entered into the contemplation of anxious clients: they were the little
superadded symbols that were perpetually raising the sum of home misery.
Poor Janet! how heavily the months rolled on for her, laden with fresh sorrows
as the summer passed into autumn, the autumn into winter, and the winter into
spring again. Every feverish morning, with its blank listlessness and despair,
seemed more hateful than the last; every coming night more impossible to brave
without arming herself in leaden stupor. The morning light brought no gladness
to her: it seemed only to throw its glare on what had happened in the dim
candle-light�on the cruel man seated immovable in drunken obstinacy by the dead
fire and dying lights in the dining-room, rating her in harsh tones, reiterating
old reproaches�or on a hideous blank of something unremembered, something that
must have made that dark bruise on her shoulder, which aches as she dresses
herself.
Do you wonder how it was that things had come to this pass�what offence Janet
had committed in the early years of marriage to rouse the brutal hatred of this
man? The seeds of things are very small: the hours that lie between sunrise and
the gloom of midnight are travelled through by tiniest markings of the clock:
and Janet, looking back along the fifteen years of her married life, hardly knew
how or where this total misery began; hardly knew when the sweet wedded love and
hope that had set for ever had ceased to make a twilight of memory and
relenting, before the oncoming of the utter dark.
Old Mrs Dempster thought she saw the true beginning of it all in Janet's want of
housekeeping skill and exactness. "Janet," she said to herself, "was always
running about doing things for other people, and neglecting her own house. That
provokes a man: what use is it for a woman to be loving, and making a fuss with
her husband, if she doesn't take care and keep his home just as he likes it; if
she isn't at hand when he wants anything done; if she doesn't attend to all his
wishes, let them be as small as they may? That was what I did when I was a wife,
though I didn't make half so much fuss about loving my husband. Then, Janet had
no children." ... Ah! there Mammy Dempster had touched a true spring, not
perhaps of her son's cruelty, but of half Janet's misery. If she had had babes
to rock to sleep� little ones to kneel in their night-dress and say their
prayers at her knees�sweet boys and girls to put their young arms round her neck
and kiss away her tears, her poor hungry heart would have been fed with strong
love, and might never have needed that fiery poison to still its cravings.
Mighty is the force of motherhood! says the great tragic poet to us across the
ages, finding, as usual, the simplest words for the sublimest fact�deinon to
tichtein essin. It transforms all things by its vital heat: it turns timidity
into fierce courage, and dreadless defiance into tremulous submission; it turns
thoughtlessness into foresight, and yet stills all anxiety into calm content; it
makes selfishness become self-denial, and gives even to hard vanity the glance
of admiring love. Yes; if Janet had been a mother, she might have been saved
from much sin, and therefore from much of her sorrow.
But do not believe that it was anything either present or wanting in poor Janet
that formed the motive of her husband's cruelty. Cruelty, like every other vice,
requires no motive outside itself �it only requires opportunity. You do not
suppose Dempster had any motive for drinking beyond the craving for drink; the
presence of brandy was the only necessary condition. And an unloving, tyrannous,
brutal man needs no motive to prompt his cruelty; he needs only the perpetual
presence of a woman he can call his own. A whole park full of tame or timid-eyed
animals to torment at his will would not serve him so well to glut his lust of
torture; they could not feel as one woman does; they could not throw out the
keen retort which whets the edge of hatred.
Janet's bitterness would overflow in ready words; she was not to be made meek by
cruelty; she would repent of nothing in the face of injustice, though she was
subdued in a moment by a word or a look that recalled the old days of fondness;
and in times of comparative calm would often recover her sweet woman's habit of
caressing playful affection. But such days were become rare, and poor Janet's
soul was kept like a vexed sea, tossed by a new storm before the old waves have
fallen. Proud, angry resistance and sullen endurance were now almost the only
alternations she knew. She would bear it all proudly to the world, but proudly
towards him too; her woman's weakness might shriek a cry for pity under a heavy
blow, but voluntarily she would do nothing to mollify him, unless he first
relented. What had she ever done to him but love him too well�but believe in him
too foolishly? He had no pity on her tender flesh; he could strike the soft neck
he had once asked to kiss. Yet she would not admit her wretchedness; she had
married him blindly, and she would bear it out to the terrible end, whatever
that might be. Better this misery than the blank that lay for her outside her
married home.
But there was one person who heard all the plaints and all the outbursts of
bitterness and despair which Janet was never tempted to pour into any other ear;
and alas! in her worst moments, Janet would throw out wild reproaches against
that patient listener. For the wrong that rouses our angry passions finds only a
medium in us; it passes through us like a vibration, and we inflict what we have
suffered.
Mrs Raynor saw too clearly all through the winter that things were getting worse
in Orchard Street. She had evidence enough of it in Janet's visits to her; and,
though her own visits to her daughter were so timed that she saw little of
Dempster personally, she noticed many indications not only that he was drinking
to greater excess, but that he was beginning to lose that physical power of
supporting excess which had long been the admiration of such fine spirits as Mr
Tomlinson. It seemed as if Dempster had some consciousness of this�some new
distrust of himself; for, before winter was over, it was observed that he had
renounced his habit of driving out alone, and was never seen in his gig without
a servant by his side.
