Return to Night (27 page)

“Yes?” he said roughly. “Well?”

“Do you really think I’ve so little control that I’d put myself in a situation like this with someone I didn’t trust?”

“Trust for what? Not to boast about it in a pub? That doesn’t get us very far, does it?” He had propped his chin in his hands and was staring, obstinately, straight in front of him. “Something about me makes you think I’m not reliable. I want to know what it is.”

“You’re certain it’s you,” she said softly, “that I daren’t trust?”

He drew a sharp little breath and, turning to her slowly, embraced her, elaborately, at some length, and with unforeseen skill. When he lifted his head from kissing her he said, with a defensive bitterness that made him for a moment look five years older, “Well, I may as well make the most of what you’re willing to give me, I suppose.”

After all, she thought, what else had she asked for? Perhaps her remorse showed in her face, for she saw a new hope in his. She wondered if he knew how successful his essay had been.

“That isn’t fair,” she said. “It’s not you I’m afraid of; it’s time, and change, and life; the things that we can’t control.”

He smiled a little shamefacedly, and said, “Isn’t it a bit late to be worrying about those, in this year of grace?”

Her heart turned over; not at the words alone, but at the universal, the contemporary inflection, the air of having made an allusion in admittedly doubtful taste. As their grandmothers would have shied at a sexual innuendo, so these, with circumspection and apology and a sense of bad form, touched if they must on their daily shortening expectation of maturity. There seemed very little to say. He seemed suddenly removed across an invisible gulf; even to kiss him now would be tinged with insult, as if he had asked for pity.

She said at last, “How much do you think yourself that ought to count?”

“Not at all.” He spoke with sudden force. “Nobody knows that better than I do. … But I’m still asking you to marry me.”

Suddenly she knew what she ought to have said all along. “Listen, then, my dear. Don’t mind this; it isn’t personal, it’s just the way things are. Try to see it for a moment not as we do, but as everyone else will. The fact that you’re so much younger, by itself, we could probably get away with, if you’d had a chance to get about at all, and meet other women, and get started in a career. But if we announce ourselves now, don’t you see how it will seem? When you’re only just down from Oxford, you come to me as a patient, and I get my claws in you. I’m not even your family doctor, but I take good care you don’t slip away. Before you’ve had time to turn round, I pin you down and marry you. No, be quiet, darling; I’ve listened to you, haven’t I? I know it’s not pretty; but I’ve heard it said with much less excuse than I’d be giving. They’d go on saying it, too, for most of our lives. You may think me a coward; I expect I am one. But it weighs with me.”

“I think you mean,” he said slowly, “that the remedy’s up to me.”

“Yes; that’s what I mean.”

He had gone rather white, but he met her eyes squarely. “How long do you give me?”

“Would a year be fair?”

“Yes, a year’s fair enough. Not to get anywhere, of course, but to know whether one will. You don’t expect to see me in the West End by then?”

“I don’t expect anything, I don’t know enough about it. You’ll be able to tell.”

“All right. That’s settled then.” He sat up, and swung himself off the edge of the bed. She felt cold from his absence, and with sudden fear.

“Julian. Where are you going?”

“Nowhere. You don’t want me in bed with my clothes on, do you?”

He removed them, in silence, and came back. Now as often before, she felt her mind reaching out to another impenetrably concealed from her by a disguise too splendid to have any relation to the real. When he put out the light she felt only relief, as if some barrier between them had been broken down.

“Darling, are you angry with me?” she whispered.

“No. I knew it was coming. I know you so well.”

“But you hoped it wouldn’t.”

“I’m not sure even of that. They say, ‘the good is the enemy of the best,’ don’t they?”

“You think it is the best?”

“Yes.”

“Will you forgive me, afterward?”

“Tell me what you told me before.”

“I love you.”

“Go on,” he prompted.

“Better than anyone in the world, always.”

Now in the darkness, he had lost the fear of self-betrayal, and she of her perilous invocation. In the end it was not only his imagination but her own which was stilled by its enchantment, so that she forgot they had talked of everything but what lay closest to the center of both their thoughts.

