Anger by May Sarton Page B

a glass of champagne, “To us. To Anna Lindstrom … dare I say, Anna Lindstrom Fraser?”
    Anna lifted her glass, “To us … but I can’t give up my name, Ned.”
    â€œNo, I suppose you can’t.”
    â€œI have to be Anna Lindstrom whatever happens.” There was a sharp edge in her voice, but she couldn’t help it. “We have to talk, Ned.”
    â€œDo we? Don’t spoil it, Anna … let’s have our dinner in peace.”
    â€œWithout a word?”
    â€œYou know what I mean.”
    Would Ned ever be able to talk about his feelings, would he ever open his heart to her, Anna wondered when they set out the next morning to walk the beach in a rather bleak fog?
    â€œI feel like running,” Ned said, letting go of her hand after a few minutes of walking in step with her. And off he went, trim and sprightly on his elegant long legs, until he was just a lean shadow far down the beach. Anna was glad to be alone, to listen to the gentle roar of the waves, coming in at a slow tempo for the tide was ebbing, smelling the iodine of the seaweed scattered about, stooping to pick up a broken sand dollar and knowing that whatever the hazards, despite the huge temperamental rift that was becoming clear to her now, she would have to marry Ned. At some point reason ceases to operate. I’m in for it, she thought … marriage! And she had to laugh at herself for she felt, at the second of realizing that, like a porcupine with its quills rising.
    And later that afternoon after Anna had taken a nap, they sat by the fire, drinking tea, she took the bull by the horns.
    â€œI’m not quite sure what is happening to us, Ned. On one level everything is sort of overwhelming, but on another, I have no idea what you are feeling inside yourself. Do you want to back out maybe?
    â€œGood heavens, Anna, whatever makes you ask that?” He sounded quite cross. “Maybe you’re the one who wants to back out. Maybe that’s what that question was really all about.”
    â€œPlease don’t shut yourself off, Ned.” Anna took a deep breath. “It’s just that we are such different people … I mean, words are very important to me. I need to say that I love you … and I do. But I also need to hear you say it. Do you realize that all through last night you never said it?”
    â€œBut surely you must know that I do—after last night!”
    â€œYou never use an endearment. It seems so strange …”
    â€œI can’t help it, Anna. With me such things go too deep for words, I guess.”
    â€œI just don’t believe that!” Anna felt her quills rising. She was close to anger or to tears. “It’s mean and inhuman. It’s ungenerous.”
    â€œAnything else?” Ned asked with heavy irony.
    â€œI just don’t understand,” Anna said and got up and went to the window, looking out at the fading light and a chickadee busily pecking at the seeds in the hemlock.
    â€œI’ve asked you to marry me … is that mean, inhuman, ungenerous?”
    â€œI can’t see what’s making you so cross,” she said, still looking out, her back turned to him.
    â€œIt’s you who are cross, my dear. I appear to enrage you because I can’t and don’t want to sound like a greeting card.”
    But this was too much and Anna whirled around and rushed at him. Ned, startled no doubt by this sudden eruption of violence, got to his feet and managed to grasp her hands before she could hit him.
    â€œLet me go!” she said.
    He let her go, but he was frozen with dismay, and looked it.
    â€œI’m sorry, Ned,” Anna said coldly. “But I can’t take that sort of nasty cut without reacting violently and you might as well know it.”
    â€œI think I’ll go for a walk,” he said, going out into the hall to find a coat.
    â€œOh Ned, please stay. We’ve got to