She sighed in pure sadness as she faced this deeper self. For it was clear now forever that to be good was not all in all to her. To endure, suffer long, and be kind was not her aim. She had never been quite sure whether it was not the hidden secret of all her decisions, born in her, independent of thought. Now and then hearing commendation of endurances that did not bring bitterness, she had been tempted to feel that there must be, since she had endured much and not become bitter, in her own character the things called sweetness and fortitude.
It had always been a strange moment. Two impressions side by side. The certainty that conscious fortitude and sweetness could not persist in their own right, and the uncertainty of approving of these things in their unconscious simplicity; a dislike of being discovered in a state of helpless merit.
Greater than the sadness of not being good, more thrilling, was the joy of feeling ready to take responsibility for oneself.
I must create my life. Life is creation. Self and circumstances the raw material. But so many lives I can’t create. And in going off to create my own I must leave behind uncreated lives. Lives set in motionless circumstances.
A voice sounded in the hot darkness. Just outside the window. Almost in the room.
“I’ll do you in. If I get you I’ll do you in.” Sound of furniture violently collided with. Perrance. Mrs. Perrance.
And I’m sitting up trembling. This, the beginning of this, was what woke me a few moments ago. The end of their Bank Holiday.
Again a crash.
I’m full of horror. Too full of horror for pity. It is my voice this time that must sound that awful cry from a window.
With her feet on the floor and her hands feeling for garments, she listened. Perrance was in monologue. Perhaps he was helpless. Probably more drunk than Mrs. Perrance. Perhaps he would talk himself out. Poor man. Poor woman.
This is life. However far I go away, this will go on. To go away is only to get mental oblivion of it. Yet that is just what I am planning. Here in the midst of it is the hope that my lucky star, the star that keeps even my sympathies clear of being actively involved, will carry me through this, too, without bringing it into my hands.
The voice of Perrance was growing high and thin. Lying down once more in the darkness she could hear each word wailing out into the night. He was chanting his loathing of the mystery of womanhood, cursing it, its physical manifestations, cursing them to heaven in the vile den created by his ignorance and helpless poverty. The den where lived the despair of his isolated mind. Miriam felt its dailyness. Seemed to be within it and to breathe its thick odours as she listened. And to rebel and curse with him. In his soul was light. Something he felt his wife fought against with her dark, silent ways. Why did he not murder her?
And the woman was there with her youth. Before her eyes, pictures of Devonshire. In her mind wonder at the way things had slipped down and down, to this; and fear, of this maddened stranger who desired only her death.
Well, they adore each other, they adore each other, muttered Miriam as quietness fell. It is terrifying to me because I’m not accustomed.
A shriek brought her to the middle of the floor feeling cool and strong. “Stop! stop!” she shouted down out of the window. “I’m coming.” But her voice was drowned in the tumult below. A blazing lamp crashed out into the garden and then came the man’s voice feeble and sane:
“We mighta been killed. We mighta been before our maker, Maria.” And a sobbing. Mrs. Perrance sobbing in serene despair. Without fear.
Away. Away. …
Colophon
The Trap
was published in by
Dorothy M. Richardson.
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Ray Ryan,
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The cover page is adapted from
Moulin de la Galette,
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Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
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