When Duncan arrived at noon today, I broke it off.
“I just can’t bear the suspense,” I tried to explain without going into details like the hospital grapevine and walloping Toby for making nasty remarks. “I know I’ve picked a great moment, right on the tail of your wonderful care of Pappy—how ungrateful I must seem! But it’s Mum and Dad, don’t you see? Duncan, what I do with myself and my life is my business, but not if it involves a married man. Then it’s everyone’s business. How could I face Mum and Dad? If we continue, it’s bound to come out. So it stops.”
His face! His eyes! The poor man looked as if I had killed him. “You’re right, of course,” he said, voice shaking. “But I have a different solution. Harriet, I can’t live without you, I honestly can’t. What you say is inarguable, my love. The last thing I ever want is to make you feel that you can’t even look at your mother and father. So it’s best that I ask Cathy for a divorce immediately. Once the divorce is through, we can marry.”
Oh, dear God! That was the one response I hadn’t counted on, and the last I wanted to hear. “No, no, no!” I shouted, and beat my hands in a frenzy. “No, not that—never that!”
“The scandal, you mean,” he said, still ashen. “But I will keep you out of it, Harriet. I’ll hire a woman to pose as the co-respondent, and we won’t see each other again until I’m free. Let Cathy trumpet her injuries to the yellow press, let the yellow press do its worst! As long as you’re not involved, it doesn’t matter how sordid things get.” He took my hands in his, chafed them. “My love, Cathy can have whatever she wants, but that doesn’t mean you will want. There’s money enough, believe me.”
Oh, God! He didn’t see what I meant because it hadn’t occurred to him that I don’t want to play Missus Doctor. That I couldn’t play Missus Doctor, even for him. Maybe if I loved him that little bit more, I could make the sacrifice. But the trouble is that I only love him in some ways, not in all ways.
“Duncan, listen to me,” I said like steel. “I’m not ready to marry anyone, I’m not ready to settle down. Truthfully, I doubt that I’ll ever be ready to settle down, at least to the sort of life I would have had with David, that I would with you.”
Jealousy, even at this moment! “Who is David?” he asked.
“My ex-fiancé—he’s nothing,” I said. “Go back to your wife, Duncan, or find a woman who wants to live in your world if you can’t face it with Cathy. But forget me. I don’t want affairs with married men, and I don’t want you to dream of me as the second Mrs. Forsythe. It’s over, and that’s as plain as I can say it.”
“You don’t love me,” he said dully.
“Yes, I do love you. But I don’t want to build any nests in the suburbs, and I don’t want to feel grubby.”
“But children! You must want children!” he floundered.
“I don’t deny that I’d like at least one child, but it has to be on my terms, and I’d rather do without a child if that means asking a man to assume responsibility for my fate. You’re no Ezra, Duncan, but you come from the same world, you expect the same commitments, you compartmentalise women identically. Some for fun, some for procreation. I take it as a great compliment that you’d rather I was your wife than your mistress, but I don’t want to be either.”
“I don’t understand you,” he said, utterly bewildered.
“No, sir, and you never will.” I went to the door and held it open. “Goodbye, sir. I mean it.”
“Goodbye, then, my love,” he said, and left me.
Oh, that was awful! I must love him, because I hurt terribly. But I’m so glad it’s over before it could get worse.