Alice Perrin, "In the Court of Conscience" (1901) (Short Story)
Tags: Marital Dysfunction
“In the Court of Conscience”
Robert Fletcher, magistrate for the district of Tawah in Upper India, was having an afternoon tub, and as he splashed the water over his broad shoulders he sang loudly, and entirely out of tune.
It has been stated that only when a man is absolutely happy and light-hearted can he sing spontaneously in his bath, and Mrs Fletcher, seated outside in the verandah listening to the noise with which her lord and master conducted his ablutions, remembered the saying and sighed—not because Robert was happy, as his singing would imply, but because she had that on her mind which, she felt convinced, if uttered, would silence his inclination to sing for ever.
She took a letter written on thin paper from her pocket, and read it carefully through, her finely-marked eyebrows drawn distressfully together. When she came to the end of it she put it back, and sat looking with a troubled gaze over the scorched garden and dusty vista of flat country beyond. The tall yellow grass in the large, unkempt grounds rustled faintly, and the warm scent of sun-baked roses and mango blossom floated on the still afternoon air. The outlook beyond the low mud banks surrounding the garden possessed a dreary, neverending air of peace. A broad, white road, on which the powdery dust lay ankle-deep, a few isolated trees, the blue-washed walls of the Courts, where Robert Fletcher administered justice, and then miles and miles of flat, treeless, sandy monotony stretching to the horizon.
Tawah was a hideously lonely, neglected little civil station, situated practically in a desert, fifty miles from any railway, and boasting of but five official inhabitants with or without families. Yet Katherine Fletcher, a woman of three-and-twenty, possessing enormous capacities for enjoyment and more than her fair share of good looks, told herself that the place would seem a very paradise were her conscience only at rest. Indeed, at times, when the burden lightened a little, she was blissfully happy, for she adored her husband with all the passionate exaggeration of an emotional nature; and when, presently, he came into the verandah, clean-shaved, wholesome, big, honest, cheery, she forgot her trouble for the moment and smiled up at him for very admiration.
“Been enjoying the concert?” he enquired, putting a large forefinger under her chin and looking fondly into her eyes.
She laughed reproachfully. “Oh! Robert!”
“I do make a row,” he admitted, ‘but there’s something about a bath that raises a Briton’s spirits, and makes him give tongue. By the way, I shall have to go off tonight after dinner. There’s been some trouble at a police station twenty miles out, and if I sleep there tonight, I can see to it all in the morning and be back in time for breakfast.”
“What a nuisance!” she replied, “But it will be cooler for you going tonight than staying out there all day. I suppose you have told the servants to have your things ready? There’s the church bell. I must go and put on my hat.”
The clang, clang of a bell, or the substitute for one, rang out harshly. It was Sunday, and different from most Tawah Sundays in this respect, that the chaplain of the nearest station had come over to hold his quarterly services in the bare, ugly little church.
“I suppose the padre will be here to dinner tonight,” said Fletcher, as his wife reappeared in a large, shady white hat. “Rather lucky, as I have to go off directly afterwards. You won’t feel so lonely, and it will be something of a change for you.”
“I don’t particularly want any change,” she answered, smiling at him as she fastened her gloves.
“You’re a marvellous woman. I can’t think why you haven’t gone melancholy mad in this God-forsaken hole of a place. We shall get better stations when I am more senior; but a man can’t well howl over his first charge of a district. I really think you ought to go away to the hills later on. I know you feel depressed when you think I am not looking, and there are no women here you can make companions of. You’ve never been through a hot weather, and you don’t realise how trying it can be. This is only the beginning.”
“I’m certainly not going away without you,” she answered promptly.
“But I couldn’t ask for leave so soon after furlough.”
“Then here I stay. I couldn’t leave you.” He looked at her with silent tenderness, and then, with their prayerbooks in their hands, the pair walked across the garden into the church compound, which was only divided from their own domain by a dusty aloe hedge.
