The most difficult part of a tragedy is the deference that has to be
paid to the onlookers. If murder only consisted of the person you
murdered and the process (however painful) of having it out afterwards
with the judge, fewer people would be debarred from it; and there is an
even greater degree of frightfulness in the subsidiary personages of a
divorce.
Anne felt that she could easily manage her relations with Norman and
Nina. There was nothing in her worst moments with either of them that
she had not allowed for. Her courage rose to meet their primary claims
without faltering. But she felt that it was asking too much of her to
have to bear the startled watchfulness of the cook, who had been with
them since their marriage. Then there was Norman’s mother. She was a
gentle, implacable old lady from a country vicarage. The word divorce
had never crossed her lips during the sixty years of her strict and
uneventful life. Anne’s own relations were simply very angry—at first
they tried to hush everything up and were full of good ideas, but when
they found Anne’s quiet will barred all evasions, they stormed and
abused, threatened and repudiated and could not be kept out of the
house. But they knew what divorce meant, and Mrs. Elliot didn’t. She
could not distinguish between husband and wife. She looked upon them
both as upon those who have been smitten with leprosy. It was obvious
that she prayed before she spoke to either of them, and when her prayers
became a little confused with her arguments, she trembled and shed
tears. To Norman she only spoke indirectly. She said, “My boy—my poor
boy, do not do this wicked thing!” And the odd part of it was that her
just saying this and crying shook Norman as if it had been an argument.
For days afterwards he would not see Nina, nor speak to Anne. His mother
urged that he should give up everything (except his marriage) and go to
Madeira for the winter. She spoke as if some form of transportation and
a colonial life afterwards would be most fitted to meet their case.
Finally Norman saw Nina by accident and when he came back he told Anne
that his mother must go home. Anne had to tell her this, and Mrs. Elliot
spoke a great deal more directly to Anne. She said that she knew her boy
and his devoted, tender heart, and that the state of sin into which he
had fallen could only have been brought about by terrible neglect on
Anne’s part. She was ruthless with Anne. She struck again and again at
Anne’s childlessness. She accused her of being too worldly, and in the
same breath of not being entertaining enough. She pointed out to Anne
that she looked old and ought to be more lively, and then she asked her
why she didn’t go to church oftener and give Norman the example of a
deeply religious life? That, she said, was what Norman had missed. Anne
couldn’t be a really good woman because good women never dreamed of
divorcing their husbands.
“I am not divorcing my husband,” Anne explained in exasperation, “Norman
is divorcing me.” Then the whole thing had to come out. It was
frightful; and the explanations involved made Anne understand why people
walk out of their houses and are never heard of again. If she had known
what happened afterwards to these incredibly inspired persons, she would
have instantly followed their example. As it was, she found herself
floundering in a sea of prevarications, ineptitudes and downright lies,
and none of them saved her. They didn’t even save Norman very much. She
kept the girl out of it somehow, though her mother-in-law always
suspected the girl. She probed searchingly for Nina, whom she envisaged
in the form of a housemaid. Men could do awful things suddenly, she
explained to Anne, if they were pushed to it, and it was no use Anne’s
saying that Norman wasn’t that kind of man, because (if wrongly handled)
men were all the same, except of course Norman’s father who was a
clergyman; the person to blame was the person who had handled him
wrongly. Anne said she was perfectly aware of that, and perfectly
willing to be blamed, but she wasn’t going to stop the divorce. Her
mother-in-law very gently and with a further resort to silent prayer,
cast her permanently off. “Very well, then, Anne,” she said, “if you
persist in carrying out this very wicked act neither his father nor I,
nor any of his sisters, can see or speak to you again. Whatever happens
to my poor boy, remember that you are responsible for it in the eyes of
God and of his mother. You could have saved him, and you are
deliberately forcing him instead into a deadly sin.”
“Why do you think I could have saved him?” Anne asked despairingly, “you
have said yourself that I have no attractions; and women without
attractions don’t save men.”
“You could have had the attraction of a godly life,” said Mrs. Elliot
coldly, “and not given Sunday luncheons. Nevertheless even as it is,
Norman’s fate is in your hands. He told me himself that he would never
have dreamed of pursuing this reckless course but for your support. At a
word from you now, he would give it up.”
Anne lowered her eyes. He had given her away then, so that she had no
defence. She reminded herself (to stop the sudden bitterness that rose
up in her heart) that you cannot be a defender and expect defence. “Very
well then,” she said quietly, “I suppose I must accept your casting me
off. I had hoped you wouldn’t quite—that you would realise I meant well
by Norman, and was relieving him of an unhappiness; and I had hoped that
perhaps you would write to me while I was away and have told me how he
was. You see, after all, I love Norman; it is Norman who does not love
me.”
