How did she know it, Tom wondered, glancing up over his cigarette? And how had she read his mind so easily?
‘He just popped in to tell me,’ she added, ‘and to say good-bye. He asked me to tell you.’ She spoke without a tremor, as if Tom had no right to disapprove.
‘Pretty early, wasn’t it?’ It was not the first time either. ‘He comes at such unusual hours’ — he remembered Mrs. Haughstone’s words.
‘I was only just up. But there was time to give him coffee before the train.’
She offered no further comment; Tom made none; he sat smoking there beside her, outwardly calm and peaceful as though no feeling of any kind was in him. He felt numb perhaps. In his mind he saw the picture of the breakfast-table beneath the trees. The plan had been arranged, of course, beforehand.
‘Miss de Lorne’s coming to lunch,’ she mentioned presently. ‘She’s to bring her pictures — the Deir-el-Bahri ones. You must help me criticise them.’
So they were not to be alone even, was Tom’s instant thought. Aloud he said merely, ‘I hope they’re good.’ She flicked the flies away with her horse-hair whisk, and sighed. He caught the sigh. The day felt empty, uninspired, the boredom of cruel disillusion in it somewhere. But it was the sigh that made him realise it. Avoiding the subject of Tony’s abrupt departure, he asked what she would like to do that afternoon. He made various proposals; she listened without interest. ‘D’you know, Tom, I don’t feel inclined to do anything much, but just lie and rest.’
There was no energy in her, no zest for life; expeditions had lost their interest; she was listless, tired. He felt impatience in him, sharp disappointment too; but there was an alert receptiveness in his mind that noted trifles done or left undone. She made no reference, for instance, to the fact that they might be frequently alone together now. A faint hope that had been in him vanished quickly.… He wondered when she was going to speak of her letter, of his conduct the night before that was ‘beautiful and precious,’ of the ‘comfort’ she had needed, or even of the dreams that she had mentioned. But, though he waited, giving various openings, nothing was forthcoming. That side of her, once intimately precious and familiar, seemed buried, hidden away, perhaps forgotten. This was not Lettice — it was some one else.
‘You had dreams that frightened you?’ he enquired at length. ‘You said you’d tell them to me.’ He moved nearer so that he could watch her face.
She looked puzzled for a second. ‘Did I?’ she replied. She thought a moment. ‘Oh yes, of course I did. But they weren’t much really. I’d forgotten. It was about water or something. Ah, I remember now — we were drowning, and you saved us.’ She gave a little unmeaning laugh as she said it.
‘Who were drowning?’
‘All of us — me and you, I think it was — and Tony — —’
‘Oh, of course.’
She looked up. ‘Tom, why do you say “of course” like that?’
‘It was your old idea of the river and the floating faces, I meant,’ he answered. ‘I had the feeling.’
‘You said it so sharply.’
‘Did I!’ He shrugged his shoulders slightly. ‘I didn’t mean to.’ He noticed the beauty of her ear, the delicate line of the nostrils, the long eyelashes. The graceful neck, with the firm, slim line of the breast below, were exquisite. The fairy curve of her ankle was just visible. He could have knelt and covered it with kisses. Her coolness, the touch of contempt in her voice made him wild.… But he understood his rôle; and — he remembered Karnak.
A little pause followed. Lettice made one of her curious gestures, half impatience, half weariness. She stretched; the other ankle appeared. Tom, as he saw it, felt something in him burst into flame. He came perilously near to saying impetuously a hundred things he had determined that he must not say. He felt the indifference in her, the coolness, almost the cruelty. Her negative attitude towards him goaded, tantalised. He was full of burning love, from head to foot, while she lay there within two feet of him, calm, listless, unresponsive, passionless. The bitter pain of promises unfulfilled assailed him acutely, poignantly. Yet in ordinary life the situation was so commonplace. The ‘strong man’ would face her with it, have it out plainly; he would be masterful, forcing a climax of one kind or another, behaving as men do in novels or on the stage.
