A Proper Marriage (63 page)

He remained with his eyes shut for a few moments, then opened them, and slowly woke up, blinking. He coughed, and inquired as if he had just seen her, ‘Well, old chap?’ But his eyes were evasive. ‘Lord, that was a deep sleep,’ he observed. ‘Those birds are making a row.’ They were fighting again; drops of water flew sparkling from the bird bath as they skimmed shrilly over it.

‘Oh, very well,’ said Martha crossly, getting up.

‘Just going in to see your mother?’ inquired Mr Quest hopefully. ‘Well, that’s a good thing. I’m not feeling very well this morning.’ He pulled his paper upright and began to read.

Perhaps he didn’t see me after all? she wondered. Then she saw in his eyes that sly, triumphant gleam she knew so well. She smiled, intending that he should see it, But he would not look. She walked off dispiritedly to the house.

Mrs Quest was cutting out on the back veranda. Piles of white material lay everywhere.

Martha had been planning a quiet, reasonable discussion with her mother, who would first be upset, and then understand her point of view. This consoling fantasy had even included a warm embrace, and tears shed together. It was only when she actually arrived in her mother’s presence that she understood this was absurd.

‘Oh, is that you, Matty?’ Mrs Quest said, and went on cutting. She had a look of withdrawn, sullen disapproval. Martha thought that her mother was rather like Douglas just then, there was that swollen reddened look about the face, the accusing eyes. But she went straight into battle, with the abrupt announcement, heart pounding, knees trembling: ‘Mother, I am going to leave Douglas.’

Mrs Quest went on cutting for a moment, the big scissors
flashing. Her hands were shaking. The scissors fumbled and slipped. She turned on Martha, hands lifted in fists. ‘Mrs Talbot told me, I always knew you’d come to this,’ she cried dramatically.

Martha had not expected the torrent of abuse that then followed. She realized that all the arguments she had come armed with were irrelevant. She must listen to this until its end, crossing off one after another, as it were, the threats and accusations which were supplied to Mrs Quest – by what? She sounded like a vituperative kitchenmaid. Martha had no idea that this elderly and proper matron knew such language. Mrs Quest said that Martha was killing her father; Martha said briskly, ‘Nonsense.’ Mrs Quest said she was ruining Caroline; to which Martha replied that she could not see, even at the very worst, that Caroline would turn out any worse or more neurotic than the children of ordinary marriages. Mrs Quest said she would never speak to Martha again, and that she must immediately marry that corporal, or whatever he was, and go to England to save her, Mrs Quest, from this disgrace. Finally, she wrung her hands and said it was a woman’s role to sacrifice herself, as she had done for the sake of her children.

Martha reflected that Mrs Quest did not really believe in any of this, she was simply playing a role laid down for her.

Just as, in early middle age, she had written letters to be opened after her death, which she felt was imminent, to her husband choosing his future wife, to her children exhorting them to forget her immediately and not to wear mourning - behaviour which, as Martha had discovered from inquiries among her friends, was common to all their mothers at a certain stage in life – so now did she feel she must refuse ever to see Martha again, must exclaim over and over again that Martha was killing her father.

But at last she cried out in complete despair, from the heart, ‘And what will people say?’ For this was the kernel of the matter.

Martha went home with the feeling that she had accomplished another stage in that curious process which would set her free.

And now it was that the thought of parting with Caroline became real. She took the child into the garden. Caroline played with her toys on a rug, while Martha talked to her. She felt as if the child understood perfectly what she was saying - more, that there was only one person who really understood her, and that was Caroline. She felt a deep bond between them, of sympathy and understanding. When Caroline lifted her arms to be picked up, Martha took her on her lap, and for the last time touched the small round knees, the perfect dimpled arms, and was pleased because Caroline would never stay quiet in her arms: she was at once striving to be up, twisting herself to reach over her mother’s shoulder for some leaves, or bending for a feathery head of grass. Martha held the energetic and vibrant little creature tight for a moment, and whispered in a flush of pure tenderness, ‘You’ll be perfectly free, Caroline. I’m setting you free.’

