DOI article:
James, Henry: The Coxon Fund
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21215#0356
352
The Coxon Fund
called. I hesitated, after she had come up, about telling her
Saltram was in the house, but she herseif settled the question, kept
me reticent, by drawing forth a sealed letter which, looking at me
very hard in the eyes, she placed, with a pregnant absence of com-
ment, in my hand. For a single moment there glimmered before
me the fond hope that Mrs. Saltram had tendered me, as it were,
her resignation and desired to embody the act in an unsparing
form. To bring this about I would have feigned any humilia-
tion ; but after my eyes had caught the superscription I heard my-
self say with a flatness that betrayed a sense of something very
different from relief: " Oh, the Pudneys ? " I knew their enve.
lopes, though they didn't know mine. They always used the kind
sold at post-offices with the stamp affixed, and as this letter had
not been posted they had wasted a penny on me. Ihadseen their
horrid missives to the Mulvilles, but had not been in direct corre-
spondence with them.
"They enclosed it to me, to be delivered. They doubtless
explain to you that they hadn't your address."
I turned the thing over without opening it. " Why in the
world should they write to me ? "
"Because they have something to teil you. The worst,"
Mrs. Saltram dryly added.
It was another chapter, I feit, of the history of their lamentable
quarrel with her husband, the episode in which, vindictively,
disingenuously as they themselves had behaved, one had to admit
that he had put himself more grossly in the wrong than at any
moment of his life. He had begun by insulting the matchless
Mulvilles for these more specious protectors, and then, according
to his wont at the end of a few months, had dug a still deeper
ditch for his aberration than the chasm left yawning behind. The
chasm at Wimbledon was now blessedly closed ; but the Pudneys
across
The Coxon Fund
called. I hesitated, after she had come up, about telling her
Saltram was in the house, but she herseif settled the question, kept
me reticent, by drawing forth a sealed letter which, looking at me
very hard in the eyes, she placed, with a pregnant absence of com-
ment, in my hand. For a single moment there glimmered before
me the fond hope that Mrs. Saltram had tendered me, as it were,
her resignation and desired to embody the act in an unsparing
form. To bring this about I would have feigned any humilia-
tion ; but after my eyes had caught the superscription I heard my-
self say with a flatness that betrayed a sense of something very
different from relief: " Oh, the Pudneys ? " I knew their enve.
lopes, though they didn't know mine. They always used the kind
sold at post-offices with the stamp affixed, and as this letter had
not been posted they had wasted a penny on me. Ihadseen their
horrid missives to the Mulvilles, but had not been in direct corre-
spondence with them.
"They enclosed it to me, to be delivered. They doubtless
explain to you that they hadn't your address."
I turned the thing over without opening it. " Why in the
world should they write to me ? "
"Because they have something to teil you. The worst,"
Mrs. Saltram dryly added.
It was another chapter, I feit, of the history of their lamentable
quarrel with her husband, the episode in which, vindictively,
disingenuously as they themselves had behaved, one had to admit
that he had put himself more grossly in the wrong than at any
moment of his life. He had begun by insulting the matchless
Mulvilles for these more specious protectors, and then, according
to his wont at the end of a few months, had dug a still deeper
ditch for his aberration than the chasm left yawning behind. The
chasm at Wimbledon was now blessedly closed ; but the Pudneys
across