the stuff again, though there were moments when i longed for it. i wanted to ask your help, to tell you what i had suffered. i could not. i saw the look in your eyes. it kept awake in me the memory of that—that day. only at night, in the darkness, i forgot it. i could feel my baby in my arms, her hair against my lips——”
she stopped.
for a moment there was a dead silence: jasper broke it.
“i did not understand,” he said. it was an admission on his part. at the time she did not realize it.
“of course you did not,” she said, and a trace [pg 81]of weariness had found its way into her voice. “you would never understand what offended your taste. for a crime alone you might find excuse, provided it was sufficiently picturesque. for mere sordidness there is none in your eyes. you said it was not too late. i say it is. for years your refinement and your conscience have been at war. you have not had the moral courage to leave me, nor the manhood to help me—to help me to regain the self-respect i lost seven years ago. i am tired at last of you, tired of these perfunctory visits. they can end.”
“what do you mean?” asked jasper.
“simply that i don’t want to see you again. you can’t get a divorce—i have at least been faithful to you; there is not even cause for a legal separation——”
“bridget!” he cried, shocked. “i have never wanted——”
she held up her hand.
“please don’t protest, jasper. actions speak a good deal louder than words. you have hated these four yearly visits quite as much as i have. your conscience has ordered you to make them. you have kept it quiet by a quarterly journey to chiswick. your refinement has shrunk more each time from the sight of me. the fact that duty alone was urging you to it has made it more difficult for you. now it is i who say they must cease.”
“you are my wife,” he said stubbornly.
she laughed. “you always had little sense of humour, jasper, and now i think that little must have died. you don’t understand what i mean? that shows it is quite—quite dead. i am now going to take all responsibility off your shoulders by refusing to see you again.”
“and if i refuse?”
“then i shall go away where you cannot find me.”
for a moment he was silent.
“how can you live if i don’t know where you are?” he asked. “you have no money of your own. i must send you some.”
“i know you have considered it your duty to make me an allowance,” she replied, “and in my candid opinion that is still your duty. if, however, you persist in coming to see me i shall make it impossible for you to send me money by going away where you will be unable to find me. i can work. it might be better for me to do so. you can decide.”
“i shall send you the money,” he said stubbornly.
“and not attempt to see me—you promise?”
“you force me into giving the promise. i can’t let my wife work for her living, or starve.”
she got up from her chair.
“very well, then, that is understood. i’ve taken you by surprise this afternoon. i think i have surprised myself. at present you resent my interference with your conscience. later you will feel the relief. now, though your hour is not yet up, it would be wiser if we said good-bye.”
he got to his feet. the whole interview had been so unexpected he was feeling a little dazed.
“good-bye, jasper.” she held out her hand.
“good-bye, bridget.” then conscience—the officious—spoke. jasper bent forward to kiss his wife.
she drew back.
“isn’t that rather ridiculous?” she asked, with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
jasper flushed. he hated anything approaching ridicule. he had taken her word-slashings quietly. they had not yet even fully penetrated his plate-armour of self-righteousness.
“just as you like,” he said. “i only thought that as i was not seeing you again——”
“three months or a lifetime! it doesn’t make much difference to us, does it?”
he met her eyes. beneath the look in them his own fell. for the first time in his life he experienced something like genuine shame, not the little meretricious prickings of conscience with which he was wont to bewail his small or imaginary sins. to his great short-comings he was blind.
“you hate me?” he asked.
“no,” she said shortly, “for a wonder, i don’t. good-bye.”
he went to the door, opened it, and passed out. a second later she heard the iron gate clang to, and his receding steps on the pavement.
she stood for a moment listening, then turned towards the hearth. she put her hand up to the mantelpiece and gripped it hard.
“if only he had helped me,” she said. “god, why didn’t you let me die with my baby?”
