‘Does it? It’s your taste, you know.’
‘But was it admired?’ she insisted almost sharply.
‘That’s really more than I can say, Lettice. You see, I didn’t ask Sir William what he thought, and the natives are poor judges because they don’t wear ties.’ He was about to say more, talking the first nonsense that came into his head, when she did a thing that took his breath away, and made him tremble where he sat. Regardless of lurking Arab servants, careless of Mrs. Haughstone’s windows not far behind them, she rose suddenly, tripped round the little table, kissed him on his cheek—and was back again in her chair, smoking innocently as before. It was a repetition of an earlier act, yet with a difference somewhere.
The world seemed unreal just then; things like this did not happen in real life, at least not quite like this; nor did two persons in their respective positions talk exactly thus, using such banal language, such insignificant phrases half of banter, half of surface foolishness. The kiss amazed him—for a moment. Tom felt in a dream. And yet this very sense of dream, this idle exchange of trivial conversation cloaked something that was a cruel, an indubitable reality. It was not a dream shot through with reality, it was a reality shot through with dream. But the dream itself, though old as the desert, dim as those grim Theban Hills now draped with flying sand, was also true and actual.
The hidden Play had broken through, merging for an instant with the upper surface-life. He was almost persuaded that this last, strange action had not happened, that Lettice had never really left her chair. So still and silent she sat there now. She had not stirred from her place. It was the burning wind that touched his cheek, a waft of heated atmosphere, lightly moving, that left the disquieting trail of perfume in the air. The glowing heavens, luminous athwart the clouds of fine, suspended sand, laid this ominous hint of dream upon the entire day.… The recent act became a mere picture in the mind.
Yet some little cell of innermost memory, stirring out of sleep, had surely given up its dead.… For a second it seemed to him this heavy, darkened air was in the recesses of the earth, beneath the burden of massive cliffs the centuries had piled. It was underground. In some cavern of those mournful Theban Hills, some one—had kissed him! For over his head shone painted stars against a painted blue, and in his nostrils hung a faint sweetness as of ambra.…
He recovered his balance quickly. They resumed their curious masquerade, the screen of idle talk between significance and emptiness, like sounds of reality between dream and waking.
And the rest of that long day of stifling heat was similarly a dream shot through with incongruous touches of reality, yet also a reality shot through with the glamour of some incredibly ancient dream. Not till he stood later upon the steamer deck, the sea-wind in his face and the salt spray on his lips, did he awake fully and distinguish the dream from the reality—or the reality from the dream. Nor even then was the deep, strange confusion wholly dissipated. To the end of life, indeed, it remained an unsolved mystery, labelled a Premonition Fulfilled, without adequate explanation.…
The time passed listlessly enough, to the accompaniment of similar idle talk, careless, it seemed to Tom, with the ghastly sense of the final minutes slipping remorselessly away, so swiftly, so poignantly unused. For each moment was gigantic, brimmed full with the distilled essence, as it were, of intensest value, value that yet was not his to seize. He never lost the point of view that he watched a picture that belonged to some one else. His own position was clear; he had already leaped from a height; he counted, as he fell, the blades of grass, the pebbles far below; slipping over Niagara’s awful edge, he noted the bubbles in the whirlpools underneath. They talked of the weather.…!
‘It’s clearing,’ said Lettice. ‘There’ll be sand in our tea and thin bread and butter. But anything’s better than sitting and stifling here.’
Tom readily agreed. ‘You and I and Tony, then?’
‘I thought so. We don’t want too many, do we?’
‘Not for our la—not for a day like this.’ He corrected himself just in time. ‘Tony will be here for lunch?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘He said so, at any rate, only one never quite knows with Tony.’ And though Tom plainly heard, he made no comment. He was puzzled.