Nemesis is lame, but she is of colossal stature, like the gods; and sometimes,
while her sword is not yet unsheathed, she stretches out her huge left arm and
grasps her victim. The mighty hand is invisible, but the victim totters under
the dire clutch.
The various symptoms that things were getting worse with the Dempsters afforded
Milby gossip something new to say on an old subject. Mrs Dempster, every one
remarked, looked more miserable than ever, though she kept up the old pretence
of being happy and satisfied. She was scarcely ever seen, as she used to be,
going about on her good-natured errands; and even old Mrs Crewe, who had always
been wilfully blind to anything wrong in her favourite Janet, was obliged to
admit that she had not seemed like herself lately. "The
poor thing's out of
health," said the kind little old lady, in answer to all gossip about Janet;
"her headaches always were bad, and I know what headaches are; why, they make
one quite delirious sometimes." Mrs Phipps, for her part, declared she would
never accept an invitation to Dempster's again; it was getting so very
disagreeable to go there, Mrs Dempster was often "so strange." To be sure, there
were dreadful stories about the way Dempster used his wife; but in Mrs Phipps's
opinion, it was six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. Mrs Dempster had never
been like other women: she had always a flighty way with her, carrying parcels
of snuff to old Mrs Tooke, and going to drink tea with Mrs Brinley, the
carpenter's wife; and then never taking care of her clothes, always wearing the
same things week-day or Sunday. A man has a poor look-out with a wife of that
sort. Mr Phipps, amiable and laconic, wondered how it was women were so fond of
running each other down.
Mr Pratt, having been called in provisionally to a patient of Mr Pilgrim's in a
case of compound fracture, observed in a friendly colloquy with his brother
surgeon the next day,
"So Dempster has left off driving himself, I see; he won't end with a broken
neck after all. You'll have a case of meningitis and delirium tremens instead."
"Ah," said Mr Pilgrim, "he can hardly stand it much longer at the rate he's
going on, one would think. He's been confoundedly cut up about that business of
Armstrong's, I fancy. It may do him some harm, perhaps, but Dempster must have
feathered his nest pretty well; he can afford to lose a little business."
"His business will outlast him, that's pretty clear," said Pratt; "he'll run
down like a watch with a broken spring one of these days."
Another prognostic of evil to Dempster came at the beginning of March. For then
"little Mamsey" died�died suddenly. The housemaid found her seated motionless in
her arm-chair, her knitting fallen down, and the tortoise-shell cat reposing on
it unreproved. The little white old woman had ended her wintry age of patient
sorrow, believing to the last that "Robert might have been a good husband as he
had been a good son."
hatband, turned away homeward, his good angel, lingering with outstretched wing
on the edge of the grave, cast one despairing look after him, and took flight
for ever.
CHAPTER XIV.
The last week in March�three weeks after old Mrs Dempster died�occurred the
unpleasant winding-up of affairs between Dempster and Mr Pryme, and under this
additional source of irritation the attorney's diurnal drunkenness had taken on
its most ill-tempered and brutal phase. On the Friday morning, before setting
out for Rotherby, he told his wife that he had invited "four men" to dinner at
half-past six that evening. The previous night had been a terrible one for
Janet, and when her husband broke his grim morning silence to say these few
words, she was looking so blank and listless that he added in a loud sharp key,
"Do you hear what I say? or must I tell the cook?" She started, and said "Yes, I
hear."
"Then mind and have a dinner provided, and don't go mooning about like crazy
Jane."
Half an hour afterwards Mrs Raynor, quietly busy in her kitchen with her
household labours� for she had only a little twelve-year-old girl as a
servant�heard with trembling the rattling of the garden gate and the opening of
the outer door. She knew the step, and in one short moment she lived beforehand
through the coming scene. She hurried out of the kitchen, and there in the
passage, as she had felt, stood Janet, her eyes worn as if by night-long
watching, her dress careless, her step languid. No cheerful morning greeting to
her mother�no kiss. She turned into the parlour, and, seating herself on the
sofa opposite her mother's chair, looked vacantly at the walls and furniture
until the corners of her mouth began to tremble, and her dark eyes filled with
tears that fell unwiped down her cheeks. The mother sat silently opposite to
her, afraid to speak. She felt sure there was nothing new the matter�sure that
the torrent of words would come sooner or later.
"Mother! why don't you speak to me?" Janet burst out at last; "you don't care
about my suffering; you are blaming me because I feel�because I am miserable."
"My child, I am not blaming you�my heart is bleeding for you. Your head is bad
this morning �you have had a bad night. Let me make you a cup of tea now.
Perhaps you didn't like your breakfast."
"Yes, that is what you always think, mother. It is the old story, you think. You
don't ask me what it is I have had to bear. You are tired of hearing me. You are
cruel, like the rest; every one is cruel in this world. Nothing but blame�blame
�blame; never any pity. God is cruel to have sent me into the world to bear all
this misery."
