The Passionate Year (25 page)

“Friend Speed has the air of a thoughtful man,” remarked Ransome in his
oblique, half-sarcastic way. And Speed smiled at this, not because it amused
him at all, but because Ransome possessed personality which submerged to some
extent his own.

Finally, when Clanwell asked him up to coffee he declined, courteously,
but with a touch of unboyish reserve which he had never previously exhibited
in his relations with Clanwell. “I’ve got such a lot of work at Lavery’s,” he
pleaded. “Another night, Clanwell…”

And as he walked across the quadrangle at half-past eight he heard again
those curious sounds that had thrilled him so often before, those sounds that
told him that Millstead had come to life again. The tall blocks of Milner’s
and Lavery’s were cliffs of yellow brilliance, from which great slanting
shafts of light fell away to form a patchwork on the quadrangle. He heard
again the chorus of voices in the dormitories, the tinkle of crockery in the
basement studies, the swish of water into the baths, the babel of
miscellaneous busyness. He saw faces peering out of the high windows, and
heard voices calling to one another across the dark gulf between the two
houses. It did not thrill him now, or rather, it did not thrill him with the
beauty of it; it was a thrill of terror, if a thrill at all, which came to
him. And he climbed up the flight of steps that led to the main door of
Lavery’s and was almost afraid to ring the bell of his own house.

Burton came, shambling along with his unhappy feet and beaming-positively
beaming—because it was the beginning of the term.

“Once again, sir,” he said, mouthing, as he admitted Speed. He jangled his
huge keys in his hand as if he were a stage jailer in a stage prison. “I
don’t like the ‘ockey term myself, sir, but I’d rather have any term than the
‘olidays.”

“Yes,” said Speed, rather curtly.

There were several jobs he had to do. Some of them he could postpone for a
day, or perhaps, even for a few days, if he liked, but there was no advantage
in doing so, and besides, he would feel easier when they were all done.
First, he had to deliver a little pastoral lecture to the new boys. Then he
had to chat with the prefects, old and new—rather an ordeal, that. Then
he had to patrol the dormitories and see that everything was in proper order.
Then he had to take and give receipts for money which anybody might wish to
“bank” with him. Then he had to give Burton orders about the morning. Then he
had to muster a roll-call and enquire about those who had not arrived. Then,
at ten-thirty, he had to see that all lights were out and the community
settled in its beds for slumber…

All of which he accomplished automatically. He told the new boys, in a
little speech that was meant to be facetious, that the one unforgivable sin
at Lavery’s was to pour tea-leaves down the waste-pipes of the baths. He told
the prefects, in a voice that was harsh because it was nervous, that he hoped
they would all co-operate with him for the good of the House. He told Burton,
quite tonelessly, to ring the bell in the dormitories at seven-thirty, and to
have breakfast ready in his sitting-room at eight. And he went round the
dormitories at half-past ten, turning out gases and delivering brusque
good-nights.

Then he went downstairs into the drawing-room of his own house where Helen
was. He went in smiling Helen was silent, but he knew from experience that
silence with her did not necessarily betoken unhappiness. Yet even so, he
found such silences always unnerving. To-night he wanted, if she had been in
the mood, to laugh, to be jolly, to bludgeon away his fears. He would not
have minded getting slightly drunk…But she was silent, brooding, no doubt,
happily, but with a sadness that was part of her happiness.

As he passed by the table in the dimly-lit room he knocked over the large
cash-box full of the monies that the boys had banked with him. It fell on to
the floor with a crash which made all the wires in the piano vibrate.

“Aren’t you careless?” said Helen, quietly, looking round at him.

He looked at her, then at the cash-box on the floor, and said finally:
“Damn it all! A bit of noise won’t harm us. This isn’t a funeral.”

He said it sharply, exasperated, as if he were just trivially enraged.
After he had said it he stared at her, waiting for her to say something. But
she made no answer, and after a long pause he solemnly picked up the
cash-box.

