Victorian Short Stories: Stories of Courtship
other, leaning her head against the shutter with her hands clasped
before her. I can hear my own heart beating, and, I fancy, hers through
the stillness. The suspense is fearful. At length she says--
'You have been a long time out of England; you don't read the papers?'
'No.' A pause. I believe my heart is beating inside my head.
'You asked me if I was a free woman. I don't pretend to misunderstand
why you asked me. I am not a beautiful woman, I never was. But there
must be something about me, there is in some women, "essential
femininity" perhaps, that appeals to all men. What I read in your eyes
I have seen in many men's before, but before God I never tried to rouse
it. Today (with a sob), I can say I am free, yesterday morning I could
not. Yesterday my husband gained his case and divorced me!' she closes
her eyes and draws in her under-lip to stop its quivering. I want to
take her in my arms, but I am afraid to.
'I did not ask you any more than if you were free!'
'No, but I am afraid you don't quite take in the meaning. I did not
divorce my husband, he divorced _me_, he got a decree _nisi_; do you
understand now? (she is speaking with difficulty), do you know what that
implies?'
I can't stand her face any longer. I take her hands, they are icy cold,
and hold them tightly.
'Yes, I know what it implies, that is, I know the legal and social
conclusion to be drawn from it--if that is what you mean. But I never
asked you for that information. I have nothing to do with your past. You
did not exist for me before the day we met on the river. I take you from
that day and I ask you to marry me.'
I feel her tremble and her hands get suddenly warm. She turns her head
and looks at me long and searchingly, then she says--
'Sit down, I want to say something!'
I obey, and she comes and stands next the chair. I can't help it, I
reach up my arm, but she puts it gently down.
'No, you must listen without touching me, I shall go back to the
window. I don't want to influence you a bit by any personal magnetism
I possess. I want you to listen--I have told you he divorced me, the
co-respondent was an old friend, a friend of my childhood, of my
girlhood. He died just after the first application was made, luckily for
me. He would have considered my honour before my happiness. _I_ did not
defend the case, it wasn't likely--ah, if you knew all? He proved his
case; given clever counsel, willing witnesses to whom you make it worth
while, and no defence, divorce is always attainable even in England. But
remember: I figure as an adulteress in every English-speaking paper. If
you buy last week's evening papers--do you remember the day I was in
town?'--I nod--'you will see a sketch of me in that day's; someone,
perhaps he, must have given it; it was from an old photograph. I bought
one at Victoria as I came out; it is funny (with an hysterical laugh) to
buy a caricature of one's own poor face at a news-stall. Yet in spite of
that I have felt glad. The point for you is that I made no defence to
the world, and (with a lifting of her head) I will make no apology, no
explanation, no denial to you, now nor ever. I am very desolate and your
attention came very warm to me, but I don't love you. Perhaps I could
learn to (with a rush of colour), for what you have said tonight, and it
is because of that I tell you to weigh what this means. Later, when your
care for me will grow into habit, you may chafe at my past. It is from
that I would save you.'
I hold out my hands and she comes and puts them aside and takes me by
the beard and turns up my face and scans it earnestly. She must have
been deceived a good deal. I let her do as she pleases, it is the wisest
way with women, and it is good to have her touch me in that way. She
seems satisfied. She stands leaning against the arm of the chair and
says--
'I must learn first to think of myself as a free woman again, it almost
seems wrong today to talk like this; can you understand that feeling?'
I nod assent.
'Next time I must be sure, and you must be sure,' she lays her fingers
on my mouth as I am about to protest, 'S-sh! You shall have a year to
think. If you repeat then what you have said today, I shall give you
your answer. You must not try to find me. I have money. If I am living,
I will come here to you. If I am dead, you will be told of it. In the
year between I shall look upon myself as belonging to you, and render an
account if you wish of every hour. You will not be influenced by me in
any way, and you will be able to reason it out calmly. If you think
better of it, don't come.'
I feel there would be no use trying to move her, I simply kiss her hands
and say:
'As you will, dear woman, I shall be here.'
We don't say any more; she sits down on a footstool with her head
against my knee, and I just smooth it. When the clocks strike ten
through the house, she rises and I stand up. I see that she has been
crying quietly, poor lonely little soul. I lift her off her feet and
kiss her, and stammer out my sorrow at losing her, and she is gone. Next
morning the little maid brought me an envelope from the lady, who left
by the first train. It held a little grey glove; that is why I carry it
always, and why I haunt the inn and never leave it for longer than a
week; why I sit and dream in the old chair that has a ghost of her
presence always; dream of the spring to come with the May-fly on the
wing, and the young summer when midges dance, and the trout are growing
fastidious; when she will come to me across the meadow grass, through
the silver haze, as she did before; come with her grey eyes shining to
exchange herself for her little grey glove.
