Her spirits soared higher and higher, and she knew in that moment of revelation she was one of those whose first love would always be life. But her fantasy about it was transmuted. She would walk carefully without the deviation of witless experiment. Her way was cemented. Who had said that?
Tim, when he spoke of the boys who seemed sure of their way. She must know where she stood and how. She was used to a routine and she wanted some of it back.
She could hardly wait for the opening of the Chelsea door. “Is Doctor Fitz Henry back yet, Marion?”
“Yes, miss, ten minutes ago. Mrs. Fitz Henry telephoned to say they would not be home for dinner. Would you and—”
“Yes, yes,” she agreed hastily, “we’ll be home for dinner, I feel sure. Take my things upstairs, please.’’
She surrendered her hat and coat, and patting her hair in front of the mirror she saw the terrible scratch on her hand. It made her whirl round and make a headlong entrance into the studio-room. Philip was staring out, seeing a square of grim November garden.
“Philip,” she called to his unhappy back.
“Mary,” he answered, wheeling round in a startled way.
“Philip,” she said, advancing towards him with an out-stretched hand, “do you remember saying I’d be more human to you if you saw me with a pimple ? Look, a London cat has scratched me.”
“Mary,” he said,utterly confused, “I’ve been worrying….”
He took her hand, seeing the scratch, and it was significant that he did not suggest iodine at once. “It has scratched you,” he murmured, “but you look—”
He stopped in a baffled way, and then went on to speak with great simplicity:
“Mary, you confuse me utterly. I’ve been useless all day, thinking of you mixed up in that sordid affair, and you come back so fresh and unaffected. When I think you’re near me you’re furthest away. When I feel you’ve quite gone you sweep back like a happy child.”
“I’m not complicated to myself, Philip, only to you.”
He shook his head, giving her the fascinated regard she could always command from his eyes. “I’ll never know you, Mary, never really know you.’’
“Philip,” she said, like an adult speaking to a younger generation, “I was thinking today we’ll never see a fraction of the earth. No matter where we travel there’ll be places out of reach. People are like that, but why should we try to know them all? Isn’t it enough to be near, give what we can—?”
“Mary!”
His hand went out, fastening on her shoulder, seeking her very bones, and she felt it without any shrinking of her flesh.
“What are you saying, Mary?”
“Philip, do you love me ?”
He gave a short hard laugh. “Love you, Mary? You’ve been like a long thirst. I’ve worked and tried to stamp you out, and let Dave have his way with my leisure, but every other girl…Well, what is there to say about things like that? I just love you beyond myself. I get tired and drab, and I see you and hear your voice, and I feel refreshed. It’s been like that in some ways since the first day in hospital. I simply can’t help it.”
“Why should you help it, Philip?” she asked with beautiful directness.
“Mary,” he said, gripping her shoulder desperately, “don’t say what you don’t mean. You know what I’m like, and all the discipline in the world can’t change a man completely. I won’t have anything from you unless you’re sure. For the sake of my work I must ask you not to trifle with me. Once you give way and let me…I couldn’t go back,” he said restively, “I wouldn’t have the strength after that terrible regret…”
“Philip, the past is so dead and still so alive. Now we both know Tim. I’m quite sure. I’ll marry you, and go with you anywhere, any day.”
He still seemed to doubt her, standing like a man who had repressed himself too long to give way too fast. She had to go the whole way and step into his arms. Over her head he seemed to expel repression from his handsome nose. Then his arms and his hands came to life. But he held her like a man unsure of happiness. She put her arms round him to reassure him, knowing her first job would be to teach him to recognise joy.
“Philip,” she said persuasively, “it’s so easy for me to be happy, but I’m much happier now.”
“Mary, my dear,” he said with lips venturing on her flesh as if he had never touched her before. “Mary, I feel so hungry for you.”
She lifted her face and felt her mouth swamped but not stifled. He was sweeping on as a lover, and nothing in her held back. She felt adult and not girlish, understanding from deep primal roots the normality of natural appetites. Moreover, she could identify his deep-toned tenderness and his great protection of herself. Before she closed her eyes she saw the unbelievable softening of his face. Then she whirled back to the Cove to tell Josephine she was minding what they said! She whirled to the Place to tell the mater she was doing as Philip said. She stood pat in her own flesh, playing a tune with Tim. She rested in Philip’s arms, feeling a man’s ecstasy round and about her. She felt her veins rippling with life, and the wingspread of her spirit craving infinite future.
Margaret Duley was born in 1894 in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and died in 1968. Her four novels—The Eyes of the Gull (1936), Cold Pastoral (1939), Highway to Valour (1941), and Novelty on Earth (1943)—were published internationally and praised by contemporary critics. Her place in Canadian literature was recognized in 1981 with a National Historic Plaque, mounted on the exterior of the Queen Elizabeth II Library of Memorial University.
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