VI

Phyllis could feel the whole flat of visible world gently tilting. Equilibrium, if there had been any, was gone: they had begun to slide. George, receding across the level gra.s.s, seemed to descend a downward slope.

Martin was lying at ease on the ground beside her, with one knee bent and the other leg c.o.c.ked across it.

Perhaps that's why he's so fond of lying on the ground. It's easier to keep from sliding. He seemed to have forgotten she was there and was humming to himself. She felt he had the advantage that silent people always have over the talkative. But if she could get him into conversation, she could make him realize that she was more thoughtful than she seemed.

"I'm glad you didn't finish your beans," she began.

He did not seem surprised. "I'm glad you're glad," he said presently.

"I don't like finishing things either."

To this he said nothing at all, and she realized that her carefully drilled waggishness, which she kept for callers, would descend upon her in a minute. She struggled against it. She had a forlorn desire to feel real for a few moments, to say things she believed. But of its own accord an archly playful remark popped out.

"Now you mustn't let us bore you, you must feel free to do whatever you want. I think it's dreadful to force guests to be amused."

"I feel awfully free. Don't you?"

This was so unexpected that her mind went quite blank. There seemed no possible reply that was worth making.

"I should like to lie in bed and laugh," he said calmly.

Phyllis tried to think of something to laugh about. It suddenly struck her that there are days when one does not laugh at all. Evidently this was one of them. The world had swinked, and looped its wild orbit for uncountable ages, all to produce this latest moment of lucid afternoon: and yet what cause was there for mirth? But she felt that if she could produce a clear chime of amus.e.m.e.nt it would be a mannerly and attractive thing to do. She opened her mouth for it, but only managed a sort of satiric cackle.

"You mustn't try to laugh," he said. "It's bad for you."

She wondered whether she ought to pretend offence. Of course I'm not really offended: there's something so gently impersonal about his rudenesses. In this dreadful vortex of life that seems to spin us round and round, how amazing to find someone so completely nonchalant, so . . . so untouched by anxiety . . . as though his mind had never been bruised. (When she found the right word she always liked to think of it as underlined.) She had often wondered, hopefully, if she would ever be tempted beyond her strength. Absurd: this was the sort of thing that simply didn't happen to . . . to nice people. But there was a warm currency in her blood, radiant and quivering. She ought to go indoors and lie down . . . lie on her bed and laugh . . . but feeling her knees tremble she remembered that the underskirt was very sheer, and in that violent sunlight, walking across the lawn, he would see an ungraceful bifid silhouette . . . you can't really shock women, but you have to be so careful not to startle men . . . without seeming to pay special attention he was evidently terribly observant. . . . What was it George had said once? that she was so beautiful his eyealways enjoyed imagining the lines of her . . . her. . . . No, body is a horrid word . . . her figure . . . under her thin dress. George was so carnal. And worse than that, apologetic for it. Mr. Martin isn't carnal . . .

and if he were, he wouldn't deprecate it.

"All the things I like are bad for me."

She had said this almost unconsciously, for her mind had gone a long way ahead. She was thinking that if George drove recklessly through a thunderstorm, and the car skidded, and he . . . died . . . pa.s.sed away . . . on the way to the hospital at Dark Harbour (because the most appalling things do happen sometimes: why, once a flake of burning tobacco blew from George's pipe into his eye, as he was turning a corner, and the car almost went into the ditch) . . . what on earth would she do? Wire to New York for mourning, and would it be proper to keep Mr. Martin in the house after the funeral? The little churchyard on the dunes would be such a picturesque place to bury a husband: sandy soil, too (it seems so much cleaner, somehow) and harebells among the stones. What was that kind of lettering George was always talking about? Yes, Caslon: he would like that.

GEORGE GRANVILLE.

IN THE 39TH YEAR OF HIS AGE.

Certainly it would never do to have him there after the interment (Mr. Martin, that is). It would have to be at two o'clock so he could get the 3:18 train. Two o'clock makes it rather early, it would interrupt George's nap after lunch. . . .

But Mr. Martin was sitting up looking at her with interest.

