Venus Over Lannery (6 page)

“But I didn't imagine things,” she said; “I
saw.
. . .”

“You saw
nothing”
he said angrily.

“Do you mean there was nothing for me to see? Do you swear it?”

“If you can't trust me,” he said, “what's the good of my swearing? Besides, I object to being called to account and cross-examined. It's not my idea, whatever yours may be, of ... of love between a man and woman. Do I ever cross-examine you?”

“No,” she said bitterly, “because you don't care.”

“There you are!” he said angrily. “You never give me credit for any decency. I didn't spy on you and question you simply because it never occurred to me not to trust you.”

His voice, shouting at her through the wind, his abrupt, stagy gestures, the feeling that once more he was putting himself in the right and her in the
wrong, had worked on her nerves and gradually roused her from her torpor.

“And what if I had trusted you when you left me last night? What if I had believed that you would ring me up to-day or to-morrow? I heard by a mere accident that you were going on this tour and I waited day after day for you to tell me. What have you to say to that? Are you going to prove once again that you're in the right and I hopelessly in the wrong?”

“No,” he said, “I'm not. I did deceive you, quite deliberately. But why? Because you made our life unbearable for both of us. I wanted to get away from you.”

She considered it dully. “And you still do?”

“Yes,” he said, “I still do. Your forcing yourself on me whether I like it or not makes me want to still more.”

“And that's all you have to say?”

“Yes,” he said, “that's all. It's much better that I should speak the plain truth.”

Suddenly, spasmodically, she stood up, staggered as the wind caught her, and then fought her way down the deck, hurried down to her cabin and shut herself in. And now she lay in her bed, staring at the porthole while their talk repeated itself in her mind, endlessly and automatically like a chattering gramophone-record, each of his phrases taking on a new and more terrible implication at each return. Ah, yes: when she had asked him to swear he had evaded it, he was like a snake skilfully wriggling away
whenever he found himself cornered; yes, slippery like a snake, sliding from her grasp, twisting and turning, proving, or pretending to prove, that he was blameless and she always in the wrong. The sea washed coldly outside the porthole; the ship listed slowly, heavily, and then slowly righted herself. Why had she come on this mad journey? Why hadn't she stayed at home among her own things, where at least she would sometimes have had Juliet to console her? But there was no good repenting now, there was no getting out at the next station and taking the next train home. For five days more she would have to travel on, getting further and further from home, enduring her misery as well as she could. And after that, what? She was too tired to face that problem. She gave it up, gave up everything and fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.

When she opened her eyes next morning a strange sunlight lit up the room. A subdued rumbling pulse filled the silence. For a moment she was lost. This was not her own familiar room. Then the sunlight on the wall swayed, the room swayed, her eyes fell on the brass-framed porthole, and at once her tragedy rushed back on her. Last night she had decided that she would stay all day in her cabin so as to keep out of sight of Roy, but now she felt differently. It was not that the tragedy had diminished, she told herself, but it no longer occupied the whole of her mind. She was able, this morning, to push Roy into the background: she was tired of the thought of him. And, after all, it was rather thrilling to be on this
great ship. Besides, she was hungry. She looked at her watch: it was half-past seven. How early, she wondered, could one get breakfast. Perhaps if she were to get up now she might have breakfast before Roy and his crowd appeared. They would be sure to get up late; at least Roy would; he always did. She would put on her thick coat—that extremely smart one she had bought so marvellously cheap in Shaftesbury Avenue a fortnight ago—take a book with her—that book of Lawrence's which Juliet had lent her to read on the voyage—and as soon as she had had her breakfast she would go on deck and settle herself in a deck-chair near the place where she and Roy had sat last night. There she could bury herself in her book and take no notice of anyone. If only she could forget Roy altogether! What a relief it would be to be free of him, free of his arguing and speech-making and his hateful self-righteousness. Yes, she would be glad, fearfully glad, to escape from all that; but not from his body, his physical presence. The touch of his hands, the warm glow of his eyes, his strong, smooth body, the marvellous animal Roy—she would never escape from that as long as she lived. How irresistible that physical tyranny was. It paralysed even the will. Even if she were offered the chance to escape she would refuse it. A life without him was unimaginable. If only she could be assured that he felt the same about her—what security, what peace! But he didn't; she was sure he didn't.

It was cold on deck, but not too cold for her. It
was calming, refreshing after the fever of yesterday. Besides, she didn't care whether she was cold or not. For an hour not a soul came near her and she succeeded in fixing her mind on the story she was reading; but, after that, her ears caught the approaching tap of footsteps. She did not raise her eyes, but she listened, her whole attention concentrated in her ears. Footsteps and voices! She could hear that it was two people, a man and a woman. Nearer and nearer they came, but before they were half-way up the deck she knew that the man was not Roy. When they were so loud that they seemed to be beside her they paused and then began to retreat; and from time to time, now, a single passenger or a couple paced the deck, advancing and receding, rousing her for a minute or two from her story to acute, critical attention. Would she know his step? She knew it unmistakably at home, but people walked differently on decks. But when he came she knew at once that it was he, long before she heard the scrape of a deck-chair pulled beside hers and felt the touch of his hand on her knee.

“Listen, Daphne; I want to talk to you. You shouldn't have bolted away like that last night.”

She raised her eyes slowly from her book. “Do you think . . .?” she began, but something caught in her throat and she gave an absurd little gulp.

“Do I think what?” he asked gently.

“Do you think I'm made of iron?”

“No,” he said, patting her arm, “I don't. I was a brute, I know, but I had to be. What was the good
of pretending? We've got to come to some sort of understanding, haven't we?”

She nodded.

“Well then, listen. We were perfectly happy for our first year, weren't we?”