“I cannot understand your point of view,” her mother-in-law said
gravely, “you seem to have an interest in his temporal welfare and yet
you have destroyed his eternal welfare. You cannot expect me to consider
your feelings in so slight a matter when you are disregarding all of
ours in so vital a one.” Anne bowed her head. At that moment she did not
believe in anybody’s eternal welfare.
Then her mother-in-law asked her if she had told Toby, and Anne had to
admit that she hadn’t.
Toby was her own oldest and dearest friend, but he was also Norman’s.
Indeed it was Timothy Wainwright who had introduced Norman to Anne. He
had brought him down one Sunday to Anne’s home, and when the two young
men left a week later Timothy already knew that he had lost the first
place in both their hearts; but it was only Timothy who knew that this
transference was a painful one. The others went on loving him and
relying upon him with the unconscious selfishness of happy lovers; and
they had done so ever since. If he had wanted more of Anne than to run
her errands, and be consulted about Dutch bulbs, he never let her see
it. He acted as Norman’s best man, and if any difficulties had arisen in
their married life he would certainly have shared them; as they had had
no difficulties, they merely gave him the odds and ends of their free
time.
It was their idea that he liked Norman better than Anne; he was
sometimes a little critical of Anne, though they knew that he would have
died for her. Still, they thought he would have died for Norman first.
This was their mistake. There were times when Timothy had been within a
measurable distance of wanting to kill Norman.
“Toby,” said Mrs. Elliot, “must be spoken to. He is of your generation
and understands the world, and yet we know that he is a good man and can
be perfectly trusted. Either you or Norman must go to him with this
shocking story at once. Perhaps he will be able to see some way out of
it.”
Anne submitted. It was part of her strength that she always gave way to
the wishes of others unless they interfered with her rare decisions.
Since Toby must know sooner or later there was no use in making a
difficulty about telling him, although Anne did not want to tell him.
She had a momentary hope that she might persuade Norman to do it, but
Norman refused. He spoke with a kind of horror of it. “I don’t a bit
mind his talking to me about it afterwards,” Norman explained to Anne.
“We shall have to talk sooner or later, but somehow I can’t tell him.
You see he’s always believed I worshipped you.” Norman occasionally said
unfortunate things when he was very overwrought. As a rule he was
intensely careful of other people’s feelings, but he sometimes forgot
Anne’s, because she was so much less sensitive than he was.
So Anne had to tell Toby herself.
She noticed as she put on her things to go out that she was looking
plain and old. She was not conscious of feeling unhappiness, but she saw
that her face was different. There used to be something shining and
blooming about her. She had never looked like a wild flower, but she had
looked like a fine strong hothouse blossom with firm leaves. Her
happiness had given her an exquisite inner assurance, she had felt
Norman’s love like a magic armour shielding her against the world. Now
she felt defenceless and raw; she thought that everyone who looked at
her must know that she was no longer loved. She was too old and tired
and plain ever to be loved again. She must learn to observe life,
because she hadn’t really anything else to do with it.
Anne wondered for the first time what Timothy felt like, living alone.
Timothy was forty and Anne had always thought that it must be very nice
for him to be a bachelor with such charming rooms and good servants; now
she was not quite so sure. She had telephoned Toby that she was coming
to tea with him, so that he had everything she liked ready for her. A
great bowl full of love-in-the-mist and a special Buszard’s cake on his
gate-legged table.
Toby was a very busy man whose work in the City was not without
importance; but Anne always found that he had plenty of time and could
do little things for her more easily than most hurried people.
Toby had grey eyes not very much larger than Anne’s but very much
quicker. They shot into you when you first saw him, and afterwards he
seemed to sheathe them and look as if he hadn’t noticed anything. He had
a very kind smile and when he wasn’t smiling he looked extraordinarily
grave. Everybody wanted Toby to be their trustee and to go to their
relations’ funerals. He was never emotional, but there was a solid
unexpressed sympathy in him, which mourners found consoling.
“Well, Anne,” Toby said, “it’s a long time since I’ve seen you. When do
you and the Boy go off on your summer holidays?”
Anne took off her gloves slowly and made the tea. She talked for a while
about their summer holiday, though she knew that she wasn’t going to
have it. They discussed the rival merits of Scotland and the Channel
Islands, or a caravan in Cornwall. Toby usually spent a week with them
in September, and he was very much against a caravan.
“If I were ten years younger now,” he said, “perhaps; but middle-aged
men don’t look nice when they are breakfastless and unshaved; and I no
longer take pleasure in rain down the back of my neck, or insects in my
coffee. I do not care to wash up tea-things, or to persuade cart-horses
to change their minds. I prefer night ‘with its train of stars and its
great gift of sleep’ in a bedroom; and I am more than wedded to a
morning bath.”
