Cold Pastoral (33 page)

“Tim, you've been directing me from long distance,” she said, holding out her arm for drops to shine like diamonds. Tim sat forward, half sideways, taking a shoulder from his watery cape. He made a reach for her arm, playing on it with his lips as if it might be a flute.

“Your skin is so cool and smooth, Gretel! I think I love touch,” he said with a little pucker of his brows. “Love can't be just great crashing chords. It must be the whole gamut of scales and harmonies.”

“That's what I think, Tim; something with a long taste. It would be dreadful to come to the bottom of the glass too soon. I love watching David drink golden lager from a big tankard. He has a glass one, and it takes a bottle and a half. It seems to go on for ever.”

Tim hardly heard. He was staring at her arm as if treading on the tail of a thought. Looking out to sea, one white-sailed boat gleamed against the far horizon.

“Gretel; my dream!” he said thoughtfully. “This must be it. Last night it was quiet coming in, and I went to sleep very quickly. I dreamt right away. I was running as hard as I could, dragging you by the hand. For once in your life you were behind me and I was ahead. We seemed to be racing for dear life, away from loud noises and people and something I couldn't see. Then we got into the open, and we were by the sea. I ran and ran, and there was a ship with a white sail, just setting out. You ran with me until I got to the rail, and an arm reached out and gave me one great tug and pulled me on board.”

“Didn't I go, too, Tim?” she asked carelessly.

“No, I seemed to be sorry about that, but just as I turned back to get you I heard lovely music, and I looked up the deck. Then I woke up. Some fellows were having a binge and were talking in the alleyway. I wonder what I would have seen if I hadn't waked up.”

Mary Immaculate shook her head. “I don't often dream, Tim. Mom does, though, and always waits for things to happen. She didn't dream the night before I went into the woods, but that must be where I fooled her. Good thing, too, or she would have kept me home, and I would never have come to town. Things must be arranged, Tim. It's foolish to think otherwise.”

“I expect so, Gretel, but I'm not going to wait.”

“Let's swim in the sea now, Tim. My back is cold.”

The way was hazardous, but her white flesh dipped amongst granite rock. They descended by the land, sanity forbidding Mary Immaculate to use the waterfall as a plank. She raced to the sea, plunging into its blue. Warmth lay only in its colour. It was freezing cold, as if it had just dissolved its icebergs. They shivered until exercise raced their blood.

“Now, Timmy-Tim,”she said, throwing an arm round his neck. “I'm drowning! Life-save me!”

She gave a realistic exhibition of drowning, making him grab her by the arm. As if to make it difficult for him, she caught him in a stranglehold.

“This is what I did before,”she gasped. “Will you knock me out?”

“No,” he said, swimming with his legs. Her white helmet bobbed near his face, and he put his arms round her body, hugging her strongly under water.

“Mermaid's kiss,”he grinned, giving her a very wet salute with his mouth. The sun yellowed her eyes to clear topaz.

“Save me, Tim,” she said dramatically, floating sensuously on the water.

Lax and languorous, she let him hold her head out of water and swim towards land, with her body trailing beside him. With her head tucked in the crook of his arm, she recited softly:

“And the judge bade them strip, and ship them, and bind, Bosom to bosom to drown and die…”

Tim gave her a deep, wakening glance. For a moment his eyes went naked. Because she knew little poetry that he did not know, he muttered through his teeth, “You're not fair, Gretel. Remember, the white girl winced and whitened, but he caught fire—and they died, drowned together.”

“Sorry, Timmy-Tim,” she said contritely.”It's unpleasant, drowning, no matter how poetical.” Turning into his neck she kissed his shoulder.

“Tim, let's dress, and go and find something to eat. I'd like a chocolate bar, an ice-cream cone and a package of gum. Have you got any money ?”

“Tons,” he said, laughing out loud and shipping some sea in his mouth. “Gretel, I know now why you're not a musician. You never could rest to perfect one bar.”

They had reached the shore, relaxing on hot stones, with their legs in the water. She was reproachful.

“Tim, and I've tried to play all the things you liked.”

