George stood uneasily on the landing, halfway up the stair. The house
seemed over-populated. Upstairs was a regular dormitory, he thought
angrily: all down the long passage he could hear the stealthy movement
of people going to bed: doors opening cautiously, reconnoiterings
to see whether the bathroom trail was clear. And the ground floor
was worse: Joyce in the sitting room filled the whole place with her
presence. He could not stay in the hall, the dining room, or the
porch, without being in sight or hearing of her sanctuary. Against his
will he lingered on the thought of her there, the small ugly chamber
transfigured by her intimacy. Even the dull brown wood of the door
was different now, it thrilled him with unbearable meaning, his mind
pierced through it and saw her loveliness--perhaps tormented like
himself with farcical horrors. It was unbearable to think of her going
away into the dark nothing of these empty hours, uncomforted. Why
couldn’t he go and tuck her in like one of the children? She seemed
to him just that, a frightened child who had somehow crept into his
arms. She was there, divided from him only by that senseless panel.
He imagined her prostrate on the couch in a quiver of silent tears;
she, exquisite, made for delight, whose pitiful reality had shaken his
solid, well-carpentered life into this crazy totter.
My God, he reflected, I thought I had got beyond this sort of thing.
There was a creak at the stair head; he saw her above him, shadowy
against the bay window. In her translucent wrap she was delicately
sketched in cloudy brightness, young and firm of outline. So the door
had been mocking him. With a twinge of self-disgust he shrank, stumbled
down the stairs, tiptoed out and took refuge at the far end of the
garden.
A splinter of light drew him to the table under the pine trees. The jug
and glasses, left there since lunch time; mutely pathetic, as forgotten
things always are. There was still a heeltap of tea in one of the
tumblers, he drank it and found it sirupy with sugar. It’s a mistake,
he thought, to eat sweet things late at night: they turn to sour in the
morning. Night is the time for something bitter.
In the house, yellow squares flashed on and off. Downstairs, he
could see Joyce’s shadow against the blind. At the other end of the
building, in the gable, the spare-room window went dark. Martin had
slipped off to bed rather oddly after their game. In the embarrassment
of Joyce’s momentary dizziness he had simply gone, without a word.
George found himself thinking that much of the evening’s difficulty was
due to this bumpkin stranger. He was probably well-meaning, but either
with his idiotic pleasantries or a silent smirk of censure he had a
gift for blighting things. There was nothing about him that you could
put precise finger on, but he had a way of making one feel guilty. How
queerly, too, he had looked at Joyce.
The evening was changing. The air had shifted toward the northwest;
suddenly, over the comb of the overhanging dune, a silvery spinnaker
of cloud came drifting. It was like a great puff of steam, so close
and silent it frightened him. For an instant, passing under the moon,
this lovely island of softness darkened the night to a foggy grey.
It was something strange, a secret between himself and the weather,
encouraging his silly wits not to be afraid of the desperate magic of
fancy, the fear and tenderness hidden in men’s hearts.
He turned again toward the house, and saw that now Joyce’s window was
black. She was there, at rest; he blessed her being in that little
room. He had thought of it only as opening into the main thoroughfare
of the house; but it was open, too, into the garden and freedom. What
did the door matter! She was there, shining. He could speak to her. He
imagined her voice, her trembling husky whisper, when she heard him at
the sill. Why is kindness always whispered, while anger is so loud? How
delightful if people shouted “I love you!” as though it were an insult.
Glorious, to stand under the window and halloo it at her, watch the
house rouse with scandalized life! Ah, what friends we might have been
if they hadn’t made us whisper. Why did they force us to be lovers?
