"Almost" Part 5: Chapters 14-16

Chapter Fourteen

Tom and Reginald went to school within two years of each other, and this produced an unexpected Renaissance within the Spencer household.

It was not immediate, but it was unmistakable. Two weeks after Tom went away to All Souls, Ruth came down for breakfast.

Quentin glanced up from his newspaper, stunned. At first he thought that she might be sleepwalking; it had not happened for – what, eight years? Catherine – at Tom’s request – had been kept on as a cook, and she handled it magnificently.

“Good morning, Ruth,” she said with great imperturbability. “Are you hungry?”

“I am,” Ruth murmured, touching her throat. “I really am.”

“Two eggs,” smiled Quentin. “Eggs sunny side up. One piece of brown toast, unbuttered.”

Ruth smiled faintly and sat down. Quentin sat still, afraid to speak, of startling her back upstairs, to her dark nest.

They ate in silence. Quentin lowered the newspaper from time to time, just a shade, to watch his wife eat. Her cheeks coloured slightly, and he realized she was aware of his stare, and raised his paper – again, very slowly.

She went back to bed after breakfast, but gradually, intermittently, she began to appear more often, like a ghost straining for corporeality.

Something was stirring in her heart. Some sort of light was breaking over her exhausted inner armies. Not a healing, not quite, but a sort of armistice.

Quentin had not put aside his political aspirations, but they had been delayed. The by-election he hoped to run in had come and gone while he was still paralyzed by his wife’s hostility. She had agreed to refrain from proclaiming her beliefs, but he had had the following conversation with the Conservative party head.

“Well,” said Mr. Watkins, who was tall and thin and had a close-cropped sheen of silver hair. “You possess unremarkable credentials, having had no parliamentary experience, no close affiliation with the Conservative party, and scant financial resources. However, these are not utterly insurmountable, insofar as a man with ability, drive and oratorical power can position himself as the outsider who can ride into town and clean things up. But, to pursue the American metaphor, perhaps, beyond good taste, you cannot do this without a credible posse. And my inquiries have led me to the understanding that you are in possession of a rather singular wife.”

“I have talked with Ruth,” said Quentin, stressing her name in the hopes of transforming her from crippling hibiscus to fallible human being, “and she fully supports my desire to serve my country.”

“No doubt,” said Mr. Watkins dryly. “Yet we have before us several possible candidates, and their wives have performed every kind of social service, from running the Red Cross to sitting on Means Test committees to running political seminars explaining why the League of Nations failed to check Japanese aggression in Manchuria to our understandably-confused constituents. Whether we like it or not, a man is judged by the company he keeps. When offered a candidate with a shut-in wife, voters might legitimately question the man’s ability to keep a steady focus on the job. It is the contention of the Conservative party that the current decade will contain within it grave dangers, and will require a tenaciously steady hand at the tiller. By all appearances – and with all due respect – you are not that man.”

It was a kindness to even receive that depth of explanation, Quentin knew, and did not press the issue...