Then Stephen, in spite of the corpse against her heart, or perhaps because of it, defended the woman: “She’s done nothing at all—it was all my fault, but you wouldn’t understand—I got very angry and then I laughed and couldn’t stop laughing—” Steady—go steady! She was telling too much: “No—it wasn’t that exactly. Oh, you know my vile temper, it always goes off at half cock for nothing. Well, then I just drove round and round the country until I cooled down. I’m sorry, Puddle, I ought to have rung up, of course you’ve been anxious.”
Puddle gripped her arm: “Stephen, listen, it’s your mother—she thinks that you started quite early for Worcester, I lied—I’ve been nearly distracted, child. If you hadn’t come soon, I’d have had to tell her that I didn’t know where you were. You must never, never go off without a word like this again—But I do understand, oh, I do indeed, Stephen.”
But Stephen shook her head: “No, my dear, you couldn’t—and I’d rather not tell you, Puddle.”
“Some day you must tell me,” said Puddle, “because—well, because I do understand, Stephen.”
IV
That night the weight against Stephen’s heart, with its icy coldness, melted; and it flowed out in such a torrent of grief that she could not stand up against that torrent, so that drowning though she was she found pen and paper, and she wrote to Angela Crossby.
What a letter! All the pent-up passion of months, all the terrible, rending, destructive frustrations must burst from her heart: “Love me, only love me the way I love you. Angela, for God’s sake, try to love me a little—don’t throw me away, because if you do I’m utterly finished. You know how I love you, with my soul and my body; if it’s wrong, grotesque, unholy—have pity. I’ll be humble. Oh, my darling, I am humble now; I’m just a poor, heartbroken freak of a creature who loves you and needs you much more than its life, because life’s worse than death, ten times worse without you. I’m some awful mistake—God’s mistake—I don’t know if there are any more like me, I pray not for their sakes, because it’s pure hell. But oh, my dear, whatever I am, I just love you and love you. I thought it was dead, but it wasn’t. It’s alive—so terribly alive tonight in my bedroom. …” And so it went on for page after page.
But never a word about Roger Antrim and what she had seen that morning in the garden. Some fine instinct of utterly selfless protection towards this woman had managed to survive all the anguish and all the madness of that day. The letter was a terrible indictment against Stephen, a complete vindication of Angela Crossby.
V
Angela went to her husband’s study, and she stood before him utterly shaken, utterly appalled at what she would do, yet utterly and ruthlessly determined to do it from a primitive instinct of self-preservation. In her ears she could still hear that terrible laughter—that uncanny, hysterical, agonized laughter. Stephen was mad, and God only knew what she might do or say in a moment of madness, and then—but she dared not look into the future. Cringing in spirit and trembling in body, she forgot the girl’s faithful and loyal devotion, her will to forgive, her desire to protect, so clearly set forth in that pitiful letter.
She said: “Ralph, I want to ask your advice. I’m in an awful mess—it’s Stephen Gordon. You think I’ve been carrying on with Roger—good Lord, if you only knew what I’ve endured these last few months! I have seen a great deal of Roger, I admit—quite innocently of course—still, all the same, I’ve seen him—I thought it would show her that I’m not—that I’m not—” For one moment her voice seemed about to fail her, then she went on quite firmly: “that I’m not a pervert; that I’m not that sort of degenerate creature.”
He sprang up: “What?” he bellowed.
“Yes, I know, it’s too awful. I ought to have asked your advice about it, but I really did like the girl just at first, and after that, well—I set out to reform her. Oh, I know I’ve been crazy, worse than crazy if you like; it was hopeless right from the very beginning. If I’d only known more about that sort of thing I’d have come to you at once, but I’d never met it. She was our neighbour too, which made it more awkward, and not only that—her position in the county—oh, Ralph, you must help me, I’m completely bewildered. How on earth does one answer this sort of thing? It’s quite mad—I believe the girl’s half mad herself.”
And she handed him Stephen’s letter.
He read it slowly, and as he did so his weak little eyes grew literally scarlet—puffy and scarlet all over their lids, and when he had finished reading that letter he turned and spat on the ground. Then Ralph’s language became a thing to forget; every filthy invective learnt in the slums of his youth and later on in the workshops, he hurled against Stephen and all her kind. He called down the wrath of the Lord upon them. He deplored the nonexistence of the stake, and racked his brains for indecent tortures. And finally: “I’ll answer this letter, yes, by God I will! You leave her to me, I know how I’m going to answer this letter!”
Angela asked him, and now her voice shook: “Ralph, what will you do to her—to Stephen?”
He laughed loudly: “I’ll hound her out of the county before I’ve done—and with luck out of England; the same as I’d hound you out if I thought that there’d ever been anything between you two women. It’s damned lucky for you that she wrote this letter, damned lucky, otherwise I might have my suspicions. You’ve got off this time, but don’t try your reforming again—you’re not cut
