by A. J. Cronin
But his mood was too disturbed to permit of Berlioz. Wagner would have been more appropriate, he reflected grimly, something like the Ride of the Valkyries, but he had no heart for anything, could think only of the fateful decision he must make, and of her. He shut the window and pulled the tasselled cord that drew the pale pink quilted curtains, wondering if she were asleep, or if, as seemed probable, the storm had disturbed her. The thought of her lying there, alone, listening wide-eyed to the harsh discords of the night! If only he might go to her. But of course he could not. God, how restless he was, he must compose himself, try to clear his mind. Taking a book from the shelves, a new biography of Lord Curzon, he threw himself into a chair. But he could not settle to read, not even of Curzon, a man he deeply admired, had in fact unconsciously adopted as an exemplar. His attention wavered, the words ran together into a meaningless blur. He got up, looked at the Tompion longcase clock: only half past ten: too early for bed, he’d never sleep. Never. In the drawing-room he began to pace up and down, head bowed, without a glance towards his paintings, so often a consolation in the past. He felt unendurably hot, suppressed an inordinate impulse to go out on to the snowbound terrace, went instead to the pantry and turned down the thermostat. No sounds came from the kitchen; Arturo and Elena had retired to their own quarters. Even they had shown signs of disquiet lately, as though waiting, uneasily, for an announcement. Returning to the drawing-room, he was about to resume his pacing when forcibly he drew up short, facing at last the core of his problem.
Once it had been established, finally, that she would not stay, only one possible course of action remained open to him. Though he had stubbornly evaded the issue, he saw that from the beginning, when he set eyes on her in Markinch churchyard, the end had been inevitable, part of his destiny. It was the pressing need to amend his life that in the first instance had brought him back to his native land. Now she offered the very opportunity he sought, and with it all the wonder of her love. How could he refuse? She had become an absolute necessity to him. If he should lose her through vacillation or stupidity, life would be impossible. Hadn’t he learned that lesson from his sad youthful mistake? He must accompany her to Kwibu, give himself up completely to the work ordained for him. And why not? It was splendid work. He truly wanted to be the new person she would make of him. And he would be. It was not too late. It was not impossible. Others had found that saving spark, and in comparable manner. He had read of them, tortured men in spiritual travail, who discovered themselves in strange suspenseful backgrounds, habitually tropical, and at the last gasp.
‘I’ll go,’ he said out loud. ‘It’s the only way.’
When he had spoken these thrilling words, he experienced an immediate singing sensation of release. He felt lighter suddenly, freed, as if a load had been lifted from his shoulders. What a liberation – almost a transfiguration! Was it what they called a conversion? She had spoken of grace, and now he seemed not alone to sense its meaning, but actually to feel it flowing into and through him. A sweet ichor, a fountain of light – the words came to him as, with head thrown back, he looked upwards, deeply and genuinely moved, experiencing fully this moment of beatitude, even feeling himself, though distantly, in touch with Heaven. He could not yet ascend to the heights, he had been earthbound too long, and so he did not attempt a prayer, but that – later perhaps – might come.
Slowly, he relaxed. It was done, the die heroically cast. Gladness overwhelmed him. And how easy it had been, simply an acceptance of the truth and an offering of himself. Why had he hesitated so long, keeping her waiting in an agony of protracted uncertainty? For she had suffered, poor little thing, perhaps more acutely than he. If only he could tell her now, spare her these extra hours of suspense. Yet would it be quite proper? Right and reason were on his side. But no, he felt it might scarcely be correct. Well, at least he would rest with a mind at peace.
After standing motionless for several minutes he switched off the lights and went slowly upstairs to his room. Still inspired, warm with salvation, he took a tepid bath and his usual dust with talcum, put on his sleeping coat, morocco slippers and dressing gown, sat down on the edge of his bed. He must really turn in. Yet the excitement of his decision kept mounting within him. His good news simply would not keep, physically he could not contain it. Was she asleep? If not, it would be only Christian charity to deliver the good tidings now, in person. He got up, hesitated, speculatively opened his door, and gazed across the long upper landing. Then, holding his breath, he tiptoed cautiously, without a single creak, over the thick Wilton carpet towards her room.
