Return to Night: A Novel

by Mary Renault

  As she bent to him, and saw his face, white and transformed in the moonlight, flung back in an unbreathing stillness for her kiss, she felt the weight of magic and of legend thrown on her so heavily that she dared not speak. This was not like the kisses he had given her, violent and bewildered; this he waited for her to give, and received it as if it had the power to put a soul into his body. She felt as though it were taking the soul from her own, and was afraid; but the power of the dream held her silent; she could only comfort him in her arms, while. rapt and trembling, he contended with his mystery. It was as if in the kiss she had entered it with him; as if she became even to herself, an ageless source, a shelter and a benediction. He seemed to her, in the dream, the dear creation of her own pain and love, and she forgot that it was by him she had been created. “Come in, my dearest,” she said. “Come in out of the cold.”

  So she yielded the gifts of her divinity and was content. Indeed there is much to be said for an apotheosis; for a deity can receive into grace the most unpracticed worshiper and lose nothing of her heaven, while for a woman in love, even a reasonable woman, it is difficult not to expect too much.

  Chapter Thirteen: CLANDESTINE ROMANCE

  IT WAS THE DEAD HOUR BEFORE DAWN, and black dark, for the moon had set and the stars clouded over. Hilary stretched out a hand to the little luminous alarm clock on the table, and moved the lever over to SILENT. It would be due to strike in five minutes. To reach it, she had to slide from under stray overlapping parts of Julian, of which there seemed a good many, all rather heavy; she could have deduced by now, without other evidence, that he had been used to the undisputed territory of a large bed. Her movement did not wake him. He had only turned twice all night, each time to sleep more profoundly than before.

  Once or twice she had dozed fitfully herself; but the hours had streamed through her consciousness like a mood or a dream, without the sense of time. Her first restlessness had not lasted long; for then, while the moon was up, she had been able to see him, and there had been a peacefulness in his sleep so deeply satisfying to the heart that the rest had ceased to be of consequence. She thought that, even if she had been an untaught girl, she would never have taken his inexperience for selfishness. She smiled into the darkness; he had blundered along with so much poetry, with an imagination that had made his passionate and unsuspecting ignorance easy to forgive, and hard to endure. But afterward, and all night till now, she had been happier than ever in her life. Now she must rouse him, for here in the country people were up and working with the first light, and he might be seen to leave. She leaned out farther, turning on the soft shaded light; but he slept on.

  It was a somewhat dilapidated Eros whom the lamp of Psyche revealed. The color of his eye had deepened to black-purple. It was evident that he would not be able to open it at all. She knew already that the strapping above it had come adrift (as he was falling asleep he had smiled to feel her putting it back again) so it was without much surprise that she found he had shed his young blood not only on the pillow, but on her nightgown, her bare shoulder, and her breast. She looked down at him in loving amusement, recalling a chapter in Malory wherein Lancelot, being entertained by Queen Guinevere after a combat, had behaved with the same lack of tact. She wondered whether Lancelot had ever gone visiting with a black eye. She leaned over, and rocked his shoulder.

  “Julian.”

  He made a protesting little noise, puckered his unswollen eyelid, and wriggled down under the sheet. Feeling very unkind, she pulled it away, gave him a shake, and kissed him. He fetched a deep sigh, turned, enveloped her comfortably with himself, and immediately went to sleep again.

  “Darling, wake up. It’s morning.”

  This time she must have stirred up a stiffened strain, for he winced and woke. His blurred sleepy face looked touchingly youthful; he felt at his eye before taking her in his arms and kissing her drowsily. She said, “Yes, my sweet, but you’ve got to go.”

  “What time is it?” He turned his head to peer at the window. Now that the light was on, the glass might have been backed with jet.

  “You mustn’t wait till it’s light. Listen, the cocks are crowing.”

  “They crow practically all night.” said Julian conclusively, and slid down in bed again. She felt rather desperate, from distrust of her own resolution as much as anything. He had curled round confidingly; she felt the just-evident morning roughness of his cheek against her shoulder, and his soft hair tickling her neck. With weak procrastination she caressed him, nerving herself for another effort; but he saved her the trouble by starting away suddenly, and exclaiming with wide-awake dismay, “When did this happen? My God, have I hurt you? What did I do?”

  It took her a moment or two to realize what he was talking about. Feeling the dressing, she decided that what was left of it would see him home. “It’s your own, darling. Don’t you remember?”

  “Oh, is it? Thank heaven for that. But it’s on that lovely-green thing, too. No, don’t move.”

  “Look at the clock. It will start to be light in half an hour. You wouldn’t like to compromise me, would you?”

  “Of course not, I ought to be shot, I’ll get up right away…. Lord, I do feel stiff.”

  “Let me look at you. … Oh, my dear. Stiff! I should think you do. No wonder I thought you’d broken a rib. Let me feel it a minute.”

  “Feel them all,” said Julian generously. He lay down again.

  “Oh, darling, don’t be such an effort.”

  “I’m going, I swear I am. Five minutes.”

  “What you want is another four hours’ sleep.”

  “Is it? What time can I come tomorrow—tonight, I mean?”

