One morning Judith stood with her husband at an upper window, watching
the agitated woman as she paced up and down before the house. The
postman was late.
“She watched for him just that way yesterday, Lary. And when he failed
to bring what she was expecting, her disappointment was pitiful.”
“My mother is going through some deep transition. I wish I could help
her; but she has always shut me out. She is a hundred times more frank
and confidential with you than she has ever been with me or with her
own daughters. Do you think, dear, you could induce her to tell you
what is troubling her?”
“I have tried. She talks freely about the emptiness and misery of
her life. She is gnawingly unsatisfied; but she gives no clue. Such
devotion as your father’s ought to have won her, years ago. I spoke
rather plainly to her about it. I knew it would anger her; but I wanted
to shock her into some line of rational thinking. The mention of her
husband’s tenderness only infuriated her. She said such cruel things
about him. And, Lary, he is as much in the dark as we are. He talked to
me about it, Sunday night. Is it possible....”
“What, dear?”
“I wondered if there might be something in her life--long ago--a scar
that is still sensitive--some shock that left a buried impression.”
“A lover, you mean? I hardly think so. She has always teased or
brutally insulted my father with the mention of an old sweetheart of
hers. It seems, they were deadly rivals, and papa won her because of
his clean morals. The other man was the rakish sort--and in a town like
Bromfield--with my mother’s prejudices and the thing that in her case
passes for religious conviction....”
Just then the postman rounded the corner. There was only one letter
for the Trench household, but its effect was electrical. Lavinia took
it from his hand and ran stumbling into the house. At the sill she
dropped to her knees, regained her footing and hurried inside. She had
not opened the envelope, hence its contents could not account for her
perturbed state of mind. It came to Judith ... that the whole future
hung on the tenor of a reply.