‘Tennyson!’ she exclaimed.
‘Not peacocks and princesses, but the bigger things.’
‘I shouldn’t say so,’ she declared.
He sounded indeterminate, but was not really so.
They wandered over the downs westward, among the wind. As they followed the headland to the Needles, they felt the breeze from the wings of the sea brushing them, and heard restless, poignant voices screaming below the cliffs. Now and again a gull, like a piece of spume flung up, rose over the cliff’s edge, and sank again. Now and again, as the path dipped in a hollow, they could see the low, suspended intertwining of the birds passing in and out of the cliff shelter.
These savage birds appealed to all the poetry and yearning in Helena. They fascinated her, they almost voiced her. She crept nearer and nearer the edge, feeling she must watch the gulls thread out in flakes of white above the weed-black rocks. Siegmund stood away back, anxiously. He would not dare to tempt Fate now, having too strong a sense of death to risk it.
‘Come back, dear. Don’t go so near,’ he pleaded, following as close as he might. She heard the pain and appeal in his voice. It thrilled her, and she went a little nearer. What was death to her but one of her symbols, the death of which the sagas talk — something grand, and sweeping, and dark.
Leaning forward, she could see the line of grey sand and the line of foam broken by black rocks, and over all the gulls, stirring round like froth on a pot, screaming in chorus.
She watched the beautiful birds, heard the pleading of Siegmund, and she thrilled with pleasure, toying with his keen anguish.
Helena came smiling to Siegmund, saying:
‘They look so fine down there.’
He fastened his hands upon her, as a relief from his pain. He was filled with a keen, strong anguish of dread, like a presentiment. She laughed as he gripped her.
They went searching for a way of descent. At last Siegmund inquired of the coastguard the nearest way down the cliff. He was pointed to the ‘Path of the Hundred Steps’.
‘When is a hundred not a hundred?’ he said sceptically, as they descended the dazzling white chalk. There were sixty-eight steps. Helena laughed at his exactitude.
‘It must be a love of round numbers,’ he said.
‘No doubt,’ she laughed. He took the thing so seriously.
‘Or of exaggeration,’ he added.
There was a shelving beach of warm white sand, bleached soft as velvet. A sounding of gulls filled the dark recesses of the headland; a low chatter of shingle came from where the easy water was breaking; the confused, shell-like murmur of the sea between the folded cliffs. Siegmund and Helena lay side by side upon the dry sand, small as two resting birds, while thousands of gulls whirled in a white-flaked storm above them, and the great cliffs towered beyond, and high up over the cliffs the multitudinous clouds were travelling, a vast caravan en route. Amidst the journeying of oceans and clouds and the circling flight of heavy spheres, lost to sight in the sky, Siegmund and Helena, two grains of life in the vast movement, were travelling a moment side by side.
They lay on the beach like a grey and a white sea-bird together. The lazy ships that were idling down the Solent observed the cliffs and the boulders, but Siegmund and Helena were too little. They lay ignored and insignificant, watching through half-closed fingers the diverse caravan of Day go past. They lay with their latticed fingers over their eyes, looking out at the sailing of ships across their vision of blue water.
‘Now, that one with the greyish sails — ’ Siegmund was saying.
‘Like a housewife of forty going placidly round with the duster — yes?’ interrupted Helena.
‘That is a schooner. You see her four sails, and — ’
He continued to classify the shipping, until he was interrupted by the wicked laughter of Helena.
‘That is right, I am sure,’ he protested.
‘I won’t contradict you,’ she laughed, in a tone which showed him he knew even less of the classifying of ships than she did.
‘So you have lain there amusing yourself at my expense all the time?’ he said, not knowing in the least why she laughed. They turned and looked at one another, blue eyes smiling and wavering as the beach wavers in the heat. Then they closed their eyes with sunshine.
Drowsed by the sun, and the white sand, and the foam, their thoughts slept like butterflies on the flowers of delight. But cold shadows startled them up.
‘The clouds are coming,’ he said regretfully.
