The Tower of Oblivion Part 74

Then, before I could make my presence known, he flung the guide-book across the room, sprang to his feet, opened his arms wide, ran towards her, and clasped her rapturously to him.

"Oh, darling, darling! Isn't it simply ripping--_ripping_!"

I have never heard such a cry of pure happiness from human throat. He made no attempt to kiss her; some far, far deeper joy seemed to possess them. I had the most vivid impression that this was not the first nor the second nor the tenth time that day they had clasped like that. He was laughing down at her, she laughing softly back. She was fresh and fair as a jonquil--yes, jonquil-hued even to her little gilding of freckles, as if the flower's heart had burst with a happiness like their own, and spread its golden dust around. And they seemed to adore, not so much one another, as some wondrous secret that existed between them.

Then suddenly I saw her stiffen. She had seen me, and he had seen the look in her eyes. Both heads turned swiftly, and they severed. I did not move.

Then slowly my eyes moved from her face to his.

Not a trace of change could I distinguish. He was young, not too young, grave, and filled with some exaltation that did not quite leave him as our eyes looked into one another's.

"I must beg your pardon," I muttered.

He advanced towards me. "Why--Sir George!"

Then swiftly he glanced at her, she as swiftly at him.

The next moment her cheek was against my breast.

"Are they here?" she murmured in a failing voice.

I did not pretend not to understand. "No, Jennie, I'm here alone."

"How did you know we were here?"

"I'm staying in Dinan for a few days. I saw you last night."

She lifted her head. Again their eyes sought one another's. There was something they were aching to communicate.

The room had two chairs, one a church chair with a rush bottom, the other a straight-backed piece of carved Breton work, but so old that its colour had become a dry dusty grey. He placed this chair for me, and sat down again on the corn-bin. He was softly kneading his brown hands, as I had formerly seen him do in Cambridge Circus. It is odd how these tricks cling to one.

Then, his face again transfigured with that undivulged joy they shared, he looked up at me. Jennie was back at her b.u.t.tering again; apparently he was to do the telling. I noticed that at any rate he had not forgotten to buy her a ring. He caught my glance at it, and nodded joyously.

"That's it," he said.

Once before he had asked me to talk French to him. I now had a reason for speaking it unasked.

"Qu'est-ce que veut dire----" I said.

He laughed aloud.

"That's all right--you can talk English! Can't he talk English, Jennie?"

Jennie nodded.

"Suppose you talk it," I said.

"Rather! I'm going to tell him, Jennie.... English? Why, that's the whole thing! Yesterday morning when I woke up"--he glanced towards the bed by the window--"I hardly dared to believe it! They were talking down in the street or somewhere, and all at once I wondered--what I mean is that I couldn't quite catch it. It all seemed so quick and difficult, just a lot of jabbering. Not a bit like we learned it: 'Je veux une plume, de l'encre et du papier'--you know. So I lay there thinking, looking up at the ceiling. Then I had an idea. I got quietly out of bed and went to the door there." He nodded in the direction of the door now.

"I opened the door and called down to Madame. I've done that every morning for cafe-au-lait, you see. Now here's the point."

He emphasised the point with a forefinger.

"There's a Breton word for cafe-au-lait. Don't ask me what it is; I don't ever want to hear it again. Anyway, I'd used that word for three mornings, and that morning I couldn't remember it for the life of me. I thought perhaps if I just went to the door and called without stopping to think it might come of itself, but not it! I had to ask for cafe-au-lait, and of course up it came all right....

"Well, I didn't say a word to Jennie. We got up and went out sketching.

But forgetting that word, and all the French I heard sounding so awfully funny and foreign, was on my mind all the time. And the next thing was that I forgot the word for willow--I happened to be sketching some willows. Couldn't think of the French for willow. And all day it was the same. Some people came and looked over my shoulder while I was painting, but all I could make out was the word 'Salon,' and, of course, that's just as much English as French.

"Then I started talking bits of French to Jennie, and she got a bit cross--didn't you, sweetheart? She thought I was pulling her leg about her own French. And so it went on all day, and me getting more and more excited about it. Then at night I told Jennie all about it. I told her she'd have to go out and do the shopping, because I simply daren't. I'd had little jokes with the shop people, you see, and I thought to myself, 'By Jove, if they joke back now I shan't have a word to say!' You see what I'm getting at, don't you?"

Dismay filled my heart. So this was the magnificent news that had thrown them so ecstatically into one another's arms! This was what had happened in the night this time! He, who the evening before had sung to the poilus downstairs, had had to send her to do their shopping! Little enough to rejoice over, I thought. But he went on.

"Then to-night, just before you came in, it happened again. Some French word or other, quite a simple one--I just couldn't remember the English for it. It was hardly a moment before you came in. I tell you it's all going away from me by leaps and bounds. Even when I know the words my tongue won't p.r.o.nounce them properly. And then you came in. You see what it means, don't you?"

"What does it mean?" I managed to ask. It seemed to me to mean only one thing--the beginning of the end.

"What does it mean?" he exulted. "Why, it means that I'm simply _me_--just myself and none of this beastly Arnaud business--a fresh start it means."

I glanced at Jennie. "I wonder whether you'd mind getting another gla.s.s and letting me share your milk," I said.

Then, when the door had closed behind her, "This is simply the old thing over again, Derry. You've talked about fresh starts before."

He laughed. "Is that all you sent her out for? She knows all about it.

Of course I really started some time ago. I think I told you so. All I'm telling you this for now is because it absolutely clinches it!"

"How does forgetting clinch anything?"

"Because it _is_ forgetting!" he cried triumphantly, echoing and confirming my own abstruse meditation as I had watched the shirley poppies over the ramparts. "I say, I mustn't shout, though. I'm not supposed to know any English except the few words Jennie's taught me.

Great jokes we've had about that! So doesn't this prove it? Why, what am I doing remembering things all that time ago? I'm not perfectly right till I've forgotten every single thing! And I'm forgetting without trying; you can't try to forget. Heaps of things have gone besides French--heaps of English things. Why, I've forgotten----"

"You remember me?"

"Yes. I met you at the Airds. I told you the whole story out at Le Port one night. You can't have forgotten!"

"Hadn't we met before then?"

"Yes, I think we had. There was a pond, wasn't there? Wasn't it at some house with a pond?"

"Do you remember a Miss Oliphant?"

"Oliphant? Yes--wait a bit--yes I do. I'd met her somewhere or other too. But the last time I saw her was when she came for a bicycle. Why they should have sent her I don't know, but of course I knew there was a storm blowing up, so I simply gave her the bicycle and showed her a few sketches, and let it go at that."

"You don't remember where you'd met her before, do you?"

"I know it was in England somewhere. But I didn't know you knew her till Jennie told me."

"You really didn't know I knew Miss Oliphant?"

"Honestly I didn't, Sir George."