People came to and went from the desk. The porter hung keys on hooks by pigeon-holes, took keys from hooks, searched through timetables, all with an expression of good-humoured forbearance. The two little pages yawned, covering their mouths with their white gloves. One of them sat down on a high-backed chair and nodded. Adeline’s eyes burned from watching the door.
The door swung open and disgorged two people simultaneously. One, a stout Belgian business man, went straight to the desk and demanded his key. The other … Adeline caught her breath, the other — his shoulders, his profile, she had seen before — seen on board ship — seen in Ireland. She was on her feet. She was at his side. At first her voice would not come, her throat was so constricted. Then she got out his name. He wheeled and looked into her face.
“Adeline.”
He saw how deadly pale she was. Was she going to faint? She put her hand to her throat and swallowed. There was only dryness there and an aching constriction. He kissed her on the cheek and led her into the lounge. They found a secluded seat in a corner.
“You are surprised,” he said.
“Yes,” she whispered, shaken by the impact of his nearness.
“I had to come, after I got your letter.”
“You must have come right away,” she said.
“I flew.”
“Oh!” She looked at his hands which lay, as though tranquilly, on his knees. “You say you flew?”
“Yes. We had a good trip.”
“Not rough?”
“No. It couldn’t have been better.”
“That’s good.” A long sigh escaped her. Her breath came more easily. Her heart ceased leaping in her breast.
He put one of his hands on one of hers. “I can imagine,” he said, “what you think of me.”
“I’m not thinking. I’m just feeling — that you’re here.”
“I wish we might be alone,” he said.
The eyes of the clergyman were raised from the crossword puzzle. They rested reflectively on the linked hands of Adeline and Fitzturgis, then, without having noticed their faces, returned to the puzzle.
She now spoke in a controlled voice. “It’s better the way it is.”
“How can I try to make you understand here?”
“I don’t think you could say anything — anywhere — that would make me understand.”
“I suppose you think I set out deliberately to deceive you.”
“Well — you know, Mait, I haven’t had any experience.”
“That’s just why,” he said eagerly, “I couldn’t bear to tell you.”
“I don’t see why. There’s no disgrace in having been married before.”
“No. But I couldn’t bring myself to talk of it to you. Meeting you — being with you on the deck, in the sun and wind — was such a fresh, beautiful experience to me that I couldn’t bear to drag my rather ignoble past into it.”
She considered this and then said stubbornly: “You should have told me.”
He answered with some heat, — “I expected everything to end with our arrival in Ireland. It wasn’t as though I’d asked you to join your life with mine.”
She drew her hands away from him and folded her arms. “why?” she asked, with accusation in her eyes. “You knew I loved you.”
“You very well know why. I had nothing to offer you.”
“But, the last time we met, you said you’d come to Canada some day and ask me — if you were able — oh, you know what I mean!”
She spoke with passion, raising her voice so that not only the clergyman but the reserved couple in the far corner of the lounge heard her and looked at her in surprise.
“Ssh.” Fitzturgis gripped her knee. “Those people are staring.”
“I don’t care,” she answered, scarcely lowering her voice.
A hubbub broke out in the hall. A party was pouring in for a wedding reception, women in wide-brimmed hats, men in top hats and buttonhole nosegays. Other people began to come into the lounge for tea. A waiter appeared, pushing a tea wagon loaded with sandwiches, cakes, and strawberry tarts. The place was transformed, the atmosphere changed to that of a social gathering. One could talk without being heard.
“Will you take tea?” Adeline asked coldly.
“Thanks.” He stared at the crowd without seeing them.
A low table was placed in front of them and soon they were choosing something to eat. Adeline noticed that Fitzturgis’ hand shook a little as he raised the cup of tea to his lips. But how calm his face was. She became conscious of her own face from forehead to lips and tried to make it into such a mask. Mechanically she put food into her mouth — but even the tarts had no flavour for her. She heard him say:
“Let’s get out of here, into the air.”
“Yes. I’d like that. I’ll run up and put on my hat.”
He followed her to the foot of the stairs and bent over the glass case in which Penguin books were displayed, reading the titles while he waited.
She was not gone for long. Now she stood on the last step looking at him, filled for a burning instant with wild joy at the sight of him standing there, looking so natural, looking as though all were well between them. He turned to her:
“Ready?” he asked, with a smile.
“Yes,” she returned, with no answering one.
They went out through the swing doors into Albemarle Street. “We’ll go to the Green Park,” she said.
The late sunshine was still beating down on Piccadilly. Three street musicians were playing a martial air, while a fourth man held out a little box to the passers-by. The ingratiating smile never left his face. Unconsciously Adeline moved in time to the music. Then, as they were confronted by the little box, she said, — “Give them something, Mait.”
He put his hand in his pocket and brought out a shilling. Adeline, eyeing it, exclaimed. — “It’s no good. I mean it’s no good to him. It’s Irish.”
The man kept his smile, his eyes fixed on Fitzturgis, who muttered, “Of course, of course.” He fished in his pocket, while the crowd jostled, and brought out more silver. Adeline snatched an English half-crown from his palm and dropped it into the box. The man took off his hat and made her a bow.