‘Yes; but the wind is quite strong enough for them,’ she answered,
‘Look at the shadows — like blots floating away. Don’t they devour the sunshine?’
‘It is quite warm enough here,’ she said, nestling in to him.
‘Yes; but the sting is missing. I like to feel the warmth biting in.’
‘No, I do not. To be cosy is enough.’
‘I like the sunshine on me, real, and manifest, and tangible. I feel like a seed that has been frozen for ages. I want to be bitten by the sunshine.’
She leaned over and kissed him. The sun came bright-footed over the water, leaving a shining print on Siegmund’s face. He lay, with half-closed eyes, sprawled loosely on the sand. Looking at his limbs, she imagined he must be heavy, like the bounders. She sat over him, with her fingers stroking his eyebrows, that were broad and rather arched. He lay perfectly still, in a half-dream.
Presently she laid her head on his breast, and remained so, watching the sea, and listening to his heart-beats. The throb was strong and deep. It seemed to go through the whole island and the whole afternoon, and it fascinated her: so deep, unheard, with its great expulsions of life. Had the world a heart? Was there also deep in the world a great God thudding out waves of life, like a great heart, unconscious? It frightened her. This was the God she knew not, as she knew not this Siegmund. It was so different from the half-shut eyes with black lashes, and the winsome, shapely nose. And the heart of the world, as she heard it, could not be the same as the curling splash of retreat of the little sleepy waves. She listened for Siegmund’s soul, but his heart overbeat all other sound, thudding powerfully.
CHAPTER 7
Siegmund woke to the muffled firing of guns on the sea. He looked across at the shaggy grey water in wonder. Then he turned to Helena.
‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘they are saluting the Czar. Poor beggar!’
‘I was afraid they would wake you,’ she smiled.
They listened again to the hollow, dull sound of salutes from across the water and the downs.
The day had gone grey. They decided to walk, down below, to the next bay.
‘The tide is coming in,’ said Helena.
‘But this broad strip of sand hasn’t been wet for months. It’s as soft as pepper,’ he replied.
They laboured along the shore, beside the black, sinuous line of shrivelled fucus. The base of the cliff was piled with chalk debris. On the other side was the level plain of the sea. Hand in hand, alone and overshadowed by huge cliffs, they toiled on. The waves staggered in, and fell, overcome at the end of the race.
Siegmund and Helena neared a headland, sheer as the side of a house, its base weighted with a tremendous white mass of boulders, that the green sea broke amongst with a hollow sound, followed by a sharp hiss of withdrawal. The lovers had to cross this desert of white boulders, that glistened in smooth skins uncannily. But Siegmund saw the waves were almost at the wall of the headland. Glancing back, he saw the other headland white-dashed at the base with foam. He and Helena must hurry, or they would be prisoned on the thin crescent of strand still remaining between the great wall and the water.
The cliffs overhead oppressed him — made him feel trapped and helpless. He was caught by them in a net of great boulders, while the sea fumbled for him. But he and Helena. She laboured strenuously beside him, blinded by the skin-like glisten of the white rock.
‘I think I will rest awhile,’ she said.
‘No, come along,’ he b
egged.
‘My dear,’ she laughed, ‘there is tons of this shingle to buttress us from the sea.’
He looked at the waves curving and driving maliciously at the boulders. It would be ridiculous to be trapped.
‘Look at this black wood,’ she said. ‘Does the sea really char it?’
‘Let us get round the corner,’ he begged.
‘Really, Siegmund, the sea is not so anxious to take us,’ she said ironically.
When they rounded the first point, they found themselves in a small bay jutted out to sea; the front of the headland was, as usual, grooved. This bay was pure white at the base, from its great heaped mass of shingle. With the huge concave of the cliff behind, the foothold of massed white boulders, and the immense arc of the sea in front, Helena was delighted.
‘This is fine, Siegmund!’ she said, halting and facing west.
Smiling ironically, he sat down on a boulder. They were quite alone, in this great white niche thrust out to sea. Here, he could see, the tide would beat the base of the wall. It came plunging not far from their feet.