Yet Tom remained tongue-tied and restrained; he seemed unable to take the lead; an inner voice cried sternly No to all such natural promptings. It would be a gross mistake. He must let things take their course. He must not force a premature disclosure. With a tremendous effort, he controlled himself and smothered the rising fires that struggled towards speech and action. He would not even ask a single question. Somehow, in any case, it was impossible.
The subject dropped; Lettice made no further reference to the letter.
‘When you feel like going anywhere, or doing anything, you’ll let me know,’ he suggested presently. ‘We’ve been too energetic lately. It’s best for you to rest. You’re tired.’ The words hurt and stung him as though he were telling lies. He felt untrue to himself. The blood boiled in his veins.
She answered him with a touch of impatience again, almost of exasperation. He noticed the emphasis she used so needlessly.
‘Tom, I’m not tired — not in the way you mean. It’s just that I feel like being quiet for a bit. Really it’s not so remarkable! Can’t you understand?’
‘Perfectly,’ he rejoined calmly, lighting another cigarette. ‘We’ll have a programme ready for later — when Tony gets back.’ The blood rushed from his heart as he said it.
Her face brightened instantly, as he had expected — dreaded; there was no attempt at concealment anywhere; she showed interest as frankly as a child. ‘It was stupid of him to go, just when we were enjoying everything so,’ she said again. ‘I wonder how long he’ll stay — —’
‘I’ll write and tell him to hurry up,’ suggested Tom. He twirled his fly-whisk energetically.
‘Tell him we can’t get on without our dragoman,’ she added eagerly with her first attempt at gaiety; and then went on to mention other things he was to say, till her pleasure in talking about Tony was so obvious that Tom yielded to temptation suddenly. It was more than he could bear. ‘I strongly suspect a pretty girl in the party somewhere,’ he observed carelessly.
‘There is,’ came the puzzling reply, ‘but he doesn’t care for her a bit. He told me all about her. It’s curious, isn’t it, how he fascinates them all? There’s something very remarkable about Tony — I can’t quite make it out.’
Tom leaned forward, bringing his face in front of her own, and closer to it. He looked hard into her eyes a moment. In the depths of her steady gaze he saw shadows, far away, behind the open expression. There was trouble in her, but it was deep, deep down and out of sight. The eyes of some one else, it seemed, looked through her into his. An older world came whispering across the sunlight and the sand.
‘Lettice,’ he said quietly, ‘there’s something new come into your life these last few weeks — isn’t there?’ His voice grated — like machinery started with violent effort against resistance. ‘Some new, big force, I mean? You seem so changed, so different.’ He had not meant to speak like this. It was forced out. He expressed himself badly too. He raged inwardly.
She smiled, but only with her lips. The shadows from behind her eyes drew nearer to the surface. But the eyes themselves held steady. That other look peered out of them. He was aware of power, of something strangely bewitching, yet at the same time fierce, inflexible in her… and a kind of helplessness came over him, as though he was suddenly out of his depth, without sure footing. The Wave roared in his ears and blood.
‘Egypt probably — old Egypt,’ she said gently, making a slow gesture with one hand towards the river and the sky. ‘It must be that.’ The gesture, it seemed to him, had royalty in it somewhere. There was stateliness and dignity — an air of authority about her. It was magnificent. He felt worship in him. The slave that lies in worship stirred. He c
ould yield his life, suffer torture for days to give her a moment’s happiness.
‘I meant something personal, rather,’ he prevaricated.
‘You meant Tony. I know it. Didn’t you, Tom?’
His breath caught inwardly. In spite of himself, and in spite of his decision, she drew his secret out. Enchantment touched him deliciously, an actual torture in it.
‘Yes,’ he said honestly, ‘perhaps I did.’ He said it shamefacedly rather, to his keen vexation. ‘For it has to do with Tony somehow.’
He got up abruptly, tossed his cigarette over the wall into the river, then sat down again. ‘There’s something about it — strange and big. I can’t make it out a bit.’ He faltered, stammered over the words. ‘It’s a long way off — then all at once it’s close.’ He had the feeling that he had put a match to something. ‘I’ve done it now,’ he said to himself like a boy, as though he expected that something dramatic must happen instantly.
