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CHAPTER EIGHT

The next day had commenced with sunshine peeping from the eastern cloud, and the sky itself was marmoreal. This beautiful morning, Vivian woke from visions and dreams which occupied almost her sleeping hours of the night. Not even –a brilliantly morning sun could drive away the evil plans inside her against Charles. The desire to see Charles face-to-face drained her, as always. This time she found herself wanting to rant at Charles, if she did see him to demand that he came back from his oblivion just long enough to explain it to her. She soliloquized bitterly: “Why did you have to go away from me? Why did you have to get in the way you have chosen? Why the hell did you have to marry me? The last question yanked her up short and flooded her with guilt. How could she even wonder such a thing? How could she reject Charles and marry another man?

All her meditation the previous day was how to elope with John Hill. She had already planned taking a French leave, and did not regret her plan and action she was about to carry out. She gave her heart willingly to John Hill, but an inner voice was diabolically encouraging and beseeching her to proceed on her plans for elopement.

Standing there watching the sun rise higher over the bay, she also admitted to herself that she had been resisting Charles’ evil character from the outset and onset. She did not want to elope then. She did quit fussing with him on his amoral acts to avoid having to alert the neighbourhood what she was passing through with him. But how would she swallow Charles distancing her? She wondered desperately. Sometimes the thing that upset her most about all of these was the lack of accurate information in his correspondences. This lack of accurate information on his whereabouts in Rano showed hints of the neglect that came from been associated with the wrong man, Charles. He had turned out to be a Yahoo. All the while, her mind was scrambling around wildly, seeking some kind of response from him; a word of mouth or an email correspondence that would console her conflict.

She said that “since Charles had left her for a long time and had forgotten her and her entire beauty so soon, without paying her cautious visits from where he was posted for youth service, she suspected him. According to her, he would be rough with those girls who were his friends before she married him. She added in anger that nothing whatever would hold him back in the city but his default of their marital status.” For this Charles’ obscure attitude, she did not for any brief moment regret the act of remarriage which troubled her now and then. She was not going to regret for taking the next, inevitable step. What really bothered her, though, were how much she found herself caring and patient enough, waiting for him to come home. How much it hurt that he had suddenly put this distance between them. But with her regret a little alleviated by the knowledge that her last days with him had been happy ones, in spite the way he had chosen to go.

Thinking about her remarriage and divorcement with Charles, she remembered that there were many of her girlfriends who were divorced by their husbands and they remarried after few months of their divorces. She had given rough criticism earlier about marriage and divorce. Since Charles left her in loneness and had forgotten that he married her, she would change her mind from being faithful and loving him. For these experiences which she felt in their marriage bloc, she had strong experience now, and had self-affirmed why some girls divorce their hubbies and remarry other men pleasing to them. She said that she was no novice in affairs of this kind. She had experienced personally the cause of the divorce cases from the infidelity of Charles. She claimed that the cause of most cases of divorce did not come from the women fold, but from men. It however, worried her all day long. She felt somehow that she was robbed of bliss when she remembered her case with Charles. She had wanted him to be a source of her happiness, this would have helped them to bear wonderful children but her hopes were dashed. A fruitless wedlock indeed!

On the other hand she had hoped that they would have lived for one another and cared for their desires. Now, all his air and notions of love towards her lasted only for a short time. But what was more surprising to her was his quick restraint of their marital status. If Charles was out of the town and had decided to divorce her and go with other women, he had violated the laws of marriage which he swore that only death could put them apart.

She concluded that divorced women often felt guilty and responsible for things that were totally beyond their control. Something that happened that they felt innocence of. They felt as if they were to blame for everything, at first, because they were made to feel as if they were to blame, but then, before long, they were assuming blame all on their own. Men were always making excuses, always denying responsibility for any evil matter that crops up in the family hood. She said “Maybe he had believed other things about her, too, things that weren’t obvious.”

She said bitterly that she had lived with him nearly half a year, in which space she used her time very pleasantly living with him as a proper house wife, who paid her with evil for the unlimited or innumerable complaisance with which she passively good-humoured every caprice that came from him, and which she had won for him the victory of love; and that finding in her person, as Charles said, “All the variety of good quality he needed in his life time, and which he had sought in a number of women and did not find”. And for these few months of their marriage, she had made him lose his desire of constancy and pursuance of new faces of girls in every skirt, and pair of trousers. But what was yet at least more visible to the eyes as well as more unflattering would be the love she had inspired him with, bred and gave him something that made the difference: an unchallengeable life and love.

