The Helpmate

It was the first day in Lent. Anne had come down in a state of depression. She was silent during breakfast, and Majendie became absorbed in his morning paper. So much wisdom he...

It seemed to her that there was something dark and undesirable behind those words, something into which she could well conceive he would not wish to go. It never struck her that...

For once in his life Majendie was glad that he had a business. Shipping (he was a ship-owner) was a distraction from the miserable problem that weighed on him at home.

It was Anne's birthday. It shone in mid-May like the front of June. Anne's bedroom was over Edith's and looked out on the garden. A little rain had fallen over night. Through th...

Gloom fell on the house in Prior Street in the weeks that followed Christmas. The very servants went heavily in the shadow of it. Anne began to have her bad headaches again. Dee...

She sat trembling in the Ransomes' drawing-room. Mrs. Ransome had just asked whether there was anything in it; because if there was, she, Mrs. Ransome, washed her hands of her....

It was October, five months after Anne's birthday. She was not to know again the mood which determined her complete surrender. Supreme moods can never be recaptured or repeated....

Dr. Gardner had been sent for. He had come and gone. He had confirmed the Scarby doctor's opinion, with a private leaning to the side of hope. Hannay, who had waited to hear his...

Anne was right. Though Majendie was, as he expressed it, "up to her designs upon his unhappy soul," he remained unconscious of the part to be played by Mrs. Eliott and her circl...

The rain cleared off, the mist lifted, and at nine o'clock it was a fine day for Peggy's birthday. Even Scale, where it stretched its flat avenues into the country, showed golde...

Eastward along the Humber, past the brown wharves and the great square blocks of the warehouses, past the tall chimneys and the docks with their thin pine-forest of masts, there...

The task was so far unpleasant to her that she was anxious to secure the first opportunity and get it over. Her moment would come with the two hours after dinner in the study.

Anne and her husband walked home in silence across the Park, grateful for its darkness. Majendie could well imagine that she would not want to talk. He made allowance for her re...

There is a polite and ancient rivalry between Prior Street and Thurston Square, a rivalry that dates from the middle of the eighteenth century, when Prior Street and Thurston Sq...

Friday was the day which Maggie Forrest marked in her calendar sometimes with a query and sometimes with a cross. The query stood for "Will he come?" The cross meant "He came."...

It was impossible for them to stay any longer at Scarby. The place was haunted by the presence and the voice of scandalous rumour. Anne had the horrible idea that it had been al...

Majendie could never be angry with any woman for more than five minutes. And this time he understood his wife better than she knew. He had seen, as Edith had said, "everything."

Majendie, therefore, was surprised to find her luggage in the hall when he entered the house at six o'clock on Friday evening. Nanna had evidently been waiting for the sound of...

Up to that moment when he had looked across the dinner table at Anne, Majendie had felt secure in the bonds of his marriage. Anne's repugnance had broken the natural tie; but up...

As Majendie declined more and more on his inferior friendships, Anne became more and more dependent on the Eliotts and the Gardners. Her evenings would have been intolerable wit...

Anne, left alone at her writing-table, had worked on far into Friday night. The trouble in her was appeased by the answering of letters, the sorting of papers, the bringing of o...

It was broad daylight outside. A man was putting out the lights one by one along the cold little grey parade. A figure, walking slowly, with down-bent head, was approaching the...

Majendie owned to a pang of shame as he turned from Maggie's door. In justice to Gorst it could not be said that he had betrayed the passionate, perverted creature. And yet ther...

It was a fine day, early in November, and Anne was walking alone along one of the broad flat avenues that lead from Scale into the country beyond. Made restless by her trouble,...

The bell of St. Saviour's had ceased. Over the open market-place the air throbbed with a thousand pulses from the dying heart of sound. The great grey body of the Church was sti...

The new firm of Hannay & Majendie promised to do well. Hannay had a genius for business, and Majendie was carried along by the inspiration of his senior partner. Hannay was the...

It was four o'clock in the morning. Mrs. Walter Majendie still lay on the extreme edge of the bed, with her face turned to the dim line of sea discernible through the open windo...

The light burned in Edith's room till morning; for her spine kept sleep from her through many nights. They no longer said, "She is better, or certainly no worse." They said, "Sh...

The yacht had lain all night in Fawlness creek. Majendie had slept on board. He had sent Steve up to the farm with a message for Maggie. He had told her not to expect him that n...

At intervals he was profoundly sorry for her. Pity for her loosened, from time to time, the grip of his own pain. He told himself that she must have gone through intolerable day...

They had come back. They had spent their first evening together in the house in Prior Street. Anne had dreaded the return; for the house remembered its sad secrets. She had drea...

What with anxiety about his daughter and his sister, and a hopeless attachment to his wife, Majendie's misery became so acute that it told upon his health. His friends, Gorst an...

It was a Thursday night in October, three weeks after Edith's death. Anne was in her room, undressing. She moved noiselessly, with many tender precautions, for fear of waking Pe...

Lady Cayley was with him. She was with him in the sitting-room which had been his and Anne's. They were by themselves. The Ransomes were dining with friends in another quarter o...

Anne presented herself that evening in her husband's study with a sheaf of visiting cards in her hand. She thought it possible that she might obtain further illumination by conf...

Though Thurston Square saw little of Mrs. Majendie, the glory of Mrs. Eliott's Thursdays remained undiminished. The same little procession filed through her drawing-room as befo...

Anne sat in her chair by the fireside, very still. She had turned out the light, for it hurt her eyes and made her head ache. She had felt very weak, and her knees shook under h...

After the birth of her child Anne was restored to her normal poise and self-possession. She appeared the large, robust, superb creature she had once been. The serenity of her be...

She rose and went with him. Up a turning in the dell, about fifty yards from their tree, a long grassy way cut sheer through a sheet of wild hyacinths. It ran as if between two...

He went to the house. The old nurse opened the door for him. She was weeping bitterly. He asked for Anne, and was told that she was lying down and could not see him. It was Nann...