“Now, old girl,” he said at length, pushing his papers aside with a weary gesture of resignation, having failed to convince her how admirable his choice had been, “let’s look at your place.” He laughed patiently, but the cushions provided by food and wine and excitement had worn thin. Friction increased; words pricked; the tide of sympathy ebbed—it had been forced really all along, pumped up; their tastes and temperaments did not amalgamate. Frances opened her Baedeker and explained mechanically. She now saw clearly the insuperable difficulties in the way, but for sentimental and affectionate reasons declined to be the first to admit the truth. She was braver, bigger than he was, but her heart prevented the outspoken honesty that would have saved the situation. He, though unselfish as men go, could not conceal his knowledge that he was so. Each vied with the other in the luxury of giving up with apparent sweetness, only the luxury was really beyond the means of either. With the Baedeker before them on the table, the ritual was again gone through—from her point of view, while in sheer weariness he agreed to conditions his strength could never fulfil when the time came. They met half-way upon Champéry in the Valais Alps above the Rhone. It satisfied neither of them. But speech was exhausted; energy flagged; the restaurant, moreover, was emptying and lights being turned out.
They put away Baedeker and paper, paid the bill, and rose to go, each keenly disappointed, each feeling conscious of having made a big sacrifice. On the steps he turned to help her put her coat on, and their eyes met. They felt miles apart. “So much for my holiday,” he thought, “after waiting eleven months!” and there was a flash of resentful anger in his heart. He turned it unconsciously against his sister.
“Don’t write for rooms till the end of the week,” he suggested. “I may think of a better place after all.”
It was the tone that stung her nerves, perhaps. She really hated Champéry—a crowded, touristy, ‘organised’ place. Her sacrifice had gone for nothing. “Even now he’s not satisfied!” she realised with bitterness.
“Oh, if you don’t feel it’ll do, Bill, dear,” she answered coolly, “I really think we’d better give it up—going together, I mean.” Her force was exhausted.
He felt sore, offended, injured. He looked sharply at her, almost glared. A universe lay between them now. Before there was time to reflect or choose his words, even to soften his tone, he had answered coldly:
“Just as you like, Frances. I don’t want to spoil your holiday. You’re right. We’d better go separately then.”
Nothing more was said. He saw her to the station of the Tube, but the moment the train had gone he realised that the final wave of her little hand betrayed somehow that tears were very close. She had not shown her face again. He felt sad, ashamed, and bitter. Deeper than the resentment, however, was a great ache in his heart that was pain. Remorse surged over him. He thought of her year of toil, her tired little face, her disappointment. Her brief holiday, so feverishly yearned for, would now be tinged with sadness and regret, wherever she went. Memory flashed back to their childhood together, when life smiled upon them in that Kentish garden. They were the only two survivors. Yet they could not manage even a holiday together....
Though so little had been said at the end, it was a rupture.... He went home to bed, planning a splendid reconstruction. Before they went to their respective work-places in the morning he would run over and see her, put everything straight and sweet again, explaining his selfishness, perhaps, on the plea that he was overtired. He wondered, as he lay ashamed and sad upon his sleepless bed, what she was thinking and feeling now ... and fell asleep at last with his plan of reconstruction all completed. His last conscious thought was—“I wish I had not let her go like that ... without a nice good-bye!”
In the morning, however, he had not time to go; he postponed it to the evening, sending her a telegram instead: “Come dinner to-night same place and time. Have worked out perfect plan.” And all day long he looked forward eagerly to their meeting. Those childhood thoughts haunted him strangely—he remembered the enormous plans all had made together years ago in that old Kentish garden where the hopfields peered above the privet hedge and frightened them. There were five of them then; now there were only two.