“What would be the mind of Charles for discarding her to live in the township alone?” Vivian began. “Was she an ugly woman?” she queried in solitude. “Did people gossip and criticize her name?” She added. “What would be the reason given by men who do not moderate their constant desire on women, who look more beautiful than their wedded wives?” She asked further. On her own part, she was beautiful, and she neither had the intention to reject him nor had she persisted in unfaithfulness, murmurings and luscious talks against him as other beautiful women do, since they lived together. She loved him. It was a duty she set herself; no one else made her to love him. Even though she made herself to love him, she felt it was something she couldn’t get out of. Obligation bounded her as surely as any law or chain could have. Obligation and loyalty.

She had spent most of the hours of the morning speculating on her divorce plan, which she had decided against Charles, though all the idea which she held as pros and cons for divorcing him seemed justifiable. Her heart remained guilty and totally unjustified her plans for divorce. She absolutely was not going to live and sleep in the bed of a man who thought she was a doormat or who decided to live alone in the township. She would not live with a man whose love is quite suspicious; who doesn’t care for his bride; a man who is careless about raising a family they proposed; a man who doesn’t want to share a whole lot about love. How she hated of not having the freedom to come and go as she pleased from Charles’ residence in Rano State.

Sometimes she had nearly hated him for the way he behaved by concealing his addresses. Contrary to her earlier impression of him, she realized that Charles is not at all a right mate for her.

She had perhaps seen how very much she can observe in the fractional or little moment of living with him, every detail etched on her memory to be seen as one who had no husband. She thought that some of his actions were deliberate, simply to penalize her. She wished, then, that she had not allowed herself to marry him. Although she explained in her previous letters to him that she was getting lonely, and felt the need of his face near her but since her hope of communication with him failed, she was rather fussy about his location in Rano.

The next day, in the middle of the month of April, Vivian left the university’s campus and arrived at her home town to spend few days, because of the strike between the Federal Government and the professors of the universities on the case of salary increase.

“Oh, welcome my daughter,” her mother began. “You have travelled too long a road from your school. Are you coming from your husband’s home?” She questioned further with enthusiasm and felicity.

“I drove right away from the campus, not from my husband’s home,” she began rather sharply. She hid her present feeling that her mother may not discern her thoughts to correct her misimpressions on her possibility of divorce. She felt guilt over her secrecy but shoved it aside. All the thoughts of her vow to remain faithful to Charles fled before her absolute need for another husband.

“Your body is fine and I believe that you are healthy; though, I’ve expected to hear the news that you are pregnant. Furthermore, I think you would have been expecting a bouncing baby by now, even though I know your wedding with your groom took place two months ago,” her mother began with jocosity and pampered fashion.

“Mum, I’ve lived with Charles many months ago, I’ve expected pregnancy and had hoped to bring a baby like most friends who wedded the same time with us last year, received blessings of new babies from their husbands but nothing happened. I have been thinking about that a lot, since we lived together, wondering why he couldn’t make me pregnant. I can only conclude that he may be impotent but has buried his negative feeling about it to the point that he believes that his impotence is a good thing.” And at that she gave a kind of sob in her throat; “I hadn’t thought I could feel a thing like that. Of course I didn’t know what it was all about that hinders him to make me pregnant,” Vivian revealed.

She did not care whether the account of the problem between her and Charles got concealed. She wanted to let the cat out of the bag. She thought of all the evenings he had spent away from her, regaling in Hollywood; she thought wonderingly of his fierce characteristics, ambition and of the direction his life had taken; she thought of the many hours she did spent by herself waiting in vain for him to come home in the night, when other men were coming home. The realization suddenly struck her that she did await alone in the house till he came home, and somehow she understood she did pardoned him and kept the feelings of his wrong attitude at bay then, thinking that he would improve.

“Do you know if Charles has internal sickness that prevents him from making you pregnant? It is quite impossible for a man with venereal disease to impregnate a woman. I didn’t expect you to be without child this time”, Sussana questioned imperatively.

“Mum, I can’t tell what I don’t know about, but what I will be sure enough to tell was that Charles had been a womanizer. I am making a bold clarification here that I am not comfortable with him; because it is quite hard for a womanizer to impregnate his wife. His love and care seemed to be divided. He was constantly following any kind of woman in a skirt and pairs of trousers. He had no choice; all that were in skirt pleased his flirtatious conscience. Since we lived together, sometimes he blamed me of trivialities. But he sure blamed me for making too much noise, for being too quiet, for not cooking the required food at the right time. Do you know that sometimes after a little misunderstanding in the house, he would eat in the hotel for several days? Sometimes he comes home for several weeks, and sometimes he would return late at night, bowling me for this or that.” Vivian exposed as tears dropped down slowly from her eyes and spattered her face.

“What are you crying for? Had his amorous manner, errant and sexuality reached the stage that would make you cry and scream? Do you want to tell me that Charles still goes after women since he married a beautiful girl like you? But I don’t expect him to act like that. Well, of course, there wasn’t much to be nervous about. If he hadn’t made you pregnant, he probably had a good reason.”

