Part 11

“Now I’m going to tell you the truth,” he said happily, and waited a moment for the luxury of her voice.

She was silent. He turned to look; her face was anxious.

“Why is it,” he said gently, “that when you announce you’re going to tell the truth, people always expect something disagreeable?”

Then he knew that the sand was chill and gritty. A breeze was blowing, the light was dim and meagre. This was not the glad forgiving sun but the cold and glassy moon.

“No, no!” she cried. “You must never tell the truth in a dream. If you do ... it happens.”

“But this was a lovely truth,” he began. A window snapped into brightness beside him, just above his head. Phyllis was looking from the pantry.

“George! What on earth are you muttering about out there? Come in and help me cut sandwiches.”

XVII

He was startled to find Phyllis at work in her nightgown. Another hallucination, perhaps, he thought sardonically. Everything seems to burlesque everything else.

She had thrown aside her blue quilted wrapper and was busy slicing and spreading. The table was crowded with bread, ham, beef, lettuce, mustard, jam, and cheese. The Picnic. George had forgotten the menace of the Picnic. It struck him as pathetic to see her valiantly preparing the details of this festival which was already doomed and damned. She was chopping off little brown corners of crust. Wasteful, as usual; besides, the crust is the best part. He managed not to say so, remembering that he had made the remark every time he had ever seen her cut sandwiches. The lace yoke at her neck had two tiny buds of blue ribbon stitched in it. There was something pitiably nuptial about them. How soft and young she was in her flimsy robe. Her eyes were smudged with fatigue. How beautiful she would have looked to any other man.

“My dear child, cutting sandwiches in your best nightgown.”

“I haven’t anything better to do in it, have I?”

“Yes, you have. Go to bed in it.”

He held the wrapper for her.

“Put this on. I’ll open the door. Whew, it’s hot in here. I’ll finish all this for you.”

The blade of the long carving knife continued, small definite crunches.

“You can have your sardines. I found a box in the pantry. There isn’t any key for them, you’ll have to use the can opener.”

The warm kitchen air was like a stupor. This was the steady heart of the house. Ghostly moonlight might wash up to the sill, fragile fancies pervade other rooms: here strong central life went calmly on. In the range red coals slept deep, covered and nourished for the long night. The tall boiler, its silvery paint flaked and dulled, gave off drowsy heat. Under the table the cat Virginia, who was not to be shocked, lay solidly upright with her paws tucked in, sated with scraps and vibrating a strong stupid purr. The high grimed ceiling was speckled with motionless flies, roosting there after a hard day. Packages of groceries, series of yellow bowls and platters, were ranged on the shelves in comfortable order. This was not a modern kitchen, shiny, white and sterile, like a hospital. It was old, ugly, inconvenient, strong with the memory of meals arduously prepared; meals of long ago, for people now vanished.

“The weather’s changing,” he said. “I don’t know if to-morrow will be fine or not.”

He wondered at himself: able to speak so lightly, as if everything was usual. His mind was still trudging back, up clogging sand hills, from a phantom bend of shore.

“If it rains, we’ll have our sandwiches at home. I’ve promised Lizzie the day off.”

He saw a quick horrible picture of the Picnic spread in the dining room, rain driving outside, the children peevish, themselves angrily mute.

“There’s cold chicken in the ice box; please get it out and slice it for salad sandwiches. I don’t think Mr. Martin cares much for beef, I noticed at lunch.”

“What does he think he is? Some kind of Messiah? If he doesn’t like our ways, what did he come butting in for?”

He checked himself. The moment was ripe for quarrel, the gross mustard-sharpened air seemed to suggest it. He put the carcass of fowl on the scrubbed drain board by the sink and began to carve. Standing so, his back was toward her. He made some pretext to turn, hoping to divine her mood; but her face was averted. There was ominous restraint in the shape of her back. The anticlimax of all this, the delicatessen-shop smell, after his ecstasy in the garden, fretted his nerves. Brutal shouts of wrath clamoured in his mind. It was infuriating to see her so appealing: can’t one _ever_ get away from it, must a man love even his wife? He wanted to ask her this, but feared she would miss the humour of it. He longed to horrify her with his rage, so that he could get rid of it and then show the tenderness he secretly felt. Certainly I’m the colossus of sentimentalists, he thought. I can turn directly from one kind of love to another. Queer, the way it looks now it’s my feeling for Joyce that is disinterested and pure, my love for Phyl that’s really carnal. How did this morality business get so mixed up?

