2
That night she woke from a deep sleep and knew that Martin was dead: not
an object of horror tossed about decaying by the waves; not a thing
alive somewhere in some nightmare form, appalled at its own death,
watching, accusing, reproaching, desiring, reading the secrets of her
heart; not a Martin going on obliviously in another, beatific life--but
a dead man whose end had chanced upon him swiftly and mercifully, whose
bones were in their grave beside his father’s, quietly mingling with the
earth he loved. Martin had not died out of spite, or because her
crookedness and Roddy’s had somehow wrought upon him like an evil charm
and driven him to be drowned. He had been in high spirits, full of
interest in which she had never played a part and so could never spoil;
and in the midst of his enjoyment he had died. Drowning was a good
death, so people said. Now neither happiness nor unhappiness was
possible to him any more: that was all death meant. He had loved her,
and now she was nothing to him; he was insensible to her remorse and her
regrets. She dared at last to sink in that deep well of sorrow; but its
waters were pure now, and in the end she drew herself from them
refreshed.
To-morrow she would be able to write to Martin’s mother.
3
She wrote, briefly; and when she had finished, the paper was spotted
here and there with irrepressible hot tears; but they were for Martin’s
mother. She would never shed any more for Martin now.
She dried her eyes and wrote to Julian.
My dear,
I was extraordinarily glad to get your letter. I thought I had lost
you as well as everybody else. You have done something for me,
Julian: the thing I thought no one and nothing could do. You have
made my imagination stop shrieking like a fiend in hell about
Martin. It’s not only what you so wisely say about a young man’s
death: it’s the knowing that he was found again, and buried in the
earth as he wanted to be: that he isn’t a derelict, our beloved
Martin, in the unfriendly sea. It has all stopped being monstrous
to me; it is a natural grief and now I can bear to live again. He
was in love with me and I was unkind to him and longed too late to
tell him I never meant to be. That was the trouble. But it is all
over now.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you have told me of
Martin--and of Roddy whom I shall never see again, to whom I may
not write and say how I grieve for his sake. You have done a great
thing for me: so now it will be easier than ever--won’t it?--to
dismiss me from your mind.
Oh, Julian, you wrote to me in a softened mood. Now you are
regretting it, perhaps, or laughing at yourself and me. No, it
never would have done. You imagined me: you say so yourself. Thank
your stars you were spared the boringness, or worse, of seeing me
come true. What coils and glooms and sickened moods poor Martin
perhaps saved us! But I hope and believe we’d have ended it and
parted, laughing, before we’d even thought of crying. I wish you
much success and joy with all the not-impossibles who are to follow
me.
What a year this has been, and how we grow up! Shall I really never
see you again? It would be bathos after the elegant farewells we
are now exchanging: but it may happen.
My harmless Julian, you would not dog a fly--let alone young women
in lonely lanes. I do like you very much and I have the greatest
respect for the high quality of your morals, and if I die a widow
with lots of children I shall bequeath them all to you to bring up.
You will have so many of your own that a few more will make no
difference. Think how happy you’ll be instructing, admonishing and
advising them.
What of Peter and of Mariella?--sad, strange, lovable Mariella and
her child? Their pathos weighs upon me; but I can do nothing. _Only
you can, Julian._ I should have liked news of them. Rumour has it
that the house next door is to be put up for sale.
I am all uprooted, and don’t know what I shall do. I must begin to
make plans. I suppose I shall never emerge from obscurity in any
way. I used to think it a certainty that I should. I see you smile
unkindly.
Yes, I will be Miranda to you, Julian. What we shared meant as much
to me, in a different way, as it did to you; and it will never come
again.
Perhaps there will never be any more inns, with anybody, in my
life. Enchantment has vanished from the world. Perhaps it will
never come back, save in memory. Perhaps I shared with you the last
gleam I shall have of it.