The Good Soldier (21 page)

"By jove, you're the finest woman in the world. I wish we could
be better friends."

She just turned away without a word and went to her cabin.
Still, she was very much better in health.

And now, I suppose, I must give you Leonora's side of the
case....

That is very difficult. For Leonora, if she preserved an
unchanged front, changed very frequently her point of view. She had
been drilled—in her tradition, in her upbringing—to keep her mouth
shut. But there were times, she said, when she was so near yielding
to the temptation of speaking that afterwards she shuddered to
think of those times. You must postulate that what she desired
above all things was to keep a shut mouth to the world; to Edward
and to the women that he loved. If she spoke she would despise
herself.

From the moment of his unfaithfulness with La Dolciquita she
never acted the part of wife to Edward. It was not that she
intended to keep herself from him as a principle, for ever. Her
spiritual advisers, I believe, forbade that. But she stipulated
that he must, in some way, perhaps symbolical, come back to her.
She was not very clear as to what she meant; probably she did not
know herself. Or perhaps she did.

There were moments when he seemed to be coming back to her;
there were moments when she was within a hair of yielding to her
physical passion for him. In just the same way, at moments, she
almost yielded to the temptation to denounce Mrs Basil to her
husband or Maisie Maidan to hers. She desired then to cause the
horrors and pains of public scandals. For, watching Edward more
intently and with more straining of ears than that which a cat
bestows upon a bird overhead, she was aware of the progress of his
passion for each of these ladies. She was aware of it from the way
in which his eyes returned to doors and gateways; she knew from his
tranquillities when he had received satisfactions.

At times she imagined herself to see more than was warranted.
She imagined that Edward was carrying on intrigues with other
women—with two at once; with three. For whole periods she imagined
him to be a monster of libertinage and she could not see that he
could have anything against her. She left him his liberty; she was
starving herself to build up his fortunes; she allowed herself none
of the joys of femininity—no dresses, no jewels—hardly even
friendships, for fear they should cost money.

And yet, oddly, she could not but be aware that both Mrs Basil
and Maisie Maidan were nice women. The curious, discounting eye
which one woman can turn on another did not prevent her seeing that
Mrs Basil was very good to Edward and Mrs Maidan very good for him.
That seemed her to be a monstrous and incomprehensible working of
Fate's. Incomprehensible! Why, she asked herself again and again,
did none of the good deeds that she did for her husband ever come
through to him, or appear to hime as good deeds? By what trick of
mania could not he let her be as good to him as Mrs Basil was? Mrs
Basil was not so extraordinarily dissimilar to herself. She was, it
was true, tall, dark, with soft mournful voice and a great kindness
of manner for every created thing, from punkah men to flowers on
the trees. But she was not so well read as Lenora, at any rate in
learned books. Leonora could not stand novels. But, even with all
her differences, Mrs Basil did not appear to Leonora to differ so
very much from herself. She was truthful, honest and, for the rest,
just a woman. And Leonora had a vague sort of idea that, to a man,
all women are the same after three weeks of close intercourse. She
thought that the kindness should no longer appeal, the soft and
mournful voice no longer thrill, the tall darkness no longer give a
man the illusion that he was going into the depths of an unexplored
wood. She could not understand how Edward could go on and on
maundering over Mrs Basil. She could not see why he should continue
to write her long letters after their separation. After that,
indeed, she had a very bad time.

She had at that period what I will call the "monstrous" theory
of Edward. She was always imagining him ogling at every woman that
he came across. She did not, that year, go into "retreat" at Simla
because she was afraid that he would corrupt her maid in her
absence. She imagined him carrying on intrigues with native women
or Eurasians. At dances she was in a fever of watchfulness.

She persuaded herself that this was because she had a dread of
scandals. Edward might get himself mixed up with a marriageable
daughter of some man who would make a row or some husband who would
matter. But, really, she acknowledged afterwards to herself, she
was hoping that, Mrs Basil being out of the way, the time might
have come when Edward should return to her. All that period she
passed in an agony of jealousy and fear—the fear that Edward might
really become promiscuous in his habits.

