Four days in every week Jane had a letter from Gertrude and once a week
a letter from Brodrick. She was thus continually assured that all was
well and that Brodrick was very comfortable with Gertrude.
She was justified in staying on, since her genius had come back to her,
divinely placable, divinely propitiated and appeased.
She knew that in a measure she owed this supreme reconciliation to
George Tanqueray. Her genius was virile. He could not give it anything,
nor could it have taken anything he gave. He was passive to her vision
and humble, on his knees, as he always had been, before a kindred
immortality. What he did for her was to see her idea as she saw it, but
so that through his eyes she saw steadily and continuously its power and
perfection. She was aware that in the last five years she had grown
dependent on him for that. For five years he had lifted her out of the
abyss when she had found herself falling. Through all the surgings and
tossings that had beset her he had kept her from sinking into the trough
of the wave. Never once had he let go his hold till he had seen her
riding gaily on the luminous crest.
His presence filled her with a deep and strong excitement. For two
years, in their long separations, she had found that her craving for it
was at times unbearable. She knew that when her flame died down and she
was in terror of extinction, she had only to send for him to have her
fear taken from her. She had only to pick up a book of his, to read a
sentence of his, and she would feel herself afire again. Everything
about him, his voice, his look, the touch of his hand, had this
penetrating, life-giving quality.
Three weeks passed and Tanqueray was still staying in his inn at
Chagford. In the mornings they worked, he on his book and she on hers.
She saw him every afternoon or evening. Sometimes they took long walks
together over the moors. Sometimes they wandered in the deep lanes.
Sometimes, in rainy weather, they sat indoors, talking. In the last five
years Tanqueray (who never used to show his work) had brought all his
manuscripts for her to read. He brought them now. Sometimes she read to
him what she had written. Sometimes he read to her. Sometimes he left
his manuscript with her and took hers away with him. They discussed
every doubtful point together, they advised each other and consulted.
Sometimes they talked of other things. She was aware that the flame he
kindled leaned to him, drawn by his flame. She kept it high. She wanted
him to see how divine it was, and how between him and her there could be
no question of passion that was not incorruptible, a fiery intellectual
thing.
But every day Tanqueray walked up from the village to the farm. She
looked on his coming as the settled, natural thing. Brodrick continued
to assure her that the children were happy without her, and that he was
very comfortable with Gertrude; and Tanqueray reiterated that it was all
right, all perfectly right.
One day he arrived earlier than usual, about eleven o'clock. He proposed
that they should walk together over the moor to Post Bridge, lunch at
the inn there and walk back. Distance was nothing to them.
They set out down the lane. There had been wind at dawn. Southwards,
over the hills, the clouds were piled up to the high sun in a riot and
glory of light and storm. The hills were dusk under their shadow.
The two swung up the long slopes at a steady pace, rejoicing in the
strong movement of their limbs. It was thus that they used to set out
together long ago, on their "days," over the hills of Buckinghamshire
and Hertfordshire. Jane remarked that her state now was almost equal to
that great freedom. And they talked of Brodrick.
"There aren't many husbands," she said, "who would let their wives go
off like this for months at a time."
"Not many. He has his merits."
"When you think of the life I lead him at home it takes heaps off his
merit. The kindest thing I can do to him is to go away and stay away.
George, you don't know how I've tormented the poor darling."
"I can imagine."
"He was an angel to bear it."
She became pensive at the recollection.
"Sometimes I wonder whether I ought, really, to have married. You told
me that I oughtn't."
"When?"
"Six years ago."
"Well--I'm inclined to say so still. Only, the unpardonable sin in a
great artist--isn't so much marrying as marrying the wrong person."
"He isn't the wrong person for me. But I'm afraid I'm the wrong person
for him."
"It comes to the same thing."
"Not altogether." She pondered. "No doubt God had some wise purpose when
he made Hugh marry me. I can see the wise purpose in Owen's marrying
Laura, and the wise purpose in his not marrying Nina; but when it comes
to poor, innocent Hugh tying himself up for ever and ever with a woman
like me----"
"Don't put it on God. His purpose was wise enough."
"What was it?"
"Why--obviously--that I should have married you, that Hugh should have
married Gertrude, and that some reputable young draper should have
married Rose."
"Poor little Rose!"
"Poor little Rose would have been happy with her draper; Gertrude would
have been happy with Brodrick; you--no, I, would have been divinely
happy with you."