I
I have only known one absolutely adorable woman, and that was my
brother’s wife, Cicely Dunbar.
Sisters-in-law do not, I think, invariably adore each other, and I am
aware that my chief merit in Cicely’s eyes was that I am Donald’s
sister; but for me there was no question of extraneous quality—it was
all pure Cicely.
And how Donald— But then, like all the Dunbars, Donald suffers from
being Scottish, so that, if he has a feeling, he makes it a point of
honour to pretend he hasn’t it. I daresay he let himself go a bit during
his courtship, when he was not, strictly speaking, himself; but after he
had once married her I think he would have died rather than have told
Cicely in so many words that he loved her. And Cicely wanted to be told.
You say she ought to have known without telling? You don’t know Donald.
You can’t conceive the perverse ingenuity he could put into hiding his
affection. He has that peculiar temper—I think it’s Scottish—that
delights in snubbing and faultfinding and defeating expectation. If he
knows you want him to do a thing, that alone is reason enough with
Donald for not doing it. And my sister, who was as transparent as white
crystal, was never able to conceal a want. So that Donald could, as we
said, “have” her at every turn.
And, then, I don’t think my brother really knew how ill she was. He
didn’t want to know. Besides, he was so wrapt up in trying to finish his
“Development of Social Economics” (which, by the way, he hasn’t finished
yet) that he had no eyes to see what we all saw: that, the way her poor
little heart was going, Cicely couldn’t have very long to live.
[Illustration]
Of course he understood that this was why, in those last months, they
had to have separate rooms. And this in the first year of their marriage
when he was still violently in love with her.
I keep those two facts firmly in my mind when I try to excuse Donald;
for it was the main cause of that unkindness and perversity which I find
it so hard to forgive. Even now, when I think how he used to discharge
it on the poor little thing, as if it had been her fault, I have to
remind myself that the lamb’s innocence made her a little trying.
She couldn’t understand why Donald didn’t want to have her with him in
his library any more while he read or wrote. It seemed to her sheer
cruelty to shut her out now when she was ill, seeing that, before she
was ill, she had always had her chair by the fireplace, where she would
sit over her book or her embroidery for hours without speaking, hardly
daring to breathe lest she should interrupt him. Now was the time, she
thought, when she might expect a little indulgence.
Do you suppose that Donald would give his feelings as an explanation?
Not he. They were _his feelings_, and he wouldn’t talk about them; and
he never explained anything you didn’t understand.
That—her wanting to sit with him in the library—was what they had the
awful quarrel about, the day before she died: that and the paper-weight,
the precious paper-weight that he wouldn’t let anybody touch because
George Meredith had given it him. It was a brass block, surmounted by a
white alabaster Buddha painted and gilt. And it had an inscription: _To
Donald Dunbar, from George Meredith. In Affectionate Regard_.
My brother was extremely attached to this paper-weight, partly, I’m
afraid, because it proclaimed his intimacy with the great man. For this
reason it was known in the family ironically as the Token.
It stood on Donald’s writing-table at his elbow, so near the ink-pot
that the white Buddha had received a splash or two. And this evening
Cicely had come in to us in the library, and had annoyed Donald by
staying in it when he wanted her to go. She had taken up the Token, and
was cleaning it to give herself a pretext.
She died after the quarrel they had then.
It began by Donald shouting at her.
“What are you doing with that paper-weight?”
“Only getting the ink off.”
I can see her now, the darling. She had wetted the corner of her
handkerchief with her little pink tongue and was rubbing the Buddha. Her
hands had begun to tremble when he shouted.
“Put it down, can’t you? I’ve told you not to touch my things.”
[Illustration: “I’ve told you not to touch my things.”]
“_You_ inked him,” she said. She was giving one last rub as he rose,
threatening.
“Put—it—down.”
And, poor child, she did put it down. Indeed, she dropped it at his
feet.
“Oh!” she cried out, and stooped quickly and picked it up. Her large
tear-glassed eyes glanced at him, frightened.
“He isn’t broken.”
“No thanks to you,” he growled.
“You beast! You know I’d die rather than break anything you care about.”
“It’ll be broken some day, if you _will_ come meddling.”
I couldn’t bear it. I said, “You mustn’t yell at her like that. You know
she can’t stand it. You’ll make her ill again.”
That sobered him for a moment.
“I’m sorry,” he said; but he made it sound as if he wasn’t.
“If you’re sorry,” she persisted, “you might let me stay with you. I’ll
be as quiet as a mouse.”
“No; I don’t want you—I can’t work with you in the room.”
“You can work with Helen.”
“You’re not Helen.”
“He only means he’s not in love with _me_, dear.”
“He means I’m no use to him. I know I’m not. I can’t even sit on his
manuscripts and keep them down. He cares more for that damned
paper-weight than he does for me.”
“Well—George Meredith gave it me.”
“And nobody gave you me. I gave myself.”
That worked up his devil again. He _had_ to torment her.
“It can’t have cost you much,” he said. “And I may remind you that the
paper-weight has _some_ intrinsic value.”
With that he left her.
“What’s he gone out for?” she asked me.
“Because he’s ashamed of himself, I suppose,” I said. “Oh, Cicely, why
_will_ you answer him? You know what he is.”
“No!” she said passionately—“that’s what I don’t know. I never have
known.”
“At least you know he’s in love with you.”
“He has a queer way of showing it, then. He never does anything but
stamp and shout and find fault with me—all about an old paper-weight!”
She was caressing it as she spoke, stroking the alabaster Buddha as if
it had been a live thing.
“His poor Buddha. Do you think it’ll break if I stroke it? Better
not.... Honestly, Helen, I’d rather die than hurt anything he really
cared for. Yet look how he hurts me.”
“Some men _must_ hurt the things they care for.”
“I wouldn’t mind his hurting, if only I knew he cared. Helen—I’d give
anything to know.”
“I think you might know.”
“I don’t! I don’t!”
“Well, you’ll know some day.”
“Never! He won’t tell me.”
“He’s Scotch, my dear. It would kill him to tell you.”
“Then how’m I to know! If I died to-morrow I should die not knowing.”
And that night, not knowing, she died.
She died because she had never really known.