Return to Night

by Mary Renault

  She continued to struggle while he kissed her furiously, implacably, and at last, when her resistance was finished, with a slow drowsy hunger and closed eyes. She began to feel something drugged and trancelike in him which infected her, so that she ceased the caresses into which, by degrees, her struggles had merged, and held him softly and still. Just as she was feeling, with a cloudy kind of acceptance, that this might go on till they slept on their feet, he lifted his head abruptly.

  “And now,” he said, in a voice perfectly hard and steady, “you’ll tell me this thing I said, now.”

  She gazed at him vaguely. He gave her a moment or two; then added, curtly. “You heard what I said.”

  Trying to collect herself, she murmured, “Yes, but it didn’t mean anything.”

  “Try again. That cock won’t fight.”

  “Dear, be quiet a little while. We’ve been rather—It will be all right in a minute.”

  “All right in a minute. God! Am I supposed to laugh?”

  This got her awake. She looked up at him appealingly. “I swear to you, Julian, I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Have you really forgotten? I believe you have.” He gave a bitter little smile, and suddenly kissed her again. “Well, think back a minute. This won’t be the only time. I’ve got to know, before it happens again. I’ve made up my mind; so you may as well.”

  “You mean, why we quarreled? Oh, my dear, don’t be silly.”

  “Can’t you be honest with me? That wasn’t a quarrel, and you know it. All that about my getting a job—oh, yes, I dare say. but that wasn’t it. It’s something about me, myself. Suddenly I’m intolerable. You felt it so that you couldn’t keep it in. Without anything happening, you hated me; you said so. This has gone on too long, it’s driving me mad. What is it? You’ll tell me, or I don’t leave this room. It doesn’t matter what it is. Tell me. I’ve got to know.”

  “Oh, be your age, Julian. How can you be such a fool. You’ve the instincts of a man, and heaven knows you’ve the strength of one. And you ask me that, now.”

  He said, doggedly, “I don’t know what you’re driving at.”

  “You must know. You’re doing this on purpose, and it isn’t fair. You’re just trying to pay me out.”

  “No, I’ve got over that. You can tell me now.”

  “I’m not going to, why should I, nobody would.” She swallowed quickly; but it was no use, the next sob was quite audible. She tried vainly to smother it in his coat; she had not expected this at all. Nor had she anticipated the words which presently emerged; she tried to smother them too. “… sitting there,” she concluded, “as if I were made of wood, just eating and talking shop.” She snatched the handkerchief out of his breast pocket, choked, and blew her nose.

  There was a short pause. Suddenly, he clutched at her arm. It was bruised already; she said. “Don’t do that.”

  “Is that the truth? Is it?” He dragged the handkerchief away from her face.

  She cried out, exasperated, “Couldn’t you tell?”

  “Swear it. Swear by almighty God.”

  “Don’t be outrageous. Give me that back, I haven’t finished with it.” She wiped her eyes, and was putting the handkerchief back where she had found it, when he caught her violently into his arms. She would have lifted her face, but he pressed it down against his shoulder, and held her so that she could not look up. She could feel his mouth moving blindly over her hair. At last, he let out his breath in a long gasping laugh. They kissed. She said, “I must look awful, let me get my bag.”

  Above the mirror (which confirmed her worst fears) she stole a look at him. His face was transformed; inwardly lighted, and free. Presently he said, “Here, give it me,” and before she could protest took the powder out of her hand. “You look all right, but if you must do it, do it properly.” He ladled powder onto her face, and began to smooth it in.

  “You’re dropping it over everything. Why can’t you behave like other people?”

  “There. And don’t start asking for lipstick, because you won’t get any, and this is why. … I can’t make women out. What was the idea, what were you like that for? If you—if that was it, why in heaven’s name didn’t you do something about it? Didn’t you think I could take it, or what?” There was an interval, while Hilary’s compressed feelings sought expression. “All right,” said Julian hastily. “God bless you, keep your hair on.” He passed an anxious hand over his own. Suddenly, they both began to laugh.

  Presently Julian said, “Who’s in tonight?”

