"You just confirm what I have always thought".
"What?"
"That you are the happiest creature I have ever known".
"I don’t go about blazoning my sorrows", she said, trying to look haughty as she helped herself to more honey.
"Do I?" He had reddened a little. Adeline regarded him speculatively. "Well, you said a moment ago that you are consciously happy. Perhaps you are sometimes consciously unhappy. I’m not afraid of life. I never expect the worst".
"I am going to tell you about myself", he said. "I never intended to but-I’m going to".
She leant forward eagerly. "Oh, do!"
"I must beg you to keep it secret".
"Never shall I breathe it to the face of clay!"
"Very well". He rose, took the teapot to the stove and added water to it from the kettle. With it still in his hand he turned to her abruptly.
"I am married", he said.
She stared unbelievingly. "Oh, surely not", she said. "Surely not".
He gave a short laugh. "I don’t think I am mistaken. I’m not only a husband but a father".
"Of all things! Then you lied to me, for you told me you were single".
"Yes. I lied to you".
"Yet you seem to me the perfect bachelor".
"Many a time I was called the perfect husband".
"Ah, well", she said, with her Irish inflections intensified, "whatever you were, you’d be good at it!" She mused a moment and then added, "Lover and all".
"And liar!"
She looked him in the eyes. "Are you going to tell me why you lied?" she asked.
"Yes". He came and sat down.
"What I mean is, why you hid the fact of your marriage".
"Yes, of course… I was running away".
"Leaving her?"
"Yes".
"And the child?"
"Yes".
"Boy or girl?"
"Girl of fourteen".
"Then you’ve been married a long while!"
"Fifteen years. I was twenty-five". He added, with sudden force, "Fifteen years of misery!"
"Surely not the whole fifteen!"
"We weren’t married six months till I knew I had made a mistake. The remaining years were spent in realising it more and more".
"Couldn’t you do anything about it?"
"Nothing. I was rooted. Hopelessly. You can’t imagine how I was rooted, because you’ve never lived that sort of life".
As his hand rested on the table she laid hers on it for an instant. "Please tell me about it", she said.
Through the open door came the voice of the river, talking among its reeds. The cow Wilmott had bought lowed at the gate.
"She wants to be milked", he said.
"Can you do it?"
"I have a young Indian helping me".
"Oh, I do love this little place!" exclaimed Adeline. "I don’t want to think you’re unhappy here".
"I have told you how happy I am. But things won’t be right with me till you know all the truth".
"You’re a dangerous kind of man", she said.
"You mean it isn’t safe to tell the truth?"
"I can bear it, but not all women can. Perhaps your wife couldn’t".
"Henrietta never knew anything about me. Not really. She knew I held a responsible position in a large shipping house. I had married too young but I kept my nose to the grind-stone. I was good at figures. They thought well of me in the business. Our friends-that is, my wife’s-said I was such a good husband and father. It was no wonder. I had a good training. She never let me alone. Tidiness, order, meticulous living, that was her aim from morning to night. That and the acquiring of possessions. No sooner had we got one thing than her heart went out to another. Glass, silver, carpets, curtains, clothes-and all to be kept in the most perfect order. No dogs about the place. The two maids-we had risen to two when I left-constantly scouring and cleaning. But if only she could have done it peaceably. She did nothing peaceably. She talked without ceasing. She would talk for hours about some trivial social triumph or defeat, or the misdoings of a maid. If she was silent it was because she was in a cold fury and that I could not stand. I would either quarrel with her to get her out of it or just succumb and be meek. You see, she was the stronger character".
"And the little girl?" asked Adeline, trying to fit Wilmott into this new picture.
"She’s not a little girl", he returned testily. "She’s a big lump of a girl, with no affection and small intelligence. Her mother is convinced that Hettie inherits my musical ability. She took music lessons and was always pounding out the same piece, always with the very same mistakes. My wife was eternally talking but Hettie rarely spoke. She just sat and stared at me".
"Faith, it was a queer life for you!" said Adeline.
Wilmott sat smiling gently at her. "You could not imagine it", he said.
"And then what happened?"
"I applied myself more assiduously to my work. I was promoted. I made more money but managed to keep the fact secret. I began to talk to her of the East and how I longed to go there. I would interrupt her discourse on a friend’s soirée to talk of Bombay and Cashmere. All the while I was planning to come to the West. She could not understand my sudden talkativeness. My talk bored her excessively. Hettie would just sit staring. Hettie was always sucking lozenges flavoured with cloves. When I think of her I smell cloves".
"Ah, you should have been a bachelor!" said Adeline.
"Would that have made me immune to the scent of cloves?" he asked tartly.
"I mean, you weren’t fitted for the intimacies of family life. Not the way my father is. Smells don’t affect him or whether a woman is silent or talks. He has the knack of marriage".
"Upon my word", exclaimed Wilmott, "one might think you sympathised with my wife!"
"A good beating was what she needed. It would have brought out the good in her. Was she plain or pretty?"
"Pretty", he returned glumly.
"Did she keep her looks?"
"She did".
"And Hettie? Was she pretty?"
"As pretty as a suet pudding".
"Whom did she resemble then?"
"My wife’s father. He was always taking snuff. It was always scattered over his waistcoat".
"There you go again-noticing small things! Maybe you have a talent for writing".
Wilmott flushed. "I have faint hopes in that direction".
"Don’t let ’em be faint!" said Adeline. "Let ’em be fierce! I don’t believe in faint hopes. It wasn’t faint hopes that got me Philip".
The mention of Philip’s name put a damper on Wilmott’s confidence. He could feel Philip’s presence in the room. He said stiffly:
"I should not be telling you all this".
"And why not? What else is friendship for?"
"You despise me".
"Could I despise my friend? You are my only friend in all this country, James Wilmott". She spoke fondly, cherishing his friendship and his ambition. Then she added quickly, "But is that your real name?"
He nodded.
"Are you sure you’re not lying again?" She smiled at him coaxingly, as though to worm the truth out of him.
"I deserve that", he said. "But this time I am telling you the truth. Perhaps I should have changed my name, as I ran away from her".
"You ran away! Good for you! Ah, I’m glad you left her-the nagging woman! How did you leave her?"
He did not answer for a moment. His thoughts had flown backward. Then he said composedly:
"I knew for five years that I was going to do it. But I made up my mind that I would not leave her badly off. I can tell you, I did not spare myself. I never was anything but tired and tense-in all that five years… At last I had my affairs as I wanted them. She would own the house, have a respectable income. I made over everything into her name. Then I wrote her a letter telling her that I was going to the East to spend the rest of my life and that she would never hear from me again. I got leave from the office to go for a week to Paris. I bought a ticket to Paris. Then I went to Liverpool, took a boat for Ireland, and you know the rest… You don’t think she can trace me, do you?"