Daphne sighed. “I was,” she said, “perfectly.” “And so was I,” said Roy. “It never occurred to you then to imagine I was lying to you and deceiving you. It was only when you began to do that . . .” He made a gesture of impatience. “But what's the use of my talking? I can't make you trust me if you don't, can I? It rests with you; and even you, I suppose, can't force yourself. Either you do or you don't. But if you don't and can't, you'd much better chuck me for good and all. What's the good of sticking together and being miserable all the time?”

Daphne sighed. “You speak as if it was the simplest thing in the world to break apart and go our own ways, as if it would cost you nothing.”

“It would cost me much less, as things are,” he said, “than sticking together. And, believe me, Daphne, it would cost
you
less, infinitely less. But if only you would be as you used to be . . .” He leaned forward and took her hand: his eyes were on her face, forcing hers to meet them. “Won't you try?” he asked gently.

Her pride, her anger, her long-cherished grievance dissolved under his touch: she felt herself blissfully helpless. With a deep, contented sigh she closed her eyes. “Yes, Roy,” she said, “I will.”

“But you understand, don't you”—there was a slight embarrassment in his tone—“that we must be ... well, mere friends on this boat?”

She nodded.

“And that you can't very well go on tour with me in America? Had you expected that it would be possible?”

“Expected it?” She considered the question. “I expected nothing. I had no plan.”

“And now?” he asked.

His abrupt descent to the practical hurt her and roused a flicker of suspicion, but she closed her eyes to it. “Don't worry, Roy,” she said with a note of contempt in her voice; “I won't dog your footsteps across America.”

“But are you going to be all right?” he asked. “Have you enough money?”

“Enough for my passage home,” she said. “I shall take the next boat home.”

She noted bitterly that he looked immensely relieved.

When they reached New York she found that a boat was sailing for Southampton next day, and, in a moment it seemed, she was on the sea again, but alone, really alone, this time. The weather was cold and wet and she longed impatiently for home, her own small flat and Juliet. As for Roy, she had been through such a storm of emotions during the last three weeks that she no longer knew what she felt about him. At one moment she reflected with ecstatic reassurance that, when he returned, all

would be as it had once been. But that, she told herself next moment, had been merely his usual chatter, a device to be rid of her. How quickly, when he saw that she had fallen into the trap, he had switched over from the passionate to the practical. Even off the stage he was a bad actor. Then she recalled their parting in New York. He had come to the boat to see her off, had promised to write to her often, and then, as they stood together in her cabin, he had taken her in his arms. Surely that had not been mere play-acting? She closed her eyes at the memory of it. But there were so many months to wait before he came back, and who could tell what might happen in the meantime? She longed for the end of the voyage. There was too much time for thinking on the sea.

She had arrived at Waterloo, had just given up her ticket and passed the barrier when a familiar voice hailed her. “Hallo, Daphne, where have you sprung from?”

It was Eric Brand. For the last fortnight Roy had so completely monopolised her mind that Eric, as he stood there looking at her, seemed to her extraordinarily fresh and individual. How nice he was, with his dark eyes and friendly smile. How delightful to meet some human being that she knew and liked.

“Where have I sprung from? From New York,” she replied gaily.

“New York?”

She was gratified by his astonishment. “Yes, I
went over with Roy, just for the voyage. He's gone on tour in the States, you know.”

“And was it fun?” Eric asked.

“Frightful fun,” she said. “I'd always wanted to see New York.”

The train had thrown off the suburbs, and as the country opened before him Elsdon saw with surprise and pleasure that many of the trees were already green. Living in London, he had not realised that spring was so far advanced. How lovely the country was, but it was lovely under all conditions when he was on his way to visit Emily. He recalled other visits—the last, when he had looked out on bare trees rising like iron skeletons out of fields dappled and streaked with snow under a sky as grey as slate; another when trees and thickets seemed to blaze in a huge forest-fire from which flames of yellow and scarlet and tawny brown leapt to the windy sky; and then he fell to recalling that summer visit—how long ago? three years, perhaps five: he couldn't remember—when for a few days the house had been infested by all those restless young people. Were they actually still alive, still restlessly searching and scheming? Once again he found it impossible to allow them an existence independent of the particular moment and the particular place at which they had come under his observation. What were
they all doing nowadays? Well, he would soon discover, for Emily in her invitation had told him that all of them or most of them would be there during his visit. The Buxteds too had been invited.

Elsdon approached the experience with less misgiving than last time; indeed, he was actually look ing forward to it. It would be interesting. He had dreamed sometimes of a state in which man would be able to project his vision backwards and forwards along the years; had imagined himself taking a peep, perhaps, at London in the sixteenth century, glancing over to the seventeenth, then to the London of his own boyhood which he had largely forgotten; or meeting, all in an hour, Emily in early childhood, at fifteen, at the age at which he had first known her, and then at intervals often years down to the present time. How absorbing that would be. And now this meeting with the young people whom he had not seen for some years would have something of the same quality. No doubt there would be interesting discoveries.

He was met at the station by Cynthia, and she, unexpectedly, was the first of his discoveries. He had seen her only a few months ago, yet he noticed at once that she had changed. In recent years he had felt more and more that something was lacking in her. It was as if she had matured too soon. How extraordinarily different, he had often thought, was the unresponsive sincerity of her gaze from the humorous sparkle that still lit up her mother's. And her manner, too, had been unresponsive: there had
been something coldly, almost inhumanly, practical about it. As he had put it to himself, there was too much of the school-ma'am about her. But now she was changed completely. She had come to life. Even before he had got out of the train, as he caught her eye and she looked up at him from the platform, he had detected it infallibly.

She was surprised not to find Roger too at the station. “Edna arrived this morning,” she said, “and told us that Roger was following by this train.”