‘I suppose that’s the sort of thing people mean when they say they’re heartbroken,’ he said to himself. ‘I wonder how long it’s going on like this?’
Should he knock at the door and tell her he must speak to her? It was better to have it out. He must make her understand. But the silence scared him. Not a sound! Perhaps it was better to leave her alone. Of course it had been a shock. He must give her as long as she wanted. After all, she knew how devotedly he loved her. Patience, that was the only thing; perhaps she was fighting it out with herself; he must give her time; he must have patience. Next morning he asked her if she had slept better.
‘Yes, much,’ she said.
‘Are you very angry with me?’ he asked piteously.
She looked at him with candid, open eyes.
‘Not a bit.’
‘Oh, my dear, I’m so glad. I’ve been a brute and a beast. I know it’s been hateful for you. But do forgive me. I’ve been so miserable.’
‘I do forgive you. I don’t even blame you.’
He gave her a little rueful smile, and there was in his eyes the look of a whipped dog.
‘I haven’t much liked sleeping by myself the last two nights.’
She glanced away. Her face grew a trifle paler.
‘I’ve had the bed in my room taken away. It took up so much space. I’ve had a little camp bed put there instead.’
‘My dear, what are you talking about?’
Now she looked at him steadily.
‘I’m not going to live with you as your wife again.’
‘Never?’
She shook her head. He looked at her in a puzzled way. He could hardly believe he had heard aright and his heart began to beat painfully.
‘But that’s awfully unfair to me, Doris.’
‘Don’t you think it was a little unfair to me to bring me out here in the circumstances?’
‘But you just said you didn’t blame me.’
‘That’s quite true. But the other’s different. I can’t do it.’
‘But how are we going to live together like that?’
She stared at the floor. She seemed to ponder deeply.
‘When you wanted to kiss me on the lips last night I – it almost made me sick.’
‘Doris.’
She looked at him suddenly and her eyes were cold and hostile.
‘That bed I slept on, is that the bed in which she had her children?’ She saw him flush deeply. ‘Oh, it’s horrible. How could you?’ She wrung her hands, and her twisting, tortured fingers looked like little writhing snakes. But she made a great effort and controlled herself. ‘My mind is quite made up. I don’t want to be unkind to you, but there are some things that you can’t ask me to do. I’ve thought it all over. I’ve been thinking of nothing else since you told me, night and day, till I’m exhausted. My first instinct was to get up and go. At once. The steamer will be here in two or three days.’
‘Doesn’t it mean anything to you that I love you?’
‘Oh, I know you love me. I’m not going to do that. I want to give us both a chance. I have loved you so, Guy.’ Her voice broke, but she did not cry. ‘I don’t want to be unreasonable. Heaven knows, I don’t want to be unkind. Guy, will you give me time?’
‘I don’t know quite what you mean.’
‘I just want you to leave me alone. I’m frightened by the feelings that I have.’
He had been right then; she was afraid.
‘What feelings?’
‘Please don’t ask me. I don’t want to say anything to wound you. Perhaps I shall get over them. Heaven knows, I want to. I’ll try, I promise you. I’ll try. Give me six months. I’ll do everything in the world for you, but just that one thing.’ She made a little gesture of appeal. ‘There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be happy enough together. If you really love me you’ll – you’ll have patience.’
He sighed deeply.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Naturally I don’t want to force you to do anything you don’t like. It shall be as you say.’
He sat heavily for a little, as though, on a sudden grown old, it was an effort to move; then he got up.
‘I’ll be getting along to the office.’
He took his topee and went out.
A month passed. Women conceal their feelings better than men and a stranger visiting them would never have guessed that Doris was in any way troubled. But in Guy the strain was obvious; his round, good-natured face was drawn, and in his eyes was a hungry, harassed look. He watched Doris. She was gay and she chaffed him as she had been used to do; they played tennis together; they chatted about one thing and another. But it was evident that she was merely playing a part, and at last, unable to contain himself, he tried to speak again of his connexions with the Malay woman.
