“Suppose I was able to get a motorbike?” I proposed. “Would you come to the regatta dance at Highchurch with me on Saturday?”
She was delighted with the prospect. The sheer lawlessness of a night out on a pillion made an instant appeal to her.
“Jan!” she said. “You don’t mean you’re buying a motorbike?”
“No,” I admitted, “but old Coleman, our keyboard operator, owns a secondhand Douglas and he’s taught me to ride it in our yard during the lunch breaks. He’ll lend it to me, I know, and without some kind of transport we’d never get over and back, for it’s a good thirty miles each way. The point is, could you get out of the house and back in again without anyone knowing?”
“Why of course!” she said. “I’ve done it before. Drip will be away for the weekend because Mother’s coming down … no, don’t look so hopeless, it makes it easier, because Drip always comes in and says good night but Mother never does, for she goes to bed much later. I’ll tell you what”—she hopped about, her eyes shining with the prospect of an adventure—“come around to my window at dusk and whistle ‘Dolly Gray’ and I’ll be dressed ready and come down over the conservatory roof. I’ll leave a little ladder in the laurels and when you see my light you can get it and put it up for me. It’ll be just like that Rowlandson print I’ve got—you know, ‘The Road to Gretna’!”
We said good-by, our humor miraculously restored, and I at once set about making my preparations. First I had to buy a dinner jacket, for I had seen in the advertisement we printed that flannels and lounge suits would be frowned upon by the regatta committee. The town of Highchurch was a kind of rich relation to Whinmouth, a much larger and more popular resort, on the western side of the river. It had a nationally famous yacht club and the dance that concluded its annual regatta was a notable West Country event. Highchurch was too far away, and too awkward to reach by bus or train, for the dance to attract people from our part of the country, so I felt fairly sure we should not be recognized or, even if we were, that word of our presence would be unlikely to reach Heronslea.
I ordered a suit the following morning and it was promised for Saturday midday. It cost me six guineas and was made by a little tailor in Church Street. I wore it for years. Today it would probably cost about thirty pounds.
Coleman, the keyboard operator, was doubtful about encouraging me to risk my neck on his machine and insisted on my having several more lessons and taking out a license. It was before the days of driving tests and L plates, and I soon considered myself sufficiently expert to carry a pillion passenger.
I went in for my suit fitting on Thursday and afterwards met Diana in Shepherdshey in order to perfect final details. She said that everything was going according to plan. Drip was leaving that night and her mother and father were coming on Friday and dining at home on Saturday, which meant that there would be no danger of them coming in late when we arrived back at Heronslea about two A.M. She had earmarked the ladder but would not remove it from the tool shed until Friday afternoon. She had also surveyed the escape route from her bedroom window to the edge of the conservatory roof and located a strip of lead guttering that would serve as a path between the roof panes.
It was dusk about eight thirty that night and I wobbled over to Heronslea at twilight, wearing leggings and an old mackintosh to protect my new suit. It wasn’t the most suitable outfit for a long ride on a motorcycle but I had been very pleased with my appearance when I had inspected it in the wardrobe mirror. The suit was a good fit and I now felt capable of doing battle with the Gerald Brett-Hawkinses and Lance Faynes of the world on more equal terms.
Diana had explained to me why she had chosen “Dolly Gray” as a signal. The Gayelorde-Suttons employed a man-of-all-work called Gaff, who sometimes pottered about the premises half the night, attending to horses, boilers and electrical plant. He was a persistent whistler but the only tunes he liked were Boer War music-hall melodies. Diana’s devious mind reasoned that a snatch or two of “Dolly Gray” would not be commented upon if overheard by her parents or anyone else on the staff.
Luckily the dining room and main hall of Heronslea were on the side of the house farthest from her wing and as far removed from the glassed-in terrace where the Gayelorde-Suttons and their guests took their coffee. I hid the motorbike in some bushes halfway down Shepherdshey Hill and cut across the paddock from the west, using the cover of the oaks and beeches and remaining at a safe distance from the house until it was quite dark.