“Mum, there are men who do not depend on their wives for pleasure but go after women, and such men do not look after the complete welfare of their wives: and Charles possessed to extremity such dubious character. No woman would be around a man who doesn’t love her. A woman requires soothing, caring and pampering and not giving her heartache. Because she has a special need for tenderness and affection. His obscured manner had gone beyond Christian wedlock. I will divorce him and marry any man that would properly take care of me, and respect the issues of marital home.”

“No! My daughter, your divorce proposal is wrong; you have had no legal support to divorce him. You are just putting your foot in something deep and dangerous. It is quite wrong for you to do such a thing. Whatever you think he does wrong, you should contain his obscure behaviour, because your vow during period of weeding with him was “till death do us part.” You must not only know your own particular needs for happiness but also the needs of your mate. If you want your mate to be happy, make him happy by keeping his orders and forget his trivial attitude. Unhappiness for one will mean unhappiness for both because a man who takes the success of his marriage seriously will seek a wife that he can love, cherish as his own flesh. She should complement him as a partner in establishing a home. Being a good home maker is a demanding career of varied responsibilities. She must demonstrate her talents as a cook, decorator, economist, mother, teacher, and much more. Her role can be creative and challenging, offering many opportunities for personal growth and fulfillment.”

“Since I married him, I had borne the burden of disgraceful sight, which he involved himself with striptease. He had acted without shame and had been caught many times red handed, having fun with women, and he had defiled our marriage bed. He cheated regularly on me. No matter how hard I tried to cover up his evil manifestations, no matter how much I loved him and care for him, there had come a time when he began to see me as a threat, when I encouraged him to desist from his wrong practices.” Vivian exposed.

“My daughter, such immoral, men have been wooed by it. It is quite disreputable act for a person like Charles to stoop so low on such forbidden pleasure. Though men speak the moral and do the immoral. You are young and sound beautiful girl, what would warrant him to despise your angelic-beautiful look and depend on these women that roam the streets of the town? Pleasures of love last a moment, but pain of love lasts a lifetime”.

“Mum, because of the kind of love I had for him, I shunned all the male company who were longing to share my love while living with him. But for their risky demands, I looked at their wants as lacking in taste and disreputable for a married girl to take because I was setting myself up as bait. I’ve been dancing to his tune since the day we met. However, I was doing everything I could to get him to keep in contact with me, and to handle me as a newly married girl. Instead, all I did was make it possible for him to hurt my good feelings that I care about… I have served my time in this particular dungeon”. Vivian infinitively declared as she wiped the tears that flowed down her checks with scarlet handkerchief.

“Vivian, prostitution is not laudable work. It is a clandestine scene for women to strip off their clothes for men. I have seen men and women who died in the act and some of them caught up venereal diseases and died prematurely. Cain who lived in that valley, his daughter who came from high school in London, took up the work of prostitution, caught the killer disease: AIDS, after only two months, she died a shameful death. I wouldn’t advise you to go into such life or divorce your husband and get married to a new man. Many marriages end up in unhappiness or divorce on the ground of incompatibility. If two persons are not well suited as a team, the going can be difficult”.

“To retreat from my concluded decision to remarry would be my concern. No one could live with someone who doesn’t care about her welfare. It is an idiosyncratic act for a man to despise his bride without any cogent reason. Though you knew I had been extremely displeased with Charles’ acts which had caused all my bitterness and the plan to divorce him. He had neglected me and left me in loneliness for many months, living in pleasure with his girlfriends in Rano State. If I hadn’t been having this stupid, marital crisis about wanting to wallow in his filth, I might not have entered into this quagmire. He had been cheating regularly on me but I kept blind eye to his inordinate characters. The Charles’ family had been nothing if not persistent in their belief that I was responsible for his distancing me… I didn’t expect anything horrible from them. Charles was a wonderer; and the man that had done such act wasn’t necessarily going to stop at things you might think he did stop at. With the mind to do a thing like that, and with the notion of his excommunication from me, you can’t say what he would stop at. It was as if he had hidden part of himself from me during courtship, in order to deceive me, pretending – as do many men I have discovered – to be what he is not. What he said with his mouth isn’t what appears to be on the manifestation,” Vivian retorted.

“Don’t disengage your marriage with Charles, wait for him to return. There is a frustration of plans where there is no confidential talk, practical matters must be discussed. All

questions, and others as well be discussed calmly and logically and settled in a way that both of you can live with comfortably. Can problems be faced and solved together, and the channel of communication kept always open? That is a lifeline of a successful marriage. Your imaginations and descriptions of his life in Rano might be wrong interpretations that came from wrath, which his absence put you into. Divorce is a vice practice and an enormity, and a woman that divorces her groom would be bound to suffer without a soother,” Vivian’s mother advised.