"Janet, Janet, don't say so. It is not for us to judge; we must submit; we must
be thankful for the gift of life."
"Thankful for life? Why should I be thankful? God has made me with a heart to
feel, and He has sent me nothing but misery. How could I help it? How could I
know what would come? Why didn't you tell me, mother?�why did you let me marry?
You knew what brutes men could be; and there's no help for me�no hope. I can't
kill myself; I've tried; but I can't leave this world and go to another. There
may be no pity for me there, as there is none here."
"Janet, my child, there is pity. Have I ever done anything but love you? And
there is pity in God. Hasn't He put pity into your heart for many a poor
sufferer? Where did it come from, if not from Him?"
Janet's nervous irritation now broke out into sobs instead of complainings; and
her mother was thankful, for after that crisis there would very likely come
relenting, and tenderness, and comparative calm. She went out to make some tea,
and when she returned with the tray in her hands, Janet had dried her eyes and
now turned them towards her mother with a faint attempt to smile; but the poor
face, in its sad blurred beauty, looked all the more piteous.
"Mother will insist upon her tea," she said, "and I really think I can drink a
cup. But I must go home directly, for there are people coming to dinner. Could
you go with me and help me, mother?"
Mrs Raynor was always ready to do that. She went to Orchard Street with Janet,
and remained with her through the day�comforted, as evening approached, to see
her become more cheerful and willing to attend to her toilette. At half-past
her and said good-by, she could not help pausing a moment in sorrowful
admiration at the tall rich figure, looking all the grander for the plainness of
the deep mourning dress, and the noble face with its massy folds of black hair,
made matronly by a simple white cap. Janet had that enduring beauty which
belongs to pure majestic outline and depth of tint. Sorrow and neglect leave
their traces
on such beauty, but it thrills us to the last, like a glorious
Greek temple, which, for all the loss it has suffered from time and barbarous
hands, has gained a solemn history, and fills our imagination the more because
it is incomplete to the sense.
It was six o'clock before Dempster returned from Rotherby. He had evidently
drunk a great deal, and was in an angry humour; but Janet, who had gathered some
little courage and forbearance from the consciousness that she had done her best
to-day, was determined to speak pleasantly to him.
"Robert," she said gently, as she saw him seat himself in the dining-room in his
dusty snuffy clothes, and take some documents out of his pocket, "will you not
wash and change your dress? It will refresh you."
"Leave me alone, will you?" said Dempster, in his most brutal tone.
"Do change your coat and waistcoat, they are so dusty. I've laid all your things
out ready."
"O, you have, have you?" After a few minutes he rose very deliberately and
walked up-stairs into his bedroom. Janet had often been scolded before for not
laying out his clothes, and she thought now, not without some wonder, that this
attention of hers had brought him to compliance.
Presently he called out, "Janet!" and she went up-stairs.
"Here! Take that!" he said, as soon as she reached the door, flinging at her the
coat she had laid out. "Another time, leave me to do as I please, will you?"
The coat, flung with great force, only brushed her shoulder, and fell some
distance within the drawing-room, the door of which stood open just opposite.
She hastily retreated as she saw the waistcoat coming, and one by one the
clothes she had laid out were all flung into the drawing-room.
Janet's face flushed with anger, and for the first time in her life her
resentment overcame the longcherished pride that made her hide her griefs from
the world. There are moments when by some strange impulse we contradict our past
selves� fatal moments, when a fit of passion, like a lava stream, lays low the
work of half our lives. Janet thought, "I will not pick up the clothes; they
shall lie there until the visitors come, and he shall be ashamed of himself."
There was a knock at the door, and she made haste to seat herself in the
drawing-room, lest the servant should enter and remove the clothes, which were
lying half on the table and half on the ground. Mr Lowme entered with a less
familiar visitor, a client of Dempster's, and the next moment Dempster himself
came in.
His eye fell at once on the clothes, and then turned for an instant with a
devilish glance of concentrated hatred on Janet, who, still flushed and excited,
affected unconsciousness. After shaking hands with his visitors he immediately
rang the bell.
"Take those clothes away," he said to the servant, not looking at Janet again.
During dinner, she kept up her assumed air of indifference, and tried to seem in
high spirits, laughing and talking more than usual. In reality, she felt as if
she had defied a wild beast within the four walls of his den, and he was
crouching backward in preparation for his deadly spring. Dempster affected to
take no notice of her, talked obstreperously, and drank steadily.
About eleven the party dispersed, with the exception of Mr Budd, who had joined
them after dinner, and appeared disposed to stay drinking a little longer. Janet
began to hope that he would stay long enough for Dempster to become heavy and
stupid, and so to fall asleep down stairs, which was a rare, but occasional
ending of his nights. She told the servants to sit up no longer, and she herself
undressed and went to bed, trying to cheat her imagination into the belief that
the day was ended for her. But when she lay down, she became more intensely
awake than ever. Everything she had taken this evening seemed only to stimulate
her senses and her apprehensions to new vividness. Her heart beat violently, and