§ 6

Peter was not to be let off so easily as in the simplicity of his heart he had imagined. He had transgressed the laws of matrimony as Vera understood them, by refusing to say that he had never really loved Stella. He ought properly to have said that he had never really loved anyone until he met his wife, but that, Peter told himself, was nonsense in a man of his age. He told it to himself all the more vehemently because he had an uneasy feeling that a year ago he would have said what Vera wanted, that he himself would have believed she was the only woman he had really loved.

The next morning he went into her room as usual while she was having her breakfast, and they said the usual things to each other as if nothing had happened. But Peter felt awkward and ill at ease—he wanted, childishly, to “make it up,” but did not know how to get through the invisible wall she had built round herself. Also he knew that she would accept nothing less than a recantation of all that he had said yesterday—he would have to tell her that he had never loved Stella, that all that part of his life had been dreaming and self-deception. And he would not say it. With a queer obstinacy, whose roots he would not examine, he refused to deny his past, even to make the present happier and the future more secure.

“What are you doing today?” asked Vera coolly, as she stirred her coffee.

“I’m going over to an auction at Canterbury—they’re selling off some old government stuff.”

As a matter of fact, he had not meant to go, but now he felt that he must do something to get himself out of the house for the day.

“Then you won’t be in for lunch?”

“No—not much before dinner, I expect.”

“Shall you go in the car?”

“Only as far as Ashford—I’ll take the train from there.”

It was all deadly. Going out of her room, going out of the house, he was conscious of a deep sense of depression and futility. Vera was displeased with him because he would not be disloyal to the past.... After all, he supposed it was pretty natural and most women were like that ... but Vera was different in the way she showed her displeasure—if only she’d say things!—become angry and coaxing like other women—like Stella when he had displeased her. He remembered her once when she had been angry—how differently she had behaved—with such frankness, such warmth, such wheedling.... Vera had just turned to ice, and expressed herself in negations and reserves. He hated that—it was all wrong, somehow.

He fretted and brooded the whole way to Ashford. It was not till he was nearly there that he remembered he had an appointment with Godfrey at Starvecrow that afternoon. Vera was making him not only a bad husband but a bad farmer.