But nothing happened. The river flowed on silently, the heat blazed down, the leaves hung motionless as before, and far away the lime-stone hills lay sweltering in the glare. But those hills had glided nearer. He was aware of them, — the Valley of the Kings, — the desolate Theban Hills with their myriad secrets and their deathless tombs.
Lettice gave her low, significant little laugh. ‘It’s odd you should say that, Tom — very odd. Because I’ve felt it too. It’s awfully remote and quite near at the same time — —’
‘And Tony’s brought it,’ he interrupted eagerly, half passionately. ‘It’s got to do with him, I mean.’
It seemed to him that the barrier between them had lowered a little. The Lettice he knew first peered over it at him.
‘No,’ she corrected, ‘I don’t feel that he’s brought it. He’s in it somehow, I admit, but he has not brought it exactly.’ She hesitated a moment. ‘I think the truth is he can’t help himself — any more than we — you or I — can.’
There was a caressing tenderness in her voice as she said it, but whether for himself or for another he could not tell. In his heart rose a frantic impulse just then to ask — to blurt it out: ‘Do you love Tony? Has he taken you from me? Tell me the truth and I can bear it. Only, for heaven’s sake, don’t hide it!’ But, instead of saying this absurd, theatrical thing, he looked at her through the drifting cigarette smoke a moment without speaking, trying to read the expression in her face. ‘Last night, for instance,’ he exclaimed abruptly; ‘in the music room, I mean. Did you feel that? — the intensity — a kind of ominous feeling?’
Her expression was enigmatical; there were signs of struggle in it, he thought. It was as if two persons fought within her which should answer. Apparently the dear Lettice of his first acquaintance won — for the moment.
‘You noticed it too!’ she exclaimed with astonishment. ‘I thought I was the only one.’
‘We all — all three of us — felt it,’ he said in a lower tone. ‘Tony certainly did — —’
Lettice raised herself suddenly on her elbow and looked down at him with earnestness. Something of the old eagerness was in her. The barrier between them lowered perceptibly again, and Tom felt a momentary return of the confidence he had lost. His heart beat quickly. He made a half-impetuous gesture towards her— ‘What is it? What does it all mean, Lettice?’ he exclaimed. ‘D’you feel what I feel in it — danger somewhere — danger for us?’ There was a yearning, almost a cry for mercy in his voice.
She drew back again. ‘You amaze me, Tom,’ she said, as she lay among her cushions. ‘I had no idea you were so observant.’ She paused, putting her hand across her eyes a moment. ‘N-no — I don’t feel danger exactly,’ she went on in a lower tone, speaking half to herself and half to him; ‘I feel—’ She broke off with a little sigh; her hand still covered her eyes. ‘I feel,’ she went on slowly, with pauses between the words, ‘a deep, deep something — from very far away — that comes over me at times — only at times, yes. It’s remote, enormously remote — but it has to be. I’ve never given you all that I ought to give. We have to go through with it — —’
‘You and I?’ he whispered. He was listening intently. The beats of his heart were most audible.
She sighed. ‘All three of us — somehow,’ she replied equally low, and speaking again more to herself than to him. ‘Ah! Now my dream comes back a little. It was the river — my river with the floating faces. And the thing I feel comes — from its source, far, far away — its tiny source among the hills — —’ She sighed again, more deeply than before. Her breast heaved slightly. ‘We must go through it — yes. It’s necessary for us — necessary for you — and me — —’
‘Lettice, my precious, my wonderful!’ Tom whispered as though the breath choked and strangled him. ‘But we stay together through it? We stay together afterwards? You love me still?’ He leaned across and took her other hand. It lay unresistingly in his. It was very cold — without a sign of response.
