“And that’s why you ask whether I can forgive him,” he concluded.
“Can you?”
“No.”
He rose to his feet from his knees easily, by one movement, and she watched him. Then there was a long silence and he began to walk up and down.
Helen felt as if she had done something disloyal, and that he had given the answer for which she had been longing intensely, as an escape from her decision, and as a means of freedom from bondage to come. She could ask herself now what right she had to expect that Archie should forgive his father. But, instead, she asked what right she could have had to give Archie so good a reason for hating him, when the boy had not suspected that which, after all, might not be the truth. She had made an enormous sacrifice in sending the message of forgiveness for her own wrongs, but it seemed to her, all at once, that in rousing Archie’s resentment for his own injuries she had marred the purity of her own intention.
Indeed she was in no state to judge herself, for what Archie had told her was a goad in her wound, with a terror of new pain.
“You cannot forgive him,” she said mechanically and almost to herself.
“Why should I?” asked Archie. “It means Sylvia to me. How can I forgive him that?”
And suddenly, without waiting for any answer, he went out and left her alone.
After a long time, she wrote this letter to her husband:
DEAR HENRY, — I am very glad to hear of your recovery, and I have received your letter to-day, together with the doctor’s. I have telegraphed the one word for which you asked, and you have probably got the message already. But I must answer your letter as well as I can, and say a great many things which I shall never say again. If we are to meet and try to live together, it is better that I should speak plainly before I see you.
You asked a great deal of me, and for myself I have done what you asked. I do not say this to make it seem as though I were making a great sacrifice and wished you to admit it. We were not happy together; you say that it was your fault, and you ask me to forgive you. If I believed that you had been in full possession of your senses till you were taken ill, I do not think that forgiveness could be possible. You see, I am frank. I am sure that you often did not know what you said and did, and that when you did know, you could not always weigh the consequences of your words and actions. So I will try to forget them. That is what you mean by being forgiven, and it is the only meaning either you or I can put upon the word. I will try to forget, and I will bear no malice for anything in the past, so far as I am concerned. Never speak of it, when we meet, and I never will. If you really wish to try the experiment of living together again, I am willing to attempt it, as an experiment.
But there is Archie to be considered, and Archie will not forgive you. By a mere chance, to-day, after I had sent my telegram, he told me that you used to strike him cruelly and often because his dulness irritated you. You struck him on the head, and you injured his brain, so that his mind has never developed fully and never can.
I do not think that if I were a man, as he is, I could forgive that. Could you? Do you expect that I should, being his mother? You cannot. You and he can never live under the same roof again. It would perhaps be harder for you, feeling as you must, than for him; but in any case it is not possible, and there is only one arrangement to be made. We must put Archie in some place where he shall be safe and healthy and happy, and I will spend a part of the year with you and a part with him. I will not give him up for you, and I am not willing to give you up for him. Neither would be right. You are my husband, whatever there may have been in the past; but Archie is my child. It will be harder for me than for him, too.
You say that I might have got a divorce from you, and you do me the justice to add that you believe I have never thought of it. That is true, but it is not a proof of affection. I have none for you. I told you that I should speak plainly, and it is much better. It would be an ignoble piece of comedy on my part to pretend to be fond of you. I was once. I admired you, I suppose, and I liked you well enough to marry you, being rather ignorant of the world and of what people could feel. If you had really loved me and been kind to me, I should have loved you in the end. But, as it turned out, I could not go on admiring you long, and I simply ceased to like you. That is our story, and it is a sad one. We made the great mistake, for we married without much love on either side, and we were very young.
But it was a marriage, just the same, and a bond which I never meant to break and will not break now. A promise is a promise, whatever happens, and a vow made before God is ten times a promise. So I always mean to keep mine to you, as I have kept it. I will do my best to make you happy, and you must do your part to make it possible.