‘Oh, Guy, there’s no object in going back on all that,’ she answered breezily. ‘We’ve said all we had to say about it and I don’t blame you for anything.’
‘Why do you punish me then?’
‘My poor boy, I don’t want to punish you. It’s not my fault if…’ she shrugged her shoulders. ‘Human nature is very odd.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Don’t try.’
The words might have been harsh, but she softened them with a pleasant, friendly smile. Every night when she went to bed she leaned over Guy and lightly kissed his cheek. Her lips only touched it. It was as though a moth had just brushed his face in its flight.
A second month passed, then a third, and suddenly the six months which had seemed so interminable were over. Guy asked himself whether she remembered. He gave a strained attention now to everything she said, to every look on her face and to every gesture of her hands. She remained impenetrable. She had asked him to give her six months; well, he had.
The coasting steamer passed the mouth of the river, dropped their mail, and went on its way. Guy busily wrote the letters which it would pick up on the return journey. Two or three days passed by. It was a Tuesday and the prabu was to start at dawn on Thursday to await the steamer. Except at meal time when Doris exerted herself to make conversation they had not of late talked very much together; and after dinner as usual they took their books and began to read; but when the boy had finished clearing away and was gone for the night Doris put down hers.
‘Guy, I have something I want to say to you,’ she murmured.
His heart gave a sudden thud against his ribs and he felt himself change colour.
‘Oh, my dear, don’t look like that, it’s not so very terrible,’ she laughed.
But he thought her voice trembled a little.
‘Well?’
‘I want you to do something for me.’
‘My darling, I’ll do anything in the world for you.’
He put out his hand to take hers, but she drew it away.
‘I want you to let me go home.’
‘You?’ he cried, aghast. ‘When? Why?’
‘I’ve borne it as long as I can. I’m at the end of my tether.’
‘How long do you want to go for? For always?’
‘I don’t know. I think so.’ She gathered determination. ‘Yes, for always.’
‘Oh, my God!’
His voice broke and she thought he was going to cry.
‘Oh, Guy, don’t blame me. It really is not my fault. I can’t help myself.’
‘You asked me for six months. I accepted your terms. You can’t say I’ve made a nuisance of myself.’
‘No, no.’
‘I’ve tried not to let you see what a rotten time I was having.’
‘I know. I’m very grateful to you. You’ve been awfully kind to me. Listen, Guy, I want to tell you again that I don’t blame you for a single thing you did. After all, you were only a boy, and you did no more than the others; I know what the loneliness is here. Oh, my dear, I’m so dreadfully sorry for you. I knew all that from the beginning. That’s why I asked you for six months. My common sense tells me that I’m making a mountain out
of a molehill. I’m unreasonable; I’m being unfair to you. But, you see, common sense has nothing to do with it; my whole soul is in revolt. When I see the woman and her children in the village I just feel my legs shaking. Everything in this house; when I think of that bed I slept in it gives me goose-flesh. … You don’t know what I’ve endured.’
‘I think I’ve persuaded her to go away. And I’ve applied for a transfer.’
‘That wouldn’t help. She’ll be there always. You belong to them, you don’t belong to me. I think perhaps I could have stood it if there’d only been one child, but three; and the boys are quite big boys. For ten years you lived with her.’ And now she came out with what she had been working up to. She was desperate. ‘It’s a physical thing, I can’t help it, it’s stronger than I am. I think of those thin black arms of hers round you and it fills me with a physical nausea. I think of you holding those little black babies in your arms. Oh, it’s loathsome. The touch of you is odious to me. Each night, when I’ve kissed you, I’ve had to brace myself up to it, I’ve had to clench my hands and force myself to touch your cheek.’ Now she was clasping and unclasping her fingers in a nervous agony, and her voice was out of control. ‘I know it’s I who am to blame now. I’m a silly, hysterical woman. I thought I’d get over it. I can’t, and now I never shall. I’ve brought it all on myself; I’m willing to take the consequences; if you say I must stay here, I’ll stay, but if I stay I shall die. I beseech you to let me go.’
