The Red and The Green Part 9

'Jinny's away.'

'What's the matter with her?'

'She's pregnant.'

'Oh-' This sudden intrusion of someone else's troubles into the recital of his own left him for the moment confused.

'Didn't you see her crying the other day on the stairs?'

'No.' In fact Barney had noticed Jinny crying on the stairs, but he had been hurrying to see Millie at the time and he had forgotten her tears the moment after. The lie was too base. He put his hand to his cheek and muttered, 'Yes, I did see her crying, but I was in a hurry and I forgot.'

'You're always in a hurry. You're always forgetting. You're only half here.'

'Poor Jinny. What can we do?'

'Very little. But you might go and see her for instance. The doctor's told her to stop work. And you know what that place she lives in is like.'

'Go and see her?' Barney was about to p.r.o.nounce it impossible. Then he sat down abruptly in the nearest chair. He had been ready in imagination to open his compa.s.sionate arms to the whole world. And now he was scarcely able to bring himself to visit a poor servant girl who was in trouble. He said aloud, 'What is the matter with me?'

'You know what's the matter with you. You're so sunk in yourself you hardly know that anybody else exists at all. Why don't you this Easter-'

'Well, and what about you?' said Barney raising his head. He forgot all about Jinny. 'Aren't you sunk in yourself? Do you know that I exist? You don't seem to. All you-'

The door of the drawing-room swung silently open and a figure appeared. It was Cathal, carrying a tray. He circled Barney adroitly and put the tray down on one of the bra.s.s-topped tables with a light clatter. 'Why, Mother, how dark it is in here! It's raining cats and dogs outside. Shall I light the gas?'

A match flared at once in his hand, and Cathal was moving along the wall lighting up the gas mantels. Each mantel flickered a pale orange under its silk beaded shade, and then as Cathal turned the tap glowed into a globe of brilliant white. The room lightened and the rainy window darkened as the gas hissed quietly.

'I just wet the tea,' said Cathal, returning to the tray. 'I thought I'd bring some up. Oh, I wish I'd remembered to light the fire, I meant to now poor Jinny's away. There, Mother.' He poured out a cup of tea and handed it to Kathleen.

Kathleen looked up at him, smiling. Her face, pearly-golden in the soft glow of the gas, seemed still a little tearful and puckered, as if it had been lightly plucked at, but her features drooped with a calm, loving weariness, the brow bland and the big eyes bright with affection as she lifted an almost ecstatic gaze upon her son. Cathal, with his gauchely deliberate grace, trampled about her for a moment as if he were weaving some invisible protective coc.o.o.n. He pressed his dark hair back behind his ears, giving his mother his intense close-eyed stare. His whole figure was sharp with youth and brilliant with consciousness. Then he turned to Barney.

'Here, for you,' he said. He never called Barney by any name, but he spoke now in a low coaxing voice as if to an ill person. He handed him the tea. 'And look, I've got you your biscuits. Those special biscuits you like. The lemon creams. I got them at Upton's. I had to queue up.'

Barney looked at the tray. He saw the plate with his special biscuits, the lemon creams, which Cathal had queued up to get at Upton's.

He felt the tears rising to his eyes. He saw Cathal close to him and saw as if it were a separate thing, a pa.s.sing bird, Cathal's hand moving in a gesture towards the tray, urging him to eat. He took hold of the boy's hand. Some sort of confused words seemed to be coming up with the tears. 'You are so good to me. You are innocent and pure in heart. Oh, remain so always. Do not ever let evil into your life. Forgive me.' He lifted Cathal's hand to his lips and kissed it.

There was a moment of silence and immobility. Then Cathal stepped back, a little confused and embarra.s.sed. He hesitated, and then put his hand on Barney's shoulder, squeezing it slightly. He turned quickly to his mother. 'Well, I'll go and get the sticks to light the fire-' He was gone from the room.

