Chapter 13

For the first time in his knowledge of her Anne looked frightened.

"Yes. She wants to know you. I'm to bring you to tea."

"But--it's impossible. I can't know her. I don't want to. Can't you see how impossible it is?"

"No, I can't. It's perfectly natural. She's heard a lot about you."

"I've no doubt she has. Jerrold--do you think she guesses?"

"About you and me? Never. It's the last thing she'd think of. She's absolutely guileless."

"That makes it worse."

"You don't know," he said, "how she feels about you. She's furious with these brutes here because they've cut you. She says she'll cut _them_ if they won't be decent to you."

"Oh, worse and worse!"

"You're afraid of her?"

"I didn't know I was. But I am. Horribly afraid."

"Really, Anne dear, there's nothing to be afraid of. She's not a bit dangerous."

"Don't you see that that makes her dangerous, her not being? You've told me a hundred times how sweet she is. Well--I don't want to see how sweet she is."

"Her sweetness doesn't matter."

"It matters to me. If I once see her, Jerrold, nothing'll ever be the same again."

"Darling, really it's the only thing you can do. Think. If you don't, can't you see how it'll give the show away? She'd wonder what on earth you meant by it. We've got to behave as if nothing had happened. This isn't behaving as if nothing had happened, is it?"

"No. You see, it has happened. Oh Jerrold, I wouldn't mind if only we could be straight about it. But it'll mean lying and lying, and I can't bear it. I'd rather go out and tell everybody and face the music."

"So would I. But we can't.... Look here, Anne. We don't care a damn what people think. You wouldn't care if we were found out to-morrow----"

"I wouldn't. It would be the best thing that could happen to us."

"To us, yes. If Maisie divorced me. Then we could marry. It would be all right for us. Not for Maisie. You do care about hurting Maisie, don't you?"

"Yes. I couldn't bear her to be hurt. If only I needn't see her."

"Darling, you must see her. You can't not. I want you to."

"Well, if you want it so awfully, I will. But I tell you it won't be the same thing, afterwards, ever."

"I shall be the same, Anne. And you."

"Me? I wonder."

He rose, smiling down at her.

"Come," he said. "Don't let's be late."

She went.

v

In the garden with Maisie, the long innocent conversation coming back and back; Maisie's sweetness haunting her, known now and remembered. Maisie walking in the garden among the wall flowers and tulips, between the clipped walls of yew, showing Anne her flowers. She stooped to lift their faces, to caress them with her little thin white fingers.

"I don't know why I'm showing you round," she said; "you know it all much better than I do."

"Oh, well, I used to come here a lot when I was little. I sort of lived here."

Maisie's eyes listened, utterly attentive.

"You knew Jerrold, then, when he was little, too?"

"Yes. He was eight when I was five."

"Do you remember what he was like?"

"Yes."

Maisie waited to see whether Anne were going on or not, but as Anne stopped dead she went on herself.

"I wish _I_'d known Jerry all the time like that. I wish I remembered running about and playing with him.... You were Jerrold's friend, weren't you?"

"And Elliot's and Colin's."

The lying had begun. Falsehood by implication. And to this creature of palpable truth.

"Somehow, I've always thought of you as Jerrold's most. That's what makes me feel as if you were mine, as if I'd known you quite a long time. You see, he's told me things about you."

"Has he?"

Anne's voice was as dull and flat as she could make it. If only Maisie would leave off talking about Jerrold, making her lie.

"I've wanted to know you more than anybody I've ever heard of. There are heaps of things I want to say to you." She stooped to pick the last tulip of the bunch she was gathering for Anne. "I think it was perfectly splendid of you the way you looked after Colin. And the way you've looked after Jerry's land for him."

"That was nothing. I was very glad to do it for Jerrold, but it was my job, anyway."

"Well, you've saved Colin. And you've saved the land. What's more, I believe you've saved Jerrold."

"How do you mean, 'saved' him? I didn't know he wanted saving."

"He did, rather. I mean you've made him care about the estate. He didn't care a rap about it till he came down here this last time. You've found his job for him."

"He'd have found it himself all right without me."

