The Sea, The Sea Part 15

'Well,' said t.i.tus, and there was at last a look of admiration, 'let's just suppose... that you did... ask her to come and see me...'

I was lying in tall luscious green gra.s.s which was just coming out into pink feathery flower. The gra.s.s was cool and very dry and squeaked slightly as I moved. I was lying on the edge of the wood, on the far side of the footpath, just level with the garden of Nibletts. I was holding a pocket mirror. Hartley had just come out into the garden.

t.i.tus had promised, for the future, nothing. He had treated the matter with an affected cynicism and had allowed me no glimpse of the emotions which were certainly there behind it. He pretended to treat the whole thing almost as a joke, a game, at any rate as something which he was prepared to do simply to oblige me, for the h.e.l.l of it, to 'see what happened'. He had agreed to stay on, 'since he had nothing better to do', and to 'say h.e.l.lo' to his mother. Though he added, with a slightly grimmer note, that he was pretty sure she would not come.

That remained to be seen; and it was also unclear to me how exactly, after all those years during which she 'went along' with Ben because she 'had to', he felt about her. Where and how did forgiveness figure in that scene? Mercy, loyalty, love? Was I not perhaps meddling with something dreadful?

Unpredictable it certainly was. What kept me more boldly on was an optimism which t.i.tus himself had rather crazily engendered with that image of the three of us living together in the south of France! If he he would stick to me, and would stick to me, and she she would come out, there would be, for all of us, some tremendous spiritual release, like the sudden ecstasy which t.i.tus and I had experienced in the sea. I would come out, there would be, for all of us, some tremendous spiritual release, like the sudden ecstasy which t.i.tus and I had experienced in the sea. I would would make her happy, I would. And I would make him happy and successful and free. make her happy, I would. And I would make him happy and successful and free.

Another matter had come up between us after t.i.tus had agreed, as he again cynically put it, to be a 'hostage'. After he had agreed to stay on, if I wished it, 'for a while', I had said casually, boldly, 'You haven't anyone waiting for you then anywhere? I mean a girl or anything?'

He said rather stiffly, 'No. There was somebody. But that's over.'

I wondered: did he then come to me in loneliness, in desperation? And if so would this not make him all the more ready to accept my overtures my love?

It was the evening of the same day. There seemed no point in waiting longer. I had even told Gilbert the outline of the plan, though part of it I still concealed, even from t.i.tus. Gilbert, who was now to play the key part which I had envisaged earlier, was enjoying the whole drama disgracefully. I had waited, hidden in the wood, for nearly an hour when Hartley appeared. There was no sign of the gentleman. I watched her for a moment quietly. She was wearing the yellow dress with the brown flower pattern, and over it a loose blue overall. She walked a little awkwardly, her shoulders hunched, her head down, her hands deep in the pockets of the overall. She came down to the end of the garden and stood there for a while, like an animal, staring dully at the gra.s.s. Then she lifted her head and started looking at the sea, image of an inaccessible freedom. Then she removed one hand from her pocket and touched her face. She must be crying. I could scarcely bear it.

Cautiously I uncovered the pocket mirror and leaning forward tilted it to catch the sun. The little running bright reflection, like a tiny live creature, appeared at once upon the hillside just below the garden. I was careful to keep it well away from the house. I brought the brilliant little patch of light slowly up the hill towards her feet; and in a moment I knew that she had noticed it, and that she realized what it meant. This was a trick which we used to play on each other in summers when we were children. I sent the flash up for a moment to her face, and then began to lead it away, making a line across the gra.s.s in the direction of the wood.

Hartley stood staring towards me. I rose to a kneeling position and gently stirred the creamyflowering branch of an elder bush. Hartley made a gesture, lifting her hand to her throat. Then she turned and moved back towards the house. I nearly called out with vexation, but then realized that she was probably going to check on Ben's activity and whereabouts. Perhaps he was riveting china. I waited for an anxious minute, and then she came out again, minus the overall, ran to the fence, stooped through the wire, and came running across the gra.s.s towards me.

