The Nice and the Good

was a thought which terrified her. Perhaps he looked upon her now with secret disgust, noticing those hairs upon her upper lip and the enlargement of the pores about her nose. She had shortened her skirt for the new fashion, and her long legs were visible now from well above the knee, clad in lacy cream-coloured stockings. But did her long legs please him any more or was he merely annoyed that she should dress in this juvenile way and led to notice, what he had never noticed before, the bulkiness of her knees? Jessica drew back her long straggle of fair hair with one hand and put her face close to the mirror. There was no doubt about it. She was beginning to look old.
She returned again to her pacing of the room and to contemplation of the three letters on the table. The room was empty, and echoing and white. She had destroyed all her objects and had not had the heart to construct any new ones. As the term was over at her school, Jessica could now devote the whole of every day to walking up and down her room and thinking about John Ducane. She did not dare to leave the house in case he telephoned.
There was a slight sound downstairs and Jessica darted to the door. The post. She sprang down the stairs three at a time and swept up the envelopes which were lying on the that. She longed for a thick letter from John, but she also dreaded it. It might contain his long and careful explanation of why he had decided to see her no more.
There was no letter from John. The particular pain of this, the pain she had described as being like an amputation, flared through her body. No, it was not like an amputation. It was a jerking pain, more like being on the rack. She felt dislocated from head to foot. She put the envelopes on the table. In fact there was one letter for her, in a brown envelope, addressed in an unknown rather uneducated-looking hand. She walked heavily up the stairs and two tears went very slowly, as if they too were weary and discouraged, over the curve of her cheek.
She wished the post did not come three times a day.
She put the brown envelope down on the table. Should she send one of those letters to John? She just had to see him soon.
The agony of not knowing whether he knew and what he thought was becoming just physically too much. Some inner organ would give way, her heart would literally break, if she did not see him soon. Dare she ring him at the office? He had asked her never to do that. But the last time she had telephoned his house the servant had said he was not in, and she could not endure again the special unique pain of imagining that he had told the servant that he was not in to a young lady who might ring him up.
Absently Jessica picked up the brown envelope from the table and began to tear it open. There seemed to be quite a lot inside it. She pulled out a piece of lined paper with a short letter upon it, and an envelope came out too and fell face upwards on top of one of her own letters. Jessica stared at it with a shock of amazement and premonitory fright. It was an envelope addressed to John Ducane Esquire, in another and different handwriting. Why had this been sent to her? Was she supposed to pass it on to John? But she saw that the envelope had already been opened and the postmark was of earlier this month. With fascinated horror Jessica unfolded the accompanying letter. It was brief and read as follows.
Dear Madam,

In view of your emotional feelings about Mr John Ducane I feel sure it would be of interest to you to see the enclosed.

Yours faithfully,

A Well-Wisher

Trembling violently Jessica fumbled with the other envelope and plucked the letter out of it. The letter read thus: Trescombe House Trescombe Dorset Oh my darling John, how I miss you, it seems an age till our lovely week-end arrives. I hate to think of you all lonely in London, but it won't be long until we are reunited. You are my property, you know, and I have a strong sense of property! I shall assert my rights! Don't be long away from me, my sweet, haste the day and the hour. Oh how heavenly it is, John, to be able to speak love to you, and to know that you feel as I do! Love, love, love, Your Kate P. S. Willy Kost sends regards and hopes to see you too.

Jessica sat down on the floor and concentrated her attention upon not dying. She felt no impulse to weep or scream, but it was as if her flesh were being dragged apart. Shock was more evident than pain, or perhaps pain was so extreme that it had brought her to the brink of unconsciousness. She sat quite still for about five minutes with her eyes closed and every muscle contracted to keep herself in a single piece. Then she opened her eyes and read the letter again and examined the envelope.

There was of bourse not the slightest doubt that this was a letter to John from his mistress. Quite apart from the tone of the letter, the reference to the significantly underlined week-end put this beyond question. They seemed to be on very happy, indeed ecstatic, terms. It was not the letter of a woman who was uncertain whether she was loved. The letter moreover had been written less than three weeks ago. The date on the envelope showed clearly and the letter itself was dated with day, month and year. So at this very recent time the affair had been for some while in existence, was in full swing. This then meant that John had lied to her.

Jessica got up from the floor. She went to the drawer which contained all the letters which John had ever sent her, and took out the postcard which lay on the top.

Forgive this in haste, I am most terribly busy in the office with various rather preoccupying matters. I am sorry not to have written. Could we meet on Monday, not of next week but of the week following? I shall look forward to that. If I don't hear otherwise I'll come to your place at seven. Very good wishes.. Various rather preoccupying matters, thought Jessica. Come to your place. How differently it read now. Of course she was not to visit him, she was never to visit him. Busy with his marvellous love affair he had coldly calculated what was the longest he could put her off for, what was the most he could make her put up with, without arousing suspicion. Monday, not of next week but of the week following. How carefully it was put so as to make a shabby offer sound less shabby. No doubt he would be just back from one of those lovely weekends. And he would look into her eyes, as he had done on the last occasion, and tell her in that grave sincere voice that he had no mistress.

Jessica began to walk up and down again, but very much more slowly. She debated, but very slowly, an impulse to lift the telephone at once and ring John's office. She debated it slowly because she knew that it was not urgent since she would certainly not do it, and because she knew that something else, and something very important, was happening inside her. It must be given time to happen properly, to gain authority over her. So John, the conscientious puritanical John, the just and righteous John, the John-God, had coldly lied to her. She was –not an object of concern to him at all, she was a person to be manipulated and deceived and put off the scent. She was perhaps, and this thought made Jessica pause for a moment in her slow perambulation, a positive danger to him, a danger to his new-found happiness, a nasty relic, a false note. I hate to think of you all lonely in London. Of course John would not have told the lovely lady about his obligations to poor Jessica. That would spoil things, that would never do. John had lied to the lovely lady as well.

Jessica said to herself aloud, 'It is all over now with John.

It is the end.' She paused again to watch herself. Still no screams, no tears, no tendency to fall down in a faint. There was a line of hardness in her, a rigid steely upright as thin as a wire but very strong. She was not going to die after all for John Ducane. She was his superior now. She knew, and he did not know she knew. She sat down on the bed. She felt very tired as if she had been for a long walk. She had been walking for days up and down her room, thinking about John, waiting for him to write, waiting for him to telephone. And all this time… Jessica settled two cushions behind her and sat upright and comfortable upon the bed. She fell now into a total immobility, she sat like an idol, like a sphinx. Her eyes scarcely blinked, her breathing seemed suspended, it was as if the life had been withdrawn from her leaving an effigy of wax. An hour passed.

Jessica moved and it was evening. She went to the window and looked out. A Siamese cat was walking slowly along the top of the railings. A West Indian newspaper boy was delivering the evening papers. A student was polishing his very old car. Two dogs who had just met were wagging their tails.

She turned away from the window and went to the mirror and said to her image softly several times 'Jessica, Jessica…'

Then she turned back to the table and took up the letter again, but this time it was to scrutinize only the P.