I could not understand Vi. It would seem that she was trying to avoid
me. If I met her in the street she was usually driving and, while she
bowed and smiled, never halted. I took many strolls by her house, hoping
to catch her going in or out. I think she must have watched me. Once
only, when she thought the coast was clear, I came upon her just as she
was leaving the house. She saw me and flushed gloriously; then pretended
that she had not seen me and re-entered, closing the door hurriedly
behind her.
After that I gave up my pursuit of her. It seemed not
straightforward--too much like spying. I kept away from the places
she was likely to frequent. Wandering the quays, where there were only
sailors and red-capped Brittany onion-sellers, I racked my brains,
trying to recall in what I had offended. I felt no resentment for Vi’s
conduct. It never occurred to me that she was a coquette. I thought
that she might be actuated by a woman’s caution, and gave her credit
for motives of which I had no knowledge. The more she withdrew beyond my
attainment, the more desirable she became to me.
My grandmother noticed my fallen countenance and concluded that Sir
Charles’s indifference was the cause of it. She tried to cheer me with
fragments of wise sayings which had helped her to keep her courage. She
told me that there were more fish in the sea than ever came out of it.
She even feigned contempt for Sir Charles, saying that I should probably
be just as happy without his begrudged money. She resorted to religion
for comfort, saying that if God didn’t intend me to inherit Woadley, it
was because it wouldn’t be good for me. She painted for me the pleasures
of the contented life:
“No riches I covet, no glory I want,
H’ambition is nothing to me;
The one thing I beg of kind ’eaven to grant
Is a mind independent and free.”
But she couldn’t stir me out of my melancholy, for she didn’t know its
cause. She physicked me for financial disappointments; what I wanted was
a love-antidote.
As my whole energies had formerly been bent on encountering Vi, so now
they were directed towards avoiding her. For hours I would lounge in
the bake-house or sit in the shop while Grandmother Cardover did her
knitting, served customers, or gossiped with her neighbors. Then,
against my better judgment, curiosity and longing for one more glimpse
of her would drag me out into the streets. Yet, once in the streets, my
chief object was to flee from her.
Now when I should have refrained from pestering her, some obstinate fate
was always bringing us face to face. I was sorriest for the effect that
our attitude was having on Dorrie. At first she would rush forward in
a gale of high spirits to greet me, until restrained by Vi. Next time,
with a child’s forgetfulness, she would lift to me her pansy-face
smiling, and remembering would hang back. At last she grew afraid of my
troubled looks, and would hide shyly behind Vi’s skirts when she saw me.
For five days I had not met them. A desperate suspicion that they had
left town grew upon me. I became reckless in my desire for certainty.
I could not bear the suspense. I was half-minded to call at the house
where she had been staying, but that did not seem fair to her. I called
myself a fool for not having stopped her in the street while I had the
chance, when an explanation and an apology might have set everything on
a proper footing.
On the sixth morning of her absence I rose early and went out before
breakfast. The skies were gray and squally. A slow drizzle had been
falling all night and, though it now had ceased, the pavements were wet.
The wind came in gusts, whistling round corners of streets and houses,
whirling scraps of paper high in the air. When I came to the harbor, I
saw that the sea was choppy and studded with white horses. Against the
piles of the pier waves were dashing and shattering into spray. From up
channel, all along the horizon, drove long lines of leaden clouds.
I struck out across the denes between the sea-wall and the Beach
Road. No one was about. I braced myself against the wind, enjoying its
stinging coldness. The tormented loneliness of the scene was in accord
with my mood. The old town, hanging red along the cliff, no longer
seemed to watch me; it frowned out on the desolate waste of water in
impersonal defiance.
My thoughts were full of that first morning when I had met her. I gave
my imagination over without restraint to reconstructing its sensuous
beauty. I saw the fire of the furze again, and scented the far-blown
fragrance of wall-flowers, hiding in their crannies. But I saw as the
center of it all the slim white girl with the mantle of golden hair,
the deep inscrutable eyes of violet, and the slow sweet smile of _La
Gioconda_ playing round the edges of her mouth: gold and ivory, with
poppies for her lips and sunshine for a background.
The hot blood in me was up--the gipsy blood. A stream of impassioned
fancies passed before me. Ah, if I were to meet her now, I would have
done with fine-spun theories of what was gentlemanly. On the lonely
beach I would throw my arms about her, however she struggled, and
hold her fast till she lay with her dear face looking up, crushed and
submissive in my breast. After that she might leave me, but she would at
least have learnt that I was a man and that I loved her.
Ahead lay the sullen wreck. I had been there only once since our first
meeting. Motives of delicacy, which I now regretted, had held me back.
