Chapter 15

It was no wonder if Maisie was hysterical. His life with her was all wrong, all horribly unnatural. She ought to have had children. Or he ought never to have married her. It had been all wrong from the beginning. Perhaps she had been aware that there was something missing. Perhaps not. Maisie had seemed always singularly unaware. That was because she didn't care for him. Perhaps, if he had loved her passionately she would have cared more. Perhaps not. Maisie was incurably cold. She shrank from the slightest gesture of approach; she was afraid of any emotion. She was one of those unhappy women who are born with an aversion from warm contacts, who cannot give themselves. What puzzled him was the union of such a temperament with Maisie's sweetness and her charm He had noticed that other men adored her. He knew that if it had not been for Anne he might have adored her, too. And again he wondered whether it would have made any difference to Maisie if he had.

He thought not. She was happy, as it was, in her gentle, unexcited way. Happy and at peace. Giving happiness and peace, if peace were what you wanted. It was that happiness and peace of Maisie's that had drawn him to her when he gave Anne up three years ago.

And again he couldn't understand this combination of hysteria and perfect peace. He couldn't understand Maisie.

Perhaps, after all, she had got what she had wanted. She wouldn't have been happy and at peace if she had been married to some brute who would have had no pity, who would have insisted on his rights. Some faithful brute; or some brute no more faithful to her than he, who had been faithful only to Anne.

As he thought of Anne darkness came down over his brain. His mind struggled through it, looking for the light.

The entrance of his friends cut short his struggling.

ii

Maisie lay on the couch in the library, and Anne sat with her. Maisie's eyes had been closed, but now they had opened, and Anne saw them looking at her and smiling.

"You are a darling, Anne; but I wish you'd gone with Jerrold."

"I don't. I wouldn't have liked it a bit."

"_He_ would, though."

"Not when he thought of you left here all by yourself."

Maisie smiled again.

"Jerry doesn't think, thank Goodness."

"Why 'thank Goodness'?"

"Because I don't want him to. I don't want him to see."

"To see what?"

"Why, that I can't do things like other people."

"Maisie--_why_ can't you? You used to. Jerrold's told me how you used to rush about, dancing and golfing and playing tennis."

"Why? Did he say anything?"

"Only that you took a lot of exercise, and he thinks it's awfully bad for you knocking it all off now."

"Dear old Jerry. Of course he must think it frightfully stupid. But I can't help it, Anne. I can't do things now like I used to. I've got to be careful."

"But--why?"

"Because there's something wrong with my heart. Jerry doesn't know it. I don't want him to know."

"You don't mean seriously wrong?"

"Not very serious. But it hurts."

"Hurts?"

"Yes. And the pain frightens me. Every time it comes I think I'm going to die. But I don't die."

"Oh--_Maisie_--what sort of pain?"

"A disgusting pain, Anne. As if it was full of splintered glass, mixed up with bubbling blood, cutting and tearing. It grabs at you and you choke; you feel as if your face would burst. You're afraid to breathe for fear it should come again."

"But, Maisie, that's angina."

"It isn't real angina; but it's awful, all the same. Oh, Anne, what must the real thing be like?"

"Have you seen a doctor?"

"Yes, two. A man in London and a man in Torquay."

"Do they say it isn't the real thing?"

"Yes. It's all nerves. But it's every bit as bad as if it was real, except that I can't die of it."

"Poor little Maisie--I didn't know."

"I didn't mean you to know. But I _had_ to tell somebody. It's so awful being by yourself with it and being frightened. And then I'm afraid all the time of Jerrold finding out. I'm afraid of his _seeing_ me when it comes on."

"But, Maisie darling, he ought to know. You ought to tell him."

"No. I haven't told my father and mother because they'd tell him. Luckily it's only come on in the night, so that he hasn't seen. But it might come on anywhere, any minute. If I'm excited or anything ... That's the awful thing, Anne; I'm afraid of getting excited. I'm afraid to feel. I'm afraid of everything that makes me feel. I'm afraid of Jerrold's touching me, even of his saying something nice to me. The least thing makes my silly heart tumble about, and if it tumbles too much the pain comes. I daren't let Jerrold sleep with me."