That there could be any fault in her seemed an appalling heresy, in sight of her body lying so near. All at once he pressed his head in her shoulder, nuzzling against her neck.

“Gretel,” he sighed. “I love you, love you, love you, and I wish we could go down with locked hands and feet.”

“Timmy-Tim,” she said, patting him with a wet hand, “it's Heaven today. Let's dress and get something to eat.”

The glitter had gone out of the sky, and the day was easing to night. The sea breathed on the land, wetting the air to a fog. Caplin weather, thought the fisherman's daughter; bait for the cod! She could visualise little coves and bays and fishermen casting-nets.

She tramped round the flower-beds with no diminution of restlessness. The electric afternoon had forked her veins with lightning. Tim was different, more of an individual, and several times he had taken the reins out of her hands. Returning to her lonely meal and Hannah's sour comments, she had circumvented conversation by propping a book in front of her. Reading
Les Noyades
again, it seemed disturbing, full of possession by death. Why was literature so full of death, with lovers embracing it in exultation? It seemed a morbid union, when the world was round like a rich girdle. Tim would be melancholy if he were left to himself. With her, his notes soared in alt. Impossible to remember the afternoon in tranquillity. Tang of sea-water made it hot-cold, with the feel of her head clasped by Tim's arms. There was the blue heat of his eyes, and his wet sea-kiss. The whole afternoon returned a sense of touch. Heaviness of winter, grief for the mater, the burden of study had slipped away, catapulting her to communion with Tim. His mouth on her arm, her shoulder and his strong under-water embrace held new elements. They seemed like the edge of some felicity, towards which she was being impelled. Sweet hard kisses are strong like wine! Having read for intoxicating words, they now seemed promises of delicate delight. What more? There must be a whole lot more, like an ease into the current, and the forward rush over the waterfall. Yet Tim had bade her be sane when she suggested foolhardiness.

Hannah was inside the privet hedge plodding about, examining green vegetable shoots. Hooked up in black, she looked as crude and changeling as Molly Conway. She had been there a long time, so long that the girl wished her rheumatism would send her inside to nurture her joints. The garden was not Hannah's care, except that everything seemed her self-appointed burden since Lady Fitz Henry's death. She had no life of her own when her work was done, except to moil at grudges. Often she muttered to herself in some muddy communion.

There was an undeniable swish of feet and a scrape against the wall. The girl brought up on her feet, and underneath the stalky part of the hedge, she saw the old woman's dress become limp with listening. In her hand she trailed a long twisted root. The girl's imagination seemed fearfully acute. Had it shrieked like a mandrake when it came from the earth?

Silence came down like a fall of black flakes. Nothing stirred as Tim played a waiting game. If Philip were fishing he would certainly stay for the perfect hour when flies flew low on the water! The girl continued her walk, round and round, and round again. The air increased in dampness, threatening the bones of age, but it was almost dark before Hannah left the vegetables.

“Why don't you come in out of the damp ? There's the evening paper? Not as interested in it as you were this morning, I'm thinking.”

What was the use of answering? Hannah passed like a bent black sail. The girl sped up the garden, as Tim dropped from the fence.

“God, Gretel,” he said, brushing some rind from his hands. “I thought she'd never go. What's old witchface up to?”

She was so careless and confident in her long sustained luck. Lightly callous, Hannah was dismissed.

“She's dippy, Tim. I never take any notice. Were you late for your supper ?”

“Let's sit on the bank, Gretel.” He took her arm, drawing her down beside him. The seriousness of his voice dismissed eating and drinking.

“Gretel, listen to me.”

“Yes, Tim,'' she said, surprised.

“I mean,” he explained, “listen to me without any interruption. I have some funny news, and I've had a terrific row with Uncle, and walked off with Mother's car. I was steaming away when I remembered you said the doctor had gone for the whole day, and I came on the chance of seeing you. You couldn't come for another drive, could you? It's easier to talk when we're going.”

“No, Tim,” she said briefly, obeying his first injunction.

