“Mr. Goward left for New York on the 5.40 train this afternoon,” was the reply.
The answer, so unexpected and unsettling to all my plans, stunned me first and then angered me.
“Bah!” I cried, impatiently. “The little fool! An attack of cold feet, I guess—he ought to spell his name with a C.”
I hung up the receiver with a cold chill, for frankly I hated to go to the Talberts' with the news. Moreover, it would be a humiliating confession to make that I had forgotten to ask Goward about the letter, when everybody knew that that was what I had called upon him for, and when I thought of all the various expressions in the very expressive Talbert eyes that would fix themselves upon me as I mumbled out my confession, I would have given much to be well out of it. Nevertheless, since there was no avoiding the ordeal, I resolved to face the music, and five minutes later entered the dining-room at my father-in-law's house with as stiff an upper lip as I could summon to my aid in the brief time at my disposal. They were all seated at the table already—supper is not a movable feast in that well-regulated establishment—save Aunt Elizabeth. Her place was vacant.
“Sorry to be late,” said I, after respectfully saluting my mother-in-law, “but I couldn't help it. Things turned up at the last minute and they had to be attended to. Where's Aunt Elizabeth?”
“She went to New York,” said my mother-in-law, “on the 5.40 train.”
VII. THE MARRIED SON, by Henry James
It's evidently a great thing in life to have got hold of a convenient expression, and a sign of our inordinate habit of living by words. I have sometimes flattered myself that I live less exclusively by them than the people about me; paying with them, paying with them only, as the phrase is (there I am at it, exactly, again!) rather less than my companions, who, with the exception, perhaps, a little—sometimes!—of poor Mother, succeed by their aid in keeping away from every truth, in ignoring every reality, as comfortably as possible. Poor Mother, who is worth all the rest of us put together, and is really worth two or three of poor Father, deadly decent as I admit poor Father mainly to be, sometimes meets me with a look, in some connection, suggesting that, deep within, she dimly understands, and would really understand a little better if she weren't afraid to: for, like all of us, she lives surrounded by the black forest of the “facts of life” very much as the people in the heart of Africa live in their dense wilderness of nocturnal terrors, the mysteries and monstrosities that make them seal themselves up in the huts as soon as it gets dark. She, quite exquisite little Mother, would often understand, I believe, if she dared, if she knew how to dare; and the vague, dumb interchange then taking place between us, and from the silence of which we have never for an instant deviated, represents perhaps her wonder as to whether I mayn't on some great occasion show her how.
The difficulty is that, alas, mere intelligent useless wretch as I am, I've never hitherto been sure of knowing how myself; for am I too not as steeped in fears as any of them? My fears, mostly, are different, and of different dangers—also I hate having them, whereas they love them and hug them to their hearts; but the fact remains that, save in this private precinct of my overflow, which contains, under a strong little brass lock, several bad words and many good resolutions, I have never either said or done a bold thing in my life. What I seem always to feel, doubtless cravenly enough, under her almost pathetic appeal, has been that it isn't yet the occasion, the really good and right one, for breaking out; than which nothing could more resemble of course the inveterate argument of the helpless. ANY occasion is good enough for the helpful; since there's never any that hasn't weak sides for their own strength to make up. However, if there COULD be conceivably a good one, I'll be hanged if I don't seem to see it gather now, and if I sha'n't write myself here “poor” Charles Edward in all truth by failing to take advantage of it, (They have in fact, I should note, one superiority of courage to my own: this habit of their so constantly casting up my poverty at me—poverty of character, of course I mean, for they don't, to do them justice, taunt me with having “made” so little. They don't, I admit, take their lives in their hands when they perform that act; the proposition itself being that I haven't the spirit of a fished-out fly.)