Her faint reply half staggered him: ‘We are always, always together, you and I. Even if you married, I should still be yours. He will go out — —’
Fear clashed with hope in his heart as he heard these words he could not understand. He groped and plunged after their meaning. He was bewildered by the reference to marriage — his marriage! Was she, then, already aware that she might lose him?… But there was confession in them too, the confession that she had been away from him. That he felt clearly. Now that the dividing influence was removed, she was coming back perhaps! If Tony stayed away she would come back entirely; only then the thing that had to happen would be prevented — which was not to be thought of for a moment.… ‘Poor Lettice.…’ He felt pity, love, protection that he burned to give; he felt a savage pain and anger as well. In the depths of him love and murder sat side by side.
‘Oh, Lettice, tell me everything. Do share with me — share it and we’ll meet it together.’ He drew her cold hand towards him, putting it inside his coat. ‘Don’t hide it from me. You’re my whole world. My love can never change.… Only don’t hide anything!’ The words poured out of him with passionate entreaty. The barrier had melted, vanished. He had found her again, the Lettice of his childhood, of his dream, the true and faithful woman he had known first. His inexpressible love rose like a wave upon him. Regardless of where they were he bent over to take her in his arms — when she suddenly withdrew her hand from his. She removed the other from her eyes. He saw her face. And he realised in an instant that his words had been all wrong. He had said precisely again what he ought not to have said. The moment in her had passed.
The sudden change had a freezing effect upon him.
‘Tom, I don’t understand quite,’ she said coldly, her eyes fixed on his almost with resentment in them. ‘I’m not hiding anything from you. Why do you say such things? I’m true — true to myself.’
The barrier was up again in an instant, of granite this time, with jagged edges of cut glass upon it, so that he could not approach it even. It was not Lettice that spoke then:
‘I don’t know what’s come over you out here,’ she went on, each word she uttered increasing the distance between them; ‘you misunderstand everything I say and criticise all I do. You suspect my tenderest instincts. Even a friendship that brings me happiness you object to and — and exaggerate.’
He listened till she ceased; it was as if he had received a blow in the face; he felt disconcerted, keenly aware of his own stupidity, helpless. Something froze in him. He had seen her for a second, then lost her utterly.
‘No, no, Lettice,’ he stammered, ‘you read all that into me — really, you do. I only want your happiness.’
Her eyes softened a little. She sighed wearily and turned her face away.
‘We were only talking of this curious, big feeling that’s come — —’ he went on.
‘You were speaking of Tony — that’s what you really meant, Tom,’ she interrupted. ‘You know it perfectly well. It only makes it harder — for me?’
He felt sudde
nly she was masquerading, playing with him again, playing with his very heart and soul. The devil tempted him. All the things he had decided he would not say rose to the tip of his tongue. The worst of them — those that hurt him most — he managed to force down. But even the one he did suffer to escape gave him atrocious pain:
‘Well, Lettice, to tell the truth, I do think Tony has a bad — a curious influence on you. I do feel he has come between us rather. And I do think that if you would only share with me — —’
The sudden way she turned upon him, rising from her chair and standing over him, was so startling that he got up too. They faced each other, he in the blazing sunshine, she in the shade. She looked so different that he was utterly taken aback. She wore that singular Eastern appearance he now knew so well. Expression, attitude, gesture, all betrayed it. That inflexible, cruel thing shone in her eyes.
‘Tom, dear,’ she said, but with a touch of frigid exasperation that for a moment paralysed thought and utterance in him, ‘whatever happens, you must realise this — that I am myself and that I can never allow my freedom to be taken from me. If you’re determined to misjudge, the fault is yours, and if our love, our friendship, cannot understand that, there’s something wrong with it.’
The word ‘friendship’ was like a sword thrust. It went right through him. ‘I trust you,’ he faltered, ‘I trust you wholly. I know you’re true.’ But the words, it seemed, gave expression to an intense desire, a fading hope. He did not say it with conviction. She gazed at him for a moment through half-closed eyelids.
‘Do you, Tom?’ she whispered.
‘Lettice…!’
‘Then believe at least—’ her voice wavered suddenly, there came a little break in it— ‘that I am true to you, Tom, as I am to myself. Believe in that… and — Oh! for the love of heaven — help me!’
Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood Page 187