“Very well, then.” The light was good enough to see him looking ahead at the grass. “After supper Uncle came round to have one of his advisory chats with me, checking up on how much benefit I had received, etc., etc. I think I behaved very well, at least I hope I was civil, although you can never tell when you feel inside that your voice has an edge. Then he informed me, as if I didn't know, that I'd be twenty-one in a couple of months! I was expecting a lecture, when he took the wind out of my sails by telling me that Father had provided a clause in his will to the effect that I could have a long trip when I was twenty-one—”

“Tim!” she ejaculated.

“And,” he said impressively, “it seems a lot of money to me. I was thrilled, and a whole row of countries passed in front of my eyes—
when
…”

“Yes?” she asked urgently.

“When he fished an itinerary out of his pocket, with ships and places all marked in red dots, which was mainly a trip to South America, to see mines! He had arranged it all! I didn't have to do a thing but follow red marks.”

His voice was weighted with bitter scorn.

“I saw red! It was Father's present to me. I Goddamned something awful. Then I stood up and said I'd take the trip as soon as I was twenty-one, but I'd go to Europe and do just what I liked. Mother was frightened to death, and Auntie Minnie, the old nosy parker, spoke up and said all the things that made me want to blast her as a by-product. Then I barged out of the house and shot off, but I had lots of time to cool while I was waiting for old witchface to go in. From where I was I could see you walking round the flowerbeds. Instantly I got it—” He stopped dead, leaning towards her. “Don't you want to know what I planned?”

“You told me not to say anything, Tim.”

He laughed and put his arms round her, whispering in her ear.

“Gretel, you're coming withme. We'll get married the morning of my birthday, and honeymoon in the wide world.”

“And afterwards?” she questioned fearfully, she who never thought of afterwards.

“I'll get a job,” said Tim confidently. “It's got to be. If you want to be open about it, you must take me in to your men and say: ‘This is Tim. He's my vassal, and we're going to bemarried.' That's all. It's so easy.”

Motionless against him, she lay seething with perplexity. It had come, the deciding day! Tim was talking into her hair, waxing with enthusiasm over his definite plans. She felt herself catching trains, boarding ships, heard the sound of foreign tongues, saw London and smelt Paris in spring. Opera-houses and picture-galleries were tossed on the tennis-court.

“You want it, Gretel, don't you? Think, this afternoon I was aching to make you say you'd marry me. But I had nothing to offer, except a long wait. Now this…you must love me a little; and once this afternoon, in the water, I felt I had you. We must be lucky— we've always had luck.”

“Luck when we're alone,” she said woefully. “There are some things, Tim, that are lovely to yourself, but when other people handle them they seem so different. It's like the happiness of children. You're soaked with content and you come home and find you've torn your dress or wet your feet, and it all gets dimmed. Talk to me, Tim, and let me think. I don't know where I am….”

“But it's such a stroke of luck.”

“Luck, Tim ?” And strangely and unnaturally she burst into tears, giving her frightened vassal the greatest shock of his life.

Perhaps her disbelief in her gods made them suddenly retreat at that moment. Filing past the house they must have paused at a window, earthbound with interest. Philip was in the library, talking to Hannah. She was passing him a tray, which he placed on a table, loading it with large fat trout from a basket. Perhaps in answer to some question the old woman's lips moved, and Philip stood stock still with a trout in his hand. Suddenly he flung it down where it slithered to rest beside its brethren. Hannah sat and folded her hands, talking, talking, words without end. Philip seemed choking, until he went to a window and flung it wide. His voice rushed out, shivering the nerves of the night. Leaves shrank back in the trees, cringing from bitter amazement.

“You're out of your mind, Hannah I I don't believe a word of it. Bring Miss Mary in and •she'll explain. She's been alone all day, and found some way of enjoying herself.”

The old woman's voice was implacable in persuasion.

“You can try and fool yourself, Mr. Philip. But every word I've said is the truth. She's made a fool of you all, and most of all of you. Now what's to be done with her, stealing off as she does, and hugging and kissing and loving? To my mind she's not as good as she might be, and they're young, with hot blood. If there's any trouble they'll say it's you, and there's never a person will call you in, with that disgrace on your name. 'Twas a bitter day when you took the like of her—”