They crossed the street and entered through the tall iron gates into the park.
Adeline asked, — “Did I give them too much?”
“Too much? I didn’t notice.”
“It’s just that I’m feeling sorry for people who aren’t happy.”
“They probably are — as happy as any of us.”
The park was emptying. Those who had been lounging on the grass or in the chairs, women with children, women with dogs, were moving toward the gates homeward. But a steady stream of people passed along the paved walks through the park toward Buckingham Palace Road. A smell of warm earth and grass rose to the nostrils, as Adeline and Fitzturgis sought a quiet spot. Here and there the grass was pressed down by the weight of human bodies, but by tomorrow the grass blades would rise and the imprint have vanished. How lovely to walk on grass again, Adeline thought, pressing her toes against the ground, and making for the shade of an oak in which, high up, a song-thrush poured out his happy memories of the day.
She dropped to the grass, between light and shade, that side of her face nearest the tree pale and grave, while the other side, played on by the sunlight between the gently moving leaves, seemed almost to smile.
Fitzturgis dropped beside her, stretching out his legs and, for an instant, closing his eyes, as though he postponed the moment of looking into hers. She contemplated him with a feeling of more detachment than she had yet known. From the hour of their first meeting her feeling toward him had been intensely personal and instinctive. Now she saw him almost as an outsider who had thrust his way into her life, troubling it to its depths. Yet the delight of his nearness, of seeing him stretched on the grass, was there too, making conflict within her.
Now he looked up into her eyes. He said:
“You make me do e
verything I swore I wouldn’t do.”
“Such as what?”
“Falling in love with you. Giving you a wrong idea of myself. Following you here.”
She considered these three aspects of him — the lover — the deceiver — the follower. Then she said, — “You did all these of your own accord.”
He sat up. “I did not. I swear I was helpless.”
“I can’t imagine your being helpless, Mait. What is a face for, if it doesn’t show the character?”
He said between his teeth, — “If my face showed my character I hate to think what a face it would be.”
“Talk like that,” she returned, in her great-uncle Ernest’s manner, “doesn’t do any good. I want your explanation.”
“Of what?”
“Of why you married Georgina what’s-her-name.”
“I thought I loved her.”
“Really loved her?”
“Well — I thought so.”
“Did you feel the same about her as you now think you feel about me?”
“It was entirely different.”
“why?”
“Because she is entirely different.”
“You mean she is experienced?”
“It was partly that. Partly that the times were different. Men on leave were reckless. They thought their time on earth might be short. They snatched at pleasures.”
“And Georgina was one of yours?”
“Not for long … I can tell you this, my darling, and I want you to believe me — any feeling I had for Georgina was …” he made a quick gesture, from the wrist only, and narrowed his eyes, frowning. He did not finish the sentence. In the proud, fitful imagination of first love Adeline magnified everything he said, or did not say, into something momentous. She leant toward him, with parted lips, to receive his words or thoughts half-way.
“Yes? Yes?” she encouraged.
He continued, his hand gently touching her shoe, — “Comparisons are silly. Isn’t it enough that I love you with all that’s in me? Georgina was in my past.”
Adeline broke out, — “Oh, I wish I were older! Eighteen is so stupid to be. I have no past. I can’t understand.”
“where you are concerned I have no past either. It’s all present. It’s all you.”
“Have we no future?”
“You have.”
“Not without you.” Her lips quivered and she steadied herself with difficulty.
At some distance she saw another couple on the grass. They had escaped from some office or shop and come to the park to be together. The man lay flat on his back; the girl sat beside him. Fascinated, Adeline watched her wooing of him, her fondling of his sandy hair, caressing of his cheeks, tickling of his neck; his supine acceptance of these attentions. Adeline said, — “Let’s walk along.”
“Don’t you like it here?”
“Those people …”
He sat up and looked without interest. “Very well,” he said, “but we shall scarcely find a quieter spot.”
They moved among the trees, the thrush’s song following them. The sun was now lowering into a greater brightness rather than toward a sunset. The upper branches of the trees were enmeshed in a golden web. The noise of traffic came subdued. Again they dropped to the grass, this time side by side, their backs against a tree.
Adeline repeated, as though there had been no interruption:
“I have no future without you.”
He replied, almost violently, — “If I were wiped off the face of the earth at this instant your life would go on. In a few years from now — with me in Ireland, you in Canada —”
She interrupted, — “You say how much you love me, yet you talk to me like this!”
“I want to make you realize that I am only an incident.”
“why did you come here?”
“To explain.”
“You have explained nothing. I love you. You love me. I’m willing to wait for you. Isn’t that clear?”
He looked at her as though he did not see her. “Terribly clear,” he said. “You’re offering up your youth as a sacrifice.”
“Bother my youth,” she exclaimed. “I’m sick of hearing of it. May not we have some pleasure out of it?”
He frowned at her. “what do you want to do?”
“I want to be somewhere alone with you. I’d like to drink wine and to pretend that it would go on forever.”