It was a warm, dry night, with the promise of a bright moon later on, and I thanked my lucky stars that we were not faced with the choice of abandoning the expedition or driving to Highchurch through West Country drizzle.
Shortly before nine I saw Diana’s light flash off, on and off again. I moved into the open, crawled through the laurels outside the conservatory and found the ladder immediately. It was a light, ten-ranged affair and I was able to drag it noiselessly out on to the gravel and set it up against the glass. Then I whistled “Dolly Gray” and it was answered from above. A moment later Diana’s window squeaked and I stood back, waiting for her to appear on the guttering.
The minute or two that elapsed before I saw her seemed at least an hour. In the woods behind me owls hooted and once a rabbit screamed. The rest of the house seemed silent and deserted.
At last I heard Diana call softly from the edge of the roof and I steadied the ladder as she descended. She came down with a prolonged rustle of skirts and a whiff of heady perfume. When she reached the ground she turned and kissed me gently on the mouth.
“Thanks, Jan,” she said, with a chuckle, “that was beautifully managed.”
“You’ll get terribly blown about in that outfit,” I warned her, but I should have known better, for out of her beaded handbag she at once produced a compressed oilskin, complete with clipped-on hood.
“I’ll put it on when we start,” she said. “It will crackle too much if I unroll it out here.”
We hid the ladder, stole across the paddock and climbed the low fence into the road. Diana donned her oilskin, and after a few terrifying failures on the part of the kick start we set off, her arms around my waist, her hair tickling the back of my neck. The journey was uneventful and we arrived about ten-thirty, when the dance had got into its stride.
I can recall every detail of that wonderful evening. I can remember what she said, what the band played, how the hall was decorated in club colors, with the stage a blaze of sweet peas, dahlias and early chrysanthemums, how many ices we had and the one dance that we sat out to eat them while Ted Bristow’s Rhythm Eight wailed “Mean to Me” before beckoning us for the next fox trot, a peppery little tune called “The Wedding of the Painted Doll.”
Diana said I looked “lovely and sveldt,” whatever that meant, and I had no need to tell her how exciting she looked in her dance frock of yellow organdie, with a white rosebud pinned under her breast. We might have been dancing as partners since we were children and as the evening wore on, and we swung to and fro among the hilarious couples, reality faded altogether and we conversed with little pressures and glances.
When they had played “God Save the King” and we went out into the harbor car park to find our Douglas, the moon was full and the moored sailing boats, anchored in little groups under the jetties, bobbed up and down on a silver plate so bright that it hurt your eyes to look at it.
“Jan, it’s been wonderful, wonderful!” she said, as she slipped into her oilskin. “I wish tonight could go on for ever and ever, because I’m sure it’s the happiest night we’ll ever have together.”
Happiness buzzed in my head. Gone were vague doubts about her mother, her background, her money, or haughty competitors, like Gerald Brett-Hawkins and Lance Fayne.
“We’ll have thousands of nights like tonight!” I promised, with the blind faith of a seventeen-year-old. “Besides, it isn’t over yet, we’ve still got to get home. Hold on, here she goes!” and I jabbed joyously at the kick start and started the engine
first time.
I had thought that it might be cold on the way back, particularly as we had only missed a single dance and were both very warm when we came out, but the air was as soft and balmy as Mediterranean spring and we cooled down gradually and comfortably as we chugged along the deserted moonlit roads to the Whin swivel bridge that crosses the river four miles up the estuary.
I had no trouble with the bike and from time to time Diana shouted complimentary remarks about my driving.
When we were coasting down Shepherdshey Hill she thumped my back and shouted something that I failed to catch, so at the junction of the village approach road I stopped on the grass verge.
“We’d better park it here while I see you up the ladder again,” I suggested.
“Oh, no, Jan,” she said, pressing my ribs with both hands, “don’t let’s go in just yet—in for a penny in for a pound! Let’s drive on down to Nun’s Bay and have a dip. It’s a glorious night for a moonlight bath and I’ve never had one, have you?”
This seemed to me to be tempting Providence. It was already after two o’clock and if we went down to the coast and bathed it would be getting on for dawn before she was back in her room.