  “My dear, anything might happen. I’ll ring you up.”

  “But I can’t not see you tonight. I—we haven’t talked about anything. How can I go away just not knowing when I’ll see you again?”

  “Lisa will want me to meet her husband. We may sit talking till all hours. I might have a call. I’ll ring you up, whatever happens. Late, sometime after eleven.”

  “Let’s meet somewhere in the day.”

  “I shan’t have a minute.” She could imagine how she would be looking, after a white night and a morning’s work. “I promise, dear, if it’s a human possibility I won’t keep you away.”

  “You won’t decide it’s all been rather a pity?”

  “Darling, you’re just stalling for time.”

  “Aren’t you going to kiss me more properly, when I’m going away for all this while?”

  “That’s properly enough. It’s getting so late.”

  “What’s the matter? Don’t you care about me as much as you did before?”

  He didn’t speak that piece very well, she thought; almost anyone could have worked in more pathos than that. She looked up; he smiled quickly, but not quickly enough. His face had been taut with suppressed disquiet. He had meant it. It was more than she could bear.

  Feeling turned upon her the betrayed and outraged eyes of a million female generations, she whispered, “Yes, darling; more, much more.”

  There was plenty to think about that morning, including work; the concentration demanded by the last seemed, today. painfully unnatural exercise. On the homeward drive her mind reverted to personal matters, from the fresh and much more practical standpoint belonging to the hour. Thus preoccupied, she nearly walked through Rupert Clare in the garden, like a ghost walking through a wall.

  If she had had time lately to build up expectations, she would have found this first sight dismally disappointing. He converged on the front door with her, a slight, neutral-tinted, insignificant man of forty-odd, with a narrow head and lines under his eyes, who looked at her with that air of reserving judgment which clings as an unconscious habit to people who have had to live guardedly. Hilary found it a little repelling. They introduced themselves conventionally and made dim, well-meant conversation, during which she had the feeling that he was taking advantage of her less attentive moments to mak
e mental notes; as indeed, out of ingrained training and routine, he was. But she was aware of something behind all this: a kind of signal of good will made as it were from a distance through a small window, which seemed to be saying, Don’t suppose that I don’t like or approve of you, simply because I come no nearer; you must excuse me, I don’t go out very much. It was not till his attention flagged for the first time from what he was saying, that she saw Lisa in the doorway, come to announce lunch.

  When Hilary came in at the end of the afternoon, they were sitting placidly by the fire, and begged her, with a kind of lazy sincerity, to come and talk. They so evidently meant this, that she stayed for nearly an hour; they accepted her into their private world as people who are a little drunk welcome strangers into the circle of their geniality. She could, she thought, have spent most of the evening with them without feeling that her presence was causing them the least embarrassment. In fact, however, she retired to her room, feeling the need of a little sleep.

  Hilary need not have feared for her chances of privacy that evening. By ten-thirty, the house was as still as a school after lights-out.

  She sat fingering the telephone uncertainly, her mind set free again for her own self-questionings and doubts, and filled with a renewed sense of guilt about Lisa. With whatever conviction she might say she regarded herself as a legalized mistress, the fact remained that she was a respectable married woman with a correct establishment, and Hilary was making what most people would think an inexcusable use of her house. Lisa ought to be told, in general if not in particular. But there had been no opportunity; and Julian had had his promise. Principle, as well as a strange sensation like a warm shiver in her bones, told her that promises must be kept. She picked up the receiver. The promptness of the reply was such that she could only suppose Julian had been sitting with the instrument on his knees.

  Half an hour later he was in her room. When she emerged from his arms, she was aware of the cool sharp smell of narcissus, and found he had laid a sheaf on the pillow beside her.

  “Do you like them?” She asked, slipping his arm round her waist. “You look as if there were something funny about it.”

  “My dearest, they’re lovely, but in a way there is. I mean, it’s rather arresting to go into someone’s room in the morning and find it full of flowers that weren’t there the night before. But perhaps they’ll only think I walk in my sleep.”

  “Oh, Lord, would you think anyone could be so dumb?” He was completely dashed. His black eye—which was no better, except that the swelling had begun to go down—made his expression rather comic, but Hilary felt no impulse to laugh. She put down the flowers and kissed him.

  “It’s all right,” he assured her; “I’ll take them back when I go. I’ll make a point of remembering.”

  “Of course you shan’t. I was only being feebly funny, darling. Lisa doesn’t notice things. They’re my favorite flowers.”

  “I’d have brought you something better, but I was seeing too lopsidedly to drive into town.”

  “I should think not. How are you? Is the cut all right?”

  “Oh, fine. I slept all afternoon and half the evening. I feel terrific. And you, my beautiful?”

  “Terrific,” murmured Hilary. She tried to remember what it felt like to be so full of surplus energy at the end of a long day.

  “What a marvelous dressing-gown. You do have nice things. And always right with the lighting. That green thing would have looked rather immense under strong blues, come to think of it. Is it all right? Let’s look.”

  “It’s not dry enough yet to wear.”

  “Oh, too bad. What are you—” The sentence remained, rather abruptly, incomplete.

