Love Lies Dreaming (11 page)

She ducked me neatly, twice, in the middle of the river, with about fifteen people looking on, and when I sought revenge she gurgled happily and put her head down and left me behind with a crawl stroke I can never hope to match. At lunch time our appetites were enormous.

Punts are comfortable things, and skiffs are fast. But in a skiff one can never “sit familiar,” and in a
punt one can never put one's whole soul and body into the work of getting along—at least I can not, with safety. But in a well-designed dinghy both these troubles are avoided. A dinghy is broad enough to permit of lounging carelessly, and if it should happen that circumstances bring both you and your companion to the same side at once (it does happen like that sometimes, if you are young and only newly married) there is no need for the embrace to be hurriedly interrupted for the purpose of trimming the boat. Yet for all that you can make progress in a dinghy—I mean progress reckoned in yards, not in heart-beats—and can tug and haul at the sculls to your heart's content.

So it was in a dinghy that Constance and I and the tea-basket started off that afternoon. We went upstream; in a prophetic mood I realized that perhaps when coming home we should need the help of the current. Upstream through the sunshine. Tiny ripples danced and glittered, a little breeze ruffled my hair, and Constance in her white frock in the stern sheets looked perfectly wonderful. I seemed to be possessed of Herculean strength as I tugged at the sculls.

As a matter of fact, we covered some considerable
distance that afternoon. We went past Quarry Woods, lovely in the sunshine, through Marlow Lock, and out to the lonely stretch of river that lies the other side. Very lonely and very lovely. At Hurley we had tea, sitting lazily and happily together afterward.

“Oh, look!” said Constance suddenly. A kingfisher broke from the trees of the other bank and flung himself neatly down on the water. A second later he shot up again with a struggling minnow in his bill. Then he vanished again, leaving us with only the memory of the brilliant flash of color as he passed through the trees.

Constance had never see this stretch of river before—I had been saving it up for her for a long time, and she snuggled down into the bottom of the boat with a sigh of content. The sun was drowsy and comforting, and the trees were whispering lovesongs to the bass accompaniment of the distant roar of Hurley Weir. Love and peace—I do not think that either of us had ever known the two in unison before. The long grasses on the bank wavered in the wind, and the water chuckled to itself as though at a ridiculous joke as it rippled round the dinghy. I had started with some
idea of showing Constance the little village of Hurley, placid and content, a quarter of a mile away, beyond the trees, but when I made a tentative suggestion that perhaps she might like to walk over there with me one look in her eyes told me that she would not dream of leaving all this quiet beauty even for a moment. So I leaned in drowsy comfort back against the cushions, with Constance's smooth little head against my knee, and her smooth, cool, white hand resting in mine.

And the shadows grew longer as the sun sank lower and lower, and the songs of the birds became clearer and more sustained, and even as we breathed the cooler air, lo, it was evening! We were very quiet and thoughful as I loosed the painter and the current took hold of us and drifted us away downstream. No sculls now; the mood of Herculean action was passed. Instead I perched in the bows, with Constance against my knees and the stern cocked into the air, and kept the dinghy lazily in midstream with the canoe-paddle I had somehow remembered to bring. Slowly and peacefully downstream, through the beginnings of the summer twilight, while the breeze died down and the sweet Thames took on its loveliest aspect in the fading light.

Temple lock-keeper and Marlow lock-keeper smiled to themselves half-pityingly, half-enviously, as they passed us through. Perhaps they, too, had once lived in Arcady. Perhaps there was a look on our faces which told them all that they needed to know of our story. Perhaps Marlow lock-keeper saw Constance touch my hand and point away to the east, where the evening star shone out marvelous against the fading sky. Perhaps he watched us away from the lock, to where we dallied for a moment in midstream while I debated whether a hotel dinner would be at all equal in the scale against the prospect of another few wonderful minutes here in this calm beauty with Constance. Perhaps he drew his own conclusions from the fact that we turned aside from the main stream, and drifted down into the reedy, tranquil backwaters just below the lock.