"I'm not so sure. We were awfully worried about him after the war. He was all at a loose end without anything to do. And dreadfully restless. We thought he'd never settle to anything again. And I was afraid he'd want to live in London."

"I don't think he'd ever do that."

"He won't now. But, you see, he used to be afraid of this place."

"I know. After his father's death."

"And he simply loves it now. I think it's because he's seen what you've done with it. I know he hadn't the smallest idea of farming it before. It's what he ought to have been doing all his life. And when you think how seedy he was when he came down here, and how fit he is now."

"I think," Anne said, "I'd better be going."

Maisie's innocence was more than she could bear.

"Jerry'll see you home. And you'll come again, won't you? Soon.... Will you take them? I gathered them for you."

"Thanks. Thanks awfully." Anne's voice came with a jerk. Her breath choked her.

Jerrold was coming down the garden walk, looking for her. She said good-bye to Maisie and turned to go with him home.

"Well," he said, "how did you and Maisie get on?"

"It was exactly what I thought it would be, only worse."

He laughed. "Worse?"

"I mean she was sweeter.... Jerrold, she makes me feel such a brute. Such an awful brute. And if she ever knows--"

"She won't know."

When he had left her Anne flung herself down on the couch and cried.

All evening Maisie's tulips stood up in the blue-and-white Chinese bowl on the table. They had childlike, innocent faces that reproached her. Nothing would ever be the same again.

XV

ANNE, JERROLD, AND MAISIE

i

It was a Sunday in the middle of April.

Jerrold had motored up to London on the Friday and had brought Eliot back with him for the week-end. Anne had come over as she always did on a Sunday afternoon. She and Maisie were sitting out on the terrace when Eliot came to them, walking with the tired limp that Anne found piteous and adorable. Very soon Maisie murmured some gentle, unintelligible excuse, and left them.

There was a moment of silence in which everything they had ever said to each other was present to them, making all other speech unnecessary, as if they held a long intimate conversation. Eliot sat very still, not looking at her, yet attentive as if he listened to the passing of those unuttered words. Then Anne spoke and her voice broke up his mood.

"What are you doing now? Bacteriology?"

"Yes. We've found the thing we were looking for, the germ of trench fever."

"You mean _you_ have."

"Well, somebody would have spotted it if I hadn't. A lot of us were out for it."

"Oh Eliot, I am so glad. That means you'll stamp out the disease, doesn't it?"

"Probably. In time."

"I knew you'd do it. I knew you'd do something big before you'd finished."

"My dear, I've only just begun. But there's nothing big about it but the research, and we were all in that. All looking for the same thing. Happening to spot it is just heaven's own luck."

"But aren't you glad it was you?"

"It doesn't matter who it is. But I suppose I'm glad. It's the sort of thing I wanted to do and it's rather more important than most things one does."

He said no more. Years ago, when he had done nothing, he had talked excitedly and arrogantly about his work; now that he had done what he had set out to do he was reserved, impassive and very humble.

"Do Jerrold and Colin know?" she said.

"Not yet. You're the first."

"Dear Eliot, you _did_ know I'd be glad."

"It's nice of you to care."

Of course she cared. She was glad to think that he had that supreme satisfaction to make up for the cruelty of her refusal to care more. Perhaps, she thought, he wouldn't have had it if he had had her. He would have been torn in two; he would have had to give himself twice over. She felt that he didn't love her more than he loved his science, and science exacted an uninterrupted and undivided service. One life hadn't room enough for two such loves, and he might not have done so much if she had been there, calling back his thoughts, drawing his passion to herself.

"What are you going to do next?" she said.

"Next I'm going off for a month's holiday. To Sicily--Taormina. I've been overworking and I'm a bit run down. How about Colin?"

"He's better. Heaps better. He soon got over that relapse he had when I was away in February."

"You mean he got over it when you came back."

"Well, yes, it was when I came back. That's just what I don't like about him, Eliot. He's getting dependent on me, and it's bad for him. I wish he could go away somewhere for a change. A long change. Away from me, away from the farm, away from Wyck, somewhere where he hasn't been before. It might cure him, mightn't it?"

