by Ann Bridge
This knowledge, however, did not avail her much with the larger issues raised by finding herself in love with Nicholas. There it was, a most uncomfortable fact. With her conventional standards she had not thought it wrong, though it might be awkward, for Nicholas to be in love with her; but she was certain that it was both wrong and undignified for her to be in love with him. And yet she was. It was very – actually the word she used in her own mind about it was ‘inconvenient’. Lady Kilmichael had no dramatic sense about herself; it never occurred to her to take herself romantically. She had been driven by distress and pain to one violent action in her life, when she had left home; but this new circumstance she met with her usual flat simplicity. It was ‘inconvenient,’ but one just dealt with inconvenient things as well as one could. She couldn’t go away, as Nicholas in the same strait had tried to do, because she had got to stay and nurse him till he was well. So the only thing was to put it down as far as she could, think about it as little as possible, and get on with the job. She hadn’t a great deal of time to think anyhow, just now – she could think it all out later on. It wasn’t really much good reminding herself how wrong it was, even, for the moment, because she had got to behave quite normally; and to be what those psychological books which she so much contemned called ‘guilt-conscious,’ made one tired and embarrassed. So, vaguely humbled within, but practical and serene without, she set her face against analysis, and went quietly on her way.
Dr Halther was a help to her in this. Nicholas’s illness had quietly altered the character of their relationship, from the master-and-pupil aspect which it had had at first to a partnership in a common enterprise, in which Lady Kilmichael was admittedly the senior partner. During the bad days the Doctor hung about, waiting for a chance to ask how the boy was; obeyed orders, fetched and carried, trusted and deferred to her. Now, as the convalescence gave Lady Kilmichael more leisure, enabled her to come down to regular meals, and even to sit in the garden for a little sometimes, they found that a certain ease and intimacy had of itself come into being between them; there was casual talk on minor topics, instead of only those Socratic and soul-shattering conversations of the first few days.
But Socratic conversations were not altogether at an end. One day after lunch as they were sitting by the fountain they found themselves discussing Dr Roget. He was apparently a man of some eminence in Paris, and Halther emphasised their good fortune in having found him in their need.
‘Yes, I suppose he is clever, but I didn’t much like him,’ said Grace. ‘I didn’t feel that he was very’ – she hesitated for a word – ‘valuable,’ she finally brought out. She meant something by that; she had a curious sense, often, that certain people were indefinably valuable, like a rich mine, quite independently of any obvious merits. She had always felt that about Walter – felt it still; she felt it about Nicholas, although apart from his painting she recognised that to all appearance he was just a rather sensitive arrogant boy, subject to alternate fits of moodiness and slightly teasing gaiety. Noticing now that Dr Halther raised his bushy eyebrows at the word, she said something of this to him, but only about Walter. ‘It isn’t only his cleverness, it’s him; and it isn’t only I who think so – other people notice it too,’ she ended.
Dr Halther nodded – a large embracing nod which he used to cover a full comprehension, and by which he economised on many small current phrases. ‘Yes – and even philosophy does not tell us with any exactness how we recognise that value in others. Your husband has obvious intellectual qualities, but we are aware of it in people whose qualities we do not yet know. I see it zum beispiel in young Humphries, of whom I know very little. It is some fineness in the texture of the soul, which we recognise by what used to be called direct apprehension, now an unfashionable expression.’
Grace knew nothing about direct apprehension, but she was pleased that the Professor should think that Nicholas’s soul was of a fine texture.
‘Well, I don’t think Dr Roget has got it,’ she said decidedly.
‘He is probably a very different man from your husband,’ said Halther, amused.
‘Goodness, yes!’ But she said no more.
‘Do you feel that you get a full share of this value in your husband?’ the Doctor asked.
She looked at him, too much at ease now to feel any personal embarrassment at his question.
‘I get a share,’ she said. ‘I think people get what they are able to take, of that sort of thing, don’t you?’
‘This is precisely what I think! But many people, many wives, do not recognise this fact. Especially the wives of very brilliant men are apt to feel that they do not get the share due to them. You do not feel this?’
Grace hesitated a little before she spoke. It would be a help, she felt sure, to talk about herself and Walter to Dr Halther, but a traditional distaste for discussing one’s husband with anyone stood in her way.
‘Not exactly. The value just is there, for those who can take it; and his brilliance – well, that never was my share, you see.’
‘You are wise,’ Halther said. ‘You see clearly the limitations of your share. So many women will not see this, will not be content with the one facet of their husband’s character which belongs to them; the side of him which first turned to them and is theirs. They will not recognise this – no, he shall be all to them! And when they marry they throw aside their work, their interests, very often their friends – and expect this one man then to fill their whole life, to be friends, interests, occupations to them. It is Unsinn! How many men could do this, even with the leisure and the inclination?’
The word inclination made Grace laugh.
‘No, but it is true, gnädige Frau.’
