Cold Pastoral (44 page)

“Thanks,” she said finally in a congested voice. “Any trouble?”

“Not at all,” said Mary Immaculate, shutting her lips on explanations. She wanted to get away before Maxine convinced her abortions were as ordinary as cups of tea. “Let me know if you're all right.”

“Thanks, good-bye, Mary.”

“Good-bye, Maxine, really, good-bye.”

“You mean—”

“Yes, I'm going places,”she said decisively. “Good luck.”

Maxine turned towards Lower Regent Street and Mary Immaculate sped through Piccadilly. She walked as if rid of an incubus. Something else had threatened her and she had survived. Her steps grew lighter as her spirits rose in the tarnished day. November had a dark-brown taste, but she sailed on, unconscious of pollution. She would walk to Sloane Street, to King's Road, and time herself to be in just after Philip. Why her spirits continued to surge she did not know. Philip was as distant as the pole star, her mother was dead, Maxine was having an abortion, the day was as dirty as a maulkin, and by all accounts she should be an abject girl.

Then she saw a cat trying to cross a London road. Such a feat was as full of hazard as the way to Mount Everest. Mary Immaculate stopped, watching many tentative attempts and scuttling retreats. It seemed as if the cat could never get past the traffic-peril alone. Stripping off her gloves, she advanced to the pavement's edge, holding out a coaxing hand.

“I'll help you over, puss,” she said soothingly.

It was a town-cat, huddling under her arm like a mass of suspicion. As she reached an island it dug five fierce claws in her hand. As she reached the other side of the road it writhed away, leaving a spacious scratch on the back of her hand.

It was a very thorough cat, she thought, watching blood-spots ease out from the scratch. It would take a London cat to suspect her, she who had beguiled wood-creatures for twelve years of her life! Instead of being daunted she laughed out loud, until she saw people seeing her as suspiciously as the cat. She retreated to a window to look out at the world. Words rose up to describe it in her mind.

    …great stream of people
There was hurrying to and fro,
Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam…

A streak of lightning comprehension seemed to illumine the whole of living. Brief as lightning it passed, leaving her with a feeling of the largest flash. She sensed unity, making her see London for the first time with balanced eyes. If she stayed here long enough she would begin to feel pinched. This need be no more, this could be much less, than the Cove. There people stood foursquare to natural peril. Here people cowered under man's unnatural threats. Everyone said some day London would be destroyed from the air. It was a turning away from the natural earth. It was what she meant when she had accused Maxine of murder. Go with it or jar the hum of the earth. Her bit of earth was the Place! Everywhere life was going on with large invitation. Other men could show her other earth…. Instinctively she turned her back on all the men who had offered her any homage. She was intimately connected with Tim, her handful of people and, above all, to Philip! It mattered terribly how she behaved towards them. In that flash of unity she was sure Tim's death was the moment for his rebirth. God, she prayed enthusiastically, be kind, and let him be born on a piano-stool. Tim had bequeathed her a white ship, but she knew she must sail with much ballast.

Her spirits soared higher and higher, and she knew in that moment of revelation she was one of those whose first love would always be life. But her fantasy about it was transmuted. She would walk carefully without the deviation of witless experiment. Her way was cemented. Who had said that?

Tim, when he spoke of the boys who seemed sure of their way. She must know where she stood and how. She was used to a routine and she wanted some of it back.

She could hardly wait for the opening of the Chelsea door. “Is Doctor Fitz Henry back yet, Marion?”

“Yes, miss, ten minutes ago. Mrs. Fitz Henry telephoned to say they would not be home for dinner. Would you and—”

“Yes, yes,” she agreed hastily, “we'll be home for dinner, I feel sure. Take my things upstairs, please.''

She surrendered her hat and coat, and patting her hair in front of the mirror she saw the terrible scratch on her hand. It made her whirl round and make a headlong entrance into the studio-room. Philip was staring out, seeing a square of grim November garden.