"Yet you haven't told him."

"No; I daren't."

"You _must_ tell him, Maisie."

"I won't. He'd mind horribly. He'd be frightened and miserable, and I can't bear him to be frightened and miserable. He's had enough. He's been through the war. I don't mean that that frightened him; but this would."

"Do you mean to say he doesn't see it?"

"Bless you, no. He just thinks I'm tiresome and hysterical. I'd rather he thought that than see him unhappy. Nothing in the world matters but Jerrold. You see I care for him so frightfully.... You don't know how awful it is, caring like that, and yet having to beat him back all the time, never to give him anything. I daren't let him come near me because of that ghastly fright. I know you oughtn't to be afraid of pain, but it's a pain that makes you afraid. Being afraid's all part of it. So I can't help it."

"Of course you can't help it."

"I wouldn't mind if it wasn't for Jerry. I ought never to have married him."

"But, Maisie, I can't understand it. You're always so happy and calm. How can you be calm and happy with _that_ hanging over you?"

"I've got to be calm for fear of it. And I'm happy because Jerrold's there. Simply knowing that he's there.... I can't think what I'd do, Anne, if he wasn't such an angel. Some men wouldn't be. They wouldn't stand it. And that makes me care all the more. He'll never know how I care."

"You must tell him."

"There it is. I daren't even try to tell him. I just live in perpetual funk."

"And you're the bravest thing that ever lived."

"Oh, I've got to cover it up. It wouldn't do to show it. But I'm glad I've told you."

She leaned back, panting.

"I mustn't talk--any more now."

"No. Rest."

"You won't mind?... But--get a book--and read. You'll be--so bored."

She shut her eyes.

Anne got a book and tried to read it; but the words ran together, grey lines tangled on a white page. Nothing was clear to her but the fact that Maisie had told the truth about herself.

It was the worst thing that had happened yet. It was the supreme reproach, the ultimate disaster and defeat. Yet Maisie had not told her anything that surprised her. This was the certainty that hid behind the defences of their thought, the certainty she had foreseen when Jerrold told her about Maisie's coldness. It meant that Jerrold couldn't escape, and that his punishment would be even worse than hers. Nothing that Maisie could have done would have been more terrible to Jerrold than her illness and the way she had hidden it from him; the poor darling going in terror of it, lying in bed alone, night after night, shut in with her terror. Jerrold was utterly vulnerable; his belief in Maisie's indifference had been his only protection against remorse. How was he going to bear Maisie's wounding love? How would he take the knowledge of it?

Anne saw what must come of his knowing. It would be the end of their happiness. After this they would have to give each other up; he would never take her in his arms again; he would never come to her again in the fields between midnight and dawn. They couldn't go on unless they told Maisie the truth; and they couldn't tell Maisie the truth now, because the truth would bring the pain back to her poor little heart. They could never be straight with her; they would have to hide what they had done for ever. Maisie had silenced them for ever when she got her truth in first. To Anne it was not thinkable, either that they should go on being lovers, knowing about Maisie, or that she should keep her knowledge to herself. She would tell Jerrold and end it.

iii

She stayed on with Maisie till the evening.

Jerrold had come back and was walking home with her through the Manor fields when she made up her mind that she would tell him now; at the next gate--the next--when they came to the belt of firs she would tell him.

She stopped him there by the fence of the plantation. The darkness hid them from each other, only their faces and Anne's white coat glimmered through.

"Wait a minute, Jerrold. I want to tell you something. About Maisie."

He drew himself up abruptly, and she felt the sudden start and check of his hurt mind.

"You haven't told her?" he said.

"No. It's something she told me. She doesn't want you to know. But you've got to know it. You think she doesn't care for you, and she does; she cares awfully. But--she's ill."

"Ill? She isn't, Anne. She only thinks she is. I know Maisie."

"You don't know that she gets heart attacks. Frightful pain, Jerrold, pain that terrifies her."

"My God--you don't mean she's got _angina_?"

