Esther Waters Part 41

He drew her closer to him; she did not resist; he could see that she was weeping. He kissed her on her neck first, and then on her face; and he continued to ask her if she loved the other chap. At last she signified that she did not.

"Then say yes." She murmured that she could not. "You can, you can, you can." He kissed her, all the while reiterating, "You can, you can, you can," until it became a sort of parrot cry. Several minutes elapsed, and the candle began to splutter in its socket. She said--

"Let me go; let me light the gas."

As she sought for the matches she caught sight of the clock.

"I did not know it was so late."

"Say yes before I go."

"I can't."

And it was impossible to extort a promise from her. "I'm too tired," she said, "let me go."

He took her in his arms and kissed her, and said, "My own little wife."

As he went up the area steps she remembered that he had used the same words before. She tried to think of Fred, but William's great square shoulders had come between her and this meagre little man. She sighed, and felt once again that her will was overborne by a force which she could not control or understand.

XXVIII

She went round the house bolting and locking the doors, seeing that everything was made fast for the night. At the foot of the stairs painful thoughts came upon her, and she drew her hand across her eyes; for she was whelmed with a sense of sorrow, of purely mental misery, which she could not understand, and which she had not strength to grapple with. She was, however, conscious of the fact that life was proving too strong for her, that she could make nothing of it, and she thought that she did not care much what happened. She had fought with adverse fate, and had conquered in a way; she had won countless victories over herself, and now found herself without the necessary strength for the last battle; she had not even strength for blame, and merely wondered why she had let William kiss her.

She remembered how she had hated him, and now she hated him no longer. She ought not to have spoken to him; above all, she ought not to have taken him to see the child. But how could she help it?

She slept on the same landing as Miss Rice, and was moved by a sudden impulse to go in and tell her the story of her trouble. But what good? No one could help her. She liked Fred; they seemed to suit each other, and she could have made him a good wife if she had not met William. She thought of the cottage at Mortlake, and their lives in it; and she sought to stimulate her liking for him with thoughts of the meeting-house; she thought even of the simple black dress she would wear, and that life seemed so natural to her that she did not understand why she hesitated....

If she were to marry William she would go to the "King's Head."

She would stand behind the bar; she would serve the customers. She had never seen much life, and felt somehow that she would like to see a little life; there would not be much life in the cottage at Mortlake; nothing but the prayer-meeting. She stopped thinking, surprised at her thoughts. She had never thought like that before; it seemed as if some other woman whom she hardly knew was thinking for her. She seemed like one standing at cross-roads, unable to decide which road she would take. If she took the road leading to the cottage and the prayer-meeting her life would henceforth be secure. She could see her life from end to end, even to the time when Fred would come and sit by her, and hold her hand as she had seen his father and mother sitting side by side. If she took the road to the public-house and the race-course she did not know what might not happen. But William had promised to settle 500 on her and Jackie. Her life would be secure either way.

She must marry Fred; she had promised to marry him; she wished to be a good woman; he would give her the life she was most fitted for, the life she had always desired; the life of her father and mother, the life of her childhood. She would marry Fred, only--something at that moment seemed to take her by the throat. William had come between her and that life. If she had not met him at Woodview long ago; if she had not met him in the Pembroke Road that night she went to fetch the beer for her mistress's dinner, how different everything would have been! ...If she had met him only a few months later, when she was Fred's wife!

Wis.h.i.+ng she might go to sleep, and awake the wife of one or the other, she fell asleep to dream of a husband possessed of the qualities of both, and a life that was neither all chapel nor all public-house. But soon the one became two, and Esther awoke in terror, believing she had married them both.

XXIX

If Fred had said, "Come away with me," Esther would have obeyed the elemental romanticism which is so fixed a principle in woman's nature. But when she called at the shop he only spoke of his holiday, of the long walks he had taken, and the religious and political meetings he had attended. Esther listened vaguely; and there was in her mind unconscious regret that he was not a little different. Little irrelevant thoughts came upon her. She would like him better if he wore coloured neckties and a short jacket; she wished half of him away--his dowdiness, his sandy-coloured hair, the vague eyes, the black neckties, the long loose frock-coat. But his voice was keen and ringing, and when listening her heart always went out to him, and she felt that she might fearlessly entrust her life to him. But he did not seem wholly to understand her, and day by day, against her will, the thought gripped her more and more closely that she could not separate Jackie from his father. She would have to tell Fred the whole truth, and he would not understand it; that she knew. But it would have to be done, and she sent round to say she'd like to see him when he left business. Would he step round about eight o'clock?

The clock had hardly struck eight when she heard a tap at the window. She opened the door and he came in, surprised by the silence with which she received him.

"I hope nothing has happened. Is anything the matter?"

"Yes, a great deal's the matter. I'm afraid we shall never be married, Fred, that's what's the matter."

"How's that, Esther? What can prevent us getting married?" She did not answer, and then he said, "You've not ceased to care for me?"

"No, that's not it."

"Jackie's father has come back?"

"You've hit it, that's what happened."

"I'm sorry that man has come across you again. I thought you told me he was married. But, Esther, don't keep me in suspense; what has he done?"

"Sit down; don't stand staring at me in that way, and I'll tell you the story."

Then in a strained voice, in which there was genuine suffering, Esther told her story, laying special stress on the fact that she had done her best to prevent him from seeing the child.

"I don't see how you could have forbidden him access to the child."

He often used words that Esther did not understand, but guessing his meaning, she answered--

"That's just what the missus said; she argued me into taking him to see the child. I knew once he'd seen Jackie there'd be no getting rid of him.

I shall never get rid of him again."

"He has no claim upon you. It is just like him, low blackguard fellow that he is, to come after you, persecuting you. But don't you fear; you leave him to me. I'll find a way of stopping his little game."

Esther looked at his frail figure.

"You can do nothing; no one can do nothing," she said, and the tears trembled in her handsome eyes. "He wants me to go away and live with him, so that his wife may be able to divorce him."

"Wants you to go away and live with him! But surely, Esther, you do not----"

"Yes, he wants me to go and live with him, so that his wife can get a divorce," Esther answered, for the suspense irritated her; "and how can I refuse to go with him?"

"Esther, are you serious? You cannot... You told me that you did not love him, and after all----" He waited for Esther to speak.

"Yes," she said very quickly, "there is no way out of it that I can see."

"Esther, that man has tempted you, and you have not prayed."

She did not answer.

"I don't want to hear more of this," he said, catching up his hat. "I shouldn't have believed it if I had not heard it from your lips; no, not if the whole world had told me. You are in love with this man, though you may not know it, and you've invented this story as a pretext to throw me over. Good-bye, Esther."

"Fred, dear, listen, hear me out. You'll not go away in that hasty way.

You're the only friend I have. Let me explain."

"Explain! how can such things be explained?"

"That's what I thought until all this happened to me. I have suffered dreadful in the last few days. I've wept bitter tears, and I thought of all you said about the 'ome you was going to give me." Her sincerity was unmistakable, and Fred doubted her no longer. "I'm very fond of you, Fred, and if things had been different I think I might have made you a good wife. But it wasn't to be."