  “Annie is; and she’s not been up yet to do my room. It’s time you were going, anyway.”

  “Fetch your coat,” said Julian briskly. “We’ll go for a drive.”

  It was an excursion which she recalled, afterward, in disjointed sequences, uncertain in place and time. She remembered a rush through blue-white, windy stars; a moment when another car came out of a blind turning, and Julian performed some split-second miracle while continuing to sing; and, more clearly because it lasted much longer, a hollow near the top of a high hillside, to leeward of the wind, drifted with curled crackling leaves that felt like beech.

  “I won’t come in,” said Julian in the garden, when he brought her home. “I shall remember all this on my deathbed, if I have a deathbed. I don’t want to tail it off.”

  They stood a little longer, screened from the house by a deodar whose sharp aromatic smell came to them on cold ripples of air.

  An owl came winnowing over them, startlingly near. Julian said, “It was true in a sense, part of what you said. Let’s not talk about it now. I’m going to see tomorrow whether Finnigan’s back.”

  Somewhere in the shadows a little way off the owl had found an ambush, and imitated, cunningly, the mating-noise of a mouse.

  “You’ll be cold,” he said. “Let me feel if I brushed the leaves off properly. Look, here’s one in your hair. Funny to think that in two minutes from now this will be over, isn’t it? This is good night, then. I shall love you till I die.”

  Chapter Seventeen: VILLAGE GOSSIP

  MRS. THEOBALD TINKLED HER BEDSIDE HAND BELL for the second time. No answer; her suspicions were confirmed. Clive must still be closeted with that woman, somewhere downstairs. She had listened very carefully, and there had been no sound of the car driving away. This happened too often, now; and when, afterward, she pressed him for an account of what had been said, he was most unsatisfactory. Mrs. Theobald made up her mind. There must be a change.

  Clive was, without encouragement, sufficiently obtuse and self-centered. His own family was coarsely robust; it had taken a long training to make him realize what highly strung, delicate women went through, and lately there had been a definite falling-off. Twice in the last week or two, he had mislaid, on the day, the notebook in which the date and time of her more important symptoms were jotted down; and sometimes, when the car had driven away and he came upstairs, there was an air of cheerful reassurance about him which was simply soulless. She suspected increasingly that, instead of pointing out how much more acutely she suffered than a less sensitive person with the same complaint, he minimized things, glad of any excuse for a selfish complacency. But one was used to selfishness; the intolerable thing was that he should, in that of all quarters, receive support. As the last unheard tinkle of the hand bell died away, Mrs. Theobald resolved, finally, to change her doctor.

  It had been a great mistake, of course, not to have taken steps when Dr. Pierce left; she had thought of it, as soon as she had heard that a woman was taking the practice over. But he had made it awkward by bringing her along for a personal introduction; and, after all, it had been reasonable to expect that a person of the same sex might have sympathy with one’s complex, intimate troubles. How mistaken! That callous briskness should have been warning enough.

  One could have tolerated crudity, thought Mrs. Theobald (searching the bedside table for one of the special chocolates), one could have endured, even, those bracing ineptitudes about its being a long t
ime now since the operation and nothing really organic being wrong, if the woman had even troubled to be socially agreeable. Nobody could say that Mrs. Theobald, for her part, had made no effort. She had been only too anxious to make her doctor a real friend, to whom she could bring her confidences, who would explain things nicely to Clive and ensure that he worried a little more. But no; not even that. Today’s visit had been the last straw.

  It might have been supposed that anyone, the most unimaginative person, would have realized that an invalid relied on her visitors to keep her in touch with things. Naturally one liked to know what was going on in the neighborhood; and, even if it happened to be unpleasant, a benevolent interest was not out of place. It was not as if she had been in the least obvious or intrusive; all she had said—absolutely all—was that Mrs. Clare must often feel lonely when her husband could spend so little time with her; that it seemed a pity he could not get something to do in England, as people were apt to drift apart with separation; and, with delicate tact, that she seemed to enjoy the company of young people. She had rounded the whole thing off with a harmless little joke, saying she only wished that, while Clive was buried in his eternal books, she could find a handsome young man to sit with her in the evenings. Not a single uncharitable word.