The wind, still roaring outside, intensified the inner stillness of the darkened landing as he paused outside her door. He almost turned back. Then, his pulse sounding in his ears, he tapped upon the panel, gently turned the handle.
‘Kathy,’ he whispered, ‘ are you awake?’
An immediate stirring in the darkness answered him, even before her startled voice came back.
‘David!’
‘Don’t be alarmed, dear Kathy. I thought the storm might have kept you awake. And as you are … I have something important to tell you.’
Feeling his way forward, he came to the bed and knelt down beside it. Faintly, he could see the outline of her head upon the pillow, of a bare arm resting upon the counterpane. He touched it lightly, reassutingly.
‘Kathy, dearest. Kathy. My mind is made up. I had to let you know at once. I am coming with you.’
‘David!’ she said again, in a soft thrilling whisper. He could feel the sudden joy that took possession of her, every nerve in her seemed alive. ‘Oh, thank you – thank you, from my heart.’
‘You’re not angry with me … for disturbing you?’
‘Angry! Oh, my dear, I’ve been lying here, longing and longing to hear what you have just told me.’
‘I couldn’t bear the thought of you waiting, through what might have been a sleepless night.’ He paused. ‘ Now I am here, may I stay a little while and talk?’
‘Yes, stay, stay. I am wide awake now. Shall I switch on the lamp?’
‘No, dearest. I can see you clearly now.’
‘And I can see you.’ She gave a low joyful sigh. ‘Oh, I’m so happy. Do you know what I was half dreaming, just before you came in?’
‘Tell me, dear.’
‘That we were out in Kwibu together and that Uncle Willie …’ she hesitated, then opened her heart, ‘ that Uncle Willie was marrying us in the Mission church.’
‘And so he will, dear Kathy.’
They remained looking at each other. His heart, swelling in his side, was a pain and a delight. With gentle fingers he began gently to stroke her arm.
‘I am still thinking of our future,’ she went on in a lulled, dreamy voice. ‘All settled. You and I together.’
Outside rain and hail kept drumming on the window, then came a flash and a crack of thunder. He shivered slightly.
‘Dear David, you are cold. Please get a rug to cover yourself.’
‘It is chilly.’ A lump rose in his throat, yet he spoke reasonably, with calm moderation. ‘ If you could share the counterpane, we could bundle – like they do in the Islands at home. There’s so much we have to say to one another.’
A moment later he lay beside her, but in the semi-darkness, fumbling to lift the counterpane, almost inadvertently, he had raised also the blanket and linen sheet that covered her. Her face was close to his on the pillow. At first she had turned rigid, lying so still he thought she had ceased to breathe, then he felt that she was trembling. Quickly he reassured her.
‘Dearest, you know I don’t mean to distress you.’
‘But David …’.
‘I respect and cherish you more than anything in the world.’
Gradually, very slowly, she relaxed. The warmth of her young body came to him through her cotton nightdress. The rain hissed down the gutters and thunder rolled and echoed amongst the mountains. Half turning, he pressed his lips against her hair.
‘David, this is wrong,’ she said at last, in a breaking voice. ‘Please don’t let us do a wrong thing.’
‘Darling,’ he said, with deep conviction, ‘ how could it be wrong? We are already one in the sight of Heaven.’
‘Yes, David, but please let us wait, dear.’
‘Don’t you love me enough?’
‘Oh, I do – I do – so much that it hurts. But we’d be so sorry, after.’
‘No, dear Kathy, love like ours is itself a forgiveness.’
‘But David …’.
‘And surely my – our mutual pledge makes this moment a sacred one.’ He could feel the struggle within her. He murmured earnestly: ‘It cannot be wrong, dear, when in only a few days, almost a matter of hours, Willie will marry us.’
