Now we come to the Sunday morning in January (the Sunday before the term resumes), wild with a snowstorm sent from Canada (from Ardith herself?). The Ashers — there must be many of them to produce a happy, overcrowded household — are at home. Phillip, just seventeen, is reading in the sitting room and overhears Samuel being summoned to the door. Phillip, wondering who can have come to the house in such filthy weather, shifts his position on the sofa so that he can better see into the hallway.
An unusually tall and arresting woman in a wet cloak and boots stands before Samuel. Phillip recognizes her as the woman with whom he once played tennis. Bits of urgent conversation make their way into the sitting room. Phillip, intrigued, stands and walks to a library table. At that moment, Etna lifts her face, and Phillip sees there… what? The ferocity of love, he will later write. Etna is imploring Samuel. She is weeping. Perhaps she puts her reddened hands on Samuel’s arms. Samuel tries to calm her, but she will not be calmed. She has broken her engagement, she announces. She cannot marry another man. She loves only Samuel, Samuel who must not marry Ardith. Who must not go away to Toronto. Who must not leave her.
What is a man to do? Samuel tries to take Etna into another, more private room to speak with her, but Etna, nearly wild now, will not go. Samuel offers to fetch a carriage for her to take her home. Etna shakes her head. Samuel tells her finally that he cannot break his engagement, that his honor does not permit this. (Can he really have said that? I suppose so. Honor was then a sturdier concept than it is today.) Perhaps he tells her another truth — that his family would never permit him to break his engagement. Ardith is, after all, from a good Jewish academic family like his. Phillip moves to the doorway, and perhaps Etna looks up, catching the young man’s eye. Phillip’s father, having heard the disturbance, has made his way into the hallway. What is this commotion? he asks his son.
Samuel tries to give a respectful answer that will send his father back to his study. Etna, her emotions having spiraled out of control, is clearly too distraught to answer for herself. The Asher patriarch fetches his wife, who is at first taken aback by this melodramatic display. She immediately intuits the reason for the visit and the tears, and announces, in a chilly voice, that she will deal with the young woman (the chilliness uncalled for, since she herself has been weeping in her bedroom at the thought of the departure of her favorite son). Etna, suddenly realizing the horror of her position, her perfect humiliation, turns and opens the door. Samuel, temporarily cowed (thus earning him the lifelong scorn of his younger brother), says nothing and allows Etna to go. Phillip, at first stunned and then moved to aid the striking, if not entirely beautiful, woman, runs to the door and out onto the street. By the time he has reached the end of the walkway, Etna Bliss has vanished.
As I say, this is only my imagination.
But how annoying these letters ultimately are! Though one initially admires Phillip Asher (some eighteen years later) for offering to withdraw from consideration for the post at Thrupp on Etna’s account — such chivalry — he then easily acquiesces to Etna’s dismissal of the matter (though she was quite right in refusing to allow him to do so). Already in the letter of October 21, we see the seeds of deception sown: Asher reveals that he has met me in the hotel, but has withheld from me the knowledge that he once knew my wife. On October 22, in the same letter that we learn Etna was betrothed, Etna allows this deception to continue: “I see no reason to discuss with him [meaning me, N. VT.] an incident of so long ago.” One cannot help but wonder what license this must have given the man from Yale, how this may have made him think in terms of a future for himself with a woman who had, after all, intrigued him for years. How amazing that the mysterious woman he chased to no avail in Exeter should suddenly have appeared at Edward Ferald’s party. (Not such a remarkable coincidence, you might say. Both were, after all, from academic families, and Thrupp was an academic town.)
The exchange of sympathy letters that follows is perfectly acceptable, quite within the bounds of common etiquette, although one additionally wonders why it was necessary for Phillip to apologize for not going to the funeral. It seems a patently obvious excuse to continue the correspondence. And note how, in her letter of November 18, Etna likewise requires a response of Asher. “I should be grateful for any news of [your brother].” She signs this letter Etna Bliss Van Tassel. Why? To remind Asher of the young woman she once was?
And why, on November 24, does Asher think it important to have some reply from Etna before he accepts my invitation to have a drink? To decide how to continue the deception? (I take great offense at the word ultimatum. I hate exaggeration in any man. I think my quote from Milton was simply a warning at most.)