The Irrational Knot Part 42

"No. At first I used to play a good deal for him, knowing that he was fond of music, and fancying--poor fool that I was! [here Marian spoke so bitterly that Nelly turned and looked hard at her] that it was part of a married woman's duty in a house to supply music after dinner. At that time he was working hard at his business; and he spent so much time in the city that he had to give up playing himself. Besides, we were flying all about England opening those branch offices, and what not. He always took me with him; and I really enjoyed it, and took quite an interest in the Company. When we were in London, although I was so much alone in the daytime, I was happy in antic.i.p.ating our deferred honeymoon. Then the time for that paradise came. Ned said that the Company was able to walk by itself at last, and that he was going to have a long holiday after his dry-nursing of it. We went first to Paris, where we heard all the cla.s.sical concerts that were given while we were there. I found that he never tired of listening to orchestral music; and yet he never ceased grumbling at it. He thought nothing of the great artists in Paris. Then we went for a tour through Brittany; and there, in spite of his cla.s.sical tastes, he used to listen to the peasants' songs and write them down. He seemed to like folk songs of all kinds, Irish, Scotch, Russian, German, Italian, no matter where from. So one evening, at a lodging where there was a piano, I played for him that old arrangement of Irish melodies--you know--'Irish Diamonds,' it is called."

"Oh Lord! Yes, I remember. 'Believe me if all,' with variations."

"Yes. He thought I meant it in jest: he laughed at it, and played a lot of ridiculous variations to burlesque it. I didnt tell him that I had been in earnest: perhaps you can imagine how I felt about it. Then, after that, in Italy, he got permission--or rather bought it--to try the organ in a church. It was growing dusk; I was tired with walking; and somehow between the sense of repose, and the mysterious twilight in the old church, I was greatly affected by his playing. I thought it must be part of some great ma.s.s or symphony; and I felt how little I knew about music, and how trivial my wretched attempts must appear to him when he had such grand harmonies at his fingers' ends. But he soon stopped; and when I was about to tell him how I appreciated his performance, he said, 'What an abominable instrument a bad organ is!' I had thought it beautiful, of course. I asked him what he had been playing. I said was it not by Mozart; and then I saw his eyebrows go up; so I added, as a saving clause, that perhaps it was something of his own. 'My dear girl,'

said he, 'it was only an _entr'acte_ from an opera of Donizetti's.' He was carrying my shawl at the time; and he wrapped it about my shoulders in the tenderest manner as he said this, and made love to me all the evening to console me. In his opinion, the greatest misfortune that can happen anyone is to make a fool of oneself; and whenever I do it, he pets me in the most delicate manner, as if I were a child who had just got a tumble. When we settled down here and got the organ, he began to play constantly, and I used to practise the piano in the daytime so as to have duets with him. But though he was always ready to play whenever I proposed it, he was quite different then from what he was when he played by himself. He was all eyes and ears, and the moment I played a wrong note he would name the right one. Then I generally got worse and stopped. He never lost his patience or complained; but I used to feel that he was urging me on, or pulling me back, or striving to get me to do something which I could not grasp. Then he would give me up in despair, and play on mechanically from the notes before him, thinking of something else all the time. I practised harder, and tried again. I thought at first I had succeeded; because our duets went so smoothly and we were always so perfectly together. But I discovered--by instinct I believe--that instead of having a musical treat, he was only trying to please me. He thought I liked playing duets with him; and accordingly he used to sit down beside me and accompany me faithfully, no matter how I chose to play."

"Dear me! Why doesnt he get Rubinstein to play with him, since he is so remarkably fastidious?"

"It is not so much mechanical skill that I lack; but there is something--I cannot tell what it is. I found it out one night when we were at Mrs. Saunders's. She is an incurable flirt; and she was quite sure that she had captivated Ned, who is always ready to make love to anyone that will listen to him."

"A nice sort of man to be married to!"

"He only does it to amuse himself. He does not really care for them: I almost wish he did, sometimes; but it is often none the less provoking.

