The whole room was bright now, and the crying of sea-birds louder. The gulls must be diving like mad down the line of the cliffs. She remembered them as she had seen them yesterday wheeling out over the water about the rock; beautiful, aloof, cruelly competent, and farther out were the gannets with wing-spread wider than a swan’s and rusty eyes. When the gannets dipped their wings they plunged to the water like bombs.
Everything had helped them grow together during these last two weeks. She and Paul had driven slowly up from Halifax. Now at Percé they were nearly half way around the Gaspé Peninsula. It had been a beautiful drive through Nova Scotia, then up the long corridor cut by the road through the spruce forests of New Brunswick, then along the rim of the peninsula with the sea beside them, cliffs and breakers and an astonishing blueness in the sky, and more sea-birds than they had ever seen before.
Now as she watched him sleeping she knew that in spite of loving her he had never lost the sense of himself. She was not jealous of the part she could not touch. She could companion it, but she could not have it. What she did have was a hundred images of him engraved on her mind, all different. She remembered the concentration about his mouth and eyes as he had read beside her last night before they slept. She remembered the sudden, constantly renewed surprise when he smiled and his face became so much younger. Often his expression was reserved and ascetic, and he looked older than his age. That was why the moments were so marvellous when she touched him and his face softened; these, and the times when he looked at her naked beside him and his eyes showed that he loved the lines of her body, and she wondered incredulously if she were really beautiful.
Her past had drained away from her. Only these last few days with him counted now. Like being born again? For a girl it surely was. But for him? She couldn’t know that. And then she thought about his novel and wished she had not begun to read it during the first days when they had been alone with each other. It had been her idea, not his, and they had agreed not to discuss it until she had finished the manuscript. The novel reminded her too much of his past, too much of the welter outside the time-shell into which she had crept with him.
He stirred beside her and she resisted a temptation to wake him. He was so very relaxed. She felt a second’s mischievous pride. But soon he would wake and come back to her. He would wake and she would see the look in his eyes and then in a minute he would be loving her again.
Yesterday they had walked down to the shore together through an acre of gutted codfish drying on flakes. The air stank sharply of the cod and of the oakum a fisherman was using to caulk his boat. On the shore Paul had suddenly appeared to forget all about her. He had left her sitting on a rock while he crossed the beach to talk to the men at work. She heard him using colloquial French that was so rapid she could follow only a little of it, and she knew he loved the sensation of being back home in Quebec. Suddenly she felt frightened. Did all girls feel the same after they had committed themselves to a man and then realized how easily he could forget them? For nearly an hour he stood on the beach using his other language, sharing something with these men she could watch only from the outside. She was terribly conscious of their different races and languages then. But after a time he returned. Joy ran through her nerves like electricity as she saw him coming back over the stones to her. He took her hand, and the moment he touched her no differences existed. They began to climb the Pic de l’Aurore, moving up through a meadow foaming with the largest daisies she had ever seen, the cliff sheer on their right, and overhead huge clouds sailing in a high wind, gulls poised in the air-slip over the land’s edge. When she tried to sing, the wind blew her voice down her throat.
The last two weeks flowed with calm finality through her mind as she watched him sleep beside her. There had been a complete finality about everything that had happened since Yardley’s death. On hearing the news, McQueen had at once flown down from Montreal to help her mother, and had managed all the affairs of the funeral. Janet had been touched by this, for McQueen loathed airplanes. When the funeral was over he had returned to Montreal on the train with Janet, leaving Heather in Halifax to drive home alone. Janet was disturbed over the necessity of leaving Heather behind, but she didn’t feel equal to driving back with her. She was tired out, and when tired she always got carsick.
Heather had read years ago that there are times when a person must speak or be dead for the rest of life, and this had been one of those times. Her grandfather was still very close to her, and she felt no grief remembering him. He had died as he would have wished to die. Her mother felt prostrate with grief, not knowing that grief is always for the self. One by one things were falling away from Janet, leaving her solitary in the way of life to which she had bound herself.
And then, alone in Halifax, as though on a signal from nature, Heather’s own life had begun. Without premeditation or promises, she and Paul had suddenly decided to get married the day after Janet and Huntly left. She had seen the look in his eyes, known his consciousness that he had no job or money, and for once in her life she had spoken and made the words count. She had accepted the risk with her eyes open, knowing she could never go back. She loved him so utterly he had become her way of life. For a man it could never be the same. He had his work, he had the ruthless drive inside that would never let him alone.
Paul stirred beside her, and began to breathe heavily. She looked at him in surprise. And then a smile, half mischievous, partly delighted, touched her face. She laid the tips of her fingers against his lips and closed them, but an instant later they opened and he snored quietly again, and there was something so quaintly self-satisfied in the noise that everything seemed warm and a little funny, and she felt closer to him than ever. “Oh darling,” she whispered, “to think you’d do a thing like that!”
He moved, his eyes opened and looked at her, and he was back again.