After all, that is the way most people live. True love, lasting lifetimes and not changing, exists in the world, and it is the hope of it that makes youth lovely and marriage noble. Few people find it, and the many who do not must live as well as they can without it. That is what we must do. Perhaps, though the hope of love is gone, we may find peace together. Let us try.
But not with Archie. There are things which no woman can forgive nor forget. I could not forgive you this if I loved you with all my heart, and you must not expect it of me, for it is not in my power. The harm was not done to me, but to him, and he is more to me than you ever were, and far more to me than myself. I will only say that. There can be no need of ever speaking about it, but I want you to understand; and not only this, but everything. That is why I write such a long letter.
It must all be perfectly clear, and I hope I have made it so. It was I who suffered for the great mistake we made in marrying, but you are sorry for that, and I say, let us try the experiment and see whether we can live together in peace for the rest of our lives. You are changed since your illness, I have no doubt, and you will make it as easy as you can. At least, you will do your best, and so shall I.
Have I repeated myself in this letter? At least, I have tried to be clear and direct. Besides, you know me, and you know what I mean by writing in this way. I am in earnest.
God bless you, Henry. I hope this may turn out well. HELEN.
It was ten o’clock when she had finished. She laid her hand upon the bell, meaning to send her letter to the post office by a servant; but just then the sound of laughing voices came up to her through the open window, and she did not ring. Looking out, she saw that there were still many people in the street, for it was a warm evening. It was only a step from her hotel to the post office, and if she went herself she should have the satisfaction of knowing positively that the letter was safe. She put on a hat with a thick veil, and went out.
CHAPTER IX
COLONEL WIMPOLE LOOKED positively old that evening when he went down to dinner with his sister and Sylvia. His face was drawn and weary and the lids hung a little, in small wrinkles; but down in his grey eyes there was a far-off gleam of danger-light.
Sylvia looked down when she met him, and she was very silent and grave at first. At dinner she sat between him and Miss Wimpole, and for some time she scarcely dared to glance at him. He, on his part, was too much preoccupied to speak much, and she thought he was displeased. Nevertheless, he was more than usually thoughtful for her. She understood by the way he sat, and even by the half-unconscious shrinking of the elbow next to her, that he was sorry for her. At table, seated close together, there is a whole language in one’s neighbour’s elbow and an unlimited power of expression in its way of avoiding collisions. Very perceptive people understand that. Primarily, in savage life, the bold man turns his elbows out, while the timid one presses them to his sides, as though not to give offence with them. Society teaches us to put on some little airs of timidity as a substitute for the modesty that few feel, and we accordingly draw in our elbows when we are near any one. It is ridiculous enough, but there are a hundred ways of doing it, a hundred degrees of readiness, unwillingness, pride, or consideration for others, as well as sympathy for their troubles or in their successes, all
of which are perfectly natural to refined people, and almost entirely unconscious. The movement of a man’s jaws at dinner shows much of his real character, but the movement of his elbows shows with fair accuracy the degree of refinement in which he has been brought up.
Sylvia was sure that the colonel was sorry for her, and the certainty irritated her, for she hated to be pitied, and most of all for having done something foolish. She glanced at Wimpole’s tired face, just when he was looking a little away from her, and she was startled by the change in his features since the early afternoon. It needed no very keen perception to see that he was in profound anxiety of some kind, and she knew of nothing which could have disturbed him deeply but her own conduct.
Under the vivid light of the public dining table, he looked old. That was undeniable, and it was really the first time that Sylvia had definitely connected the idea of age with him. Just beyond him sat a man in the early prime of strength, one of those magnificent specimens of humanity such as one sees occasionally in travelling but whom one very rarely knows in acquaintance. He could not have been more than twenty-eight years old, straight in his seat, broad-shouldered, with thick, close, golden hair and splendid golden beard, white forehead and sunburned cheeks, broad, well-modelled brows and faultless nose, and altogether manly in spite of his beauty. As he leaned forward a little, his fresh young face appeared beside the colonel’s tired profile, in vivid contrast.