“It’s a good idea,” I temporized, “except that you daren’t risk going in for towels and suit and anyway, even if you get yours, I haven’t got mine.”
“Oh stuff and nonsense,” she said, impatiently, “don’t be so prudish, Jan! We’ll bathe in the nude and if you’re too shy you can keep your briefs on. Come on, this is a night to make history! If we don’t go we’ll be sorry when we’re old and tottery—start her up!”
I drove on down to the sea with a flutter of nervousness in my stomach. I was not much afraid that we should be seen—you could wander about in Sennacharib any time of year after dark and rarely see a soul until you met an early plowman plodding up Teasel Lane—I think my uncertainties stemmed from the exciting prospect of sharing a moonlit bay with a nude Diana and the sense of doom that attended the possibility of her mother learning of such a profligate act.
When I saw the water, however, and the dark huddle of cottages that marked the eastern half of the bay, I could hardly wait to pull my clothes off. I had a good deal of trouble with dress studs and cuff links, but Diana had slipped out of her diaphanous dress in a matter of seconds and was running down the beach long before I was ready. The ripple of her laughter reached me together with her splash, as she dived from the edge of the fishermen’s miniature jetty. A few moments later we were swimming out into deeper water, Diana using her unstylish but adequate breaststroke, me overhauling her rapidly with the crawl taught me by the Council School instructor in Brixton Baths, long before I ever dreamed of moonlight swims in Devon.
The water was colder than it looked and after fifty yards or so Diana, gasping, made for a moored dinghy and gripped the anchor chain. After a moment’s rest, however, she let go and rolled over and over like a porpoise, her lovely white body shining like a lily petal, her thick chestnut hair trailing behind her like weed. I was too shy to swim close to her but I kept her in view and presently called from the other side of the dinghy:
“You look like a mermaid, Di!”
“I feel exactly like one!” she called back. Then: “Oh Jan, Jan, why do we ever bother with silly clothes? I feel more a part of the sea than I’ve ever felt in a tight bathing suit and one of those headachy caps.”
Then she dived clumsily under the boat and bobbed up alongside me. “Cheat!” she laughed. “You’ve left your pants on. How deep is it here? Could we reach bottom?”
I threw up my heels and kicked my way under water. It was not more than twelve feet deep and I easily touched bottom. I was in the act of reaching for a pebble when she touched me, her arms encircling my neck, her lips brushing mine. Effortlessly we drifted, without the will to disengage.
It was the oddest sensation, an embrace down there on the floor of Nun’s Bay, as though we were sailing gently through limitless space, our limbs freed of all substance and solidity. There was nothing shameless or even sportive about it; it was as though we were partners in some kind of ritual that belonged to a cult as removed from everyday life as a nymph’s dance to the music of Pan. The kiss was symbolic, quite unlike any previous kiss she had given me, and when at last we rose together to the surface and struck out for the jetty neither of us remarked on it, for to do so would have been to break the spell and convert symbolism into ridicule.
The spell held through the time we were drying ourselves on the lining of my old mackintosh and struggling into our clothes. The clothes themselves seemed incongruous, as though by the mere act of donning them, we were deliberately removing ourselves from a world of enchantment and returning, glumly and resignedly, to an existence that was drab and futile.
I felt this so strongly that I remarked upon it. She didn’t answer immediately but sat tugging at her hair with a comb taken from her bag. Presently she said:
“Come and sit beside me, Jan. Don’t say anything, just sit here and put your head on my lap!”
“You must be cold,” I argued, in spite of myself. “I’d better get you home now, Di.”
“No, I’m not a bit cold,” she replied, and then, with deliberation: “As a matter of fact I’m glowing. You see, Jan, I think I’ve discovered something, I think I’m in love with you, really and deeply in love! I don’t think I could ever love anyone else after tonight and I don’t think anything else will ever matter very much to me, not deep down I mean, except to know that you’re in love with me and that we’ll always be together. Do you think we’ve sort of hypnotized ourselves into believing this? You know, the music, the dancing, the moonlight and just being here, with everyone else in Sennacharib fast asleep? Or do you think it’s simply that suddenly—just now—we both grew up?”
