The Shadow and the Peak

by Richard Mason

  On Tuesday there was a note from Judy. Her office had made no fuss about the week-end, and her anticipatory excitement ran over into two joyful P.S.s. The note appeared to have been written the day after they had last met. Douglas looked at the post-mark. It was Thursday—nearly a week ago. This puzzled him, because the post from Kingston only took two days. It was brought up every day by a runner from the village six miles down the hill and handed to Mrs. Pawley, and private letters for the staff and children were distributed by the Pawleys’ maid. Now Douglas wondered if Mrs. Pawley had delayed this letter of his as a haphazard gesture of pique. He even looked at the envelope more closely to see if it had been opened before. There was no evidence that it had. Probably his suspicion was quite unwarrantable—there were many other possible causes of delay.

  But whether Mrs. Pawley had delayed the letter or not, she must have heard from her husband that Douglas had asked for the week-end off. She gave every indication that she shared Pawley’s displeasure. Douglas noticed the fresh anger in her expression; but there was also a new resolution in her purpose to ignore him, and she vented the anger on Silvia instead.

  The incident occurred on Tuesday at lunch. Mrs. Pawley was sitting at Silvia’s table, and Douglas at a table on the other side of the room. Half-way through the meal Mrs. Pawley’s raised voice was heard above the usual din of chattering and clinking cutlery. It caused a sudden and emphatic silence. All eyes turned towards her. She flushed right down her neck, and then said furiously to Silvia:

  “If you can’t behave, you can go and sit at a table by yourself.” Silvia didn’t move, so she went on, “Did you hear me? Go to the table in the corner at once. You can stay there for a week.”

  Silvia rose in her contemptuous way and walked over to the empty table, where she sat down with her arms folded. The silence continued. Then a girl at Mrs. Pawley’s table said shyly:

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Pawley, but it was my fault. I took Silvia’s fork.”

  “I didn’t ask you to speak,” Mrs. Pawley snapped.

  The silence was broken by Pawley, who made a clumsy attempt to resume normal conversation.

  “Yes, Paul? You were telling me how you were intending to spend your holidays . . .”

  A tentative murmur started up in the room, but it was some while before the noise grew into anything like the usual uninhibited hubbub. Mrs. Pawley had meanwhile instructed one of the servants to take Silvia’s plate across to her table. Silvia ignored it. She sat perfectly still with her arms crossed for the rest of the meal.

  After lunch it was customary for the staff to take coffee in the common-room, but Douglas felt too angry to face Pawley at once. He went off for a walk round the grounds. Half an hour later he went down to Pawley’s bungalow. Mrs. Pawley was on the verandah, but she went inside as soon as she saw him and Pawley came out. Douglas was now feeling calmer. He proceeded to point out that Silvia’s banishment to a table by herself was not only a denial of all Pawley’s own educational principles—and therefore likely to undo all the good that two months of liberal treatment had done her—but was a punishment that had, in any case, been unjustly dispensed, since another girl had admitted to being at fault.

  Pawley might reasonably have excused his wife’s action as a momentary error of judgment, of which anyone was capable; but instead he attempted to defend it. He said it would be a mistake to give Silvia the impression that they only knew how to be “soft.” There followed an argument on the meaning of “softness,” which took them right away from the point. When they finally returned to the point Douglas was feeling so frustrated by Pawley’s muddled thought and twisted principles that he was prepared to abandon the discussion and indeed to abandon Silvia. He said that perhaps Mrs. Pawley would like to take charge of her entirely.

  Pawley said patiently that he would have accepted this suggestion if it had not been so close to the end of the term; as it was, he would invite Douglas to continue as Silvia’s tutor, although it was now apparent that they did not see “eye to eye.” He then said:

  “I shall trust you, Lockwood, not to use your position with Silvia to prejudice her against my wife or myself—which you may feel tempted to do.”

  Douglas replied that he had always made an effort not to allow his personal feelings to influence his treatment of the children, and turned and left.

  Later in the day Pawley called him down to his bungalow again and offered an olive branch. He said that he put it all down to end-of-term nerves. Douglas allowed himself to agree. Pawley shook his hand, diagnosed “a bit of right and wrong on both sides,” and said that he was reducing Silvia’s sentence from a week to only three days of solitary meals. He added that he had no objection to her taking a book into the dining-room, if she felt it would mitigate her boredom.

  Silvia did not take a book into the dining-room, and at lunch, which was the only meal the Pawleys attended, she continued the protest of the hunger-strike. She sat with her arms folded while each course was put in front of her and taken away uneaten. She made up to some extent by eating ravenously at breakfast and supper, but lunch was the main meal of the day and there must have been a good deal of will-power behind her stubbornness.

  On the same day as the incident at lunch she tried to find out from Douglas if he was taking Mrs. Pawley’s side against her. He prevaricated, and fell back on the time-honoured defence of erroneous chastisement by exhorting her to remember, if she had really been innocent, how many times she had escaped retribution for undiscovered sins.

