Edith Wharton - SSC 10 (9 page)

 
          
“You
mean that you can’t go away out of reach of those letters!”

 
          
Her
husband had been standing before her in an uneasy half-hesitating attitude; now
he turned abruptly away and walked once or twice up and down the length of the
room, his head bent, his eyes fixed on the carpet.

 
          
Charlotte
felt her resentfulness rising with her
fears. “It’s that,” she persisted. “Why not admit it? You can’t live without
them.”

 
          
He
continued his troubled pacing of the room; then he stopped short, dropped into
a chair and covered his face with his hands. From the shaking of his shoulders,
Charlotte
saw that he was weeping. She had never seen
a man cry, except her father after her mother’s death, when she was a little
girl; and she remembered still how the sight had frightened her. She was
frightened now; she felt that her husband was being dragged away from her into
some mysterious bondage, and that she must use up her last atom of strength in
the struggle for his freedom, and for hers.

 
          
“Kenneth—Kenneth!”
she pleaded, kneeling down beside him. “Won’t you listen to me? Won’t you try
to see what I’m suffering? I’m not unreasonable, darling; really not. I don’t
suppose I should ever have noticed the letters if it hadn’t been for their
effect on you. It’s not my way to pry into other people’s affairs; and even if
the effect had been different—yes, yes; listen to me—if I’d seen that the
letters made you happy, that you were watching eagerly for them, counting the
days between their coming, that you wanted them, that they gave you something I
haven’t known how to give—why, Kenneth, I don’t say I shouldn’t have suffered
from that, too; but it would have been in a different way, and I should have had
the courage to hide what I felt, and the hope that some day you’d come to feel
about me as you did about the writer of the letters. But what I can’t bear is
to see how you dread them, how they make you suffer, and yet how you can’t live
without them and won’t go away lest you should miss one during your absence. Or
perhaps,” she added, her voice breaking into a cry of accusation—”perhaps it’s
because she’s actually forbidden you to leave. Kenneth, you must answer me! Is
that the reason? Is it because she’s forbidden you that you won’t go away with
me?”

 
          
She
continued to kneel at his side, and raising her hands, she drew his gently
down. She was ashamed of her persistence, ashamed of uncovering that baffled
disordered face, yet resolved that no such scruples should arrest her. His eyes
were lowered, the muscles of his face quivered; she was making him suffer even
more than she suffered herself. Yet this no longer restrained her.

 
          
“Kenneth,
is it that? She won’t let us go away together?”

 
          
Still
he did not speak or turn his eyes to her; and a sense of defeat swept over her.
After all, she thought, the struggle was a losing one. “You needn’t answer. I
see I’m right,” she said.

 
          
Suddenly,
as she rose, he turned and drew her down again. His hands caught hers and
pressed them so tightly that she felt her rings cutting into her flesh. There
was something frightened, convulsive in his hold; it was the clutch of a man
who felt
himself
slipping over a precipice. He was
staring up at her now as if salvation lay in the face she bent above him. “Of
course we’ll go away together. We’ll go wherever you want,” he said in a low
confused voice; and putting his arm about her, he drew her close and pressed
his lips on hers.

 
          
  

 
          
Charlotte
had said to herself: “I shall sleep
tonight,” but instead she sat before her fire into the small hours, listening
for any sound that came from her husband’s room. But he, at any rate, seemed to
be resting after the tumult of the evening. Once or twice she stole to the door
and in the faint light that came in from the street through his open window she
saw him stretched out in heavy sleep—the sleep of weakness and exhaustion.
“He’s ill,” she thought—”he’s undoubtedly ill. And it’s not overwork; it’s this
mysterious persecution.”

 
          
She
drew a breath of relief. She had fought through the weary fight and the victory
was hers—at least for the moment. If only they could have started at
once—started for anywhere! She knew it would be useless to ask him to leave
before the holidays; and meanwhile the secret influence—as to which she was
still so completely in the dark—would continue to work against her, and she
would have to renew the struggle day after day till they started on their
journey. But after that everything would be different. If once she could get
her husband away under other skies, and all to herself, she never doubted her
power to release him from the evil spell he was under. Lulled to quiet by the
thought, she too slept at last.

 
          
When
she woke, it was long past her usual hour, and she sat up in bed surprised and
vexed at having overslept herself. She always liked to be down to share her
husband’s breakfast by the library fire; but a glance at the clock made it
clear that he must have started long since for his office. To make sure, she
jumped out of bed and went into his room; but it was empty. No doubt he had
looked in on her before leaving, seen that she still slept, and gone downstairs
without disturbing her; and their relations were sufficiently loverlike for her
to regret having missed their morning hour.

 
          
She
rang and asked if Mr. Ashby had already gone. Yes, nearly an hour ago, the maid
said. He had given orders that Mrs. Ashby should not be waked and that the
children should not come to her till she sent for them… Yes, he had gone up to
the nursery himself to give the order. All this sounded usual enough; and
Charlotte
hardly knew why she asked: “And did Mr.
Ashby leave no other message?”

 
          
Yes,
the maid said, he did; she was so sorry she’d forgotten. He’d told her, just as
he was leaving, to say to Mrs. Ashby that he was going to see about their
passages, and would she please be ready to sail tomorrow?