There came a January morning when he had a sudden and almost
intolerable longing to see Clare. The temperature was below freezing-point,
although the sun was shining out of a clear sky; and he was taking five
alpha
in art drawing in a room in which the temperature, by means of
the steamiest of hot-water pipes, had been raised to sixty. His desk was at
the side of a second-floor window, and as he looked out of it he could see
the frost still white on the quadrangle and the housemaids pouring hot water
and ashes on the slippery cloister-steps. He had, first of all, an urgent
desire to be outside in the keen, crisp air, away from the fugginess of
heated class-rooms; then faintly-heard trot of horses along the Millstead
lane set up in him a restlessness that grew as the hands of his watch slid
round to the hour of dismissal. It was a half-holiday in the afternoon, and
he decided to walk up to Dinglay Fen, taking with him his skates, in case the
ice should be thick enough. The thought of it, cramped up in a stuffy
class-room, was a sufficiently disturbing one. And then, quite suddenly,
there came into his longing for the fresh air and the freedom of the world a
secondary longing—faint at first, and then afterwards stormily
insurgent—a longing for Clare to be with him on his adventures. That
was all. He just wanted her company, the tread of her feet alongside his on
the fenland roads, her answers to his questions, and her questions for him to
answer. It was a strange want, it seemed to him, but a harmless one; and he
saw no danger in it.

Dismissal-hour arrived, and by that time he was in a curious ferment of
desire. Moreover, his brain had sought out and discovered a piece of
casuistry suitable for his purpose. Had not Clare, on the occasion of his
last visit to her, told him plainly and perhaps significantly that she would
never tell anyone of his visit? And if she would not tell of that one, why
should she of
any one—any
one he might care to make
in
the future? And as his only reason for not visiting her was a desire to
please Helen, surely that end was served just as easily if he
did
visit her, provided that Helen did not know. There could be no moral iniquity
in lying to Helen in order to save her from unhappiness, and anyway, a lie to
her was at least as honest as her subterfuge had been in order to learn from
him of his last visit. On all sides, therefore, he was able to fortify
himself for the execution of his desire.

But, said Caution, it would be silly to see her in the day-time, and
out-of-doors, for then they would run the risk of being seen together by some
of the Millstead boys, or the masters, and the affair would pretty soon come
to Helen’s ears, along channels that would by no means minimise it in
transmission. Hence again, the necessity to see Clare in the evenings, and at
her house, as before. And at the thought of her cosy little upstairs
sitting-room, with the books and the Persian rugs and the softly-shaded lamp,
he kindled to a new and exquisite anticipation.

So, then, he would go up to Dinglay Fen alone that afternoon, wanting
Clare’s company, no doubt, but willing to wait for it happily now that it was
to come to him so soon. Nor did he think that there was anything especially
Machiavellian in the plans he had decided upon.

But he saw her sooner than that evening.

Towards midday the clouds suddenly wrapped up the sky and there began a
tremendous snowstorm that lasted most of the afternoon and prevented the
hockey matches. All hope of skating was thus dispelled, and Speed spent the
afternoon in the drawing-room at Lavery’s, combining the marking of
exercise-books with the joyous anticipation of the evening. Then, towards
four o’clock, the sky cleared as suddenly as it had clouded over, and a red
sun shone obliquely over the white and trackless quadrangle. There was a
peculiar brightness that came into the room through the window that
overlooked the snow; a strange unwonted brightness that kindled a tremulous
desire in his heart, a desire delicate and exquisite, a desire without
command in it, but with a fragile, haunting lure that was more irresistible
than command. As he stood by the window and saw the ethereal radiance of the
snow, golden almost in the rays of the low-hanging sun, he felt that he would
like to walk across the white meadows to Parminters. He wanted
something—something that was not in Millstead, something that, perhaps,
was not in the world.

He set out, walking briskly, facing the crisp wind till the tears came
into his eyes and rolled down his cold cheeks. Far beyond old Millstead spire
the sun was already sinking into the snow, and all the sky of the west was
shot with streams of pendulous fire. The stalks of the tallest grasses were
clotted with snow which the sun had tried hard to melt and was now leaving to
freeze stiff and crystalline; as the twilight crept over the earth the wind
blew colder and the film of snow lately fallen made the path over the meadows
hard and slippery with ice.

