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The Pretext: Part III · The Hermit and the Wild Woman, and other Stories

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  Section twenty of The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories by Edith Wharton.
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  This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The pretext, Part three.
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  All the heat and glare from the long illuminated table, about which the
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  fumes of many courses still hung in a savory fog, seemed to surge up
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  to the ladies Gallery and concentrate themselves in the burning cheeks of a slender figure
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  withdrawn behind the projection of a pillar. It never occurred to Margaret Ransom that
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  she was sitting in the shade. She supposed that the full light of the
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  chandeliers was beating on her face, and there were moments when it seemed as
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  though all the heads about the great horseshoe below, bald, shaggy, sleek,
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  close thatched, or thinly latticed, were equipped with an additional pair of
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  eyes set at an angle, which enabled them to rake her face as relentlessly
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  as the electric burners. In the lull. After a speech, the gallery
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  was fluttering with the rustle of programs consulted, and missus Cheff, the brant
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  Girl's aunt, leaned forward to say, enthusiastically, and now we're to hear
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  mister Ransom. A louder buzz rose from the table, and the heads,
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  without relaxing their upward vigilance, seemed to merge and flow together like an attentive
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  flood, toward the upper end of the horseshoe, where all the threads of
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  Margaret Ransom's consciousness were suddenly drawn into what seemed a small speck, no more
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  a black speck that rose hung in air, dissolved into gyrating gestures, became
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  distended, enormous preponderant became her husband, speaking, it's the heat, Margaret
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  gasped, pressing her handkerchief to her whitening lips, and finding just length enough
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  left to push back farther into the shadow. She felt a touch on her
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  arm. It is horrible, Shall we go? Voice suggested? And yes,
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  yes, let us go, she whispered, feeling with a great throb
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  of relief that to be the only possible, the only conceivable solution, to
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  sit and listen to her husband? Now, how could she ever have thought
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  she could survive it? Luckily, under the lingering hubbub from below, his
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  opening words were inaudible, and she had only to run the gauntlet of sympathetic
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  feminine glances shot after her. Between waving fans and programs. As guided by
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  Guy Ganish, she managed to reach the door. It was really so hot
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  that even missus Cheff was not much surprised till long afterward. The winding staircase
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  was empty, half dark, and blessedly silent. In a committee room below,
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  Dawnish found the inevitable water jug and filled a glass for her while she
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  leaned back, confronted only by a frowning college president in an emblazoned frame.
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  The academic frown descended on her like an anathema when she rose and followed her
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  companion out of the building. Hamblin Hall stands at the end of a long
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  green campus, with its sextopal line of elms, the boast and the singularity
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  of Wentworth. A pale spring moon rising above the dome of the University Library
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  at the opposite end of the elm walk, diffused a pearly mildness in the
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  sky, melted to thin haze the shadows of the trees, and turned to
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  golden yellow. The lights of the college windows. Against this soft suffusion of
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  light, the library cupola assumed a Bramantesque grace. The white steeple of the
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  Congregational church became a campanile topped by a winged spirit, and the scant porticoes
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  of the older halls the colonnades of classic temples. This is better, Donish
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  said, as they passed down the steps and under the shadow of the elms.
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  They moved on a little way in silence, before he began again,
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  you're too tired to walk. Let us sit down. A few minutes.
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  Her feet and truth were leaden, and not far off a group of park
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  benches encircling the pedestal of a patriot in bronze invited them to rest, but
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  Donish was guiding her toward a lateral path which bent through shrubberies toward a strip
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  of turf between two of the buildings. It will be cooler by the river,
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  he said, moving on without waiting for a possible protest. None came.
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  It seemed easier for the moment to let herself be led without any conventional
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  feint of resistance, and besides, there was nothing wrong about this. The
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  wrong would have been in sitting up there in the glare pretending to listen to
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  her husband, a dutiful wife among her kind. The path descended, as
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  both knew to the chosen the inimitable spot of Wentworth, that fugitive curve of
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  the river, where, before hurrying on to glut the brutal industries of South
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  Wentworth and Smetten. It simulated, for a few hundred yards the leisurely pace
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  of an ancient university stream, with willows on its banks, and a stretch
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  of turf extending from the grounds of Hamblin Hall to the boat houses at the
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  farther bend. Here, too were benches beneath the willows, and so close
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  to the river that the voice of its gliding softened and filled out the reverberating
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  silence between Margaret and her companion, and made her feel that she knew why
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  he had brought her there. Do you feel better, he asked gently,
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  as he sat down beside her. Oh, yes, I only needed a
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  little air. I'm so glad you did. Of course, the beeches were
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  tremendously interesting, but I prefer this. What a good night. Yes,
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  there was a pause, which, now, after all the soothing accompaniment of
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  the river seemed hardly sufficient to fill. I wonder what time it is I
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  ought to be going home, Margaret began at length. Oh it's not late.
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  They'll be at it for hours in there. Yet she made a faint,
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  inarticulate sound. She wanted to say no, Robert's speech was to be
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  the last, but she could not bring herself to pronounce Ransom's name, and
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  at the moment, no other way of refuting her companion's statement occurred to her.