"Not the real kind. If it was that she'd be dead. But pain so bad that she thinks she's dying every time. It's what they call false angina. That's why she doesn't want you to sleep with her, for fear it'll come on and you'll see her."

Through the darkness she could feel the vibration of his shock; it came to her in his stillness.

"You said she didn't feel. She's afraid to feel because feeling brings it on."

He spoke at last. "Why on earth couldn't she tell me that?"

"Because she loves you so awfully. The poor darling didn't want you to be unhappy about her."

"As if that mattered."

"It matters more than anything to her."

"Do you really mean that she's got that hellish thing? Who told her what it was?"

"Some London doctor and a man at Torquay."

"I shall take her up to-morrow and make her see a specialist."

"If you do you mustn't let her know I told you, or she'll never tell me anything again."

"What am I to say?"

"Say you've been worried about her."

"God knows I ought to have been."

"You're worried about her, and you think there's something wrong. If she says there isn't, you'll say that's what you want to be sure of."

"Look here; how do those fellows know it isn't the real thing?"

"Oh, they can tell that by the state of her heart. I don't suppose for a moment it's the real thing. She wouldn't be alive if it was. And you don't die of false angina. It's all nerves, though it hurts like sin."

He was silent for a second.

"Anne--she's beaten us. We can't tell her now."

"No. And we can't go on. If we can't be straight about it we've got to give each other up."

"I know. We can't go on. There's nothing more to be said."

His voice dropped on her aching heart with the toneless weight of finality.

"We've got to end it now, this minute," she said. "Don't come any farther."

"Let me go to the bottom of the field."

"No. I'm not going that way."

He had come close to her now, close, as though he would have taken her in his arms for the last night, the last time. He wanted to touch her, to hold her back from the swallowing darkness. But she moved out of his reach and he did not follow her. His passion was ready to flame up if he touched her, and he was afraid. They must end it clean, without a word or a touch.

The grass drive between the firs led to a gate on the hill road that skirted the Manor fields. He knew that she would go from him that way, because she didn't want to pass by their shelter at the bottom. She couldn't sleep in it tonight.

He stood still and watched her go, her white coat glimmering in the darkness between the black rows of firs. The white gate glimmered at the end of the drive. She stood there a moment. He saw her slip like a white ghost between the gate and the gate post; he heard the light thud of the wooden latch falling back behind her, and she was gone.

XVII

JERROLD, MAISIE, ANNE, ELIOT

i

Maisie lay in bed, helpless and abandoned to her illness. It was no good trying to cover it up and hide it any more. Jerrold knew.

The night when he left Anne he had gone up to Maisie in her room. He couldn't rest unless he knew that she was all right. He had stooped over her to kiss her and she had sat up, holding her face to him, her hands clasped round his neck, drawing him close to her, when suddenly the pain gripped her and she lay back in his arms, choking, struggling for breath.

Jerrold thought she was dying. He waited till the pain passed and she was quieted, then he ran downstairs and telephoned for Ransome. He looked on in agony while Ransome's stethoscope wandered over Maisie's thin breast and back. It seemed to him that Ransome was taking an unusually long time about it, that he must be on the track of some terrible discovery. And when Ransome took the tubes from his ears and said, curtly, "Heart quite sound; nothing wrong there," he was convinced that Ransome was an old fool who didn't know his business. Or else he was lying for Maisie's sake.

Downstairs in the library he turned on him.

"Look here; there's no good lying to me. I want truth."

"My dear Fielding, I shouldn't dream of lying to you. There's nothing wrong with your wife's heart. Nothing organically wrong."

"With that pain? She was in agony, Ransome, agony. Why can't you tell me at once that it's angina?"

"Because it isn't. Not the real thing. False angina's a neurosis, not a heart disease. Get the nervous condition cured and she'll be all right. Has she had any worry? Any shock?"

"Not that I know."

"Any cause for worry?"

He hesitated. Poor Maisie had had cause enough if she had known. But she didn't know. It seemed to him that Ransome was looking at him queerly.

"No," he said. "None."

"You're quite certain? Has she ever had any?"