“I
T’S VERY MEDIEVAL
,
ISN’T IT
,” said Julian, “all this leaving at dawn? We only want someone with a lute under the window. playing an
aubade,
with one foot on the end of the rope ladder. ‘Busie old foole, unrulie Sunne …’” He stretched, magnificently, before seeking his clothes.

Hilary watched him from the bed. He moved about the room already as if he lived there, and, when he was ready, made unerringly for her hairbrush. She had found a black strand in it yesterday, luckily before Annie came to dust. His lazy vitality made her feel dim and blurred; at what age, she wondered, did one lose the urge to quote Donne at five in the morning? They had not slept till nearly two. The prospect of a day’s work frankly appalled her. She had been loath to let him go chiefly out of reluctance to be disturbed, for he had already acquired the knack of being comfortable in a confined space, and her back, round which he had neatly fitted himself for sleep, felt drafty and unprotected. She pulled down the end of the pillow into the gap, thinking that in a moment or two, when he had gone, she would get off to sleep again. When he came back to the bed to kiss her good-by she wished he would not make such a business of it, letting in the draft she had just excluded. But she kissed him tenderly; partly because she felt tenderly disposed, partly because he looked in the mood to persist till he got a response that he considered adequate. He was a romantic young man, and was fast developing an opinionated sense of style; in moments of passion he was much more manageable than when he had made up his mind to a suitable gesture. On such occasions, one became suddenly aware of latent standards of criticism. She allowed him, without protest, to scoop her out of her warm place and drape her into a beautiful and touching pose of farewell.

“Don’t bother to ring me tonight,” he said, “it’s a nuisance for you. I’ll just come along about twelve. If there are any lights still on, I’ll wait. I won’t let anyone see me.”

“Ring you—? Oh, my dear, I
don’t
think you can come tonight again.”

“Why not?” asked Julian. He sounded amazed.

“We might be found. Someone might come for me. I’m expecting to be sent for tonight.” This was just possible if several chances, all very unlikely, should all happen to coincide.

“Oh, God. You never told me. Two days, and a whole night.” He gathered her up into an embrace which was like a sculptural symbol of Despair. It made her feel very paltry and inadequate. She kissed him again; in any case, by now she was broad awake. “I’ll tell you what,” he said with new inspiration; “I’ll wait in the garden and watch till you come in.”

“Darling, I could never keep my mind on what I was doing. I should think about you all the time. I might kill somebody.” These picturesque possibilities became quite real to her as she spoke. It ended with her promising to meet him at Pascoe’s farm tomorrow afternoon, and go riding. By the time this tryst had been plighted in accordance with Julian’s sense of fitness, she felt as wide-awake as the birds.

Saturday was fresh, bright, and blowing. Hilary tried on and pressed her long-neglected riding-things, and went downstairs too full of spirits to anticipate the obvious until the moment when it happened.

“Well!” said Lisa, coming into the hall with Rupert at her heels. “Of all the dark horses. You’ve been here all this while and never told me you rode. We could have done some hacking; I’ve only lapsed myself for want of stirring-up. Rupert, doesn’t she look nice?”

“Very nice,” said Rupert accommodatingly.

“Is anyone mounting you, or are you going to the Chestnuts?”

The Chestnuts was an excellent riding-stable, less than a mile away. Hilary gave her crop a careless little flick.

“How absurd we never thought of going together. I only wanted stirring-up, too. In fact, I got it the other day quite by accident. I ran into young Fleming—you remember, I saw him when he was thrown last year—and he was very full of having started to ride again. He’s supposed to be finding me something at the place where he keeps his own. I’ve no idea what they’ve got; I’ll let you know.”

“You’re lucky with weather,” Lisa said. “I suppose they can’t have gone away after all, then. The Flemings, I mean.”

This caused a certain inward jolt. “Were they going?” she asked vaguely. “I see so little of them.”

“Probably not. I never do retain a very clear impression of anything Mrs. Fleming says. She always seems somehow to be on the other side of a pane of glass. I think she disapproves of me.”

Hilary suddenly recalled Julian s voice saying, “I thought they were separated or something.”

“It’ll keep fine,” said Rupert’s noncommittal voice. “Speaking for me, last time I was involved with a horse was in France in ’17, and when I say involved …” He reminisced, farcically, for several heaven-sent minutes. It was not till she was driving away that she thought of suspecting his imperturbable ease, and imagined the conversation continuing behind her: “I felt a change of topic might be indicated.”