Barney stood up. His sudden consciousness of Cathal's goodness, his equally sudden and automatic unconsciousness of himself, made him light and bouyant. He felt he had had a revelation.

'So you're drunk,' said Kathleen. 'I hadn't realized it. But I might have known.'

'I'm not drunk!' Was he? Did he always know now whether he was drunk or not? He turned his back to her and the tears spilled out on to his cheeks. It was unjust. He had, for one good moment, spoken to his stepson with the voice of pure love, and all his wife could think of to say was that he was drunk. All right, he was drunk. The tears seemed uncontrollable. They were drunken tears.

He saw through a haze the crucifix upon the wall. He said, 'Where did we lose the way, Kathleen? Can we not find some love for each other?'

His wife was silent.

Barney blundered to the door. He did not want to meet Cathal again. And as he went up the stairs to his room the awful black consciousness of Millie returned to him. He unlocked his door. There was the Lee Enfield rifle leaning in the corner. He sat down at the table and rubbed his tears away. Then he gathered together the scattered pages of his Memoir and began quickly to write.

Chapter Eleven.

The misty rosary of morn, my fair, Marks me your footprints in the holy dew.

Daylight is amethystine where you are And every floweret of the dawn is you!

Such festal favours feed the sanguine day, Our plighting day that blushes graciously!

You are its glow, its glimmer and its ray Which falls from far into the deeps of me.

Now as you trip with little tiny steps, Your petal hands and water-crystal voice, Your flower-fragrant, oh-so-sighed-for lips Make my dull essence tremble and rejoice.

Oh thou my dawn, in thee my noonday glints, In thee my sun sets with a million tints.

It was early on Thursday morning and Andrew had at last decided that it was time formally to propose to Frances. He was glad that he had waited. He knew now that he had not been idly prevaricating. They had been parted, after all, for a matter of over a year, since Frances' visit to England early in the war, and there was a little strangeness to be got over. He had been upset by his return to Ireland, upset by the fuss and flurry of his mother, upset by his relations. Only now had he, with a certain cool relentlessness, calmed himself and begun to favour Frances with his complete attention.

He had penned the sonnet late last night at Claresville, where he had been camping out with his mother for two nights now, doing the innumerable jobs which had to be finished before the furniture arrived. He looked his effort over with satisfaction. He was pleased with 'amethystine', which provided just that vivid dash of colour which Andrew, a disciple of Gautier, knew that any poem must have. 'Amethystine' emphasized and developed the image of the sparkling dew in which Frances' footsteps, from which of course the epithet 'holy' was transferred, were spread out like a rosary or rosy necklace. 'Little tiny steps' was not perhaps quite realistic as Frances rather tended to stride along, but it was symbolically right, expressing the tripping, gliding motion of the beloved compared to the slow breaking of the dawn. The half-rhymes which he had failed to eliminate troubled him a little, but a friend at Cambridge who published poetry in the Cornhill Magazine had told him that half-rhymes were now an allowable device. Andrew himself had once nearly had a poem in the Cornhill. The Editor had sent it back with a very friendly note.

The thought that he was shortly going to make himself and Frances so extremely happy made Andrew quite dazed with pride. Suddenly he was omnipotent, the benevolent despot of his little world. He would make everybody happy. He would lay an egg of pure good which would nourish them all. Humility followed pride. He did not deserve this sweet clever girl. A sort of laughing rapture followed the humility, because of course he knew he did deserve her, or rather knew he didn't really feel he didn't! This peculiar private exultation merged into a diffused physical desire. His physical feelings about Frances had always been muddled and fluctuating. He had never really wanted any other girl. Yet he had not always sharply wanted her. Now it was as if his desires were coming into focus and revealing Frances unambiguously as their object. In this self-finding and self-defining Andrew more plainly realized how much he had been afraid of physical love. He had not shared the obvious and obsessive fears which drove his brother officers to places he would shudder to visit. But he had deep deep fears all the same. And with a calmness of resolution it occurred to him that if he could properly conquer those fears all other fears would be conquered too; or if not conquered, at least they would receive an intelligible place. The blind black hole in his consciousness which was the awful prospect of returning to France would be lightened, filled with manageable items. Once married there would be no more nightmare.