After a sufficient length of dialogue which existed between Vivian and her mother, Vivian angrily left to her bedroom to take a bed rest. Few minutes later, she fell asleep, through weariness from the violent meditation she had been into because of Charles absence, and the distant road she drove from school to her hometown. In the next morning, she woke about ten o’clock, perfectly gay and refreshed. Her mother was up from bed before her and asked her in the kindest manner how she did feel, how she rested the previous night, and if she was ready for breakfast; carefully at the same time avoiding to repeat to an increase the confusion on divorce strategy she saw that she was into, without addition to the guilt of her infidelity on marital norms, and did not rebuke her further on her audacious defense of her divorce proposal on Charles.

In the old style of common pampering she indulged in questioning her, her answers to any question Vivian raised was modest and mild, and often interrupted by her tears, in substance as follows: ‘that she never had in lifetime had a single thought of wronging Charles (which was fact), till she had seen him taking her liberties as his housewife and gave it to the alien women, which he accomplished by betraying his marital vow with her; and that her resentment at that act, which she was overawed from giving vent to, by complaints or explanations to Charles, had now driven her to a course of divorce that she did not pretend to justify’.

All this while, she felt something inside her ripping painfully, as if her heart were being torn out by roots. She told herself that it did matter a lot for Charles to deny her so soon because, once a woman had been married and divorced, she would be classed second handed by men, like a second handed car or garment. It would be very difficult for her to remarry and she knew exactly how much she had loosed her feminine influence and approaches by men who might have requested her companionship. She was getting very tired of beating her head on this particular difficulty that Charles created but there was certainly no evidence of Charles’ confrontation or any detailed communication of the address of his whereabouts.

Though most of the months of her marriage she had been alone, so the divorce she had planned had suddenly made her so conscious of it. Ever elopement plot had been planned, she was battling a compulsive urge to look over the marital constitution she was about to break. But her heart had always slammed. How could she consider so completely married to someone she had already planned to divorce? How could she live with someone who doesn’t know the meaning of love and care? She had imagined why Charles would be so soon a distance gazer over his bride. She couldn’t envision that such condition of loneliness and excommunication would ever exist between them.

After breakfast, in the meantime, several of her acquaintances among the sisterhood who had soon gotten the news of her misfortune flocked into her bedroom to console her with touchy consolation. Though most of them had long ago envied her for the affluence and great splendour she had maintained for her husband. After she was married into influential family, there were many of her girlfriends who desired to be in her shoes. Mockers among her foes who had got wind of her deserted state, she said “would most probably sooner or later, come to be in her state of desertion by their future hubbies.” some of them who came to her with malicious consolations, even in their pretentious pity, and secret felicity and jubilation at seeing her so disgraced and discarded like a kitchen rag by her groom, and their secret happiness that it was worse with her signified the unaccountable malice and acrimony of the human heart, and which was not confined to any class of people they were expected of in their spinsterhood.

After her lovers and especially her intimate one’s who came to her with unpretentious pity left her bedroom, she filled the castle with moaning and sign of bitterness. She regretted a thousand times on what made her to marry Charles. Whenever her fellow students asked her about her husband’s wellbeing, she would always deny she knew who he was, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie. Any word about his whereabouts seemed stuck in her throat like glue. She hadn’t thought that Charles would abandon her after their honeymoon, and right now she was in such an emotional turmoil that she couldn’t even respond to questions from her fellow undergraduates about her hubby.

This moment, she started to pack her traps or personal belongings in the house and was making ready to elope and marry John Hill. With this thought in mind, she conjured it pessimistically and remembered the admonishing words of her mother against her wish to marry John Hill. The truth was that she would kick out any parental warning and repose her hope on the new groom – John Hill. Nothing whatever would prevent her from executing her plans, nothing.

Notwithstanding whatever plan she had, she was affected by her odd plan against Charles. She felt self-betrayed by her own way into sudden transition from extreme fears to extreme desires of carrying out her obscured objective. She felt dislocated as she had the day she caught Charles red-handed kissing and having fun with a girl on campus lavatory. That day, she couldn’t raise alarm or panic. Nobody knew about it. She prayed about it. She prayed at the corner of her cubicle, in the dormitory until the words of her prayers were buzzing like angry bees in a giant tree hole. Right now, she didn’t think she could face that eye-saw again.

Regardful however, she weighed her objective in the scale of her mind for divorcing him and speedily concluded that it would be only John Hill, who afforded to accept her as a true wife. She would marry a handsome creature as John could make her happy and would banish the idea of leaving with a husband who became a distant gazer. She had made it pomp and plain, however, at any time from now, that after rejecting Charles to marry John, she wouldn’t be re-enticed to come back to Charles or wish to resort his pretended love by any parental reconciliation.