He amused himself by putting the slivers of chicken in two piles: the dark meat for Martin, the white for Joyce. How white she had been in the surf.... But that was only a dream. This is real, this is earnest. This is Now, I’m cutting sandwiches for the Picnic. This is what Time is doing to me; what is it doing to her? How did our two Times get all knotted up together? He found himself affectionately stroking a smooth slice of chicken breast.

There was something in Phyllis’s silence that pricked him. He looked uneasily over his shoulder. She had sat down in the chair by the table, her chin leaning on one wrist, watching him. He went to her and touched her shoulder gently.

“Go to bed, Phyl dear.”

“George, can’t we get away from this house?”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Get away. Take me away, George; we’ll take the children and go. To-night. Before anybody wakes up.”

She rose suddenly.

“I’m frightened. Take me away. George, I can’t live through to-morrow, not if it’s like to-day.”

Just the way I feel, he thought.

“There, there, little frog, you’re all frazzled out. It’ll be all right, don’t worry. Go and get your sleep.”

“No, I’m not tired. I wish I were. I’m all burning up with _not_ being tired. George, we could take the babies and just get in the car and go. Go anywhere, anywhere where there isn’t anybody.--We’ll take Miss Clyde with us if you like. She’s frightened too.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“George, it would be such fun; when they all came down to breakfast, Ben and Ruth and Mr. Martin, we just wouldn’t be here. Never come back, never see this place again.”

“You’re raving, Phyl. Why, I took this house specially for you. Besides, you know I can’t go away now, I’ve got this booklet to finish.”

She looked so miserable, so desperate, his anger began to throb.

“You can write a booklet about something else. You know you can, they’re all crazy to get your stuff. George, you’re so big and clever, you can do anything. Miss Clyde can illustrate it. I don’t mind your loving her, I’ll be sensible, just take us away before the Picnic. Go and wake her now, she can go in her wrapper, you’ll like that.”

“Damnation,” he burst out, “don’t talk such tripe. I believe you’re crazy. It’s this half-wit Martin who’s got on your nerves. I’ve got a mind to wake _him_ up, throw him out of the house. What the devil did you ask him in for?”

“It’s my fault. But he’s changed so, since this morning. We’ve all changed. We’re not the same people we were.”

She pushed her arms up inside the sleeves of his coat and caught his elbows. He remembered that cherished way of hers, unconscious appeal to old tendernesses. He looked down on the top of her head, into the warm hollow where his head had lain. Her neck’s prettier than Joyce’s, he thought bitterly.

“It’s queer _you_ should hate him so,” she said.

“What do you mean?” He pulled his arms away.

“Oh, I don’t know what I mean. Perhaps he--perhaps he _is_ what you said.”

“What, a half-wit?”

“A kind of Messiah. They come to make silly people unhappy, don’t they?”

He looked at her in cold amazement and disgust. Only a few moments ago he had been afraid of her; but now, by showing her poor thoughts, she had put herself at his mercy.

“You go to bed,” he said. “I’m sick of this nonsense.” He gripped her shoulders roughly and pushed her toward the door.

“Please, just let me put away the sandwiches. I want to wrap them in wet napkins so they’ll keep fresh.”

“Forget the damn sandwiches.”

“Not damn, _ham_ sandwiches.” She couldn’t help laughing. It was so paltry to have him propelling her like a punishable child.

“Ham, jam, or damn, forget them!” he cried, raging. “You and your Messiah have ruined this Picnic anyhow. You spoiled it because you knew I looked forward to it. You’ve plotted against it, sneered at me and at Joyce because you knew I admired her.”

“Admired her! Oh, is that the word?”

The little sarcasm hummed like a tuning fork in some silent chamber of his mind.

“You fool,” he said. “Are you trying to push her into my arms?”

“I guess she can find the way without pushing.”