And now the tears which she had restrained so long overflowed and she wept broken-heartedly. He had never seen her cry before.
‘Of course I don’t want to keep you here against your will,’ he said hoarsely.
Exhausted, she leaned back in her chair. Her features were all twisted and awry. It was horribly painful to see the abandonment of grief on that face which was habitually so placid.
‘I’m so sorry, Guy. I’ve broken your life, but I’ve broken mine too. And we might have been so happy.’
‘When do you want to go? On Tuesday?’
‘Yes.’
She looked at him piteously. He buried his face in his hands. At last he looked up.
‘I’m tired out,’ he muttered.
‘May I go?’
‘Yes.’
For two minutes perhaps they sat there without a word. She started when the chik-chak gave its piercing, hoarse, and strangely human cry. Guy rose and went out on to the veranda. He leaned against the rail and looked at the softly flowing water. He heard Doris go into her room.
Next morning, up earlier than usual, he went to her door and knocked.
‘Yes?’
‘I have to go up-river today. I shan’t be back till late.’
‘All right.’
She understood. He had arranged to be away all day in order not to be about while she was packing. It was heartbreaking work. When she had packed her clothes she looked round the sitting-room at the things that belonged to her. It seemed dreadful to take them. She left everything but the photograph of her mother. Guy did not come in till ten o’clock at night.
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get back to dinner,’ he said. ‘The headman at the village I had to go to had a lot of things for me to attend to.’
She saw his eyes wander about the room and notice that her mother’s photograph no longer stood in its place.
‘Is everything quite ready?’ he asked. ‘I’ve ordered the boatman to be at the steps at dawn.’
‘I told the boy to wake me at five.’
‘I’d better give you some money.’ He went to his desk and wrote out a cheque. He took some notes from a drawer. ‘Here’s some cash to take you as far as Singapore and at Singapore you’ll be able to change the cheque.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Would you like me to come to the mouth of the river with you?’
‘Oh, I think it would be better if we said good-bye here.’
‘All right. I think I shall turn in. I’ve had a long day and I’m dead beat.’
He did not even touch her hand. He went into his room. In a few minutes she heard him throw himself on his bed. For a little while she sat looking for the last time round that room in which she had been so happy and so miserable. She sighed deeply. She got up and went into her own room. Everything was packed except the one or two things she needed for the night.
It was dark when the boy awakened them. They dressed hurriedly and when they were ready breakfast was waiting for them. Presently they heard the boat row up to the landing-stage below the bungalow, and then the servants carried down her luggage. It was a poor pretence they made of eating. The darkness thinned away and the river was ghostly. It was not yet day, but it was no longer night. In the silence the voices of the natives at the landing-stage were very clear. Guy glanced at his wife’s untouched plate.
‘If you’ve finished we might stroll down. I think you ought to be starting.’
She did not answer. She rose from the table. She went into her room to see that nothing had been forgotten and then side by side with him walked down the steps. A little winding path led them to the river. At the landing-stage the native guards in their smart uniform were lined up and they presented arms as Guy and Doris passed. The head boatman gave her his hand as she stepped into the boat. She turned and looked at Guy. She wanted desperately to say one last word of comfort, once more to ask for his forgiveness, but she seemed to be struck dumb.
He stretched out his hand.
‘Well, good-bye, I hope you’ll have a jolly journey.’
They shook hands.
Guy nodded to the head boatman and the boat pushed off. The dawn now was creeping along the river mistily, but the night lurked still in the dark trees of the jungle. He stood at the landing-stage till the boat was lost in the shadows of the morning. With a sigh he turned away. He nodded absent-mindedly when the guard once more presented arms. But when he reached the bungalow he called the boy. He went round the room picking out everything that had belonged to Doris.
