A lady and her husband

by Amber Reeves Blanco White

The first flat that she visited had often been let for short periods, and it seemed a little weary of the life. The second had shelves for photographs and vases hanging down the back of its cottage piano. The third looked on to a garage, the fourth was both expensive and unusual, but she decided that it would do. There was very little furniture in it, for one thing. For another, it reminded her of Rosemary.

The lady who showed it to Mary was younger and more friendly than such ladies are wont to be. She was Mrs. Jenkins, the porter's wife, and she had a sister who for twelve shillings a week would come in every day and do for Mrs. Heyham with pleasure. The sister herself would willingly have taken less, but Jenkins had his ideas on the subject. He had his ideas, it seemed, on several subjects, for his wife went on to explain that she hoped that Mrs. Heyham would not want a hot meal in the middle of the day, as the hour before half-past one engaged all the skill of both ladies in the preparation of dinner for the porter.

Mary thanked Mrs. Jenkins and returned to the agent's office. She had chosen a flat, it appeared, whose owner was in London. The agent would telephone through at once, and find out if she would accept Mrs. Heyham's offer. If she did accept, as the agent thought she would—Mary had made no difficulties about the price, and had offered to pay the first quarter in advance—and if, further, Mrs. Heyham was willing to let the firm make the inventory for both parties, there was no reason why she should not go in, if she wished it, that very afternoon.

Mary was willing to let the firm do anything that would spare her a night at a hotel. She had never been alone at a hotel, and she was afraid of meeting people she knew, of being stared at when she went to engage her room. With house agents, and their inventories and documents, on the other hand, she was familiar.

The agents produced the form of agreement in use on the estate, and Mary signed it. She would come back, she told the man, at half-past three. That, she thought, would allow her an ample margin of time before James came home, and it would not be too late for a respectable woman to arrive at a hotel if the lady to whom the flat belonged should resent being hurried. Meanwhile she could pack and then write her letter to James.

Her packing did not take long. She decided to take very little with her, as she did not want Penn to think that she was going away for more than a few days.

The letter, when she sat down before her desk, was as difficult to write as she had expected. Mary could write charming notes, and her correspondence had been much valued by her aunts in her younger days for the clever amusing way in which she told funny stories about the children. But she had not the habit of expressing her conclusions in written words or of stating an argument. She would have liked this letter to James to be a close expression of herself. She would have liked it to soften the shock it must inflict by a manner of wording that should recall her to him at her most normal, her kindest, her most familiar. "It mustn't seem excited," she told herself, "I must write as if I were doing the usual sensible thing,"—but she knew that she was asking too much of her own skill.

"My dear James," she left it at last, "I am sending this to the office so that you need not let the servants know what has happened. When you get home you will find that I have gone away. The reason that I am going is that I want to think things over and decide what I ought to do before I see you again. I want to decide freely, for myself, and when you are with me I cannot think. You said I was cruel—I don't want to be cruel, but when we are talking together I can think of nothing but not giving way to you against my will. It is very difficult for me to resist you when you are there. I have decided to go to-day because you ask me to let you see me to-morrow. I suppose what you want to see me about is turning the business into a public company. I am very sorry, James, but I cannot consent until I know a little more about it. I don't believe it will be for the good of the employees. I want to find that out before I talk it over with you. And I think too, that I was wrong when I told you that I would give way to you on the question of wages. I thought then that it was my duty to give way because you were my husband. Now I feel that perhaps I ought to have thought first of my duty to the girls. I want to decide that too before I see you again. And besides that I do not think, after what you told me the other day, that I could go back to our ordinary life together just yet. You would want me to, and we should quarrel about it and grow bitter towards one another. It would be so terrible if that happened. But if only I can have time to think it over, I feel that perhaps I shall be able to see a way out. It will all come to seem more ordinary and I shall not mind so much of course. You will feel that I ought to have asked you first whether I might go. I couldn't, James. I felt that I could not bear another argument so soon. And I should not have changed my mind. I will send my address to the bank so that they can forward letters. I shall have gone from Victoria before this reaches you."

A regard for the dignity of the occasion made her sign it with her whole name.

It was the sort of letter, she told herself as she sealed its envelope, that a school-girl might have written. In her own mind she had discussed the matter until reason lay piled upon reason and explanation upon explanation. But her words, laboriously chosen, seemed, when she had read them through, to have lost their meaning. It was impossible to guess how much of her thought they would make clear to James.