The service was of a somewhat primitive order. Music there was none, for the aged harmonium that still blocked a corner of the building had long since been disembowelled by rats. The congregation was scanty, and mostly composed of native Christians with a couple of attendant female missionaries. Everyone sang in his, or her, own particular fashion, the solitary hymn being led by the clergyman himself, and pitched in too high a key. Then came the sermon, and while it was being droned forth the sun sank in a thick yellow haze, and dusk crept into the white-washed interior of the little church with the suddenness pertaining to the East. A muskrat ran chirruping round the walls, myriads of mosquitoes woke and screamed in one frantic chorus; bats descended from their abodes in the rafters and swooped before the noses of the congregation, while the great, heavy punkah creaked and swayed monotonously, waving the hot air to and fro in blasts that might have emanated from the lower regions.
Katherine Fletcher sat through it all, heedless and impassive. Her mind was occupied with her own difficulty to the exclusion of everything else, for her trouble had leapt into flame afresh on the receipt of the letter in her pocket, and her conscience was causing her the most acute unrest. The thought flitted through her brain that, had she the opportunity, she might become a Roman Catholic to obtain rest and relief through confession, and then a sudden idea struck her. Why should she not tell the chaplain everything, and ask his advice? The prospect made her heart beat with mingled hope and dread; but by the time the service was over she had made her decision, and that night, when dinner was finished and Robert had taken his departure, and she and the Reverend Mr Croppin found themselves sitting alone in the broad, dim verandah, she felt that the hour had come.
She glanced nervously at the chaplain, and a swift revulsion of feeling overcame her. She had not taken the individual into account before. How could she bring herself to lay bare the mental torture of months to such an ordinary, commonplace little specimen of humanity, with a pallid countenance, an uncertain beard, and spectacles? Still, he was a clergyman, she must remember that. She must not consider the man himself any more than if she were consulting a doctor. He must know best what she ought to do, and, of course, he would respect her confidence. She sat hesitating and silent, listening to the cries of the sleepy birds, the harsh noise made by the crickets, and the rustling of the dry, coarse grass as the night breeze rose off the sand in fitful little gusts.
Mr Croppin had enjoyed his dinner; his chair was comfortable, an iced peg stood on a small table at his elbow; the air in the faintly lighted verandah was cool after the lamp-heated house, and the mosquitoes had not yet discovered his ankles. He complacently observed the picturesque outline of the figure of his hostess, and wondered why she was so silent.
“Mr Croppin,” she said suddenly, now only regarding her companion as a servant of God, and, therefore, the fitting source from whence to seek the advice and comfort she needed so badly.
The chaplain started at the sound of her voice, for its tone portended no ordinary remark.
“Yes, Mrs Fletcher?” he replied somewhat anxiously.
“I—have something of great importance to myself that I want to tell you and ask your advice about as a clergyman.”
“Certainly,” said the padre, politely, preparing to give his whole attention.
“It is a matter of conscience, but I have worried myself over it to such a degree that I cannot see my way clearly at all. It has become distorted and out of proportion.”
“Surely, if you pray—”
“Of course I have prayed,” she interrupted impatiently; “but it’s a thing to be talked about with a human being who can answer me, I am past praying over it.”
Mr Croppin fidgeted. He trusted he was not about to have some embarrassing confession thrust upon him. He thought Mrs Fletcher looked decidedly queer. Her face was white and quivering, her eyes shining, her hands gesticulating. Evidently a nervous, hysterical woman, who would be likely to make a mountain out of a molehill. For aught he could tell, she might be wrong in her head, or perhaps she drank—and he endeavoured to recollect what she had taken at dinner, while Katherine continued rapidly—
“I married my husband under false pretences.” (Mr Croppin gave himself up for lost.) “He thought I loved him, but he was mistaken. I did not love him at all, though I allowed him to think I did, and I have never undeceived him.”
“Well?” encouraged Mr Croppin.
