The Irrational Knot/Chapter XVIII

by George Bernard Shaw

Miss McQuinch spent Christmas morning in her sitting-room reading; a letter which had come by the morning post. It was dated the 17th December at New York: and the formal beginning and ending were omitted. This was an old custom between Marian and her cousin. In their girlish correspondence they had expressed their affection by such modes of address as "My darling Marian," and "My dearest Nelly." Subsequently they became oppressed by these ceremonies and dropped them. Thereafter their letters contained only the matter to be communicated and the signature.

"You are the only person in England," wrote Marian, "to whom I dare write now. A month ago I had more correspondents than I had time to answer. Do you know, Nelly, I hesitated before commencing this letter, lest you should no longer care to have anything to do with me. That may have been an unworthy thought for a friend: but it was an unavoidable one for a woman.

"And now comes the great vain question: What does everybody say? Oh, if I could only disembody myself; fly back to London for a few hours; and listen invisibly to society talking about me. I know this is mean: but one must fill up life with some mean curiosities. So please tell me what kind of sensation I have caused. Just the usual one. I suppose. Half the people never would have thought it; and the other half knew all along what it would come to. Well, I do not care much about the world in general; but I cannot quiet my conscience on the subject of my father and George. It must be very hard on papa that, after being disappointed in my marriage and having suffered long ago from what my mother did, he should now be disgraced by his daughter. For disgraced, alas! is the word. I am afraid poor George's prospects must be spoiled by the scandal, which, I know well, must be terrible. I thought my first duty was to leave Ned free, and to free myself, at all hazards; and so I did not dwell on the feelings and interests of others as much as I perhaps ought to have done. There is one point about which I am especially anxious. It never occurred to me before I went that people might say that my going was Ned's fault, and that he had treated me badly. You must contradict this with all your might and main if you hear it even hinted at.

"There is no use in putting off the confession any longer, Nelly: I have made an utter fool of myself. I wish I were back with Ned again. There! what do you think of that? Now for another great confession, and a most humiliating one. Sholto is a—I dont know what epithet is fair. I suppose I have no right to call him an impostor merely because we were foolish enough to overrate him. But I can hardly believe now that we ever really thought that there were great qualities and powers latent beneath his proud reserve. Ned, I know, never believed in Sholto; and I, in my infinite wisdom, set that down to his not understanding him. Ned was right, as usual. If you want to see how selfish people are, and how skin-deep fashionable politeness is, take a voyage. Go with a picked company of the nice people you have met for an hour or so at a dinner or an at-home; and see how different they will appear when they have been cooped up in a ship with you day and night for a week. An ocean steamer is the next worst thing to the Palace of Truth. Poor Sholto did not stand the ordeal. He was ridiculously distant in his manner to the rest of the passengers, and in little matters at table and so forth he was really just as selfish as he could be. He was impatient because I was ill the first two days, and afterwards he seemed to think that I ought not to speak to anyone but himself. The doctor, who was very attentive to me, was his particular aversion; and it was on his account that we had our first quarrel, the upshot of which was a scene between them, which I overheard. One very fine day, when all the passengers were on deck, Sholto met the doctor in the saloon, and offered him a guinea for his attendance on me, telling him in the most offensively polite way that I would not trouble him for any further services. The doctor retorted very promptly and concisely; and though what he said was not dignified, I sympathized with him, and took care to be very friendly with him at dinner. (Meals take place on hoard ship at intervals of ten minutes: it is horrifying to see the quantity of food the elderly people consume.) To prevent further hostilities I took care to be always in the way when the doctor encountered Sholto afterwards. I cannot imagine Ned involving himself in such a paltry squabble. It is odd how things come about. I used to take Sholto's genius for granted, and think a great deal of it. In another sense, I used to take Ned's genius for granted, and think nothing of it. Now I have found out in a single fortnight that we saw all of Sholto that there was to be seen. His reserves of talent existed only in our imagination. He has absolutely no sense of humor; and he is always grumbling. Neither the servants, nor the food, nor the rooms, nor the wine, satisfy him. Imagine how this comes home to me, who, from not having heard grumbling for two years, had forgotten that men ever were guilty of it. I flirted a little, a very little, with the doctor; not because I meant anything serious, but because it amused me and made the trip pleasant. Sholto will not understand this. One day, on board, I was indiscreet enough to ask Sholto the use of a piece of machinery belonging to the ship. Ned would have known, or, if he had not, would very soon have found out. Sholto didnt know, and was weak enough to pretend that he did; so he snubbed me by saying that I could not understand it. This put me on my mettle; and I asked the surgeon that afternoon about it. The surgeon didnt know, and said so; but he appealed to the first officer, who explained it. I intended to revenge myself on Sholto by retailing the explanation to him next day; but unfortunately, whether through the first officer's want of perspicuity or my own stupidity, I was not a bit the wiser for the explanation.

