§
‘Now what you’ve got to do,’ said Mr. Thorpe, folding it up neatly when he had finished, and laying it down on the little table, ‘is to make up your mind that what’s done can’t be undone.’
Mrs. Luke, her head buried in the cushions, moaned.
‘That’s it,’ said Mr. Thorpe, a hand on each knee and an eye on her. ‘That’s the ticket.’
‘I know—I know,’ moaned Mrs. Luke. ‘But just at first—the shock——’
‘Shock, eh? I don’t know that there’s much shock about marriage,’ said Mr. Thorpe. ‘Shouldn’t be, anyhow.’
‘But so sudden—so unexpected——’
‘People will marry, you know,’ said Mr. Thorpe. ‘Especially men. Once they get set on it, nothing stops ’em.’
‘I know—I know—but Jocelyn—such a boy——’
‘Boy, eh? Age has precious little to do with it,’ said Mr. Thorpe firmly. ‘In fact, nothing.’
‘But his prospects—his career—all thrown away—ruined——’
‘Marriage never harmed a man yet,’ said Mr. Thorpe still more firmly, aware that he was being inaccurate, but also aware that no one can afford to be accurate and court simultaneously. Accuracy, Mr. Thorpe knew, comes after marriage, not before.
‘Mark my words,’ he went on, ‘that clever son of yours won’t stop being clever because he’s married. Who’s going to take his brains from him? Not a loving wife, you bet. Why, a good wife, a loving wife, doubles and trebles a man’s output.’
‘How kind you are,’ murmured Mrs. Luke, who did find this comforting. ‘But Jocelyn—my boy—to keep it from me——’
‘Bound to keep something from his mother,’ said Mr. Thorpe. ‘Mothers are all right, and a man has to have them to start with, but the day comes when a back seat is what they’ve got to climb into. Only as regards their children, mind you,’ he added. ‘A woman has many other strings to her bow, and is by no means nothing but a mother.’
‘Oh, but we were everything, everything to each other,’ moaned Mrs. Luke, stabbed afresh by the mention of a back seat. ‘Always, always. He never looked at another woman——’
‘Damned prig,’ thought Mr. Thorpe. And said out aloud, ‘Time he began, then. Though having a woman like you about,’ he added, placing his hand with determination on hers, which hung limply down holding a handkerchief while her face was still turned away, ‘ought to keep him from seeing the others all right. You’re a wonderful woman, you know—a remarkable woman.’
His voice changed. It took on the unmistakable note that is immediately followed by love-making.
‘I—think I’ll go and lie down,’ said Mrs. Luke faintly, recognising the note, and feeling she could bear no more of anything that night. ‘I—I really think I must. My head——’
She struggled to get up.
He helped her. He helped her by laying hold of both her wrists, and drawing her upwards and towards him.
‘Head, eh?’ he said, a gleam in his eyes.
‘How kind, how kind——’ she murmured distractedly, finding herself on her feet and very close to Mr. Thorpe, who still held her wrists.
She wanted her letter. She looked about helplessly for her letter, keeping her head as far away from him as she could. There was her letter—on the table—she wanted to snatch it up—to get away as quickly as possible—to hide in her bedroom—and her wrists were being held, and she couldn’t move.
‘Kind, eh? Kind, you call it?’ said Mr. Thorpe through his teeth. ‘I can be kinder than that.’ And he put his arms round her, and drew her vigorously to his chest.
‘This in exchange for Jocelyn,’ drifted through Mrs. Luke’s wretched and resisting mind.
But, even through her wretchedness and resistance she felt there was something rock-like, something solid and fixed, about Mr. Thorpe’s chest, to which in the present catastrophe, with the swirling waters of bitterest disappointment raging round her feet, it might be well to cling.