Sunday.
Terry looked better in the morning; I asked him if he had slept well,
and he replied: "Oh, yes, I was so very tired after last night.... _Last
night_! Doesn't it seem years away? And isn't it comfortable to be back
here?"
"Yes," I agreed. "Mizzi has a genius for making things comfortable."
He seemed surprised at my mentioning her. "I suppose it _is_ Mizzi," he
said, after a pause, and seemed to ponder over the matter.
Not till breakfast was over did he mention the letters, and then only
because I took the opportunity of handing them back to him. He seemed
afraid that I might discuss them with him; he told me that he didn't
want me ever to mention them; but that he hoped they had made me
realize. What he hoped they had made me realize he didn't say, but I
presumed he meant his own overwhelming guilt.... But he wouldn't discuss
the matter further. The thing of immediate importance, he said, was the
letter to Helen that he was going to write.
I seized the opportunity then of giving him a straight talk about his
health. I told him frankly that he seemed to me to be on the verge of a
serious breakdown, and rather to my surprise he didn't indignantly deny
it. He even admitted that he had been working too hard and that he
needed a holiday. "I'll take one," he said, "as soon as all this
business is settled. I'll go to Salzburg or Ischl or somewhere--Mizzi
will advise me...." He smiled his familiar half-smile and added: "You
needn't worry--_I_ shall be all right."
He didn't mention his work, and when I ventured a remark, he said: "Just
now--for the time--I can't think of it. That's why I daresay you're
right--I _do_ need a rest.... But before I have it, I must earn it--I
must undo, if I can, some of the harm I've done...."
Soon after that I left him to compose his letter to Helen. It was
something, at any rate, that he had agreed to take a holiday, but Mizzi,
when I told her, was less impressed. "He has promised scores of times,"
she said, "but always--at the last moment--there has been an excuse."
The morning dragged on, and then literally, as well as metaphorically,
came the clouds. It was raining hard at mid-day, and when I went up to
his room I found him with a blank writing-pad in front of him and
weariness in his eyes. For two hours he had been trying to write, and
not a word would come--not a word.
Nor could I help him. The more I pondered, the more impossible seemed
the idea of writing to her at all. And yet, for his own sake, it was
necessary, his only hope lay in supposing that he could undo what he
believed himself to have done. I urged him not to worry about it--to
leave it for a while, at any rate. And he turned to me then with a look
of sad finality and replied: "But you see, it must--it _must_--catch
to-night's mail...."
We had lunch, and then, inexorably, he went back to his desk. I tried
once or twice to make suggestions, but he seemed to mistrust them.
Words, he said, came easily to me because I was a journalist, but they
were no good to him unless they were the words _he_ wanted.... He didn't
want her to think this ... or that ... but something in
between--something elusive and perfect--something in his own mind that
ever evaded pursuit. If only he could make her see everything as _he_ saw
it.... If only the words would come, one after the other in a constant
stream, without any agonizing search for them.... But I wondered myself
if there _were_ any words for what he felt.