TWENTY-NINE

It would be a mistake to overidentify me with any one of my characters. While it is true there is a part of me in each of them—I, after all, create them; put the words in their mouths—they are none of them wholly me any more than I am wholly one of them. Unfortunately, people cannot ever be depended upon to keep the creator separate from the creation.”

Thus spake John, at any rate.

How truly easy it had become to find fault, to pick at the stitches until the entire piece of needlework began to unravel.

Sara Jamison first made me aware of this tendency on the part of human beings to, when in a state of wanting out of a marital relationship, look for fault to find in the other. Now, her words returned to devil me.

It had been two years previous. Since this was well before her resolution, Sara had helped herself to a clutch of biscuits.

“Did you hear Daisy Carter the other night at dinner?” she asked, the words coming out in a slight mumble around the remnants of food she had yet to swallow. Sara really did have the most revolting manners.

“No,” I said. “What was I supposed to hear?”

“Why, her criticisms of Henry. It is one thing for women to criticize husbands when they are out of the room, but I heard her doing it”—she paused, leaning forward—“while we were all still at table.”

“Perhaps she was only teasing. Wives will do that, you know.”

“Oh,” she sighed, settling back in her seat but not before grabbing another biscuit. “You are too kind. Sometimes I wonder if you can possibly be so naïve.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, it is obvious why Daisy can no longer leave off criticizing Henry, no matter who is there to hear her do so.”

“And why is that?”

“She has taken a lover.” More chewing, more talking around crumbs. “Or she means to.”

“How do you know that? Has she said something to you about it?”

“I am the perfect confidante for anybody’s secrets. But no,” she admitted, “of course she didn’t say anything to me. I know simply from observing her. In these matters, I have superior powers of observation.”

“How impressive. I cannot say I knew this about you before—that you possess a talent for sniffing out adultery or would-be adultery.”

“Nevertheless, it is true.”

“It must be very convenient for you. I hope Paul knows of your talent. It would seem an unfair advantage goes to you if he does not.”

“Do not worry about Paul. He knows better than to stray very far. But, back to Daisy, it is easy to see the way it is with her.”

“And how is that?” I must say, she had piqued my interest.

Eagerly, Sara leaned forward, whispering, as if what she was about to divulge were some sort of priceless recipe someone might wish to steal.

“There are two very reliable ways to spot an unfaithful wife,” she said.

I leaned forward to meet her now, playing my own part well.

“Yes,” I whispered back, a coconspirator, “and they are…?”

“The first way is quite simple: If a woman only praises her husband, then you have very good cause to be suspicious. Well, except for you, of course, who has always done so, most women do not speak well of their husbands at all times. Oh, no. There must be a perfect balance struck.”

“A balance?”

“Yes. Say on Monday you—well, no, on second thought, let’s not use you; you are a very bad example.” She thought for a moment. “Fine,” she said at last. “Let us create an imaginary woman. We’ll call her Mary.”

“All right,” I agreed.

“Let us say,” Sara went on, “on Monday, Mary praises her husband in public for being a fine man of business. Let us say further on Tuesday, she tells you how ill he manages the household finances. Mary, you see, like most women, neither blindly praises her husband, nor does she shred him every chance she gets. Mary is obviously a faithful wife.”

“I see,” I said, even though I really did not see yet at all.

“The second way is when a woman who has had no problems striking a balance before begins to find fault with everything. The way he dresses is no longer right and his appearance is displeasing; he makes too little money, he makes too much but doesn’t spend it or earn it properly; his voice grates, being either too loud or mousy soft; he is not attentive enough or he is smothering. In short, he is no longer right in any way, because he has become all wrong. And what is more, he cannot win. A new game has been set up all around him while he wasn’t looking, he doesn’t know the rules, no one is going to tell him the rules and, even if they did, he no longer possesses the requisite skills to win.”

“The requisite skills being?”

“Being the o—ther. While you cannot truly fault a man for being what he is not, for that is in fact shaped by what he unavoidably is, the husband of an unfaithful wife is not the lover. He simply cannot win.”

“Cannot it be that,” I objected, “like Hettie, one of these women who only find fault is merely dissatisfied with the world in general? Must such a woman always be an example of a tigress on the prowl?”

“You do have a point about Hettie,” she conceded. “But the formula works with almost everyone else.”

“And that is how you tell an unfaithful wife?” I asked. “She is always either wholly one thing or another?”

Sara relaxed back onto the cushioned sofa, smiling, finally satisfied.

“Ex—act—ly,” she said.

I thought of Sara Jamison’s words now, how she had claimed herself to be “the perfect confidante for anybody’s secrets.”

How I wished that were true!

How I longed for somebody, anybody, to talk to about Chance.

But who was there for me to tell?

The one person I might previously have gone to with a confidence—John—Well, I snorted, he was out.

And who else might there be? My sisters-in-law?

No.

Maeve? Hettie?

No and no.

Louisa?

God, no.

I had the feeling there might have been a time, a missed opportunity, when Constance and I might have become friends of a different sort from what we had previously been, the kind of friends that might actually speak the truth to each other from time to time.

But she was away, wherever Charles had sent her. She was no longer available to me and I had the sense she might never be again.

There was only one person who could help me, who could talk to me about my feelings for Chance, and that was Chance himself.

Chance wrote back:

                  

So what of that?

Fall, Emma.

Fall.

I will catch you.