He took her in his arms, inhaling the scent of her fresh young skin. How thin and slight she was, how young, and how violently her little heart was beating against his breast, like a bird just captured and fluttering in its cage.
‘No, David, dearest.’
Then, nature overcame, released her from conscience. Sighing, she put both her hands behind his neck and kissed him fiercely. ‘ I cannot help it. I love you so much it’s… like dying.’
A consciousness of rectitude welled up in him. Whispering, he sought to still her trembling. Pure unprofane sex was no sin, a sanctification rather, almost an act of worship – that had been said recently, ecclesiastically, had it not? – in a court of law. Tenderly enclosing her, he readjusted his embrace, but with prayerful gentleness. How sweet at last to taste the slow pleasure, the mounting rapture, all in the odour of sanctity. Later, as he felt her tears on his cheek, he sighed, appeased, though still exalted.
‘You are crying. But why, dear child?’
‘I’m afraid for what we’ve done, David.’
‘Was it not sweet for you too, my love?’
‘Yes, it was sweet,’ her voice stifled in the pillow. ‘But it was a sin, David, and God will punish us.’
‘No, dearest. He knows. He will understand. And if you think it was just a little wrong, you know we will make up for it.’
She is different from her mother, he thought dreamily, as of a shadow passing before him. Mary had no regrets. Yet she too had turned religious, in the end.
‘Don’t, dear,’ he said soothingly, wiping her hot sad face with the cool entangled sheet. ‘Think of our work – of the happiness that lies ahead of us.’
‘Yes. David.’ Striving obediently to check her tears, she clung to him. ‘ I am trying … thinking of you and me, David, in the little Mission church.’
Chapter Thirteen
At Zurich airport, striding to and fro between the flower stall and the newspaper kiosk that flanked the exit of the douane, Moray expanded his chest with a long deep breath, suffused by a new sense of the joy of living. The sensation was so strong he smiled involuntarily, and it was a proud smile. Often he had experienced a delightful consciousness of himself, but never before with such intensity as now. He had seen the Super-Constellation land, it could be no more than a matter of minutes before Willie appeared. Admittedly he was nervous, and for that reason, among others, had managed to persuade Kathy not to accompany him, explaining that for her so emotional a reunion was best conducted in private. In any event, she was still rather agitated, not yet quite herself. When he looked into her room before leaving for the airport, he had been concerned to find her kneeling in contrite prayer. But while he respected these tender scruples, they would pass. If he himself felt a twinge of compunction, he was sustained by the inner consciousness that he was at last on the way he had sought so long, loved for the vital decision he had taken, a man with a mission in life, soon to savour the joy of energetic action the thrill of enthusiasm, the sacred peace of duty accomplished. Rising early, he had squared his shoulders against the task ahead. Already the latest medical textbooks had been ordered by telephone, inquiries sent out as to tropical equipment, consideration given to the adjustment and settlement of his affairs. Looking back he now regarded the emptiness, the falsity, of his previous life with shamed and scornful self-contempt. But the future prospect exonerated him, filled him with the double anticipation of spiritual regeneration and the sweetness of continued love.
He paused abruptly in his promenading. Customs examination was over, the passengers of the big Trans-World plane from Luanda via Lisbon were filing through the glass doors, and there, at the end of the line, came a tall, emaciated-looking man with sloping shoulders, carrying a small blue airlines zipper bag, dressed in an open-necked drab shirt and a thin khaki service suit, the blouse with flat pockets suggestive of the war-time pattern. He wore no hat and his streaky sun-bleached hair had the same colour as his face which, lined and sunken, was of a withered yellow. But his eyes, though hollow in their orbits, were still youthful, almost unnaturally bright, and, meeting them across the crowd, Moray knew that, unmistakably, this was Willie.