  No, one’s nerves were quite unequal to dealing with these brusque people. And if she really was so friendly with Mrs. Clare as to jump up in arms (which Mrs. Theobald doubted, for in her experience women were not loyal to their own sex) then either she had no idea what was going on, and ought to be told, or, demonstrably, she was not at all a nice woman herself. Mrs. Theobald almost wished, now, that she had come into the open about it. One had only expected a quite noncommittal answer, just some little intimation that the facts were understood and deplored; but, really! Actually to turn pale with annoyance, and then to say—baldly, “I think you must be thinking of someone else. What young man?” Naturally Mrs. Theobald had withdrawn at once into her shell; no person of refinement could have ignored so pointed a hint. And to say in that emphatic manner, so unsuitable in a sickroom—aggressive would be a better word—that to her personal knowledge Mrs. Clare was a particularly faithful and devoted wife! She had actually used the word “faithful”; it was evident that she was not even a lady. A faithful and devoted wife, indeed; it would have been quite laughable, if the affair had been less disgusting. And there was no possible doubt about Mrs. Theobald’s information; she had had it directly from Mrs. Cotter, to whom Nurse Price had been on her way when she had seen him—at that hour!—leaving the house.

  Well, sooner or later (Mrs. Theobald examined the chocolates critically for a soft center; the last had been, disappointingly, a hard one) everyone would have an eye opener. It would get to some friend of the husband, who would feel in duty bound to let him know. (She devoted a few minutes to considering how the friend should phrase the letter.) Not that one could feel much sympathy for him; obviously, like Clive, he had been selfish and neglectful, and being so much on the Continent it went without saying … but that, no doubt, if he took proceedings, couldn’t be proved. Nor was it necessary to waste emotion on Mrs. Fleming, a standoffish woman who had thought herself, apparently, above calling on Mrs. Theobald when she came to the neighborhood in search of the health-giving country air. If Mrs. Fleming had devoted less thought to her social prestige, she might have given more to the morals of her son. Mrs. Theobald herself could distinctly remember having remarked to someone, quite a year ago, that he would come to no good.

  There, at last, was the sound of the front door shutting; and, yes, there went the car. Mrs. Theobald pushed the chocolate box unobtrusively under the Express, rang the hand bell with emphasis, sank down into her pillows, and weakly, patiently, shut her eyes.

  “Lynchwick 23? Is Mr. Fleming in?”

  “I believe so. Who is speaking?”

  “Dr. Mansell.” Oh, God, let her be offended enough at being taken for the maid; let us not converse.

  “Will you hold the line, Dr. Mansell? I’ll see if I can find him.” The tap of heels receded, faintly, on a polished floor.

  “Hullo.”

  “My dear, I’m sorry about this. I can’t explain now. Can you come this evening? I shan’t be free till then.”

  “Yes—well, the only thing is—About what time?”

  “You can’t say anything, now, I suppose?”

  “Not very well.”

  “Would the afternoon be better?”

  “If possible.”

  “Come over to the surgery, then. I’ll be there at four.”

  “If that’s all right? I thought—?”

  “Yes. That doesn’t matter. … Julian, are you there?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know this is important?”

  “Yes, of course. … Well—look here—would you tell him I’ll be along about four, and see what I can do about it? And thanks very much for ringing up; I hope it wasn’t a nuisance for you. Tell him I’ll fix it. And not to worry. Good-by.”