So that, in an odd way, she was glad when Maisie Maidan came
along—and she realized that she had not, before, been afraid of
husbands and of scandals, since, then, she did her best to keep
Maisie's husband unsuspicious. She wished to appear so trustful of
Edward that Maidan could not possibly have any suspicions. It was
an evil position for her. But Edward was very ill and she wanted to
see him smile again. She thought that if he could smile again
through her agency he might return, through gratitude and satisfied
love—to her. At that time she thought that Edward was a person of
light and fleeting passions. And she could understand Edward's
passion for Maisie, since Maisie was one of those women to whom
other women will allow magnetism. She was very pretty; she was very
young; in spite of her heart she was very gay and light on her
feet. And Leonora was really very fond of Maisie, who was fond
enough of Leonora. Leonora, indeed, imagined that she could manage
this affair all right. She had no thought of Maisie's being led
into adultery; she imagined that if she could take Maisie and
Edward to Nauheim, Edward would see enough of her to get tired of
her pretty little chatterings, and of the pretty little motions of
her hands and feet. And she thought she could trust Edward. For
there was not any doubt of Maisie's passion for Edward. She raved
about him to Leonora as Leonora had heard girls rave about drawing
masters in schools. She was perpetually asking her boy husband why
he could not dress, ride, shoot, play polo, or even recite
sentimental poems, like their major. And young Maidan had the
greatest admiration for Edward, and he adored, was bewildered by
and entirely trusted his wife. It appeared to him that Edward was
devoted to Leonora. And Leonora imagined that when poor Maisie was
cured of her hear and Edward had seen enough of her, he would
return to her. She had the vague, passionate idea that, when Edward
had exhausted a number of other types of women he must turn to her.
Why should not her type have its turn in his heart? She imagined
that, by now, she understood him better, that she understood better
his vanities and that, by making him happier, she could arouse his
love.

Florence knocked all that on the head....

I HAVE, I am aware, told this story in a very rambling way so
that it may be difficult for anyone to find their path through what
may be a sort of maze. I cannot help it. I have stuck to my idea of
being in a country cottage with a silent listener, hearing between
the gusts of the wind and amidst the noises of the distant sea, the
story as it comes. And, when one discusses an affair—a long, sad
affair—one goes back, one goes forward. One remembers points that
one has forgotten and one explains them all the more minutely since
one recognizes that one has forgotten to mention them in their
proper places and that one may have given, by omitting them, a
false impression. I console myself with thinking that this is a
real story and that, after all, real stories are probably told best
in the way a person telling a story would tell them. They will then
seem most real.

At any rate, I think I have brought my story up to the date of
Maisie Maidan's death. I mean that I have explained everything that
went before it from the several points of view that were
necessary—from Leonora's, from Edward's and, to some extent, from
my own. You have the facts for the trouble of finding them; you
have the points of view as far as I could ascertain or put them.
Let me imagine myself back, then, at the day of Maisie's death—or
rather at the moment of Florence's dissertation on the Protest, up
in the old Castle of the town of M——. Let us consider Leonora's
point of view with regard to Florence; Edward's, of course, I
cannot give you, for Edward naturally never spoke of his affair
with my wife. (I may, in what follows, be a little hard on
Florence; but you must remember that I have been writing away at
this story now for six months and reflecting longer and longer upon
these affairs.) And the longer I think about them the more certain
I become that Florence was a contaminating influence—she depressed
and deteriorated poor Edward; she deteriorated, hopelessly, the
miserable Leonora. There is no doubt that she caused Leonora's
character to deteriorate. If there was a fine point about Leonora
it was that she was proud and that she was silent. But that pride
and that silence broke when she made that extraordinary outburst,
in the shadowy room that contained the Protest, and in the little
terrace looking over the river. I don't mean to say that she was
doing a wrong thing. She was certainly doing right in trying to
warn me that Florence was making eyes at her husband. But, if she
did the right thing, she was doing it in the wrong way. Perhaps she
should have reflected longer; she should have spoken, if she wanted
to speak, only after reflection. Or it would have been better if
she had acted—if, for instance, she had so chaperoned Florence that
private communication between her and Edward became impossible. She
should have gone eavesdropping; she should have watched outside
bedroom doors. It is odious; but that is the way the job is done.
She should have taken Edward away the moment Maisie was dead. No,
she acted wrongly.... And yet, poor thing, is it for me to condemn
her—and what did it matter in the end? If it had not been Florence,
it would have been some other... Still, it might have been a better
woman than my wife. For Florence was vulgar; Florence was a common
flirt who would not, at the last, lacher prise; and Florence was an
unstoppable talker. You could not stop her; nothing would stop her.
Edward and Leonora were at least proud and reserved people. Pride
and reserve are not the only things in life; perhaps they are not
even the best things. But if they happen to be your particular
virtues you will go all to pieces if you let them go. And Leonora
let them go. She let them go before poor Edward did even. Consider
her position when she burst out over the Luther-Protest....
Consider her agonies....