Andrew had been extremely upset by his encounter with Pat Dumay. The memory that he had been so undignified and stupid as to taunt his cousin made him hot with shame and on the following day he had been able to think of nothing else. Immediately afterwards he had wished to apologize but had been prevented, perhaps fortunately, by the presence of Cathal. A straight apology stammered out upon the occasion of the fault would only have made things worse. He had, however, very much wanted to see Pat alone, had in fact all through Tuesday pined and fretted simply with this desire. He felt, with an almost physical humiliation, how absurdly much he had counted on achieving with Pat, now that they were both grown-up, some quite remarkable friendship. Pat's magic for him had not faded, and entering the Blessington Street drawing-room on Monday he had felt the pang of a delicious fear.

On Wednesday morning, in order to escape from his mother and to think some decisive thoughts about Frances, he walked over from Dalkey to Killiney and stood on the beach in a hollow of blue conical mountains. Here there came to him a great enlightenment and a great peace. He would never be friends with Pat. Pat belonged to some other race of men. Even if he were to seek Pat out and somehow beg his pardon, even if he were to seek Pat out and somehow defy him, the response would be the same. Pat would be cool, ironical, amused, polite, distant, and finally bored. The realization that there are people we shall never conquer comes to us as a part of the process of growing up. With a clarity of mind which he felt did him credit, and which brought with it a new moral vigour, Andrew faced the fact that Pat was a lost cause. Now was the time to think of Frances and of Frances only.

Standing with his bare feet in the freezing sea he told himself that he had become a realist. He would take Frances away to England, at once if possible. And after the war he would insist on his mother's return to England. After all he was a man and a soldier and must be expected to exert some authority over a female parent. The obvious idea that his mother need not stay over here forever came to him with a revelation of how much, up to now, he had sheerly been afraid of Ireland. It had seemed like a dark pit full of demons. Now it was suddenly clear that he had only to snap his fingers at these chained-up bogeys. Having 'given up' Pat Dumay was perhaps the crucial step. Henceforth he would act like a free person. He saw himself suddenly in the future, a strong pater familias, ruling his womenfolk and his children with a benevolent firmness. Even the idea of making Frances pregnant before he returned to the Front was no longer distasteful. Even the idea that he might never survive to see his son was now something at which he could look.

The sand and pebbles in the shallow foam beat on his feet which were almost too cold to feel pain. He stepped back and hobbled to a rock and began to dry his benumbed feet on his socks. A moving shaft of sunlight came across the beach and made the sea sparkle in front of him and gave him a shadow on the sand. His thoughts reverted to the matter of his Aunt Millicent. Millie, as he now rather self-consciously thought of her, had never in fact been very far from his mind since the incident of the lapis lazuli earring. He had wondered again and again whether she had dropped the earring into the pool on purpose. He kept coming to the delightful conclusion that probably she had, and smiled every time he reached it. The situation in which she had put him, of having to make teatime conversation while at the same time keeping the earring under control in some reasonably secure part of his underclothing, had embarra.s.sed him exceedingly at the time and amused him exceedingly afterwards. He felt, about it all, a sense of achievement. He had returned the earring in an envelope next day with a short note which, after numerous re-writings, simply read: And thank you for my tea! Really the little drama had excited Andrew quite considerably. He was not sure whether he had been played with as a child or flirted with as an adult, but again successive examinations of the subject brought the more flattering conclusion. His charming aunt had flirted with him. Andrew had never been flirted with in quite this way by an older woman. There came with it, with Millie herself, the faintest whiff of wickedness which he laughed to find so attractive. Women were gay and beautiful and he was young and free. But of course he knew this in any case. And Millie was only his aunt.

