“If you did happen to fall in love with another man,” I said, “no one could blame you for leaving your husband. You’re young. He can’t expect you to remain tied to him for the rest of his days. It would be throwing your life away.”
“Do you think so? When I married him I promised to take him for better or for worse. Sliding out through a back door would be impossible to me. Besides, I was responsible for the accident that crippled him. That’s why, apart from the ethics of my marriage vows, I have a conscience about him.”
“You were responsible?”
“Yes.” She crossed her long, slim legs. “You are the first person I have met since the accident I feel I can talk to. Would it bore you if I told you about the accident?”
“Nothing you say to me would ever bore me.”
“Thank you.” She paused, then went on, “Jack and I have been married for four years. Three months after we were married the accident happened.” Her voice now sounded impersonal and wooden. “We had been to a party. Jack had been drinking. I hated him to drive when he was lit up, and he was often lit up. When we got into the car, I insisted on driving. We quarrelled about it, but finally I got my way. We were on a mountain road. The movement of the car lulled Jack to sleep. Half-way up the road I came to a stationary car that blocked the road. It belonged to a friend of ours. He had also been to the party. He had run out of gas. I pulled up and got out of the car and started to walk over to him. I had stopped on a very steep part of the road. As soon as I got out of the car, it began to move backwards. I couldn’t have set the parking brake properly.” She flicked her half-finished cigarette into the garden. “Jack was still asleep. I rushed back, but it was too late. The car went off the road. I shall never forget that moment, listening to the terrible noise as the car crashed down the mountain side. If I had put the parking brake on properly, it would never have happened.”
“It was an accident,” I said. “It could have happened to anyone.”
“Jack doesn’t think so. He thinks it was entirely my fault. I have the most horrible guilt complex about it, and that is why I can never leave him.”
I asked her the question I had to know.
“Do you still love him?”
I saw her stiffen.
“Love him? That doesn’t come into it. I’ve lived with him now for four years. He has suffered a lot, and he isn’t very pleasant to live with. He drinks, and his temper can be hateful. He is twenty-three years older than I am. His ideas are not my ideas, but I married him and I have to accept him. It was through me that he is a cripple and his life has been spoilt.”
“It was an accident,” I said, gripping my clenched fists between my knees. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened.”
“So what do you think I should do?”
“You are free to leave him if you want to. That’s the way I see it.”
“But then you haven’t got my conscience.” She held out her hand and I gave her a cigarette. I left my chair to light the cigarette. In the light of the match flame we stared at each other. “You are a disturbing person.” Her voice was very low.
“You’re disturbing, too.”
“Yes, I know. I’m not only disturbing to most men, I’m disturbing to myself. My life is difficult, Mr Regan. I think perhaps you have already realized that. What we did this afternoon has been worrying me a lot. Will you accept my apologies?”
“You don’t have to apologize. I understand.”
“I believe you do. I wouldn’t have come out at this time of night, alone, if I wasn’t sure you would understand. I must get back.”
She got up.
“It’s nice out here and so quiet. I asked Maria, my maid, about you. She tells me you aren’t married and you live alone.”
“I’ve lived on my own out here for a long time.” I was standing by her side now and we were both looking across the heads of the trees, outlined in the moonlight.
“Do you mind living on your own? I should have thought you would have married.”
“I haven’t yet found the right woman.” She glanced at me.
The hard light of the moon fell directly on her face and I could see a small, bitter smile on her mouth.
“Are you difficult to please?”
“I suppose so. Marriage is very permanent — at least it is to me. I feel the way you do about it.”
“One must have love. I never really loved my husband. I married him for security. Before I met him I had nothing. I would be a lot happier now if I still had nothing except my freedom.”
“You can still have your freedom.”
“Not now. If I left him, I’d have my conscience to torment me. A conscience is a sterner prison than anything else in the world.”
“My conscience never bothers me, but I guess I can understand about yours.”
“I don’t know what I am going to think of myself tomorrow,” she said, tracing her forefinger idly along the verandah rail. “I came out here on the spur of the moment. I wanted you to understand...”
I put my hand over hers.
“Gilda—”
She turned and looked at me... She was trembling.
“Gilda, I’m crazy about you—”
“Oh, darling, I’m such a hypocrite,” she said breathlessly. “I’m so ashamed, but the moment I saw you...”
I had her in my arms and her mouth was against mine. We clung to each other and I could feel the yearning, the crying out of her body as she pressed against me.
I picked her up in my arms and carried her into the cabin.
The brown owl that always sits on the roof of the garage flew suddenly across the face of the moon.
It made a small, insignificant shadow.
Chapter II
I
She came to my cabin for three successive nights, and we made love.
It was hurried, furtive love, and after the first shock of excitement had passed, it was unsatisfactory love — anyway, for me.
She was frightened someone would see her coming or leaving my cabin. She was terrified her husband would find out she was being unfaithful to him.
So our love-making was furtive, and it worried me to find how jumpy she was, and how she would sit up abruptly on the bed, her fingers gripping my arm, when there was any unusual sound such as the occasional passing car, the hoot of the owl or the tapping on the roof from a branch of a tree.
Each of these three nights, she stayed with me for less than an hour. Our moments together consisted only of this desperate, violent love-making. We scarcely had time to talk before she wanted to get back to her home, and I knew as little about her now as I had done when I first met her.
But in spite of that, I was in love with her. For me, this union meant much more than the physical act of love. It bothered me to know that her husband had such a powerful influence over her.
If she talked about anything, it was about him. I didn’t want to listen to what she had to say about him. I wanted her to talk about herself, and I longed for her to talk about me, but she didn’t.
“I would never forgive myself if he found out,” she said as she dressed on the third night of our love-making. “I keep thinking he might be wanting me. In the past, he has had nights of pain, and he has woken me to give him something to make him sleep. He could be calling for me now.”