PAGE 16
A Marriage
by
He began to forecast Cyril’s career; he would put his name down at Harrow, because to Harrow he could get out to see him every week. He should have the advantages of Oxford or Cambridge, which Catterson had not had. He should enter one of the liberal professions, the Bar for choice.
And then his face clouded over again.
“But he shall never marry. He shall do anything else in life he pleases: but he shall never marry. For it’s no matter how well a man may be born, it’s no matter how fortunate he may be in life, if he’s unfortunate in his marriage. And it seems to me, that one way or another, marriage spells ruin.”
He was back again in the unhappy present, and West felt his heart wrung. Yet there was no help to be given, no consolation possible. The one door of deliverance which stood open, was the one door which Catterson could not face, although his reluctant feet drew nearer to it every day.
But West had already observed that when life becomes impossible, when a man’s strength is inadequate to the burdens imposed upon it, when the good he may yet accomplish is outweighed by the evils he may have to endure, then the door opens, the invisible hand beckons him through, and we know no further of his fate.
Though Catterson could not face it, and with an ominous spot burning on either cheek, tried to reabsorb himself again in plans for the future, West saw in it the only possible escape, and told himself it was better, even though it proved an eternal sleep, than what he daily had to endure.
The wife’s cold heart, her little cruelties, her little meannesses, all her narrowness, all her emptiness of mind rose before him. What a hell upon earth to have to live in daily companionship with her, even if unrelated to her in any way! But for her husband she was the constant living reminder of his dead illusions. He could not look at her without seeing the poor, thin ghosts of his lost youth, of his shattered faith, hope, and happines
s, gathered round her. Every indifference of hers, every neglect, must call up the memory of some warm protestation, of some dear attention in the past. And these were less hard to bear than the knowledge that those had never been genuine.
It is life as you anticipated it, brought still fresh and palpitating into contrast with the bleak reality, which is so intolerably hard.
The contemplation of Catterson’s position became so painful to West, that he felt he must get away even at the cost of brutality. He gave with warmth the asked-for assurance to come again soon, but he knew in his heart as he uttered it, that he would not soon find the courage to return.
In the hall he looked about him mechanically; then let slip a hot and vigorous word on discovering he had left his hat up in the drawing-room, and must go back.
The tea-table now stood by Nettie’s elbow. She insisted that he should take a cup of tea, pressing it on him as a sort of peace-offering, so that without actual rudeness he could not refuse. She was again gracious as far as she knew how to be. Possibly Mrs. Reade, who studied the suavities of life, had been remonstrating with her.
Gladys lay on the hearth-rug, her face in her hands, her elbows planted on the open picture-book. The packet of sweets in a very knock-kneed and depleted condition stood beside her. She sucked a chocolate in her cheek, had kicked off her shoes, and drummed with her black-stockinged feet upon the floor.