What is worse, no amount of flirtation on my part would make _him_ angry. What happened at Mrs. Saunders's was this. The Scotts, of Putney, were there; and the first remark Ned made to me was, 'Who is the woman that knows how to walk?' It was Mrs. Scott: you know you used to say she moved like a panther. Afterward Mrs. Scott sang 'Caller Herrin' in that vulgar Scotch accent that leaks out occasionally in her speech, with Ned at the piano. Everybody came crowding in to listen; and there was great applause. I cannot understand it: she is as hard and matter-of-fact as a woman can be: I dont believe the expression in her singing comes one bit from true feeling. I heard Ned say to her, 'Thank you, Mrs. Scott: no Englishwoman has the secret of singing a ballad as you have it.' I knew very well what that meant. _I_ have not the secret.

Well, Mrs. Scott came over to me and said 'Mr. Conolly is a very _pair_tinaceous man. He persuaded me into shewing him the way the little song is sung in Scotland; and I stood up without thinking. And see now, I have been _rag_uilarly singing a song in company for the first time in my life.' Of course, it was a ridiculous piece of affectation. Ned talked about Mrs. Scott all the way home, and played 'Caller Herrin'

four times next day. That finished my domestic musical career. I have never sung for him since, except once or twice when he has asked me to try the effect of some pa.s.sage in one of his music-books."

"And do you never sing when you go out, as you used to?"

"Only when he is not with me, or when people force me to. If he is in the room, I am so nervous that I can hardly get through the easiest song. He never offers to accompany me now, and generally leaves the room when I am asked to sing."

"Perhaps he sees the effect his presence has on you."

"Even so, he ought to stay. He used to like _me_ to listen to _him_, at first."

Miss McQuinch looked at the sunset with exceeding glumness. There was an ominous pause. Then she said, abruptly, "You remember how we used to debate whether marriage was a mistake or not. Have you found out?"

"I dont know."

"That sounds rather as if you did know. Are you quite sure you are not in low spirits this evening? He was bantering you about being out of temper when you came in. Perhaps you quarrelled at Kew."

"Quarrel! He quarrel! I cannot explain to you how we are situated, Nelly. You would not understand me."

"Suppose you try. For instance, is he as fond of you as he was before you married him?"

"I dont know."

Miss McQuinch shrugged herself impatiently.

"Really I do not, Nelly. He has changed in a way--I do not quite know how or why. At first he was not very ceremonious. He used to make remarks about people, and discuss everything that came into his head quite freely before me. He was always kind, and never grumbled about his dinner, or lost his temper, or anything of that kind; but--it was not that he was coa.r.s.e exactly: he was not that in the least; but he was very open and unreserved and plain in his language; and somehow I did not quite like it. He must have found this out: he sees and feels everything by instinct; for he slipped back into his old manner, and became more considerate and attentive than he had ever been before. I was made very happy at first by the change; but I do not think he quite understood what I wanted. I did not at all object to going down to the country with him on his business trips; but he always goes alone now; and he never mentions his work to me. And he is too careful as to what he says to me. Of course, I know that he is right not to speak ill of anybody; but still a man need not be so particular before his wife as before strangers. He has given up talking to me altogether: that is the plain truth, whatever he may pretend. When we do converse, his manner is something like what it was in the laboratory at the Towers. Of course, he sometimes becomes more familiar; only then he never seems in earnest, but makes love to me in a bantering, half playful, half sarcastic way."

"You are rather hard to please, perhaps. I remember you used to say that a husband should be just as tender and respectful after marriage as before it. You seem to have broken poor Ned into this; and now you are not satisfied."

"Nelly, if there is one subject on which girls are more idiotically ignorant than on any other, it is happiness in marriage. A courtier, a lover, a man who will not let the winds of heaven visit your face too harshly, is very nice, no doubt; but he is not a husband. I want to be a wife and not a fragile ornament kept in a gla.s.s case. He would as soon think of submitting any project of his to the judgment of a doll as to mine. If he has to explain or discuss any serious matter of business with me, he does so apologetically, as if he were treating me roughly."

"Well, my dear, you see, when he tried the other plan, you did not like that either. What is the unfortunate man to do?"

"I dont know. I suppose I was wrong in shrinking from his confidence. I am always wrong. It seems to me that the more I try to do right, the more mischief I contrive to make."