"I can tell you nothing as to what we are likely to do next. As Sholto has given up all his prospects for me, I cannot honorably desert him. I know now that I have ruined myself for nothing, and I must at least try to hide from him that he has done likewise. I can see that he is not happy; but he tries so desperately to persuade himself that he is, and clings so to the idea that the world is well lost for me, that I have not the heart to undeceive him. So we are still lovers; and, cynical though it sounds, I make him a great deal happier in my insincerity than I could if I really loved him, because I humor him with a cunning quite incompatible with passion. He, on the other hand, being still sincere, tries my patience terribly with his jealousies and importunities. As he has nothing to do, he is almost always with me; and a man who has no office to go to—I dont care who he is—is a trial of which you can have no conception. So much for our present relations. But I fear—indeed I know—that they will not last long. I dare not look steadily at the future. In spite of all that he has sacrificed for me, I cannot live forever with him. There are times at which he inspires me with such a frenzy of aversion and disgust that I have to put the strongest constraint upon myself to avoid betraying my feelings to him. We intended going to the West Indies direct from here, in search of some idyllic retreat where we could live alone together. He still entertains this project; but as I have totally abandoned it I put him off with some pretext for remaining here whenever he mentions it. I have only one hope of gaining a separation without being open to the reproach of having deserted him. You remember how we disputed that Saturday about the merits of a grand passion, which I so foolishly longed for. Well, I have tried it, and proved it to be a lamentable delusion, selfish, obstinate, blind, intemperate, and transient. As it has evaporated from me, so it will evaporate from Sholto in the course of time. It would have done so already, but that his love was more genuine than mine. When the time comes, he will get rid of me without the least remorse; and so he will have no excuse for reviving his old complaints of my treachery.

