“Have you ever regretted that you didn’t marry Charles?”
“Regretted! Good Lord, no! The very opposite. I didn’t love him in that way, and we’d both have been wretched. Poor old dear! I’m glad I’d strength enough to spare him that, though I spared him nothing else....”
“Do you ever see him now?”
“Sometimes. He’s married, you know—a very young thing, who doesn’t like me too much. I didn’t expect him to marry, but I believe he’s happy. I hear that Julian is happy, too—he has two little boys and a baby girl. So I haven’t really done either of my men much harm.”
“No—it’s you who’ve suffered the harm. Why haven’t you married again, Mary? I’ve always expected you to.”
Her sister shook her head.
“I can’t—there’s something in me lacking for that. I can’t explain, and it sounds an extraordinary thing to say, but I feel as if I’d left it with Julian. I don’t mean that I still love him or any nonsense like that—I hadn’t loved him for a year before I left him ... but somehow one doesn’t get rid of a husband as easily as the divorce-courts and the newspapers seem to suppose.”
“If you’d married again you’d have forgotten Julian.”
“No, I shouldn’t, and I should have made another man unhappy—because of what’s lacking in me. I know there are lots of women who can go from the church to the divorce court and from the divorce court to the registrar’s, and leave nothing behind them in any of these places. But I’m not like that—I left my love with Julian and my pride with Charles. Sometimes I feel that if only I’d had the strength to stick to Julian a little longer, we’d have weathered things through—I’d have got back what I’d lost, and all this wouldn’t have happened. But it’s waste of time to think of that now.... Don’t worry about me, Jen. I’m happy in my own way—though it may not be yours, or many women’s, for that matter. I’ve just managed to be strong enough not to spoil Charles’s life—not to drag him down—so I’ve got one good memory.... And I’m free—that means more to me than perhaps you can realise—and I enjoy life as a spectator. I’ve suffered enough as an actor on the stage, and now I’m just beginning to feel comfortable in the stalls.”
“Don’t,” said Jenny.