“Well, you _are_ a fool,” he said slowly, in a dull voice that struck her deeper than any temper could have done. “You throw away love as if it was breadcrusts.”

With a furious sweep he was about to hurl the neat piles of her handiwork on the floor. In one last salvage of decency he altered the course of his hand. He seized a fistful of the little brown strips of crust and flung them wildly across the room. The carving knife clattered off the table.

“You’re frightening Virginia,” was all she said.

Anger, the red and yellow clown, burst through the tight paper hoop of his mind and played grotesque unlaughable capers. Bewildered by his own ferocity he strode to the corner, swung open the door of the back stairs, and pointed savagely upward. She went without another word. Her blue eyes were very large and dark, they faced him with the unwavering defiance he detested and admired. Good old Phyl, he couldn’t help thinking. She’s unbeatable. Now, as usual, he had put himself in the wrong. He crashed the door behind her, and stood listening to her slow steps.

He soothed the cat with some sardine-tails, finished making the chicken sandwiches, wrapped them carefully as Phyllis had suggested. I wonder what we’ll be thinking when we eat them? As he put them away in the ice box he noticed the cocoanut cake on a shelf. With a sense of retaliation he cut himself a thick slice. He became aware of the scrambling tick of the alarm clock on the dresser. A quarter past eleven. The house was thrillingly still. The serenely dormant kitchen slowly sobered the buffoon dancing in his brain.

He fetched his precious bottle of Sherwood and poured a minim dose. The golden drug saluted him gently. In this fluid too the flagrant miracle lay hidden, the privy atom of truth and fury. The guest of honour, he thought ironically, feeling his vitals play host to that courteous warmth. The guest of honour, always expelled. A spark falls into your soul. Shall you cherish it, shelter it to clear consuming flame; or shall you hurry to stamp it out? Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned? The smell of burning cloth is mighty disagreeable. Vacantly he studied the label on the bottle. _Manufactured prior to Jan. 17, 1920. These spirits were tax paid at the non-beverage rate_ FOR MEDICINAL PURPOSES ONLY. _Sale or use for other purposes will subject the seller or user to very heavy penalties._ Well, certainly this is a Medicinal Use, he thought. “If ever a seaman wanted drugs, it’s me.” Where did the phrase come from?... Yes, old Billy Bones, in _Treasure Island_.

Well, these foolishnesses would have blown over by to-morrow. Do a little work on the booklet and then turn in. He must get the thing done, earn some money. The gruesome burden of expenses. How little Phyllis realizes the load a man’s mind carries. I suppose she carries one too, poor child. Every mind carries the weight of the whole world.

He was on hands and knees, picking up the scraps of crust that had fallen under the boiler. In a luxurious self-pity he found himself humming a hymn tune. Blessed solitude, where a man can sing to himself and admire the sweet sorrow of his own cadence! An almost forgotten poem came into his head and fitted pleasantly to the air.

_The Silver Girl she came to me when spring was dancing green, She said, “I’ve come to wait on you and keep your cabin clean; To wash your face and hands and feet, and make your forehead cool-- I’ll get you into Heaven yet, you Damned Old Fool!”_

Something in this appealed nicely to his mood. He allowed himself an encore. His voice, rising behind the stove, got a good resonance. Then he heard a footfall, a door opening. Ah, he thought, Phyl has come down to say she’s sorry for being so crude. Well, I’ll let her speak first. I’m tired of always being the one to make advances.

He waited, industriously gathering crusts, though he felt that the posture of Lazarus was not advantageous. There was no word.

“Well,” he said impatiently, “have you had enough of your funny business?”

He turned, and saw Nounou’s amazed face in the aperture of the back door. With an incoherent murmur he rose, took his bottle, and stalked out of the kitchen.

