by A. J. Cronin
‘I believe you’re made of sawdust,’ she said cheerfully.
They had now reached the farthest end of the promenade, and before them stretched a white sweep of beach, edged by grey vapours, lapped by the faint sucking of the receding tide.
‘The night’s young yet,’ she said, looking towards him. ‘But it’s time you were back.’
He knew that it was time he was back, and, in a fashion, he desired to be back, yet something in her manner provoked him.
‘It’ll be time for me when I say so,’ he asserted.
‘We’ll go along the shore then,’ she said. ‘It’s sort of nice down there.’
‘All right,’ he muttered.
Without another word, they turned and set off along the beach; but they had not gone far before she halted.
‘This sand!’ she said, lifting one foot whilst she supported herself against his shoulder. ‘ I can’t walk on this stuff. It gets in my shoes.’
Hesitating, he faced her, wondering whether he should suggest their return. But in a moment she said:
‘Let’s sit down a while. It’s quite warm. Have a cigarette, and we’ll sit on my coat.’ And she unbuttoned her coat and spread one half upon the sand for him to sit beside her. The sand was soft, her warm form close, the night full of hushed sounds – a muffled quietude. He lighted a cigarette awkwardly, because somehow her nearness limited his movements. For a moment there was silence, then she said close to his ear in a familiar whisper:
‘Give us a puff!’
He started at the unexpectedness of the request.
‘Do you mean it?’ he said. He spoke more for the sake of proving his composure – to occupy the coat he was obliged to come very close to her.
‘Of course,’ she murmured. ‘I’d try anything.’
For a second he hesitated, then he turned and held the cigarette towards her lips, vaguely seen in the mysterious white oval of her face. He was awkward, fumbling, and as she bent towards him he felt the moist warmth of those lips upon his fingers. She choked a little as she let out the smoke.
‘It’s not so good as it looks,’ she coughed.
Her coughing sent her against him in little spasms, and in an absent fashion he slipped his arm around her waist to support her.
‘That’s better,’ she said, with a tiny final choking, and she let her hand fall idly on his knee.
A thought rushed through his mind: how incredible that he should be here with Anna, his arm round her waist – so incredible it seemed to pass, shadowy as a dream.
‘Try another puff?’ he asked suddenly.
She shook her head, then leaned against his shoulder, looking up with her large luminous eyes, as though she waited. With an involuntary movement he leaned over and kissed her.
‘You shouldn’t have done that, Frank,’ she murmured, when it was over, and she pressed his hand gently. He still had that same absent feeling. Was it he, here with Anna, feeling the warm softness of her lips, the warmth of her body, soft under her outdoor clothing? He kissed her again, and she answered that kiss.
‘You know, Frank,’ she whispered, as in a reverie, ‘ we’re not really responsible for this. We’ve been so much blamed, we’ve just been flung into it. You know that as well as I do.’
Agitated by a sudden uncontrollable impulse, provoked by the gentle logic of her manner, he stared at her. It was just what she said. He had done nothing, absolutely nothing; and yet from that moment she had entered the house they had been flung together with almost preordained inevitability. And it was Lucy’s doing – all her doing.
‘You don’t,’ he stammered again, ‘you don’t seem very excited about it.’
Still vague, his mind misted as by the vapours of the night, he scarcely knew what he was saying.
‘You’d wonder,’ she whispered, turning to him slowly, ‘you’d wonder when it came to the bit.’ And her moist lip was near to his; in her eyes, dark-pupilled, points of curious unrest.
Some things you could not escape. And this he had no desire to escape. A flowing urgency ran through his veins, and with a sudden movement he leaned towards her, against her. At once her head fell back and, her hands holding him, she gave way towards the soft yielding sand.
‘Why didn’t you think of this before?’ she whispered, with a sudden intake of her breath, and, unresistant, she closed her eyes, now so near to his.