I retreated a bit into a little glade underneath an ash tree. A large branch had been wrenched from the tree by some winter gale, and through the gap the sun shone down upon a wild rose bush in pallid flower and a ma.s.s of fading cow parsley and b.u.t.tercups. I stood beside the ash tree whose dense-textured grey smooth trunk brought back some elusive childhood memory connected with Hartley. I could now see her thrusting aside the big flat flower-heads of the elder. In a moment she had come to me, and I noticed how she instinctively avoided the patch of sunlight.

I put my arms around her and she consented to be held, a little stiff, bowing her head. I drew my hand down her back, pressing her against me, feeling her soft warmth, my knee touching her knee. She sighed and turned her head sideways but her hands still hung limply. The warmth of her body beneath the frail dress made me close my eyes and almost forget my plan and its urgency.

'Oh, Hartley, my darling, my own.'

'You shouldn't have come.'

'I love you.' I sat down at the foot of the tree, leaning against it, and drew her down beside me. I wanted her to lie relaxed with her head on my breast. 'Come. We were often like this, weren't we. Remember?' But she would not. I saw her in the sunny shady light, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s straining the b.u.t.tons other dress, as so much lovelier, so much like her old self, as if some wood-land magic had made her young again.

She knelt beside me, clasping one of my hands, and staring at me with her big darkened eyes. Then, suddenly, and tenderly, she lifted my hand and kissed it.

This gesture moved and upset me so much that it actually served to bring me to my senses. The urgent matter was to get the girl away, and I had not even started my argument.

'Hartley, my little one, you do love me, oh, I'm so glad! But listen, I've got something to tell you. Where is he?'

'He's out. I just went to make sure. But, oh you shouldn't have come like this'

'Where to, how long?'

'He's gone to see a man about a dog. He'll be some time.'

'A dog?'

'Yes. It's quite a long way, over at Amorne Farm. And as it's such nice weather he decided to walk.'

'Walk? I thought he was crippledhad a bad leg'

'His leg's stiff, it slows him down, but he likes walking, and the exercise does him good. You see, there was an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the shop, they were going to have a dog put down if they couldn't find an owner, it's a Welsh collie, a grown-up dog, not a puppy. It's not good with the sheep. And we thought we'd look at it. We rang up and they sounded very nice, some people called Arkwright.'

'Oh Arkwright. But you didn't go you decided to stay here in case I came'

'Ben thought I'd better not be there, I would get all excited about the dog and he'd rather decide by himself. It's always a risk taking a grown-up dog'

'Hartley, listen. t.i.tus is back. He's at my house.'

She toppled sideways into the gra.s.s, releasing my hand. ' No No'

'Yes. He doesn't want to see him himonly youhe very much wants to see you. Come, come quickly.'

't.i.tusbut why did he come to you? Oh how strange, how awful awful'

' I thought you'd be glad!'

'But that he should come to you youoh dear, what shall I do, what shall I do do' She was suddenly a whimpering distracted child.

'Come and see him, come on, get up get up.' I pulled her up. 'What's the matter, don't you want to see your son, isn't it wonderful that he's back?'

'Yes, wonderfulbut I must stay heretell him to come here. He mustn't say he was with you'

'He won't come here, that's the point! Come on. Hartley, stop behaving like a sleepwalker, move, act! He'll never come here, you know that. Come along, he's waiting for us. There'll be plenty of time to see him before Ben gets back. I've got a car waiting at the bottom of the hill.' I began to pull her back towards the meadow and the footpath, but she resisted, mad-deningly sitting down again on the ground.

'But tell me, t.i.tusis he?'

'Oh hurry! If you want t.i.tus not to say he saw me you'd better come along and tell him yourself!'

This argument, vague enough, seemed to impress her, at any rate touched her through her panic.

