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Book 4: IsabelThe Breaking Point3
I had a curious revulsion of feeling that morning of our meeting. (Of all places for such a clandestine encounter she had chosen the bridge opposite Buckingham Palace.) Overnight I had been full of self pity, and eager for the comfort of Isabel`s presence. But the ill-written scrawl in which she had replied had been full of the suggestion of her own weakness and misery. And when I saw her, my own selfish sorrows were altogether swept away by a wave of pitiful tenderness. Something had happened to her that I did not understand. She was manifestly ill. She came towards me wearily, she who had always borne herself so bravely; her shoulders seemed bent, and her eyes were tired, and her face white and drawn. All my life has been a narrow self-centred life; no brothers, no sisters or children or weak things had ever yet made any intimate appeal to me, and suddenly--I verily believe for the first time in my life!--I felt a great passion of protective ownership; I felt that here was something that I could die to shelter, something that meant more than joy or pride or splendid ambitions or splendid creation to me, a new kind of hold upon me, a new power in the world. Some sealed fountain was opened in my breast. I knew that I could love Isabel broken, Isabel beaten, Isabel ugly and in pain, more than I could love any sweet or delightful or glorious thing in life. I didn`t care any more for anything in the world but Isabel, and that I should protect her. I trembled as I came near her, and could scarcely speak to her for the emotion that filled me. . . .
"I had your letter," I said.
"I had yours."
"Where can we talk?"
I remember my lame sentences. "We`ll have a boat. That`s best here."
I took her to the little boat-house, and there we hired a boat, and I rowed in silence under the bridge and into the shade of a tree. The square grey stone masses of the Foreign Office loomed through the twigs, I remember, and a little space of grass separated us from the pathway and the scrutiny of passers-by. And there we talked.
"I had to write to you," I said.
"I had to come."
"When are you to be married?"
"Thursday week."
"Well?" I said. "But--can we?"
She leant forward and scrutinised my face with eyes wide open. "What do you mean?" she said at last in a whisper.
"Can we stand it? After all?"
I looked at her white face. "Can you?" I said.
She whispered. "Your career?"
Then suddenly her face was contorted,--she wept silently, exactly as a child tormented beyond endurance might suddenly weep. . . .
"Oh! I don`t care," I cried, "now. I don`t care. Damn the whole system of things! Damn all this patching of the irrevocable! I want to take care of you, Isabel! and have you with me."
"I can`t stand it," she blubbered.
"You needn`t stand it. I thought it was best for you. . . . I thought indeed it was best for you. I thought even you wanted it like that."
"Couldn`t I live alone--as I meant to do?"
"No," I said, "you couldn`t. You`re not strong enough. I`ve thought of that; I`ve got to shelter you."
"And I want you," I went on. "I`m not strong enough--I can`t stand life without you."
She stopped weeping, she made a great effort to control herself, and looked at me steadfastly for a moment. "I was going to kill myself," she whispered. "I was going to kill myself quietly-- somehow. I meant to wait a bit and have an accident. I thought-- you didn`t understand. You were a man, and couldn`t understand. . . ."
"People can`t do as we thought we could do," I said. "We`ve gone too far together."
"Yes," she said, and I stared into her eyes.
"The horror of it," she whispered. "The horror of being handed over. It`s just only begun to dawn upon me, seeing him now as I do. He tries to be kind to me. . . . I didn`t know. I felt adventurous before. . . . It makes me feel like all the women in the world who have ever been owned and subdued. . . . It`s not that he isn`t the best of men, it`s because I`m a part of you. . . . I can`t go through with it. If I go through with it, I shall be left--robbed of pride--outraged--a woman beaten. . . ."
"I know," I said, "I know."
"I want to live alone. . . . I don`t care for anything now but just escape. If you can help me. . . ."
"I must take you away. There`s nothing for us but to go away together."
"But your work," she said; "your career! Margaret! Our promises!"
"We`ve made a mess of things, Isabel--or things have made a mess of us. I don`t know which. Our flags are in the mud, anyhow. It`s too late to save those other things! They have to go. You can`t make terms with defeat. I thought it was Margaret needed me most. But it`s you. And I need you. I didn`t think of that either. I haven`t a doubt left in the world now. We`ve got to leave everything rather than leave each other. I`m sure of it. Now we have gone so far. We`ve got to go right down to earth and begin again. . . . Dear, I WANT disgrace with you. . . ."
So I whispered to her as she sat crumpled together on the faded cushions of the boat, this white and weary young woman who had been so valiant and careless a girl. "I don`t care," I said. "I don`t care for anything, if I can save you out of the wreckage we have made together."
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