William Monk 09 - A Breach of Promise

on in the first instance. Too late now.”
    Henry started to walk back towards the house. The sun was barely above the trees and any moment it would disappear. There was a golden haze in the air and it was appreciably colder than even a few minutes before. A cloud of starlings wheeled above a distant stand of poplars, still bare, although in the next garden a willow trailed weeping branches like streamers of pale chiffon. The breeze was so slight it did not even stir them.
    Henry took a pipe out of his pocket but did not bother even to pretend to light it. He seemed to like just to hold it by the bowl, waving it to emphasize a point as he spoke.
    “Well, are you going to tell me about it?” he asked. He gestured towards a clump of wood anemones. “Self-seeded,” he observed. “Can’t think how they got there. Really want them in the orchard. What sort of case?”
    “Breach of promise,” Oliver replied.
    Henry looked at him sharply, his face full of surprise, but he made no comment.
    Oliver explained anyway. “At first I refused. Then the same evening I went to a ball, and I was so aware of the matronsparading their daughters, vying with one another for any available unmarried man, I felt like a quarry before the pack myself. I could imagine how one might be cornered, unable to extricate oneself with any grace or dignity, or the poor girl either.”
    Henry merely nodded, putting the pipe stem in his mouth for a moment and closing his teeth on it.
    “Too much is expected of marriage,” Oliver went on as they came to the end of the grass and stepped across the terrace to the door. He held it open while Henry went inside, then followed him in and closed it.
    “Draw the curtains, will you?” Henry requested, going over to the fire and taking away the guard, then placing several more coals on it and watching it flame up satisfactorily.
    Oliver walked over towards the warmth and sat down, making himself comfortable. There was always something relaxing about this room, a familiarity, books and odd pieces of furniture he remembered all his life.
    “I’m not decrying it, of course,” he went on. “But one shouldn’t expect someone else to fill all the expectations in our lives, answer all the loneliness or the dreams, provide us with a social status, a roof over our heads, daily bread, clothes for our backs, and a purpose for living as well, not to mention laughter and hope and love, someone to justify our aspirations and decide our moral judgments.”
    “Good gracious!” Henry was smiling but there was a shadow of anxiety in his eyes. “Where did you gather this impression?”
    Oliver retracted immediately. “Well, all right, I am exaggerating. But the way these girls spoke, they hoped everything from marriage. I can understand why Melville panicked. No one could fill such a measure.”
    “And did he also believe that was expected of him?” Henry enquired.
    “Yes.” Oliver recalled it vividly, seeing Zillah in his mind. “I met his betrothed. Her face was shining, her eyes full of dreams. One would have thought she was about to enter heaven itself.”
    “Perhaps,” Henry conceded. “But being in love can be quite consuming at times, and quite absurd in the cold light of others’ eyes. I think you are stating a fear of commitment which is not uncommon, but nevertheless neither is it admirable. Society cannot exist if we do not keep the promises we have made, that one above most others.” He regarded him gently, but not without a very clear perception. “Are you certain it is not your rather fastidious nature, and unwillingness to forgo your own independence, which you are projecting onto this young man?”
    “I’m not unwilling to commit myself!” Oliver defended, thinking with sharp regret of the evening not long before when he had very nearly asked Hester Latterly to marry him. He would have, had he not been aware that she would refuse him and it would leave them hesitant with each other. A friendship they both valued would be changed and perhaps not recapturable with the trust and the ease it had had before. At times he was relieved she had forestalled him. He did value his privacy, his complete personal freedom, the fact that he could do as he pleased without reference to anyone, without hurt or offense. At other times he felt a loneliness without her. He thought of her more often than he intended to, and found her not there, not where he could assume she could listen to him, believe in