'All right, but I'll only stay a few minutes, and you must bring me back at once!'

'Yes, yes, yes'I pulled her to her feet again.

'And we must stay in the wood, someone might see us'

'I thought you didn't know anybody here! Now do hurry'

We went down by the woodland path. It was overgrown in places and rather dark and we stumbled along, whipped by twigs, clung to by brambles, and constantly impeded by little saplings growing in the middle of the pathway. The sheer stupid awkwardness of our progress made me want to scream. Hartley's body moving beside me was jerky and clumsy, it was like conducting a log of wood. We came out bedraggled and panting, onto the coast road. Gilbert had drawn the Volkswagen up onto the gra.s.s verge. When he saw us emerging he started the engine and backed towards us. A few days of seaside holiday had transformed Gilbert. He looked younger, fitter, even his white curls were looser and more natural. He had been to the Fishermen's Stores and kitted himself out with plimsolls and light canvas trousers and a big loose cotton jersey which he now wore over a white shirt. He had left off the deplorable make-up. These were fine times for Gilbert. He was a necessary man. He was helping me to acquire a woman other than Lizzie, and he was engaged in an adventure which featured a charming boy. His eyes blazed with vitality and curiosity. I handed Hartley into the back of the car and got in after, suddenly trying to see each of them through the eyes of the other. Gilbert appeared as a handsome well-fed rather wealthy-looking holiday gentleman. The butler act was switched off. Now he was playing a man who owned a yacht. But no, I could not imagine how Gilbert saw my darling, or what he had expected the 'one love' to be like.

'This is my friend Mr Opian. Mrs Fitch. Step on it, Gilbert.'

Hartley turned to me as the car sped along the coast road, but she said nothing. She clutched, perhaps unconsciously, the sleeve of my jacket with one hand. I sat relaxed, content to feel the touch other fingers and other knee. Her eyes had their violet tint and her face the strained fey expression which when she was young had made her look so desirably wild. Now it made her look almost mad. I found myself smiling with joy at the enclosed safe feeling of the car, at its speed. The sense of a successful escape was overwhelming. I smiled at her crazily.

When the car stopped at the causeway she was reluctant to get out. 'Does he know I'm coming?

Couldn't he come out here to the car?'

'Hartley, darling, do what you're told!'

When I had got her out Gilbert, as instructed, drove the car on. It disappeared round the corner in the direction of the Raven Hotel.

I had told t.i.tus to stay in the kitchen, but when we were half-way across the causeway he opened the front door.

I had been so absorbed in my mind with the mechanical detail of my plan that I had not really reflected upon what this meeting would be like. My intentions had far overleapt it and my hopes were a.s.sembling a much less awkward future. Now however I was jerked back into the present and an alarmed confused sense of what I had brought about.

As soon as she saw t.i.tus, Hartley stopped and an almost terrible change came over her face. Her mouth opened and drooped in an ugly way as if she might cry and her eyes half closed and her forehead had the 'pitted' appearance which I had seen before; only what all this expressed was not shock or some sad overwhelming joy, but guilt and supplication. At the same time she quite unconsciously spread out her hands wide on either side other, again not for an embrace but as a pet.i.tion. I took all this in quickly and was so instantly hurt hurt by it I wanted to cry out, stop, stop! I wanted to interfere mercifully as between two unequal combatants. But I was already excluded from the scene. t.i.tus came forward, frowning, manly, with screwed-up eyes, determined to be hard and calm and display no emotion. He could not however conceal, for it showed in his every gesture, even in the way he walked, that he was bent on raising a suppliant. He came to Hartley and somehow gruffly gathered her, hustling her towards the door. I saw him push her in through the doorway, his hands in the middle other back. I hastened to follow. by it I wanted to cry out, stop, stop! I wanted to interfere mercifully as between two unequal combatants. But I was already excluded from the scene. t.i.tus came forward, frowning, manly, with screwed-up eyes, determined to be hard and calm and display no emotion. He could not however conceal, for it showed in his every gesture, even in the way he walked, that he was bent on raising a suppliant. He came to Hartley and somehow gruffly gathered her, hustling her towards the door. I saw him push her in through the doorway, his hands in the middle other back. I hastened to follow.

