§ 19
At the end of January Mary left Conster. She could not in any spirit of decorum put off her return longer—her husband had wired to her to come home.
“Poor Julian,” said Lady Alard—“he must be missing you dreadfully. I really think you ought to go back, Mary, since he can’t manage to come here.”
Mary agreed without elaboration, and her lovely hats and shoes with the tea-gowns and dinner-frocks which had divided the family into camps of admiration and disapproval, were packed away by the careful, brisk Gisèle. The next day she was driven over to Ashford, with Jenny and Peter to see her off.
There had been no intimate talks between the sisters since the first night of her coming. Jenny was shy, and typically English in her dislike of the exposure of anything which seemed as if it ought to be hidden, and Mary either felt this attitude in her sister or else shrank from disillusioning her youth still further. They had arrived a little too early for the train, and stood together uneasily on the platform while Gisèle bought the tickets and superintended the luggage.
“I wish you didn’t have to go,” said Jenny politely.
“So do I—but it couldn’t be helped after that telegram.”
“Julian sounded rather annoyed—I hope he won’t make a fuss when you get back.”
“I’m not going back.”
There was a heavy silence. Neither Peter nor Jenny thought they had quite understood.
“Wh-what do you mean?” stammered Jenny at last—“not going back to Chart? Isn’t Julian there?”
“Of course he’s there. That’s why I’m not going back. Gisèle is taking the tickets to London.”
“But”—It was Peter who said ‘But,’ and had apparently nothing else to say.
“Do you mean that you’re leaving him?” faltered Jenny.
“I’m not going to live with him any more. I’ve had enough.”
“But why didn’t you tell us?—tell the parents?”
“I’d rather not bring the family into it. It’s my own choice though Julian is sure to think you’ve been influencing me. I didn’t make up my mind till I got his telegram; then I saw quite plainly that I couldn’t go back to him.”
“You’re not going to that other fellow—what’s his name—Commander Smith?” cried Peter, finding his tongue rather jerkily.
“Oh, no. As I’ve told Jenny, making a mess of things with one man doesn’t necessarily encourage me to try my luck with another. Besides, I’m not fond of Charles—in that way. I shall probably stay at my Club for a bit, and then go abroad.... I don’t know.... All I know is that I’m not going back to Julian.”
“Shall you—can you divorce him?”
“No. He hasn’t been cruel or unfaithful, nor has he deserted me. I’m deserting him. It’s simply that I can’t live with him—he gets on my nerves—I can’t put up with either his love or his jealousy. I couldn’t bear the thought even of having dinner with him tonight ... and yet—” the calm voice suddenly broke—“and yet I married for love....”
Both the brother and sister were silent. Peter saw Gisèle coming up with a porter and the luggage, and went off like a coward to meet them. Jenny remained uneasily with Mary.
“I’m sorry to have had to do this,” continued the elder sister—“it’ll upset the parents, I know. They don’t like Julian, but they’ll like a scandal still less.”
“Do you think he’ll make a row?”
“I’m sure of it. For one thing, he’ll never think for a minute I haven’t left him for someone else—for Charles. He won’t be able to imagine that I’ve left a comfortable home and a rich husband without any counter attraction except my freedom. By the way, I shall be rather badly off—I’ll have only my settlements, and they won’t bring in much.”
“Oh, Mary—do you really think you’re wise?”
“Not wise, perhaps—nor good.” She pulled down her veil. “I feel that a better or a worse woman would have made a neater job of this. The worse would have found an easier way—the better would have stuck to the rough. But I—oh, I’m neither—I’m neither good nor bad. All I know is that I can’t go back to Julian, to put up with his fussing and his love and his suspicion—and, worse still, with my own shame because I don’t love him any more—because I’ve allowed myself to be driven out of love by tricks—by manner—by outside things.”
“—London train—Headcorn, Tonbridge and London train—”
The porter’s shouting was a welcome interruption, though it made Jenny realise with a blank feeling of anxiety and impotence that any time for persuasion was at an end.
“Do you want us to tell Father and Mother?” she asked as Mary got into the train.
“You needn’t if you’d rather not. I’ll write to them tonight.”
She leaned back in the carriage, soft, elegant, perfumed, a little unreal, and yet conveying somehow a sense of desperate choice and mortal straits.
Peter and Jenny scarcely spoke till they were back in the car driving homewards. Then Jenny said with a little gasp—
“Isn’t it dreadful?”
“What?—her going away?”
“No, the fact that she married Julian for love.”
Peter said nothing.
“If she’d married out of vanity, or greed, or to please the family, it would have been better—one would have understood what’s happened now. But she married him for love.”
Peter still said nothing.