"Yes," he said. "Yes. It would be worth trying."

He didn't look at her. He knew what she was going to say. She said it.

"Eliot--do you think you could take him with you? Could you stand the strain?"

"If you could stand it for four years I ought to be able to stand it for a month."

"If he gets better it won't be a strain. He isn't a bit of trouble when he's well. He's adorable. Only--perhaps--if you're run down you oughtn't to."

"I'm not so bad as all that. The only thing is, you say he ought to get away from you, and I wanted you to come too."

"Me?"

"You and Maisie and Jerrold."

"I can't. It's impossible. I can't leave the farm."

"My dear girl, you mustn't be tied to it like that. Don't you ever get away?"

"Not unless Jerrold or Colin are here. We can't all three be away at once. But it's awfully nice of you to think of it."

"I didn't. It was Maisie."

Maisie? Would she never get away from Maisie, and Maisie's sweetness and kindness, breaking her down?

"She'll be awfully disappointed if you don't go."

"Why should she be?"

"Because she wants you to."

"Maisie?"

"Yes. Surely you know she likes you?"

"I was afraid she was beginning to--"

"Why? Don't you want her to like you? Don't you like _her_?"

"Yes. And I don't want to like her. If I once begin I shall end by loving her."

"My dear, it would be the best thing you could do."

"No, Eliot, it wouldn't. You don't know.... Here she is."

Maisie came to them along the terrace. She moved with an unresisting grace, a delicate bowing of her head and swaying of her body, and breathless as if she went against a wind. Eliot gave up his chair and limped away from them.

"Has he told you about Taormina?" she said.

"Yes. It's sweet of you to ask me to go with you----"

"You're coming, aren't you?"

"I'm afraid I can't."

"Why ever not?"

"I can't leave the land for one thing. Not if Jerrold and Colin aren't here."

"Oh, bother the old land! You _must_ leave it. It can get on without you for a month or two. Nothing much can happen in that time."

"Oh, can't it! Things can happen in a day if you aren't there to see that they don't."

"Well, Jerrold won't mind much if they do. But he'll mind awfully if you don't come. So shall I. Besides, it's all settled. He's to come back with Eliot in time for the hay harvest, and you and I and Colin are to go on to the Italian Lakes. My father and mother are joining us at Como in June. We shall be there a month and come home through Switzerland."

"It would be heavenly, but I can't do it. I can't, really, Maisie." She was thinking: He'll be back for the hay harvest.

"But you must. You can't go and spoil all our pleasure like that. Jerrold's and Eliot's and Colin's. _And_ mine. I never dreamed of your not coming."

"Do you mean you really want me?"

"Of course I want you. So does Jerrold. It won't be the same thing at all without you. I want to see you enjoying yourself for once. You'd do it so well. I believe I want to see that more than Taormina and the Italian Lakes. Do say you'll come."

"Maisie--why are you such an angel to me?"

"I'm not. I want you to come because--oh _because_ I want you. Because I like you. I'm happy when you're there. So's Jerrold. Don't go and say you care more for the land than Jerrold and me."

"I don't. I--It isn't the land altogether. It's Colin. I want him to get away from me for a time and do without me. It's frightfully important that he should get away."

"We could send Colin to another part of the island with Eliot. Only that wouldn't be very kind to Eliot."

"No. It won't do, Maisie. I'll go off somewhere when you've come back."

"But that's no good to _us_. Jerrold will be here for the haying, if you're thinking of that."

"I'm not thinking of that. I'm thinking of Colin."

As she said it she knew that she was lying. Lying to Maisie. Lying for the first time. That came of knowing Maisie; it came of Maisie's sweetness. She would have to lie and lie. She was not thinking of Colin now; she was thinking that if Jerrold came back for the hay harvest and Maisie went on with Colin to the Italian Lakes, she would have her lover to herself; they would be alone together all June. She would lie in his arms, not for their short, reckless hour of Sunday, but night after night, from long before midnight till the dawn.