THE WOMAN BEATER
By Israel Zangwill
(_The Grey Wig/Stories and Novelettes_, New York: The Macmillan Company,
1903)
I
She came 'to meet John Lefolle', but John Lefolle did not know he was
to meet Winifred Glamorys. He did not even know he was himself the
meeting-point of all the brilliant and beautiful persons, assembled in
the publisher's Saturday Salon, for although a youthful minor poet, he
was modest and lovable. Perhaps his Oxford tutorship was sobering. At
any rate his head remained unturned by his precocious fame, and to meet
these other young men and women--his reverend seniors on the slopes of
Parnassus--gave him more pleasure than the receipt of 'royalties'. Not
that his publisher afforded him much opportunity of contrasting the two
pleasures. The profits of the Muse went to provide this room of old
furniture and roses, this beautiful garden a-twinkle with Japanese
lanterns, like gorgeous fire-flowers blossoming under the white
crescent-moon of early June.
Winifred Glamorys was not literary herself. She was better than a
poetess, she was a poem. The publisher always threw in a few realities,
and some beautiful brainless creature would generally be found the
nucleus of a crowd, while Clio in spectacles languished in a corner.
Winifred Glamorys, however, was reputed to have a tongue that matched
her eye; paralleling with whimsies and epigrams its freakish fires and
witcheries, and, assuredly, flitting in her white gown through the dark
balmy garden, she seemed the very spirit of moonlight, the subtle
incarnation of night and roses.
When John Lefolle met her, Cecilia was with her, and the first
conversation was triangular. Cecilia fired most of the shots; she was
a bouncing, rattling beauty, chockful of confidence and high spirits,
except when asked to do the one thing she could do--sing! Then she
became--quite genuinely--a nervous, hesitant, pale little thing.
However, the suppliant hostess bore her off, and presently her rich
contralto notes passed through the garden, adding to its passion and
mystery, and through the open French windows, John could see her
standing against the wall near the piano, her head thrown back, her eyes
half-closed, her creamy throat swelling in the very abandonment of
artistic ecstasy.
'What a charming creature!' he exclaimed involuntarily.
'That is what everybody thinks, except her husband,' Winifred laughed.
'Is he blind then?' asked John with his cloistral _naivete_.
'Blind? No, love is blind. Marriage is never blind.'
The bitterness in her tone pierced John. He felt vaguely the passing of
some icy current from unknown seas of experience. Cecilia's voice soared
out enchantingly.
'Then, marriage must be deaf,' he said, 'or such music as that would
charm it.'
She smiled sadly. Her smile was the tricksy play of moonlight among
clouds of faery.
'You have never been married,' she said simply.
'Do you mean that you, too, are neglected?' something impelled him to
exclaim.
'Worse,' she murmured.
'It is incredible!' he cried. 'You!'
'Hush! My husband will hear you.'
Her warning whisper brought him into a delicious conspiracy with her.
'Which is your husband?' he whispered back.
'There! Near the casement, standing gazing open-mouthed at Cecilia. He
always opens his mouth when she sings. It is like two toys moved by the
same wire.'
He looked at the tall, stalwart, ruddy-haired Anglo-Saxon. 'Do you mean
to say he--?'
'I mean to say nothing.'
'But you said--'
'I said "worse".'
'Why, what can be worse?'
She put her hand over her face. 'I am ashamed to tell you.' How adorable
was that half-divined blush!
'But you must tell me everything.' He scarcely knew how he had leapt
into this role of confessor. He only felt they were 'moved by the same
wire'.
Her head drooped on her breast. 'He--beats--me.'
'What!' John forgot to whisper. It was the greatest shock his recluse
life had known, compact as it was of horror at the revelation, shamed
confusion at her candour, and delicious pleasure in her confidence.
This fragile, exquisite creature under the rod of a brutal bully!
Once he had gone to a wedding reception, and among the serious presents
some grinning Philistine drew his attention to an uncouth club--'a
wife-beater' he called it. The flippancy had jarred upon John terribly:
this intrusive reminder of the customs of the slums. It grated like
Billingsgate in a boudoir. Now that savage weapon recurred to him--for a
lurid instant he saw Winifred's husband wielding it. Oh, abomination of
his sex! And did he stand there, in his immaculate evening dress, posing
as an English gentleman? Even so might some gentleman burglar bear
through a salon his imperturbable swallow-tail.
Beat a woman! Beat that essence of charm and purity, God's best gift to
man, redeeming him from his own grossness! Could such things be? John
Lefolle would as soon have credited the French legend that English wives
are sold in Smithfield. No! it could not be real that this flower-like
figure was thrashed.
'Do you mean to say--?' he cried. The rapidity of her confidence alone
made him feel it all of a dreamlike unreality.
'Hush! Cecilia's singing!' she admonished him with an unexpected smile,
as her fingers fell from her face.
'Oh, you have been making fun of me.' He was vastly relieved. 'He beats
you--at chess--or at lawn-tennis?'
'Does one wear a high-necked dress to conceal the traces of chess, or
lawn-tennis?'
He had not noticed her dress before, save for its spiritual whiteness.
Susceptible though he was to beautiful shoulders, Winifred's enchanting
face had been sufficiently distracting. Now the thought of physical
bruises gave him a second spasm of righteous horror. That delicate
rose-leaf flesh abraded and lacerated!
'The ruffian! Does he use a stick or a fist?'
'Both! But as a rule he just takes me by the arms and shakes me like a
terrier a rat. I'm all black and blue now.'
'Poor butterfly!' he murmured poetically.
'Why did I tell you?' she murmured back with subtler poetry.