They shook hands. Then to Moray’s relief – for despite his newfound faith in himself he had experienced a sudden wilting inrush of near-panic – Willie smiled.
‘You knew me,’ he said. ‘And I knew you, too.’
‘Wonderful to see you again. Kathy is expecting you at the house. Was it a good flight? Have you had lunch?’ In his excitement Moray almost babbled, there was so much he wanted to say, to explain, all in one breath.
Willie did not want lunch but said he would be glad of a cup of coffee.
‘You feel the cold, coming back,’ he added mildly.
And no wonder, thought Moray. No overcoat and such an outfit. Aloud he said:
‘We’ll go immediately your luggage is brought out.’
‘This is it.’ Willie indicated the zipper bag. ‘All I need. Some shirts and a pack of coloured slides. You know I can’t stay long.’
In the café below the restaurant the waitress brought two steaming cups. As Willie applied himself to his, Moray took a painful yet purposeful inspiration.
‘I want to explain everything to you, Willie … in the hope of your forgiveness. It’s a long tragic story, but perhaps you’ll listen, for it has a – I fully believe – a good ending. You see, when I …’.
‘Don’t,’ said Willie, fixing the other with tired, brilliant eyes. ‘That’s all in the past and forgotten. Human beings should not judge one another. I had your cable and Kathy’s letter. So not another word.’
An immense wave of gratitude flowed over Moray, so warm and overwhelming it left him speechless. In total silence he sat watching Willie nursing the hot cup, drinking in little gulps. If there seemed no flesh on his body, there was less on his hands; the fingers holding the cup were skeletal. He noticed also that Willie had a marked tic which periodically caused his head to jerk laterally, exposing a scar that ran from one side of the neck to the larynx.’
‘I see you’ve spotted my beauty scratch.’ Willie had caught his eye. “One of my old scoundrels was a prize spear-thrower in the early days. Now he’s my chief catechist. It doesn’t trouble me much, though once in a while I lose my voice. It was worth it.”
All this was said in such a natural lighthearted manner as to impress Moray even more. He’d have given a lot, there and then, to announce the intention that burned inside him. But no, Kathy had claimed the privilage of imparting this sensation, linked to the news of their marriage, so with all his newfound self-denial he refrained, saying instead:
“If you’re ready we may as well be off.”
In the station wagon Moray turned the heating full on, but they hadn’t gone far before he observed that Willie was shivering. He wanted to stop and offer his overcoat, but this, although St Francis of Assisi had set the precedent, struck him as officious in the present case. Yet his heart glowed towards Willie. Dressed as he was, with that explosive tic and his strange shivering remoteness, Willie looked odd, extremely odd, but there was something real about him, he was undoubtedly a man. Already Moray had identified himself with him and, half turning, while still keeping
one eye on the road, he said:
‘If I had some idea of your plans, it would enable me to make the best possible arrangements for your stay.’
‘I’m due in Edinburgh on the eleventh. Let’s see,’ Willie reflected, ‘that’s three days from now. I’ve some serious matters to put before my committee. And a lecture to deliver in the Usher Hall. Kathy,’ he added, ‘had better come along to help me and collect her gear.’
‘Must you both go so soon?’ Moray exclaimed in a disappointed tone. ‘I’d banked on keeping you for some time.’
‘It’s all very pressing. We shall not stay long in Edinburgh but work down to London, lecturing on the way. I’m needed at the Mission. So I’ve arranged to fly back to Kwibu on the twenty-first.’
‘Good heavens, that’s sooner than we expected – less than two weeks from today. And I did want to do something for you here.’
Already, at the back of his mind, Moray had felt the need of a definite act to mark his departure from Schwansee. He meant to go off with a bang. No hole-and-corner business, no slinking off, he’d march out with head high and flags flying. And now, under the stress of urgency, this idea took definite form: he’d have a farewell party, introduce Willie to a gathering of his friends, there would be a frank declaration by himself, an appropriate speech by Willie – ah, that suggested an added attraction.