She grinned at him. “You were snoring.”
“The hell I was!”
“You can’t get out of it. You were snoring. You woke yourself up with the noise you made.”
“I woke myself up thinking about you.”
“You thought about me and then you snored!”
He looked at her gravely and she dropped her head close to his. She felt his body quicken with life as he turned to hold her, his hand on the small of her back. Wonderful hands, delicately rugged hands!
“Were you really thinking about me?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“In your sleep?”
He seemed wide awake; she wondered if he would always wake so quickly.
“I woke up knowing something,” he said. “I’d better tell you.”
“What?”
He paused a moment. “I’m in love with you.”
It was strange how he said it. The statement was utterly factual, made in the tone he always saved for what came out of his bones. He had never said it before. She had known he was in love with her, but she had been left to wonder how much he realized it.
“Darling!” she whispered. She lay very still beside him, felt the muscles of his arms stir slumbrously, then tauten as he folded her in against his body. She felt the hardness of his chest muscles, the hardness of his thighs, the quick flush of life through him, and she herself seemed small and protected, smoothly delicate beside him. He had said her skin was like silk and it was lovely to believe it, perhaps it really was, since he never said anything to flatter her. Perhaps he was loving the feeling of firm soft silkiness beside him now, the form not of just another girl, but of herself. She kept very still.
“For always,” he said slowly. “That’s what I woke up knowing. I’d never believed it possible but it is. I know I’m in love with you for always, no matter what happens, and that I’m not just myself but you too, and I thought I’d better tell you.”
After a long silence she whispered, “Are you sorry?”
“Not about facts.”
Her lips felt the pulse in his throat. She kissed him long and slowly,
and then the literal words he had said stood like separate objects in her mind and she raised her head and gave him a teasing smile. “Darling–I so adore you when you say things like that!”
“It’s true.”
“You love me because I’m a fact!”
“I love you because you’re you. Because you’re beautiful. Because–”
“But Daffy always said I was chunky. She said my mouth was too wide.”
“Daffy’s a fool. I like it.”
“I should be at least four inches taller for you.”
“Then I’d have to be five inches taller than I am.”
“Darling, I suspect you want to overpower me. When you love me you want to overwhelm me entirely.”
“You underrate yourself.”
“Anyway, my eyes are too wide.”
“There is no excellent beauty but hath a strangeness in the proportions.”
“Where did you learn that? I like it.” Suddenly serious. “I wish I were really beautiful for you, Paul.”
“You are. There are so many things about you I love, I can’t even begin to understand them all.”
“I’m so happy I can hardly stand it, but for heaven’s sake don’t love me because I’m a fact!”
“You’re the most important one I know.”
“You’re certainly the most serious one I know. Paul–I so want you to relax. I…”
“What do you think you’ve been doing to me lately?”
“I want you to have fun. I want you to be able to lie on your back and look at the sky for hours. I want you to be able to do all sorts of things without thinking all the time. Yes, I’m definitely going to do something about that awful seriousness!”
“Heather–remember yesterday on the beach?”
“What about it?”
“I turned around from talking to those fishermen and saw you sitting on the rock by yourself, waiting for me. Suddenly I felt as though I were home.”
The teasing smile left her lips. She met his eyes.
“It’s a dangerous illusion,” he said quietly. “I still have a long way to go.”
“Do you know, I rather like the smell of drying cod now,” she said. “At first it seemed horrid, but now I like it. Don’t you?”
He placed his hand over one of hers. “You know I haven’t any money or even a job. You’ve read enough of my manuscript to know by this time that there’s not much point in expecting anything from it. I’d hoped…”
“No, Paul! No–it’s wonderful!”
They were separated again, each feeling the separation and not wanting it to be there. He shook his head. “I’m talking facts, Heather. They were there the day we got married, but I didn’t talk about them then because I was sure you understood. I’ll probably never be able to give you what you’ve always had with the Methuens. Do you know what that means? Sometime, though–”
“As if you had to give me anything–anything like that!”
She began to fold the edge of the sheet into pleats, watching her handiwork instead of his eyes.
“I can’t ask you to share a single room with me,” he said. “And I’m not going to take your money, either. You know that. It would break something inside me. For a long time I’ve been trying to convince myself that some day I’d have enough to give us both a decent life, but I wasn’t going to talk about it until it was certain. Then suddenly in Halifax…” He stopped and watched her fingers at work. “Do you realize what your family will say when they know we’re married?”
“Yes,” she said quietly, dropping the sheet. “I’ve thought about it. But it doesn’t make any difference to me. It’s…Paul, no matter what, you mustn’t let them hurt you.”
Neither of them spoke for a few moments and she watched him run his hands through his hair and prepare to get out of bed. When he was on his feet he said, “I’m not really worried about money. But I would like to have some sort of name for you. I never meant to ask you to marry me until I was a published novelist. Then you’d be justified in the eyes of your family, as well as in your own. Now we’ll have to take the rap first and then I’ll still have to prove to you, to myself, to everyone else, that I’m capable of a career on my own.”