"One new and very disagreeable feature in my existence, which I had partly prepared myself for, is the fear of detection. We sailed before our flight had become public; and as there was fortunately no one on board who knew us, I had a nine days' respite, and could fearlessly approach the other women, who, I suppose, would not have spoken to me had they known the truth. But here it is different. Ned's patents are so much more extensively worked here than in England, and the people are so go-ahead, that they take a great interest in him, and are proud of him as an American. The news got into the papers a few days after we arrived. To appreciate the full significance of this, you should know what American newspapers are. One of them actually printed a long account of my going away, with every paragraph headed in large print, 'Domestic Unhappiness,' 'The Serpent in the Laboratory,' 'The Temptation,' 'The Flight,' 'The Pursuit,' and so on, all invented, of course. Other papers give the most outrageous anecdotes. Old jokes are revived and ascribed to us. I am accused of tearing his hair out, and he of coming home late at nights drunk. Two portraits of ferocious old women supposed to be Ned's mother-in-law have been published. The latest version appeared in a Sunday paper, and is quite popular in this hotel. According to it, Ned was in the habit of 'devoting me to science' by trying electrical experiments on me. 'This,' the account says, 'was kind of rough on the poor woman.' The day before I 'scooted,' a new machine appeared before the house, drawn by six horses. 'What are them men foolin' round with, Mr. C.?' said I. 'That's hubby's latest,' replied Ned. 'I guess it's the boss electro-dynamic fixin' in the universe. Full charge that battery with a pint of washing soda, an' youll fetch up a current fit to ravage a cont'nent. You shall have a try t'morro' mornin', Sal. Youre better seasoned to it than most Britishers; but if it dont straighten your hair and lift the sparks outer your eyelashes—!' 'You bet it wont, Mr. C.,' said I. That night (this is only what the paper says, mind) I stole out of bed; arranged the wires on each side of Ned so that if he stirred an inch he would make contact; charged the battery; and gently woke him, saying, 'Mr. C, love, dont stir for your life. Them things that's ticklin' your whiskers is the conductors of that boss fixin' o' yourn. If I was you, I'd lie still until the battery runs down.' 'Darn it all,' said Ned, afraid to lift his lips for a shout, and coming out in cold water all over the forehead, 'it wont run down for a week clear.' 'That'll answer me nicely,' I replied. 'Good-bye, Mr. C. Young Douglas from the corner grocery is waitin' for me with a shay down the avenue.' I cannot help laughing at these things, but they drive Sholto frantic. He is always described in them as a young man from some shop or other. He tries hard, out of delicacy, to keep the papers which contain them away from me; but I hear about them at breakfast, and buy them downstairs in the hall for myself. Another grievance of Sholto's is that I will not have meals privately. But my dislike to being always alone with him is greater than my dread that my secret will leak out, and that some morning I shall see in the people's faces that the Mrs. Forster who has so often been regaled with the latest account of the great scandal, is no other than the famous Mrs. Conolly. That evil day will come, sooner or later; but I had rather face it in one of these wonderful hotels than in a boarding-house, which I might be asked to leave. As to taking a house of our own, I shrink from any such permanent arrangement. We are noticed a good deal. Sholto is, of course, handsome and distinguished; and people take a fancy to me just as they used to long ago. I was once proud of this; but now it is a burden to me. For instance, there was a Mrs. Crawford staying here with her husband, a general, who has just built a house here. She was so determined to know me that I found it hard to keep her off without offending her. At last she got ill; and then I felt justified in nursing her. Sholto was very sulky because I did so, and wanted to know what business it was of mine. I did not trouble myself about his anger, and Mrs. Crawford was well in two days. In fact, I think Sholto was right in saying that she had only overeaten herself. After that I could avoid her no longer, and she was exceedingly kind to me. She wanted to introduce me to all her New York friends, and begged me to leave the hotel and go to her new mansion. There was plenty of room for us, she said. I did not know what to say. I could not repay her kindness by going to her house under false colors, and letting her introduce me to her circle; and yet I could make no reasonable excuse. At last, seeing that she attributed my refusals to pride, I told her plainly that if her friends were to learn my history by any accident they might not thank her for the introduction. She was quite confounded; but she did not abate her kindness in the least, although my reservation of confidence in only giving her a hint of the truth, checked her advances. You may think this an insane indiscretion on my part; but if you knew how often I have longed to stand up before everybody and proclaim who I am, and so get rid of the incubus of a perpetual falsehood, you would not be so much surprised. There is one unspeakable blessing in American law. It is quite easy to obtain a divorce. One can get free without sacrificing everything except bare existence. I do not care what anybody may argue to the contrary, our marriage laws are shameful.

"I shall expect to hear from you very soon. If you desert me, Nelly, there is no such thing as friendship in the world. I want particularly to know what Ned did—as far as you know—when he heard the news. Is papa very angry? And, above all, could you find out how Mrs. Douglas is? I thought that Sholto would be uneasy and remorseful about her; but he does not really care half so much as I do. How selfish I have been! I used to flatter myself that I was thoughtful for others because I made a habit—a detestably self-conscious habit—of being considerate in trifles. And in the end, after being so vain-gloriously attentive to the momentary comfort of all connected with me, I utterly forgot them and thought only of myself when their whole happiness was concerned. I never knew how high I stood in my own estimation until I found how far the discovery of my folly and selfishness made me fall. Tell me everything". I cannot write any more now. My eyes are smarting: I feel as if I had been writing for a whole month instead of two days. Good-bye for three weeks.

"MARIAN."

"P.S. I have just learnt from a very severe criticism in one of the papers that Mdlle. Lalage Virtue has failed here completely. I fear from the wording that her unfortunate habit was apparent to the audience."