He went away and she returned to the étude, the third. She had begun it after Arnold’s death, when she was learning the meaning of sorrow, and not only the sorrow of death but the deeper sorrow of knowing that what had been was not all that it could have been had there been more understanding and therefore more communication between Arnold and herself. They had both done the best they could together. If she realized there might have been, a deeper happiness, so had he. Of that she was sure, for she had sometimes felt his gaze upon her and, lifting her head, had seen sadness in his eyes, and silently had respected that sadness, comprehending in her own reserve the inexorable distance between them. Neither she nor Arnold had overcome that reserve, but the knowledge and acceptance were painful.
Upon the day of his funeral, she had returned to this house alone, for she longed to be alone and rejected the affectionate offers of her children to come home with her. “No, my dears,” she had told them. “Go home to your children. Be with them, and I shall be happy. Indeed, I am quite all right. I’ll take a sleeping pill tonight — I am very tired”—and there alone she had begun the étude. It was divided into three parts, the first the statement of sorrow, a query as to why the sorrow must be. In the second part question rose to protest and wild demand. In the closing third, the question was unanswered, the demand unheeded and the theme was expressed again and finally, this time by acceptance of the inexorable.
When the last chord died under her hands, she heard Amelia’s voice.
“If I had a heart, it would break when you play that.”
She turned. Amelia was sitting in a gold chair, looking very smart in a cocktail dress of silver lamé.
“When did you come?” she asked.
“Ten minutes ago. I wouldn’t let Weston announce me. I haven’t heard you play for a long time — months. You play better than ever, Edith. I’m furious with my parents that they didn’t make me keep practicing.”
“As I remember it,” she said, smiling, “you hated them for making you practice for two years.”
“They shouldn’t have listened to my complaining,” Amelia insisted. “They should have beaten me. As it is, I blame them for my not having the ability now to comfort myself with music. They should have had more backbone.”
“They wanted their only daughter to love them.”
“A stupid way to win love! They should have known that the only way to be loved is to be stronger than the one you love.”
“I never before heard you talk about love, Amelia.”
“That’s not to say I have no ideas on the subject!”
They were interrupted by the arrival of Edmond Hartley. He had changed his suit to a tan surah silk, and he wore jade cuff links and tie pin. Amelia put out her hand.
“Well, Edmond!” she said, surveying him. “You’re handsomer than ever.”
He returned her gaze and she released his hand.
“Now I remember you,” he said. “You’re the girl who always beat me at tennis!”
He turned. “This young woman, Mrs. Chardman, had the most evil backhand. And she was quicksilver on her feet. I was agile, or so I thought, but she was fleet as — as a — young gazelle, and I simply could not win. I could never make up my mind whether to love her or hate her!”
Amelia laughed in delight. “You never did make up your mind,” she declared.
“I never did,” he agreed.
They looked at each other, comparing themselves as to age. How had the years dealt with them, and with which the more kindly? An old attraction stirred. As nearly as he had ever come to marriage he had once nearly married Amelia Darwent. Each of them now remembered.
…That night when Jared called she told him, half in amusement, “Your uncle, Jared, is reviving an old attraction. Love is too strong a word. But he and Amelia once knew each other. They forgot and now remember again. He went away after dinner, but I heard him ask Amelia if he might call upon her tomorrow.”
Jared shouted laughter. “It’s as far as he will go, bless him!”
To her own surprise, she was suddenly annoyed with him. “Don’t laugh, Jared! He’s a tragic man — and a good man.”
“Of course he’s good, but—”
“No but! He’s come to terms with himself, and knowing himself, he’s refused the best life can give.”
“That being—”
“Love, of course. How young you are,” she said almost contemptuously and her heart began suddenly to ache.
“I don’t understand you,” he said, very blunt.
“There’s no need to,” she replied.
…Deliberately during the next few days she devoted herself to Edmond Hartley and Amelia. Seeming to see nothing, she saw everything. She understood Amelia so well and so affectionately. Amelia had always been direct and never was she more direct than now. She walked across the lawns and appeared at odd hours, always beautifully dressed for the time of day, looking handsome in her somewhat severe fashion, her stubborn gray hair fashionably cut, her skirts short enough to reveal her shapely legs. Black and white suited her, and she wore white for the warm summer days and long diaphanous black gowns in the evening. Her abrupt ways, her clipped speech, combined with her almost ostentatious deference to Edmond, obviously touched and pleased him. It had been a long time since a woman had paid him attention. He ceased to shrink from being alone with her and began to suggest a stroll through the trees. Amelia accepted each invitation immediately and it became almost usual that before the cocktail hour Edith saw the two tall figures, Edmond an inch or two the taller, strolling aim in arm about the grounds. She was prepared, therefore, for Amelia's forthright announcement one evening in July.
“Edith, I’ve just asked Edmond Hartley to marry me.”
“Amelia, have you really?” she exclaimed. “And what did he say?”
Amelia gave her short bark of laughter. “He couldn’t very well refuse, could he, without being impolite, so he said he considered it an honor and accepted.”
They were in her upstairs room, whither Amelia had followed her. She was lying on the chaise longue, resting for half an hour before dressing for dinner.
“Amelia, I suppose you know—”
Amelia finished the sentence impatiently. “That he’s not interested in sex with a woman? Yes, I know — I’ve always known. Why do you suppose I’ve never married? I was mad about him when we were young. He was the handsomest man in the world. Then he told me, yes, Edith, he told me! I’ve always admired him for that. He’s so — decent. He understood himself, he had himself in hand. He was never going to let himself — well, you know! He was simply going to live without sex. It was so brave of him. Wasn’t it brave? Yes, and so I have, too. You’ll think it silly and old-fashioned of me. But there simply hasn’t been another love for me, either, and sex without love just doesn’t — well, appeal to me. Of course for a while I was shocked, even repelled, healthy beast that I was. We didn’t see each other for a long time. But gradually during the years I’ve come to see that sex isn’t all that matters between people and gradually sex has been drained away. What’s left now is love. That’s what I said to him. ‘Edmond, I love you. You, yourself. I want to live in the same house with you, be near you, that’s all.’ He said, as I told you, that ‘it would be an honor.’”
She thought she had known Amelia from earliest memory and now perceived that she had not known her. So many years she had been wrong, but now she understood her friend and with understanding she felt a real love for a sister woman.
“I respect you both,” she said quietly. “When will you be married?”
“As soon as we can arrange the legalities,” Amelia told her. “Then Edmond will move into my house. We’ve discussed everything. He can have the east wing for himself. There will be plenty of room to hang all his paintings. Edith, I can’t tell you how happy I am. I’m glad I had the courage to face the truth we’ve always known, that we ought to spend our lives together. He’s so — honorable. He would never have asked me. So I put aside false modesty and all that, and I asked him.”