Before the day runs out, Vivian’s mother was so troubled about the divorce confession which she had made before her. The thought about her odd confession made her sleepless throughout the hours of the night. She was really troubled because Vivian was the only daughter out of seven daughters she bore to her husband, who was sent to study at the university, and who received fortune by being married by an undergraduate. It would be a great loss for her to elope from Charles (whom they had trusted, who looked after her affairs) and then got married to a man whom she knew alone. It would be evil if she carried out her fierce objective and her foolish ambition for second marriage would bring a wedge between them and their in-laws they once knew and loved. Even though her plan was adopted, it wouldn’t bring her to an honourable condition as compared with the care Charles had offered her.

Another thought which added more degree to her isomerism was what the neighbourhood would think and say in gossip if she carried out her mechanistic objective. She said that “the neighbours who envied her for the affluence and splendor in which she was properly maintained or taken care of by Charles would laugh at her, because of this divorce that she entangled with.” She added that “the company of good friends who stood round them in a profound love, when Vivian and Charles wedded would be amazed and would come in to ask questions about the unexpected separation between them.”

The next day, Vivian’s mother woke up and was so weak and unable to bear the pathetic news about her divorce confession, which she nurtured in her mind throughout the night. The rage about it was uncontrollable. The divorce confession haunted her. She resented the way she talked against Charles and her determination to prove to her that the risk she had taken was more than justified by what she had been able to learn. She in fact, understood this divorce case in herself alone, but made up her mind to acquaint Harry, her groom about it. It would be blame on her side if her husband heard the secret from another person. She wouldn’t conceal it because such evil must be revealed.

The door into Harry’s piazza screamed into noisy ascent. Harry’s big bulging eyes fenced with shattered eyebrows jammed Vivian’s mother’s eyes with coax of welcome. She came in, sat fully on one of those antique chairs built with Iroko wood that looks like ottoman.

“Good morning sir,” Susanna began nervously, as she stood again and sat on a long bench that looks like a church bench near her hubby.

“Good morning my rightful bride and beloved”, Harry replied. He regarded her from beneath a lower brow and saw a change on her physique.

“You looked too weak and warped. Do you feel indisposed? Do you ever sleep well last night? Does the dark bother you? Do you feel claustrophobic? If you did not sleep well, you could hardly wake up with renewed health and happiness.” Harry interrogated.

“You are right. The mystery of the leanness, in short my physique is written. I did not sleep last night until the cock crew; all the shriek of the insects, the hooting of the owls, my ears followed their music till it was dawn.” Susanna explained disgustedly.

“It is quite risky to health to be sleepless. Sleep is a supernatural vitamin to the body, spirit and soul. What caused your insomnia?” Harry stated and queried imperatively.

“It would sound too odd a thing for you to hear the news of what caused my sleeplessness. I lied side by side with anger last night because of the confession of your daughter, who married few months ago and is back home. To bring to your hearing, your daughter has a plan to divorce her husband. Deciding that I really needed your opinion, because I couldn’t look at this objectively; and I don’t exactly know what she had been trying to insinuate.” Susanna explained, watching him to hear his reaction about this heartbreaking news.

“What? What actually sparked off the odd resolution?” Harry questioned. “You can’t take things to heart like that without being ill. Who can sleep with a serpent in his bed?” He added. He turned sharply to look at her. “What exactly happened?” His face saddened, and he rubbed the bristles on his chin, as if trying to wipe away an unpleasant feeling. He frowned thoughtfully, and then ran his finger through his short black hair, pushing it back from his face. He wasn’t comfortable with this obscure news, his face averted from her, staring out into the morning sun through the window like someone consumed with strange thought. Susanna hesitated and suddenly felt almost foolish and ashamed of taking it serious enough to mention Vivian’s divorce problem.

“Sir,” she began. “Whatever reason she gave failed beyond my cognition. Whatever reason she enumerated gave violent impression, which did not go into agreement in their marital law. Being not contented with the reasons which she gave, she introduced insensible reasons that inflamed me beyond the power of modesty, and though, I opposed her words but it didn’t gain any advantage of her odd plans.” She briefed.

“Look Susanna, violent love seldom last long, and that of a woman least of any; they have love in common. Did you see anything unusual? Did she act differently from her husband’s commandment? What really agitated the bone of contention that led into the ruinous of their marriage to so soon a divorce?” Harry queried.

“Her own reasons could give more meaning or light to her divorce decision. You call on her for her to let us know if she had any brilliant ideas. A lot of cultures believe that a woman can marry and divorce but we don’t accept such illegality.” Susanna averred.

“Please Susanna; I would like you to call her, so that I would be able to understand what propelled the discord between them. Her ideals might be tales that one never wants to hear.” Harry ordered.

Susanna immediately rang a little bell that linked the piazza with Vivian’s bedroom. When she heard the tintinnabulation, she woke from the bed and walked slowly like a tortoise into the piazza. She knew that the news of her odd plan might have reached the hearing of her father. On the other hand, she had been guilty from the moment she passed the decision to marry another man. She had an obligation to tell her father in particular, her motivation to carry out and the reasons behind her plans. She wouldn’t be reluctant to tell her father about her suffering wedlock with Charles. Now she was standing before them, and the sounds of the things they were discussing receded until all she could hear was her own heartbeat.

