“I’m almost well and longing to see you. Thank you for all your divine letters. I’m counting the days till you come here to fetch me away. Do thank your mother for asking me—and for the flowers. I had a long letter from J. G. this morning, explaining and arguing and asking when he might come to see me. He said he’d been expecting to hear from you and couldn’t make out why you’d not written. I told him it was no good; in fact, I wrote just what I told you I would.”
Eric tried to remember whether he had received a specific promise that Gaymer would not write; there had been some phrase about “not communicating”... Gaymer may have interpreted this to mean personal communication; or he might be acting on the principle that wise men give promises and fools accept them.
Ivy’s next letter narrowed the field of choice.
“J. G. has been here,” she began. “He called with some flowers, and nurse let him in. Several other people had been, so she never asked me. I said at once, ‘I can’t see you;’ and I told him that I thought he’d promised you faithfully not to come here. He said he only meant to come to the door with the flowers, but that he couldn’t help coming in. He wasn’t going to argue, he said, but he was responsible for everything and he must come and ask me to forgive him. I told him I’d forgive him, if that gave him any pleasure, but he must understand that everything was over. On the whole, I was rather glad to have it out with him. He must see now, because at the end he said—horribly bitterly—, ‘Your love is rather short-lived, Ivy.’ I refused to be drawn. If he likes to think that, he may, I don’t feel it’s worth having a row with him, Eric, about coming, because we have cleared the air, however painful it may have been at the time. And it isn’t pleasant, you know, to have him thinking that I’m unfaithful to him. I did love him—desperately; I’m even willing to believe now that he always meant to behave honourably; but, as I told him, it doesn’t really matter whether there’s any foundation for a misunderstanding, what matters is the effect it has on one’s mind. It was no use pretending I hadn’t utterly changed towards him. He couldn’t see how I could love him once and then stop loving him, when the reason why I’d ceased to love him had been explained away. He’s tired me out, dear Eric, and I don’t want to think about him.”
Her letter reached Lashmar by the evening post, and Eric spent a sleepless night after reading it. At one moment he decided to return by the first train to London and mount guard over Ivy’s door; at another he shuffled and discarded cryptic phrases for a warning telegram to Gaisford... It was long after daybreak when he fell asleep without reaching a decision; and, when his breakfast was brought in, he was too tired to eat it or to read his letters or to begin getting up.
Only when Lady Lane asked leave to send for the doctor did he rouse to interest.
“Your man here is such a hopeless idiot,” he exclaimed impatiently. “I think I shall run up and see Gaisford. All I want is a tonic, but he does know about me. I can’t stand answering a string of questions from a stranger.”
Lady Lane forbore to oppose him in his new mood of nervous irritability; she contented herself with making him promise to come down the following day and asking whether he would care for her to accompany him. Her obvious anxiety jarred on nerves that were already raw.
“I’m really all right, mother,” he answered querulously.
“My dear boy, you’re not! I have had some experience of you, remember. You’re shockingly ill. You know I try not to worry you, when you’re not feeling well, but you frighten me, Eric, when you look like that. Isn’t there something you haven’t told me? Can’t you tell me?... People are commenting on it. After church on Sunday the vicar wanted to know... So, you see, it isn’t just fancy. I have a pretty handful in your father, as it is,—trying to make him take care of himself. I can’t have you getting ill... Isn’t there anything, Eric?”