 
          
Charlotte
echoed the woman’s “Tomorrow,” and sat
staring at her incredulously. “Tomorrow—you’re sure he said to sail tomorrow?”

 
          
“Oh, ever so sure, ma’am.
I don’t know how I could have
forgotten to mention it.”

 
          
“Well,
it doesn’t matter. Draw my bath, please.”
Charlotte
sprang up, dashed through her dressing, and
caught herself singing at her image in the glass as she sat brushing her hair.
It made her feel young again to have scored such a victory. The other woman
vanished to a speck on the horizon, as this one, who ruled the foreground,
smiled back at the reflection of her lips and eyes. He loved her, then—he loved
her as passionately as ever. He had divined what she had suffered, had
understood that their happiness depended on their getting away at once, and
finding each other again after yesterday’s desperate groping in the fog. The
nature of the influence that had come between them did not much matter to
Charlotte
now; she had faced the phantom and
dispelled it.
“Courage—that’s the secret!
If only
people who are in love weren’t always so afraid of risking their happiness by
looking it in the eyes.” As she brushed back her light abundant hair it waved
electrically above her head, like the palms of victory. Ah, well, some women
knew how to manage men, and some didn’t—and only the fair—she gaily
paraphrased—deserve the brave! Certainly she was looking very pretty.

 
          
The
morning danced along like a cockleshell on a bright sea—such a sea as they
would soon be speeding over. She ordered a particularly good dinner, saw the
children off to their classes, had her trunks brought down, consulted with the
maid about getting out summer clothes—for of course they would be heading for
heat and sunshine—and wondered if she oughtn’t to take Kenneth’s flannel suits
out of camphor. “But how absurd,” she reflected, “that I don’t yet know where
we’re going!” She looked at the clock, saw that it was close on
noon
, and decided to call him up at his office.
There was a slight delay; then she heard his secretary’s voice saying that Mr.
Ashby had looked in for a moment early, and left again almost immediately… Oh,
very well;
Charlotte
would ring up later. How soon was he likely
to be back? The secretary answered that she couldn’t tell; all they knew in the
office was that when he left he had said he was in a hurry because he had to go
out of town.

 
          
Out
of town!
Charlotte
hung up the receiver and sat blankly gazing
into new darkness. Why had he gone out of town? And where had he gone? And of
all days, why should he have chosen the eve of their suddenly planned
departure? She felt a faint shiver of apprehension. Of course he had gone to
see that woman—no doubt to get her permission to leave. He was as completely in
bondage as that; and
Charlotte
had been fatuous enough to see the palms of victory on her forehead.
She burst into a laugh and, walking across the room, sat down again before her
mirror. What a different face she saw! The smile on her pale lips seemed to
mock the rosy vision of the other
Charlotte
. But gradually her colour crept back. After
all, she had a right to claim the victory, since her husband was doing what she
wanted, not what the other woman exacted of him. It was natural enough, in view
of his abrupt decision to leave the next
day, that
he
should have arrangements to make, business matters to wind up; it was not even
necessary to suppose that his mysterious trip was a visit to the writer of the
letters. He might simply have gone to see a client who lived out of town. Of
course they would not tell
Charlotte
at the office; the secretary had hesitated before imparting even such
meagre information as the fact of Mr. Ashby’s absence. Meanwhile she would go
on with her joyful preparations, content to learn later in the day to what
particular island of the blest she was to be carried.

 
          
The
hours wore on, or rather were swept forward on a rush of eager preparations. At
last the entrance of the maid who came to draw the curtains roused
Charlotte
from her labours, day and she had to say
she didn’t know—that Kenneth had simply sent her word he was going to take
their passages—the uttering of the words again brought home to her the
strangeness of the situation. Even Mrs. Ashby conceded that it was odd; but she
immediately added that it only showed what a rush he was in.

 
          
“But,
mother, it’s nearly
eight o’clock
! He must realize that I’ve got to know when
we’re starting tomorrow.”

 
          
“Oh,
the boat probably doesn’t sail till evening. Sometimes they have to wait till
midnight
for the tide. Kenneth’s probably counting
on that. After all, he has a level head.”

 
          
Charlotte
stood up. “It’s not that. Something has
happened to him.”

 
          
Mrs.
Ashby took off her spectacles and rolled up her knitting. “If you begin to let
yourself imagine things—”

 
          
“Aren’t
you in the least anxious?”

 
          
“I
never am till I have to be. I wish you’d ring for dinner, my dear. You’ll stay
and dine? He’s sure to drop in here on his way home.”

 
          
Charlotte
called up her own house. No, the maid said,
Mr. Ashby hadn’t come in and hadn’t telephoned. She would tell him as soon as
he came that Mrs. Ashby was dining at his mother’s.
Charlotte
followed her mother-in-law into the
dining-room and sat with parched throat before her empty plate, while Mrs.
Ashby dealt calmly and efficiently with a short but carefully prepared repast.
“You’d better eat something, child, or you’ll be as bad as Kenneth… Yes, a
little more asparagus, please, Jane.”