When I got in they were already conversing, standing in the hall, and I felt: it's not like mother and son. And yet why not? Family relations are all awkward, funny. Or had Hartley never managed to become become his mother, never been allowed to? What his mother, never been allowed to? What would would they say? they say?

'We didn't know where you were, where you'd gone, we tried and tried to find out, we did try, we did ask' This as if t.i.tus were accusing her of having failed to find him.

'Yes, yes, I'm all right, I'm perfectly all right, I'm fine,' answering a question not put yet.

'And you are well and have your work or are you stillwhere are you living?'

'I'm unemployed and I'm not living anywhere.'

'We left our address with the people in case you'd lost it, in case you came back. And I wrote a letter'

'It's all right, Mary, it's all right'

To check this conversation which I found somehow awful (I could not bear to hear him rea.s.suring her and calling her 'Mary') I said, 'Why don't you go through to the kitchen? Would you like a drink?' I needed one, and in their situation I would have been frantic for one, but neither of them seemed to feel the necessity and in fact they ignored the question.

t.i.tus went through into the kitchen and Hartley followed and they stood beside the table, holding on to it, and looking at each other with stricken glaring faces. Hartley's look expressed timid supplication and fear, his a kind of shamed disgusted pity. There was so much pain in the room, it was like a physical barrier. I stood watching them, wanting to help, to interrupt. 'Won't you have some supper? Let's have some supper, shall we? Let's talk'

t.i.tus said, 'Of course I never lost your address.'

Hartley said, 'I mustn't stay. Would you like to come over to our place? But you mustn't say you've been here. Would you like?'

t.i.tus shook his head.

She went on, 'Ben doesn't know you've come, he's gone out, walked over to a farm to ask about a dog.'

'About a dog?' said t.i.tus.

'Yes, we're thinking of having a dog.'

'What kind?'

'A Welsh collie.'

'Will he bring the dog back with him?'

'I don't know.'

At least this was something like a topic of conversation.

I was tired of being invisible and inaudible, so I shouted shouted, 'Have a drink, have some supper!'

t.i.tus, without looking at me, waggled his hand in my direction, then said to Hartley, 'Come in here.'

She followed him into the little red room and he shut the door in my face. I now decided, none too soon, that I had better leave them alone. Besides, now that Hartley was here, I had to work out in more detail the dangerous and decisive next steps. I stood for a moment thinking in the hall. Then I ran upstairs to the drawing room and pulled out some writing paper. I had found in a drawer some embossed Shruff End Shruff End paper which must have belonged to Mrs Chorney, and on a glossy sheet of this stuff I wrote: paper which must have belonged to Mrs Chorney, and on a glossy sheet of this stuff I wrote: Dear Mr Fitch, Just to say that Mary is over here with me, and t.i.tus too.

Yours sincerely, Charles Arrowby.

I pushed this into an envelope and ran out of the house.

I was somewhat surprised to find a warm summer evening in progress. Perhaps the house was cold, perhaps I had been feeling cold, perhaps I felt that ordinary time ought to have stopped. The gra.s.s on the other side of the road was a pullulating emerald green, the rocks that grew here and there among the gra.s.s were almost dazzlingly alight with little diamonds. The warm air met me in a wave, thick with land smells of earth and growth and flowers.

I ran across the causeway and then along the road in the tower and Raven direction, and then around the corner to where the bay was visible. Here, obedient to my orders, Gilbert had parked the car. I wanted it out of sight in case I had to tell Hartley some lie about it later. Gilbert was sitting on a rock, looking at the brilliantly lit blue water. He jumped up and ran to me.

