Adrienne Toner: A Novel

by Anne Douglas Sedgwick

“You met him once,” said Adrienne, looking round at him again. “But you’ve probably forgotten. At the dinner we gave, Barney and I, in London, so long ago. Tall, fair, distinguished looking. The son of my Californian friend; the one you and Mrs. Aldesey thought so tiresome.”

He felt himself colouring, but he could give little thought to the minor discomfiture, so deeply was his mind engaged with the major one.

“Did we?” he said.

“And you thought I didn’t see it,” said Adrienne. “It made me dreadfully angry with you both, though I didn’t know I was angry; I thought I was only grieved. I behaved spitefully to Mrs. Aldesey that night, you will remember, though I didn’t know I was spiteful. I did know, however, that she was separated from her husband”—again Adrienne looked, calmly, round at him—“and it was a lie I told Barney when I said I didn’t. Sometimes I think that lie was the beginning of everything; that it was when I told it that I began to hide from myself. However—” She passed from the personal theme. “Yes; Hamilton is, I believe, big enough and beautiful and generous enough to do it.”

“Oh, he is, is he?” said Oldmeadow. “And I’m not, I take it. You’re horribly unkind. But I don’t want to talk about myself. What I want to talk about is you. You must drop this preposterous idea of yours. Really you must. You’ve had ideas like it before. Remember Meg; what a mess you made there. I told you then that you were wrong and I tell you you’re wrong now. You must give it up. Do you see? We’re always quarrelling, aren’t we?”

“But I don’t at all know that I was wrong about Meg, Mr. Oldmeadow,” said Adrienne. “And if I was, it was because I didn’t understand her. I do understand myself, and I don’t agree that I’m wrong or that my plan is preposterous. You won’t call it preposterous, I suppose, if it succeeds and makes Barney and Nancy happy. No; I’m not going to drop it. Nothing you could say could make me drop it. As for Hamilton, I don’t set him above you; not in any way. It’s only that you and he have different lights. I know why you can’t do this. You’ve shown me why. And I wouldn’t for anything not have you follow your own light.”

“And you seriously mean,” cried Oldmeadow, “that you’d ask this young fellow—I remember him perfectly and I’m sure he’s capable of any degree of ingenuousness—you’d ask him to go about with you as though he were your husband? Why, for one thing, he’d be sure to fall head over heels in love with you, and where would you be then?”

Adrienne examined him. “But from the point of view of hoodwinking, that would be all to the good, wouldn’t it?” she inquired; “though unfortunate for Hamilton. He won’t, however,” she went on, her dreadful lucidity revealing to him the hopelessness of any protest he might still have found to make. “There’s a very lovely girl out in California he’s devoted to; a young poetess. He’ll have to write to her about it first, of course; Hamilton’s at the front now, you see; and I must write to his mother. She and Carola Brown are very near each other and will talk it out together and I feel sure they will see it as I do. They’ll see it as something big I’m asking them to do for me—to set me free. I’m sure I can count on Gertrude and I’m sure Hamilton can count on Carola. She’s a very rare, strong spirit.”

Oldmeadow, suddenly, was feeling exhausted, and a clutch of hysterical laughter, as she spoke these last words, held his throat for a moment. He laid his head back on his pillow and closed his eyes, while he saw Adrienne and Hamilton Prentiss wandering by the banks of a French river where poplars stood against a silver sky. He knew that he had accepted nothing when he said at last: “Shall we talk about it another time? To-morrow? I mean, don’t take any steps, will you, until we’ve talked. Don’t write to your beautiful, big friend.”

“You always make fun of me a little, don’t you,” said Adrienne tranquilly. She seemed aware of some further deep discomposure in him and willing, though not comprehending it, to meet it with friendly tolerance. “If he is big and beautiful, why shouldn’t I say it? But I won’t write until we’ve talked again. It can’t be, anyway, until the war is over. And I’ve had already to wait for four years.”