The tide lapped quietly, unseen, and by then unheard; then the night seemed colder, the mist more damp, and raw. At last she disengaged herself silently with a little shiver; and he, too, sat up, staring with a melancholy self-consciousness towards the sea. So it had actually happened, after everything – how he hardly understood; and now he felt so foolish and ill at ease. For some moments nothing was said.
‘Well,’ she murmured eventually, ‘we better be getting back.’ She squeezed his arm as they rose, and added:
‘You’re not a bad old sort, Frank.’
He made no reply as, stumbling through the sand, they regained the promenade. This time it was she who took his arm.
‘You’re not going to let it worry you,’ she said in her tone of sympathetic irony. ‘Nobody’ll be a bit the wiser. And I – I’m not the kind to hang around your neck. I’m off tomorrow.’
Her words gave him a sort of melancholic gratitude, and he was glad, relieved that she was going.
‘When – how do you go?’ he stammered in a low voice.
‘I’ll get that Eagle over. The Rothlin leaves at four o’clock.’
All at once he felt abashed and mortified, more ineffectual than ever: in his own thought, sick of himself.
‘It seems hardly fair,’ he mumbled in a troubled tone. ‘I’ll see you over if you like.’
‘Well, that’s good of you, Frank,’ she answered in a pleased voice. ‘See me to the other side. Then like enough you’ll see no more of me.’
Half-way along the promenade she stopped abruptly.
‘Don’t come any farther,’ she said – how exactly she understood his mood. ‘But call for me to the Craig tomorrow.’ Then, with a quick gesture, she brushed his cold cheek with her lips, swung round, and was gone.
He stood motionless, a figure strangely solitary in the mist, then he, too, turned and moved off. Again he asked himself wretchedly how this thing had happened. He had neither premeditated nor desired it. If Lucy had not suspected him, had not treated him as she had done, had not ordered Anna to leave the house, had not caused him to rush out at this hour, then assuredly this encounter would not, could not have occurred.
As he slouched along, his mood holding a reactionary disgust, he wondered how, returning at this hour, he would confront his wife. Only one course, clearly, was open to him. He must assume the continuance of his ill-humour, feign a sullen anger which now he little felt, and go immediately to the spare room where he sometimes slept. Tomorrow he would see Anna across to the steamer. Then, the whole wretched affair wiped from his mind, he would return to begin afresh. Yes, he would do that. But a look of sardonic misery came upon his face as he was taken by a swift recollection of himself saying fretfully: ‘I don’t want Anna in my house.’ And now this. Unbelievable how it had all come about.
As he turned off the promenade, his footsteps sounding softly in the empty street, suddenly from out of the grey haze that hung upon the water there came the low yet piercing note of the siren of a passing ship.
Chapter Twelve
Lucy awoke upon the following day at a later hour than usual. Again she had slept badly: that broken sleep through which distorted fancies of disaster had floated in slow, uneasy stream, drifting coldly as the thin mist which swathed the passive trees outside. Then towards morning, pressed by the heaviness of an unseen hand, she slipped back into a torpid slumber from which, now awakening with singing ears, she recollected painfully the circumstance of his return on the previous night. Morosely he had flung up to the spare room, without a word, without a look; then she had heard the key turn in the lock with a sull
en snap. She winced at the remembrance. That he should return thus when she waited with her heart, her whole soul open to receive him, struck her as the most cruel cut of all.
But her intention was clear. She loved him – how intensely she loved him only she realised – and now, as always, she would protect him, protect him from himself. How often had she known this contrary moodiness of his nature, that stubborn weakness which only she could combat. ‘ Poor Frank,’ she thought, as she had often thought before, whilst now a tear clouded her eye. ‘He’s his own worst enemy.’ Yes, a hundred times in the past had she called upon her love, her resolution, her fortitude, to save him from that easy-going wilfulness, at once the bane and charm of his character. And at no time with more purpose than this past fortnight. Even through the drawn-out wretchedness of those last days that purpose had not wavered.