‘Yes, I know it’s true – we do tend to do that.’ She was wondering which facet of Walter’s character it was which really belonged to her, which had first turned to her. None of him seemed to belong to her now!
‘Not you, I think,’ he said. ‘You are much too wise. You leave him free for his work, his friends, and just take your proper share, contentedly.’
Grace did not answer at once. This praise made her ashamed, it was so far from the truth. She wanted Walter’s affection, which she felt she had lost; and though she did not resent his work, his preoccupation with economists who seemed to her dull, and gloried secretly in his fame, she did grudge his interest in Rose, who could share those things which she could not. She had been really jealous of Rose. It was true that she had her work to occupy her, that she was not as much without resources as some women she knew – but given that advantage, how far from wise she had been! She could not really sit down under the Doctor’s encomiums.
‘No,’ she said at last. ‘I’m not like that at all. I’m grudging and discontented and’ – she checked the word jealous – ‘a failure, really. You are quite mistaken about me.’
‘Then I am twice mistaken,’ he said cheerfully. Something in the tone of his voice made her look up at him – she had been staring at the jet of the fountain, rising and falling against the silver foliage of the buckthorn, while she spoke. There was a curious illuminated sparkle of amusement in his whole face, as bright and visible as the crystal glitter of the sunlit water drops.
‘You’re making fun of me!’ she said, startled.
‘Verzeihung, gnädige Frau! It is true – I do this.’
‘But why?’ She was almost hurt.
‘Because I wished that you should speak the truth about yourself and your husband, and I have twice seen that you do not care to do so, to admit that you are unsatisfied. You think that you shall be disloyal. But it is also my impression that it is not only on account of the little daughter that you leave your home. So I use a little art – I have laid a trap for your honesty!’
There was something so benevolent, so nice, about his self-satisfaction as he said this that Grace could not resent it.
‘Well, I’ve fallen into your trap,’ she said, smiling – but almost at once her face grew grave again.
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bsp; ‘Gnädige Frau, may I say something?’ She nodded. ‘See, I am Philosoph, and my work – the work of the philosopher – is to understand the nature of things – the universe, if you will. But of the universe human life is a part, and this too must be understood, and set in its true relation to the rest. To do this is for the individual in itself a liberation; to place oneself in a category can be helpful as well as accurate! One’s sorrows then do not darken so much of the sky. But many are unwilling thus to reduce their own importance! And married people are often reluctant, as you are, to speak openly of the facts of their life. This instinct of loyalty is in itself good; but if it shall hinder a recognition of things which are a source of failure and pain – pain, gnädige Frau, to both – it may be well to put it aside. You have said that you are a failure – do you think that it pleases your husband to have you so?’
It was the fact that Grace Kilmichael, in all her months of self-doubt and self-accusation, had never asked herself that question. She had wondered why Walter had stopped caring for her, why he treated her with such chilly derision, and had asked herself where she was in fault – but it had simply never occurred to her to wonder whether Walter minded the terms they were now on. She had felt them to be imposed by him, and had supposed vaguely that he had stopped caring because he wanted to! Under the impact of this new idea, with all the possibilities which it opened up, she sat silent for some time.
‘You are quite right,’ she said at last, ‘about everything. It isn’t only Linnet, it is my husband too. And I have wanted to talk to you about it, but I felt – just what you say. But now I should like to – I think I’d better really.’
She paused, trying to get clear in her mind what she wished to say. Dr Halther gave his large comprehending nod again.
‘There are two separate things, I think,’ she began. ‘My husband isn’t so fond of me as he was – but perhaps that’s only to be expected.’ (She still could not bring herself to mention Rose.) ‘But because of that, or for some reason, the other thing has begun. I never was clever, but he used not to mind that – if he teased me, he did it nicely; I liked it. But now he does it differently – unsympathetically, somehow. So I’ve got nervous about it; I seem to have lost my initiative. They can all put me down now, about everything. I feel’ – she paused for a word – ‘dominated by them all. I think all the time – ‘Will Walter think that silly?’ before I say anything; I’m almost afraid to speak about some things. But lately I have thought that that in itself might irritate him.’
Halther looked sardonic. ‘It most certainly will! But go on.’
She looked at him, and then looked away again, in front of her, as was her habit when she was thinking as she spoke.
‘There isn’t much more. I think what you said the other day about amour propre, and freedom, will help me about all this. But I haven’t had much time yet to think out how, because Nicholas has been ill ever since, and I’ve been so busy.’
He nodded. ‘Gnädige Frau, here is a point. In this illness you have shown no lack of initiative; here all have depended on you and your judgement. Nicht wahr?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘I think it probable,’ he said, ‘that in your life at home there are also spheres in which all depend on you, or would wish to – the ménage, health – and matters of conduct, gnädige Frau. If you have abdicated your authority in these, you have failed your family – and this shall irritate them all, but in chief your husband. It is your amour propre – inverted, as we say – which has made you abandon an authority, an initiative, which they really wish you to exercise, whether they realise it or not.’
