Alone; yes, she would have been alone in the sense that one is alone in a familiar, comfortable garment. She, frightened, there? She had Solly and Veronica in her pocket, and well she knew it. They had lived with her. How, they asked each other, could they refuse?
I have never had a home of my own, thought Veronica, as she lay beside the sleeping Solly. The January wind roared around the house, making the storm-window outside the bedroom rattle fiercely, as though to rebuke this rebellion against Fate. Though of course I’ve been terribly lucky, she added, hastily placating whatever, or whoever, might be listening to her thoughts.
Lucky? Oh, yes, for was she not the daughter of Professor Walter Vambrace, who had written a book on the Enneads of Plotinus? And was it not a privilege to grow up in the atmosphere of strenuous thought which that austere scholar created? And to realize that Father was a cousin of the Marquis of Mourne and Derry, and if eight people had died young and childless Father would have had the title? It was true that Father and Mother never quite got on together, chiefly because he was such an aggressive free-thinker, whereas Mother was a devout Catholic. But Mother had always been so sweet, so abstracted, so truly kind. It was sad that since her marriage she saw her parents so seldom, though they lived not much more than a mile away.
But then, her marriage with Solly had been so beset with difficulties on both sides. And although the Vambraces and Mrs Bridgetower had made the best of it when it was plain that it could not be prevented, there had been clear indications that they were doing precisely that — making the best of it. Solly had tried to keep it secret from her that his Mother thought their marriage a great mistake. How like him it was to try to spare her! But of course she knew. How could anyone who lived with Mrs Bridgetower help knowing? Her mother-in-law’s opinions were as palpable in that house as was the smell of heavy upholstery.
It could not be pretended that she had been made at home in Mrs Bridgetower’s house. She had learned all the rules — what chairs not to sit in, what doors to close and which to leave open, what books and papers might be read, and when, and her mother-in-law’s long rosary of pills, which had to be worked through every day — but she had never learned the spirit of the house, because it was Mrs Bridgetower’s spirit. She had tried with uttermost patience and submission to be a good daughter-in-law. She had even dressed Mrs Bridgetower’s body for burial, arranged her hair and painted her face — Ah, there it was again, the thought that would not down! Years ago, at a children’s party, Veronica had been blindfolded and asked to identify a group of objects on a tray; one of these was a kid glove which had been stuffed with paper, and thoroughly soaked; she had dropped the chill, damp object with a shudder, and only the self-control which her father had instilled in her had kept her from weeping with fright. Painting the face of her dead mother-in-law had revived and hideously prolonged that sensation, and she had not wept on that occasion, either. She had done her best to be a good daughter-in-law because it was part of being a good wife, part of her love for Solly. Why, then, would his mother not leave her alone, even after death?
Mrs Bridgetower was everywhere in this house. Across the hall was the room in which she had died. Below, in the drawing-room, was her chair. Everywhere, all was as she had left it, and her watch-dog, Miss Laura Pottinger, took care to see that nothing was changed. This was not Veronica’s house, and her husband’s; it was the property of the Bridgetower Trust, and they lived in it simply as caretakers — caretakers who paid the big coal bills and tried to keep it clean.
Why could they not go elsewhere? But she had never even asked Solly why, and she would never do so now. For it was Veronica’s terrible secret that Mrs Bridgetower owned her husband, as well as everything else in the house. He, who had been high-spirited and amusing in his ironic, undergraduate way before their marriage, had become more and more like his Mother since his Mother’s death. A severity, a watchfulness had grown on him, and all the more quickly since the birth of the child.
She had never seen the child, but the nurse had told her, against doctor’s orders, that it had been a fine boy. It was the boy which might have broken the Trust, might have given them Mrs Bridgetower’s fortune, might have enabled them to sell this hateful, haunted house, might have delivered them from this bondage. But the boy had been born with his navel-cord tight around his neck, strangling as he moved toward the light.
Had that been Mrs Bridgetower’s work, also? If she had drawn the spiteful will, if she still possessed this house, might she not also be capable of that?
Solly had wept with her, had taken her away for as long a holiday as they could afford, and then — had promised that there would be more children. He had meant to be kind and courageous, but Veronica feared the thought of more children. The doctor said that there was not the slightest reason for fear. But the doctor was not Mrs Bridgetower’s daughter-in-law; she could not tell him that she feared the vengeance of a dead woman whose son she had stolen.
Solly had become grimmer, and they had grown poorer, trying to keep up the house, and old Ethel, on his modest university lecturer’s salary. It was not that they seriously lacked money; it was, rather, that all the appurtenances of an income far greater than their own, and all the habits which went with money and a large house, hung around them, and they were both poor managers. Their poverty was illusory, but it was perhaps the more destructive and humiliating for that. And here she lay, fearing the future — fearing, more than she dared admit to herself, the man whom she so much loved, who was passing more and more into the possession of the woman who had so much hated her.
Still, was this not better than that year which had followed Mrs Bridgetower’s death — the year when Solly had hoped that they might have a son, and halt the whole business of forming the Trust? She had borne patiently with his first flogging of himself to beget a child; they had pretended to each other that it was a joke — but they knew in their hearts that it was no joke. And as time passed, and nothing happened, Solly grew frightened and suddenly could make love no longer. He sought medical advice; the doctor said that there was nothing wrong with him, and suggested in the easy way of doctors that he must relax. Yes, relax. Rest would work a cure.
That rest-cure had been a troubled time. If a man is trying to recover from impotence, when is he to assume that he has refrained long enough? The deceptions and mockeries of Solly’s body distressed them both, for Veronica longed for him, and could not always dissemble her longing. Both felt the Dead Hand of Mrs Bridgetower; its chill had frozen the very fountain of their passion, brought winter to the garden of their love.
Then, as the doctor had said he would, Solly recovered, and with a new determination and greater caution they sought an heir — no, a son. And, after the months of pregnancy, with the chances that it would be a daughter at least evenly weighed against them, the stillborn son had come to mock their hopes. Veronica had endured it all, and could endure anything the future and — if it were indeed a fact — the posthumous malignancy of her mother-in-law might bring, if only she did not lose Solly. But so often now it seemed that he was possessed by the spirit of his mother at least as much as by the nature which she so much loved, and it was this that brought her, in such nights as this, a terror which was desolating and bleak.
More children! Sometimes, when Solly made love to her, she could have wept, could have shrieked with misery. For in the very climax of love he might have been struggling with the spirit of his Mother, so oblivious did he seem of Veronica. And did he want a child, or was it rather vengeance on his tormentor, and the recovery of her money, which he sought to plant in his wife’s body?
Who could say that Louisa Hansen Bridgetower was dead? Freed from the cumbrous, ailing body, freed from any obligation to counterfeit the ordinary goodwill of mortal life, her spirit walked abroad, working out its ends and asserting its mastery through a love which was hate, a hatred which was love.