Then it was that he met Clare; in the middle of the meadows between
Millstead and Parminters, at twilight amidst a waste of untrod snow. Her face
was wonderfully lit with the reflection of the fading whiteness.

He felt himself growing suddenly pale; he stopped, silent, without a
smile, as if frozen stiff by the sight of her.

And she said, half laughing: “Hello, Mr. Speed! You look unusually
grim…” Then she paused, and added in a different voice: “No—on
further observation I think you look ill…Tell me, what’s the matter?”

He knew then that he loved her.

The revelation came on him so sharply, so acidly, with such overwhelming
and uncompromising directness, that his mind reacted to it as to the sudden
brink of a chasm. He saw the vast danger of his position. He saw the
stupendous fool he had been. He saw, as if some mighty veil had been pulled
aside, the stream of tragedy sweeping him on to destruction. And he stopped
short, all the manhood in him galvanised into instant determination.

He replied, smiling: “I’m
feeling
perfectly well, anyway. Beautiful
after the snowstorm, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

It was so clear, so ominously clear that she would stop to talk to him if
he would let her.

Therefore he said, curtly: “I’m afraid it’s spoilt all the chances of
skating, though…Pity, isn’t it? Well, I won’t keep you in the
cold—one needs to walk briskly and keep on walking, doesn’t one? Good
night!”

“Good night,” she said simply.

Through the fast gathering twilight they went their several ways. When he
reached Parminters it was quite dark. He went to the
Green Man
and had
tea in the cosy little firelit inn-parlour with a huge Airedale dog for
company. Somehow, he felt happier, now that he knew the truth and was facing
it. And by the time he reached Lavery’s on the way home he was treating the
affair almost jauntily. After all, there was a very simple and certain cure
for even the most serious attack of the ailment which he had diagnosed
himself as possessing. He must not see Clare again. Never again. No, not even
once. How seriously he was taking himself, he thought. Then he laughed, and
wondered how he had been so absurd. For it
was
absurd, incredibly
absurd, to suppose himself even remotely in love with Clare! It was
unthinkable, impossible, no more to be feared than the collapse of the top
storey of Lavery’s into the basement. He was a fool, a stupid,
self-analysing, self-suspecting fool. He entered Lavery’s scorning himself
very thoroughly, as much for his cowardly decision not to see Clare again as
for his baseless suspicion that he was growing fond of her.

Why was it that whenever he had had any painful scene with
Helen the yearning came over him to go and visit Clare, not to complain or to
confess or to ask advice, but merely to talk on the most ordinary topics in
the world? It was as if Helen drew out of him all the strength and vitality
he possessed, leaving him debilitated, and that he craved the renewal of
himself that came from Clare and from Clare alone.

The painful scenes came oftener now. They were not quarrels; they were
worse; they were strange, aching, devitalising dialogues in which Helen cried
passionately and worked herself into a state of nervous emotion that dragged
Speed against his will into the hopeless vortex. Often when he was tired
after the day’s work the mere fervour of her passion would kindle in him some
poignant emotion, some wrung= out pity that was, as it were, the last shred
of his soul; when he had burned that to please her he was nothing but dry
ashes, desiring only tranquillity. But her emotional resources seemed
inexhaustible. And when she had scorched up the last combustible fragment of
him there was nothing left for him to do but to act a part.

When he realised that he was acting he realised also that he had been
acting for a long while; indeed, that he could not remember when he had begun
to act. Somehow, she lured him to it; made insatiable demands upon him that
could not be satisfied without it. His acting had become almost a real part
of him; he caught himself saying and doing things which came quite
spontaneously, even though they were false. The trait of artistry in him made
him not merely an actor but an accomplished actor; but the strain of it was
immense. And sometimes, when he was alone, he wished that he might some time
break under it, so that she might find out the utmost truth.