Some of Nicholas’s statements about Mrs Humphries and Celia darted into Grace’s head at this point – they confirmed the Doctor’s words.
‘I shouldn’t wonder if that is true,’ she said thoughtfully.
‘I would risk much money that it is true!’ Halther said emphatically. ‘And I believe, meine Gnädigste, that I could even suggest the history of this abdication, from the general history of the subject.’
‘Do then, please. I should like to hear.’
Out came the Doctor’s diagrammatic hand again. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Physical love in time cools; this is a natural law. But women will not expect this, since they will not be in a category, or study general laws; therefore this most natural thing they take as a personal failure, an individual loss. And they either resent it, or are discouraged by it, or both.’ He stopped tapping off his points on his outspread fingers, and looked at her. ‘You I think have not resented it, but discouraged by it you have been.’
She nodded, in silence.
‘Then you turn to your children, and cling to them. But in time this support also fails you; the children will now be independent, lead their own lives. And again ignoring a universal law, the law of growth, you grasp, hold on to your children; you seek to prolong by force a state which is outgrown and therefore unnatural – and when you fail, as you inevitably must, you are confronted with what seems to you a second personal defeat. And you lose courage then. All the rest flows from that.’
Still Lady Kilmichael was silent. They were hard words, but her heart listened to them.
‘Is this true?’ he asked her at last, with a sort of gentle doggedness.
‘Yes,’ she said, turning to him with tears in her eyes. ‘It is true.’
Dr Halther smoked in silence for a little while. At last – ‘Do you read the Bible?’ he asked.
‘Sometimes. I know it pretty well.’
‘I am not a Christian,’ he said, ‘but I recognise in Christ a great philosopher, and a greater psychologist. There is a word for you in his teaching. See if you can find it.’
Grace made no answer, beyond a slight nod. Presently she looked at her watch, and got up. ‘I must go in,’ she said. ‘Thank you very much, Doctor Halther. You are very good to me.’
‘No – but you shall yourself be “good,” as you call it,’ he said, as she started to cross the lawn. Grace hardly heard him. She was wondering which word Dr Halther meant. She was almost sure that she knew. And all that afternoon, while she read to Nicholas, she wondered just how the truth would make her free.
It occurred to her that evening, with something of a shock, that they ought to have written to tell the Humphries family of Nicholas’s illness. While he had been critically ill there had been no time to think of anything, but during these last few days, since he was out of danger, it ought to have been done. It was very negligent of her not to have thought of it. She mentioned it to Dr Halther at supper. They had gone up together after tea, by Nicholas’s urgent wish, to get a root of the blue plant which grew among the irises, and only returned just as Maria was preparing to bring in the soup. Grace ran up to Nicholas, taking the plant with her; while she heated his supper and gave him his tray she answered his questions about it.
‘Yes, it is one of the Boragy – whatever-they-ares. It’s called Moltkia petraea. He says it’s a plant of the Tertiary Epoch.’
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘I’ve no idea – I’m only repeating what he said,’ said Grace gaily. The walk had done her good; she felt better than she had done for days. ‘He said it was a plant of the Tertiary Epoch, and an endogene of the Balkan area, whatever that may be. Anyhow it only grows in this part of the world. He’ll tell you about it – he’s coming up to see you after dinner.’
‘We must get a tin and send it to my Mamma,’ said Nicholas. ‘She’d love it. I hope it will grow.’
‘Well, let me put it in the jug now, and have your supper.’ But the mention of ‘my Mamma’ put the idea of writing into her head, and when she went down she spoke of it to the Professor.
‘Yes, this is necessary,’ he agreed.
‘Will you do it? I’ll get you the address.’
‘I think you do it much better than I. Moreover I do not know these people.’
‘But neither do I.’ She was tempted to make him do it; with a little pushing sh
e was sure she could. But some new impulse decided her not to shirk, and when Dr Halther went up to see Nicholas she settled down and wrote to his mother.
And while she wrote to Mrs Humphries, whom she did not know, Linnet was writing, as so often, to her best friend, from the Mindora Star:
We saw Syracuse today. It is quite marvellous. Poppy and I went round with an old Frenchman, one of his favourite Bridge four, who reeled off no end of classical stuff. But Poppy knew rather a lot too – Thucydides and all sorts; I was quite surprised. The General, my dear, had some military map of the place – it seems there was a battle there or something – and worked it all out again at dinner with the forks! The girl did a picture – a complete poster, it seemed to me – no drawing whatever, and no depth; but I suppose Mums makes one rather intolerant of amateurs. How soured she would be – the girl I mean – to be called an amateur! She goes to the Slade and feels enormously professional. Quite nice, really; in fact rather a resource – we think the same things funny. She’s a niece of that appalling Lady Roseneath, strange as it may seem.