The Demagogue and Lady Phayre — John Locke — John Shaqi
The Demagogue and Lady Phayre
John Locke · en
“How dare you come in here! How dare you spy upon me! If I want to drink
I’ll drink. What business is it of yours if I kill myself?”
She seized the glass, had already put it to her lips, when he strode
forward and dashed it from her hand.
“You won’t do it to-night anyhow, Lizzie,” he said calmly.
She broke into a torrent of angry speech.
When the drink or passion was upon her, she used the vernacular of the
Sunington streets--of her own home, for the matter of that. He waited
until there was a lull in the tempest.
“I’ll have the bottle anyway,” he said, turning to the trunk.
But that was the signal for a fresh outburst. She sat upon the trunk,
swore he should never have it while she lived, prepared to defend her
property by physical means. Goddard shrugged his shoulders, and sat down
upon the bed.
“All right,” he said; “I’ll wait.”
Then she burst into hysterical sobbing. She wished she was dead. She
hated him. He was a brute. That was all he lived for--to keep the spy
upon her when he wasn’t making up to other women.
“Do you think I’m a fool?” she cried, suddenly taking her hands from her
face and turning to him. “Do you think I don’t know? I don’t interfere
with you: why should you interfere with me? Only don’t bring your women
to this house. Do you think I don’t know your goings on? You are worse
than I am. I don’t pretend. You are a dirty blackguard. You think I
don’t know all about your Rhodanthes and things?”
He started as if she had struck him, for a moment lost the command
over himself that he had maintained through all the ordure of words. He
regained it with a violent effort, clutching the counterpane fiercely,
until his finger-nails were turned back. He understood now how a man
could beat a woman. If he lost the hold over himself, he would rush to
her and beat her--beat her until she lay senseless. Perhaps she almost
expected it, for she paused at the last words, and looked at him
half-coweringly, half-defiantly. So their eyes remained fixed on one
another in the dim-lit room. Then she shuddered with body and lips, and
uttering a low cry hid her face. A terror had taken possession of her.
She was conquered.
Daniel rose from the bed, went to her, and took her by the arm.
“Go into the next room,” he said sternly, and she obeyed.
He joined her after he had disposed of the disputed whisky-bottle.
And there they sat in an appalling silence, until Emily came back from
church, and relieved him of his charge.
That was the last time that Lizzie referred to Lady Phayre. He wondered
how she had learned her name--that name Rhodanthe, which he had ever in
his mind--which, save this once, he had never heard uttered aloud.
It was a curious freak of fate’s irony that, on this one occasion, it
should have been uttered by his wife’s lips. The circumstance embittered
him still more against her.