  This brief interview took place in the library. On the following day she came down unexpectedly to his bungalow while he was having tea. Despite her effort to look casual, there was a handkerchief screwed up tightly in her hand and her knuckles were white. Her hair was freshly brushed. He also suspected a trace of powder and lipstick on her face, although they had been applied much more discreetly than on the last occasion, when she had gone off to meet her phantasy boy-friend.

  She stood on the top verandah step.

  “Where are you going for your holidays?” she said. It was obviously a rehearsed opening.

  “I don’t know yet.” At the moment he could think of nothing clearly beyond the week-end. “I may fly down to Barbados.”

  “Will you take me?”

  He laughed. “Your father might have something to say about that.”

  “I’m not going home, anyhow,” she said. “I’m leaving home. I’m leaving school this term as well.”

  “You’ve been making very big decisions all by yourself,” he said.

  She ignored this. “So it’s all right, you see—you can take me.”

  “And supposing I did?” he said. “What on earth should I do with you?”

  “You could marry me if you wanted.”

  She spoke perfectly seriously; but he decided to treat it as a joke.

  “Do we come back to the school next term as husband and wife?”

  “No, we can’t come back here,” she said. “It might be better if we didn’t come back to Jamaica at all. I thought we could go up to America. You’d easily get a job there. Something better than teaching. You’re much too good to be a schoolmaster.” She pulled a piece of paper out of the pocket of her dress. “You can read this if you want to know what I think of you.”

  He glanced at the paper. It was a poem called “Ode to Mr. Douglas Lockwood.” It showed a marked influence of Shakespearean sonnets, and was not one of her best literary efforts. It began by extolling his wisdom and courage and other virtues, and passed on with a welter of superlatives to his appearance. It described the colour of his eyes as a challenge to the blueness of the Caribbean. He folded up the paper and said to Silvia:

  “My eyes aren’t blue, you know. They’re grey. And nobody could call my teeth perfect. I smoke too much, and six months ago I had seven fillings. This poem isn’t about me at all. It’s about somebody else.”

>   “It’s about you,” she said. “I’ve seen your eyes look blue.”

  “No,” he said. “It’s about somebody who only exists in that imaginative little brain of yours. This is what you want me to be like—a wise and handsome chap with blue eyes and shining teeth—so you pretend all these things to yourself, and you pretend to yourself that you care a lot about me. One of these days you’ll start caring about somebody who really exists. Then you’ll realize this didn’t mean anything at all. You’ll laugh when you remember asking an old schoolmaster to run away with you.”

  “You’re not laughing, are you?” she said.

  “No, I’m not,” he said. “I’m taking it just as seriously as all the stories you’ve written for me. You believed those, too, while you were writing them. It was quite right you should have done, because they really happened—in your imagination. Perhaps this is really happening in your imagination. But that’s where we must leave it.”

  She ignored all this. She had relaxed her grip on the handkerchief, and was looking more at ease.

  “I’m quite pretty, aren’t I?” she said.

  “You may be quite good-looking one day,” he said.

  “My figure will get much better. And you’ve no idea what a difference it will make when l have my hair waved. You could be very proud of me.”

  He said slowly and firmly, “Silvia, I am not taking you away with me.”

  “Why not? Because you’re afraid?”

  “Because I don’t want to.”

  “You must want to, if you’re in love with me.”

  “I’m not in love with you,” he said. “That’s one of the things you’ve made yourself believe.”

  “I know you’re not in love with your wife any more,” she said. “You’re divorced. I don’t suppose you ever loved her properly. She wasn’t meant for you. And you’re not in love with anyone else, are you?”

  “If I was, it would be with someone of my own age.”

  “Age doesn’t matter—and as I’ve told you already, I think I’m probably fifteen. But there’s nobody else you could be in love with. None of the other girls here are developed enough, and I know you aren’t attracted by Mrs. Morgan.”

  “That only leaves Mrs. Pawley.” He said this lightly, but he noticed Silvia flush, and she said in a tense sort of way:

  “You’re not in love with Mrs. Pawley, are you?”

  He laughed. “No, Silvia, I am not. It’s quite possible to go a very long time without being in love at all.”

  “I’ve sometimes wondered if Mrs. Pawley attracted you,” she said. “I wondered it yesterday, when you tried to stand up for her although you knew she was in the wrong. She might attract you in a beastly way. But you couldn’t love her properly. She’s not good enough for you. She thinks herself so wonderful, and really she’s hateful.”

  “You’ve no business to say that,” he said. “But, in any case, I don’t happen to be in love with her.”

  “Then you must be in love with me. You know how I found out first, don’t you? It was after I’d smashed up your bungalow, and you told me about your elephant. There was no one else you would have told about it, because they wouldn’t have understood.”

  “I remember you were rather scornful about it,” Douglas said.

  “I pretended to be, but I wasn’t. I used to have something like that. It was just a stone with a funny pointed end. I had to rub the end with my third finger to make things happen as I wanted.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Sometimes it did. Then I lost it. I was probably meant to, because once I used it to hurt somebody I hated. I should only have used it for good things.” She smiled. “You see how alike we are. I believe in people being meant for each other, although I know it’s supposed to be silly. Even if you don’t really understand what you feel about me now, you will once we’ve spent some time together.”

  He stood up.