"Well, I suppose she was pretty jumpy all the time I was at the front."

"Before that? Years ago?"

"That I don't know. I should say not."

"You won't swear?"

"No. I won't swear. It would be years before we were married."

"Try and find out," said Ransome. "And keep her quiet and happy. She'd better stay in bed for a week or two."

So Maisie stayed in bed, and Jerrold and Anne sat with her, together or in turn. He had a bed made up in her room and slept there when he slept at all. But half the night he lay awake, listening for the sound of her panting and the little gasping cry that would come when the pain got her. He kept on getting up to look at her and make sure that she was sleeping.

He was changed from his old happy, careless self, the self that used to turn from any trouble, that refused to believe that the people it loved could be ill and die. He was convinced that Maisie's state was dangerous. He sent for Dr. Harper of Cheltenham and for a nerve specialist and a heart specialist from London and they all told him the same thing. And he wouldn't believe them. Because Maisie's death was the most unbearable thing that his remorse could imagine, he felt that nothing short of Maisie's death would appease the powers that punished him. He was the more certain that Maisie would die because he had denied that she was ill. For Jerrold's mind remembered everything and anticipated nothing. Like most men who refuse to see or foresee trouble, he was crushed by it when it came.

The remorse he felt might have been less intolerable if he had been alone in it; but, day after day, his pain was intensified by the sight of Anne's pain. She was exquisitely vulnerable, and for every pang that stabbed her he felt himself responsible. What they had done they had done together, and they suffered for it together, but in the beginning she had done it for him, and he had made her do it. Nobody, not even Maisie, could have been more innocent than Anne. He had no doubt that, left to herself, she would have hidden her passion from him to the end of time. He, therefore, was the cause of her suffering.

It was as if Anne's consciousness were transferred to him, day after day, when they sat together in Maisie's room, one on each side of her bed, while Maisie lay between them, sleeping her helpless and reproachful sleep, and he saw Anne's piteous face, white with pain. His pity for Maisie and his pity for Anne, their pity for each other were mixed together and held them, close as passion, in an unbearable communion.

They looked at each other, and their wounded eyes said, day after day, the same thing: "Yes, it hurts. But I could bear it if it were not for you." Their pity took the place of passion. It was as if a part of each other passed into them with their suffering as it had passed into them with their joy.

ii

And through it all their passion itself still lived its inextinguishable and tortured life. Pity, so far from destroying it, only made it stronger, pouring in its own emotion, wave after wave, swelling the flood that carried them towards the warm darkness where will and thought would cease.

And as Jerrold's soul had once stirred in the warm darkness under the first stinging of remorse, so now it pushed and struggled to be born; all his will fought against the darkness to deliver his soul. His soul knew that Anne saved it. If her will had been weaker his would not have been so strong. At this moment an unscrupulous Anne might have damned him to the sensual hell by clinging to his pity. He would have sinned because he was sorry for her.

But Anne's will refused his pity. When he showed it she was angry. Yet it was there, waiting for her always, against her will.

One day in October (Maisie's illness lasting on into the autumn) they had gone out into the garden to breathe the cold, clean air while Maisie slept.

"Jerrold," she said, suddenly, "do you think she knows?"

"No. I'm certain she doesn't."

"I'm not. I've an awful feeling that she knows and that's why she doesn't get better."

"I don't think so. If she knew she'd have said something or done something."

"She mightn't. She mightn't do anything. Perhaps she's just being angelically good to us."

"She _is_ angelically good. But she doesn't know. You forget her illness began before there _was_ anything to know. It isn't the sort of thing she'd think of. If somebody told her she wouldn't believe it. She trusts us absolutely.... That's bad enough, Anne, without her knowing."

"Yes. It's bad enough. It's worse, really."

"I know it is.... Anne--I'm awfully sorry to have let you in for all this misery."

"You mustn't be sorry. You haven't let me in for it. Nobody could have known it would have happened. It wouldn't, if Maisie had been different. We wouldn't have bothered then. Nothing would have mattered. Think how gloriously happy we were. All my life all my happiness has come through you or because of you. We'd be happy still if it wasn't for Maisie."