For the first time, Sylvia realized the meaning of Wimpole’s words, spoken that afternoon. He might almost have been her grandfather, and he was in reality of precisely the same age as her father. Sylvia looked down again and reflected that she must have made a mistake with herself. Youth can sometimes close its eyes to grey hair, but it can never associate the idea of love with old age, when clearly brought to its perceptions.
For at least five minutes the world seemed utterly hollow to Sylvia, as she sat there. She did not even wonder why she had thought the colonel young until then. The sudden dropping out of her first great illusion left a void as big and as hollow as itself.
She turned her head, and looked once more, and there, again, was the glorious, unseamed youth of the stranger, almost dazzling her and making the poor colonel look more than ever old, with his pale, furrowed cheeks and wrinkled eyelids. She thought a moment, and then she was sure that she could never like such a terribly handsome young man; and at the same instant, for the first time in her life, she felt that natural, foolish, human pity which only extreme youth feels for old age, and she wondered why she had not always felt it, for it seemed quite natural, and was altogether in accordance with the rest of her feelings for the colonel, with her reverence for his perfect character, her admiration for his past deeds, her attachment to his quiet, protective, wise, and all-gentle manliness. That was her view of his qualities, and she had to admit that though he had them all, he was what she called old. She had taken for love what was only a combination of reverence and attachment and admiration. She realized her mistake in a flash, and it seemed to her that the core had withered in the fruit of the universe.
Just then the colonel turned to her, holding his glass in his hand.
“We must not forget that it is your birthday, my dear,” he said, and his natural smile came back. “Rachel,” he added, speaking to his sister across the young girl, “let us drink Sylvia’s health on her eighteenth birthday.”
Miss Wimpole usually took a little thin Moselle with the cold water she drank. She solemnly raised the glass, and inclined her head as she looked first at Sylvia and then at the colonel.
“Thank you,” said Sylvia, rather meekly.
Then they all relapsed into silence. The people at the big table talked fast, in low tones, and the clattering of dishes and plates and knives and forks went on steadily and untunefully all around. Sylvia felt lonely in the unindividual atmosphere of the Swiss hotel. She hated the terribly handsome young man, with a mortal hatred, because he made the colonel look old. She could not help seeing him whenever she turned towards Wimpole. At last she spoke softly, looking down at her plate.
“Uncle Richard,” she said, to call his attention.
He was not really her uncle, and she almost always called him ‘colonel,’ half playfully, and because she had hated the suggestion of age that is conveyed by the word ‘uncle.’ Wimpole turned to her quietly.
“Yes, my dear,” he said. “What is it?”
“I suppose I was very foolish to-day, wasn’t I?” asked Sylvia, very low indeed, and a bright blush played upon her pretty face.
The colonel was a courteous man, and was also very fond of her.
“A woman need never be wise when she is lovely,” he said in his rather old-fashioned way, and he smiled affectionately at the young girl. “It is quite enough if she is good.”
But she did not smile. On the contrary, her face became very grave.
“I am in earnest,” she said, and she waited a moment before saying more. “I was very foolish,” she continued, thoughtfully. “I did not understand — or I did not realize — I don’t know. You have been so much to me all my life, and there is nobody like you, of course. It seemed to me — I mean, it seems to me — that is very much like really caring for some one, isn’t it? You know what I mean. I can’t express it.”
“You mean that it is a good deal like love, I suppose,” answered the colonel, speaking gravely now. “Yes, I suppose that love is better when people believe each other to be angels. But it is not that sort of thing which makes love what it is.”
“What is it, then?” Sylvia was glad to ask any question that helped to break through the awkwardness and embarrassment she felt towards him.
“There are a great many kinds of love,” he said; “but I think there is only one kind worth having. It is the kind that begins when one is young, and lasts all one’s life.”
“Is that all?” asked Sylvia, innocently, and in a disappointed tone.