In the piazza, her eyes which its eyebrows were shaved off and replaced with thick line of eye pencil, met with her parent’s eyes in irritated glance, and she felt a bit of nervousness as she sat down on one of those ancient wooden chairs that looks like court benches. By the time she came in, the silence between her parents was so thick that she was beginning to wonder what she did stepped into. For long moments, there was nothing but stunned silence in the room. Finally her mother cleared her throat, as if she wasn’t quite sure what to say. Her husband looked like a man trapped in a nightmare and Vivian looked offended. She felt as if her own soul had been stained by the things she had planned to execute. Harry was sitting in a far corner, head bowed in thought, and he was suddenly struck by how sad Vivian looked.

“Yes,” began Harry. “I’ve heard the points of the divorce resolution which you were about to carry out. What brought about this divorce complaint? Raking up people’s divorces and marital problems was rarely a smart move. Often as not, you wound up neck-deep in garbage. The provision of the Mosaic Law prohibits yoking together two animals of different build and strength because of the hardship it would create. So, too, with a man and a woman who are not well matched and yet are teamed up in marriage. When mates have different interests, different taste and different activities, and few things in common, the marital bonds would definitely come under great strain.”

This time, Vivian looked faintly embarrassed. Sadness passed through her, and she looked up on her father’s face. His face was impassive and unreadable, her heart slammed, and she compressed her lips, trying to decide whether to equivocate or just blurt out the truth about the divorce question from her father. “But would they understand the truth?” She interrogated herself. How could she consider herself so completely married to someone she had already planned to divorce? Suppressing a sigh, she looked up and tried to marshal an answer.

“Papa, there are many unalienable reasons which brought my divorce against Charles. If you count upon the fierceness that was too common among the modern women, you would exonerate me from the corruptions that hit the woman race. First and foremost, you will comprehend that I loved Charles during the time of his courtship and you know how I dismissed many males who asked for my love and prepared to defile my marriage vow with him. You know many men that flocked to our house in search of my beauty and acknowledgment to marry me, but I disregarded their inquiries and kept my body, soul, spirit and beauty to Charles. Time without number I embarrassed most of them to go away. To prove the deep regard I had for all his principles since we lived together: I did not allow one word to fall in vain from his mouth without carrying out his word. There was an irony which I know about him; his love for me is not genuine. It was only an abated love. The worst consequences of which I received by living with him was that he led a shindig life, and corrupted my innocence by introducing me to corrupt party friends. He went with many girlfriends too. He did not consider our sacred wedlock bond that our nature entwined. To crown it all, he abandoned me and settled in Rano State without communication. None of the two letters he wrote to me since his departure bore any residential address or postal code.” Vivian said as she sobbed through every sentence and remarks she made. Her situation seemed to consume her just as much as she thought about how betrayed she felt by his dishonesty. She was angry and hurt if she hadn’t come to care a whole lot, and subject herself under his principles.

“Don’t cry like that, Vivian. Shedding tears has solved no matter of this kind. Your reasons were not bad. If you solemnly express to us what caused your divorce strategy against Charles, you did nothing anyone could term wrong, and you should not take us to be your enemy. There is no smoke without fire. But you should understand the fact that Charles is not at home, and you cannot imagine the kind of life he may be living in Rano State. Your imaginations about his welfare in Rano might be wrong. I advise you not to carry out your wrong objective. If you do, it will be like a blind man that jumped into a pit. All the imperfections which you observed in him; I will assure you that he had a good behaviour and geniality as ever as the length of time I had known him. He had certain sweetness in his character as to compare with his temper. The sweetness of his manners made him seem born for domestic happiness. He is tender, naturally polite, and gentlly mannered. It wouldn’t be his fault if enemies ruffled calm. He was so qualified in every way to maintain. He has all the humility to understand, plain common sense that could make him admire what is good. Universally loved and nobly esteemed. But his handsomeness is not comparable. I cannot be the judge of his later actions. I cannot excuse him for anything that developed between you and him. If he is not the person I know well, it would have been a different case. I cannot forget how good he was to you. In the time of poverty he gave you five million dollars to sponsor your course in the university, and all the ever increasing burden during your wedding, he bore the weight. Therefore, one thing important is that you must accept his faults as you see them. You accepted him for love and should not represent his character so ill. You should cast out the imagination of what he does in Rano State but hold tight the principle of love that tied you together in wedlock. Do not think your husband doesn’t love you just because he doesn’t communicate you and it seemed to betray your confidence in him. But communication between mates shouldn’t be broken. For love brings perfect communication.” Harry admonished.

