The Storm Breaks

Chapter I.—Recompense-2

She had been warned by her mother what was coming and, demurely turning down her eyes in the fashion approved of in the Bow Bells Novelette,whispered that she would.

She knew quite well she was not in love with him, as she was experiencing none of those exquisite feelings which, again according to the Bow Bells Novelette, should have been running up and down her spine at such a thrilling moment. She was just consenting to marry him to get away from the drab and dull monotony of her life at Manor Park.

In the joyful excitement of buying new clothes she gave practically no thought to the s*x side of marriage.

As Dane's holiday was quickly running out, they were married by special licence at the church in Manor Park. When the ceremony was over, as there was no reception following, they were driven straightway to the Regent Palace Hotel where they were to stay until the morrow when they would take the boat-train to Southampton and sail for Bordeaux.

For Mary Dane, ignorant and all unprepared, the victim of her parents' reticence and prudery, the beginning of her wedded life was a great shock to her, when what marriage really meant burst like a clap of thunder upon her.

She had sold her young body, with all its possibilities of ecstasy and passion, for the sixteen thousand francs a year which was her husband's salary, the big house upon the banks of the Garonne and the servants who went with it! All romance for her was finished, and she would never know the fulfilment of those fierce hopes and longings which, she had so often read, were the heaven-sent gifts to all young life!

An angry resentment surged through her. Her father and mother should never have encouraged her to marry such a husband. They had sold her like a slave, just as if their only thought had been to get rid of her as quickly as they could.

The next day they boarded the boat for Bordeaux, and to her great delight Mary found herself to be a good sailor, quite unaffected by the rough sea they encountered directly they reached open water. Everything was most enjoyable for her and she was able to go down to all the meals. Not so her husband, however, as he started being sick at once and, during the whole crossing, lay moaning and groaning in their cabin. A dreadful green colour, with his face all sunken in without his dental plates, he looked a horrible, unsavoury old man, and poor Mary shuddered as she thought that now he was always going to be her bedfellow.

When eventually they arrived at Bordeaux, Dane was so exhausted that he had almost to be carried off the boat, and Mary realised only too well that a time of tribulation for her had begun.

Then followed three very unhappy years for her when she never ceased to regret her foolish and hasty marriage. Certainly at first her husband had made a great fuss over her and shown himself thrilled in her possession. However, it had not lasted very long, and very soon his middle-aged passion had begun to flag, within a few months manifesting itself in only very occasional short and sharp flares-up which were never anything but most distressing to her.

With his interest in his wife waning, his character was soon to show itself in a very different light from the courteous and so charming suitor of Manor Park. His temper was exceedingly irritable and he was mean and petty in many ways, expecting Mary to account for every sou he gave her. Also, in a surly and bullying fashion, he expected her to fall in line with all his confirmed bachelor habits.

Meals must never be one minute late, and the food was monotonous in its lack of variety and only consisted of what he himself fancied. Mary vexed him greatly, too, by showing no appreciation of good wine and always preferred, as he styled them, horrible cups of tea, taken at all hours of the day whenever she could obtain them.

A hypochondriac of long standing, he was always imagining he was upon the verge of some serious illness and for ever dosing himself with different drugs. Upon the slightest cold in the head, Mary had to put poultice after poultice upon his chest to prevent, as he said, things getting worse. He had a horror of draughts of fresh air of any kind, and wherever he was, both night and day, the doors and windows had to be kept shut.

The house and domestic arrangements, too, were disappointing to Mary, not being upon anything like so grand a scale as her husband had made out. It was true he lived in a large house of three stories, but the whole of the ground floor was occupied by the business part of the firm. Then, the housekeeper and maid he had spoken of were really nothing more than two general servants. They were two sisters, the elder of them only about seven and twenty, and as well as attending to the residential part they acted as cleaners to the offices. They were hard workers, doing much more, Mary thought, than any English servants would have done, getting up at five every morning and at work down below again every evening after the clerks had gone.

Dane had no friends, and no strangers were ever brought in to meals. He hardly ever went out, and expected Mary to lead the same uninteresting and monotonous life. Even when he had apparently lost all interest in her, he was yet extremely jealous, introducing her to as few people as possible, and after she had returned from her daily walk, never failing to ask where she had been, to whom she had spoken and whom she had seen.