“All!” The colonel laughed softly, and a momentary light of happiness came into his face, for that all was all he had ever had. “Is not that enough, my dear?” he asked. “To love one woman or man with all one’s heart for thirty or forty years? Never to be disappointed? Never to feel that one has made a mistake? Never to fear that love may grow old because one grows old oneself? Is not that enough?”
“Ah, yes! That would be, indeed. But you did not say all those other things at first.”
“They are just what make a life-long love,” answered the colonel. “But then,” he added, “there are a great many degrees, far below that. I am sure I have seen people quite really in love with each other for a week.”
Sylvia suddenly looked almost angry as she glanced at him.
“That sort of thing ought not to be called love at all!” she answered energetically. “It is nothing but a miserable flirtation, — a miserable, wretched, unworthy flirtation.”
“I quite agree with you,” said Wimpole, smiling at her vehemence.
“Why do you laugh?” she asked, almost offended by his look. His smile disappeared instantly.
“You hit the world very hard, my dear,” he answered.
“I hate the world!” cried Sylvia.
She was just eighteen. Wimpole knew that she felt an innocent and instinctive repulsion for what the world meant to him, and for all the great, sinful unknown. He disliked it himself, with the steady, subdued dislike which is hatred in such natures as his, both because it was contrary to his character, and for Sylvia’s sake, who must surely one day know something of it. So he did not laugh at her sweeping declaration. She hated the world before knowing it, but he hated it in full knowledge. That was a bond of sympathy like any other. To each of us the world means both what we know, and what we suspect, both what we see and the completion of it in the unseen, both the outward lives of our companions which we can judge, and their inward motives, which we dimly guess.
But on this evening Sylvia felt that the world was particularly odious, for she had suffered a first hu
miliation in her own eyes. She thought that she had lowered herself in the colonel’s estimation, and she had discovered that she had made a great mistake with herself about him.
“I hate the world!” she repeated, in a lower tone, almost to herself, and her eyes gleamed with young anger, while her delicate, curving lips just showed her small white teeth.
Wimpole watched her face.
“That is no reason for hating yourself,” he said gently.
She started and turned her eyes to him. Then she blushed and looked away.
“You must not guess my thoughts,” she answered. “It is not kind.”
“I did not mean to. I am sorry.”
“Oh — you could not help it, of course. I was so foolish to-day.”
The blush deepened, and she said nothing more. The colonel returned to his own secret trouble, and on Sylvia’s other side Miss Wimpole was silently planning a charitable institution of unusual severity, while she peeled an orange with the most scrupulous neatness and precision.
CHAPTER X
SYLVIA WENT TO her own room after dinner, still wondering what had happened to her on her birthday. There is an age at which most of us unexpectedly come across the truth about ourselves, and sometimes about others, and it generally happens that in our recollection the change turns upon one day, or even one hour.
The shock is sudden and unexpected. Floating down a quick smooth stream in a boat, a man is aware of motion, as he watches the bank without realizing the strength of the flowing water; but when the skiff is suddenly checked by any obstacle in midstream, the whole force of the river rushes upon it, and past it, and perhaps over it, in an instant. Something of the same sort happens now and then in our lives. The great illusion of childhood carries us along at a speed of which we have no idea, in the little boat which is the immediate and undeniable reality of near surroundings, the child’s cradle afloat upon a fiction which is wide and deep and strong, and sometimes we are grown men and women before our small craft strikes upon a shoal of truth, with a dash that throws us from the thwart, and frightens the bravest of us. There we stick fast upon the rough fact for a while, and the flood that was so smooth and pleasant rushes past us, foaming and seething and breaking against the boat’s side and threatening to tear her to pieces. And if the tide is ebbing at the river’s mouth, we may be left high and dry upon the sharp reality for a long time; but if not, the high water will presently float us, and off we shall spin again, smoothly and safely, on the bosom of the sweet untrue.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 871