Now I could go there. On such a morning, though she were still in
Ransby, there would be no fear of surprising her.
On entering the hull through the hole in the prow, the wind ceased,
though it whistled overhead. I leant against the walls of the stranded
ship, recovering my breath. I drew out my pipe, intending to take a
smoke while I rested. As I turned to strike a match, an open umbrella
lying in a corner on the sand, caught my attention. I went over and
looked behind it; there lay a pair of woman’s shoes and stockings, and a
jacket, with stones placed on it to keep it down. Beneath the jacket was
a disordered pile of woman’s clothing.
My first thought was shame of what she might think of me, were she to
find me. My second was of angry fear because she had been so foolhardy
as to bathe from such a shore on such a morning.
Hurrying out of the wreck, I strode across the beach to where the
surf rushed boiling up the pebbles. The waves ran high, white, and
foam-capped, hammering against the land. Gazing out from shore, I could
see nothing but leaden water, rising and falling, rising and falling.
The height of the waves might hide a swimmer from one standing at the
water’s level; I raced back up the beach, and climbed the wreck. I could
not discover her. The horror of what this meant stunned me; I could
think of nothing else. My mind was in confusion. Then I heard my voice
repeating over and over that she was not dead. The sheer monotony of the
reiterated assertion, produced a sudden, unnatural clearness. “If she is
not drowned, she must be somewhere out there,” I said.
I commenced to sweep the sea with my eyes in ever widening circles. Two
hundred yards down the shore to the left and about fifty out, I sighted
something. It was white and seemed only foam at first. The crest of a
wave tossed it high for a second, then shut it out; when the next wave
rose it was still there.
I shouted, but my voice would not carry against the wind. The next time
the white thing rose on the crest I was sure that it was the face of a
woman. I saw her arm thrown out above the surface; she was swimming the
overarm stroke in an effort to make headway toward the land. I knew
that she could never do it, for the current along the north beach runs
seawards and the tide was going out. I gazed round in panic. The shore
was forlorn and deserted. Behind me to the northward stretched the
gaunt, bare cliffs. To the southward, a mile distant across the denes,
stood the outskirts of the sleepy town. Before ever I could bring help,
she would have been carried exhausted far out to sea, or else drowned.
There was no boat on the shore between myself and the harbor. There was
nothing between her and death but myself. And to go to her rescue meant
death.
I scarcely know what happened. I became furious with unreasonable anger.
I was angry with her for her folly, and angry with the world because it
took no notice and did not care. I was determined that, before it was
too late, I would go to her, so that she might understand. Yet, despite
my passion, I acted with calculation and cunning. All my attention
was focused on that speck of white, bobbing in the waste of churned up
blackness. As I ran along the beach I kept my eyes fixed on that. When I
came opposite, I waved to it. It took no notice. I hurried on a hundred
yards further; the current would bear her down towards me northwards. I
stripped almost naked, tearing off everything that would weigh me down.
I waded knee-deep into the surf, up to where the beach shelved suddenly.
I waited till a roller was on the point of breaking; diving through it,
I struck out.
It was difficult to see her. Only when the waves threw us high at the
same moment, did I catch a glimpse of her and get my direction.
The shock of the icy coldness of the water steadied my nerves and
concentrated my purpose. I was governed by a single determination--to
get to her. My thought went no further than that. Nothing else mattered.
I had no fear of death or of what might come after--I had no time to
think about it. I wanted to get her in my arms and shake her, and tell
her what a little fool she was, and kiss her on the mouth.
Lying on my right side, keeping low in the water, I dug my way forward
with an over-arm left-stroke. As my first wind went from me and I waited
for my second, I settled down into the long plugging stroke of a mile
race. The tide was with me, but the roughness of the water prevented
rapid progress. I had to get far enough out to be at the point below her
in the current to which she was being swept down.
I started counting from one to ten to keep myself from slackening, just
as the cox of a racing-eight does when he forces his crew to swing out.
I regarded my body impersonally, without sympathy, as though we were
separate. When it suffered and the muscles ached, I lashed it forward
with my will, silently deriding it with brutal profanities. The wind
poured over the sea; the spray dashed up and nearly choked me. It was
difficult to keep her in sight. When I saw her again, I smiled grimly at
her courage and hit up a quicker pace. Who would have thought that her
fragile body, so flower-like and dainty, had the strength and nerve to
fight like that?