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  The young man leaned back, luxuriously, reassured by her silence. You
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  see, it's my last chance, and I want to make the most of
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  it. Your last chance. How stupid of her to repeat his words on
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  that cooing note of interrogation. It was just such a lead as the brant
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  girl might have given him, to be with you like this. I haven't
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  had so many, and there's less than a week left. She attempted to
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  laugh. Perhaps it will sound longer if you'd call it five days. The
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  flatness of that again, and she knew there were people who called her intelligent.
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  Fortunately he did not seem to notice it, but her laugh continued to
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  sound in her own ears, the coquettish chirp of middle age. She decided
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  that if he spoke again, if he said anything, she would make no
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  farther effort at evasion. She would take it directly, seriously. Frankly,
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  she would not be doubly disloyal. Besides, he continued throwing his arm along
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  the back of the bench and turning toward her, so that his face was
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  like a dusky bass relief with a silver rim. Besides, there's something I've
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  been wanting to tell you. The sound of the river seemed to cease altogether.
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  The whole world became silent. Margaret had trusted her inspiration farther than it
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  appeared likely to carry her Again, she could think of nothing happier than to
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  repeat, on the same witless note of interrogation, to tell me you only
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  the constraint. The difficulty seemed to be on his side now, she divined
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  it by the renewed shifting of his attitude he was capable usually of such fine
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  intervals of immobility, and by a confusion in his utterance that set her own
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  voice throbbing in her throat. You've been so perfect to me, he began
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  again. It's not my fault if you made me feel that you would understand
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  everything, make allowances for everything. See just how a man may have held
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  out and fought against a thing as long as he had the strength as may
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  be my only chance, and I can't go away without telling you. He
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  had turned from her now and was staring at the river, so that his
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  profile was projected against the moonlight in all its beautiful, young dejection. There
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  was a slight pause, as though he waited for her to speak. Then
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  she leaned forward and laid her hand on his. If I have really been,
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  if I have done for you even the least part of what you say,
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  what you imagine, will you do for me now, just one thing
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  in return? He sat motionless, as if fearing to frighten away the shy
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  touch on his hand, and she left it there, conscious of her gesture
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  only as part of the high ritual of their farewell. What you want me
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  to do, he asked, in a low tone. Not to tell me,
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  she breathed, on a deep note of entreaty, Not to tell you
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  anything, anything, Just to leave our, our friendship as it has been,
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  as as a painter if a friend asked him, might leave a picture
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  not quite finished, perhaps, but all the more quis it. She felt
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  the hand under hers slip away, recover itself and seek her own, which
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  had flashed out of reach. In the same instant, felt the start that
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  swept him round on her, as if he had been caught and turned about
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  by the shoulders. You you, he stammered, in a strange voice,
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  full of fear and tenderness. But she held fast, so centered in her
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  inexorable resolve that she was hardly conscious of the effect her words might be producing.
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  Don't you see, she hurried on, Don't you feel how much safer
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  it is? Yes, I'm willing to put it so, how much safer
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  to leave everything undisturbed, just as as it has grown of itself, without
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  trying to say it's this or that. It's what we each choose to call
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  it to ourselves, after all, isn't it. Don't let us try to
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  find a name that that we should both agree upon. We probably shouldn't succeed,
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  she laughed abruptly. And ghosts Spanish when one names them, she ended,
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  with a break in her voice. When she ceased, her heart was
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  beating so violently that there was a rush in her ears, like the noise
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  of the river after rain, and she did not immediately make out what he
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  was answering. But as she recovered her lucidity, she said to herself that
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  whatever he was saying, she must not hear it, and she began to
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  speak again, half playfully, half appealingly, with an eloquence of entreaty,
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  an ingenuity in argument of which she had never dreamed herself capable. And then
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  suddenly, strangling hands seemed to reach up from her heart to her throat,
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  and she had to stop. Her companion remained motionless. He had not tried
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  to regain her hand, and his eyes were away from her on the river.
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  But his nearness had become something formidable and exquisite, something she had never
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  before imagined. A flush of guilt swept over her. Vague reminiscences of French
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  novels and of opera plots. This was what such women felt, then,
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  this was shame. Phrases of the newspaper and the pulpit danced before her.
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  She dared not speak, and his silence began to frighten her. Had ever
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  a heart beat so wildly before in wentworth. He turned at last, and,
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  taking her two hands, quite simply kissed them one after the other.
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  I shall never forget, he said, in a confused voice unlike his own.
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  A return of strength enabled her to rise, and even to let her
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  eyes meet his for a moment. Thank you, she said simply. Also,
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  she turned away from the bench, regaining the path that led back to
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  the college buildings, and he walked beside her in silence. When they reached
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  the Elm Walk, it was dotted with dispersing groups. The speaking was over,
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  and emblin Hall had poured its audience out into the moonlight. Margaret felt
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  a rush of relief, followed by a receding wave of regret. She had
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  the distinct sensation that her hour, her one hour, was over. One
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  of the groups just ahead broke up as they approached and projected ransom, solid
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  bulk against the moonlight. My husband, she said, hastening forward, and
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  she never afterward forgot the look of his back, heavy, round shouldered,
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  yet a little pompous, in a badly fitting overcoat that stood out at the
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  neck and hid his collar. She had never before noticed how he dressed.
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  End of Section twenty