Луис Бромфилд - Early Autumn - A Story of a Lady

No, in the end she returned always to the same thought … that she would sacrifice everything to the perfection of this thing which existed between Sybil and the impatient, red-haired young man.

When she was honest with herself, she knew that she would have had no panic, no terror, save for O’Hara. Save for him she would have had no fear of growing old, of seeing Sybil married and finding herself a grandmother. She had prayed for all these things, even that Fate should send Sybil just such a lover; and now that her prayer was answered there were times when she wished wickedly that he had not come, or at least not so promptly. When she was honest, the answer was always the same … that O’Hara had come to occupy the larger part of her interest in existence.

In the most secret part of her soul, she no longer pretended that her feeling for him was only one of friendship. She was in love with him. She rose each morning joyfully to ride with him across the meadows, pleased that Sybil came with them less and less frequently; and on the days when he was kept in Boston a cloud seemed to darken all her thoughts and actions. She talked to him of his future, his plans, the progress of his campaign, as if already she were his wife or his mistress. She played traitor to all her world whose fortunes rested on the success and power of his political enemies. She came to depend upon his quick sympathy. He had a Gaelic way of understanding her moods, her sudden melancholy, that had never existed in the phlegmatic, insensitive world of Pentlands.

She was honest with herself after the morning when, riding along the damp, secret paths of the birch thicket, he halted his horse abruptly and with a kind of anguish told her that he could no longer go on in the way they were going.

He said, “What do you want me to do? I am good for nothing. I can think of nothing but you … all day and all night. I go to Boston and try to work and all the while I’m thinking of you … thinking what is to be done. You must see what hell it is for me … to be near you like this and yet to be treated only as a friend.”

Abruptly, when she turned and saw the suffering in his eyes, she knew there was no longer any doubt. She asked sadly, “What do you want me to do? What can I do? You make me feel that I am being the cheapest, silliest sort of woman.” And in a low voice she added, “I don’t mean to be, Michael. … I love you, Michael. … Now I’ve told you. You are the only man I’ve ever loved … even the smallest bit.”

A kind of ecstatic joy took possession of him. He leaned over and kissed her, his own tanned face dampened by her tears.

“I’m so happy,” she said, “and yet so sad. …”

“If you love me … then we can go our way … we need not think of any of the others.”

“Oh, it’s not so easy as that, my dear.” She had never before been so conscious of his presence, of that strange sense of warmth and charm which he seemed to impose on everything about him.

“I do have to think of the others,” she said. “Not my husband. … I don’t think he even cares so long as the world knows nothing. But there’s Sybil. … I can’t make a fool of myself on account of Sybil.”

She saw quickly that she had used the wrong phrase, that she had hurt him; striking without intention at the fear which he sometimes had that she thought him a common, vulgar Irish politician.

“Do you think that this thing between us … might be called ‘making a fool of yourself’?” he asked with a faint shade of bitterness.

“No … you know me better than that. … You know I was thinking only of myself … as a middle-aged woman with a daughter ready to be married.”

“But she will be married … soon … surely. Young de Cyon isn’t the sort who waits.”

“Yes … that’s true … but even then.” She turned quickly. “What do you want me to do? … Do you want me to be your mistress?”

“I want you for my own. … I want you to marry me.”

“Do you want me as much as that?”

“I want you as much as that. … I can’t bear the thought of sharing you … of having you belong to anyone else.”

“Oh … I’ve belonged to no one for a great many years now … not since Jack was born.”

He went on, hurriedly, ardently. “It would change all my life. It would give me some reason to go on. … Save for you. … I’d chuck everything and go away. … I’m sick of it.”

“And you want me for my own sake … not just because I’ll help your career and give you an interest in life.”

“For your own sake … nothing else, Olivia.”

“You see, I ask because I’ve thought a great deal about it. I’m older than you, Michael. I seem young now. … But at forty. … I’ll be forty in the autumn … at forty being older makes a difference. It cuts short our time. … It’s not as if we were in our twenties. … I ask you, too, because you are a clever man and must see these things, too.”

“None of it makes any difference.” He looked so tragically in earnest, there was such a light in his blue eyes, that her suspicions died. She believed him.

“But we can’t marry … ever,” she said, “so long as my husband is alive. He’ll never divorce me nor let me divorce him. It’s one of his passionate beliefs … that divorce is a wicked thing. Besides, there has never been a divorce in the Pentland family. There have been worse things,” she said bitterly, “but never a divorce and Anson won’t be the first to break any tradition.”

“Will you talk to him?”

“Just now, Michael, I think I’d do anything … even that. But it will do no good.” For a time they were both silent, caught in a profound feeling of hopelessness, and presently she said, “Can you go on like this for a little time … until Sybil is gone?”

“We’re not twenty … either of us. We can’t wait too long.”

“I can’t desert her yet. You don’t know how it is at Pentlands. I’ve got to save her, even if I lose myself. I fancy they’ll be married before winter… even before autumn … before he leaves. And then I shall be free. I couldn’t … I couldn’t be your mistress now, Michael … with Sybil still in there at Pentlands with me. … I may be quibbling. … I may sound silly, but it does make a difference … because perhaps I’ve lived among them for too long.”

“You promise me that when she’s gone you’ll be free?”

“I promise you, Michael. … I’ve told you that I love you … that you’re the only man I’ve ever loved … even the smallest bit.”

“Mrs. Callendar will help us. … She wants it.”

“Oh, Sabine. …” She was startled. “You haven’t spoken to her? You haven’t told her anything?”

“No. … But you don’t need to tell her such things. She has a way of knowing.” After a moment he said, “Why, even Higgins wants it. He keeps saying to me, in an offhand sort of way, as if what he said meant nothing at all, ‘Mrs. Pentland is a fine woman, sir. I’ve known her for years. Why, she’s even helped me out of scrapes. But it’s a pity she’s shut up in that mausoleum with all those dead ones. She ought to have a husband who’s a man. She’s married to a living corpse.’”

Olivia flushed. “He has no right to talk that way.”

“If you could hear him speak, you’d know that it’s not disrespect, but because he worships you. He’d kiss the ground you walk over.” And looking down, he added, “He says it’s a pity that a thoroughbred like you is shut up at Pentlands. You mustn’t mind his way of saying it. He’s something of a horse breeder and so he sees such things in the light of truth.”

She knew, then, what O’Hara perhaps had failed to understand—that Higgins was touching the tragedy of her son, a son who should have been strong and full of life, like Jean. And a wild idea occurred to her—that she might still have a strong son, with O’Hara as the father, a son who would be a Pentland heir but without the Pentland taint. She might do what Savina Pentland had done. But she saw at once how absurd such an idea was; Anson would know well enough that it was not his son.