“As a matter of fact,” said Anne, riveting her attention upon the
shining teapot, “I don’t think we can do a caravan this summer in any
case. I had thought of going by myself abroad somewhere, with a girl I
know.”
“Indeed,” said Toby, “and what am I to do with Norman in your absence?
Has the Foreign Office refused him a passport?”
“I want you,” said Anne, “to take quite particularly good care of him.”
“The best care I could take,” said Timothy gravely, “would be nothing
compared to yours at your worst. If he’s in need of care, why the devil
are you going away from him?”
“Because,” said Anne steadily, “he doesn’t want my care any more. He has
been perfectly beautiful about it, Toby dear, and if I understand and
believe in this new plan, and think it all right for all of us, I don’t
see why anybody else shouldn’t! Dear, dear Toby, please believe in it
with me! Lots of people won’t, and can’t, and I suppose I shall have to
bear it—but I don’t want to have to bear disagreeing with you!”
“I have seldom heard a more unscrupulously unfair or obscure statement,”
said Toby pretending to eat his cake. “My dear girl, what is this new
plan which is to dislocate all our lives, and which I am to welcome with
enthusiasm?”
Then Anne told him about Nina. She had hoped at first that it would be
enough to tell him about the divorce, but it wasn’t enough. He didn’t
believe in it. He only believed in Nina. He didn’t look at Anne while
she was telling him, but he stopped pretending to eat his cake. He sat
quite still. Anne managed beautifully, but she got a little short of
breath towards the end.
“You really think,” he said when she had finished, “that Norman loves
this—this young woman seriously? It’s not just a flash in the pan, is
it? You know such things do happen even in awfully happy marriages. A
man takes a wild header into a momentary fancy, generally some haunting
pretty face, some delicious little dream he’d be sick to death of, if he
were shut up with her for a fortnight in a fog. You’re sure it’s nothing
of that kind with Norman?”
“I don’t think so,” said Anne thoughtfully, “I know the girl very well
now. Of course she’s different from anyone I’ve known before, but she’s
very clever and full of character. I think she will learn the little
things he might like her to know, quite easily from me, things about her
clothes and the house and the servants. She wants to learn them. She’s
been most extraordinarily sweet to me.”
Timothy’s boots creaked as if he had leaned too hard on something but he
made no comment. He waited for Anne to go on.
“My idea was,” Anne continued, “to take her abroad with me. She’s been
very much upset with all she’s been through lately. You see nobody knows
about her and Norman at all. My people think there’s some woman, because
they would naturally think so. They want somebody to blame. But Norman
has been extraordinarily careful. He never goes to see her now without
me. Poor dears! I manage the best I can for them. Sometimes we go into
the country, where they can be alone comfortably; but it is wiser to
wait till everything is settled up. If I take her to Italy, we can stay
away till everything is arranged and then Norman can come out and marry
her.”
“What do you propose to do then?” Toby asked a little dryly.
“I thought,” said Anne, “they’d like to go to Venice for their
honeymoon. Norman loves it so and Nina has never seen it, and I might go
to Rome. It will take quite six months, Norman says, before they’re
free. You know I love Rome. I rather thought of studying the excavations
in the Forum.”
“Very suitable indeed,” Toby said. “I can’t imagine anything so
thoroughly _à propos_, and when the honeymooners return may I ask if
you’ve planned anything beyond the Forum? Oh Anne! Anne!”
“No, Toby don’t!” Anne said very quickly, “you mustn’t mind! You know
you’re _not_ going to! Why then, you see, when they come home, it’ll be
all right, won’t it? It’ll be all right for all of us. I want you to
like Nina nearly as much as you like me.”
“Good God!” said Toby, “slow up somewhere! I decline to be treated as if
I were a cockatrice roused from his den to play with an innocent child!”
“She is a very innocent child,” said Anne softly. Toby said nothing more
for a long time. He stirred his lukewarm tea and looked searchingly at
the carpet. Anne got up and wandered about his immense quiet room. He
had several very beautiful things and Anne had always appreciated and
understood them better than anybody else. She fingered them carefully
now and wondered whether the lacquer on his great Chinese cabinet
oughtn’t to be cleaned again soon. She hadn’t expected Toby to like her
plan, but he was very nice about it. He hadn’t expressed surprise or
horror, or any of that dreadful sympathy which seemed to slam a door in
Anne’s heart, shutting her away forever from the incompleteness of human
understanding. At last he said without turning round, “Anne, are you
going to let them live in your house?”