From the very first the two maids, Jeanne and Lucille, had been most kind to her and anxious to do anything they could for her. They smiled all over their bright red faces whenever they saw her, and, even before she had picked up enough French words to hold any conversation with them, she realised from their manner how sorry they were for her. When Dane was not upstairs it was a great joke with them to bring her many cups of the so discredited and almost forbidden cups of tea. She knew it was a wonder to them how she had ever come to marry their master.

Another sorrow for Mary was that Dane was deliberately attempting to cut her away from her family. He would not allow her to return to England for the briefest of holidays, and when she once timidly suggested he should invite her father or two of the older children to visit her, he refused so disagreeably that she never dared ask him again.

So was Mary, after three years of married life, a sad and dispirited woman, her vivacity and brightness all gone, living a dull and monotonous life with apparently no hopes whatever of any happiness in the future. Sometimes she used to look in the mirror and think how old and worn she was growing. No wonder, she would sigh, for she had nothing worth living for, and to put a crown upon her misery her conscience told her she had come to positively hate her husband. She loathed the very sight of him.

Then, suddenly, and as if at last in pity for her, Fate opened a window in the clouds and romance came into her life, real romance such as she had read of in those far-off days in the Bow Bells Novelette.

She first met him one sunny afternoon in the public gardens. She was sitting upon one of the seats there, idly watching the ducks swimming in the ornamental water, when she noticed a young fellow passing by and it struck her at once how handsome he was. She judged him to be a little older than herself. He was refined and distinguished looking, with his expression, however, quite a boyish one. He was walking slowly and she noted he gave her a quick appraising glance as he passed.

He did not go very far away, but, turning to retrace his steps and drawing level with her, raised his hat politely and asked if she would very kindly tell him the time. He spoke in French and she replied in the same language, though her words were halting and she knew her accent was not good.

“Oh, you're English!” he exclaimed with a bright smile. “I thought so when I passed just now. I'm English, too. Do you mind if I have a little chat with you? It's so nice to speak in one's own language for a change.”

He seated himself down and quite an animated little conversation followed, or rather the animation was at first almost entirely upon his side. Mary was shy and confused, though greatly thrilled he should have thought her attractive enough to want to speak to her. Still, gradually, she lost her shyness and could look him straight in the face without getting hot.

He told her he had come from London upon a holiday, but he knew no one in Bordeaux and didn't find it so much fun as he had thought it would be, being all by himself. He never had been a great one for sight-seeing. In return, Mary told him she, too, was a Londoner, and in many ways would rather be living there now, but then, she added with a blush, she was married, and her husband having his work here, of course there was no help for it.

The conversation lasted only a few minutes, and then he left her with the smiling hope that perhaps he might be seeing her again in the next day or two, as he generally came to the gardens in the afternoon.

Of course he did see her again. Mary had lain awake half the night thinking of him, and the following afternoon had seated herself upon the same seat, almost exactly at the same time. She learnt afterwards that he had been watching from among the trees, and he came up to her within a couple of minutes of her arrival.

Their conversation was more personal this time. They exchanged names, and she thought how well his unusual Christian name of Athol suited him. It had such a distinguished sound. He told her he had just come down from Cambridge where he had taken his degree. He had not yet made up his mind what occupation to follow.

In return, Mary told him something of herself, how she had come to Bordeaux as a bride three years ago, and had seen none of her relations since. She had no real friends in France and often felt very lonely. She had no little ones and it was something of a grief to her she was so far from home. She often felt very lonely.

They met again the next day, and after a few minutes' talk Athol suggested they go for a little walk. For a few moments Mary hesitated, but then replied with a certain tremor in her voice, “All right, but up the other end of the gardens, please.” She laughed a little nervously. “You see, my husband is much older than I and might be annoyed if he came to know about it. He is rather old-fashioned in his ways.”

“Oh, you'll be quite safe with me,” laughed back Athol, “I wouldn't eat you, though the prospect there”—he gave her an admiring glance—“might be by no means an unpleasant one.”

They had their little walk among the trees, exchanging more confidences as they went along. Mary was thrilled at being alone with him and certain now that no inquisitive eyes were watching them. Their conduct, however, could not have been more correct, as Athol treated her with the greatest respect and never ventured upon the slightest familiarity. Even when once he took her hand to help her over a stile, he did not hold it for the fraction of a second longer than was necessary. Mary was very sorry when at length she had to hurry away to be home before half-past five. Beyond that time things might be awkward, as, if her husband came upstairs, and found her away, he might become curious and start questioning her. She knew only too well how easily she gave herself away.