'Gilbert, could you take this letter now and deliver it at Nibletts, at the bungalow, you know, it's the last one in the road.'

'OK, boss. How are things in there?'

'All right. Go now, there's a good chap. And then come back again and wait here.'

'What about my supper? Can't I come into the house?' Gilbert, bursting with curiosity, was longing to busybody around.

I would not have it. 'No, not yet. You'd better buy yourself a sandwich at the Black Lion, and then come back here. I don't quite know what's going to happen.'

'Nothing violent, I hope?'

'So do I. Hurry, now.'

'But, guv'nor'

'Go.'

'I can stay for a drink at the pub, can't I, I'm dying for a drink'

'Yes, but not long, four minutes.'

Looking at Gilbert's disgruntled face I was unpleasantly reminded of Freddie Arkwright. And now there were Arkwrights everywhere, and they had got hold of Ben.

I ran back, and the car pa.s.sed me at the causeway. I went into the house (which was was cold) and on into the kitchen and poured myself out half a tumbler of dry sherry. I did not listen at the door of the red room. I went out onto the gra.s.s and climbed a little way up onto one of the rocks whence I could see the sea and began to sip the sherry. cold) and on into the kitchen and poured myself out half a tumbler of dry sherry. I did not listen at the door of the red room. I went out onto the gra.s.s and climbed a little way up onto one of the rocks whence I could see the sea and began to sip the sherry.

So far so good. But how would Hartley behave when I began to put the screw on? And what would Ben do when he got my note? When When would he get it? If he walked both ways to Amorne Farm and back, and allowing half an hour for the dog, he should be back at Nibletts about nine thirty. It was now a little after eight. I remembered that I was hungry. The sherry was making me lightheaded. However if the b.l.o.o.d.y Arkwrights ran him home in the car he might be back soon after eight thirty. On the other hand, if he walked back would he get it? If he walked both ways to Amorne Farm and back, and allowing half an hour for the dog, he should be back at Nibletts about nine thirty. It was now a little after eight. I remembered that I was hungry. The sherry was making me lightheaded. However if the b.l.o.o.d.y Arkwrights ran him home in the car he might be back soon after eight thirty. On the other hand, if he walked back with with the dog he might not be there till nearer ten. What did he suddenly want a dog for anyway? Did he want to programme the animal to attack me? the dog he might not be there till nearer ten. What did he suddenly want a dog for anyway? Did he want to programme the animal to attack me?

I decided on reflection that it did not too much matter what time Ben got back, as he would probably make no move tonight. He would wait wait, at first expecting Hartley and t.i.tus to turn up, and then grinding his teeth. I imagined him even finding a dark satisfaction in his own mounting rage. Not a nice man.

I finished the sherry and went inside. The murmur of voices in the little red room continued. I thought then that really the longer they talked the better. Every minute that pa.s.sed could bind them closer to each other, and also would use up more of the dangerous time. When they got hungry they might come out. But more likely they were too agitated to feel hunger.

In spite of my fears I was not. I sat for a while eating biscuits and olives, then I sc.r.a.ped the remains of the kedgeree onto a plate and took it outside again, together with a gla.s.s of white wine, and resumed my sea view. I felt very odd, excited, nervous, a bit drunk, but clear in the head. Almost at once however I heard t.i.tus shouting. He evidently could not bring himself to shout either 'Charles!' or 'Mr Arrowby!' but called out several times, 'h.e.l.lo there!' followed by various urgent owl hoots.

I considered ignoring these cries, but decided I had better not, even though it was far too early to expect Ben. I returned precariously to the lawn with my plate and gla.s.s. t.i.tus and Hartley were standing outside by the door, she wearing that distraught frightened look which I now knew so well.

t.i.tus said, 'Look, Mary thinks she'd better go. I've told her there's lots of time but she wants to go now, OK?'