He took her hand and they sat so linked for a time, without speaking. The song-thrush, out of some waywardness of his own, had chosen to follow them, alight on the topmost twig of their tree and there carry on his song. This topmost twig and he were the last objects burnished by the sunlight. Far below, Adeline and Fitzturgis sat in deep shade. It was becoming cool.
He told her of his first meeting with Georgina Lennox, of their almost immediate and passionate attraction for each other, of their rushing into marriage. “There was no friendship,” he said. “I simply wanted the excitement of it. I wanted something exciting enough to make me forget the war.”
A pang of jealousy went through her. “And did you forget the war?” she asked.
“In a sort of way — as though someone blowing on a tin whistle in your ear might make you forget the blast of a trumpet outside your room.”
Adeline laughed. “Compare me to something,” she said.
“what shall I compare you to! The harp that once through Tara’s halls? That’s it … that’s the thing! Or perhaps a sword that’s run me through.”
“Oh, Mait — my great-grandmother would have loved you!”
“Would she now? That’s interesting. How do you know?”
“I know because — in a strange sort of way — she lives in me … But I’m different too. I’ve had a different sort of bringing up. I’ve had more gentleness.”
He drew her on to talk of herself, of which he never tired. He lay, resting on his elbow, looking up into her face, seeing her eyes darken in the twilight, her hair darken to brown, and her skin take on a camellia-like pallor.
She would have remained there unmindful of time, had not Fitzturgis glanced at his watch and said, — “It’s past seven o’clock. What about your uncles? Will they be expecting you?”
She answered tranquilly, — “Wake will be at the theatre. Uncle Finch — he’ll be wondering.”
“what do you want to do?”
“whatever you say.”
“I’d like to take you to dinner somewhere. Do you like Claridge’s? No. I’m not dressed for it.”
“Besides it costs too much. Mait, let’s go to a restaurant I know in Soho. We can telephone to Uncle Finch that we’re there.”
Fitzturgis frowned at the thought of telephoning such a message to Finch. “Hadn’t we better present ourselves at Brown’s and ask him?”
“No! He might refuse. I want to go straight to Soho.”
As they crossed the park beneath the dark trees they saw the mild light of evening showing through the leaves and the crowds moving quietly along the pavement.
Fitzturgis became matter-of-fact. He looked Adeline over and said, — “You’re not very tidy. There’s a bit of bark in your hair.” He picked it off. He brushed blades of grass from her jacket, she standing straight and docile to have it done. A couple passed close beside them hand in hand. They walked on and came to the pair they had seen earlier. These two were in the same positions, only the girl more amorous, the man more flattened out.
Along Piccadilly a fresh evening breeze swept. In the distance was the sound of a band. Fitzturgis hailed a taxicab and they climbed in, as into a secret refuge. The back of the driver was as a shield, the four walls of the cab close about them, the traffic pouring past the windows, the smell of leather and cigarette smoke.
“I’m not going to mind about anything,” Adeline exclaimed, out of her dark corner. “I mean I’m glad you’re here, even though I don’t like what brought you.”
He put his arm about her. “I’m glad too. It’s another hour snatched b
efore parting.”
“Don’t talk of parting.”
“No. We’ll talk of being together always.”
“Together always,” she repeated. “Wonderful words. They’re like wings you can fly away with, where nothing can hurt you.”
“I found an old book,” he said, “in the bookshelves at home and it gave the meanings of names. Adeline means ‘noble maiden.’”
“How lovely! I do like that.”
“And it has a second meaning.”
“what?”
“‘Noble serpent.’”
She drew back from him staring. “No!”
“Yes. ‘Noble serpent.’ The serpent that tempts me.”
“Oh, I like that too.” She gave a low, happy laugh and laid herself against his side.
Fitzturgis put both arms about her. He held her fiercely, as though he would defy temptation, and all that followed surrender to it, to harm them. His lips, in the moving light of the street lamps, sought hers, and he kissed her as he had not before. No more than broken phrases were exchanged between them till the cab stopped in front of the Italian restaurant and the head of the driver turned on his drooping shoulders.
Inside the restaurant it was so crowded that at first it seemed no table could be found for them. The black-coated, black-haired waiters, hastening among the white tablecloths, seemed a multitude in themselves. Two of them, carrying loaded trays, were climbing the stairs to the restaurant on the floor above. The head waiter, with eyes still interested, in spite of the flow of patrons, found at last a small table just vacated. With an heroic smile of discovery he led them to it. All the sounds, the lighting, the faces, seemed foreign and delightful to Adeline. She put her hands up to the little hat she had bought in New York and placed it, as she thought, at a better angle. Fitzturgis, calm and detached, studied the menu.
“Please order for me,” she begged. “I never understand these things.”
She listened admiringly while he ordered the meal. No wonder, she thought, that the waiter listens to him so attentively. No wonder that a second waiter stands in readiness … There sat Fitzturgis in his best suit, an impecunious Irishman, behaving with the assurance of a capitalist. When the hors d’oeuvre was set in front of them he smiled across the table at her. She threw aside all her newly-acquired troubles and smiled back. She was hungry and ate the Italian dishes with relish. She sipped her wine, as though discussing its flavour. It exhilarated her. She joined her voice and laughter to the rising note of that about her.
The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche Page 468