Then she gave the child to Mrs Knowell, and went indoors. She packed her clothes and her books. These belonged to her. She would not touch any of the things that she had brought into the ménage: nothing that had been given to the marriage, rather than to herself. She left the wardrobe empty, save for her mother’s coats and wraps.

Then she waited for Douglas to come. He did not until very late that night. He had been with Mrs Quest.

He looked savagely at her and said, ‘I’m going to make you have another baby.’ He did not believe it, but he said it, gripping her shoulders and twisting them. The door was open into the next room, where Mrs Knowell sat knitting.

‘You ought to shut the door first, at least,’ said Martha with a grunt of nervous laughter.

He started back, looked vaguely around, and went to shut it. She wondered what was coming next. He took a few steps towards her, then turned and went to a cupboard and pulled out a revolver. It was the revolver he had insisted on leaving with her when he went up north with the Army.

‘I shall shoot you and Caroline,’ he said to her. He started rummaging for bullets. He stood up, fitting in the greasy plugs of steel. He was crying, she saw with discomfort. The
tears were springing from under his swollen lids and splashing on to his shirt. She thought, Well, he might shoot us. But she was unable to believe in it.

He finished arranging the revolver, and stood pointing it vaguely in her direction, his face working. He thought for a while, then said in a voice choked but full of satisfaction, ‘I shall shoot Caroline first and you afterwards.’ He went into the nursery. Martha followed him to the door, her heart pounding with fear. He was bending over the cot, shaking with sobs, the hand holding the revolver hanging loose at his side. But his eyes were rolling around in her direction to see if she was watching him.

She went into the drawing room and said to his mother, ‘Douglas says he’s going to shoot Caroline and me.’ She laughed, and again noted the hysteria in her voice. She steadied herself and said in a flat steady voice, ‘I don’t think for a moment that he will, but he says so.’

Mrs Knowell did not look at Martha. She laid aside her knitting, with tight sad lips, and came into the bedroom. Now Douglas was standing in the middle of the room, the revolver dangling loose from his hand. He was saying, ‘I shall shoot myself. I have nothing to live for.’

His mother went to him and took him in her arms, and murmured, ‘There, there, my baby. She won’t leave you, she won’t.’

Martha said nothing. Douglas staggered a few steps, and collapsed, heaving with sobs, on the bed. Mrs Knowell was saying, ‘It’s all right, dear. She couldn’t leave you - could you, Matty?’ Now she looked with peremptory anger at Martha, the yellowing eyes exhausted, but not frightened. Martha obeyed her. She came and sat down on the other side of Douglas, but was unable to touch him. She saw that what his mother wanted was for her to put her arms around Douglas and promise in a maternal murmur that she would not leave him. This was what Douglas was waiting for.

She saw the revolver still dangling limp in his fingers. She took it from him, rose, and went to the dressing table. With her back to the couple sitting on the edge of the bed, she
clumsily slid the chamber around and let the bullets fall out. She had never handled the thing before.

Then she stood looking helplessly at them. Mrs Knowell was still murmuring in that dry tired voice: ‘It’s all right, it’s all right.’ And Douglas was seated, his thighs apart, looking at her with insistent reddened eyes.

Suddenly she lifted the empty revolver and handed it to him - she did not know why. He took it, then bounced up, letting out a yell of affronted rage. ‘Matty!’ he yelled. ‘Matty!’

Mrs Knowell rose, and said drily, ‘I think you’d both better get to bed and have some sleep.’ She went out.

Douglas stood, his face working, doubtful of what he would do next. Then he said, ‘I shall go out and shoot myself.’ He repeated it, waiting for her to appeal to him.

‘Oh, do stop it, Douglas,’ she said, exasperated.

He held his shoulders straight, then whirled around and marched out with the revolver into the moonlight. There was a bright moon that night.