"Really?" he was asking. "You feel that way too?" She had forgotten what she had said; and she couldn't very well say "What way?" She must have said something rather good, because he was gazing at her with lively expectancy. His inquisitive eyes, eager brown face, were utterly charming. How fascinating human beings are, she thought: their nice fabricky clothes, their queerly carved faces. She wanted to stretch beside him on the shiny needles, let the sun bake and cook away this horrible curdling sickness that shook inside her; purify all her idiocy in the warm clear pleasure of exchanging ideas. Why even animals can communicate their sensations more cordially than people. Must this fardel of ident.i.ty always be borne alone?

"Yes," she said, with her perfected smile. She wanted to put her hand on his shoulder, to know if he was actual. When the whole fire and anger of a woman's life reaches out for some imagined fulfillment, she finds no luxury of phrase to say her pang. She is a movement of nature, a wind that stirs the gra.s.s, a moth blundering in the rain. I shall tell him in a minute, I shall tell him, G.o.d help me not to tell him. Is this being tempted beyond my strength? But this isn't temptation, this is just Truth. This was G.o.d Himself. Weren't we told to love G.o.d? Perhaps George would say that biology was just making fun of her. You're not supposed to love more than one person at a time - not in the same way, at least. . . .

"Even Picnics?"

"Don't speak of the Picnic," she said. "I hate to think of it. d.a.m.n the Picnic."

He looked startled.

"George made up a limerick once," she said. "It began like this: I never believed in monogamy, My husband has just made a dog o' me. But he couldn't find another rhyme."

"What's monogamy?""Something terrible," she said, laughing. This was the real laughter she had hoped for. She seemed lifted, purged, held in a twinkling skein of mirth. Laughter, like flame, purifies. Certainly he was adorable, but she couldn't quite make him out. Why should he, who evidently enjoyed horrifying others, be so suddenly aghast himself? Plainly he was making fun of her: but she could see he was the kind of person who would not try, clumsily, to say the things that ought never to be said. For every woman knows all these things anyway, and prefers to say them herself.

There was a clatter on the veranda, three serial slams of the screen door, quick crunching of gravel, the children. How she loved them, the gay flutter of their short dresses, the brown slender legs gradually paling toward their soft fat little hams. They came running across the lawn, knees lifting and shining in the brilliant light. They surrounded her in a hot laughing group, breathlessly explaining some plan. Daddy was going to take them swimming, if there was a storm they could go into the bath house, it wouldn't matter anyway if they had their bathing suits on, Daddy would play Moby d.i.c.k the White Whale. The words came tumbling out of them, they seemed packed with words, bursting with a vision of green warm water scalloped with foam, Daddy the White Whale snorting in the surf, the p.r.i.c.kling terror of storm darkening the sky. What vitality, what career of the spirit of life!

"Children, children, don't forget your manners. Make a nice curtsey to Mr. Martin."

At once they became well-regulated little dolls. What a picture, she thought: The Curtsey . . . the three children bobbing, their mother in the background, supervising as it were: seeing that Life kept within bounds, did no violence to the harmony of the composition. Because (heavens!) it was bad enough for her to feel as she did: she couldn't endure the thought of Janet and Sylvia and Rose growing up to such - such disorders. If they were painted like that, curtseying, of course the pose would be difficult to hold.

But all poses are difficult to hold.

"I don't know that I like the idea of your bathing with a storm coming on," she said. That was George, putting wild schemes in their heads. If she forbade it now, there would be tears - "It's what we're all doing, all the time," said George. He had come quietly across the gra.s.s while she was showing the children off to Martin.

This was so surprisingly subtle, for George, she scanned him in amazement. He looked like An Anchor to Windward, A St.i.tch in Time, Something Put By for a Rainy Day. No one ever looked less like a Leap in the Dark. In short, he looked like a Husband: large, strong, reliable, long-suffering, and uninteresting. The best way to look, probably (she thought), for the interesting people have such a painful time.

"It was a telegram from Miss Clyde," he said. "She's coming this afternoon. Same train as the Brooks."