“But you’ve proved it already.”
“No,” he said. “I haven’t. Writing isn’t like any other job. All the work in the world can’t replace a lack of talent. That’s what I’ve still got to find out if I have.” He gripped the turned rail at the foot of the bed and looked her in the eyes. “I’m bound to you, Heather. But you aren’t to me. You’re still free. Even though we’re married, you’re…”
She reached up and stopped his lips with her fingers. “Darling,” she said, “sometimes you talk like an awful fool.”
FORTY-THREE
Next day the weather broke and they left Percé in a driving rain. By the time they reached Rivière au Renard the air was much colder and Paul noticed that the wind was hauling. At Mont Louis the rain had ceased and a straight norther was blowing hard across the gulf from Labrador. The sea was bursting on the shore over the road and the light on the water had the same hard, bleak colour he had often seen off Newfoundland. They followed the curve of the peninsula in toward the estuary of the river, but the norther kept following them and it grew steadily colder. The sun set in a watery sky as they drew in to Cap Chat. They decided to stay the night there and drove up to an old stone house with a sign by the road signifying that tourists were welcome.
When the woman who owned the place discovered that Paul had been at sea she couldn’t do enough for them. She gave them her best room and sent one of the children up to lay a fire in it. Because the dining room was cold and there were no other guests, she allowed them to eat in the kitchen, and they sat at a large pine table while their supper was prepared. The kitchen was the largest room in the house. It had an enormous copper boiler beside the stove and the whole room was clean and shining. There was a picture of Christ in a small frame on one wall. Some exquisite wood-carvings of saints stood on the shelf of the dresser, and colourful milk bowls were arranged along its top.
Madame Rocheleau was a tall woman with black hair neatly done, and strong Norman features. When she moved she was grave and stately. She served them a wonderful dinner of vegetable soup and fresh boiled salmon, and talked with them while they ate. Afterwards she asked them to share a small carafe of wine with her. It was an excellent light claret. Her husband was a river pilot who was absent most of the time when the Saint Lawrence was open. She had eight children: the eldest a priest and the second a sailor working for his mate’s ticket on one of the C.P.R. ships. It was this son who had brought her two cases of claret from his last voyage when the ship called at Le Havre, and she was very proud of him when she spoke of it. She was quiet-voiced, shrewd and very observant, and had a way of laughing cautiously, as though it were a luxury. After a time it appeared that she wanted to know if Paul expected a war. When he made a non-committal answer she looked at him gravely and shook her head. “My son will join the Navy if there is war,” she said.
“Does your son expect it?”
“He has been in Europe.” She shrugged her shoulders. “My son is well educated. He keeps his eyes open.”
“Do many from here go to sea?” Paul asked.
“There has always been a member of my husband’s family at sea,” Madame Rocheleau said. “His brother was lost at sea in the last war. You, Monsieur–will you also be in the Navy if there is war this time?”
Heather gave Paul a quick glance. The turn of the conversation surprised her.
“It will be easier to tell that when the time comes, Madame. But if it does–yes, it is probable.”
“My son says it will come.”
“They may prevent it.”
“When people do not believe in God they do not prevent such things.”
“Do others here believe there will be war?”
“They do not think about it. I am the only one with a son who has sailed to Euro
pe, so for me it is different.”
She rose with the lamp in her hand and showed them upstairs to their room. “You and Madame will be comfortable,” she said. “When my husband is home this is our room.”
She wished them a grave good-night and went out, drawing the heavy door behind her.
When they were alone, Heather said, “What a beautiful woman!”
Paul went over to the fire and crouched beside it. She saw the corners of his mouth move into a smile as he looked at the hot flames of the driftwood logs. “She has a respect for facts,” he said.
“Like you.”
“Not like me at all. If this country were invaded and the Germans were ten miles away and it was time to pick the potatoes, she’d be out picking them.”
“What would you be doing?”
He made no answer.
“Are there many like Madame Rocheleau in Quebec?”
“So far there have been enough to guarantee that my brother remains an unsuccessful politician.”
She dropped onto the mat beside him, looking into the fire. She felt his hand close over hers. “You’re still French–aren’t you, Paul?”
He laughed quietly. “I certainly would be if I stayed long enough in a place like this.”
“Would you like to stay here?”
“You know perfectly well my likes and dislikes have nothing to do with it. But yes–here I get back the old feelings. It makes me remember when I was a boy in Saint-Marc. This is Quebec–small places like this. They may be simple. They may even be superstitious. But in places like this you meet Madame Rocheleau. What’s in the cities is an industrial revolution, delayed by about fifty years. When the war starts…” He paused, but went on almost immediately. “There may be quite a lot of dynamite lying around in the towns, and I don’t look forward to the prospect of Marius lighting matches in the middle of it.”
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