What calamity, indeed, might not have befallen had she not acted as decisively and determinedly as she had done? No matter that in the beginning her suspicion had been interwoven with a baffling uncertainty, had she not her instinct, her loyalty, her innate, prudence to guide her? And her love for him – that indeed had been the touchstone of her judgement, the force which warmed her, drove her straight to the heart of the entanglement. And above all did she not desire his good, their united good, and their united happiness in the integrity of their home? She had no wish to dominate, nor would she admit her idealism to be perverse. Yet she must guide him. Loving him with all his imperfections, recognising in his nature the complement of her own, she could not permit their felicity to be dispelled. It would have been madness to stand aside and placidly observe their happiness disintegrate.
Now, with an unconscious sigh, she approved again the wisdom of her recent course. Once and for all she had settled the matter. Frank was upset – how well she knew that almost petulant protrusion of his lip, that swift turn to resentment of a nature which could swing with equal facility through excitement, credulity, scepticism, and elation – but he would not long be upset; and she was ready – ready when he should be ready, waiting for that moment when he would turn to her. Even now, expectantly, she visualised that reunion – not the first occasion of her vindication – when he would ‘come round’, confirm, the wisdom of her conduct by the very penitence of his approach. That was the sweet moment she desired.
With a glance at the clock upon the mantelpiece she sighed again, threw back the counterpane, and rose. She dressed slowly, a meditative slowness, then, going out of her room, she hesitated, knocked lightly at his door.
‘Frank,’ she exclaimed in a mild voice. ‘Are you coming out with me at ten?’
There was no reply.
Although she waited, listening anxiously for a full minute, acutely conscious of his presence behind that door, she did not repeat her query. The last thing she desired was a further quarrel; she was prepared to let him sulk, to let his mood travel to its fullest limit. Sufficient that she be there to catch the pendulum upon its backward swing. Then – ah, then would she have her recompense.
And so, straightening her head, she went downstairs, where, with a curious sense of solitude, she breakfasted. He would not accompany her this morning: so much was evident: and, instructing Netta to prepare his tray, she herself took this up and left it outside his door. Then she went out alone.
The day was grey the trees dripping, the mist still hovering, the opposite shore a vague smudge drawn at random through the haze. Underfoot the leaves, no longer crisp and rustling, had at last a lifeless look – mere sodden plaques flattened into the earth, from which they had emerged and which now assumed them back into its own substance. A dank depression hung upon the shrouded air, a feeling of decay, the sense of something ended. At intervals a fitful sun broke through and smeared a pallid light across the glassy water of the estuary, whither out of the brackish hanging haze the slow challenge of unseen ships drifted and passed – drifted inshore to the clanging bell of the Ardmore Buoy, clanging, clanging in monotone and desolation.
Despite herself, the cold dampness fell drearily upon her; with a shiver she hastened her steps towards the church. There, because devotion was not her mood, everything seemed slower, the sermon longer, more tedious than she could remember. Her face intent, her eyes upon her little prayer-book – it was The Key of Heaven – she kept thinking of Frank, desiring urgently to return to him. At last it was over; she came out with the consciousness of a duty accomplished, and quickly, with contained eagerness, she set out for home.
In the hall, when she had taken off her hat and coat, her first impulse, despite her assumption of serenity, was towards his room. But with an effort she restrained that impulse and went instead to the kitchen, where at once she saw his tray. She paused: he had eaten his breakfast, then, a good meal: and, turning to Netta with factitious calm she said:
‘Mr Moore, has he come down?’
Without turning her head from the sink, where she was peeling potatoes, Netta replied casually:
‘He’s gone out. He said something about going to see Mr Lennox.’
‘Oh, yes,’ answered Lucy slowly. ‘I remember.’ She composed her features and repeated: ‘Yes, I remember now.’
She did not, of course, remember; but it was well to support the fallacious explanation of his conduct. He was not at Lennox’s, but had gone, she was convinced, for one of those solitary walks which marked always the culmination of his moods. Her lips drooped faintly: again their reconciliation was delayed. Still, he would return from that walk. And he would return to her.