"This afternoon! I thought it was tomorrow."

There was something guilty about George's shrug. He must have told her to come today.

"Well, then, George. You'll have to clean up your den right away. And the Brooks are going into the children's room, that bed has got to be fixed. It's all right for Janet, but that spring'll have to be fixed before Ben and Ruth sleep there.

The children's faces were troubled.

"It's all right, little toads," said George. "You go and get your swim anyhow. Mr. Martin can go with you and be the White Whale. I'll come down as soon as I've fixed the beds."

"I haven't any suit," said Martin."All the more like the White Whale," said George. "But you can take mine, it's in the bath house."

The children, gaily chattering, led Martin off. Phyllis watched them along the hot pebbly path. Beyond the sundial it curved through shrubbery to the green wicket gate. Here, up a gra.s.sy gully, came the sharp breath of the sea. In a sort of daze her eyes went with them. That little valley, between the tall dunes, was like a channel through which, if the level garden tilted ever so little, all life would sluice out. When the gate opened it would be like pulling the plug in a bathtub. Everything would begin to flow. With a horrid gurgling sound, probably.

George was beneficently silent. Dreamily she found herself following Martin and the children. If she got as far as that tuft of gra.s.s without George speaking, she would not need to answer. She was almost there.

She was there. She put her foot squarely on it. Then to her surprise she turned and waited. George was filling his pipe. His silence could only mean one thing: he was frightened about something. She felt her advantage come swimming back into her, a thrilling flutter of strength. Yet she was angry at him for not trying to hold and subdue her.

"Well, why don't you say something?"

He blazed with delighted peevishness.

"At least tell me which bed is which?" he shouted.

"Both of them," she said.

Now the others were hidden behind the shrubbery. In a minute they'd be through the gate. She drifted swiftly after. There was the place on the gravel where she had found him lying. The pebbles were still scuffed about. But even if the gardener raked the path a thousand times she would never forget that exact spot. They were at the gate. The children were showing him how fine it is for swinging on. All was clear in her mind. She would tell the girls to run ahead, and as they twinkled down the slope she would turn to Martin. Her eyes would tell him everything. . . . No, not everything; but enough to begin with.

Then, I love you, she would say. Softly. She whispered it to herself to be sure she had the right intonation. How long was it since she had said that as it should be said, with amazement and terror? Ten years? Why, a woman ought to be able to say it like that - well, every other year anyhow.

"Don't swing on that gate more than one at a time," she called. "You'll break the hinges." And added, to justify herself in Martin's ears, "Remember, chickens, it's not our gate."

They turned, surprised to see her following.

"Children," she began, "you run ahead, I want - "

The alert, attentive faces of the little girls were too much for her. They gaped over the palings. They knew (she felt sure) that something queer was happening. They always know, as calmly detached as nurses in a hospital who smile faintly at what the patients say under ether.

She hesitated, looking down at her ankles. How trim and orderly they were; when she put on those white silk stockings this morning she had had no idea of all this happening.

She heard the gate clash to, but still paused, her face averted. She wanted her eyes to reach his slowly.

For after that it would be too late to plan things. There was a lonely marching in her blood. Then, trembling, she looked.

He wasn't there. He too had run on with the children. All four, far down the hill, romping to the beachtogether.

VII

George was fixing the beds, and making an extra-special crashing and clanging about it for Phyllis's benefit, so she would realize how irritating a job it was. I wonder (he was thinking) if any other man ever had to move furniture about so much? Phyllis has a pa.s.sion for shifting beds. These springs don't fit the frames. The result is that every time any one turns over there's a loud bang, the corner of the spring comes down clank on the iron side-bar. I fixed it - not perfectly, but well enough - with a pad of newspaper and a length of clothesline, when we moved in. Good enough for the children. But of course for Ben and Ruth. . . .

These can't be the right springs for these beds. It stands to reason no manufacturer would be fool enough to send out a bed that couldn't possibly be put together. There must be some trick of arrangement.