‘Would you really like to travel beyond the end?’ he asked.
She looked round quickly, thrilled, then answered as if in rebuke:
‘This is a fine place. I should like to stay here an hour.’
‘And then where?’
‘Then? Oh, then, I suppose, it would be tea-time.’
‘Tea on brine and pink anemones, with Daddy Neptune.’
She looked sharply at the outjutting capes. The sea did foam perilously near their bases.
‘I suppose it is rather risky,’ she said; and she turned, began silently to clamber forwards.
He followed; she should set the pace.
‘I have no doubt there’s plenty of room, really,’ he said. ‘The sea only looks near.’
But she toiled on intently. Now it was a question of danger, not of inconvenience, Siegmund felt elated. The waves foamed up, as it seemed, against the exposed headland, from which the massive shingle had been swept back. Supposing they could not get by? He began to smile curiously. He became aware of the tremendous noise of waters, of the slight shudder of the shingle when a wave struck it, and he always laughed to himself. Helena laboured on in silence; he kept just behind her. The point seemed near, but it took longer than they thought. They had against them the tremendous cliff, the enormous weight of shingle, and the swinging sea. The waves struck louder, booming fearfully; wind, sweeping round the corner, wet their faces. Siegmund hoped they were cut off, and hoped anxiously the way was clear. The smile became set on his face.
Then he saw there was a ledge or platform at the base of the cliff, and it was against this the waves broke. They climbed the side of this ridge, hurried round to the front. There the wind caught them, wet and furious; the water raged below. Between the two Helena shrank, wilted. She took hold of Siegmund. The great, brutal wave flung itself at the rock, then drew back for another heavy spring. Fume and spray were spun on the wind like smoke. The roaring thud of the waves reminded Helena of a beating heart. She clung closer to him, as her hair was blown out damp, and her white dress flapped in the wet wind. Always, against the rock, came the slow thud of the waves, like a great heart beating under the breast. There was something brutal about it that she could not bear. She had no weapon against brute force.
She glanced up at Siegmund. Tiny drops of mist greyed his eyebrows. He was looking out to sea, screwing up his eyes, and smiling brutally. Her face became heavy and sullen. He was like the heart and the brute sea, just here; he was not her Siegmund. She hated the brute in him.
Turning suddenly, she plunged over the shingle towards the wide, populous bay. He remained alone, grinning at the smashing turmoil, careless of her departure. He would easily catch her.
When at last he turned from the wrestling water, he had spent his savagery, and was sad. He could never take part in the great battle of action. It was beyond him. Many things he had let slip by. His life was whittled down to only a few interests, only a few necessities. Even here, he had but Helena, and through her the rest. After this week — well, that was vague. He left it in the dark, dreading it.
And Helena was toiling over the rough beach alone. He saw her small figure bowed as she plunged forward. It smote his heart with the keenest tenderness. She was so winsome, a playmate with beauty and fancy. Why was he cruel to her because she had not his own bitter wisdom of experience? She was young and naïve, and should he be angry with her for that? His heart was tight at the thought of her. She would have to suffer also, because of him.
He hurried after her. Not till they had nearly come to a little green mound, where the downs sloped, and the cliffs were gone, did he catch her up. Then he took her hand as they walked.
They halted on the green hillock beyond the sand, and, without a word, he folded her in his arms. Both were put of breath. He clasped her close, seeming to rock her with his strong panting. She felt his body lifting into her, and sinking away. It seemed to force a rhythm, a new pulse, in her. Gradually, with a fine, keen thrilling, she melted down on him, like metal sinking on a mould. He was sea and sunlight mixed, heaving, warm, deliciously strong.
Siegmund exulted. At last she was moulded to him in pure passion.
They stood folded thus for some time. Then Helena raised her burning face, and relaxed. She was throbbing with strange elation and satisfaction.