“Papa, I have given Charles few months to come home, if I don’t see him I will remarry whom I like. I will not consider the way you see it. The dejected impressions which I had received from him and from the discoveries of his character had betrayed my trust. I had known his extreme ill dispositions; I had more to hope from his violence and dubiousness. I am losing patience with all this shit, and all I really wanted to do was to sue him to court for an injunction, and separate from him the rest of my life. Since court trial on divorce is come today, come tomorrow, I will elope from him and leave him alone as he did to me.” Vivian retorted.

“Well, if you would be a virtuous woman, you ought to obey my words. You have married but there are plenty of women who are not. Why were you fixing to live in a monastic existence filled with difficulties and horrifying woes? A woman doesn’t divorce her husband to marry another and still have the freedom in marital laws. If she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits sin. She has the veto power to marry another man when her first husband dies.” Harry emphatically instructed.

Vivian drew a sharp breath. She didn’t answer immediately, she was startled. Harry could see it clearly across her face, and he glanced away, surprised to find her facing him, her eyes dark shadows in her pale face. He began to get the feeling that she had just put her hands in burning coals of fire… she stared at him, either believing or disbelieving. Part of her was offended at his invasion of her most personal feelings, and part of her was terrified.

“Papa,” Vivian broke her silence. “I will not throw mud to your advice. The words of parents are the words of the spirit. My proposal for divorce will be carried out if Charles did not return on the very time I stipulated. We never…we never…” she halted and drew a long, shaky breath. We never shared anything since he left me in desolate mystery. We never joked when we were together, because he would so often misunderstand me when I speak to him about his night prowling with nude women. Sometimes, he misunderstood me even when I thought I was perfectly clear. But his present act, made me realize just how distorted my whole marriage was. I used to cling to the belief that it had been good before he left me and live in Rano alone. So he wanted me to suffer horrible agonies. Perhaps all he wanted was to marry another woman more beautiful than me.”

“I have listened calmly and carefully to your complaints. I disagree with the disordered notions you have had against Charles. You married him and stumbled on something you didn’t like. You had been a beautiful girl, with eyes full of life, and always with a smile that invited the world to laugh along with you, but all of a sudden your famous cheerfulness changed. You ought to be the center of his private life and euphoria. I don’t think that your husband ran away with another woman. I don’t think I ever found out the truth about his distancing you; and I am very worried about this matter. I and your mother would like to confront him about your complaints, and try to talk sense and realism into his head. We will bring to table your divorce matter to compromising settlement. Anyway, hold-up on the waiting until he gets home and let us know what he wants us to do about this situation. Charles paid your bride price to me in the presence of my kinsmen and friends who attended your wedding ceremony,” Harry encouraged.

“I will hold it as you have said, but the only thing that could reduce this disorder would be when Charles comes to the point of retreating from his deceptive attraction which will procure me the satisfaction in my curiosity to divorce him. But so far as you received my dowry from his hands, you are expected to pay him back when I divorce him,” Vivian concluded. Her tone became dry. Her heart was beating rapidly, and she felt as if a gauntlet had been thrown. She decided not to take the conversation further but to back away from it now, before it becomes a neighbourhood scandal.

After this long discussion that existed between Vivian and her father, he decided this would probably be a good time to drop this entire conversation until he sees Charles face-to-face. He knew that discussing matters face-to-face were more than million letters, e-mails, telegrams and phone calls. Vivian and her mother left the piazza to the courtyard, though the admonishing words of her father over divorce discord had critically thrown her into a state of confusion. Her ideology to remarry was subdued by those strong warnings that her father rattled concerning the turn which her rebellion of re-betrothal would result. After the divorce plan caught her heart like a bull caught in a thicket, she had made up her mind to divorce Charles within the space of time limitation she had scheduled. Instead of feeling as if she had just freed herself from the shackles of a horrible secrete, she had a sinking sensation in the pit of her heart. She had said that the word ‘divorce’ aloud. She had volunteered the information to her father who hadn’t known. In so doing, she had somehow made the divorce more real.

She wanted to object any instruction, but there was nothing to object to, other than her high-handed elopement plot. To object her plot would only make her look foolish. Besides, there might be an opportunity to make things better with John Hill instead of with Charles. But, all of a sudden she found out how Charles took her to important places, and how it had made her feel. Guilt immediately surged in waves, casting up the memory of Charles on the shores of her mind. She felt another twinge of guilt over her divorce proposal but shoved it aside. Right now, all she wanted to think about was elopement strategy that would enhance her second marriage with John Hill.