XVIII

“It would be interesting to speculate,” said page 38 of George’s treatise, “how such a cheery little town obtained the name Dark Harbour. Perhaps it was due to the scenic background of rugged hills that overlooks the picturesque old fishing port and reflects its invigorating pine woods in the water. At any rate, the future of the place is bright indeed. The Eastern Railroad’s express service now stops there, and large metropolitan interests have pledged themselves to the erection of a modern caravansary which will supplement the long famous ‘folksy’ hospitality of the Bayview Hotel. Separated only by a lengthy trestle from the mainland, the Island spreads its varied allure of rolling sand dunes, pine groves, and broad shallow beaches. Shaped like a crescent, its outward curve is buffeted by the mighty ocean; on the inner side, sheltered from easterly gales by the unique sand hills, is the comfortable cottage colony where a number of wise people have been vacationing for many years. Many artists have discovered the pictorial charm of the region, and find in the forests or in the maritime life of the Bay subjects for their water colours and oils. Canvases that have later become famous in academies and exhibitions have first felt the brush in those shingled studios clustered about the old inn, renowned for its savoury chowder. There is a brilliance in the air, an almost Italian richness of colour, in the Island’s landscape. It will be many years before so vast a terrain can become crowded, but many new bungalows have been built lately, and the newcomers pay tribute to the good taste of those who, a generation agone, divined Dark Harbour’s magic as a haven of summer tranquillity.”

He felt a rational pride in this composition. It was in the genially fulsome vein esteemed by railroad companies. Even if people weren’t tranquil, in a place so competently described, they ought to be. He thought there was a neatness in that touch about Dark Harbour and its bright future. Phyllis was probably right when she often said it was a shame Mr. Granville should spend his talents in mere publicity work when he might so easily write something famous--fiction, for instance. These are my fictions, he always replied, pointing to his private shelf of advertising pamphlets, neatly bound and gilded as his Works.

He had spread out his papers on the dining table, where he could write without seeing Joyce’s door. But he couldn’t seem to resume the flow of that slick treacly style, which the experienced brochurist can smoothly decant, like a tilted molasses barrel. The discomforting irony of the last word penetrated him. He changed “Italian richness” to “Italian passion,” but that was as far as inspiration carried him. It was vain to remind himself that Walter Scott had written novels all night long, that Napoleon had planned campaigns in the agony of stomach-ache, that Elbert Hubbard was never at a loss for a Little Journey. In a nervous fidget he pared his nails, sharpened pencils, rearranged the glasses on the sideboard, emptied Ben’s cigar débris from the living-room ash tray. He trod stealthily, in stocking feet, for fear of disturbing Joyce. Without his usual couch to sleep on, his usual table to work at, he felt homeless. There was a dull pain at the bottom of his ribs. He tried to remember whether he had unduly bolted his food at dinner. Perhaps he was going to have appendicitis.

He had a sort of insane desire to justify his existence, to atone for a day of such incredible futility by getting some work done. If every possible extraneous trifle could be attended to perhaps his mind might be calmed. He crept upstairs to clean his teeth and found that Phyllis had put his dressing gown and pyjamas and slippers on the window seat. Was that a softening overture, or a hint that she did not want him in the bedroom? He tiptoed warily to the balcony to glance at the children. Even in sleep Sylvia was still the coquette: she lay with one hand curled against her cheek, the most ravishing pose, her face a lovely fragile gravity. Janet was restless, muttering something about bathing.

He undressed, sitting on the window seat. With a vague notion of postponing the struggle with the pamphlet he went through his routine with unusual care, watching the details. He noticed for the first time his ingenious attempt to retain the tip of each sock, by curling his toes into it as he removed it. The purpose was evidently to turn the sock completely inside out in the one motion of stripping it off. For the first time in weeks he decided to fold his trousers neatly instead of just throwing them on a chair. He gave them a preliminary shake and found that the sand lodged in the cuffs flew unerringly into his eyes. He discovered that if he tried to put the left leg into his pyjamas first, instead of the right, it didn’t feel as though he had them on at all. The laundress had managed to let the end of the waist-string vanish inside its little tunnel of hem. It required some very sharp work to creep it out again. What a good booklet could be written, for some pyjama and underwear manufacturer, on The Technique of Getting Undressed. How pleasant that if you lay out your clothes just in the order of their discarding they are exactly serialized in the correct sequence for dressing to-morrow.

