The Helpmate Part 61

"What's bad enough?"

"Everything, my child. I'm bad enough, if you like; but I'm not as bad as all that, I can a.s.sure you."

"You don't think _me_ bad?"

"You know I don't. You know what I think of you. But you must learn to see what's possible and what isn't."

"I do see. Tell me one thing. Is it because you love _her_?"

"We can't go into that, Maggie. Can't you understand that it may be because I love _you_?"

"I don't know. But I don't mind so long as I know it isn't only because you love _her_."

"You're not to talk about her, Maggie."

"I know. I won't. I don't want to talk about her, I'm sure. I try not to think about her more than I can help."

"But you must think of her."

"Oh--must I?"

"At any rate, you must think of me."

"I do think of you. I think of you from morning till night. I don't think of anything else. I don't want anything else. I'm contented as long as I've got you. It wasn't that."

"What was it, Maggie?"

"Nothing. Only--it's so awfully lonely in between, when you're not here.

That was why I asked you."

"Poor child, poor Maggie. Is it very bad to bear?"

"Not when I know you're coming."

"See here--if it gets too bad to bear, we must end it."

"End it?"

"Yes, Maggie. _You_ must end it; you must give me up, when you're tired--"

"Oh no--no," she cried.

"Give me up," he repeated, "and go back to town."

"To Scale?"

"Well, yes; if it's so lonely here."

"And give you up?"

"Yes, Maggie, you must; if you go back to Scale."

"I shall never go back. Who could I go to? There's n.o.body who'd 'ave me.

I've got n.o.body."

"n.o.body?"

"n.o.body but you, Wallie. n.o.body but you. Have you never thought of that?

Why, where should _I_ be if I was to give you up?"

"I see, Maggie. _I_ see. _I_ see."

Up till then he had seen nothing. But Maggie, unwise, had put her hand through the fine web of illusion. She had seen, and made him see, the tragedy of the truth behind it, the real nature of the tie that bound them. It was an inconsistent tie, permanent in its impermanence, with all its incompleteness terribly complete. He could not give her up; he had not thought of giving her up; but neither had he thought of keeping her.

It was all wrong. It was wrong to keep her. It would be wrong to give her up. He was all she had. Whatever happened he could not give her up.

And so he said, "_I_ see. _I_ see."

"See here," said she (she had adopted some of his phrases), "when I said there was n.o.body, I meant n.o.body I'd have anything to do with. If I went back to Scale, there are plenty of low girls in the town who'd make friends with me, if I'd let 'em. But I won't be seen with them. You wouldn't have me seen with them, would you?"

"No, Maggie, not for all the world."

"Well, then, 'ow can you go on talking about my giving you up?"

No. He could not give her up. There was no tie between them but their sin, yet he could not break it. Degraded as it was, it saved him from deeper degradation.

He loved Anne with his whole soul, with his heart and with his body, and he had given his body to Maggie, with as much heart as went with it. In the world's sight he loved Maggie and was bound to Anne. In his own sight he loved Anne and was bound to Maggie.

It had come to that.

He did not care to look back upon the steps by which it had come. He only knew that, seven years ago, he had been sound and whole, a man with one aim and one pa.s.sion and one life. Now he and his life were divided, cut clean in two by a line not to be pa.s.sed or touched upon by either sundered half. All of him that Anne had rejected he had given to Maggie.

As far as he could judge he had acted, not grossly, not recklessly, but with a kind of pa.s.sionate deliberation. He knew he would have to pay for it. He had not stopped to haggle with his conscience or to ask: how much?

But he was prepared to pay.

Up to this moment his conscience had not dunned him. But now he foresaw a season when the bills would be falling due.

Maggie had torn the veil of illusion, and he looked for the first time upon his sin.

Even his conscience admitted that he had not meant it to come to that. He had had no ancient private tendency to sin. He wanted nothing but to live at home, happy with the wife he loved, and with his child, his children.

And poor Maggie, she too would have asked no more than to be a good wife to the man she loved, and to be the mother of his children.

This life with Maggie, hidden away in Three Elms Farm, in the wilds of Holderness, it could not be called dissipation, but it was division.

Where once he had been whole he was now divided. The sane, strong affection that should have knit body and soul together was itself broken in two.

And it was she, the helpmate, she who should have kept him whole, who had caused him to be thus sundered from himself and her.

They were all wrong, all frustrated, all incomplete. Anne, in her sublime infidelity to earth; Maggie, turned from her own sweet use that she might give him what Anne could not give; and he, who between them had severed his body from his soul.