For last year, when the warm weather came, Anne and Colin had slept out of doors in wooden shelters set up in the Manor fields, away from the noises of the farm. A low stone wall separated Anne's field from Colin's. This year, when Jerrold came home, Colin's shelter had been moved up from the field to the Manor garden. In the summer Anne would sleep again in her shelter. The path to her field from the Manor garden lay through three pastures and two strips of fir plantation with a green drive between.

Jerrold would come to her there. He would have his bed in Colin's shelter in the garden, and when the night was quiet he would get up and go down the Manor fields and through the fir plantation to her shelter at the bottom. They would lie there in each other's arms, utterly safe, hidden from passing feet and listening ears, and eyes that watched behind window panes.

And as she thought of his coming to her, and heard her own voice lying to Maisie, the blood mounted to her face, flooding it to the roots of her hair.

"I'm thinking of Colin."

Her voice kept on sounding loud and dreadful in her brain, while Maisie's voice floated across it, faint, as if it came from somewhere a long way off.

"You never think of yourself. You're too good for anything, Anne."

She would never be safe from Maisie and Maisie's innocence that accused, reproached and threatened her. Maisie's sweetness went through her like a thrusting sword, like a sharp poison; it had words that cut deeper than threats, reproaches, accusations. Before she had seen Maisie she had been fearless, pitiless, remorseless; now, because of Maisie, she would never be safe from remorse and pity and fear.

She recovered. She told herself that she hadn't lied; that she _had_ been thinking of Colin; that she had thought of him first; that she had refused to go to Taormina before she knew that Jerrold was coming back for the hay harvest. She couldn't help it if she knew that now. It was not as if she had schemed for it or counted on it. She had never for one moment counted on anything or schemed. And still, as she thought of Jerrold, her heart tightened on the sharp sword-thrust of remorse.

Because of Maisie, nothing would ever be the same again.

ii

In the last week of April they had gone, Jerrold and Maisie, Eliot and Colin, to Taormina. In the last week in May Jerrold and Eliot took Maisie up to Como on their way home. They found Sir Charles and Lady Durham there waiting for her. They had left Colin by himself at Taormina.

From the first moment of landing Colin had fallen in love with Sicily and refused to be taken away from it. He was aware that his recovery was now in his own hands, and that he would not be free from his malady so long as he was afraid to be alone. He had got to break himself of his habit of dependence on other people. And here in Taormina he had come upon the place that he could bear to be alone in. There was freedom in his surrender to its enchantment and in the contemplation of its beauty there was peace. And with peace and freedom he had found his indestructible self; he had come to the end of its long injury.

One day, sitting out on the balcony of his hotel, he wrote to Anne.

"Don't imagine because I've got well here away from you that it wasn't you who made me well. In the first place, I should never have gone away if you hadn't made me go. You knew what you were about when you sent me here. I know now what Jerrold meant when he wanted to get away by himself after Father died. He said he wanted to grow a new memory. Well, that's what I've done here.

"It seemed to happen all at once. One day I'd left them all and gone out for a walk by myself. It came over me that between me and being well, perfectly well, there was nothing but myself, that I was really hanging on to my illness for some sort of protection that it gave me, just as I'd hung on to you. I'd been thinking about it all the time, filling my mind with my illness, hanging on to the very fear of it; to save myself, I suppose, from a worse fear, the fear of life itself. And suddenly, out there, I let go. And the beauty of the place got me. I can't describe the beauty, except that there was a lot of strong blue and yellow in it, a clear gold atmosphere, positively quivering, and streaming over everything like gold water. I seemed to remember it as if I'd been here before, a long, steady memory, not just a flash. It was like finding something you'd lost, or when a musical phrase you've been looking for suddenly comes back to you. It was the most utter, indescribable peace and satisfaction. And somehow this time joined on to the times at Wyck when we were all there and happy together; and the beastly time in between slipped through. It just dropped out, as if it had never happened, and I got a sense of having done with it forever. I can't tell you what it was like. But I think it means I'm well.

"And then, on the top of it all, I remembered you, Anne, and all your goodness and sweetness. I got right away from my beastly self and saw you as you are. And I knew what you'd done for me. I don't believe I ever knew, really _knew_, before. I had to be alone with myself before I could see it, just as I always had to be alone with my music before I could get it right. I've never thanked you properly. I can't thank you. There aren't any words to do it in. And I only know now what it's cost you...."

