ordinary measures. The damage was done.
In the beginning, every morning after Michael had left for the office, I would knock at Coralie's door eager to make amends, to try to get off on the right foot with her. But I was never permitted to enter. Mrs. Dunnigan, our housekeeper (and Coralie's willing slave), would open the door the merest slit. And her thin-lipped mouth would open the merest slit, too, in her hard, set face.
Miss Coralie was resting. Miss Coralie didn't feel well enough this morning for visitors. No, there was nothing you could do. Yes, Mrs. Whittington, I'll let you know if she asks for you.
Days of this. Until, after a time, I stopped trying to be friendly. Perhaps she'd get over it faster if I left her alone.
Then Michael, one morning at breakfast, said mildly. "Why don't you ever go in to see Coralie?"
I looked at him in blank amazement. Surely he must know how Coralie felt about me? "But, Michael dear, I've tried. She doesn't want to see me. I can never get in."
Mrs. Dunnigan, pouring coffee, sniffed audibly. And her narrow, black hack somehow managed to convey eloquent disbelief for Michael's benefit. Before I could say anything, Mrs. Dunnigan was asking Michael's advice about something, so that her insinuation that I was lying was left dangling in the air until it became, somehow, truth.
What Michael believed I do not know. But he must have said something to Coralie. And always, after that, I visited her room with him in the morning before he went to work. True, between Coralie and me there was nothing more than an exchange of polite insincerities. But she didn't dare deny me entrance—not with Michael at my side. Nor could she any longer accuse me to him of neglect.
But Coralie wasn't finished. It went on. Michael's friends, who'd welcomed me so gladly at first, slowly began to withdraw, and to eye me with suspicion and dislike when we did meet. It hurt me, at first, and bewildered me, but gradually I began to understand. Their coldness always seemed to coincide with their visits to Coralie.
What was she saying to them about me? That I was mean, cold, heartless? Perhaps that I'd married Michael only for his money, and wanted to drive Coralie out? However she was knifing me, she was gaining her effect. She was ill, lovely, pathetic; I was well, presumably at an advantage. It's only natural that the sympathies of Michael's friends go to her.
Even by the time I grew morally certain of just how she was accomplishing her ends, it was too late to do anything. I couldn't go to Michael's friends and ask them, for they would only deny it strenuously, misguidedly thinking that in so doing they were only protecting Coralie from further abuse. I most certainly wouldn't go to Coralie and tax her with what she was doing. Accuse her, and know that all the while, behind her bland surprise and pitying denial, she'd be laughing at me delightedly. She wanted me to suspect what she was doing. She just didn't want me to get any proof.
My only defense was to withdraw more and more into the shell of pretended indifference. Then Coralie for days would be gay and kind and friendly, until I began to doubt my own suspicions. Eagerly I'd make friendly overtures in