Most of the morning they remained alone together. Tom had never felt so close to her before; it seemed to him their spirits touched; there was no barrier now. But there was distance. He could not explain the paradox. A vague sweet feeling was in him that the distance was not of height, as formerly. He had risen somehow; he felt higher than before; he saw over the barrier that had been there. Pain and sacrifice, perhaps, had lifted him, raised him to the level where she dwelt; and in that way he was closer. A new strength was in him. At the same time, behind her outer quietness and her calm, he divined struggle still. In her atmosphere was a hint of strain, disharmony. He was positive of this. From time to time he caught trouble in her eyes. Could she, perhaps, discern—foreknow—the shadow of the dropping Curtain? He wondered.… He detected something in her that was new.
If any weakening of resolve were in himself, it disappeared long before Tony’s arrival on the scene. A few private words from Mrs. Haughstone later banished it effectually. ‘Your telegram, Mr. Kelverdon, came as a great surprise. We had planned a three-day trip to the Sphinx and Pyramids. Mr. Winslowe had written to you; he hoped to persuade you to join us. Again you left Assouan before the letter arrived. It’s a habit with you!’
‘Apparently.’
The poison no longer fevered him; he was immune.
‘Mr. Winslowe—I had better warn you before he comes—was disappointed.’
‘I’m sorry I spoilt the trip. It was most inconsiderate of me. But you can make it later when I’m gone—to Cairo, can’t you?’
Mrs. Haughstone watched him somewhat keenly. Did she discover anything, he wondered? Was she aware that he was no longer within reach of her little shafts?
‘It’s all for the best, I think,’ she went on in a casual tone. ‘Lettice was too easily persuaded—she didn’t really want to go without you. She said so. And Mr. Winslowe soon gets over his sulks——’
Tom interrupted her, turning sharply round. ‘Oh,’ he laughed, ‘was that why he wouldn’t come to breakfast, then?’ And whether it was pain or pleasure that he felt, he did not know. The moment’s anguish—he verily believed it—was for Lettice. And for Tony? Something akin to sympathy perhaps! If Tony should ever suffer pain like his—even temporarily.…!
The other shrugged her angular shoulders a little. ‘It’s all passed now,’ she observed; ‘he’s forgotten it, I’m sure. You needn’t notice anything, by the way,’ she added, ‘if—if he seems ungracious.’
‘Not for worlds,’ replied Tom, throwing stones into the sullen river below. ‘I’m far too tactful.’
Mrs. Haughstone looked away. There was a moment’s expression of admiration on her face. ‘You’re big, Mr. Kelverdon, very big. I wish all men were as generous.’ She spoke hurriedly below her breath. ‘I saw this coming before you arrived. I wish I could have saved you. You’ve got the hero in you.’
Tom changed the subject, and presently moved away: it was time for lunch for one thing, and for another he wanted to hide his face from her too peering eyes. He was not quite sure of himself just then; his lips trembled a little; he could not altogether control his facial muscles. Tony jealous! Lettice piqued! Was this the explanation of her new sweetness towards himself! The position tried him sorely, testing his new strength from such amazing and unexpected angles. It was all beyond him somehow, the reversal of rôles so afflicting, tears and laughter so oddly mingled. Yet the sheet-anchor—his self-less love—held fast and true. There was no dragging, no shuffling where he stood.
Nor was there any weakening of resolution in him, any dimming of the new dawn within his heart. He felt sure of something that he did not understand, aware of a radiant promise some one whispered marvellously in his ear. He was alone, yet not alone, outcast
yet companioned sweetly, bereft of all the world holds valuable, yet possessor of riches that the world passed by. He felt a conqueror. The pain was somehow turning into joy. He seemed above the earth. Only one thing mattered—that his ideal love should have no stain upon it.
The lunch he dreaded passed smoothly and without alarm. Tony was gay, light-hearted as usual, belying Mrs. Haughstone’s ominous prediction. They smoked together afterwards, walking up and down the garden arm-in-arm, Tony eagerly discussing expeditions, picnics, birds, anything and everything that offered, with keen interest as of old; he even once suggested coming back to Assouan with his cousin—alone… Tom made no comment on the adverb. Nor was his sympathy mere acting; he genuinely felt it; the affection for Tony somehow was not dead.… The joy in him grew, meanwhile, brighter, clearer, higher. It was alive. Some courage of the sun was in him. There seemed a great understanding with it, and a greater forgiveness.
