perhaps it is a mercy we can’t see ourselves as others see us. molly wickham was a remarkable pretty woman in days gone by; maybe she is wiser since she has aged, but when she was young she was foolish. she never seemed to realize it, but i wasn’t deceived.
so said the cattle-dealer, a healthy looking man, massive, morose, and bordering on fifty. he did not say it to anybody in particular, for it was said—it was to himself he said it—privately, musingly, as if to soothe the still embittered recollection of a beauty that was foolish, a fondness that was vain.
ted wickham himself was silly, too, when he married her. must have been extraordinarily touched to marry a little soft, religious, teetotal party like her, and him a great sporting cock of a man, just come into a public-house business that his aunt had left him, “the half moon,” up on the bath road. he always ate like an elephant, but she’d only the appetite of a scorpion. and what was worse, he was a true blood conservative while all her family were a set of radicals that you couldn’t talk sense to: if you only so much as mentioned the name of gladstone they would turn their eyes up to the ceiling as if he was a saint in glory. blood is thicker than water, i know, but it’s unnatural stuff to drink so much of. grant their name was. they christened her pamela, and as if that wasn’t cruel enough they messed her initials up by giving her the middle name of isabel.
but she was a handsome creature, on the small side196 but sound as a roach and sweet as an apple tree in bloom. pretty enough to convert ted, and i thought she would convert him, but she was a cussed woman—never did what you would expect of her—and so she didn’t even try. she gave up religion herself, gave it up altogether and went to church no more. that was against her inclination, but of course it was only right, for ted never could have put up with that. wedlock’s one thing and religion’s two: that’s odd and even: a little is all very well if it don’t go a long ways. parson twamley kept calling on her for a year or two afterwards, trying to persuade her to return to the fold—he couldn’t have called oftener if she had owed him a hundred pound—but she would not hear of it, she would not go. he was not much of a parson, not one to wake anybody up, but he had a good delivery, and when he’d the luck to get hold of a sermon of any sense his delivery was very good, very good indeed. she would say: “no, sir, my feelings aren’t changed one bit, but i won’t come to church any more, i’ve my private reasons.” and the parson would glare across at old ted as if he were a belzeboob, for ted always sat and listened to the parson chattering to her. never said a word himself, always kept his pipe stuck in his jaw. ted never persuaded her in the least, just left it to her, and she would come round to his manner of thinking in the end, for though he never actually said it, she always knew what his way of thinking was. a strange thing, it takes a real woman to do that, silly or no! at election times she would plaster the place all over with tory bills, do it with her own hands!
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still, there’s no stability in meekness of that sort, a weathervane can only go with wind and weather, and there was no sense in her giving in to ted as she did, not in the long run, for he couldn’t help but despise her. a man wants something or other to whet the edge of his life on; and he did despise her, i know.
but she was a fine creature in her way, only her way wasn’t his. a beautiful woman, too, well-limbered up, with lovely hair, but always a very proper sort, a milksop—ted told me once that he had never seen her naked. well, can you wonder at the man? and always badgering him to do things that could not be done at the time. to have “the half moon” painted, or enlarged, or insured: she’d keep on badgering him, and he could not make her see that any god’s amount of money spent on paint wouldn’t improve the taste of liquor.
“i can see as far into a quart pot as the king of england,” he says, “and i know that if this bar was four times as big as ’tis a quart wouldn’t hold a drop more then than it does now.”
“no, of course,” she says.
“nor a drop less neither,” says ted. he showed her that all the money expended on improvements and insurance and such things were so much off something else. ted was a generous chap—liked to see plenty of everything, even though he had to give some of it away. but you can’t make some women see some things.
“not a roof to our heads, nor a floor to our feet, nor a pound to turn round on if a fire broke out,” molly would say.
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“but why should a fire break out?” he’d ask her. “there never has been a fire here, there never ought to be a fire here, and what’s more, there never will be a fire here, so why should there be a fire?”
and of course she let him have his own way, and they never had a fire there while he was alive, though i don’t know that any great harm would have been done anyways, for after a few years trade began to slacken off, and the place got dull, and what with the taxes it was not much more than a bread and cheese business. still, there’s no matter of that: a man don’t ask for a bed of roses: a world without some disturbance or anxiety would be like a duckpond where the ducks sleep all day and are carried off at night by the foxes.
molly was like that in many things, not really contrary, but no tact. after ted died she kept on at “the half moon” for a year or two by herself, and regular as clockwork every month pollock, the insurance manager, would drop in and try for to persuade her to insure the house or the stock or the furniture, any mortal thing. well, believe you, when she had only got herself to please in the matter that woman wouldn’t have anything to say to that insurance—she never did insure, and never would.
