Unspeaking she picked up a shawl, and as though in some strange pre-ordered consent they left the house by the french window, and walked side by side down the avenue. Iced with the storm, the air was like the air of a new world, the darkness was like the virgin dusk of a new world emerging from chaos, slowly and blindly wheeling towards its first day. Far off the storm winked and muttered, but louder than its thunder was the sipping whistle, all around them, of the parched ground drinking the rain. Halfway down the avenue Sophia took the girl’s hand. It was ungloved now, cold and wet, and lay in her clasp like a leaf. So, grave and unspeaking, linked childishly together they went on under the trees, their footsteps scarcely audible among the sounds of the heavily dripping rain and the drinking earth.
She returned alone to the empty lighted drawing-room, to Mrs. Hervey’s chair pulled forward, and the decanter and the glass and the biscuits. They must be put away, she thought, all traces of this extraordinary visit; and as she carried the wine and the biscuits to the pantry she found herself stiffening with a curious implacability. No! However touching, such escapades were intolerable. One could not have such young women frisking round one, babbling as to whether or no one needed a husband, declaring on one’s behalf that one didn’t. From a woman of the village she could have heard such words without offence. Down there, in that lowest class, sexual decorum could be kilted out of the way like an impeding petticoat; and Mary Bugler, whose husband was in jail, and Carry Westmacott, whose husband should be, might declare without offence that a woman was as good as a man, and better. In her own heart, too, unreproved, could lodge the conviction that a Sophia might well discard a Frederick, and in her life she had been ready, calmly enough, to put this into effect. But into words, never! Such things could be done, but not said. And was it for the doctor’s wife, an immature little feather-pate, to pipe up in her treble voice, in her tones of provincial refinement, that Mrs. Willoughby did not need Mr. Willoughby?
Setting back the chair, glancing sharply about the room — last time she had left a glove — Sophia shook her head in condemnation. This visit had left no visible trace of Mrs. Hervey. But in this room, the serene demonstration of how a lady of the upper classes spends her leisure amid flowers and books and arts, words had been spoken such as those walls had never heard before. And to hear her own thought voiced she, the lady of the room, had had to await the coming of this interloper, this social minnikin, this Thomasina Thumb who, riding on a cat and waving a bodkin, had come to be her champion.
The next morning she sent off a letter to Frederick, coldly annoyed with herself for neglecting an essential formality — for with the putting of pen to paper it had become no more than that. Absent or present, he could not affect her now. The servants would make his bed, serve his food; she, trained better than they in her particular service of hostess-ship, would entertain him, a guest for the funeral. And then he would be gone again, back to his Minna, the only trace of his visit some additional entries in the household books. For there can be no middle way, she thought, where extremes have been attempted; and Frederick, failing to be my husband, must now be to me less than an acquaintance.
“As if you needed a man.” Mrs. Hervey’s words renewed themselves in her hearing, spoken with an indignant conviction blazing against the soberer colouring of Sophia’s own view of the case: that she could get on better without one. In some ways men were essential. One must have a coachman, a gardener, a doctor, a lawyer — even a clergyman. These served their purpose and withdrew — some less briskly than others, she reflected, seeing Mr. Harwood walking up the avenue. He had visited her daily, to enquire after the
She returned alone to the empty lighted drawing-room, to Mrs. Hervey’s chair pulled forward, and the decanter and the glass and the biscuits. They must be put away, she thought, all traces of this extraordinary visit; and as she carried the wine and the biscuits to the pantry she found herself stiffening with a curious implacability. No! However touching, such escapades were intolerable. One could not have such young women frisking round one, babbling as to whether or no one needed a husband, declaring on one’s behalf that one didn’t. From a woman of the village she could have heard such words without offence. Down there, in that lowest class, sexual decorum could be kilted out of the way like an impeding petticoat; and Mary Bugler, whose husband was in jail, and Carry Westmacott, whose husband should be, might declare without offence that a woman was as good as a man, and better. In her own heart, too, unreproved, could lodge the conviction that a Sophia might well discard a Frederick, and in her life she had been ready, calmly enough, to put this into effect. But into words, never! Such things could be done, but not said. And was it for the doctor’s wife, an immature little feather-pate, to pipe up in her treble voice, in her tones of provincial refinement, that Mrs. Willoughby did not need Mr. Willoughby?
Setting back the chair, glancing sharply about the room — last time she had left a glove — Sophia shook her head in condemnation. This visit had left no visible trace of Mrs. Hervey. But in this room, the serene demonstration of how a lady of the upper classes spends her leisure amid flowers and books and arts, words had been spoken such as those walls had never heard before. And to hear her own thought voiced she, the lady of the room, had had to await the coming of this interloper, this social minnikin, this Thomasina Thumb who, riding on a cat and waving a bodkin, had come to be her champion.
The next morning she sent off a letter to Frederick, coldly annoyed with herself for neglecting an essential formality — for with the putting of pen to paper it had become no more than that. Absent or present, he could not affect her now. The servants would make his bed, serve his food; she, trained better than they in her particular service of hostess-ship, would entertain him, a guest for the funeral. And then he would be gone again, back to his Minna, the only trace of his visit some additional entries in the household books. For there can be no middle way, she thought, where extremes have been attempted; and Frederick, failing to be my husband, must now be to me less than an acquaintance.
“As if you needed a man.” Mrs. Hervey’s words renewed themselves in her hearing, spoken with an indignant conviction blazing against the soberer colouring of Sophia’s own view of the case: that she could get on better without one. In some ways men were essential. One must have a coachman, a gardener, a doctor, a lawyer — even a clergyman. These served their purpose and withdrew — some less briskly than others, she reflected, seeing Mr. Harwood walking up the avenue. He had visited her daily, to enquire after the
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