He was young and free, but now he was going to bind himself to the dearest girl in the world. He was so happy to find himself eager, to find, when it came to it, no grain of regret. He could give his whole heart. He had rehea.r.s.ed the scene so often in imagination. Only he had not antic.i.p.ated the sonnet. That arrived, sent by the G.o.ds at just the right moment, like an engagement present. He decided that he would, her clothes permitting, tuck the sonnet into the front of Frances' dress. Then he laughed to think that he was copying Millie. There was also the matter of the ring. On the previous day Hilda, displaying for once some sense of the tempo of others, had produced for him a gold ring set with a ruby and two diamonds which she had got in Dublin with Christopher's help and which she said she was sure would fit Frances. She handed it over to him with no further admonitions. The ring, when Andrew brooded over it later, seemed an almost heartbreakingly beautiful and significant object. Suddenly the romance, the sweetness, the innocence of his union with Frances came before him with an intensity which wrought him to tears.

Now on Thursday morning he was waiting in the garden, waiting near the red swing for Frances to come out of the house. She had been busy with some domestic task when he arrived and had told him to await her outside. Andrew, who had earlier envisaged, indeed planned, the scene quite calmly, now felt dizzy with excitement. He had the sonnet in one pocket of his jacket and the ring wrapped up in his handkerchief in the other pocket. He kept fingering them both and the sonnet was becoming rather crumpled. His heart was. .h.i.tting his side as if it wanted to fly out of him like a cannon ball and his breath came in short desperate sniffs of the quiet stifling morning air. The day, bright to begin with, had clouded over. He began to fiddle with the swing, and then turned to find Frances quite close to him.

The dear girl was looking so beautiful this morning, her plump round face rosy and smooth, cool and sleek as the surface of an apple. It was one of the days when she revealed her big brow, and her hair was pushed back, still in something of an early morning tangle, behind her ears. She was wearing a long grey dress of coa.r.s.e cotton, rather like a nurse's overall, caught in at the waist, and over it rather quaintly one of Christopher's tweed jackets, caught up no doubt as she left the house. She had turned up the collar of the jacket round her neck and her hands were thrust into the pockets. She had never looked sweeter.

Seeing something portentous in Andrew's look, Frances was silent waiting for him to speak.

Trembling all over he began. 'My dearest Frances, I have something of very great importance to ask you. I wonder if you can at all guess what it is?' His voice trembled and quavered too.

'No,' said Frances.

'I wish you to do me the honour of becoming my wife.'

There was a silence. Then Frances abruptly turned her back upon him.

Andrew stood quite still, staring at the tousled pile of Frances' dark hair appearing over the top of Christopher's jacket. He felt startled and breathless as if he had inadvertently struck her. He had not realized that his sudden words would arouse so much emotion in her. But of course the gracious imaginary Frances was not thus taken by surprise. He put out a rea.s.suring hand to touch her sleeve. Without turning she moved a step away.

'Frances-'

'Hang on a minute, Andrew.'

The silence continued. Andrew stood staring at her back. His hands in his two pockets twisted the sonnet and fumbled the ring. A light wind was blowing now from the sea, stirring the chestnut tree and the tall leaves of the montbretia, stirring the red swing.

Frances began to turn slowly about. Her hands had not left her pockets. But now she raised one and drew it over her face as if erasing whatever expression had been there before. She coughed, as if a cough would set some helpful tone of ordinariness. Then she said, 'Thank you very much, Andrew.'

Andrew stared at her face. It was the strongest face he had ever seen her wear and the grimmest. Her long mouth curved downwards at the corners with a positive force and her eyes were wrinkled into what seemed two dark narrow rectangles.

'Frances-'

'Oh , my dear-'

'Frances, darling, what is it? Don't be upset.'

'Andrew, it's that I can't say yes. At least, I can't just say yes.'