I thought about this a moment. It was like pondering a symphony of great, stirring chords. Then I said, “I’ve felt like that about you a long time now, Di. I don’t think it’s much to do with growing up. I felt it ever since that day you rode out of the larch wood and rescued me from Croker!”
Her admission, sweet as it was, did not electrify me, as I should have imagined only a few hours ago that it might. It seemed a natural and inevitable sequel to the embrace under the water, it only confirmed a subconscious conviction that I had had for almost two years now—that Diana Gayelorde-Sutton and I were predestined to grow up together and inherit, in the spiritual sense, all the slopes, coverts and copses of Sennacharib, and that our coming together then and now was simply a small swirl in the rhythm of the universe, like the unhurried patrol of the buzzards who sailed over Teasel Wood, like the flow of the brook under Shepherdshey Bridge, like the mating and flowering of everything that lived and grew in the few square miles we always thought of as our own.
I turned the damp mackintosh inside out and laid it across her shoulders. Then I crouched beside the little rock on which she was sitting and covered her hands with kisses while she lowered her head and laid her cheek against my head.
We sat there a long time, hardly moving, saying nothing, listening to the steady suck-lap of the wavelets on the shingle. And then, when I felt her shudder, I stood up and held her closely in my arms, kissing her damp hair, her eyes, her ears and mouth. I had never kissed her in this way before. Such kisses as we had exchanged in the past had nothing to do with the yearning we experienced for one another at this moment. We had forgotten where we were or how we came to be there. We had no shared past and no future, only this sweet, solemn hour that had coaxed us from childhood into anxious maturity, and changed us from a couple of children out on a moonlight spree, into a man and woman who wanted and needed one another so urgently that at this moment we could not imagine an existence apart.
A faint glow of headlights, moving rapidly along the distant London road seen through the cleft of the cliffs, restored to me but not to her a vague sense of time and place. I led her up to the quay where we had left the bike and slowly we rode back to Shepherds
hey, stopping once again on the grass verge of the crossroads.
“Don’t come across the paddock with me, Jan,” she said, suddenly. “Let’s say good night here. I’d much rather do that and I’ll get back on my own, I promise you.”
“What about the ladder? How will you be able to put it away again after using it? If anyone found it there—”
“Dear Jan,” she said, slowly running a finger down my cheek, “do you imagine that I shall sleep when I get in? Tonight? After all the wonderful things that have happened? I’ll change and wait until I hear the maids stirring. Then I’ll slip out as though I’m going for Sioux, take the ladder away and put it back in the shed before old Gaff shows up. It’s his day to gravel the drive and he won’t come around to my side of the house until after breakfast.”
I let myself be convinced by these arguments. It was almost dawn anyway. Already there was a faint glimmer in the sky over Shepherdshey Church and I reasoned that one pair of footsteps outside the conservatory would make less noise than two; besides, in the unlikely event of Diana’s being caught, my presence would make matters ten times worse. Alone she might be able to talk herself out of being on the conservatory roof in a yellow dance frock at four A.M. on a September morning.
“What about tomorrow?” I demanded. “You’ll be going back to school at the end of the week and I want to make the most of every minute. I won’t see you again until just before Christmas!”
As I said this I could have wept but she bobbed forward, pecked my cheek and said, with a rueful laugh, “It isn’t ‘tomorrow,’ it’s ‘today,’ silly! I’ll phone you between one and two and fix something for the evening. It depends so much on what Mummy and Daddy are doing. They might be going somewhere and expect me to go with them.”
We had used this kind of arrangement in the past. When she was unsure of how and when we could meet I stayed behind at the office throughout the lunch hour, waiting for her to phone while I had the premises to myself. I agreed to leave it at that and kissed her once more while helping her over the fence into the copse bordering the paddock. I listened until I could no longer hear her footsteps cracking the twigs and then pushed the bike up the hill, starting it well out of hearing of the house.
Diana Page 19