Of one thing only did he feel uncertain. He caught himself sharply wondering more than once. For he had the impression—the conviction almost—that something had happened during his absence at Assouan—that there was a change in her attitude to Tony. It was a subtle change; it was beginning merely; but it was there. Her behaviour at breakfast was not due to pique, not solely due to pique, at any rate. It had a deeper origin. Almost he detected signs of friction between herself and Tony. Very slight they were indeed, if not imagined altogether. His perception was still exceptionally alert, its acuteness left over, apparently, from the earlier days of pain and jealousy. Yet the result upon him was confusing chiefly.
In very trivial ways the change betrayed itself. The talk between the three of them remained incongruously upon the surface always. The play and chatter went on independently of the Play beneath, almost ignoring it. In that Wordless Play, however, the change was registered.
‘Tom, you’ve got the straightest back of any man I ever saw,’ Lettice exclaimed once, eyeing them critically with an amused smile as they came back towards her chair. ‘I’ve just been watching you both.’
They laughed, while Tony turned it wittily into fun. ‘It’s always safer to look a person in the face,’ he observed. If he felt the comparison was made to his disadvantage he did not show it. Tom, wondering what she meant and why she said it, felt that the remark annoyed him. For there was disparagement of Tony in it.
‘I can read your soul from your back alone,’ she added.
‘And mine!’ cried Tony, laughing: ‘what about my back too? Or have I got no soul misplaced between my shoulder-blades?’
Tom laid his hand between those slightly-rounded shoulders then—and rather suddenly.
‘It’s bent from too much creeping after birds,’ he exclaimed. ‘In your next life you’ll be on all fours if you’re not careful.’
The Arab appeared to say the donkeys and sand-cart were waiting in the road, and Tony went indoors to get cameras and other paraphernalia essential to a Desert picnic. Lettice continued talking idly to Tom, who stood beside her, smoking.… The feeling of dream and reality were very strong in him at the moment. He hardly realised what the nonsense was he had said to his cousin. There was a slight sense of discomfort in him. The little, playful conversation just over had meaning in it. He missed that meaning. Somehow the comparison in his favour was disagreeable—he preferred to hear his cousin praised, but certainly not belittled. Perhaps vanity was wounded there—that his successful rival woke contempt in her was unendurable.… And he thought of his train for the first time with a vague relief.
‘Birds,’ she was saying, half to herself, the eyes beneath the big sun-hat looking beyond him, ‘that reminds me, Tom—a dream I had. A little bird left its nest and hopped about to try all the other branches, because it thought it ought to explore them—had to, in a way. And it got into all sorts of danger, and ran fearful risks, and couldn’t fly or use its wings properly,—till finally——’
She stopped, and her eyes turned full upon his own. The love in his face was plain to read, though he was not conscious of it. He waited in silence:
‘Till finally it crept back up into its own nest again,’ she went on, ‘and found its wings lying there all the time. It had forgotten them! And it got in, felt warm and safe and cosy—and fell asleep.’
‘Whereupon you woke and found it was all a dream,’ said Tom. His tone, though matter-of-fact, was lower than usual, but it was firm. No sign of emotion now was visible in his face. The eyes were steady, the lips betrayed no hint. Her little dream, the way of telling it rather, perplexed him.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but I found somehow that the bird was me.’ She sighed a little.
It flashed upon him suddenly that she was exhausted, wearied out; that her heart was beating with some interior stress and struggle. She seemed on the point of giving up, some long long battle in her ended. There was something she wished to say to him—he got this impression too—something she could not bring herself to say, unless he helped her, unless he asked for it. The duality was ending, perhaps fused into unity again?… The intense and burning desire to help her rose upon him, the desire to protect. And the word ‘Warsaw’ fled across his mind… as though it fell through the heated air into his mind… from hers.
