§ 7
More than once during the next few weeks she wished for a reconciliation with George. It was not so much a desire for him as a sense of despair at being once more wholly alone and adrift. Now she was back again where she was when she first came to Gifford Road. With redoubled energy she laboured at her music, and soon the idea of a recital in a London concert hall began to dance attractively in her vision. She extended her reputation by playing in other suburbs; she thought even of setting up as a private teacher of the pianoforte. With the surplus earnings of a few months she bought an upright piano of decent tone and installed it in the basement sitting-room at Gifford Road.
George wrote to her once, a long letter of mingled pleading and expostulation. He mentioned that he had not yet told his parents what had happened, so that if she desired to change her mind it would be easy to do so. He laid stress on the difficulty he should find in giving Helen and his father and mother an adequate explanation of their separation.
After the receipt of this letter Catherine ceased her vague misgivings. She replied immediately in a letter, short by comparison with his, whose every sentence was the result of careful excogitation:
It is no good thinking of our ever becoming engaged again, because if we did we should soon quarrel. We simply aren’t made for one another, and however kind and sympathetic we try to be there’ll always be something lacking that sooner or later we shan’t be able to do without....
I am bound to confess that the idea of marriage with you always struck me as fantastic and improbable. I never, I believe, considered it seriously. I knew something would happen to put an end to our plans....
... Of course I am in the wrong. You have been very kind to me and from the ordinary point of view you would doubtless have made a very good husband. You are quite entitled to consider yourself shabbily treated. I am wholly in the wrong. But I am not going to make myself everlastingly unhappy just to put myself in the right. And whether you would have made me a good husband or not, I should certainly have made you a bad wife. I am a peculiar person, and I would never marry a man just because he would make a good husband.... Surely you don’t imagine I am going to marry you just to let you out of the difficulty of explaining things at home? ... A thing like that proves at once the complete misunderstanding that exists between us two.... You must tell your parents and Helen exactly what has happened, viz. that I have jilted you. If you were a woman you could claim a few hundred pounds damages for breach of promise.... Tell them I have jilted you because I could not bear the thought of marrying you. Blame me entirely: I am heartless and a flirt, cruel, treacherous and anything else you like. Only I am not such a fool as to marry somebody I don’t want to marry....
Don’t imagine I am in love with somebody else. At present I am not in love with anybody. At one time I thought I was in love with you, but I am doubtful if it ever was so really. I think it was just that you hypnotized me by being in love with me yourself. I mean, I was so interested in your experience....
I don’t ask you to forgive me. Because forgiving won’t make any difference. I may have done right or I may have done wrong, but I have done what I would do over again if I had to. There is no repentance in me. It is idle to pretend I am sorry. I am extraordinarily glad to have got out of a difficult position....
This letter, by the way, is the first sincere letter I have ever written to you. I do not mean that the others were all insincere: I mean that, compared with this one for truth and sincerity, the others were simply—nothing....
As to my present attitude towards you I will be offensively straightforward. I do not like you. That ought to convince you finally of the uselessness of answering this letter....