“I had been thrown over—jilted by another man, and I was hard and reckless. I was free to go where I pleased, having money of my own, so I came out to India to escape from the remarks and commiseration that followed me everywhere at home. My husband was returning from furlough and we met on board ship. I was amused and distracted when he fell in love with me, and then I thought perhaps I might do worse than marry him, that, at any rate, it would show the other man my heart was not broken. But I let Robert think I cared for him, it was very easy—a man takes so much for granted when he is in love—and I understood him well enough to know he would never marry any woman unless he thought she loved him. So I told him nothing of the other man, and I deceived him without a qualm. I liked him, and I wanted peace and quiet and someone I could trust. So I married him.”
“Well?” said Mr Croppin again. It seemed to him a great fuss about nothing very dreadful, and he only hoped she was not going to ask his advice as to leaving her husband now she had married him.
“We were married at Bombay eight months ago, and came straight up here. You know the kind of place it is— lonely, hideous, cut off from the world. At first I thought I should never be able to endure it; but then gradually I discovered how good and unselfish my husband is, how manly and how true-hearted, and I fell in love with him honestly and devotedly. Now I might be so happy and contented, but I scarcely ever know a moment’s peace, for it is always on my conscience that I was not the woman he took me for when he married me. Yesterday I had a letter from that other man—fancy his daring to write to me!”—her hands clenched themselves and her eyes flashed—“and I had to hide the letter! I could not show it to my husband without explaining everything to him.”
“I wonder you don’t tell him all about it,” suggested Mr Croppin.
“Ah! That is just the question I wanted to ask you,” she answered eagerly. “Ought I to tell him? I don’t know what is right. I would give anything to ease the weight on my conscience, to relieve myself of the burden, but I so dread making him miserable! It is agony to me to know how I have deceived him, but if I tell him it may spoil the happiness of his life.”
“Oh! I don’t suppose it would exactly do that,” said Mr Croppin in an incredulous tone. (To himself he added, “The woman is morbidly hysterical.”) “If you feel that confessing your deception to your husband will ease your conscience, that in itself shows you the proper course to pursue. Never do evil that good may come.”
“But it seems so selfish,” she murmured helplessly.
Mr Croppin rubbed his spectacles with his silk pocket-handkerchief and then finished his peg, while Mrs Fletcher sat silent, in troubled doubt and hesitation. She was about to speak again, when the gong from the guardroom of the court-house boomed out eleven strokes.
“I must be going,” said the chaplain. “I start so early in the morning that all my things have to be ready overnight. Goodbye, Mrs Fletcher, I trust I have been of service to you. Follow the dictates of your conscience and you cannot go astray”—and Mr Croppin departed, uttering last platitudes of advice and exhortation.
That night was like a hideous dream to Katherine Fletcher. Sleep was impossible, and she tossed restlessly from side to side, half suffocated with the heat. She rose and wandered through the stuffy rooms, disturbing millions of mosquitoes, and then into the verandah, where she stood gazing out into the moonlit garden, a prey to mental indecision and unrest. What would Robert do if she told him? No doubt he would be gentle, kind and considerate, and blame her not at all; but a subtle change must creep in between them, born of the mutual knowledge of her capacities for deception. Their lives might never be the same again. Would it not be braver to hold her peace and suffer in silence? But the chaplain had urged her to obey her conscience, and surely her conscience was clamouring for confession? She recalled the time when Robert had proposed to her, how she had lied with her eyes and lips; how she had kept silent as to her past. Every word they had both said, every silence she had kept, seared into her memory. Of course he would remember it all equally clearly, and he would never believe in her again. Perhaps he would not even believe that she loved him now!
The unhappy woman rocked herself to and fro in a mental agony that was almost physical, though she dimly suspected that she had magnified her iniquity out of all proportion to the facts. Still, the facts were there, nothing could alter them, and she oscillated between the desire to tell her husband all, and the wish to save him pain and disappointment, crying hot tears of bewilderment and misery, and pacing the verandah with her slippered feet, until the watchman paused in his prowl round the house and coughed loudly in surprised expostulation.
The long, silent night gave place to a noisy dawn. Dogs began to bark, servants to yawn and talk, birds to twitter, squirrels and such-like small beasts to rustle in the undergrowths, and Katherine Fletcher sought her bed, worn out body and soul. Faint, sick, miserable, she cowered beneath the sheet, waiting for the moment when Robert should appear and hear the confession that was now almost bursting from her dry lips. . . .