Andrew opened his fingers and drew them out of his pockets. He wiped his hands together. 'I see-'. He felt completely confused and frightened. He felt as if he were in the presence of Frances for the first time, as if the real Frances had just broken through a screen upon which a picture of her had been painted. It was difficult to put words together. Speech between them had been a kind of silence. Now suddenly it had become something noisy, crackling, arduous. 'What do you mean by "just", that you can't "just" say yes?'

Frances seemed to find it equally difficult to speak. She stared down at the ground. 'Well, I can't say yes. But I mean it isn't that things are different. It's just-oh dear-'

'But, but-you do love me? You haven't stopped loving me?' He had never known a world without Frances' love.

'Of course I love you.'

'And I love you, dearest Frances, and I want you to be my wife. I expect you're cross with me because I didn't say anything sooner, but you see-'

'It's not that and I'm not cross with you. I'm cross with myself.'

'I don't understand.'

'We've both taken it-so much for granted-too much for granted. And, everyone else a.s.suming it too. It hasn't somehow been quite right-'

'I see. You feel I ought to have courted you properly-that we know each other too well. But I will court you-'

'No, no nonsense like that. You see in a way we are like brother and sister.'

'I don't feel we are like brother and sister at this moment,' said Andrew. He had never found Frances more ferociously attractive. She looked up at him quickly. 'And neither do you,' he added.

She gazed at him, her fiercely controlled face relaxing a little. 'Yes. Odd. Well, not odd. But, Andrew, I'm sorry. I've given you a rotten answer.'

'You've given me an incomprehensible answer. But I do understand about-how it's all been taken for granted. As if we weren't private people. I've felt funny about that too. But that can't have spoilt everything. Suppose we were to start again at the beginning as if we'd never met?'

'But we can't-'

'I don't know. For the last five minutes I've been talking to a most exciting stranger.'

'I feel like that too. But it's just that our friendship has had a shock. Oh, dearest Andrew, I do love you-'

'In that case-Frances, is there somebody else?'

'No, of course not,'

'Well, then-is it just that you'd like to wait a bit? We may have known each other since childhood, but we haven't seen a lot of each other lately. Maybe we need time to get used to each other again.'

'There's been so much sort of-quiet pressure-'

'Of course, of course. I know, all these people expecting us to get married next week-it's awful-and I know-for a girl -Oh, Frances, I'm sorry I've been so stupid. What you're really saying to me is yes, only let's wait a longer time before getting married. That's it, isn't it?'

'Well, no it isn't quite. I'm not saying that.'

'Then you're saying no?'

'Not exactly-but I have to be fair-I can't tie you-'

'But I am tied-I love you. You mean you are saying no?'

'You're forcing me to say no!'

'No, I'm not. I'm just trying to understand,' he said, miserably.

'I can't tie you,' she repeated, 'so if you force me to say something I've got to say no.'

'I'm not forcing you to say anything. I'm just asking you to marry me. I would have asked you much sooner if I'd thought you'd changed.'

'But I haven't changed.'

'You must have. I just want to know what your feelings are. Do you want me to wait a while and ask you again?'

'Perhaps I do-but this is so unfair, so unfair. I should only say no again. It's that I don't want to hurt you and I want everything to be happy like it was.' She closed her eyes and a great many tears streamed down her cheeks. She took a large white handkerchief smelling of tobacco out of the pocket of Christopher's jacket and blew her nose. It was beginning to rain.

'Well,' said Andrew, 'I'll ask you again later.'

'I should only say no again,' she said in a frantic tone.

'I'll ask you all the same.'

They stood for a moment silently in the light rain, each looking down at the other's feet. Frances said, 'Please don't say anything about this to anyone just yet, not for a few days. I'll have to break it to my father first-and I'll have somehow to find the right moment.'

'All right. But I can't hold out very long. My mother will be so upset-and I'm not very good at telling lies.'

'Oh, Andrew, forgive me. Oh dear, I must think, I must think. Won't you come in and have some coffee? It's really going to rain hard.'