“Oh, my dear, you
must
be wrong. … Well, it happens of course, even to quite sensible women. He’s very good-looking.”

In anything she had contemplated saying to Lisa, she had never had the faintest intention of using Julian’s name. For one thing her personal code would have demanded that before doing so she should ask his leave; for another—yes, she had to admit a reluctance to let Lisa know. She and Rupert, even in their most cruel divergences, were so wholly adult and broken-in to the world. All Lisa’s charity would only soften, not alter the picture at the back of her mind. No, it was not possible, now, to say anything to her yet awhile.

She found Julian in the stable yard, engaged in a sentimental reunion with Biscuit, who saw her first and appeared to inform him of the fact. He swung round, swept her with a respectful adoring glance, and exclaimed, “My God, you do make me feel a tramp.”

He was certainly very shabby; and, though privately she thought his ribbed sweater and old corduroys became him very well, insisted on explanations. “Mother got rid of my riding-things—in case I should yield to temptation, I suppose. Sent them to the Missions to Seamen, or the Distressed Gentlewomen’s Aid, or something suitable. I had to unearth these from the attic. I do hope you don’t mind.”

“Your eye’s improving,” she remarked when she had reassured him. From a purely technical point of view, it was; but the fading bruise had taken on a sensational variety of shades from red to yellow and green. It would certainly be some days yet before it got back to normal. The cut had healed, more or less, and he had removed the dressing, making it more than ever apparent that at least one stitch would have improved matters.

“This looks a nice animal you’ve found me. What’s his name?”

“Hatter.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“Well, I call him Hatter. Don’t you know your
Alice? ‘You might as well say,’ said the Hatter, ‘that “I see what I eat” is the same as “I eat what I see.”’
Trouble is he’s been out with learners a lot, I’m afraid, and suffers from a hard mouth and chronic boredom. He’s got quite a nice action once you get him interested. Would you like Biscuit instead?”

She declined with thanks. After a short battle of wills, Hatter allowed himself to be interested. They took the shortest way up to the unfenced downs.

There was a great broad trackway there, one of those archaic grass roads which were formed when forest filled the valleys, and beside which the Roman ruler is modern stuff. There was nearly a mile of it. It was glorious. Julian eased Biscuit to a canter—all Hatter’s ardent emulation could not make his pace—and looked round to smile as she caught him up again. She thought,
This is the best moment of my life, I know it now and I shall know it always.

At the end of the track they stopped, glowing and content, to breathe their horses and take a last look at the prospect which trees would presently enclose. After a moment or two Julian said, “Lord, I shall miss this. Still, you can’t have everything.”

“Miss it?” she asked, forgetting what he meant.

“Oh, of course it was yesterday and I haven’t seen you. I’ve composed a beautiful letter to Finnigan; I meant to bring it out with me and post it, but I forgot.”

“Who’s he?”

He gazed at her in tolerant affection. “He runs the Barchester Rep. Don’t you remember, he’s the chap who saw me do Oberon and offered me a trial?”

“I might have remembered better if you’d ever told me.”

“I always credit you with omniscience. Sorry. If he falls through I
could
try Liebnitz. He made a vague gesture too. But you don’t want me to, do you?”

“I don’t know. I thought he was something to do with philosophy.”

He laughed so loudly that Biscuit threw up his head as well. “You
have
kept yourself unspotted from the world, haven’t you? This Liebnitz is a Mogul. Celluloid.”

“Oh. When was this?”

“Oh, after the
Dream.
It wasn’t the Emperor in person, of course, some minor spy. He came behind to see me with my make-up off, and wanted me to go for a test or something. Of course, it’s all right later, when you’ve had time to learn to act.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Well, that, more or less.” He added, as an afterthought, “I didn’t care much for his way of talking.”

And tomorrow,
she thought,
he will astonish me again by his humility.
She stole a glance at him, sitting straight and easy with his eyes on a gap of distance between the trees; his face had a look which had taken from it everything immature. She never ceased to wonder, whenever she rediscovered in him, amid so much that was unformed and unsure, this vein of hard integrity. It was a thing that touched on her own world; she knew how to respect it.