Human reason can figure out anything, if concentrated on the problem. Now, let's see. This goes here, and this here. Think of having to fiddle over these picayune trifles when the whole of life and destiny is thrilling in the balance. He was lying under the bed now, among curly grey rolls of dust, holding up the spring with one hand while the other reached for the hammer.

Phyllis came in, to empty some of the bureau drawers for Ben and Ruth. She was taking away neat armfuls of the children's crisp clean garments. The whole room was full of their innocent little affairs.

There, in the corner, was the collapsible doll house he had made last Christmas, and which had to go everywhere with them. Sitting against the door of the doll house was a tiny china puppet with a face of perpetual simper and that att.i.tude of pelvic dislocation peculiar to small china dolls. Around the house was a careful pattern of sh.e.l.ls, diligently brought from the beach. Why did all this make his heart ache?

He remembered one evening when he had been working late, he pa.s.sed gently by the children's door about midnight and heard a quiet little cough. Janet was awake. That small sound had suddenly, appallingly, reminded him that these poor creatures too were human. She must be lying there, thinking.

What does a child think, alone at night? He went in, in the darkness, put his arms round the surprised child, and whispered encouragements to her. Jay, he said, Daddy's own smallest duckling frog, Daddy loves you, don't ever forget Daddy loves you. The little figure sat up in bed, threw her arms round his neck and gripped him wildly in furious affection. "I won't forget, Daddy," cried her soft voice in the warm dark room. Though she was only eight years old her accent was strangely mature: the eternal voice of woman calling man back from agonies and follies to her savage and pitying breast.

Mother love? Pooh (he thought, in a glow of bitterness) , what was mother love! A form of selfishness, most of the time. Of course they love their children, having borne them, suffered for them. Children are their biological pa.s.sport, their excuse for not having minds. And if they're girls, how mothers hurry to drill and denature those bright dreaming wits. They love them chiefly because they make so pretty a vignette in the margin of their own self-portrait - like a remarque in an engraving. But for fathers to love their children - the poor accidental urchins that come between them and the work they love - that really means something!

He gave the bed frame several resounding bangs with the hammer: quite uselessly, merely to express his sense of irritation at seeing Phyllis's pretty ankles and the hem of her green dress moving so purposefully about the room. Then, looking out angrily from under the bed, he saw her picking up the sh.e.l.ls. Instead of bending over from the hips, as a man would, she was crouching on her heels, deliciously folded down upon her haunches. This annoyed him. And how heartless to clear away the sh.e.l.ls that had been laboriously arranged in a border round the doll house.

"Why don't you leave them there?" he shouted. Then he realized how impossible it would be to explain his feeling about the sh.e.l.ls. They represented innocence, poetry, the hopeful imaginings of childhood.Phyllis scooped them up relentlessly. "Don't be a fool," she said. "You wanted these people here for the Picnic, didn't you? All right, we have to make the room decent."

He felt that, as usual, he had picked up the argument by the wrong end. Arguments are like cats: if you take them up by the tail they twist and scratch you.

"And another thing," she added. "You simply must mend that broken railing on the sleeping porch. If the children are going to be out there it isn't safe."

"I can't fix both these beds," he growled. "There's a bolt missing. Tell me which one Ben will sleep in, I'll fix that. Ruth's won't matter, she's a skinny little thing, doesn't weigh much more than Janet."

I wouldn't mind so much fixing Ruth's bed, he was thinking; there'd be a kind of vague satisfaction in that.

I rather like to think of her lying there, she's rather attractive even if she is such a numbskull. But Ben, that solid meaty citizen . . . he probably snores . . . I'll tell Ben to take this one; this is the one most likely to come down.

"How do I know which will take which?" she said. "They'll arrange that to suit themselves, no matter what we say."