"This is all pretty dismal, Marian. What sort of conduct on his part would make you happy?"

"Oh, there are so many little things. He makes me jealous of everything and everybody. I am jealous of the men in the city--I was jealous of the sanitary inspector the other day--because he talks with interest to them. I know he stays in the city later than he need. It is a relief to me to go out in the evening, or to have a few people here once or twice a week; but I am angry because I know it is a relief to him too. I am jealous even of that organ. How I hale those Bach fugues! Listen to the maddening thing twisting and rolling and racing and then mixing itself up into one great boom. He can get on with Bach: he can't get on with me. I have even condescended to be jealous of other women--of such women as Mrs. Saunders. He despises her: he plays with her as dexterously as she thinks she plays with him; but he likes to chat with her; and they rattle away for a whole evening without the least constraint. She has no conscience: she talks absolute nonsense about art and literature: she flirts even more disgustingly than she used to when she was Belle Woodward; but she is quickwitted, like most Irish people; and she enjoys a broad style of jesting which Ned is a great deal too tolerant of, though he would as soon die as indulge in it before me. Then there is Mrs. Scott, who is just as shrewd as Belle, and much cleverer. I have heard him ask her opinion as to whether he had acted well or not in some stroke of business--something that I had never heard of, of course. I wish I were half as hard and strong and self-reliant as she is. _Her_ husband would be nothing without her."

"I am afraid I was right all along, Marian. Marriage _is_ a mistake.

There is something radically wrong in the inst.i.tution. If you and Ned cannot be happy, no pair in the world can."

"We might be very happy if----" Marian stopped to repress a sob.

"Anybody might be very happy If. There is not much consolation in Ifs.

You could not be better off than you are unless you could be Marian Lind again. Think of all the women who would give their souls to have a husband who would neither drink, nor swear at them, nor kick them, nor sulk whenever he was kept waiting half a minute for anything. You have no little pests of children----"

"I wish I had. That would give us some interest in common. We sometimes have Lucy, Marmaduke's little girl, up here; and Ned seems to me to be fond of her. She is a very bold little thing."

"I saw Marmaduke last week. He is not half so jolly as he was."

"He lives in chambers in Westminster now, and only comes out in this direction occasionally to see Lucy. I am afraid _she_ has taken to drinking. I believe she is going to America. I hope she is; for she makes me uncomfortable when I think of her."

"Does your--your Ned ever speak of her?"

"No. He used to, before he changed as I described. Now, he never mentions her. Hus.h.!.+ Here he is."

The sound of the organ had ceased; and Conolly came out and stood between them.

"How do you like my consoler, as Marian calls it?" said he.

"Do you mean the organ?"

"Yes."

"I wasn't listening to you."

"You should have: I played the great fugue in A minor expressly for your entertainment: you used to work at Liszt's transcription of it. The organ is only occasionally my consoler. For the most part I am driven to it by habit and a certain itching in my fingers. Marian is my real consoler."

"So she has just been telling me," said Elinor. Conolly's surprise escaped him for just a moment in a quick glance at Marian. She colored, and looked reproachfully at her cousin, who added, "I am sure you must be a nuisance to the neighbors."

"Probably," said Conolly.

"I do not think you should play so much on Sunday," said Marian.

"I know. [Marian winced.] Well, if the neighbors will either melt down the church bells they jangle so horribly within fifteen yards or so of my unfortunate ears, or else hang them up two hundred feet high in a beautiful tower where they would sound angelic, as they do at Utrecht, then perhaps I will stop the organ to listen to them. Until then, I will take the liberty of celebrating the day of rest with such devices as the religious folk cannot forbid me."

"Pray do not begin to talk about religion, Ned."

"My way of thinking is too robust for Marian, Miss McQuinch. I admit that it does not, at first sight, seem pretty or sentimental. But I do not know how even Marian can prefer the church bells to Bach."

"What do you mean by '_even_ Marian'?" said Elinor, sharply.

"I should have said, 'Marian, who is tolerant and kind to everybody and everything.' I hope you have forgiven me for carrying her off from you, Miss McQuinch. You are adopting an ominous tone toward me. I fear she has been telling you of our quarrels, and my many domestic shortcomings."