Читать книгу Joan and Peter - H. G. Wells - Страница 48

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Oswald felt very little grief at the first instant of this realization. We grieve acutely for what we have lost, whether it be a reality or a dream, but Dolly had become for Oswald neither a possession nor a hope. In his mind she was established as an intense quarrel. Whatever he had to learn about her further had necessarily to begin in terms of that. The first blow of this news made him furious. He could not think of any act or happening of Dolly’s except in terms of it being aimed at him. And he was irrationally angry with her for dying in such a way. That she had gone back to Arthur and resumed his embraces was, he felt, bad enough; but that she should start out to travel with Arthur alone, to walk by Arthur’s side exactly as Oswald had desired her to walk by his side—he had dreamt of her radiant companionship, it had seemed within his grasp—and at last to get drowned with Arthur, that was the thing to strike him first. He did not read the rest of the letter attentively. He threw it down on the folding table before him and hit it with his fist, and gave his soul up to a storm of rage and jealousy.

“To let that fool drown her!” he cried. “She’d do anything for him....

“And I might go to Hell!...

“Oh, damn all women!...”

It was not a pretty way of taking this blow. But such are the instinctive emotions of the thwarted male. His first reception of the news of Dolly’s death was to curse her and all her sex....

And then suddenly he had a gleam of imagination and saw Dolly white and wet and pitiful. Without any intermediate stage his mind leapt straight from storming anger to that....

For a time he stared at that vision—reproached and stunned....

Something that had darkened his thoughts was dispelled. His mind was illuminated by understanding. He saw Dolly again very clearly as she had talked to him in the garden. It was as if he had never seen her before. For the first time he realized her indecision. He understood now why it was she had snatched herself back from him and taken what she knew would be an irrevocable step, and he knew now that it was his own jealous pride that had made that step irrevocable. The Dolly who had told him of that decision next morning was a Dolly already half penitent and altogether dismayed. And if indeed he had loved her better than his pride, even then he might have held on still and won her. He remembered how she had winced when she made her hinting confession to him. No proud, cold-hearted woman had she been when she had whispered, “Oswald, now you must certainly go.”

It was as plain as daylight, and never before had he seen it plain.

He had left her, weak thing that she was, because she was weak, for this fellow to waste and drown. And it was over now and irrevocable.

“Men and women, poor fools together,” he said. “Poor fools. Poor fools,” and then at the thought of Dolly, broken and shrinking, ashamed of the thing she had done, at the thought of the insults he had slashed at her, knowing how much she was ashamed and thinking nevertheless only of his own indignity, and at the thought of how all this was now stilled forever in death, an overwhelming sense of the pitifulness of human pride and hatred, passion and desire came upon him. How we hated! how we hurt one another! and how fate mocked all our spites and hopes! God sold us a bargain in life. Dolly was sold. Arthur the golden-crested victor was sold. He himself was sold. The story had ended in this pitiless smacking of every one of the three poor tiresome bits of self-assertion who had acted in it. It was a joke, really, just a joke. He began to laugh as a dog barks, and then burst into bitter weeping....

He wept noisily for a time. He blubbered with his elbows on the table.

His Swahili attendant watched him with an undiminished respect, for Africa weeps and laughs freely and knows well that great chiefs also may weep.

Presently his tears gave out; he became very still and controlled, feeling as if in all his life he would never weep again.

He took up Mr. Sycamore’s letter and went on reading it.

“In all other respects the wills are in identical terms,” the letter ran. “In both I am appointed sole executor, a confidence I appreciate as a tribute to my lifelong friendship with Mr. Stubland and his parents. The other guardians are Miss Phyllis and Miss Phœbe Stubland and your aunt-in-law, Lady Charlotte Sydenham.”

“Good heavens!” cried Oswald wearily, as one hears a hopelessly weak jest. “But why?”

“I do not know if you will remember me, but I have had the pleasure of meeting you on one or two occasions, notably after your admirable paper read to the Royal Geographical Society. This fact and the opinion our chance meetings have enabled me to form of you, emboldens me to add something here that I should not I think have stated to a perfect stranger, and that is my impression that Mr. Stubland was particularly anxious that you should become a guardian under his will. I knew Mr. Stubland from quite a little boy; his character was a curious one, there was a streak of distrust and secretiveness in it, due I think to a Keltic strain that came in from his mother’s side. He altered his will a couple of days before he started for Italy, and from his manner and from the fact that Mrs. Stubland’s will was not also altered, I conclude that he did so without consulting her. He did so because for some reason he had taken it into his head that you would not act, and he did so for no other reason that I can fathom. Otherwise he would have left the former will alone. Under the circumstances I feel bound to tell you this because it may materially affect your decision to undertake this responsibility. I think it will be greatly to the advantage of the children if you do. I may add that I know the two Miss Stublands as well as I knew their brother, and that I have a certain knowledge of Lady Charlotte, having been consulted on one occasion by a client in relation to her. The Misses Stubland were taking care of The Ingle-Nook and children—there is a trustworthy nurse—in the absence of the parents up to the time of the parents’ decease, and it will be easy to prolong this convenient arrangement for the present. The children are still of tender age and for the next few years they could scarcely be better off. I trust that in the children’s interest you will see your way to accept this duty to your friend. My hope is enhanced by the thought that so I may be able later to meet again a man for whose courage and abilities and achievements I have a very great admiration indeed.

I am, dear Sir,

Very truly yours,

George Sycamore.”

“Yes,” said Oswald, “but I can’t, you know.”

He turned over Sycamore’s letter again, and it seemed no longer a jest and an insult that Arthur had made him Peter’s guardian. Sycamore’s phrases did somehow convey the hesitating Arthur, penitent of the advantages that had restored him Dolly and still fatuously confident of Oswald’s good faith.

“But I can’t do it, my man,” said Oswald. “It’s too much for human nature. Your own people must see to your own breed.”

He sat quite still for a long time thinking of another child that now could never be born.

“Why didn’t I stick to her?” he whispered. “Why didn’t I hold out for her?”

He took up Sycamore’s letter again.

“But why the devil did he shove in old Charlotte?” he exclaimed. “The man was no better than an idiot. And underhand at that.”

His eye went to a pile of still unopened letters. “Ah! here we are!” he said, selecting one in a bulky stone-grey envelope.

He opened it and extracted a number of sheets of stone-grey paper covered with a vast, loose handwriting, for which previous experience had given Oswald a strong distaste.

My dear Nephew, her letter began.

I suppose you have already heard the unhappy end of that Stubland marriage. I have always said that it was bound to end in a tragedy....

“Oh Lord!” said Oswald, and pitched the letter aside and fell into deep thought....

He became aware of Muir standing and staring down at him. One of the boys must have gone off to Muir and told him of Oswald’s emotion.

“Hullo,” said Muir. “All right?”

“I’ve been crying,” said Oswald drily. “I’ve had bad news. This fever leaves one rotten.”

“Old Wilkinson has sent us up a bottle of champagne,” said Muir. “He’s thought of everything. The cook’s got curry powder again and there’s a basket of fish. We shall dine tonight. It’s what you want.”

“Perhaps it is,” said Oswald.