I did not have to move or to disturb Constance as I caught a branch of willow as we crept along, and looped the painter around it. And I laid the paddle down softly, not daring to break the wrapt silence which was enfolding us. Constance turned to me with the little smile I love, and lay wordless in my arms.

Darkness fell around us, and all was quiet save for the chuckling of the ripples round the boat, and the gray river flower on, silently, soundlessly, irresistibly.

And through my mind there ran the words—

“Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song.”

Sweet Thames run softly till I end my song! The stars shone out above us, and the water around us was dark and mysterious. Constance's face was flower-white in the dim light, her cheek resting on my shoulder.

From the spinney beside us came a few muted notes of music. Then a few more. Then, clear and triumphant, reaching to the stars in a pillar of honeyed sweetness, we heard the full, wildly-sweet song of the nightingale. Penetratingly sweet it was; music that tore your heartstrings and set your pulses throbbing in delirium. The golden notes rained round us, stirring me, rousing me, until the pain of my longing and the ache of love for Constance seemed more than mortal could ever bear.

Constance stirred beside me, and her flower-petal
lips were parted and her eyes were soft and tender—and grave. So grave! I caught my breath as I looked. It was then that I realized something of what a woman's love means, and that what is sometimes so lightly taken is not so lightly given. Constance put her arms up to me, and I drew her close, and felt her little round bosom warm against my breast. And we kissed and strained to each other, and Constance tried to tell me that she loved me, and to sooth away the ache at my heart. She drew my head down to her breast, strangely maternal, and kissed my forehead. Her arms held me to her, and she rocked gently with my head upon her breast. And with the coming of passion our tongues were loosed, and we were freed from the dumb devils that had so beset us.

Constance's face was pale in the starlight, and as I passed my arms round her and she leaned to me her white hands fluttered on my breast.

“Dear,” she said, “you know I love you,
now
, don't you? You weren't sure before—I know you weren't. I wasn't, very. But I know now. Dear, I belong to you—there's nothing of mine that isn't yours, now. This morning I wouldn't tell you what a B.B. was—I'd
tell you now. It—it's only a b—bust bodice, dear. Oh, my dear, my dear—.”

And I loosed the painter, and the current took us silently downstream. Silently downstream, with the stars above us and the black mysterious water all about us. Silent, save for the slight wash of my paddle as I steered through the darkness; silent, save for the tiny bump of the dinghy against the landing stage. Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song.

For goodness' sake!” said Constance. “Aren't you ever going to stop thinking about that?”

“Don't see why I should,” I said.

“Well, of course,” said Constance, if you
like
being a mooney old mutton head, I suppose I shall just have to put up with it. But give me another cigarette and tell me what the weather's like.”

“I suppose it's good enough for tennis,” I told her, offering her a match, “though why it should be fine for your bally old tennis and rain when I want to play golf is more than I can make out.”

“Why, that's just as it ought to be. If they don't suppress golf by law, nature has to step in some time. Hop along and get your tennis bag packed while I dress.”

There was no use arguing about it. Constance is a reasonable enough person in many ways, but she is adamant on the subject of golf. At the beginning of the morning I had had hopes that I might perhaps be
dismissed to have another try to see if I could do the long fourth in one under bogey again—but the hope was, of course, vain. As soon as Constance had uttered her ukase I realized the hopelessness of that hope. To Constance's mind golf and drinking are about on a level—men simply will do them, but no wife in her sane senses will encourage her husband to indulge in either.

And yet there was something about that day's tennis which made me enjoy it thoroughly. Something which took me back to the days when I was a very young man. For, consciously or unconsciously, I was striving once more for Constance's favor, just as I had done in the old days, when a good winner from the base line meant, to my heated imagination, one stride farther toward the ultimate goal.

