Love and Salt Water by Ethel Wilson

Author:Ethel Wilson [Wilson, Ethel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-55199-699-8
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 1990-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Six

GEORGE GORDON arrived at Saskatoon on his way to the coast and stopped there again on his return journey. This time he and Ellen skated. The mere passage of time, even without association, had established a rapport between them. Ellen had become increasingly important to him, and, because she was important to him, he thought he knew her well. He is one of the nice things that happen to me, Ellen thought. She was aware of his qualities; she heard them in his voice and saw them in his face. Yet she did not know him. His appearance pleased and then charmed her but he was by no means necessary to her. She was not so young now, that she should imagine or require perfection. Rather, it was in her nature to be sceptical of perfection. Yet when he asked her to marry him (as she at last knew he would) her liking for him did not prevent Huw arising uninvoked, and at once her freedom became essential to her again. This free life-without-an-object, which had become so boring, was suddenly necessary to her security. She knew this life well, and would not exchange it for some other life which might be only a new conformity, and then perhaps a prison far away with a stranger.

“I don’t know you well enough, George,” she said, her candid brown eyes wide open and the lashes fringed back. “You don’t know me either, but that’s not the only reason …” and then came the threadbare words, “I like you so much but I don’t love you … no, or I couldn’t bear you going off again like this … it would be no good,” she said, looking at him honestly.

He considered for a moment.

“Very well. That’s your decision. Let’s forget it.” He was so easy and agreeable that she was a little frightened. She had expected persuasion, and was not sure that she had not been lightly slapped.

George said at the airport, “I won’t forget to send you Samuel Butler. I think you’ll like him.” George was not the hurt and rejected one, meet for sympathy, and Ellen was not the rejector. They said goodbye.

Flying above the prairies George considered his lack of persistence. Perhaps his tactics were good. It’s hard to know what’s wise, he thought, but at least Ellen is Ellen and different from other people, and that’s the way I must play it. The plane tore the clouds apart and the clouds closed behind again without a mark. The passengers gazed with vacant looks upon the air. Then they settled to sleep uncomfortably, or they read. George turned from the clouds to the stock market and again to Ellen Cuppy whom he intended to marry.

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