Turning, she went into the front room, sat down by the window, and picked up a book. But she found it impossible to see the lines: from time to time she discovered herself, with eyes arrested, staring in curious abstraction through the window. Once she heard a step outside, and, drawing herself quickly together, she prepared with a beating heart to receive him. But it was not he. And the sight of her own face reflected in the overmantel gave her a sudden, a strange uneasiness. Had he gone to Lennox’s? Or was he walking somewhere in this grey haze without?
One o’clock came and he had not returned. She began now to feel a definite uneasiness, through which worked a curious vexation – really, it was too bad of him to behave like this; and, with Netta appearing at half-past one, anxious to get the dinner over and escape for her free afternoon, she declared in that same tone of factitious composure:
‘Very well! I’ll have mine now. Mr Moore may be detained.’
Yet – perhaps he was detained? It was improbable, but it was not impossible that he had after all gone up to Lennox’s house, been pressed to remain, for a cut of the Sunday joint. A faint gleam came into her clouded eye as with a start she considered the possibility of his having gone to Lennox to reopen himself the question of the partnership. That indeed would be a supreme gesture of atonement! But was it likely? Her eye dulled again. Was it conceivable? Harassed by her thoughts, she made a poor meal, a mere pretence of eating to satisfy the inquisitive eye of the maid and ease that curious discomposure of her own mind.
‘Keep something hot in the oven. Netta – in case,’ she said as, finally, she rose from the table. It was her sole indication that her pretence of normality might be assumed.
She was back again in the parlour, seated, not at the fire, but at the window – waiting. Useless now, the pretence of reading; she was simply waiting. And, as she waited, the strange disquiet of her mind deepened.
How would he return? He would be wet, soaked by the drizzle. Yet, following his quiet entry, he would be loath to meet her. For a long time he would be in the hall, hanging up his hat and coat, moving about without apparent purpose. Then, suddenly, he would come into the room. Affecting not to look at her, intensifying his conscious embarrassed air, he would slouch to the fire, sink into his chair. There would be silence. Then swiftly she would rise, yearning for reconciliation, drop on her knees beside his chair, and cling to him. Ah! that moment! She started at her own thoughts, caught her breath. He was not back.
&n
bsp; Half-past two; Netta gone out; herself alone in the house; and he had not come back. It was – it was preposterous. Despite herself, she could not prevent a quick thrill of apprehension. Surely he had gone up to Mr Lennox’s? This clearly was the only possible solution – he must have gone to Lennox’s; he could not have been walking interminably through the wet mist. That was incredible.
Abruptly she rose, her eyes deeply troubled, her hand pressed with a curious characteristic gesture against her cheek. Then, with typical resolve, her eyes strengthened and she moved suddenly towards the door. She would go herself and make sure; that was the only thing to do: perhaps, too, she might meet him on her way.
Outside it was lightly raining, a fine impalpable drizzle that came sweeping up from the grey firth like clouds rising from the surface of a misted mirror. And again, as she ascended the hill towards Lennox’s house, she shivered. She found herself hurrying – hurrying she knew not why. On the way she tried to quell her ridiculous alarm, to reason with herself: to devise some excuse for this extraordinary call which she was about to make.
But she was spared the necessity for such excuse: in the upper reaches of the town, at the corner of Garsden Street, she ran into Lennox, returning, she instantly perceived, from his usual Sunday afternoon promenade. And, taken aback, she stopped at once, her heart sinking, realising that Frank was not here.
‘Well, well,’ said Lennox, halting and genially including her beneath his dripping umbrella. ‘You’re in a great hurry for the Sabbath.’
‘Yes,’ she stammered unhappily. ‘Yes, I am.’
‘You’re on the wrong road to meet them, though,’ he went on, smiling down at her.
Breathing quickly from her ascent of the hill, her slight figure close to his, her hair and cheeks glistening from the rain, she echoed quickly, yet without full comprehension:
‘To meet them?’
‘I passed them on the front’ – he indicated with an easy movement of his head. ‘Your husband and Anna. Going back the way.’
