The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [6]
"From the first, he did not like the idea at all. To get anywhere near the root of the matter, one has got to see just how dumb Mr. Quayne was. He had not got a mind that joins one thing and another up. He had got knit up with Irene in a sort of a dream wood, but the last thing he wanted was to stay in that wood for ever. In his waking life he liked to be plain and solid; to be plain and solid was to be married to Mrs. Quayne. I don't suppose he knew, in his own feeling, where sentimentality stopped and want began—and who could tell, with an old buffer like that? In any event, he had not foreseen ever having to put his shirt on either. He loved his home like a child. That night, he sat on the edge of the big bed, wrapped up in the eiderdown, and cried till he had no breath left to denounce himself. But Mrs. Quayne was, of course, implacable: in fact, by next day she had got quite ecstatic. She might have been saving up for this moment for years—in fact, I daresay she had been, without knowing. Mr. Quayne's last hope was that if he curled up and went to sleep now, in the morning he might find that nothing had really happened. So at last he curled up and went to sleep. She probably didn't—Does this bore you, St. Quentin?"
"Anything but, Anna; in fact, it curdles my blood."
"Mrs. Quayne came down to breakfast worn but shining, and Mr. Quayne making every effort to please. Thomas, of course, saw that something awful had happened, and his one idea was to stave everything off. After breakfast, his mother said that he was a man now, walked him round the garden and told him the whole story in the most idealistic way. Thomas saw his father watching them round the smoking-room curtain. She made Thomas agree that he and she must do everything possible to help his father, Irene and the poor little coming child. The idea of the baby embarrassed Thomas intensely on his father's behalf. Words still fail him for how discreditably ridiculous the whole thing appeared. But he was sorry about his father having to go, and asked Mrs. Quayne if this was really necessary: she said it was. She had got the whole thing sorted out in the night, even down to the train he was to catch. She seemed to be quite taken with her idea of Irene: Irene's letters had gone down better with her than with Mr. Quayne, who did not like things in writing. In fact, I'm afraid Mrs. Quayne always liked Irene a good deal better than, later, she liked me. Mr. Quayne's faint hope that the whole thing might be dropped, or that his wife might find some way to make it all right, must have been dispelled as he watched them walk round the garden. He was not allowed a say for one single minute—to begin with, he strongly disapproved of divorce.
"During the two days before his departure (during which he stayed in the smoking-room and had his meals sent in to him on a tray) Mrs. Quayne's idealism spread round the house like 'flu. It very strongly affected poor Mr. Quayne. All the kick having gone from the affair with Irene, he fell morally in love with his wife all over again. She had got him that way when he was twenty-two, and she got him again like that at fifty-seven. He blubbered and told Thomas that his mother was a living saint. At the end of the two days, Mrs. Quayne had him packed for and sent him up to Irene by the afternoon train. Thomas was told off to drive him to the station: all the way, arid while they waited on the platform, Mr. Quayne said not a word. Just before the train started, he leaned out and beckoned as though he had something to say. But all he said was: 'Bad luck to watch a train out.' After that he bumped back into his seat. Thomas did watch the train out, and he said its blank end looked quite wretchedly futureless.