  Hilary went back to the car, and continued her round. The remaining visits were in the new housing estate, ancillary to the aircraft works. Most of the people here had moved out recently from the large towns, and brought with them a preoccupation with the affairs of their own street. To them the established local gentry were a species of privileged aboriginal, inhabiting an uncharted world. They were not sufficiently aware of Hilary as an individual to attach her in their minds to this or any other class; she was The Doctor, or, for distinction, The Lady Doctor. They offered, for the next hour, an escape so complete that it was undermining. She experienced, after every call, the sensation one has on awaking from sleep after some disastrous news, that one has perhaps exaggerated the night before, or even invented, that if one can fight off the returning certainty, the facts themselves can be kept at bay. When she arrived at the surgery and found herself standing, at an hour when she was never ordinarily there, in its neat emptiness, she felt less ready than she had been when she had walked out between the yellow privets of Mrs. Theobald’s front garden. In the interval, her supporting anger had grown cold, and the pathogenic energy that follows shock had left her. Unable to bear a passive watching of the clock, she pulled out a drawer of dressings and began to tidy it. She was rerolling a bandage when the bell on the waiting-room door sounded.

  He walked through the inner door, which she had left ajar, and shut it behind him. It was a sharp bright day, with a northeast wind; he had on a dark, heavy driving-coat and gauntlets, and his face looked pinched with the cold.

  “What’s happened?” He pulled off his gloves.

  “I’m sorry I had to ring you up at home; it was awkward, I expect.”

  “That’s all right. I know something had happened. What is it?”

  “It’s been happening for some time, but I’ve only just found out about it. I had to see you today.”

  He stuffed the gloves in his pocket, came over and took her by the elbows. The skin looked drawn round his eyes and mouth. “You should have married me. I told you, didn’t I? I said something would happen. If one takes a chance, it always does.”

  “Yes.” The known truth obsessed her, so completely that she had not foreseen his thought, and did not recognize it even now. His stricken look seemed to mirror her own mind, and. amid her self-reproaches, she did not find it strange that he should reproach her. “Yes,” she said, “I ought to have known.”

  “It was my fault, I suppose,” he said dully. “I’m bad at talking about these things. One thinks one will, and then when it comes to the point, one feels it will spoil things. I thought, being a doctor, you’d probably warn me if—well, there’s no point in going into all that now. If we’d got married we could have gone away somehow—and been by ourselves, and …”

  His meaning began to penetrate her concentration. She looked up at him, stupidly.

  “I feel I’ve lost you now,” he said, “before I’ve ever really had you. Totally, to myself. I’m sorry. It’s rotten o
f me to talk to you like that, you must be as worried as hell. We’ll get married straight away, of course. How soon—” he stopped and swallowed—“how soon are you going to have it? Do you know?”

  She had not meant, when she found her voice, to exclaim with exasperation; the sound seemed to escape of its own accord. “Oh, Julian, be sensible. As if I’d have sent for you pell-mell like this about a thing I’d have been suspecting for weeks. Don’t you know anything at all?”

  “Not a lot,” he said mechanically, “about that part of it.” As delayed realization went home to him, his face lightened till ten years seemed to fall away from it. He took her in his arms. “Thank God. But didn’t you see—I mean, what else would I think? I’ve been going crazy.” His voice had a crossness sharpened by relief. As if in an afterthought he could not make real to himself, he added, “But what is it, then? Has someone found out about us?”

  “I wish to God they had. That’s why I sent for you. Because we’re going to have to tell them.”

  “Tell them?”

  “I’ve wondered, often, why no one was different to me. I thought it was bound to get about, in a place this size, where everyone talks. I found out, today. A kind woman let me in on it. It’s Lisa you’re supposed to be coming to see.”

  “Lisa? Mrs. Clare? But—but how absolutely fantastic.”

  “What is there fantastic about it? Lisa’s no older than I am, and a lot prettier. People gossip about her already; she’s supposed not to get on with her husband. We must have been demented not to have thought of it for ourselves.”

  “But, good God, Mrs. Clare. Why, she’s lived here years and years. Since before I was born.”

  “Exactly, and I’ve lived here for two. I’m a foreigner, I hardly exist yet. But that’s only the beginning. Since the last time Rupert was here, Lisa’s going to have a baby. I’m the only person yet who knows. Now do you see?”

  He said slowly, “But, if he was here—”

  “He stayed about four days. They spent the whole of it avoiding everyone. I don’t think he put a foot in the village all the while. It’s quite likely that the man who drove him up from the station is the only person who knows he was here at all. You know village gossip; what chance do you think the truth has of catching up?”