She was even more vexed at her own explosion of anger. What could have got into her to give way to it in such a moment?
Gradually her mood passed. She drew back from the failure her first attempt at substitution, not so much discouraged as disappointed and ashamed. It might be, she reflected, that, in addition to her ill-timed loss of temper, she had been too hasty in her eagerness to distract him, had rushed too closely on the heels of his outburst, and had thus aroused his suspicions and his obstinacy. She had but to wait. Another more appropriate time would come, tomorrow, next week, next month. It wasn’t now, as it had been once, that she was afraid that he would throw everything aside and rush off to that remote place of his heart’s desire. He wouldn’t, she knew. He was fond of her, loved her, in his slightly undemonstrative way.
And there were the boys.
It was only that she wanted him to be happy, resenting, however, his inability to be so with things as they were, and never acknowledging that though she did want him to be happy, it was only in her own way and by some plan of hers for him that she truly desired him to be so. Nor did she admit that all other plans, all other ways, she regarded as menaces, more or less indirect, to that security of place and substance which she insisted upon for her sons and in a lesser degree for herself.
II
Five days had gone by since Clare Kendry’s appealing letter. Irene Redfield had not replied to it. Nor had she had any other word from Clare.
She had not carried out her first intention of writing at once because on going back to the letter for Clare’s address, she had come upon something which, in the rigour of her determination to maintain unbroken between them the wall that Clare herself had raised, she had forgotten, or not fully noted. It was the fact that Clare had requested her to direct her answer to the post office’s general delivery.
That had angered Irene, and increased her disdain and contempt for the other.
Tearing the letter across, she had flung it into the scrap-basket. It wasn’t so much Clare’s carefulness and her desire for secrecy in their relations—Irene understood the need for that—as that Clare should have doubted her discretion, implied that she might not be cautious in the wording of her reply and the choice of a posting-box. Having always had complete confidence in her own good judgment and tact, Irene couldn’t bear to have anyone seem to question them. Certainly not Clare Kendry.
In another, calmer moment she decided that it was, after all, better to answer nothing, to explain nothing, to refuse nothing; to dispose of the matter simply by not writing at all. Clare, of whom it couldn’t be said that she was stupid, would not mistake the implication of that silence. She might—and Irene was sure that she would—choose to ignore it and write again, but that didn’t matter. The whole thing would be very easy. The basket for all letters, silence for their answers.
Most likely she and Clare would never meet again. Well, she, for one, could endure that. Since childhood their lives had never really touched. Actually they were strangers. Strangers in their ways and means of living. Strangers in their desires and ambitions. Strangers even in their racial consciousness. Between them the barrier was just as high, just as broad, and just as firm as if in Clare did not run that strain of black blood. In truth, it was higher, broader, and firmer; because for her there were perils, not known, or imagined, by those others who had no such secrets to alarm or endanger them.
The day was getting on toward evening. It was past the middle of October. There had been a week of cold rain, drenching the rotting leaves which had fallen from the poor trees that lined the street on which the Redfelds’ house was located, and sending a damp air of penetrating chill into the house, with a hint of cold days to come. In Irene’s room a low fire was burning. Outside, only a dull grey light was left of the day. Inside, lamps had already been lighted.
From the floor above there was the sound of young voices. Sometimes Junior’s serious and positive; again, Ted’s deceptively gracious one. Often there was laughter, or the noise of commotion, tussling, or toys being slammed down.
Junior, tall for his age, was almost incredibly like his father in feature and colouring; but his temperament was hers, practical and determined, rather than Brian’s. Ted, speculative and withdrawn, was, apparently, less positive in his ideas and desires. About him there was a deceiving air of candour that was, Irene knew, like his father’s show of reasonable acquiescence. If, for the time being, and with a charming appearance of artlessness, he submitted to the force of superior strength, or some other immovable condition or circumstance, it was because of his intense dislike of scenes and unpleasant argument. Brian over again.
Gradually Irene’s thought slipped away from Junior and Ted, to become wholly absorbed in their father.
The old fear, with strength increased, the fear for the future, had again laid its hand on her. And, try as she might, she could not shake it
