Conflict (Prouty)/Book 4/Chapter 6
That evening Felix and his father went to a political rally in the town hall. After Sheilah had tucked Phillip into bed, also Felix's mother, and called to each 'good-night,' she went to her own bedroom and closed the door. On a high shelf in her closet, inside a box, where she kept woolen things in camphor-balls, there was a packet of letters from Roger, hidden in the folds of an old India shawl of her grandmother's. Sheilah did not allow herself to read these letters often, but she felt in great need to-night of some actual proof that she hadn't run away from an unreality, a dream of her own romantic making. They were beautiful letters, a dozen or more, written during her first six months in Terry.
When Sheilah and Roger had separated they had agreed not to write to each other, but Roger had ignored the pact. How Sheilah had loved him for ignoring it, and with what joy she had received each testimony of his thought of her. She had not answered the letters. But she had allowed them to continue—weakly allowed them to continue, she supposed. She knew the effect of the arrival of a letter from Roger, the immediate mounting of her spirits, was not well for her. It was like secretly drinking a stimulant which she had run away to Terry in order to forego. Finally she cut off the supply. Roger hastened the step.
Sheilah's silence became unendurable to him. He had no idea how she was situated in Terry. Whether or not she had found the peace she had gone to seek, whether or not she was even well. One day Sheilah received a note from Roger, mailed from a near-by town, announcing that he was driving through Terry by automobile the next afternoon, and would stop for an hour and see how she was.
Sheilah did not dare break the spell of their separation. To see Roger even for an hour would mean perhaps going through all the early longing and loneliness again. Moreover, her determination to make her renunciation complete and final, had mounted by that time to a state of almost ecstatic fervor.
When Roger arrived at the brown house Sheilah was miles away, fiercely tramping a country road, and fighting a desire to turn and run back before it was too late. Phillip, seated on the brown doorstep, alone awaited Roger. His mother was away for the day, he told Roger when he came, and here was a letter she had written him.
Roger read it later in the stuffy lobby of the little commercial hotel by the railroad station, biting his under lip, his heart tumultuous with disappointment and defeat. He had ridden over three hundred miles for an hour's meeting with Sheilah. He had lain awake countless hours thinking of the meeting.
Sheilah's letter was not long. But it said a great deal. She was quite well. Their separation was proving very successful. She had found peace of mind and happiness in Terry beyond her hopes, and he could best help her by never trying to see her again. It only made things more difficult. Also he must not write to her any more. It was better for her new peace and happiness not to be disturbed by the expectation of a message from him. And by the way, did he know that Cicely Morgan was at home again, and why didn't he go and see her as he used to go years ago? There was more than one road to happiness, she had discovered.
The note hurt Roger. He hardly recognized Sheilah in it, it was so brief and impersonal. And how could she make that reference to Cicely? Had she indeed recovered? So soon? Was her desire for him then so dependent upon seeing him? The same doubts that later assailed Sheilah, gripped Roger all the three hundred miles back to Boston over the dark night roads.
Sheilah lifted the box down from the closet shelf and placed it on the bed. She raised the cover and ran her hand into the middle fold of the shawl. The letters were not there! She picked up the shawl. They were underneath it instead of inside. Quickly she carried them across the room and sat down, close to the kerosene lamp. The ribbon that bound them was tied as usual in a small neat bow-knot. She untied it. The letters fell apart in her lap. They were without envelopes and bore no dates, but Sheilah knew their order by heart, and always kept them in the same sequence. The sequence was undisturbed.
Could she have put the letters underneath the shawl herself? No. She was always so careful with them. Who could have touched the precious packet? No one ever went to her closet. It was the one space in the world that was hers alone. Then, mercifully it flashed over her that possibly old Mrs. O'Connor, the Irishwoman who came twice a week to clean, might have been more thorough than usual, and disturbed the box, knocked it down, or even looked inside out of curiosity. It wouldn't matter if old Mrs. O'Connor had found the letters. She couldn't read or write.
The next day Mrs. O'Connor, questioned by Sheilah as to whether or not she had cleaned her closet the last time she had swept the room, assured her particular mistress that 'sure she had, and good and thorough, too.' Mrs. O'Connor didn't consider it a lie. She had mopped the closet floor, which was more than was her custom.
Sheilah was satisfied. But it was a warning. She burned the letters that night. They were better out of existence.
It was not until after Roger's futile trip to Terry that he became convinced that Sheilah was lost to him forever. He was surprised at the way it took hold of him. While she was gradually recovering from the effects of their relationship, acquiring peace and happiness in her retreat, he was possessed by a gnawing hunger that seemed to increase. He became restless and ill at ease, dreaded long quiet evenings alone, idle week-ends, unoccupied hours following meals, or any task just finished. Books even palled upon him, and he found it difficult to concentrate on the long conversations of his men friends at his club.
He worked hard and feverishly each day at his office, as early and late as possible, and then found himself desiring some form of entertainment in the evening that would engross him until he was so tired he could lose himself in sleep. It had been a comfort to write to Sheilah when she first went away, even though she didn't reply, but now she had robbed him of even that. She might as well be dead as far as he was concerned. In fact, their separation seemed to him sometimes worse than as if she were dead. For if she were in trouble, sick, or unhappy he would know nothing of it, and could not help her.
It was not because of Sheilah's suggestion that Roger first called up Cicely Morgan, and asked if he could run up and see her. It was because Cicely was the nearest he could get to Sheilah. Roger found immediate balm in talking to Cicely. Much of their conversation the first evening he called on her centered about Sheilah. He learned many little details and precious trivialities about her life in Terry. Cicely was very generous to him that night; read him parts of a recent letter from Sheilah; showed him a snapshot of her among her 'fluttering white leghorns'; described the brown house in detail (for she had stopped to see Sheilah once on a motor-trip); smiling kindly, tolerantly, upon him the while, as if she understood his longing, as indeed she did. For had she not longed also?
The truth was Cicely found strange delight in satisfying Roger. At last she possessed something he wanted, something no one else could give him, and something he repeatedly and persistently sought. She was not the fire, only the grate. Not the wine, only the cup. But she was satisfied. She had waited long. To be his confidante was better than nothing.
Roger came nearly every week-end finally, often remaining overnight at her house as her guest. They rode and tramped together daytimes, and sat before glowing fires in the evening, always talking for the first hour before the fire about Sheilah and the latest news from her. Roger came to know Sheilah's three children intimately, and her hopes and anxieties in regard to each. Later he and Cicely discussed books and plays, and music, which they both loved, and politics occasionally. Cicely had an excellent mind. She was still a very lovely woman. And avery much wiser one. If jealousy still pricked her (and it did when Roger's eyes kindled so over Sheilah's name) she kept it well hidden, simply smiling, offering him more wine from her cup, intoxicating him with conversation about another woman. But hers was the hand that lay within reach.