She sat for a while thinking, Perhaps I ought to go after him. Then, in a small flush of panic: Perhaps he managed to put a bullet in the chamber after all. But she knew he had not.

After all, she thought, people do shoot themselves. They do it constantly, she added, unable to stop herself salting in the humour. It was no good: not for a moment was she able to believe he would shoot himself. She rolled over on the bed and was asleep immediately.

When she woke, everything was very quiet, and Douglas was standing at the foot of the bed looking at her with his steady reproach. ‘You’ve been asleep,’ he ground out.

‘You haven’t let me have half an hour’s consecutive sleep in weeks,’ she pointed out.

He carefully put the revolver away in his drawer, collected the bullets from the dressing table, and fitted them into their box. Then he turned towards her. His face was quite different, set and murderous. She thought, Those women said there was a point where they started knocking you about. She remembered the satisfaction in their voices and thought, Oh, no, not for me. She quickly stood up beside the bed,
warily facing him, every sense alert. He was leaning forward now, about to spring.

‘Douglas!’ she cried out. But it was too late. He jumped, brought her down, and began pulling out handfuls of her hair. She thought, I simply will not - I won’t! She struggled a little, then, as he was shifting his hands for a better grip, rolled free sideways along the floor and got to her feet. He was coming after her. She walked straight out of the room, into the garden, and out into the street. Moonlight was pouring down. It was long after midnight; the houses were all dark.

She was going to her mother. I’ll stay with her until morning, she thought, and then come and get my things.

She walked steadily down the middle of the street, which glared white with the moon, banked by the heavy dark trees. He was following her. It was about ten minutes’ walk to the other house. She was numb, her knees shook, but she made herself walk quietly, although she could feel fear crinking up and down her back in cold waves at the thought that he was coming after her. But as soon as she glanced over her shoulder and saw him, she was not afraid. He came striding along, head down, like someone training for a walking match, she thought disgustedly.

It seemed a very long way. She had time to think of many things: she had forgotten to pack her sponge; she must tell Alice about Caroline’s lunch tomorrow - Caroline did not like carrots, it was absurd that Alice kept cooking them, children should not be made to eat what they did not like; she must remember to tell the cook to whip the ice cream in good time …

As she neared the gate, which gleamed dead white, she heard him running. She began to run, in an impulse of pure panic. They reached the veranda together. He reached out to grab her shoulder; she twisted it under his hand and fled to a window, where she banged hard on the glass.

Now he stood behind her, breathing heavily.

The window opened inwards; her mother stood there, blinking with sleep.

‘I want to speak to you,’ said Martha quickly.

‘Wait a minute,’ said Mrs Quest nervously.

She vanished, and Martha ran to the door off the veranda. Douglas followed. Mrs Quest stood in the doorway, and Martha said, ‘Mother, I want to come in.’

Mrs Quest looked at Martha and at Douglas with a sullen disapproving face.

‘Mother,’ said Martha desperately, ‘I must come in, let me in.’

Douglas had gripped both her arms from behind and was wrenching them methodically. ‘Mother!’ she yelled out.

Mrs Quest looked away and said evasively, ‘But it’s late, what are you doing here?’

‘Mother!’ wailed Martha. Her arms were almost being wrenched out of their sockets. It had never entered her head that her mother would not let her in. Now she saw that it was obvious she would not. Mrs Quest observed them furtively, and on to her face came a look of satisfaction and pleasure.

‘He’s hurting me,’ said Martha, keeping her voice steady now, out of pride.

‘Be quiet, you’ll wake your father, he’s not well.’

‘Mother, you aren’t going to let him bully me?’

‘Well, you deserve it,’ said Mrs Quest. ‘He’s quite right. Now go back to bed,’ she added quickly, in a vaguely admonishing way.

Douglas, apparently as surprised as Martha, had let go her arms. She stood rubbing them, looking at her mother. Then she shrugged and laughed. For Mrs Quest was retreating hurriedly indoors.