All this, he felt with subtle horror, was just a postponement of something inevitable, something he knew was coming but could not identify. Some great beauty of retribution had him in its onward march. He was unworthy of the glory of living, he had niggled and haggled and somewhere in his bunglings he had touched some fatal spring. He had broken some seal, let the genie out of the bottle. The little whiff of fragrant vapour had flowed and spread until it darkened the whole sky. It hung terrible above him and the four tiny Georges cowered beneath it. And behind and within every other thought was Joyce. He could see her, perfect, inaccessible, afraid. This dear device of Nature, this gay, simple ingenuity of dividing life into halves and making them hanker for one another! Oh, Joyce, Joyce, it _does_ matter. Joyce, I need you so.

A craven impulse tempted him to turn in at once, on the window seat; but its curved shape was not comfortable; moreover, how could he possibly sleep? Downstairs the big couch had a lamp by it; he could read, and while reading, think. The principal pleasure of reading, he had always found, is to fix the attention of the coarse outer mind, allowing the inner faculty to slip free. As he went down the clock startled him by counting midnight. He timed his step on the creaky treads so that the chime would cover them. But that settled it, he thought. One can _continue_ working after twelve, but one can’t possibly begin work at that hour. Besides, it’s impossible to be conscientious in dressing gown and slippers. Morals, conscience, ambition, all the cunning artifice of custom, are laid aside with the garments of the day. The sophistries of virtue avail you nothing now. The thing in your heart that you are angriest at and most ashamed of, that is God. And that’s what gods are invented for: to be despised and rejected. A god who was honoured and welcomed, how unhappy he would be.

He lay down on the couch with a book, but his mind ran wild behind the printed lines. The weight and breathing of the silent house pressed about him. How well he knew that feeling of a house at night. All the others, broken at last by the day’s long war of attrition, lost in their silence; himself the sole survivor, gleaning stupidly over the battlefield. Matching his lonely wit against destiny, aware of a shuddering compassion for these unruly lives under his charge. What was it that kept them all going? Only his dreams, his poor busy ideas. For the moment he could feel the whole fabric transfigured with truth and tenderness; with love that was furious and clean, with work that was sane and absorbing. What did he really care whether thousands of people did or did not spend their summer on the Great Scenic Route of the Eastern Railroad? Or whether they bedded on the Morrison Mattress, that Makes Sleep a Career?

He slipped to his knees beside the sofa, but he could not even pray. He was aware of the door behind him, and of Phyllis in the room overhead. How terrible if any one should find him on his knees. Praying is only respectable if done in congregations. He remembered those cold evenings long ago, when he and Phyllis couldn’t sleep unless she were pressed close behind him, her arm across his chest. And now he was living among strangers. I’ll do whatever you tell me, I’ll do whatever you tell me. But by heaven he had glimpsed it: he had seen beauty within breath and grasp: too close to mar it by selfishness. No, said his demon, you shan’t even have the consolation of fine words. You shall have all the mockery and none of the bliss.

I suppose biology’s pulling my leg, he reflected....

He must have been kneeling there a long time. His forehead was numb from pressing on the ridged tapestry of the couch. At least you don’t need the light on when you’re trying to pray. The bills are big enough as it is. He rose stiffly and snicked off the current.

At the foot of the stair he paused. If Joyce were awake he might hear her stir. His hand gripped the carved newel, then slid onto the smooth ascent of the banister rail. He stood a moment, and turned away.

* * * * *

The bedroom was dim. The blinds were not all the way down, dregs of that sparkling moonlight flowed underneath. Phyllis was asleep, he could see her head against the white linen. She lay as she always did, at the far side of the bed, turned away from the door, her arms crossed, one hand perching on her shoulder, the other tucked under the pillow. He went softly round the foot of the bed, stepping aside to avoid her slippers. He knew by instinct exactly where they would be.

Crouched at the bedside, he slid one arm under the pillow to find her hand. His fingers met a small damp handkerchief.

He gathered her into his arms. Out of some far-off vacancy she moved drowsily and welcomed him home. They knew every curve of their old embrace. Here was no fear and no doubting. Here was his consolation. Who was ever more beautiful? The tiny flattened handkerchief, was it not a pathetic symbol of the bruised mercies of love? Ah, be slow to mock the plain, simplest things: good-byes, angers, fidelities, renunciations.