He had carefully lashed the spring to the frame with a piece of rope six weeks before. But it had worked loose and now must be done all over again. The deuce of a job: the spring was precariously balanced at one end only; he was holding the loose end with one hand, trying to rewind the cord with the other. The thought of doing all this for Ben was too silly. No, let Ruth have this one and he would try to make a good job of it. Perspiration rolled from him. He supported the spring with his left elbow, so that he could take the end of the cord with his left hand while tightening it with his right. A fuzz of dust was sticking to his moist cheek. This was too insanely comic: grunting under a bed on a hot electrical afternoon. He could see Phyl's feet standing motionless by the window. How lovely she was, how he wanted her, wanted to slough away all these senseless tensions and stupidities. . . . She was always right because she merely acted on instinct; he, usually wrong, because he tried to think things out and act reasonably . . . if she knew how heroic he really was, would she understand? He must get her to understand before it was too late. For this - this crisis that was hanging over them, was his deliberately desired trial of strength.

And now, if they weren't careful, they would fritter away all their stamina in preliminary scuffle and nonsense; and when the moment came . . . soon, appallingly soon . . . there would be no vitality left to meet it.

He was terrified. He had planned all this, grimly; now things were moving too fast for him. A long soft murmur of thunder jarred across the sky. Would the storm pa.s.s over without breaking? No, by G.o.d, it must break, if they were ever to find peace. He must send up a kite, like old Ben Franklin (that first of modern advertising men) to bring down a sample of lightning. He must find out whether lightning was the kind of thing you can live with. He must tell her why he was terrified. He must tell her quickly. These were the last moments they would have together before . . . already the colour of the light had changed.

Here, on the side of the house away from the water, there was a darkening sparkle in the air.

Her feet were ominously still. She must be thinking, and this always worried him. Suppose she too became aware of this secret insolubility of life? It was only her divine certainty about little things that kept him going. What business have biological units thinking about things? Let them obey their laws and not question.

Shifting the weight of the spring to his shoulder he turned over and put his head out from under the foot of the bed.

"Phyl," he said, "why don't you go and lie down a bit, have a rest before the folks get here."She looked down at him. Even in the warm listless dream that seemed to have mastered her, she was touched by the foolish appeal in his red, dust-streaked face. Where the light caught the turn of his jaw shone a coppery stubble.

"You need a shave," she said; and then regretted her insistent tidying instinct. She was holding three large shabby dolls, unconsciously pressing them "against her like an armful of real babies. One flopped forward over her arm, uttering an absurd bleating squawk. Maaa-maa!

"The children," she exclaimed breathlessly. "The storm's coming. Hurry up with those beds; get the children back from the beach."

"They're all right," he said sulkily. "Mr. Martin'll take care of 'em."

His large flushed face, mouth open, gazed up from the floor. He looked pitiably silly, like a frightened dog. He was thinking, all I want to tell her is that I love her; no matter what happens I love her. But how can I say it? If she weren't my wife I suppose it would be so much easier. Why do we always show our worst side to the people we love?

She was thinking: The absurd idiot, writhing about under that bed like a roach, telling me to go and lie down when there are a hundred things to be done, beds to be made, towels and linen got out, silver counted, instructions to Lizzie. . . . Certainly she had tried to warn him. . . .

"d.a.m.n Mr. Martin!" she cried. "Don't trust him. You fool, you fool. Can't you see he's crazy? We're all crazy. Stop sprawling there like a mud turtle, do something."

"Listen, Phyl," he said heavily. "I want to tell you something. Now, listen, you've got to help me."

With a pang of alarm he knew that now it was too late to go back. He had begun to speak. Now he must try to explain the pillar of smoke and fire that had moved so long before the lonely track of his mind.

Greatly as he feared her rigid spirit, he must divide the weight of this heavy fragile burden, like a crystal globe that might contain either ecstasy or horror. He could not know which until it lay broken about him in shining sc.r.a.ps and curves. But oh, why was she so difficult to tell things to?

"Don't laugh," he mumbled. "It's terribly - "

He wriggled forward earnestly. The other end of the metal spring slid from its joist, the head and foot of the bed toppled inward. With a clanking bra.s.sy crash the whole thing collapsed about him.

He lay there, covered with bed, in a furious silence which was merely the final expression of his disgust.

For an instant, in the stillness following that ridiculous clamour, she thought he was hurt. She bent down, dropping the dolls, and one of these again shrilled its whining protest. His angry face rea.s.sured her, and she burst into a peal of laughter.