For three days she left this letter unanswered, tempted at moments to
misgiving about herself and the future that spread before her, yet
always in ultimate confidence, rising above the mood that assailed her.
On the third day, receiving another letter of the same remorseful
nature, begging her to write and say she was not in her silence thinking
the worst of him, she sent her reply. To the sure dictation of her
heart, she wrote--
"I have never thought about forgiveness, not once. I can scarcely
believe you wrote these two letters which I have received. Do you
remember once we talked about women wasting their lives beneath the
burden of prejudice? You were the one man I had ever met, you were the
one man, I thought, in all the world, who understood the truth about
women. But I suppose there is something in the very nature of men that
makes it impossible for them to realize the simple forces that make us
what we are. All they see are the thousand conventionalities they have
set about us to complicate us. We are not complicated. It is only the
laws that make us appear so.
"That first of our two nights on the cliffs, did you find me complicated
or difficult of understanding? I showed, as well as gave you myself and
this is how you have treated that revelation. I will not let it make me
unhappy. It could so deeply if I allowed it to get the upper hand. If I
need anything now, now that I know I am going to have a child--don't be
frightened yet, I only feel it in my heart--do you think it is help or
advice for concealment? Do you think it is any assistance to me to know
that all the world will be ashamed of me, but only you are not?
"Why do you even hint about shame to me? Did you think I shared what
you call your weakness? Did you think for those moments that, as you
say of yourself, I forgot or lost restraint?
"Never write to me again. Unfortunately for me, it is you most of all
who could succeed in making me feel ashamed and I will not be ashamed.
What lies before me is not to be endured but to be made wonderful. Will
shame help me to do that?
"Perhaps you think I am an extraordinary woman. You say to yourself,
'Well, if that's her nature, it can't be helped, we've got to go through
with it.' You would not believe me if I told you that all women in
their essence are the same. It is only with so many that the prize of
self-advancement, the hollow dignity of social position, the chimera--I
don't know if I've spelt it right--of good repute, all of which you
offer them if they obey the laws you have made to protect your property,
are more attractive and alluring than the pain and discomfort and
difficulty of bringing children into a competitive world. But you call
this the line of least resistance.
"Because you find the majority of women so ready to be slaves to your
laws do you imagine that they are not in essence the same as me? But
starve one of those women as I and my sisters have been starved by
circumstance, deny to her the first function which justifies her
existence by the side of men with their work, as thousands and thousands
are denied, taking in the end any husband who will fulfill their needs
of life, and you will find her behave as I behaved.
"I have to thank you for one thing. Since I met you, my mind has opened
out and in a lot of things, such as these which I am writing, I can
think in words what a lot of women only feel but cannot express. I have
to thank you too, that for those moments I loved. So many women don't
even do that, not as they understand love.
"All that time together, playing golf, walking and talking on the
cliffs, I felt our minds were at one. That with a woman is the
beginning of love. All unities follow inevitably after that. It is not
so with men. Your letters prove it to me. Perhaps this is why the
formality of marriage is so necessary to make a screen for shame. I
wonder if you realize in how many married women it is a screen and no
more. I know now that to my own mother it was no more than that.
"I had no shame then. I loved. Loving no longer, I still now have no
shame because, and believe me it is not in anger, we have no cause to
meet again. I know I am going to have a child. I know he is going to
be wonderful if I can make him so. I shall get my love from him as he
grows in years and I am sure there is only one love. Passion is only an
expression of it. My life will be fuller than yours with all the
possessions you have. Bringing him up into the world will absorb the
whole heart of me.
"Oh, my dear--I feel a great moment of pain to think what we have lost
and truly I do not forget my gratitude for what I have gained. Never
worry yourself in your thoughts by what you imagine I shall have to
face. I know what my sisters will say, but what they will say will be
no expression of the envy they will feel. I am quite human enough to
find much courage in that.
"When it comes, I expect I shall leave Bridnorth. I confess I am not a
Bombastes. I shall hide my shoes in my cupboard, but none shall step
into them, nevertheless.
"I hate to say this and do not say it in any backbiting spirit. I know
you will think you have to support me. You have not. Fortunately my
share of what we girls have is enough to support me and enable me to
bring him up as I mean him to be brought up. So please send me nothing.
It would hurt me to hurt you by returning it.
"I do not think I can say any more. I count them up--six sheets of
paper. Yet I believe you will read them all.
"Good-by."