Chapter 22

The first thing he saw when he opened the door of the room at the top of the house was the fire.

A fire. He hadn’t ordered a fire. He must look into that. That officious slattern Lizzie——

Then, before he had recovered from this, he had another shock. Lucy was on the hearthrug, her head leaning against the sofa, sound asleep.

So that’s what she had been doing, —just going comfortably to sleep, while he——

He shut the door and walked over to the fireplace and stood with his back to it looking down at her. Even his heavy tread didn’t wake her. He had shut the door in the way that was natural, and had walked across the room in the way that was natural, for he felt no impulse in the presence of sleep to go softly. Besides, why should she sleep in broad daylight? Wemyss was of opinion that the night was for that. No wonder she couldn’t steep at night if she did it in the daytime. There she was, sleeping soundly, completely indifferent to what he might be doing. Would a really loving woman be able to do that? Would a really devoted wife?

Then he noticed that her face, the side of it he could see, was much swollen, and her nose was red. At least, he thought, she had had some contrition for what she had done before going to sleep. It was to be hoped she would wake up in a proper frame of mind. If so, even now some of the birthday might be saved.

He took out his pipe and filled it slowly, his eyes wandering constantly to the figure on the floor. Fancy that thing having the power to make or mar his happiness. He could pick that much up with one hand. It looked like twelve, with its long-stockinged relaxed legs, and its round, short-haired head, and its swollen face of a child in a scrape. Make or mar. He lit his pipe, repeating the phrase to himself, struck by it, struck by the way it illuminated his position of bondage to love.

All his life, he reflected, he had only asked to be allowed to lavish love, to make a wife happy. Look how he had loved Vera: with the utmost devotion till she had killed it, and nothing but trouble as a reward. Look how he loved that little thing on the floor. Passionately. And in return, the first thing she did on being brought into his home as his bride was to quarrel and ruin his birthday. She knew how keenly he had looked forward to his birthday, she knew how the arrangements of the whole honeymoon, how the very date of the wedding, had hinged on this one day; yet she had deliberately ruined it. And having ruined it, what did she care? Comes up here, if you please, and gets a book and goes comfortably to sleep over it in front of the fire.

His mouth hardened still more. He pulled the arm-chair up and sat down noisily in it, his eyes cold with resentment.

The book Lucy had been reading had dropped out of her hand when she fell asleep, and lay open on the floor at his feet. If she used books in such a way, Wemyss thought, he would be very careful how he let her have the key of his bookcase. This was one of Vera’s, —Vera hadn’t taken any care of her books either; she was always reading them. He slanted his head sideways to see the title, to see what it was Lucy had considered more worth her attention than her conduct that day towards her husband. Wuthering Heights. He hadn’t read it, but he fancied he had heard of it as a morbid story. She might have been better employed, on their first day at home, than in shutting herself away from him reading a morbid story.