“i wouldn’t run such a risk; upon my soul it’s flying in the face of possibilities, mrs. wickham”—he was a palavering chap, that pollock; a tall fellow with sandy hair, and he always stunk of liniment for he had asthma on the chest—“a very grave risk, it is indeed,” he would say,199 “the meazer’s family was burnt clean out of hearth and home last st. valentine’s day, and if they hadn’t taken up a policy what would have become of those meazers?”
“i dunno,” molly says—that was the name ted give her—“i dunno, and i’m sorry for unfortunate people, but i’ve my private reasons.”
she was always talking about her private reasons, and they must have been devilish private, for not a soul on god’s earth ever set eyes on them.
“well, mrs. wickham,” says pollock, “they’d have been a tidy ways up queer street, and ruin’s a long-lasting affair,” pollock says. he was a rare palavering chap, and he used to talk about gladstone, too, for he knew her family history; but that didn’t move her, and she did not insure.
“yes, i quite agree,” she says, “but i’ve my private reasons.”
sheer female cussedness! but where her own husband couldn’t persuade her pollock had no chance at all. and then, of course, two years after ted died she did go and have a fire there. “the half moon” was burnt clean out, rafter and railings, and she had to give it up and shift into the little bullseye business where she is now, selling bullseyes to infants and ginger beer to boy scholars on bicycles. and what does it all amount to? why, it don’t keep her in hairpins. she had the most beautiful hair once. but that’s telling the story back foremost.
ted was a smart chap, a particular friend of mine (so was molly), and he could have made something of himself and of his business, perhaps, if it hadn’t been for her. he was a sportsman to the backbone; cricket, shooting, fishing, always game for a bit of200 life, any mortal thing—what was there he couldn’t do? and a perfect demon with women, i’ve never seen the like. if there was a woman for miles around as he couldn’t come at, then you could bet a crown no one else could. he had the gift. well, when one woman ain’t enough for a man, twenty ain’t too many. he and me were in a tight corner together more than once, but he never went back on a friend, his word was his bible oath. and there was he all the while tied up to this soft wife of his, who never once let on she knew of it at all, though she knowed much. and never would she cast the blink of her eyes—splendid eyes they were, too—on any willing stranger, nor even a friend, say, like myself; it was all ted this and ted that, though i was just her own age and ted was twelve years ahead of us both. she didn’t know her own value, wouldn’t take her opportunities, hadn’t the sense, as i say, though she had got everything else. ah, she was a woman to be looking at once, and none so bad now; she wears well.
but she was too pious and proper, it aggravated him, but ted never once laid a finger on her and never uttered one word of reproach though he despised her; never grudged her a thing in reason when things were going well with him. it’s god almighty’s own true gospel—they never had a quarrel in all the twelve years they was wed, and i don’t believe they ever had an angry word, but how he kept his hands off her i don’t know. i couldn’t have done it, but i was never married—i was too independent for that work. he’d contradict her sometimes, for she would talk, and ted was one of201 your silent sorts, but she—she would talk for ever more. she was so artful that she used to invent all manners of tomfoolery on purpose to make him contradict her; believe you, she did, even on his death-bed.
i used to go and sit with him when he was going, poor ted, for i knew he was done for; and on the day he died, she said to him—and i was there and i heard it: “is there anything you would like me to do, dear?” and he said, “no.” he was almost at his last gasp, he had strained his heart, but she was for ever on at him, even then, an unresting woman. it was in may, i remember it, a grand bright afternoon outside, but the room itself was dreadful, it didn’t seem to be afternoon at all; it was unbearable for a strong man to be dying in such fine weather, and the carts going by, and though we were a watching him, it seemed more as if something was watching us.
and she says to him again: “isn’t there anything you would like me to do?”
ted says to her: “ah! i’d like to hear you give one downright good damn curse. swear, my dear!”
“at what?” she says.