I was far enough out now to catch her. I halted, treading water; but
the inaction gave my imagination time to get to work, and, when that
happened, I felt myself weakening. I started up against the current,
going parallel with the beach, to meet her. The one obsessing thought
in my mind was to get to her. It was not so much a thought as an animal
instinct. I was reduced to the primitive man, brutally battling his way
towards his mate at a time of danger. While I acted instinctively, the
flesh responded; directly I paused to think, my body began to shirk and
my strength to ebb. Somewhere in that raging waste of water I must find
and touch her. I did not care to hear her voice--simply to hold her.
Thirty feet away a gray riot of stampeding water rose against the
horizon; in it I saw her face. With the swift trudging stroke of a
polo-player I made towards her. In the foam and spray I saw what looked
like golden seaweed. She was drifting past me; I caught her by the hair.
Out of the mist of driven chaos we gazed in one another’s eyes. Her lips
moved. “You!” she said.
My mind was laughing in triumph. My body was no longer weary--it was
forgotten and strong again. In all the world there were just she and I.
She had tried to escape me, but now the waves jostled us together. She
had striven not to see me, but now my face focused all her gaze. She
might look away into the smoking crest of the next roller, but her eyes
must always come back. Of all live things we had loved or hated,
now there remained just she and I. We had been stripped of all our
acquirements and thrown back to the primitive basis of existence--a
man and a woman fighting for life in chaos. For us all the careful
conventions, built up by centuries, were suddenly destroyed. The polite
decencies and safeguards of civilization were swept aside. The shame of
so many natural things, which had made up the toll of our refinement,
was contemptuously blotted out--the architecture of the ages was
shattered in an instant. We were thrown back to where the first man
and woman started. The only virtue that remained to us was the physical
strength by which death might be avoided. The sole distinguishing
characteristic between us was the female’s dependence on the male, and
the male’s native instinct to protect her, if need be savagely with his
life. Over there, a mile away, stood the red comfortable town on the
cliff, where all the smug decencies were respected which we had perforce
abandoned. Between us and the shore stretched fifty yards of water--a
gulf between the finite and the infinite. Over there lay the moment of
the present; here in eternity were she and I.
I gazed on her with stern gladness; I had got to her--she was mine. The
madness for possession, which had given me strength, was satisfied. Now
a fresh motive, still instinctive and primal, urged me on--I must save
her. I lifted her arm and placed it across my shoulder, so that I might
support her. The great thing was to keep her afloat as long as possible.
There was no going back over the path that we had traversed--both
tide and current were dead against us. Already the shore was stealing
away--we were being carried out to sea.
I remembered, how on that first morning, when I had warned her against
bathing from the north beach, she had told me she was a good swimmer. In
my all-embracing ignorance of her, I had no means of estimating how
much or how little that meant. For myself, barring accidents, I judged I
could keep going for two hours.
Vi was weakening. With her free left hand she was still swimming
pluckily, but her right hand kept slipping off my shoulder; I had to
watch her sharply and lift it back. Her weight became heavier. Her lips
were blue and chattering. I noticed that her fingers were spread apart;
she had cramp in the palms of her hands. Her body dragged beside me; she
was losing control of it. She was no longer kicking out.
To talk, save in monosyllables, was impossible, and then one had to
shout. Our ears were stopped up with water; the clash of the wind
against the waves was deafening. My one fear for her was that the cramp
would spread. If that happened, we would go down together.
I felt her cold lips pressed against my shoulder. As I looked round, she
let go of me. “I’m done,” she said.
She went under. I slipped my arm about her and turned over on my back,
so that my body floated under her, and she lay across my breast. “You
shan’t go,” I panted furiously.
“Let me,” she pleaded.
But I held her. “You shan’t go,” I said.
My anger roused her. I turned over again, swimming the breast-stroke.
She placed her arm round my neck. Her long hair washed about me.
Sometimes her eyes were closed and I thought she had fainted. Her lips
had ceased to chatter. Her face lay against my shoulder, pinched and
quiet as though she were dead. My own motions were becoming mechanical.
It was sheer lust of life that kept me going. I had lost sensation in my
feet and hands. The shore had dwindled behind us; it seemed very small
and blurred, though it was probably only half-a-mile distant. The water
was less turbulent now; it rose and fell, rose and fell, with a rocking
restfulness. I felt that I would soon be sleeping soundly. But in the
midst of drowsing, my mind would spring up alert and I would drag her
arm closer about my neck.
Above the clamor of the waves I heard a shout. At first I thought that I
had given it myself. I heard it again; it was unmistakable.
Looking up out of the trough of a wave, I saw a patched sail hanging
over us. My sight was misty; the sail was indistinct and yet near me. As
I rose on the crest, a hand grabbed me and I felt myself lifted out on
to a pile of nets.