"I don't see how we're to go on like this. I can't stand it when you're not happy. And nothing makes any difference, really. I want you so awfully all the time."

"That's one of the things we mustn't say to each other."

"I know we mustn't. Only I didn't want you to think I didn't."

"I don't think it. I know you'll care for me as long as you live. Only you mustn't say so. You mustn't be sorry for me. It makes me feel all weak and soft when I want to be strong and hard."

"You _are_ strong, Anne."

"So are you. I shouldn't love you if you weren't. But we mustn't make it too hard for each other. You know what'll happen if we do?"

"What? You mean we'd crumple up and give in?"

"No. But we couldn't ever see each other alone again. Never see each other again at all, perhaps. I'd have to go away."

"You shan't have to. I swear I won't say another word."

"Sometimes I think it would be easier for you if I went."

"It wouldn't. It would be simply damnable. You can't go, Anne. That _would_ make Maisie think."

iii

After weeks of rest Maisie passed into a period of painless tranquillity. She had no longer any fear of her illness because she had no longer any fear of Jerrold's knowing about it. He did know, and yet her world stood firm round her, firmer than when he had not known. For she had now in Jerrold's ceaseless devotion what seemed to her the absolute proof that he cared for her, if she had ever doubted it. And if he had doubted her, hadn't he the absolute proof that she cared, desperately? Would she have so hidden the truth from him, would she have borne her pain and the fear of it, in that awful lonely secrecy, if she had not cared for him more than for anything on earth? She had been more afraid to sleep alone than poor Colin who had waked them with his screaming. Jerrold knew that she was not a brave woman like Anne or Colin's wife, Queenie; it was out of her love for him that she had drawn the courage that made her face, night after night, the horror of her torment alone. If he had wanted proof, what better proof could he have than that?

So Maisie remained tranquil, secure in her love for Jerrold, and in his love for her, while Anne and Jerrold were tortured by their love for each other. They were no longer sustained in their renunciation by the sight of Maisie's illness and the fear of it which more than anything had held back their passion. Without that warning fear they were exposed at every turn. It might be there, waiting for them in the background, but, with Maisie going about as if nothing had happened, even remorse had lost its protective poignancy. They suffered the strain of perpetual frustration. They were never alone together now. They had passed from each other, beyond all contact of spirit with spirit and flesh with flesh, beyond all words and looks of longing; they had nothing of each other but sight, sight that had all the violence of touch without its satisfaction, that served only to excite them, to torture them with desire. They might be held at arm's length, at a room's length, at a field's length apart, but their eyes drew them together, set their hearts beating; in one moment of seeing they were joined and put asunder.

And, day after day, their minds desired each other with a subtle, incessant, intensely conscious longing, and were utterly cut off from all communion. They met now at longer and longer intervals, for their work separated them. Colin had come home in October, perfectly recovered, and he and Jerrold managed the Manor estate together while Anne looked after her own farm. Jerrold never saw her, he never tried to see her unless Colin or Maisie or some of the farm people were present; he was afraid and Anne knew that he was afraid. Her sense of his danger made her feel herself fragile and unstable. She, too, avoided every occasion of seeing him alone.

And this separation, so far from saving them, defeated its own end. Every day it brought them nearer to the breaking point. It was against all nature and all nature was against it. They had always before them that vision of the point at which they would give in. Always there was one thought that drew them to the edge of surrender: "I can bear it for myself, but I can't bear it for him," "I can bear it for myself, but I can't bear it for her."

And to both of them had come another fear, greater than their dread of Maisie's pain, the fear of each other's illness. Their splendid physical health was beginning to break down. They worked harder than ever on the land; but hard work exhausted them at the end of the day. They went on from a sense of duty, dull and implacable, but they had no more pleasure in it. Anne became every night more restless, every day more tired and anaemic. Jerrold ate less and slept less. They grew thin, and their faces took on the same look of fatigue and anxiety and wonder, as if, more than anything, they were amazed at a world whose being connived at and tolerated their pain.