“me, if you like.”
“what for?” she says. i can see her now, staring at him.
“for my sins.”
“what sins?” she says.
now did you ever hear anything like that? what sins! after a while she began at him once more.
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“ted, if anything happens to you i’ll never marry again.”
“do what you like,” says he.
“i’ll not do that,” she says, and she put her arms round him, “for you’d not rest quiet in your grave, would you, ted?”
“leave me alone,” he says, for he was a very crusty sick man, very crusty, poor ted, but could you wonder? “you leave me alone and i’ll rest sure enough.”
“you can be certain,” she cries, “that i’d never, never do that, i’d never look at another man after you, ted, never; i promise it solemnly.”
“don’t bother me, don’t bother at all.” and poor ted give a grunt and turned over on his side to get away from her.
at that moment some gruel boiled over on the hob—gruel and brandy was all he could take. she turned to look after it, and just then old ted gave a breath and was gone, dead. she turned like a flash, with the steaming pot in her hand, bewildered for a moment. she saw he had gone. then she put the pot back gently on the fender, walked over to the window and pulled down the blind. never dropped a tear, not one tear.
well, that was the end of ted. we buried him, one or two of us. there was an insurance on his life for fifty pounds, but ted had long before mortgaged the policy and so there was next to nothing for her. but what else could the man do? (molly always swore the bank defrauded her!) she put a death notice in the paper, how he was dead, and the date,203 and what he died of: “after a long illness, nobly and patiently borne.” of course, that was sarcasm, she never meant one word of it, for he was a terror to nurse, the worst that ever was; a strong man on his back is like a wasp in a bottle. but every year, when the day comes round—and it’s ten years now since he died—she puts a memorial notice in the same paper about her loving faithful husband and the long illness nobly and patiently borne!
and then, as i said, the insurance man and the parson began to call again on that foolish woman, but she would not alter her ways for any of them. not one bit. the things she had once enjoyed before her marriage, the things she had wanted her own husband to do but were all against his grain, these she could nohow bring herself to do when he was dead and gone and she was alone and free to do them. what a farce human nature can be! there was an italian hawker came along with rings in his ears and a coloured cart full of these little statues of cupid, and churches with spires a yard long and red glass in them, and heads of some of the great people like the queen and general gordon.
“have you got a head of lord beaconsfield?” molly asks him.
he goes and searches in his cart and brings her out a beautiful head on a stand, all white and new, and charges her half a crown for it. few days later the parson calls on the job of persuading her to return to his flock now that she was free to go once more. but no. she says:204 “i can never change now, sir, it may be all wrong of me, but what my man thought was good enough for me, and i somehow cling to that. it’s all wrong, i suppose, and you can’t understand it, sir, but it’s all my life.”
well, twamley chumbled over an argument or two, but he couldn’t move her; there’s no mortal man could ever more that woman except ted—and he didn’t give a damn.
“well,” says parson, “i have hopes, mrs. wickham, that you will come to see the matter in a new light, a little later on perhaps. in fact, i’m sure you will, for look, there’s that bust,” he says, and he points to it on the mantelpiece. “i thought you and he were all against gladstone, but now you’ve got his bust upon your shelf; it’s a new one, i see.”
“no, no, that isn’t gladstone,” cried molly, all of a tremble, “that isn’t gladstone, it’s lord beaconsfield!”
“indeed, but pardon me, mrs. wickham, that is certainly a bust of mr. gladstone.”
so it was. this italian chap had deceived the silly creature and palmed her off with any bust that come handy, and it happened to be gladstone. she went white to the teeth, and gave a sort of scream, and dashed the little bust in a hundred pieces on the hearth in front of the minister there. o, he had a very vexing time with her.
that was years ago. and then came the fire, and then the bullseye shop. for ten years now i’ve prayed that woman to marry me, and she just tells me: no. she says she pledged her solemn word to ted as he lay a-dying that she would not wed again. it was his last wish—she says. but it’s a lie, a lie, for i205 heard them both. such a lie! she’s a mad woman, but fond of him still in her way, i suppose. she liked to see ted make a fool of himself, liked him better so. perhaps that’s what she don’t see in me. and what i see in her—i can’t imagine. but it’s a something, something in her that sways me now just as it swayed me then, and i doubt but it will sway me for ever.
