‘Now Chris, don’t be absurd. Of course you must have a good holiday and get out of London. It’s lucky that you have your friend to go with——’
That was the sort of thing.
‘But Catherine, how can you want me to? Don’t you love me any more?’
‘Of course I love you. Which is why I want you to go to Scotland.’
This was true. The treatment was being gone through for love of him, and he must go to Scotland because of the treatment. She was to have as much quiet as possible during it—‘No husbands,’ said Dr. Sanguesa—‘You’ve got to be a grass widow for a little while,’ interpreted the nurse—‘You must go to Scotland,’ still further interpreted Catherine.
But he couldn’t go at once. It was still only July. The first two treatments took place while Christopher was still in London, and as it was impossible without rousing his suspicions to keep him entirely at arm’s length, she wasn’t surprised when the effect of them was to make her feel more tired than ever.
‘It’s often like that to begin with,’ encouraged the nurse. ‘Especially if you’re not having complete rest from worries at home.’
Did she mean husbands by worries, Catherine wondered? There certainly wasn’t complete rest from that sort of worry, then, for Christopher, as Catherine apparently cooled, became more and more as he used to be, and possessed by the fear that he was somehow losing her rediscovered how much he loved her.
He had, of course, always intensely loved her, but he had felt the need of pauses. In her love there had been no pauses, and gradually the idea of suffocation had got hold of him. Now, so suddenly, so unaccountably, she seemed to be all pause. She tried to avoid him; she even suggested, on the plea that the nights were hot, that he should sleep in the dressing-room.
Whatever else he had tired of he hadn’t yet tired of the sweetness, the curious comfort and reassurance, of going to sleep with his arms round her. Since their marriage there had been no interruption in his wish to cling at night; what he hadn’t wanted was to be clung to in the morning. One felt so different in the morning; at least, he did. Catherine didn’t; and it was this that had given him the impression of stifling in treacle. Now she not only showed no wish at all to cling in the morning, but she tried—he wouldn’t and couldn’t believe it, but had to—to wriggle out of being clung to at night.