"You're asking him twice," Martin said. "It's my turn."

Why did her mind keep straying away? Standing in the middle of the circle, she could feel them surrounding her, desiring her to divine this thing. Perhaps it was something she didn't want to guess, something that would mean - She repeated the question, looking at Martin this time.

"No," he said, smiling.

Her mind was a blank. She went round the group again, asking almost at random. The succession of No's had a curiously numbing effect. But she knew, without having put the question directly, that it was something connected with Martin.

She came to Ben, on the last time round. She stared at his white canvas shoes, trying to think.

"Is it . . . is it - "

She turned away from the strong scent of his cigar. The glimmer of coloured light on the dining-room table caught and held her. It suggested: "Something to do with a cake?"

"Yes," said Ben, amazed.

They were all startled, for her last attempts had been far off the track.

"Two more tries," said George, encouraging her.

She had a queer sensation that the back of her dress was open and reached unconsciously to b.u.t.ton it.

How silly, of course it's not open, it fastens on the shoulder, . . . A cake, a cake . . . there was a warmwhiff of burning candles in the room. She knew now what it must be; what he had begun to tell her in the garden. . . . They were all crowding round her, tall people, voices coming down from above, wanting her to explain. Two more questions . . . one would do! Martin was standing behind George, he looked eager and yet anxious. She remembered now: the mouse, the mouse she had brought him; it was such a little thing; chosen and cherished for her difficult own; and the joy of giving away what was dearest . . . joy embittered by hostile scrutiny. . . .

Everything was all tangled up together. What had she given, a mouse to Martin or her truth to George?

Oh, the pride, the fierce pride of now telling her pitiable secret. She could see the stripy pattern of George's coat, she knew exactly how it smelled. George looked eager and yet anxious - No, George, no! her mind was crying miserably. It wasn't you, it wasn't you; I gave it to him - She must not tell them that she had guessed it. George must be spared this last inconceivable edge of irony; and Martin must go away before either of them found out.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I can't get it."

George caught her arm as she swayed.

"I don't feel very well. Please forgive me. I think I'll go to bed."

"I knew she wouldn't guess it," said Ruth.

"Of course it wasn't really fair," said George. "She couldn't possibly know about the slice of cake Mr.

Martin had. But it was queer how close she came."

XVI

George stood uneasily on the landing, halfway up the stair. The house seemed over-populated. Upstairs was a regular dormitory, he thought angrily; all down the long pa.s.sage he could hear the stealthy movement of people going to bed: doors opening cautiously, reconnoiterings to see whether the bathroom trail was clear. And the ground floor was worse: Joyce in the sitting room filled the whole place with her presence. He could not stay in the hall, the dining room, or the porch, without being in sight or hearing of her sanctuary. Against his will he lingered on the thought of her there, the small ugly chamber transfigured by her intimacy. Even the dull brown wood of the door was different now, it thrilled him with unbearable meaning, his mind pierced through it and saw her loveliness - perhaps tormented like himself with farcical horrors. It was unbearable to think of her going away into the dark nothing of these empty hours, uncomforted. Why couldn't he go and tuck her in like one of the children? She seemed to him just that, a frightened child who had somehow crept into his arms. She was there, divided from him only by that senseless panel. He imagined her prostrate on the couch in a quiver of silent tears; she, exquisite, made for delight, whose pitiful reality had shaken his solid, well-carpentered life into this crazy totter.

My G.o.d, he reflected, I thought I had got beyond this sort of thing.

There was a creak at the stair head; he saw her above him, shadowy against the bay window. In her translucent wrap she was delicately sketched in cloudy brightness, young and firm of outline. So the door had been mocking him. With a twinge of self-disgust he shrank, stumbled down the stairs, tiptoed out and took refuge at the far end of the garden.

A splinter of light drew him to the table under the pine trees. The jug and gla.s.ses, left there since lunch time; mutely pathetic, as forgotten things always are. There was still a heeltap of tea in one of the tumblers, he drank it and found it sirupy with sugar. It's a mistake, he thought, to eat sweet things late at night: they turn to sour in the morning. Night is the time for something bitter.

In the house, yellow squares flashed on and off. Downstairs, he could see Joyce's shadow against the blind. At the other end of the building, in the gable, the spare-room window went dark. Martin had slipped off to bed rather oddly after their game. In the embarra.s.sment of Joyce's momentary dizziness he had simply gone, without a word. George found himself thinking that much of the evening's difficulty was due to this b.u.mpkin stranger. He was probably well-meaning, but either with his idiotic pleasantries or a silent smirk of censure he had a gift for blighting things. There was nothing about him that you could put precise finger on, but he had a way of making one feel guilty. How queerly, too, he had looked at Joyce.

The evening was changing. The air had shifted toward the northwest; suddenly, over the comb of the overhanging dune, a silvery spinnaker of cloud came drifting. It was like a great puff of steam, so close and silent it frightened him. For an instant, pa.s.sing under the moon, this lovely island of softness darkened the night to a foggy grey. It was something strange, a secret between himself and the weather, encouraging his silly wits not to be afraid of the desperate magic of fancy, the fear and tenderness hidden in men's hearts.

