She was roused by the sound of Anson’s voice asking, “Is that you, Olivia?”
“Yes.”
“What are you doing out there?”
“I came out for some air.”
“Where’s Sybil?”
For a moment she did not answer, and then quite boldly she said, “She’s ridden over with Jean to take Sabine home.”
“You know I don’t approve of that.” He had come through the hall now and was standing near her.
“It can’t do any harm.”
“That’s been said before. …”
“Why are you so suspicious, Anson, of your own child?” She had no desire to argue with him. She wanted only to be left in peace, to go away to her room and lie there alone in the darkness, for she knew now that Michael was not coming.
“Olivia,” Anson was saying, “come inside for a moment. I want to talk to you.”
“Very well … but please don’t be disagreeable. I’m very tired.”
“I shan’t be disagreeable. … I only want to settle something.”
She knew then that he meant to be very disagreeable, and she told herself that she would not listen to him; she would think of something else while he was speaking—a trick she had learned long ago. In the drawing-room she sat quietly and waited for him to begin. Standing by the mantelpiece, he appeared more tired and yellow than usual. She knew that he had worked on his book; she knew that he had poured all his vitality, all his being, into it; but as she watched him her imagination again played her the old trick of showing her Michael standing there in his place … defiant, a little sulky, and filled with a slow, steady, inexhaustible force.
“It’s chiefly about Sybil,” he said. “I want her to give up seeing this boy.”
“Don’t be a martinet, Anson. Nothing was ever gained by it.”
(She thought, “They must be almost to Salem by now.”) And aloud she added, “You’re her father, Anson; why don’t you speak?”
“It’s better for you. I’ve no influence with her.”
“I have spoken,” she said, thinking bitterly that he could never guess what she meant.
“And what’s the result? Look at her, going off at this hour of the night. …”
She shrugged her shoulders, filled with a warm sense of having outwitted the enemy, for at the moment Anson seemed to her an enemy not only of herself, but of Jean and Sybil, of all that was young and alive in the world.
“Besides,” he was saying, “she hasn’t proper respect for me … her father. Sometimes I think it’s the ideas she got from you and from going abroad to school.”
“What a nasty thing to say! But if you want the truth, I think it’s because you’ve never been a very good father. Sometimes I’ve thought you never wanted children. You’ve never paid much attention to them … not even to Jack … while he was alive. It wasn’t ever as if they were our children. You’ve always left them to me … alone.”
The thin neck stiffened a little and he said, “There are reasons for that. I’m a busy man. … I’ve given most of my time, not to making money, but to doing things to better the world in some way. If I’ve neglected my children it’s been for a good reason … few men have as much on their minds. And there’s been the book to take all my energies. You’re being unjust, Olivia. You never could see me as I am.”
“Perhaps,” said Olivia. (She wanted to say, “What difference does the book make to anyone in the world? Who cares whether it is written or not?”) She knew that she must keep up her deceit, so she said, “You needn’t worry, because Sabine is going away tomorrow and Jean will go with her.” She sighed. “After that your life won’t be disturbed any longer. Nothing in the least unusual is likely to happen.”
“And there’s this other thing,” he said, “this disloyalty of yours to me and to all the family.”
Stiffening slightly, she asked, “What can you mean by that?”
“You know what I mean.”
She saw that he was putting himself in the position of a wronged husband, assuming a martyrdom of the sort which Aunt Cassie practised so effectively. He meant to be a patient, well-meaning husband and to place her in the position of a shameful woman; and slowly, with a slow, heavy anger she resolved to circumvent his trick.
“I think, Anson, that you’re talking nonsense. I haven’t been disloyal to anyone. Your father will tell you that.”
“My father was always weak where women are concerned and now he’s beginning to grow childish. He’s so old that he’s beginning to forgive and condone anything.” And then after a silence he said, “This O’Hara. I’m not such a fool as you think, Olivia.”
For a long time neither of them said anything, and in the end it was Olivia who spoke, striking straight into the heart of the question. She said, “Anson, would you consider letting me divorce you?”
The effect upon him was alarming. His face turned gray, and the long, thin, oversensitive hands began to tremble. She saw that she had touched him on the rawest of places, upon his immense sense of pride and dignity. It would be unbearable for him to believe that she would want to be rid of him in order to go to another man, especially to a man whom he professed to hold in contempt, a man who had the qualities which he himself did not possess. He could only see the request as a humiliation of his own precious dignity.
He managed to grin, trying to turn the request to mockery, and said, “Have you lost your mind?”
“No, Anson, not for a moment. What I ask is a simple thing. It has been done before.”
He
