Early in their engagement Wemyss had expounded his theory to Lucy that
there should be the most perfect frankness between lovers, while as for
husband and wife there oughtn't to be a corner anywhere about either of
them, mind, body, or soul, which couldn't be revealed to the other one.
'You can talk about everything to your Everard,' he assured her. 'Tell
him your innermost thoughts, whatever they may be. You need no more be
ashamed of telling him than of thinking them by yourself. He _is_ you.
You and he are one in mind and soul now, and when he is your husband you
and he will become perfect and complete by being one in body as well.
Everard--Lucy. Lucy--Everard. We shan't know where one ends and the
other begins. That, little Love, is real marriage. What do you think of
it?'
Lucy thought so highly of it that she had no words with which to express
her admiration, and fell to kissing him instead. What ideal happiness,
to be for ever removed from the fear of loneliness by the simple
expedient of being doubled; and who so happy as herself to have found
the exactly right person for this doubling, one she could so perfectly
agree with and understand? She felt quite sorry she had nothing in her
mind in the way of thoughts she was ashamed of to tell him then and
there, but there wasn't a doubt, there wasn't a shred of anything a
little wrong, not even an unworthy suspicion. Her mind was a chalice
filled only with love, and so clear and bright was the love that even at
the bottom, when she stirred it up to look, there wasn't a trace of
sediment.
But marriage--or was it sleeplessness?--completely changed this, and
there were perfect crowds of thoughts in her mind that she was
thoroughly ashamed of. Remembering his words, and whole-heartedly
agreeing that to be able to tell each other everything, to have no
concealments, was real marriage, the day after her wedding she first of
all reminded him of what he had said, then plunged bravely into the
announcement that she'd got a thought she was ashamed of.
Wemyss pricked up his ears, thinking it was something interesting to do
with sex, and waited with an amused, inquisitive smile. But Lucy in such
matters was content to follow him, aware of her want of experience and
of the abundance of his, and the thought that was worrying her only had
to do with a waiter. A waiter, if you please.
Wemyss's smile died away. He had had occasion to reprimand this waiter
at lunch for gross negligence, and here was Lucy alleging he had done so
without any reason that she could see, and anyhow roughly. Would he
remove the feeling of discomfort she had at being forced to think her
own heart's beloved, the kindest and gentlest of men, hadn't been kind
and gentle but unjust, by explaining?
Well, that was at the very beginning. She soon learned that a doubt in
her mind was better kept there. If she brought it out to air it and
dispel it by talking it over with him, all that happened was that he was
hurt, and when he was hurt she instantly became perfectly miserable.
Seeing, then, that this happened about small things, how impossible it
was to talk with him of big things; of, especially, her immense doubt in
regard to The Willows. For a long while she was sure he was bearing her
feeling in mind, since it couldn't have changed since Christmas, and
that when she arrived there she would find that he had had everything
altered and all traces of Vera's life there removed. Then, when he began
to talk about The Willows, she found that such an idea as alterations
hadn't entered his head. She was to sleep in the very room that had been
his and Vera's, in the very bed. And positively, so far was it from true
that she could tell him every thought and talk everything over with him,
when she discovered this she wasn't able to say more than that
hesitating remark on the château terrace at Amboise about supposing he
was going to change his bedroom.
Yet The Willows haunted her, and what a comfort it would have been to
tell him all she felt and let him help her to get rid of her growing
obsession by laughing at her. What a comfort if, even if he had thought
her too silly and morbid to be laughed at, he had indulged her and
consented to alter those rooms. But one learns a lot on a honeymoon,
Lucy reflected, and one of the things she had learned was that Wemyss's
mind was always made up. There seemed to be no moment when it was in a
condition of becoming, and she might have slipped in a suggestion or
laid a wish before him; his plans were sprung upon her full fledged, and
they were unalterable. Sometimes he said, 'Would you like----?' and if
she didn't like, and answered truthfully, as she answered at first
before she learned not to, there was trouble. Silent trouble. A retiring
of Wemyss into a hurt aloofness, for his question was only decorative,
and his little Love should instinctively, he considered, like what he
liked; and there outside this aloofness, after efforts to get at him
with fond and anxious questions, she sat like a beggar in patient
distress, waiting for him to emerge and be kind to her.
