“I don’t ever want to see William again,” she declared with passion. Clem rose from his chair and came over and knelt beside her. She put her head down and upon his narrow bony shoulders. His thin arms went around her.
“There, there,” he muttered.
“Oh, Clem,” she sighed, half heartbroken. “I am glad you are good. It’s your goodness that I trust.”
He pondered this, patting her back in a rhythm. “Maybe we need some sort of religion, hon,” he said at last. “We grew up with God, you know. We haven’t deserted Him exactly, we just haven’t known how to fit Him in.”
“You don’t need anything, you’re just naturally good.”
“I might be on the wrong track, always thinking about food. Man does not live by bread alone.”
She pressed his head against her cheek. “Don’t be different, Clem!” Then after a minute, “Poor Candace! I must write her a letter.”
She got up and sat down where Clem had sat, and saw upon the pages of yellow paper he used for his endless figuring the words: “Average yield per acre (Mexico)” followed by lines of calculations of Mexico’s millions of people. She tore off a yellow sheet, too tired to look for better writing paper.
Dear Candace,
We are just home from Mexico. I found Mother’s letter here. I cannot say a word of comfort to you. I am ashamed that William is my brother. None of us have ever understood him. Mother is glad my father is dead and I think I am too, unless Father could have kept William from being so wicked.
There is nothing I can do, I guess. It’s too late. I don’t pray as I used to but if I did, I would go down on my knees. Perhaps I should even yet. I feel closer to you than I ever have. And there are the two boys — how they must despise their father! It is all wicked and you have never deserved anything like this. I cannot imagine what reason he gives. You are so pretty and so good tempered. I hope William suffers for this.
Candace read the letter in her old room at her father’s house. She smiled rather sadly, thinking that she had never known Henrietta until now, when the bond between them was broken. She glanced at the small silver clock on the dressing table. She was no longer William’s wife. The decree was to be granted at noon and it was now six minutes beyond. She had been acutely aware of the time as it had passed and then had forgotten it for a few minutes and in that little space of time it was over. She let the letter drop on the floor and leaned her head back against the back of the chair and closed her eyes.
She had protested nothing. That was her pride. Jeremy had flung himself out of William’s offices forever, he said, but when she saw Ruth she had made him go back. Ruth had no defense for William — she was too gentle and good for that. But she did not blame him, for to her alone William had explained himself, and she had tried to explain him also to Jeremy and to Candace. “He’s always been different from everybody,” Ruth said in her earnest, sweet little voice. “He’s been so lonely all his life. I sometimes think if Father hadn’t died … Father understood William, but he had to wait for him to grow up. I remember Father saying that once.”
“It’s his own fault if he is lonely,” Jeremy had retorted. “He holds himself above everybody. Yes, he does, Ruth. He lords it over us all.”
“I know it seems that way, Jeremy, but really inside he’s quite lost.”
Jeremy had snorted and Ruth nodded her head up and down very positively. “Yes, William is lost. He needs something he hasn’t got. None of us can give it to him.”
Upon this Candace had spoken. “If Emory can give it to him, then I shall be glad.”
“Oh, Candy, you’re so generous,” Ruth had cried, the tears streaming from her soft blue eyes.
But still she had defended William in her heart and Candace saw it, and because Jeremy loved his wife he, too, would allow William his way. She had no knight, unless her old father came forward. But he evaded life nowadays, indeed not from lack of love, so much as from too much love. So sensitive had he grown as age came upon him, so excessively tender, so wishful that human beings should all be happy, that when they were not he could not bear to be near them. So because she loved him, Candace had shielded her heart from her father and affected to be gay about William’s new love, and she insisted that of course he must marry Emory, and she even pretended that she and Emory could and would meet and be friends, while in her heart she knew that this could never be.
With her sons, she was cavalier. Will and Jerry, though tall young men, still cared more for football than for anything else on earth. “We mustn’t blame your father,” she had said to them brightly. “The truth is, our marriage never quite came off, if you know what I mean. Why should you know? It’s like a flower that doesn’t quite bloom. Still, I’ve had you two and that is a great deal to get out of one marriage.” She had looked from one solemn young face to the other.
“Are you going to marry again?” It was Will’s question. She met his young gray eyes and shook her head, still playfully. This was her protection now and forever, not to care too much, not to mind. She thought of fallen leaves floating upon the surface of the swimming pool, of leaves drifting down from the trees, of a bird resting upon the waves of atmosphere, of flower petals dropping upon the grass. Her father was right. Escape life, perhaps, but certainly escape pain! The blow had been dealt.
Jerry, the younger, had spoken with sudden rage. “Why don’t you go and see that woman and tell her she has no right to—”
“Shut up,” Will said for her. “You don’t understand. You’re only a kid.”
Neither son had spoken one word of their father. He was immovable, unchangeable; none could reach him. Whatever he did was done. He was absolute.
William had needed none of them, not his mother, not Ruth. No one existed for him except himself, his monolithic being, his single burning purpose, more consuming than any he had ever known. He was ruthless in his office, angry with all delay, intolerably demanding upon his lawyers.
He had tried to compel Candace to go to Reno so that in six weeks he might be free. She had refused and old Roger Cameron had demanded an appointment. William had refused that. He gave orders that he would not speak with anyone on the telephone. He lived entirely in his apartment at the office and made no communication with his sons. After he was married to Emory he would let them see for themselves why he married her.
When he discovered that Candace was not going to Reno, he went himself. He endured weeks of loneliness without Emory, days when he called her by telephone that he might hear her voice and assure himself that she still lived, that she had not changed her mind, that she had no thought of delaying their marriage. His decree granted, he left by the next train and, speeding to England upon the fastest ship, he went straight to Hulme Castle.
She was there waiting for him, the wedding day set two days hence, and when he had her in his arms, he let down his heart. He put his face into the soft dark hair.
“Oh, my love—” They were words he had never used to Candace.
“You look fearfully tired, William.”
“I shan’t be tired any more, Emory.”
She did not reply to this, and he stood for a moment letting his weariness drain away in the silence.
“Two days from now we’ll be married.”
“Two days,” she echoed.
“I wish it were now.”
To this, too, she made no reply.
They were married in the room where they had first met. She did not want to be married in Hulme Abbey, where, had Cecil lived, the ceremony would have taken place. Her parents had agreed, and so an altar had been set up in the drawing room. No one was there beyond her family and the vicar and his wife and a few people whom William had never seen before. “A quick, quiet wedding,” he told her and she obeyed.