Constance and I are favored above the majority of married folk in that we are able to play together without mutual exasperation. When Constance and I are partners we both play at least fifteen better than we do in any other mixed double. I honestly think that it is not because I know Constance's play, but because I know Constance. When she is doing brilliant things at the net I can tell instinctively just when a lapse is
due, and can get back to cover her mistake and retrieve the passing shot or lob which she ought to reach but misses unaccountably. And that Sunday I was on my mettle. I went all out for everything in a fashion which I can only display when I am keyed up to the highest possible pitch. At the net my arms seemed elastic and indefinitely extensible; at the back of the court I effected miracles of retrieving which astonished not only Constance and my opponents but even myself. Twice I went back after a lob, caught it, returned it into exactly the right spot, dashed up to the net again, and smote the feeble return full at the prancing feet of our demoralized opponents, and each time as I turned panting to Constance afterward I caught in her eyes a hint of pleased surprise which was more than sufficient reward for my exertions.

It was like contending in the lists as did the old knights for a smile from the lips of the Queen of Beauty. The likeness struck me at the time. I could hardly help wondering if at Arthur's court Sir Gawain would say to Sir Lancelot, “Sorry, old man,” when he unhorsed the other by the lucky equivalent to a netcord shot, and if, after a heated duel, when they returned
to the pavilion (it was called a pavilion even in those days, I remember) the victor would be just a little bit talkative, and the loser a little bit taciturn.

Would Sir Bors say to Sir Kay:

“Well, I didn't think I would ever be able to bring that off, Kay, old man. You were a bit weak on your back hand this morning.”

And Sir Kay would reply moodily:

“Yes, I don't know what was the matter with me. My fighting's been absolutely rotten for the last week or two. Got half a mind to chuck sword fighting altogether. Take up hawking or something, instead.”

Then, of course, Bors would say:

“Oh, don't say that, old man. I expect it was a sheer fluke on my part this morning. The lists weren't in very good condition, you know. Bit on the slow side, and, of course, that never suits your style.”

That would buck poor old Sir Kay up a bit, and he would reply:

“Yes, there's something in that, of course. Fact is, I haven't been satisfied with my sword just lately. Seems to have lost its spring, somehow.”

Then Bors would pick it up and swing it a little,
and look it up and down, and practise one or two favorite cuts with it.

“M'm,” he would say, “one of the Weald's goblins make, isn't it? Can't say I ever did like 'em. You should try one of the kind I always use. Sheffield steel, guaranteed blessed by a holy hermit, and I get Merlin to say a spell or two over it once a week just to keep it in good condition. Best thing going for swords, I think. You try it.”

“I'll bear it in mind,” Sir Kay would say. “Must do something about it. I'm due to fight that Green Knight bloke next week in the semi-final of the Camelot tournament.”

That would be some of his own back, because Sir Bors was beaten in the first round of the Camelot tournament. And actually, of course, Sir Kay would have the very lowest opinion of Merlin's spells for use on swords. But Sir Bors would still be able to score pretty heavily, because Sir Kay is a mean old carmudgeon, and has forgotten a very necessary and customary tribute to the late victor.

“Warm, isn't it?” Sir Bors would say, and he would throw just enough accent into that expression to show
that he saw through Sir Kay's little game and didn't think very much of it. Sir Kay would give a little start of pretended surprised recollection and say:

“Oh, yes, of course, of course. Hey, varlet, ho! Give it a name, old boy.”

And Bors would hesitate a second or two, just to rub it in, and then would deliberately ask for Malvoisie, because Malvoisie would be the most expensive drink supplied in the pavilion.

At any rate, that is how the Club Liar and I talked in the pavilion while we were washing before lunch—Constance and I had just beaten him and Mrs. Liar in three straight sets, and they are normally streets better than us, being on the outer fringe of the Wimbledon competitors.

Just as we were finishing lunch there came a sharp shower.

“Curse!” said Constance. “Of course it would rain just when I'm feeling I could push buses over.”

“I didn't know that rain interfered with that pastime,” said I.

“If you hadn't played like an angel this morning, I'd kill you with a look for trying to be funny.”

The Club Liar interposed.