“Philip,” she called to his unhappy back.

“Mary,” he answered, wheeling round in a startled way.

“Philip,” she said, advancing towards him with an out-stretched hand, “do you remember saying I'd be more human to you if you saw me with a pimple ? Look, a London cat has scratched me.”

“Mary,” he said,utterly confused, “I've been worrying….”

He took her hand, seeing the scratch, and it was significant that he did not suggest iodine at once. “It has scratched you,” he murmured, “but you look—”

He stopped in a baffled way, and then went on to speak with great simplicity:

“Mary, you confuse me utterly. I've been useless all day, thinking of you mixed up in that sordid affair, and you come back so fresh and unaffected. When I think you're near me you're furthest away. When I feel you've quite gone you sweep back like a happy child.”

“I'm not complicated to myself, Philip, only to you.”

He shook his head, giving her the fascinated regard she could always command from his eyes. “I'll never know you, Mary, never really know you.''

“Philip,” she said, like an adult speaking to a younger generation, “I was thinking today we'll never see a fraction of the earth. No matter where we travel there'll be places out of reach. People are like that, but why should we try to know them all? Isn't it enough to be near, give what we can—?”

“Mary!”

His hand went out, fastening on her shoulder, seeking her very bones, and she felt it without any shrinking of her flesh.

“What are you saying, Mary?”

“Philip, do you love me ?”

He gave a short hard laugh. “Love you, Mary? You've been like a long thirst. I've worked and tried to stamp you out, and let Dave have his way with my leisure, but every other girl…Well, what is there to say about things like that? I just love you beyond myself. I get tired and drab, and I see you and hear your voice, and I feel refreshed. It's been like that in some ways since the first day in hospital. I simply can't help it.”

“Why should you help it, Philip?” she asked with beautiful directness.

“Mary,” he said, gripping her shoulder desperately, “don't say what you don't mean. You know what I'm like, and all the discipline in the world can't change a man completely. I won't have anything from you unless you're sure. For the sake of my work I must ask you not to trifle with me. Once you give way and let me…I couldn't go back,” he said restively, “I wouldn't have the strength after that terrible regret…”

“Philip, the past is so dead and still so alive. Now we both know Tim. I'm quite sure. I'll marry you, and go with you anywhere, any day.”

He still seemed to doubt her, standing like a man who had repressed himself too long to give way too fast. She had to go the whole way and step into his arms. Over her head he seemed to expel repression from his handsome nose. Then his arms and his hands came to life. But he held her like a man unsure of happiness. She put her arms round him to reassure him, knowing her first job would be to teach him to recognise joy.

“Philip,” she said persuasively, “it's so easy for me to be happy, but I'm much happier now.”

“Mary, my dear,” he said with lips venturing on her flesh as if he had never touched her before. “Mary, I feel so hungry for you.”

She lifted her face and felt her mouth swamped but not stifled. He was sweeping on as a lover, and nothing in her held back. She felt adult and not girlish, understanding from deep primal roots the normality of natural appetites. Moreover, she could identify his deep-toned tenderness and his great protection of herself. Before she closed her eyes she saw the unbelievable softening of his face. Then she whirled back to the Cove to tell Josephine she was minding what they said! She whirled to the Place to tell the mater she was doing as Philip said. She stood pat in her own flesh, playing a tune with Tim. She rested in Philip's arms, feeling a man's ecstasy round and about her. She felt her veins rippling with life, and the wingspread of her spirit craving infinite future.

M
argaret Duley was born in 1894 in St. John's, Newfoundland, and died in 1968. Her four novels—
The Eyes of the Gull
(1936),
Cold Pastoral
(1939),
Highway to Valour
(1941), and
Novelty on Earth
(1943)—were published internationally and praised by contemporary critics. Her place in Canadian literature was recognized in 1981 with a National Historic Plaque, mounted on the exterior of the Queen Elizabeth II Library of Memorial University.