He turned again toward the house, and saw that now Joyce's window was black. She was there, at rest; he blessed her being in that little room. He had thought of it only as opening into the main thoroughfare of the house; but it was open, too, into the garden and freedom. What did the door matter! She was there, shining. He could speak to her. He imagined her voice, her trembling husky whisper, when she heard him at the sill. Why is kindness always whispered, while anger is so loud? How delightful if people shouted "I love you!" as though it were an insult. Glorious, to stand under the window and halloo it at her, watch the house rouse with scandalized life! Ah, what friends we might have been if they hadn't made us whisper.

Why did they force us to be lovers?Then he remembered - the accurate circ.u.mstantial memory of the householder. The window was screened. To speak to her through a wire mesh - intolerable. Besides, it might only make matters worse. He could never tell her his own joy, and might merely smirch hers. They might only struggle dumbly in the grotesque antic of spirits whose moods cannot mingle. The moment had pa.s.sed. Life had gone by him, while he was fretting over paltry trifles, and left him a drudge. There was nothing to do but go indoors and work on the booklet. How exciting that brochure would be, what marvellous advertising, if he could really tell what summer was like at the Island. Why, the company would have to run special trains. The very aisles would be packed, people sitting on up-ended suitcases, if they knew that this dangerous coast was the place where Temptation really broke through . . . where the old Demiurge laid his cards on the table. It would become a Resort - yes, an asylum for lunatics, people ridiculed by transfusions of the moon. How a poet might write it, telling the colour of that world. Warm tawny flanks of sand hills, sprawled like panthers. The sun a coal of topaz, veiled in white flame that sheeted the whole summit of sky. Light so fierce one never looked upward. Wherever one turned was a burning and a glitter; the air was a lens and gathered all its rays into one stream. Always one's knuckles were sweet with salty smell. Repressed thunder yawning in the blue elixir of the afternoon: deep, deep afternoon, penetrated with lawless beauty. The small sorry whisper of the wind sang it in the keen scimitar gra.s.ses; smooth beams of driftwood, faded by the sea, felt it; the sandpipers, drunk with it, staggered on twiggy legs. Bronzed thighs and shoulders, shining in the green shallows marbled with foam. . . .

The transitive billow of cloud slipped away beyond the roof; again the strong resinous air was clarified, streamed with gracious light. His mind almost smiled at his fatuity: the sentiment did not graduate into an actual smile, but spent itself in a tiny whiff of self-deprecation through his nostrils. He stretched upward, raising his arms, standing tiptoed, feeling the calf-tendons tighten and coolness in his fingers as the blood sank. His hands met a low limb that reached across his head. He gripped it and chinned himself. There was good animal satisfaction in feeling the quiver in the biceps, the hanging weight of his body. Well, we're not done for yet, he said to himself. No sir, not yet. He capered a few dance steps on the silky floor of needles, and pulled out his pipe. . . .

She was coming. He saw her coming, swiftly across the lawn. No, not swiftly; evenly was the word; unquestioningly; as he had always known she would come. His mouth was open to warn her of the croquet hoops, but she pa.s.sed surely among them. When he saw her face, he knew this was something not to be spoiled by words. Her face was enough.

In that unreasonable glamour she was pure fable: the marble (Oh, too cold, too hard a word) come to life. There was no pang, no trouble, no desire; he knew only that there is some answer to the gorgeous secret: the secret that the world is in conspiracy to deny - No, not to deny; more cunning than that: to admit and pa.s.s heedless on. There was meaning in everything; significance in the shapes of things. The black plumes and pinnacles of the trees were fashioned exactly so could never have been otherwise.

They were away from rooms and roofs. They were on the beach; the tide was far ebbed, they ran over mirrors of sand, they were in sparkling black water milder than air. Still there were no words; their white bodies gleamed in silver, laved in snowy fans of surf. They were just themselves, chafing impediments were gone; nothing was between them and they wanted nothing. They ran, breathing warmly, to burrow in the powdery cliff, where the acid smell of sharp gra.s.ses sifted down from the dunes. They lay in a hollow of sand; she curled against him, nestled smoothly close, he could feel her thrilling with small quivers of joy. There was no pang, no trouble, no desire; only peace.

Everything else they had ever known had been only an interruption. This had always been happening, underneath. It was the unknown music for which their poem had been written. They were quit of the pinch of Time, the facetious nudge of Custom. Quietness was in them, satient like fresh water in a thirsty throat. Here was the fulfilment men plot and swink for: and how different from crude antic.i.p.ation. Whatcould there be now but pity and kindness? Here was triumph: Man, the experimenting artist, had created fantasy above the grasp of his audience, Nature. Like any true artist, he must always play a little above his audience's head.

"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 gla.s.sy 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 d.a.m.ned. 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 st.i.tched 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."

"1 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 comfortables 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 tomorrow 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 sh.o.r.e.

"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 b.u.t.ting in for?"He checked himself. The moment was ripe for quarrel, the gross mustard-sharpened air seemed to suggest it. He put the carca.s.s 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 p.r.i.c.ked 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. Tonight. Before anybody wakes up."

She rose suddenly.

"I'm frightened. Take me away. George, I can't live through tomorrow, not if it's like today."

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 ill.u.s.trate it. I don't mind yourloving 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."

"d.a.m.nation," 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 towards 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 d.a.m.n sandwiches."

"Not d.a.m.n, ham sandwiches." She couldn't help laughing. It was so paltry to have him propelling her like a punishable child.

"Ham, jam, or d.a.m.n, 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."