“It isn’t mine, it’s Norman’s,” said Anne defensively. “Besides, I
shan’t want a house. I thought of taking a service flat in Westminster.
I’ve always wanted to live in Westminster.”
“I see,” said Toby. He cleared his throat as if he hadn’t quite reached
the end of what he wanted to say, but had got to the end of his courage
in saying it. Then he forced himself to go on.
“If it isn’t impertinent, Anne, may I suggest that Westminster isn’t
very far away from Knightsbridge? Must you live in London at all?”
“Oh Toby!” Anne cried, “all my friends are in London! You’re in London!
Mayn’t I even have——” then she stopped suddenly, feeling that she was
going to be silly and start pitying herself, a thing she had steadfastly
made up her mind never to do.
“Mayn’t you even have London?” Toby finished for her. “Well, you see,
Anne, it isn’t really a case of what you _can_ have. It is a case of
what you have lost; making the best of things generally implies letting
them go as if they were red hot coals. That’s the safest plan. If you
feel, and Norman feels, that this is the only course to take, why take
it; but step straight off the course when it’s finished! Don’t see them
again after the marriage, d’you see my point?”
But Anne wouldn’t see it. “They don’t want that!” she pleaded; “they
honestly need me—and Toby, think—Norman’s all my life! He isn’t just a
part of it—just the husband part I mean. I can let that go, but I must
know how he is, I must look after them and help them—not too much of
course—but when they _want_ me—they must have me!”
“Take my advice, Anne,” said Toby, “in some ways I am particularly well
placed to offer it. Don’t you do it! You won’t be wanted—not very much;
not, I mean, as much as the enquiry office at the Army & Navy Stores.
And it’ll break you to pieces if you go on with them. You think it
won’t, I know. You think cutting the painter will do that! But you’re
wrong—cutting the painter is a relief. It’s only the idea of doing it
that hurts. What you’re holding on to—that’s the very devil! Of course
he’s all your life—that’s why you’ve got to make it over again and make
it different. You’re a brave woman, Anne. Stay in Rome and go on with
the excavations. I’ll come out to you. Everybody’ll come out to you. But
for God’s sake, don’t come back and hover!”
“Oh don’t!” said Anne. She put her hands over her face as if he had
struck her. She felt a violent and miserable feeling in her heart. She
had never been angry with Norman, nor even with Nina, but she was very
angry with Toby. He was crass; he had said just what he shouldn’t—just
what he mustn’t! He wasn’t helping her at all. Toby saw that he wasn’t
helping Anne. If Anne had not been so miserable she would have seen that
Toby was miserable too. His face was quite white with patches of red on
it, and his mouth had a twisted look as if he was laughing at himself
with a cruel laughter.
“You don’t know what you are talking about,” she said sternly, “nor how
I feel. It was stupid of me to talk to you like this. Nobody can
understand who hasn’t loved as I love—hopelessly and in a sense quite
happily, with all their heart. My happiness—and I am quite happy
still—is in giving anything they want to either of them.”
“You call it happiness,” said Toby, “but you won’t find it is happiness,
and some day you’ll see that you’re just in the way.”
“It is very natural that you should think so,” said Anne resentfully, “I
suppose I must seem intrusive and tiresome to you. Fortunately for me
they don’t feel as you do. They love—and need me. Good-bye, Toby! Thank
you for not being horrid about Norman. I shall count on you to look
after him while I’m away, and to let me know how he is. His mother won’t
write to me—but you will, won’t you?”
“Oh yes, I will,” said Toby, “you may count on me for that.”
He didn’t offer to shake hands with Anne. He simply stood by the door
and held it open for her. Anne felt and looked very unforgiving. Toby
had always been nicer to Norman than to her; probably he thought, like
Norman’s mother, that she was altogether to blame, and that Norman was
lucky to get rid of her. She had thought he was her friend too as well
as Norman’s, but apparently he wasn’t.
“Anne,” said Toby in a queer choked voice, as she passed him with her
head held high, “Anne, I told you that, you know, because it was the
truth, not because I wanted to be nasty. You see I—I happen to know it
is the truth.”
It was so like Toby to suppose that his ideas were infallible; and so
different from Norman who was too intelligent not to be diffident about
his knowledge! Still Anne could hear by Toby’s voice that he was upset
for her, more upset than she had thought, and she turned round and shook
hands with him kindly. He hurt her hand, he held it so hard, but he
didn’t retract what he’d said.
“I suppose,” said Anne, with restored gentleness, “that we must each of
us do what we feel is the best, mustn’t we? Even if our friends don’t
agree with us?”
“I suppose we must,” said Toby, “but Anne—sometimes it’s damned hard!”