Mortal Coils | Page 8

a half hours, and woke to
find the sun brilliantly shining. The emotions of the evening before had
been transformed by a good night's rest into his customary cheerfulness.
It was not until a good many seconds after his return to conscious life
that he remembered his resolution, his Stygian oath. Milton and death
seemed somehow different in the sunlight. As for the stars, they were
not there. But the resolutions were good; even in the daytime he could
see that. He had his horse saddled after breakfast, and rode round the
farm with the bailiff. After luncheon he read Thucydides on the plague
at Athens. In the evening he made a few notes on malaria in Southern
Italy. While he was undressing he remembered that there was a good
anecdote in Skelton's jest-book about the Sweating Sickness. He would
have made a note of it if only he could have found a pencil.
On the sixth morning of his new life Mr. Hutton found among his
correspondence an envelope addressed in that peculiarly vulgar
handwriting which he knew to be Doris's. He opened it, and began to
read. She didn't know what to say; words were so inadequate. His wife
dying like that, and so suddenly it was too terrible. Mr. Hutton sighed,
but his interest revived somewhat as he read on :
"Death is so frightening, I never think of it when I can help it. But
when something like this happens, or when I am feeling ill or depressed,

then I can't help remembering it is there so close, and I think about all
the wicked things I have done and about you and me, and I wonder
what will happen, and I am so frightened. I am so lonely, Teddy Bear,
and so unhappy, and I don't know what to do. I can't get rid of the idea
of dying, I am so wretched and helpless without you. I didn't mean to
write to you; I meant to wait till you were out of mourning and could
come and see me again, but I was so lonely and miserable, Teddy Bear,
I had to write. I couldn't help it. Forgive me, I want you so much; I
have nobody in the world but you. You are so good and gentle and
understanding; there is nobody like you. I shall never forget how good
and. kind you have been to me, and you are so clever and know so
much, I can't understand how you ever came to pay any attention to me,
I am so dull and stupid, much less like me and love me, because you do
love me a little, don't you, Teddy Bear?"
Mr. Hutton was touched with shame and remorse. To be thanked like
this, worshipped for having seduced the girl it was too much. It had just
been a piece of imbecile wantonness. Imbecile, idiotic: there was no
other way to describe it. For, when all was said, he had derived very
like pleasure from it. Taking all things together, he had probably been
more bored than amused. Once upon a time he had believed himself to
be a hedonist. But to be a hedonist implies a certain process of
reasoning, a deliberate choice of known pleasures, a rejection of known
pains. This had been done without reason, against it. For he knew
beforehand so well, so well that there was no interest or pleasure to be
derived from these wretched affairs. And yet each time the vague itch
came upon him he succumbed, involving himself once more in the old
stupidity. There had been Maggie, his wife's maid, and Edith, the girl
on the farm, and Mrs. Pringle, and the waitress in London, and others
there seemed to be dozens of them. It had all been so stale and boring.
He knew it would be; he always knew. And yet, and yet... Experience
doesn't teach.
Poor little Doris! He would write to her kindly, comfortingly, but he
wouldn't see her again. A servant came to tell him that his horse was
saddled and waiting. He mounted and rode off. That morning the old
bailiff was more irritating than usual.

Five days later Doris and Mr. Hutton ware sitting together on the pier at
Southend; Doris, in white muslin with pink garnishings, radiated
happiness; Mr. Hutton, legs outstretched and chair tilted, had pushed
the panama back from his forehead, and was trying to feel like a tripper.
That night, when Doris was asleep, breathing and warm by his side, he
recaptured, in this moment of darkness and physical fatigue, the rather
cosmic emotion which had possessed him that evening, not a fortnight
ago, when he had made his great resolution. And so his solemn oath
had already gone the way of so many