The House of Defence v. 2

by E. F. Benson

But she knew quite well, with that ruthless honesty with which she judged herself, and which was so fine a trait in her character, that she did not expect him to live, and this, she knew, made the letter an easier one to write, and her complete forgiveness less difficult to arrive at, than it would otherwise have been. She thought that it was unlikely that she would ever see him again. But she was absolutely willing, whether he lived or died, to abide by what she had said.

There had been a grim business of telegraphic codes arranged between her and Maud. It was clearly undesirable to telegraph in full such messages as Maud might feel it necessary to send her, and half a dozen cryptic words sent from New York on their arrival had told her that he had broken down once on the voyage, but had subsequently allowed her to throw the rest of the bottle away. His general health, Maud said, was certainly better. Three more telegrams, reporting the events of three more days, had come since then, each recording improvement, and it was news of their fourth day which she was expecting to find now on her return.

But as she drove through the streets, where the shops were gay for Christmas purchasers, her mind was busy over an emotional conflict more intimate than even these things. As was inevitable, matters had come to a crisis between her and Rudolf Villars, and two days ago he had declared to her his steadfast and passionate devotion. But he had refused to continue any longer on this present unbearable footing of friendship. Should she now definitely reject him, he would not see her any more, except as was necessary in the casual meetings when the world brought them together. And she had promised to give him his answer this evening.

She had really no idea at this moment what that answer would be. Months ago she had determined that she would not herself break that moral law, though, as a matter of fact, it meant little to her. But since then much had happened: ruin and degradation had come to her husband; he had offered her the greatest insult that, from the point of view of this moral law, a wife can be offered, and, what was a far more vital and determining factor in her choice, she knew now that she loved this man with an intensity that she believed equalled his. Could the moral law which tied her to an opium-drenched wreck have any significance compared to the significance of her love?

Then suddenly, and for the first time, she remembered, in connection with her choice, the letter she had written to Thurso. She had told him that the past was utterly blotted out, and she saw how insincere that letter would become if the blotting out of the past meant for her that she was to console herself in the future. Already she knew that the fact that she did not expect him to live had made the writing of it easier. Between the two her letter did not now seem to be worth much. Yet she had meant that letter: the best part of her meant it. But just now that best part seemed to have dwindled to a mere pin’s head in her consciousness. Love and life and desire were trumpets and decorations to her, and the little grey battered flag of honour was scarcely visible among the miles of bunting, and the little voice scarcely audible in the blare of the welcome that would be hers if she said but one word to her lover.

Her victoria had already stopped at her door, and the footman had turned back the fur rug that covered her knees to let her get out; but she sat for a moment quite still, for the significance of her letter (or its insignificance) had struck her like a blow. Till she saw it in connection with her decision she had not known how nearly she had decided. She had told her husband, and that with sincerity, that the past was wiped out; all that he had said or done which had been unjust or insulting to her she had cancelled, annihilated, as far as it concerned her. Was she, then, going to make a fresh past, so to speak, on her own account, to give him an opportunity to be as generous as she had been? There was a dreadful ironical fitness about it: the conjunction of these things was brutally apt.

Yet she had forgiven him, and that forgiveness was far more real to her than that which was labelled sin. That did not signify anything very particular to her, but to do this thing behind the screen of her forgiveness seemed mean, and meanness was an impossible quality. She had forgiven Thurso on the big scale, and the very bigness of her nature, which enabled her to do that, made her hatred of meanness strong also. And as she got out, she asked herself whether, if the letter which she had written to Thurso was still unposted, she would let it go or tear it up. And she knew that, though she might stand with it in her hand for a little, she would still send it. She meant what she had said in it.

There were some half-dozen of letters for her on the table in the hall, and a telegram lay a little apart. As she picked these up, she spoke to the footman.

“I shall be in to anybody till six,” she said; “but to nobody after that except Count Villars.”

She had half opened the telegram when her eye fell on two little hats and coats hung up on a rack at the end of the hall. She looked at them a moment, feeling that they ought to convey something to her, but she did not know what. Then she remembered that the two eldest boys were home from school to-day for the holidays.