  “You’ve given me doubts now.” she murmured, “about the lighting.”

  “They’re quite unnecessary,” said Julian softly.

  He had pulled off his jacket when he paused, as if remembering something, and rummaged in the pockets. “Just a minute before I forget.” He produced a length of twine, which he tied, with careful precision, round the third finger of her left hand. “Tomorrow I shall be able to get around a bit.”

  “Darling, what on earth do you—”

  “Forget it,” said Julian airily, withdrawing the string and pocketing it. “Just an experiment of mine.”

  She caught at his arm as he was moving away again, and pulled him back to her. He sat down on the edge of the bed, with an indulgent little smile. Behind it she saw a swift gathering of his resources, a resolution hardened by fear. She smiled back, feeling her own pretense as thin as his. “What have you been up to? You don’t move from here until you tell me.”

  “I don’t have to move.” He grinned at her defiantly, and undid his shoes with his free hand.

  “Darling, this isn’t funny. What did you mean just now?”

  “We’ll talk about that in the morning.” He kissed her swiftly. He was doing it, already, alarmingly well.

  “We’ll talk now,” she said.

  She had been sure of her power in the last resort; the obedience with which he let her go made her unhappy, so she smiled at him again. “Come along, let’s have it.”

  “You’ve had it already.” His gaiety had an increasing quality of desperation. “We had all that out last evening.” She did not reply, but waited, looking at him. “It’s all right. I haven’t had it put in the Times. I’ve only written it out to send tomorrow.”

  “Darling, could you be serious for a moment?”

  “If you’re afraid of the padre thinking you beat me into submission, don’t worry. I can work over the eye all right; I had to do it once for another chap. He went to a dance and got away with it. How soon? Three days?”

  She laughed a little, and patted his cheek. “You’ll go far, my dear, I always said so.”

  He caught her wrists in both hands. It became impossible to laugh any longer. “Stop fooling with me. You know I mean every word I say.”

  “See, dear, let’s not lose our heads: I could too, but we can’t both. Give me a kiss and stop talking nonsense.”

  “Nonsense? I asked you if you loved me, you said yes, you let me come here. I asked you to marry me when I asked you that.”

  “I know you offered to, darling, and I know you meant it. It was very sweet of you.”

  “I offered to? My God, what do you mean, I offered to?” He stared at her; the set of his face made her more frightened than before. “Would you be kind enough never to say a thing like that to me again?”

  “Is it such a dreadful thing to say? So you did.”

  “You’ve no right to talk about yourself like that. How do you suppose I think about you? You must have known, or you wouldn’t—”

  “I knew you loved me. And that I loved you.” She searched her mind desperately for the right words. “Marriage is just a way of telling the world. It’s an arrangement, that’s all; but it’s a complicated one; you can’t—”

  “It’s only complicated if you make it. Look at the way people did it in the last war—” His face deadened suddenly, as if his words had just overtaken his mind and deeply shocked him. “I ought to have told you this, of course, I didn’t think I’m afraid, but I’d have about eleven hundred a year, clear of—of everything. I’m sorry if that’s less than you’ve been making yourself, it probably is; but after I get started we’ll do better. I hope.”

  She clutched at the floating pretext he had allowed to drift in her way. “You’re not suggesting I should give up my work? It means as much to me as acting does to you.” As she spoke she realized, with a muffled astonishment, that this statement had become wholly untrue.

  “Not if you don’t want to. I just wondered whether you thought I was expecting you to keep me. Some of your ideas about me have been taking me rather by surprise lately.”

  “Dear, please.” The fact which she had been trying to suppress from her consciousness, that she was really very tired, became evident to her. The light made her eyes ache; she shut them, to think better.


  “Oh, God, I’m sorry. Hilary, look at me. I didn’t mean it, I swear—”

  She opened her eyes again; already she had forgotten the almost involuntary gesture. Bewildered, moved, and shocked by his face, she leaned out and embraced him. “What is it? I was only thinking what to say. Don’t look as if I’d killed you. What is it, I don’t understand.”

  “Will you kiss me?” he said slowly at last.

  “Here. … What was the matter with you then?”

  “You looked at me the way people do when they’re—sort of rubbing you out.”

  “Don’t be so silly again.”

  “You can’t know if people will always be the same. Why won’t you marry me, then?”

  She took a deep breath. “You’re not being very tactful, are you, my dear? You must know why.”

  He said nothing. He simply waited, His face had a dumb dread which was, strangely, as formless as it was poignant.

  She went on, “You’re twenty-four, aren’t you? How old do you imagine I am? The truth, I mean.”

  He sat back with a kind of gasp. “Oh, really, this is too ridiculous. Good Lord, I thought it was—I don’t know what. What is this, one of those games where you win the cake if you guess the number of currants? I’ve never thought. Did you read medicine at Oxford, or start after?”

  “After. But don’t sidetrack.”

  “I’m not, I’m working out the length of your training. You had a year or two at home, first, and you’ve practiced since, I’m not sure how long. I suppose the answer is somewhere between thirty-two and thirty-five. So what?” He looked at her impatiently, and a little crossly.