Then he remembered--the accurate circumstantial memory of the
householder. The window was screened. To speak to her through a wire
mesh--intolerable. Besides, it might only make matters worse. He could
never tell her his own joy, and might merely smirch hers. They might
only struggle dumbly in the grotesque antic of spirits whose moods
cannot mingle. The moment had passed. Life had gone by him, while he
was fretting over paltry trifles, and left him a drudge. There was
nothing to do but go indoors and work on the booklet. How exciting that
brochure would be, what marvellous advertising, if he could really
tell what summer was like at the Island. Why, the company would have
to run special trains. The very aisles would be packed, people sitting
on up-ended suitcases, if they knew that this dangerous coast was the
place where Temptation really broke through ... where the old Demiurge
laid his cards on the table. It would become a Resort--yes, an asylum
for lunatics, people ridiculed by transfusions of the moon. How a poet
might write it, telling the colour of that world. Warm tawny flanks of
sand hills, sprawled like panthers. The sun a coal of topaz, veiled in
white flame that sheeted the whole summit of sky. Light so fierce one
never looked upward. Wherever one turned was a burning and a glitter;
the air was a lens and gathered all its rays into one stream. Always
one’s knuckles were sweet with salty smell. Repressed thunder yawning
in the blue elixir of the afternoon: deep, deep afternoon, penetrated
with lawless beauty. The small sorry whisper of the wind sang it in
the keen scimitar grasses; smooth beams of driftwood, faded by the
sea, felt it; the sandpipers, drunk with it, staggered on twiggy legs.
Bronzed thighs and shoulders, shining in the green shallows marbled
with foam....
The transitive billow of cloud slipped away beyond the roof; again the
strong resinous air was clarified, streamed with gracious light. His
mind almost smiled at his fatuity: the sentiment did not graduate into
an actual smile, but spent itself in a tiny whiff of self-deprecation
through his nostrils. He stretched upward, raising his arms, standing
tiptoed, feeling the calf-tendons tighten and coolness in his fingers
as the blood sank. His hands met a low limb that reached across
his head. He gripped it and chinned himself. There was good animal
satisfaction in feeling the quiver in the biceps, the hanging weight of
his body. Well, we’re not done for yet, he said to himself. No, sir,
not yet. He capered a few dance steps on the silky floor of needles,
and pulled out his pipe....
* * * * *
She was coming. He saw her coming, swiftly across the lawn. No, not
swiftly; evenly was the word; unquestioningly; as he had always known
she would come. His mouth was open to warn her of the croquet hoops,
but she passed surely among them. When he saw her face, he knew this
was something not to be spoiled by words. Her face was enough.
In that unreasonable glamour she was pure fable: the marble (Oh, too
cold, too hard a word) come to life. There was no pang, no trouble, no
desire; he knew only that there is some answer to the gorgeous secret:
the secret that the world is in conspiracy to deny---- No, not to
deny; more cunning than that: to admit and pass heedless on. There was
meaning in everything; significance in the shapes of things. The black
plumes and pinnacles of the trees were fashioned exactly so, could
never have been otherwise.
They were away from rooms and roofs. They were on the beach; the tide
was far ebbed, they ran over mirrors of sand, they were in sparkling
black water milder than air. Still there were no words; their white
bodies gleamed in silver, laved in snowy fans of surf. They were just
themselves, chafing impediments were gone; nothing was between them
and they wanted nothing. They ran, breathing warmly, to burrow in
the powdery cliff, where the acid smell of sharp grasses sifted down
from the dunes. They lay in a hollow of sand; she curled against him,
nestled smoothly close, he could feel her thrilling with small quivers
of joy. There was no pang, no trouble, no desire; only peace.
Everything else they had ever known had been only an interruption. This
had always been happening, underneath. It was the unknown music for
which their poem had been written. They were quit of the pinch of Time,
the facetious nudge of Custom. Quietness was in them, satient like
fresh water in a thirsty throat. Here was the fulfilment men plot and
swink for: and how different from crude anticipation. What could there
be now but pity and kindness? Here was triumph: Man, the experimenting
artist, had created fantasy above the grasp of his audience, Nature.
Like any true artist, he must always play a little above his audience’s
head.
“Now I’m going to tell you the truth,” he said happily, and waited a
moment for the luxury of her voice.
She was silent. He turned to look; her face was anxious.
“Why is it,” he said gently, “that when you announce you’re going to
tell the truth, people always expect something disagreeable?”
Then he knew that the sand was chill and gritty. A breeze was blowing,
the light was dim and meagre. This was not the glad forgiving sun but
the cold and glassy moon.
“No, no!” she cried. “You must never tell the truth in a dream. If you
do ... it happens.”
“But this was a lovely truth,” he began. A window snapped into
brightness beside him, just above his head. Phyllis was looking from
the pantry.
“George! What on earth are you muttering about out there? Come in and
help me cut sandwiches.”