You are to remember that the main passion of her life was to get
Edward back; she had never, till that moment, despaired of getting
him back. That may seem ignoble; but you have also to remember that
her getting him back represented to her not only a victory for
herself. It would, as it appeared to her, have been a victory for
all wives and a victory for her Church. That was how it presented
itself to her. These things are a little inscrutable. I don't know
why the getting back of Edward should have represented to her a
victory for all wives, for Society and for her Church. Or, maybe, I
have a glimmering of it. She saw life as a perpetual sex-baffle
between husbands who desire to be unfaithful to their wives, and
wives who desire to recapture their husbands in the end. That was
her sad and modest view of matrimony. Man, for her, was a sort of
brute who must have his divagations, his moments of excess, his
nights out, his, let us say, rutting seasons. She had read few
novels, so that the idea of a pure and constant love succeeding the
sound of wedding bells had never been very much presented to her.
She went, numbed and terrified, to the Mother Superior of her
childhood's convent with the tale of Edward's infidelities with the
Spanish dancer, and all that the old nun, who appeared to her to be
infinitely wise, mystic and reverend, had done had been to shake
her head sadly and to say:

"Men are like that. By the blessing of God it will all come
right in the end."

That was what was put before her by her spiritual advisers as
her programme in life. Or, at any rate, that was how their
teachings came through to her—that was the lesson she told me she
had learned of them. I don't know exactly what they taught her. The
lot of women was patience and patience and again patience—ad
majorem Dei gloriam—until upon the appointed day, if God saw fit,
she should have her reward. If then, in the end, she should have
succeeded in getting Edward back she would have kept her man within
the limits that are all that wifehood has to expect. She was even
taught that such excesses in men are natural, excusable—as if they
had been children.

And the great thing was that there should be no scandal before
the congregation. So she had clung to the idea of getting Edward
back with a fierce passion that was like an agony. She had looked
the other way; she had occupied herself solely with one idea. That
was the idea of having Edward appear, when she did get him back,
wealthy, glorious as it were, on account of his lands, and upright.
She would show, in fact, that in an unfaithful world one Catholic
woman had succeeded in retaining the fidelity of her husband. And
she thought she had come near her desires.

Her plan with regard to Maisie had appeared to be working
admirably. Edward had seemed to be cooling off towards the girl. He
did not hunger to pass every minute of the time at Nauheirn beside
the child's recumbent form; he went out to polo matches; he played
auction bridge in the evenings; he was cheerful and bright. She was
certain that he was not trying to seduce that poor child; she was
beginning to think that he had never tried to do so. He seemed in
fact to be dropping back into what he had been for Maisie in the
beginning—a kind, attentive, superior officer in the regiment,
paying gallant attentions to a bride. They were as open in their
little flirtations as the dayspring from on high. And Maisie had
not appeared to fret when he went off on excursions with us; she
had to lie down for so many hours on her bed every afternoon, and
she had not appeared to crave for the attentions of Edward at those
times. And Edward was beginning to make little advances to Leonora.
Once or twice, in private—for he often did it before people—he had
said: "How nice you look!" or "What a pretty dress!" She had gone
with Florence to Frankfurt, where they dress as well as in Paris,
and had got herself a gown or two. She could afford it, and
Florence was an excellent adviser as to dress. She seemed to have
got hold of the clue to the riddle.