It Never Can Happen Again

by William De Morgan

"Very well, Challis! Now listen. It appears to me that you are going to take a step you are this much ashamed of, that you cannot look your own son in the face about it. And you are doing this confessedly in case the passing of an Act of Parliament should make that step impossible at a future time. You know perfectly well that—Judith apart—you would welcome that Act of Parliament, because it would give you back your children, and at least pave the way to a reconciliation with their mother.... Yes, it would! The 'living in Sin' twaddle would die a natural death before an Act of Parliament; your excellent mother-in-law's teeth would be drawn, and your wife would come to her senses as soon as the two little girls were delivered at Wimbledon by a judicial order. Once you two were face to face—just think of it!—do you suppose old times wouldn't come to the rescue?"

The Rector was hitting hard. He could see it in the compressed lips, the nostril and eyelid and brow that would not be still, in the face that was hard to control at the best of times. Why could he not keep to his artillery? Why send his troops into the enemy's country, bristling with ambuscades? Why bring Judith's image back, when all the strength of his case lay in revival of the days gone by?

But he did, possibly because he could not conceive of a passion for one woman dwelling in the same heart with an affection for another. He could not measure the force of the personal factor in Judith. He had never been under fire.

"And see," he went on injudiciously—"see what it is you look to gain when you have cut yourself finally adrift from almost everything that has been precious to you in the past. What are the chances of happiness for a couple so assorted? Think of your difference of age!... well!—perhaps that's the least important point ... think of the difference in the habits of a life-time, of the sort of life Judith has been accustomed to, of the way her pride may suffer ... and not only hers—yours too—yours too, my dear Challis, in a thousand ways! Consider this too; what right have you to take for granted that she will ever be forgiven by her family? You say they are now at daggers drawn. What claim have you to ask such a sacrifice of her as the surrender of her relations with her parents and all the associations of her childhood? Think of it!"

A moment after he perceived he had pushed his argument too far. Challis said firmly, "I accept Judith's readiness to make this sacrifice as a sure proof of her feelings towards myself. I see in it a guarantee of a happiness far beyond my deserts. It is because she is ready to give up so much for me and risk her whole life in my keeping that I am rushing the position. I cannot have her think hereafter that our union was made impossible by my remissness—by my fainéantise—at a critical time."

The Rector walked uneasily about the room. "Oh dear," said he, "I wish to Heaven that Bill would get itself brought into the Lords and rejected, tout à l'improviste, before you could arrange this madness. Then you would have a cool twelvemonth to think it over in. And perhaps you would both come to your senses."

"And perhaps—d'autant plus à l'improviste—that Bill would pass the Lords and become law. How should I seem then to the girl who is ready to throw all away for me now? Do you conceive that I should be able to console myself for the wrong I had done by dragging back to my home a wife whose jealousy ... I must call it so—poor Polly Anne!..."

"What else can you call it?"

"There's no other word in the dictionary. What was I saying? ... oh, a wife whose jealousy would by that time have every justification. Where would the happiness be in all that, and for whom?"

"In no case can you hope for an immediate reconstitution of your old home life. You, Challis—excuse me—have stirred up too much mud for the pool to become clear in a moment. But remember Disraeli's phrase—the 'magic of patience.'"