‘Pack all these things up,’ he said. ‘It’s no good leaving them about.’
Then he sat down on the veranda and watched the day advance gradually like a bitter, an unmerited, and an overwhelming sorrow. At last he looked at his watch. It was time for him to go to the office.
In the afternoon he could not sleep, his head ached miserably, so he took his gun and went for a tramp in the jungle. He shot nothing, but he walked in order to tire himself out. Towards sunset he came back and had two or three drinks, and then it was time to dress for dinner. There wasn’t much use in dressing now; he might just as well be comfortable; he put on a loose native jacket and a sarong. That was what he had been accustomed to wear before Doris came. He was barefoot. He ate his dinner listlessly and the boy cleared away and went. He sat down to read the Tatler. The bungalow was very silent. He could not read and let the paper fall on his knees. He was exhausted. He could not think and his mind was strangely vacant. The chik-chak was noisy that night and its hoarse and sudden cry seemed to mock him. You could hardly believe that this reverberating sound came from so small a throat. Presently he heard a discreet cough.
‘Who’s there?’ he cried.
There was a pause. He looked at the door. The chik-chak laughed harshly. A small boy sidled in and stood on the threshold. It was a little half-caste boy in a tattered singlet and a sarong. It was the elder of his two sons.
‘What do you want?’ said Guy.
The boy came forward into the room and sat down, tucking his legs away under him.
‘Who told you to come here?’
‘My mother sent me. She says, do you want anything?’
Guy looked at the boy intently. The boy said nothing more. He sat and waited, his eyes cast down shyly. Then Guy in deep and bitter reflection buried his face in his hands. What was the use? It was finished. Finished! He surrendered. He sat back in his chair and sighed deeply.
‘Tell your mother to pack up her things and yours. She can come back.’
>
‘When?’ asked the boy, impassively.
Hot tears trickled down Guy’s funny, round spotty face.
‘Tonight.’
James Joyce
THE DEAD
LILY, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet Hardly had she brought one gentleman into the little pantry behind the office on the ground floor and helped him off with his overcoat, than the wheezy hall-door bell clanged again and she had to scamper along the bare hallway to let in another guest. It was well for her she had not to attend to the ladies also. But Miss Kate and Miss Julia had thought of that and had converted the bathroom upstairs into a ladies’ dressing-room. Miss Kate and Miss Julia were there, gossiping and laughing and fussing, walking after each other to the head of the stairs, peering down over the banisters and calling down to Lily to ask her who had come.
It was always a great affair, the Misses Morkan’s annual dance. Everybody who knew them came to it, members of the family, old friends of the family, the members of Julia’s choir, any of Kate’s pupils that were grown up enough, and even some of Mary Jane’s pupils too. Never once had it fallen flat. For years and years it had gone off in splendid style, as long as anyone could remember: ever since Kate and Julia, after the death of their brother Pat, had left the house in Stoney Batter and taken Mary Jane, their only niece, to live with them in the dark, gaunt house on Usher’s Island, the upper part of which they had rented from Mr Fulham, the corn-factor on the ground floor. That was a good thirty years ago if it was a day. Mary Jane, who was then a little girl in short clothes, was now the main prop of the household, for she had the organ in Haddington Road. She had been through the Academy and gave a pupils’ concert every year in the upper room of the Antient Concert Rooms. Many of her pupils belonged to the better-class families on the Kingstown and Dalkey line. Old as they were, her aunts also did their share. Julia, though she was quite grey, was still the leading soprano in Adam and Eve’s, and Kate, being too feeble to go about much, gave music lessons to beginners on the old square piano in the back room. Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, did housemaid’s work for them. Though their life was modest, they believed in eating well; the best of everything: diamond-bone sirloins, three-shilling tea and the best bottled stout. But Lily seldom made a mistake in the orders, so that she got on well with her three mistresses. They were fussy, that was all. But the only thing they would not stand was back answers.
The Penguin Book of English Short Stories Page 16