When next she raised her head from the pillow the sun was shining fiercely and it was well on in the morning. How long had she been asleep? Had she had fever? She glanced at the clock and knew that Robert must be in soon. How she dreaded and yet longed for the sound of his voice and the touch of his hand.
There was a crunching of wheels outside. Her heart began to beat wildly—everything seemed changed since he had left her last night—she wanted to hide herself.
“Robert!” she cried, with a sob, as the curtain at the door of her room was raised and her husband s face looked in.
He was dusty, hot, tired and thirsty. He was longing for his bath and his breakfast, also for a cheroot, for he had found himself, by an oversight, minus a smoke on reaching the police-station, and in consequence had suffered as only a smoker can.
Katherine, at any other time, would have been the first to divine and minister to his wants, but now she was almost beside herself. She only knew that Robert had come back, and that she had resolved to reveal her perfidy.
“Kits!” he cried, concernedly, striding into the room, “Are you ill?”
For answer she began to cry weakly. The strain had been so great that now she gave way without a struggle.
“Darling!” he said, scared and astonished, “What on earth is the matter?”
“I want to tell you something,” she sobbed, “and when you know I am sure you will never love me again.”
He felt her pulse and her forehead anxiously. “I believe you’ve got fever,” he said.
“No, no,” putting her arms round his neck, “only I am very miserable.”
Robert sat down on the edge of the bed and took her hands firmly in his.
“Now try and stop crying,” he said, “and tell me what is the matter.”
Suddenly the whole affair seemed to sink into comparative insignificance before his calm common sense, and the familiarity of his presence. She ceased crying and wavered.
“Now, Kitty, go on. You have worried yourself into the devil’s own fuss about something while I have been away, and I swear I am not going to have my bath, or my breakfast, or even a smoke, until you tell me all about it.”
“I didn’t love you when I married you,” she burst out defiantly, and it sounded so inconsequent and out of place that she almost laughed.
“And don’t you love me now?” he asked gravely, dropping her hands.
“Love you—love you? I worship you! But I was so wicked and deceitful. I pretended—I let you think—oh! don’t you remember—?” and out came the story that she had poured into Mr Croppin’s unwilling ears the previous night, but incoherent, disjointed, tearful.
Fletcher listened, walking up and down the room, his hands in his pockets and his head bent. Then he knelt down by his wife’s bedside and took her in his arms.
“Poor child,” he said gently, “how you must have suffered, bottling it up like this for so long. It has got on your nerves, and being in this beastly hole with no nice women to talk to has made it worse.”
“Oh, Robert!” she sobbed, “You always think of me first! Do you mind dreadfully? Will it make you miserable?
“My dear, I don’t mind anything so long as you love me now. I am glad you told me. Lots of women would have thought nothing of keeping it dark; but you are different from other women, and do you think I don’t know it? Kiss me, dearest, and lie down and go to sleep or you will make yourself really ill. Your poor eyes look like two burnt holes in a blanket! I must go and wash, I never felt so sticky and hot in my life. Bearer! Bearer!” he shouted over her head, “Get my bath ready at once.”
He kissed her again, and went out of the room, leaving her weak from emotion, and bewildered, relieved, but yet vaguely disappointed at the manner in which he had taken her news. It evidently had not struck him as being so terrible as it appeared to her; and she began to wonder if he quite realised all she had been through and the unspeakable disquietude she had suffered. Had he forgotten all her looks and words when she had so deliberately deceived him? Were all the details of their courtship fading from his mind? After all, perhaps she might just as well have considered herself only, and told him long ago without the dread of spoiling his life. How much bitter heartache it would have saved her!
She could hear him moving about in his dressing room preparing for his bath. Would he be able to sing as usual while he was having it? She listened anxiously, and presently there came to her ears the sound of splashing water from the other side of the wall, accompanied by a lusty, untuneful voice raised in song.