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interesting man. I believe I can help Harvey. I
can’t return to face the life we had together, ever again. My dear, I don’t
know how I could have thought I would. My plan was, as you know, entirely
different. I feel Harvey needs me. I am playing a role in his life. He is
serious. Don’t imagine I’m living in luxury. He never mentions his wealth. But
of course I am aware that if there is anything I require for myself or Clara, I
can have it.
    You may have heard from Ernie Howe that he is coming to visit Clara.
She’s well and pretty, and full of life.
    I’m sure you have heard from Harvey how things are between him and
me. It’s too soon to talk of the future.
    This has been a difficult letter to write. I know that you’ll agree
with what I say. You always do.
    Ruth
     
    She gave Harvey the letter
to read, watching him while he read it. He looked younger than Edward, probably
because of Edward’s beard, although he was a little older. Harvey was lean and
dark, tall, stringy.
    ‘It’s a
bit dry,’ Harvey said.
    ‘It’s
all I can do. Edward knows what I’m like.’
    ‘I
suppose,’ said Harvey, ‘he’ll be hurt.’ ‘He doesn’t love me,’ Ruth said.
    ‘How do
you know?’
    ‘How
does one know?’
    ‘Still,
he won’t want to lose his property.’
    ‘That’s
something else.’
     
     
    Now, in October, Ruth was
talking about sending to England for cretonne fabric. ‘One can’t get exactly
what I want in France,’ she said.
    Harvey
wrote:
     
    Dear Edward,
    Thanks for yours.
    The infant is cutting a tooth and makes a din at night. Ruth has
very disturbed nights. So do I. It’s been raining steadily for three days.
Ernie Howe came. We had a chat. He seems to feel fraternal towards me because
we both had to do with Effie. He wants to talk about Effie. I don’t.
Afterwards, in the place next door that Ruth has fixed up for herself and
Clara, Ernie asked her if she would go home and live with him and bring the
baby. Ruth said no. I think he’s after Ruth because she reminds him of Effie.
He said he wouldn’t take the child away from Ruth if she doesn’t want to part
with it, which she doesn’t.
    I’m sorry to hear that you don’t miss Ruth. You ought to.
    Cheque enclosed. I know you’re not ‘selling your wife’. Why should I
think you are? You took money before I was sleeping with Ruth, so where’s the
difference?
    I don’t agree the comforters just came to gloat. They relieved Job’s
suffering by arguing with him, keeping him talking. In different ways they keep
insinuating that Job ‘deserved’ his misfortunes; he must have done something
wrong. While Job insists that he hasn’t, that the massed calamities that came
on him haven’t any relation to his own actions. He upsets all their theology.
Those three friends of his are very patient and considerate, given their
historical position. But Job is having a nervous crisis. He can’t sleep. See 7,
13—16.
    When I say, My bed shall
    comfort me, my couch shall ease
    my complaint;
    Then thou scarest me with
    dreams, and terrifiest me through
    visions:
    So that my soul chooseth
    strangling, and death rather than
    my life.
    I loathe it; I would not
    live alway: let me alone …
    So I say, at
least the three comforters kept him company. And they took turns as analyst.
Job was like the patient on the couch.
    Ruth doesn’t sympathise with Job. She sees the male pig in him. That’s
a point of view.
    The baby has started to squawk. I don’t know what I’m going to do
about the noise.
    Yours,
    Harvey
     
    Ruth came in, jogging in
her arms the baby Clara who had a whole fist in her mouth and who made noises
of half-laughing, half-crying. Soon, she would start to bawl. Ruth’s hair fell
over her face, no longer like that of a curate’s wife.
    ‘Did
you know that they want to sell the château?’ she said.
    The
château was half a mile up the grassy pathway which led away from the cottage.
Harvey knew the owner and had seen the house; that