  “Silvia,” he said. “It’s time you ran away. You can go and write me another story about a girl of twelve who was far too impatient to grow up and live like someone on the films.”

  She took no notice of this, and said calmly:

  “You’ve plenty of time to think it over, anyhow. I don’t mind if you don’t make your decision until the very end of term.” She started to go, and then turned back with an afterthought. “I forgot to say you don’t have to marry me. I’m not in the least conventional about that kind of thing.”

  On Thursday he was taking a French class in the library when Pawley’s maid came in.

  “You’re wanted on the telephone, Mr. Lockwood.”

  He hurried down. He had warned Judy that the telephone was in Pawley’s study and should only be used in an emergency. He expected the worst.

  Pawley looked up from his desk without much enthusiasm.

  “Perhaps you’d rather I left?” he said.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  He picked up the receiver, and Judy’s voice said: “Douglas, are you alone?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Oh, Lord,” she said. “Can you possibly come down to Kingston this evening?”

  “No, I can’t. What’s happened?”

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said:

  “Well, actually, it’s not so bad as it sounds. One of the girls went down with pneumoma last night, and so they want me for a trip tomorrow. They’ve been so damned good to me, I can’t let them down in a crisis like this. I honestly can’t, can I? But it’ll be perfectly all right for the following week-end. Would that mess everything up for you?”

  “I could probably arrange it,” he said.

  She sounded terribly relieved.

  “Oh thank heavens,” she said. “I’d been feeling so utterly wretched about it—I was terrified you wouldn’t be able to. But I’ll be back on the Friday morning.”

  “It’s a long trip,” he said. “Where are you going?”

  She hesitated.

  “Douglas couldn’t you possibly get down tonight? Or couldn’t I come up and see you or something?”

  “It’s impossible,” he said.

  “Or tomorrow morning? I must see you to explain.”

  “You’re going to Buenos Aires,” he said.

  She said wretchedly and very earnestly, “Listen, Douglas. I swear I didn’t arrange it. I didn’t even know where they were sending me at first. I know you won’t believe me, but you can ask them at the office. The girl’s dreadfully ill.”

  “Very well,” he said. Pawley was pretending not to listen, but he was obviously listening for all he was worth and it was damned difficult to talk. It was even more difficult to hide what he was feeling, when he was feeling so sick he could have cried.

  “I shall only be in Buenos Aires a few hours,” Judy said. “I’m not going to see Louis. Honestly I’m not. I couldn’t, anyhow, because I burnt his letter. I burnt his address.”

  “Good for you,” Douglas said.

  “Then it’s all right about next week-end?”

  “Of course.”

  “Oh, thank God, Douglas,” she said. “Thank God, darling.”

  He knew it was no use pretending to Pawley that the call had had nothing to do with the week-end, so he tackled him at once. Pawley said:

  “But that’ll be the second last week-end of term.”

  “That won’t matter, will it?” He was feeling extremely awkward.

  Pawley spread out his hands helplessly.

  “You must do whatever you think best, Lockwood,” he said.

  “I’d like to go, if you don’t mind,” Douglas said; and he again reminded Pawley that he had taken no other week-end off during the whole term.

  “Yes, you’ve been most conscientious,” Pawley said. “As you know, I’ve been very gratified by your work . . .” He said this with more res
erve than usual and began to finger some papers awkwardly. Then he went on “But I hope you’re not going to spoil your good record in the last few weeks of term. I appreciate that we all begin to feel restless about now, but we must try not to lose our discretion. And in your particular case, as I’ve already pointed out, we should be wise to exercise a little more than ordinary caution.” He settled himself back and felt for his pipe. “Not that I would dream of criticizing your conduct, Lockwood—narrow-mindedness is not amongst my many shortcomings. But you’ve probably learnt by now that there are other points of view which we can’t afford to ignore.”

  “Oh, yes,” Douglas said. “I’ve learnt all about that.”

  He carried his bag over to the garage after lunch. It was a clear day, and as Morgan had forecast a rainy week-end there was every chance of it remaining fine. Joe was already waiting by the station-wagon to drive him down. They set off between the eucalyptus trees and when he looked round again the school had vanished. The week-end had begun. The point in the future, that at the beginning of the week had seemed incredibly far away, had become the moment he was living now.

  He could hardly realize that the long dragging week was over. Last Monday morning it had loomed in front of him like the Alps in front of some traveller from Germany bound for Italy on foot. Each period of twenty-four hours was a separate range to be crossed. In the daytime there was the wearisome upward trek from one calculated stage to another, and at night the speedy descent of sleep—but only to wake up in the bottom of another valley, with the precipice of another morning ahead. Once or twice during the week he had wondered with appalling anguish if Judy had really been deceiving him: if she had engineered her trip to Buenos Aires and gone to see Louis. Then he remembered the frankness of her eyes, the innocence of her heart. How absurd of him to doubt her!

  Joe dropped him in the centre of the town, and he took a taxi to Judy’s flat. There was no reply when he rang the bell. He looked at his watch. It was nearly three. He thought without dismay that the aircraft had probably been delayed. He went out to the taxi again and drove down to the offices of the air-line in Harbour Street. The clerk told him at once: