The Tree of Heaven Part 26

"Then you don't want me to do any more drawings?"

"No."

"Well then--I wonder whether you'd very much mind going away?"

"Now?"

"No. Not now. But soon. From here. Altogether."

"Go? Altogether? Me? Why?"

He was utterly astonished. He thought that he had offended Desmond past all forgiveness.

"Because I came here to be alone. To work. And I can't work. And I want to be alone again."

"Am I--spoiling it?"

"Yes. You're spoiling it d.a.m.nably."

"I'm sorry, Desmond. I didn't mean to. I thought--" But he hadn't the heart to say what he had thought.

She looked at him and knew that the moment was coming.

It had come.

She turned away from the table where the Moving Fortress stood, threatening her with its mimic guns, and reminding Nicky of the things she most wanted him to forget. She withdrew to her crouching place at the other end of the studio, among the cushions.

He followed her there with slow, thoughtful steps, steps full of brooding purpose and of half-unconscious meaning.

"Nicky, I'm so unhappy. I didn't know it was possible for anybody to be so unhappy in this world."

She began to cry quietly.

"Desmond--what is it? What is it? Tell me. Why can't you tell me?"

She thought, "It will be all right if he kisses me once. If he holds me in his arms once. Then I can tell him."

For then he would know that he loved her. He was not quite sure now. She knew that he was not quite sure. She trusted to the power of her body to make him sure.

Her youth neither understood his youth, nor allowed for it, nor pitied it.

He had kissed her. He had held her in his arms and kissed her more than once while she cried there, hiding her face in the hollow of his arm.

She was weak and small. She was like some small, soft, helpless animal and she was hurt. Her sobbing and panting made her ribs feel fragile like the ribs of some small, soft, helpless animal under the pressure of his arms. And she was frightened.

He couldn't stand the sight of suffering. He had never yet resisted the appeal of small, weak, helpless things in fright and pain. He could feel Desmond's heart going thump, thump, under the blue thing he called her pinafore. Her heart hurt him with its thumping.

And through all his painful pity he knew that her skin was smooth and sweet like a sallow-white rose-leaf. And Desmond knew that he knew it.

His mouth slid with an exquisite slipperiness over the long, polished bands of her black hair; and he thought that he loved her. Desmond knew that he thought it.

And still she waited. She said to herself, "It's no good his thinking it. I daren't tell him till he says it. Till he asks me to marry him."

He had said it at last. And he had asked her to marry him. And then she had told him.

And all that he said was, "I don't care." He said it to Desmond, and he said it to himself.

The funny thing was that he did not care. He was as miserable as it was well possible to be, but he didn't really care. He was not even surprised. It was as if the knowledge of it had been hiding in the back of his head behind all the ideas.

And yet he couldn't have known it all the time. Either it must have gone away when his ideas went, or he must have been trying not to see it.

She had slipped from his arms and stood before him, dabbing her mouth and eyes now and then with her pocket-handkerchief, controlling herself, crying quietly.

She knew, what had not dawned on Nicky yet, that he didn't love her. If he had loved her he would have cared intolerably. He didn't care about Headley Richards because he didn't care about Desmond any more. He was only puzzled.

"Why did you do it?"

"I can't think why. I must have been off my head. I didn't know what it was like. I didn't know. I thought it would be wonderful and beautiful.

I thought he was wonderful and beautiful."

"Poor little Desmond."

"Oh, Nicky, do you think me a beast? Does it make you hate me?"

"No. Of course it doesn't. The only awful thing is--"

"What? Tell me."

"Well--you see--"

"You mean the baby? I know it's awful. You needn't tell me that, Nicky."

He stared at her.

"I mean it's so awful for _it_."

She thought he had been thinking of himself and her.

"Why should it be?"

"Why? There isn't any why. It just is. I _know_ it is."

He was thinking of Veronica.

"You see," he said simply, "that's why this sort of thing is such a rotten game. It's so hard on the kiddy. I suppose you didn't think of that. You couldn't have, or else you wouldn't--"