‘Tony declares,’ she was saying, ‘that our memories are packed away under pressure like steam in a boiler, and the dream is their safety-valve… I wonder.… He read it somewhere. It’s not his own, of course. But Tony never explains—because he doesn’t really know. He’s flashy—not the depth we thought—the truth… Tom!‘
She called his name with emphasis, as if annoyed that he showed so little interest. There was an instant’s cloud upon her face; the eyes wavered, then looked away; he felt again there was disappointment somewhere in her —with himself or with Tony, he did not know.… He kept silent. He could think of nothing by way of answer—nothing appropriate, nothing safe.
She waited, keeping silent too. The Curtain was lowering, its shadow growing on the air.
‘I dream so little,’ he stammered at length, ‘I can’t say.’ It enraged him that he faltered. He turned away.… Tony at that moment arrived. The cart and animals were ready, everything was collected. He announced it loudly, urging them with a certain impatience, as though they caused the delay. He stared keenly at them a moment.… They started.
CHAPTER XXXI.
..................
HOW TRIVIAL, YET HOW SIGNIFICANT of the tension of interior forces—the careless words, the foolish little dream, the playful allusion to one man’s stoop and to another’s upright carriage, how easy to read, how obvious! Yet Tom, too intensely preoccupied, perhaps, with keeping his own balance, was unaware of revelation. His mind perceived the delicate change, yet attached a wrong direction to it. Perplexity and discomfort in him deepened. He was relieved when Tony interrupted; he felt glad. The shifting of values was disturbing to him. It was as though the falling Curtain halted.…
The hours left to him were few; they both rushed and lingered. The afternoon seemed gone so quickly, while yet the moments dragged, each separate instant too intense with feeling to yield up its being willingly. The minutes lingered; it was the hours that rushed.
Subconsciously, it seemed, Tom counted them in his heart.… Subconsciously, too, he stated the position, as though to do so steadied him: Three persons, three friends, were off upon a picnic. At a certain moment they would turn back; at a certain moment two of them would say good-bye; at a certain moment a final train would start—his eyes would no longer see her.… It seemed impossible, unreal; it could not happen.… He could so easily prevent it. No question had been asked about his going to Cairo; it was taken for granted that he went on business and would return. He could cancel his steamer-berth, no explanation necessary, nor any asked.
But having weighed the sacrifice against the joy, he was not wanting.
They mounted their lusty donkeys; Lettice climbed into her sand-cart; the boys came clattering after them down the street of Thebes with the tea-
things and the bundles of clover for the animals. Across the belt of brilliant emerald green, past clover-fields and groves of palms, they followed the ancient track towards the desert. They were on the eastern bank, the Theban Hills far behind them on the horizon. Towards the Red Sea they headed, though Tom had no notion of their direction, aware only that while they went further and further from those hills, the hills themselves somehow came ever nearer. The gaunt outline followed them; each time he looked back the shadow cast was closer than before, almost upon their heels. But for the assurance of his senses he could have believed they headed towards these yellow cliffs instead of the reverse. He could not shake off the singular impression that their weight was on his back; he felt the oppression of those ancient tombs, those crowded corridors, that hidden subterranean world. No mummy, he remembered, but believed it would one day unwind again when the soul, cleansed and justified, came back to claim it. Regeneration was inevitable. A glorious faith secure in ultimate joy!
They hurried vainly; the distance between them, instead of increasing, lessened. The hills would not let them go.
The burning atmosphere, the motionless air caused doubtless the optical illusion. The glare was blinding. Tom did not draw attention to it. He tugged his obstinate donkey into line with the slower sand-cart, riding for several minutes in silence, close beside Lettice, aware of her perfume, her flying veil almost across his eyes from time to time. Tony was some way ahead.
‘Tom,’ he heard suddenly, ‘must you really go to Cairo to-night?’
‘I’m afraid so. It’s important.’ But after a pause he added ‘Why?’ He said it because his sentence sounded otherwise suspiciously incomplete. Above all, he must seem natural. ‘Why do you ask?’
The Algernon Blackwood Collection Page 235