Did he know? Did he know that it had once cost her Jerrold?

"... For instance, I know you gave up coming here with us because you thought it would be better for me without you."

Colin, too, turning it in her heart, the sharp blade of remorse. Would they never have done punishing her?

And then: "Maisie knows what you are. She told Eliot you were the most beautiful thing, morally, she had ever known. The one person, she said, whose motives would always be clean."

If he had tried he couldn't have hit on anything that would have hurt her so. It was more than she could bear to be punished like this through the innocence of innocent people, through their kindness and affection, their belief, their incorruptible trust in her. There was nothing in the world she dreaded more than Maisie's trust. It was as if she foresaw what it would do to her, how at any minute it would beat her, it would break her down.

But she was not beaten yet, not broken down. After every fit of remorse her passion asserted itself again in a superb recovery. Her motives might not be so spotless as they looked to Maisie, but her passion itself was clean as fire. Nothing, not even Maisie's innocence, Maisie's trust in her, could make her go back on it. Hard, wounding tears cut through her eyelids as she thought of Maisie, but she brushed them away and began counting the days till Jerrold should come back.

iii

He came back the first week in June, in time for the hay harvest. And it happened as she had foreseen.

It would have been dangerous for Jerrold to have left the house at night to go to the Manor Farm. At any moment he might have been betrayed by his own footsteps treading the passages and stairs, by the slipping of locks and bolts, the sound of the opening and shutting of doors. The servants might be awake and hear him; they might go to his room and find that he was not there.

But Colin's shelter stood in a recess on the lawn, open to the fields and hidden from the house by tall hedges of yew. Nobody could see him slip out into the moonlight or the darkness; nobody could hear the soft padding of his feet on the grass. He had only to run down the three fields and cross the belt of firs to come to Anne's shelter at the bottom. The blank, projecting wall of the mill hid it from the cottages and the Manor Farm house; the firs hid it from the field path; a high bank, topped by a stone wall, hid it from the road and Sutton's Farm. Its three wooden walls held them safe.

Night after night, between eleven and midnight, he came to her. Night after night, she lay awake waiting till the light rustling of the meadow grass told her he was there: on moonlit nights a quick brushing sound; in the thick blackness a sound like a slow shearing as he felt his way. The moon would show him clear, as he stood in the open frame of the shelter, looking in at her; or she would see him grey, twilit and mysterious; or looming, darker than dark, on black nights without moon or stars.

They loved the clear nights when their bodies showed to each other white under the white moon; they loved the dark nights that brought them close, shutting them in, annihilating every sensation but that of his tense, hard muscles pressing down, of her body crushed and yielding, tightening and slackening in surrender; of their brains swimming in their dark ecstasy.

They loved the warmth of each other's bodies in the hot windless nights; they loved their smooth, clean coolness washed by the night wind. Nothing, not even the sweet, haunting ghost of Maisie, came between. They would fall asleep in each other's arms and lie there till dawn, till Anne woke in a sudden fright. Always she had this fear that some day they would sleep on into the morning, when the farm people would be up and about. Jerrold lay still, tired out with satisfaction, sunk under all the floors of sleep. She had to drag him up, with kisses first and light stroking, then with a strong undoing of their embrace, pushing back his heavy arms that fell again to her breast as she parted them. Then she would wrench herself loose and shake him by the shoulders till she woke him. He woke clean, with no ugly turning and yawning, but with a great stretching of his strong body and a short, sudden laugh, the laugh he had for danger. Then he would look at his wrist watch and show it her, laughing again as she saw that this time, again, they were safe. And they would lie a little while longer, looking into each other's faces for the sheer joy of looking, reckless with impunity. And he would start up suddenly with, "I say, Anne, I must clear out or we shall be caught." And they would get up.

Outside, the world looked young and unknown in the June dawn, in the still, clear, gold-crystal air, where green leaves and green grass shone with a strange, hard lustre like fresh paint, and yet unearthly, uncreated, fixed in their own space and time.