Again the messages are confused and fragmentary. “You must not doubt.... He will be there soon ...” are among those now decipherable, each many times repeated. She seemed profoundly distressed.
To ease the tension, Cass made a little joke, eliciting no response from her, whereupon he asked whether they retained a sense of humor over there.
“Yes, but this is no time for humor.... I am so afraid of missing Manse.”
Again she urged me to write to him, but I refused, reminding her that I had made every possible advance until some reply to my letters should be received.
“Yes, I know, but it means so much! You will help, won’t you?”
Knowing nothing then of the tremendous forces of attraction and repulsion unconsciously put into operation by persons ignorant of their existence, and assuming—not unnaturally—that she must be able to learn at least as much about Mansfield’s whereabouts and condition as both she and Frederick evidently knew about ours, I was unable to understand, even dimly, the contradictions of the present situation, and the cloud of it hung over me all that evening and the next day. I was oppressed by a sense of my responsibility in conveying messages from sources seeming suddenly so uncertain.
Following Mary, Frederick came again, his buoyancy undiminished.
“Mother dearest,” he began, without question, “Mrs. Kendal is true. She is a fine force.” I rather held back on this, and the writing was angular and unyielding. “There are things we cannot explain.”