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By Root 1133 0

there to save Edward, who was dying of love for her. And, proud and happy in the thought that Edward loved her, and that she loved him, she did not even listen to what Leonora said. It appeared to her that it was Leonora’s business to save her husband’s body; she, Nancy, possessed his soul – a precious thing that she would shield and bear away up in her arms – as if Leonora were a hungry dog, trying to spring up at a lamb that she was carrying. Yes, she felt as if Edward’s love were a precious lamb that she were bearing away from a cruel and predatory beast. For, at that time, Leonora appeared to her as a cruel and predatory beast. Leonora, Leonora with her hunger, with her cruelty had driven Edward to madness. He must be sheltered by his love for her and by her love – her love from a great distance and unspoken, enveloping him, surrounding him, upholding him; by her voice speaking from Glasgow, saying that she loved, that she adored, that she passed no moment without longing, loving, quivering at the thought of him.

Leonora said loudly, insistently, with a bitterly imperative tone:

‘You must stay here; you must belong to Edward. I will divorce him.’

The girl answered:

‘The Church does not allow of divorce. I cannot belong to your husband. I am going to Glasgow to rescue my mother.’

The half-opened door opened noiselessly to the full. Edward was there. His devouring, doomed eyes were fixed on the girl’s face; his shoulders slouched forward; he was undoubtedly half drunk and he had the whisky decanter in one hand, a slanting candlestick in the other. He said, with a heavy ferocity, to Nancy:

‘I forbid you to talk about these things. You are to stay here until I hear from your father. Then you will go to your father.’

The two women, looking at each other, like beasts about to spring, hardly gave a glance to him. He leaned against the doorpost. He said again:

‘Nancy, I forbid you to talk about these things. I am the master of this house.’ And, at the sound of his voice, heavy, male, coming from a deep chest, in the night with the blackness behind him, Nancy felt as if her spirit bowed before him, with folded hands. She felt that she would go to India, and that she desired never again to talk of these things.

Leonora said:

‘You see that it is your duty to belong to him. He must not be allowed to go on drinking.’

Nancy did not answer. Edward was gone; they heard him slipping and shambling on the polished oak of the stairs. Nancy screamed when there came the sound of a heavy fall. Leonora said again:

‘You see!’

The sounds went on from the hall below; the light of the candle Edward held flickered up between the hand rails of the gallery. Then they heard his voice:

‘Give me Glasgow… Glasgow, in Scotland… I want the number of a man called White, of Simrock Park, Glasgow… Edward White, Simrock Park, Glasgow… ten minutes… at this time of night…’ His voice was quite level, normal, and patient. Alcohol took him in the legs, not the speech. ‘I can wait,’ his voice came again. ‘Yes, I know they have a number. I have been in communication with them before.’

‘He is going to telephone to your mother,’ Leonora said. ‘He will make it all right for her.’ She got up and closed the door. She came back to the fire, and added bitterly: ‘He can always make it all right for everybody, except me – excepting me!’

The girl said nothing. She sat there in a blissful dream. She seemed to see her lover sitting as he always sat, in a round-backed chair, in the dark hall – sitting low, with the receiver at his ear, talking in a gentle, slow voice, that he reserved for the telephone – and saving the world and her, in the black darkness. She moved her hand over the bareness of the base of her throat, to have the warmth of flesh upon it and upon her bosom.

She said nothing; Leonora went on talking…

God knows what Leonora said. She repeated that the girl must belong to her husband. She said that she used that phrase because, though she might have a divorce, or even a dissolution of the marriage by the Church, it would still be adultery that the