“He left me.”
Miss Prim gave an almost imperceptible sigh of relief.
“You shouldn’t feel relieved,” declared the queen bee, who did not miss a thing. “If you had a little more sense you’d ask Herminia why he left her.”
“Why did he leave you?” she asked obediently.
Just then, the door opened with a creak and they turned their heads toward the noise, all except Lulu, whose arthritis obliged her to maintain a rigid posture. An enormous long-haired gray cat sauntered in, approached the table and leapt onto its mistress’s lap. Hortensia smiled fondly and began stroking the animal. Herminia went on, her voice seeming to Miss Prim to come from a great distance, as if in a dream.
“Because I didn’t believe what he started to believe.”
For a few moments nobody spoke. All that could be heard in the room was the measured ticking of the clock unhurriedly marking the progress of the afternoon’s events in Hortensia Oeillet’s sitting room. Outside, the snow was falling more lightly now. The flakes were smaller, and they seemed to flutter erratically in the icy February wind.
“But I can’t believe that was the reason,” stammered Prudencia at last. “Do you mean he left the woman he loved just because of that?”
“I mean that when that door opened, the ties that bound us were broken. It changed his life, and I could not, or maybe would not, share in it. Oh, of course, we tried, Prudencia, I can assure you. But it was obvious that he was living in one world and I in another, that he was speaking one language and I another, that he could see—”
“Oh, please,” interrupted Miss Prim, irritably. “Don’t give me all that business about him seeing things that others can’t.”
“Not in the physical sense, definitely not,” said Herminia cautiously. “What I’m simply trying to say is that we reached a point where if he hadn’t left me, I would probably have left him.”
Prudencia stood up and leaned over to stoke the fire. As she did so she felt the other women staring at her back. Only Lulu Thiberville, reclining in her armchair with eyes closed, seemed indifferent to the conversation.
“So what you’re telling me is, the fact that I don’t believe what he believes will prevent me from truly falling in love with him?”
Herminia reached out and stroked the cat gently before replying.
“No, my dear, no. What I’m telling you is the fact that you don’t believe what he believes means he will never, ever consent truly to fall in love with you.”
2
It can’t be,murmured Miss Prim under her breath as she hurried away from Hortensia Oeillet’s house. The afternoon had ended unpleasantly. It was obvious that all the women, except old Lulu Thiberville, pitied her. It was also obvious that they believed Herminia’s story implicitly. But she herself did not. She refused to accept that an intelligent, erudite man could permit his ideas to drive him away from the woman he loved. But as she trudged through the snow, it dawned on her that she had a more pressing problem. How was she going to get back to the house in this weather? Her hostess had entreated her to call someone to pick her up, but Miss Prim had expressed her determination not to. Now she saw that she’d been foolish. She should have waited for Lulu Thiberville’s gardener, who was due to collect the old lady at eight.
She felt humiliated by Herminia’s revelation. It had been an unexpected confidence and in unaccountably poor taste. Miss Prim firmly believed that certain things in life should never be revealed. But in the event that it was necessary, wasn’t a private chat the best way? Wouldn’t her visit to the newspaper office have been a more appropriate time and place for the disclosure? Miss Prim had no doubts on the matter, or on the part her hostess should have played. Shouldn’t Hortensia have warned her, suggested she talk with Herminia in private? Miss Prim was convinced this would have been the proper course of action.
The whole business was ridiculous, she reflected as she struggled across the road. She couldn’t believe that her employer had ever behaved so despicably. He had never shown her any hostility over differences in belief. He had never given the slightest hint that this might be a problem. Though officially their relationship remained that of employer and employee, unofficially it had gone much further. The discussions and conversations, confidences and debates, all went beyond the boundaries of a contract of employment. And in all this time she’d never had any sense that he despised her or looked down on her because she didn’t share his religious beliefs.
Perhaps Herminia had been deceiving herself, she thought as she tried to shield herself from an icy gust of wind. Herminia was a refined, intelligent, sensitive woman but that was no defense against self-deception. Miss Prim had a theory about self-deception: the female sex seemed particularly and cruelly vulnerable to it. It wasn’t that men didn’t fall prey to this psychological mechanism, but in them its workings were much more superficial and considerably less elaborate. Self-deception in women, she mused as she tried not to slip on the sloping path, was a weapon of immense power and subtlety. Like a sea monster with enormous tentacles that stretched out over the years, poisoning not only its victim but many of those close to her. Miss Prim herself could testify to it; she had experienced the process at first-hand. She’d seen the monster emerge from the depths of her mother’s mind and watched it wrap itself like a giant squid around her father’s life.
“Isn’t this an odd day to go rambling, my imprudent Prudencia?”
The librarian valued Horacio Delàs’s friendship, but she’d never realized quite how much until that evening.
“Horacio, you have no idea how glad I am to see you!”
Her friend laughed loudly and offered her his arm.
“I don’t usually take a stroll on evenings like this but Hortensia called me. She was worried you might be lying in a ditch by now.”
Miss Prim smiled with relief.
“It was very stupid of me.”
“And from what I hear, this isn’t the first time it’s happened.”
“No,” she replied, lowering her head.
“Come now, cheer up, my dear. I can offer you a good fire and a hot meal. You know I don’t drive, so I can’t include a lift home afterward, but we can call the house and they can send the gardener to pick you up after dinner. For now you need to get warm, rest, and eat.”
