Oh, my dearest, isn’t it terrible to see the summer coming, and to feel
so wintry and lonely. Your letters have been a help, but what wouldn’t I
give for you yourself, the real you!
You will tell me again that I’m not telling the truth. That I don’t
really love you because I won’t give up being conventional and
respectable and go away with you, but it isn’t that, Petra darling. You
think in your dear, impetuous way that it would all be so easy, but it
wouldn’t really, darling. You think that because you are a man, and you
don’t consider how awful it would be, day after day, all the sordidness
and trouble. It wouldn’t really be fair to make you go through all that.
Even if He would let me go—which, of course, he wouldn’t, because he is
so selfish—it would be a long, drawn-out misery. I know how horrid it
is because I know a woman who got her divorce. Of course, her husband
took all the blame, but it was a miserable time for everybody, and she
and her man friend had to go right away, and he gave up his post, a very
good post, and they are living in quite a slummy little place in rooms,
and don’t even get enough to eat sometimes.
Anyway, the Gorgon would _never_ consent to me divorcing him, because he
prides himself on being very virtuous and proper, and he would probably
have to leave his firm or something. He would never do that. He thinks
more of his firm than of anything in the world—far more than he does of
me or my happiness, which he has never considered at all from the day he
married me.
Doesn’t it seem too awful that one has to pay so heavily for making a
mistake? I keep on thinking, if only I hadn’t married him. If only I
were free to come to you, Petra darling—what a wonderful time we could
have together! But then I think again that if I hadn’t married him, I
should never have lived here, never met you, and oh, darling, what could
make up for that? So I suppose, as they say in the nature-books, that He
has “fulfilled his function” in bringing us together. I looked at him
last night as he sat glooming over the mutton, which wasn’t quite done
as he likes it (you would never let a stupid thing like mutton poison
the whole beautiful day for you, but he does), and I thought of Mr.
Munting saying once, “All God’s creatures have their uses,” when Miss
Milsom had made me one of her lovely scarves—and I said to myself, “If
only you could know, my dear Gorgon, what is the one thing in our lives
I thank you for!” That would really have given him something to gloom
about, wouldn’t it?
It is so funny—he is always asking when you are coming to see us again.
His Cookery Book is going to be published in a few weeks’ time, and he
is ridiculously excited about it. He thinks it is a great work of art,
and is going to send you a copy as from one artist to another. Wouldn’t
that make a good reason for you to call on us, if you could get over to
England? It is clever of you to be able to find so many things to say
about his silly little water-colours—you who are a really great painter
(I have learnt not to say artist now. Do you remember how impatient you
were with me when I called you “artistic”? We nearly had a quarrel that
day. Fancy us quarrelling about anything—now!).
It makes me sad, Petra darling, to think of my poor lonely Man so far
away, wanting his Lolo. And I’m a little frightened, too, when I think
of all the beautiful ladies in Paris. I expect they think a lot of you,
don’t they? Do you go to a great many fashionable parties? Or do you
live the student-life I used to read about and think how gay and jolly
it must be? You don’t tell me very much about the people you see and the
places you go to. I wish you weren’t a portrait-painter—you must have
so many opportunities to find someone more beautiful than your poor Lolo
and so much cleverer. Don’t say they aren’t more beautiful than I am,
because I shall know you aren’t telling the truth. I’m not really
beautiful at all—only when I had been with you I sometimes used to look
in the glass and think that happiness made me _almost_ beautiful,
sometimes. I have been reading in a book about the real Laura and
Petrarch—did you know, she was really only a little girl and that he
hardly saw her at all? Perhaps she was only beautiful in his
imagination, too. But that didn’t prevent her from being his
inspiration, did it? I wonder if you are the same. Perhaps I inspire you
better from a distance. I don’t think a woman _could_ feel like that.
She wants her Man always, close to her. Darling, do say you want me like
that, too.
I must stop now. The Gorgon will be wanting its tea. I am living just
like a hermit now. I never go anywhere and I try to do all I can to keep
him in a good temper, for fear he should get the idea that there is
Somebody Else in my life. How dreadful it would be if he suspected
anything. He is fairly reasonable now, except when his food isn’t quite
right. But oh! I am so lonely.
Darling, I love you so much I don’t know what to do with myself. I have
kissed the paper twenty times where your dear, darling name is. You must
kiss it, too, and think you are kissing your own, your absolutely ownest
own,