第9章

Mildred's unhappiness increased from day to day, as her wardrobe fell into confusion and disrepair.She felt that she must rise to the situation, must teach herself, must save herself from impending dowdiness and slovenliness.But her brain seemed to be paralyzed.

She did not know how or where to begin to learn.She often in secret gave way to the futility of tears.

There were now only a cook and one housemaid and a man of all work--all three newcomers, for Presbury insisted--most wisely--that none of the servants of the luxurious, wasteful days would be useful in the new circumstances.He was one of those small, orderly men who have a genius for just such situations as the one he now proceeded to grapple with and solve.In his pleasure at managing everything about that house, in distributing the work among the three servants, in marketing, and, in inspecting purchases and nosing into the garbage-barrel, in looking for dust on picture-frames and table-tops and for neglected weeds in the garden walks--in this multitude of engrossing delights he forgot his anger over the trick that had been played upon him.He still fought with his wife and denounced her and met insult with insult.But that, too, was one of his pleasures.Also, he felt that on the whole he had done well in marrying.He had been lonely as a bachelor, had had no one to talk with, or to quarrel with, nothing to do.The marriage was not so expensive, as his wife had brought him a house--and it such a one as he had always regarded as the apogee of elegance.Living was not dear in Hanging Rock, if one understood managing and gave time to it.And socially he was at last established.

Soon his wife was about as contented as she had ever been in her life.She hated and despised her husband, but quarreling with him and railing against him gave her occupation and aim--two valuable assets toward happiness that she had theretofore lacked.Her living --shelter, food, clothing enough--was now secure.

But the most important factor of all in her content was the one apparently too trivial to be worthy of record.

From girlhood she could not recall a single day in which she had not suffered from her feet.And she had been ashamed to say anything about it--had never let anyone, even her maid, see her feet, which were about the only unsightly part of her.None had guessed the cause of her chronic ill-temper until Presbury, that genius for the little, said within a week of their marriage:

``You talk and act like a woman with chronic corns.''

He did not dream of the effect this chance thrust had upon his wife.For the first time he had really ``landed.'' She concealed her fright and her shame as best she could and went on quarreling more viciously than ever.But he presently returned to the attack.

Said he:

``Your feet hurt you.I'm sure they do.Now that I think of it, you walk that way.''

``I suppose I deserve my fate,'' said she.``When a woman marries beneath her she must expect insult and low conversation.''

``You must cure your feet,'' said he.``I'll not live in the house with a person who is made fiendish by corns.

I think it's only corns.I see no signs of bunions.''

``You brute!'' cried his wife, rushing from the room.

But when they met again, he at once resumed the subject, telling her just how she could cure herself--and he kept on telling her, she apparently ignoring but secretly acting on his advice.He knew what he was about, and her feet grew better, grew well--and she was happier than she had been since girlhood when she began ruining her feet with tight shoes.

Six months after the marriage, Presbury and his wife were getting on about as comfortably as it is given to average humanity to get on in this world of incessant struggle between uncomfortable man and his uncomfortable environment.But Mildred had become more and more unhappy.Her mother, sometimes angrily, again reproachfully--and that was far harder to bear --blamed her for ``my miserable marriage to this low, quarrelsome brute.'' Presbury let no day pass without telling her openly that she was a beggar living off him, that she would better marry soon or he would take drastic steps to release himself of the burden.When he attacked her before her mother, there was a violent quarrel from which Mildred fled to hide in her room or in the remotest part of the garden.When he hunted her out to insult her alone, she sat or stood with eyes down and face ghastly pale, mute, quivering.She did not inter-rupt, did not try to escape.She was like the chained and spiritless dog that crouches and takes the shower of blows from its cruel master.

Where could she go? Nowhere.What could she do? Nothing.In the days of prosperity she had regarded herself as proud and high spirited.She now wondered at herself! What had become of the pride?

What of the spirit? She avoided looking at her image in the glass--that thin, pallid face, those circled eyes, the drawn, sick expression about the mouth and nose.