‘It might as well have been the sea as any other way, dear,’ she said, startling both of them. The speech went across their thoughtfulness like a star flying into the night, from nowhere. She had no idea why she said it. He pressed his mouth on hers. ‘Not for you,’ he thought, by reflex. ‘You can’t go that way yet.’ But he said nothing, strained her very tightly, and kept her lips.
They were roused by the sound of voices. Unclasping, they went to walk at the fringe of the water. The tide was creeping back. Siegmund stooped, and from among the water’s combings picked up an electric-light bulb. It lay in some weed at the base of a rock. He held it in his hand to Helena. Her face lighted with a curious pleasure. She took the thing delicately from his hand, fingered it with her exquisite softness.
‘Isn’t it remarkable!’ she exclaimed joyously. ‘The sea must be very, very gentle — and very kind.’
‘Sometimes,’ smiled Siegmund.
‘But I did not think it could be so fine-fingered,’ she said. She breathed on the glass bulb till it looked like a dim magnolia bud; she inhaled its fine savour.
‘It would not have treated you so well,’ he said. She looked at him with heavy eyes. Then she returned to her bulb. Her fingers were very small and very pink. She had the most delicate touch in the world, like a faint feel of silk. As he watched her lifting her fingers from off the glass, then gently stroking it, his blood ran hot. He watched her, waited upon her words and movements attentively.
‘It is a graceful act on the sea’s part,’ she said. ‘Wotan is so clumsy — he knocks over the bowl, and flap-flap-flap go the gasping fishes, pizzicato! — but the sea — ’
Helena’s speech was often difficult to render into plain terms. She was not lucid.
‘But life’s so full of anti-climax,’ she concluded. Siegmund smiled softly at her. She had him too much in love to disagree or to examine her words.
‘There’s no reckoning with life, and no reckoning with the sea. The only way to get on with both is to be as near a vacuum as possible, and float,’ he jested. It hurt her that he was flippant. She proceeded to forget he had spoken.
There were three children on the beach. Helena had handed him back the senseless bauble, not able to throw it away. Being a father:
‘I will give it to the children,’ he said.
She looked up at him, loved him for the thought.
Wandering hand in hand, for it pleased them both to own each other publicly, after years of conventional distance, they came to a little girl who was bending over a pool. Her black hair hung in long snakes to the water. She stood
up, flung back her locks to see them as they approached. In one hand she clasped some pebbles.
‘Would you like this? I found it down there,’ said Siegmund, offering her the bulb.
She looked at him with grave blue eyes and accepted his gift. Evidently she was not going to say anything.
‘The sea brought it all the way from the mainland without breaking it,’ said Helena, with the interesting intonation some folk use to children.
The girl looked at her.
‘The waves put it out of their lap on to some seaweed with such careful fingers — ’
The child’s eyes brightened.
‘The tide-line is full of treasures,’ said Helena, smiling.
The child answered her smile a little.
Siegmund had walked away.
‘What beautiful eyes she had!’ said Helena.
‘Yes,’ he replied.
She looked up at him. He felt her searching him tenderly with her eyes. But he could not look back at her. She took his hand and kissed it, knowing he was thinking of his own youngest child.
CHAPTER 8
The way home lay across country, through deep little lanes where the late foxgloves sat seriously, like sad hounds; over open downlands, rough with gorse and ling, and through pocketed hollows of bracken and trees.
They came to a small Roman Catholic church in the fields. There the carved Christ looked down on the dead whose sleeping forms made mounds under the coverlet. Helena’s heart was swelling with emotion. All the yearning and pathos of Christianity filled her again.
The path skirted the churchyard wall, so that she had on the one hand the sleeping dead, and on the other Siegmund, strong and vigorous, but walking in the old, dejected fashion. She felt a rare tenderness and admiration for him. It was unusual for her to be so humble-minded, but this evening she felt she must minister to him, and be submissive.
She made him stop to look at the graves. Suddenly, as they stood, she kissed him, clasped him fervently, roused him till his passion burned away his heaviness, and he seemed tipped with life, his face glowing as if soon he would burst alight. Then she was satisfied, and could laugh.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated) Page 44