Of course as far as the minor wishes and preferences of every day went
it was all quite easy, once she had grasped the right answer to the
question, 'Would you like?' She instantly did like. 'Oh yes--_very_
much!' she hastened to assure him; and then his face continued content
and happy instead of clouding with aggrievement. But about the big
things it wasn't easy, because of the difficulty of getting the right
flavour of enthusiasm into her voice, and if she didn't get it in he
would put his finger under her chin and turn her to the light and repeat
the question in a solemn voice,--precursor, she had learned, of the
beginning of the cloud on his face.
How difficult it was sometimes. When he said to her, 'You'll like the
view from your sitting-room at The Willows,' she naturally wanted to cry
out that she wouldn't, and ask him how he could suppose she would like
what was to her a view for ever associated with death? Why shouldn't she
be able to cry out naturally if she wanted to, to talk to him frankly,
to get his help to cure herself of what was so ridiculous by laughing at
it with him? She couldn't laugh all alone, though she was always trying
to; with him she could have, and so have become quite sensible. For he
was so much bigger than she was, so wonderful in the way he had
triumphed over diseased thinking, and his wholesomeness would spread
over her too, a purging, disinfecting influence, if only he would let
her talk, if only he would help her to laugh. Instead, she found herself
hurriedly saying in a small, anxious voice, 'Oh yes--_very_ much!'
'Is it possible,' she thought, 'that I am abject?'
Yes, she was extremely abject, she reflected, lying awake at night
considering her behaviour during the day. Love had made her so. Love did
make one abject, for it was full of fear of hurting the beloved. The
assertion of the Scriptures that perfect love casteth out fear only
showed, seeing that her love for Everard was certainly perfect, how
little the Scriptures really knew what they were talking about.
Well, if she couldn't tell him the things she was feeling, why couldn't
she get rid of the sorts of feelings she couldn't tell him, and just be
wholesome? Why couldn't she be at least as wholesome about going to that
house as Everard? If anybody was justified in shrinking from The Willows
it was Everard, not herself. Sometimes Lucy would be sure that deep in
his character there was a wonderful store of simple courage. He didn't
speak of Vera's death, naturally he didn't wish to speak of that awful
afternoon, but how often he must think of it, hiding his thoughts even
from her, bearing them altogether alone. Sometimes she was sure of this,
and sometimes she was equally sure of the very opposite. From the way he
looked, the way he spoke, from those tiny indications that one somehow
has noticed without knowing that one has noticed and that are so far
more revealing and conclusive than any words, she sometimes was sure he
really had forgotten. But this was too incredible. She couldn't believe
it. What had perhaps happened, she thought, was that in self-defence,
for the preservation of his peace, he had made up his mind never to
think of Vera. Only by banishing her altogether from his mind would he
be safe. Yet that couldn't be true either, for several times on the
honeymoon he had begun talking of her, of things she had said, of things
she had liked, and it was she, Lucy, who stopped him. She shrank from
hearing anything about Vera. She especially shrank from hearing her
mentioned casually. She was ready to brace herself to talk about her if
it was to be a serious talk, because she wanted to help and comfort him
whenever the remembrance of her death arose to torment him, but she
couldn't bear to hear her mentioned casually. In a way she admired this
casualness, because it was a proof of the supreme wholesomeness Everard
had attained to by sheer courageous determination, but even so she
couldn't help thinking that she would have preferred a little less of
just this kind of wholesomeness in her beloved. She might be too morbid,
but wasn't it possible to be too wholesome? Anyhow she shrank from the
intrusion of Vera into her honeymoon. That, at least, ought to be kept
free from her. Later on at The Willows....
Lucy fought and fought against it, but always at the back of her mind
was the thought, not looked at, slunk away from, but nevertheless fixed,
that there at The Willows, waiting for her, was Vera.