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Updated: June 2, 2025
The house in Prior Street was only a place for her body to dwell in, for her soul to hide in, only walls around walls, the shell of the shell. She turned to her husband with a smile that flashed defiance to the invading pathos of her state. Majendie's eyes brightened with hope, beholding her admirable behaviour. He had always thoroughly approved of Anne.
"Well, not at present, perhaps, for the sake of peace," said Hannay. "It strikes me poor old Majendie's in a pretty tight place with that wife of his." So, for the sake of peace, Mr. Gorst kept away from Prior Street and his Edie, and spent a great deal of time in Evans's shop, cultivating the attention of Miss Forrest.
Peggy had helped Mary the cook to pack the luncheon basket, and now she felt time heavy on her little hands. Anne suggested that they should go upstairs and help Nanna. Nanna was in Majendie's room, turning out his drawers. On his bed there was a pile of suits of the year before last, put aside to be given to Anne's poor people.
She longed to be alone; but, to her grief, she heard the opening and shutting of a door and her husband's feet moving in the room beyond. A few blessed moments of solitude were left her during Majendie's undressing. She devoted them to the final expulsion of all lingering illusions.
The door was shut in Majendie's face, and he turned away, intending to kill, to murder the next hour at his club. Anne was self-trained in the habit of detachment. She had only to kneel, to close her eyes and cover her face, and her soul slid of its own accord into the place of peace. Her very breathing and the beating of her heart were stayed.
But requires no spoon to sup with her, as Miss Majendie's invitations to supper, or indeed to luncheon, breakfast or dinner, are so few and rare that it might be rash for a hungry man to count on them. After every visit to her house he has sworn to himself that "this one" shall be his last, and every Wednesday following he has gone again.
In his manner with Mrs. Majendie there was no sign of the adroit little man of the world who had drunk whiskey with Mrs. Majendie's husband the night before. His manner was reticent, reverential, not obtrusively tender. He abstained from all the commonplaces of consolation.
He left her; and her heart turned after him as he went, and blessed him. "He is good, after all," her heart said. But Majendie's heart had hardened. He said to himself, "She is too much for me." As he lay awake thinking of her, he remembered Maggie. He remembered that Maggie loved him, and that he had gone away from her and left her, because he loved Anne.
Peggy had waked before it was light, to feel her presents which lay beside her on her bed; and, by the time Majendie's sail had passed Fawlness Point, she was up and dressed, waiting for him. Anne had to break it to her gently that perhaps he would not be home in time for eight-o'clock breakfast. Then the child's mouth trembled, and Anne comforted her, half-smiling and half-afraid.
When he found that he had not to encounter the terrible eyes of Mrs. Majendie, Mr. Gorst's relief was so great that it robbed him of reflection. And when he began to think, he merely thought that Majendie had asked him because his wife was absent, rather than that Majendie's wife was absent because he had been asked. Majendie had calculated on this.
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