On the part of Harry on this divorce discussion held with his daughter, for few intervals, he saw no light in what she meant when she had finally declared to divorce Charles. He knew that she meant her rebellion when she declared emphatically that he should pay back her dowry to Charles. For this divorce which came into her heart, he was indeed too much disturbed with the novelty of her condition. He seemed perplexed and how to evade her decision became his worrying thoughts. In a single moment of vague illumination, he saw her plans completely and disturbingly out of order, comparing her details for divorcing Charles. This night, he spoke to himself in a sort of preponderant soliloquy: “that Vivian is a smoggy mirror, reflecting a society of undergraduates that have gone rotten, full of maggots and evil plans, not considering what the constitution said about the act of marriage and divorce.”

He swiveled the chair and stood up, and said, “We accept our mistakes and make excuses for them. Can we not accept and excuse those of our marriage partner? Our foes? Our aggressor? Our defaulter? We doubtless will acknowledge that we make mistakes, but do we become defensive and reluctant to admit to a specific mistake? Do we have the insight to comprehend that this reluctance to admit being in the wrong is typical of people, including our marriage partner and do we make allowances?” He noted that when Vivian told him that she found a man who promised to marry her, he questioned her on the sincerity of the man, she used the occasion to present herself and her sincere love for a young fellow, an undergraduate of her like at the expense of her own discretion, resisting the evasion of her notion when he admonished her about marrying at this time without graduating from her relevant course. She protested then that she would pack up her belongings and flinch with Charles abroad, in a quiet residential backside of the town.

After repeated attempts, in which he had not made the least impression towards gaining his point, at least for that time to dissuade her from marrying Charles, she yielded at length vehemently on her mate’s luxuriousness. She thwarted the disagreement he had with her request for marrying him. She hadn’t thought that things would come up this way between them. She hadn’t imagined that the going could be hard. She couldn’t believe it that the link of their communication would turn to excommunication. Right now, all she wanted to think about was the divorce proposal and elopement strategy.

Harry was perfectly acquainted with her whole story, and every circumstance of her distress which gave birth to her divorce plan. He had thought to self that when the articles of marital treaty had been fully agreed between Vivian and Charles, he was not a go between because nobody would seek a mate for a daughter. She in turn surrendered herself completely to the hands of her husband after wedding. But whatever her further ambition was, he as the father had washed his hands clean over any second marriage she was wishing to get into.

The next day, she decided to pack her belongings which she had returned with back to Yale – her husband’s home town, waiting for the time the university will reopen on the strike measures. She was lucky that she had a family in-law that could afford to keep her hospitable. Who usually take care of her minor and major problems in the absence of her husband, Charles. But no matter how they provided for her needs, she could not stop worrying about her condition. The compulsion to divorce Charles did not leave her; nor did she allow herself not to worry about marrying John Hill.

However, she had written to John Hill severally about her strong proposed plan to divorce Charles. She wrote him and said that she would elope from Charles and flinch for refuge at his protection any moment from then. As long as he kept their acquaintance in its proper place, she wouldn’t be cheating on him. And his promises wouldn’t be hocus-pocus.

To this purpose, the idea of remarrying to John occupied her reflections of the whole day, of which every minute seemed to her a little eternity. How often she did visit the clock and check on the calendar that hung on the wall for time and day she scheduled to divorce Charles. Really, she had an urgent need to get him divorced. She concealed her plan in her heart. She was just getting deeper and deeper in her divorce discord and she couldn’t escape the thought of what she determined to do. She said, “That Charles had a serious moral problem with what he was doing.” His acts gave her streams of consciousness now, and it chilled her to watch him distanced her after all said and done. She moaned: “Oh, Charles, your love is equivocal, ephemeral, and you are a flatterer that came with flatteries.’’

Though those of the house, (her parents in-law) made observations on her, and remarked something extraordinary in her composure. The thing she help betraying. The fluctuations of her mind the whole day produced odd feelings in other. The sign of her distress, fear and impatience appeared clearly on her face. She hated being helpless and lonely. She hadn’t felt this helplessness and aloofness since Charles descent into excommunication. She felt that being abandoned by him without communication only enhance her loneliness, although she knew that didn’t offend him in any way. She was even more reluctant to tell her parent in-law the truth about her plight with Charles. She was just getting deeper and deeper in her plans. And, from time to time she was uncomfortably little twinged.

She held the complementary card John Hill gave her, which contained his residential address in Yale State. She had no more doubt about eloping with him. While she was at her groom’s home, the fluctuations of her mind produced the feeling that something was concealed, the parents in-law noted. She did not show wrath against Charles. Every question that deserved explanation about Charles were answered mildly and in a tune substituted for love and sympathy about the unknown wellbeing of Charles. They thought that there has to be a link between her and their son. She couldn’t argue with them in anything about Charles. In fact, she was even feeling irritated with herself for being so patient enough waiting for Charles. She was so horrified by what he was doing that she could not acknowledge that he was the one doing it. She didn’t feel good about his behaviours but through all the scruples of her conscience, she had finally made up her mind and had waited for the time she schedule for Charles’ return to elapse, and then she would be blameless to elope and live with John Hill.

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