Somehow the day passed with an interschool sports meeting, a couple of weddings, and a fruitless quest in search of details regarding a street accident. When I came off duty about eight o’clock I was slightly cheered to see that the sky was overcast and hear a rumble of thunder over the bay. That meant the stuffiness of the day would dissolve in one of our heavy local thunderstorms and all the visitors, particularly the tennis amateurs, might get wet! By nine o’clock the storm had burst and rain was slashing across the estuary, while thunder crashed and lightning flickered in a way that exactly suited my mood. I went to bed early, resolved to think out the phrases of a long farewell letter to Diana composed in terms of dignified sorrow. This, I thought, would be more calculated to wound her than would an explosive renunciation of my homage. Before I had made up my mind how to open the letter I was sound asleep.
Something awakened me with a start and I saw that it was almost one A.M. The downpour had ceased and the thunder was rumbling away on the other side of the river but steady rain was coming down and the guide light on the edge of the wharf, opposite my window, was the only relief in the inky blackness of the bay. I lay still listening for a moment and then the sound that must have awakened me came again, a loose rattle on the windowpane, as of sand or fine gravel flung from below.
I was out of bed in a second and had my head out of the window, peering down on the wharf. For a moment I could see nothing, then I detected the vague outline of a solitary figure standing on the edge of the narrow pavement and looking up.
“Jan!” it called, piteously. “Jan, it’s me! Diana! Come down and let me in, Jan, I’m soaked!”
It was some seconds before I was able to persuade myself that I was not dreaming. Then, without stopping to put on the old mackintosh that I used for a dressing gown, I grabbed a flashlight and slipped downstairs and along the passage to the front door.
Aunt Thirza was a fanatical bolter and barrer. There was never anything worth stealing inside the house, and Uncle Luke cheerfully relied on a sixpenny padlock to keep thieves out of his store, but his wife went through an elaborate ritual of locking up each night and I knew that I could never open the front door without disturbing the household. I put my mouth to the letter box and directed Diana to go down the passageway to the kitchen door and opened the door leading to the yard. Diana came in dripping and I was still too astonished to utter a word of greeting.
Luckily for her, Aunt Thirza had another idiosyncrasy. She kept the kitchen stove going winter and summer. I turned on the light and stoked the fire, as Diana kicked off her sopping shoes and crouched close to it, extending her hands to the blaze and looking at me with one of her sly, sidelong grins.
“Well,” she said, “aren’t you going to gloat?”
“What on earth’s happened?” I wanted to know. “What made you come down here at this time of night and in all this rain?”
She settled herself in Aunt Thirza’s favorite wooden chair. “Conscience, I suppose,” she said. “I was going to leave a letter if I hadn’t been able to wake you. Look, I’ve got it ready, but there’s no point in your reading it now. This is a much cozier way of confessing, Jan.”
“It won’t be very cozy if my aunt wakes up,” I said. “If she finds me entertaining a girl at one in the morning, there’ll be a fearful to-do.”
“Where do they sleep, at the front?”
“Yes, in the room immediately over the store.”
“I guessed they would, that’s why I took the risk of throwing shingle. The awful thing was I wasn’t absolutely certain of your bedroom. I was going to slip the letter through the door and bolt if anyone else popped their head out of the window!”
“How the blazes did you get down here at this time of night?”
“I borrowed the head gardener’s cycle, it’s always propped up against his cottage. I didn’t mind that bit, it was fun riding through that deluge, and the lightning over the woods looked ever so pretty. I oughtn’t to have liked it really, because coming here and getting so wet was a sort of penance, and you aren’t supposed to enjoy penances, are you?”
There was nothing penitential about her. She was as gay and sparkling as the day we had first met and I had a strong conviction that, however abject her mood had been when she started out, the excitement of riding three miles through a thunderstorm, in the middle of the night, had offered more than adequate compensation for the discomfort suffered.
“Let me read the letter you were going to leave,” I demanded.
She hesitated and the fleeting smile at the corners of her mouth worked wonders on my bruised spirit.
“Nnno,” she said at length, “it’s far to abject! I’d sooner tell you what’s in it and keep what’s left of my pride.”
She ripped the sodden envelope in two halves and stuffed it into the coals. Then she turned toward me, put her arms around my neck and laid her wet cheek alongside mine.
“I’m terribly sorry I was so beastly, Jan darling, as sorry as it’s possible to be! There, say I’m forgiven!” and she kissed me twice, once on the mouth and once on the forehead.
Her lips were the only warm part of her. When I put my arms on her shoulders I realized that she was soaked through and shivering. Then I suddenly realized I was in pajamas and quickly released her, stepping away so nervously that she threw back her head and laughed aloud.
“Why, Jan, you’re blushing! I believe you’re still a bit scared of me but I really can’t blame you, can I, you surely haven’t ever entertained a girl in your pajamas before! If you’d like to slip something on, I won’t stop you and maybe you could find something dry for me. I don’t want to catch cold and spoil the first week of the holidays.”
It was in my mind to say that the holidays were already spoiled for us but then I realized that this was no longer true and that whatever had happened up at Uncle Mark’s that morning was more than atoned for by her presence here and her affectionate apology. Then I had another shock, for she returned to the fire, pulled her sweater over her head and swiftly unzipped and stepped out of her short gray skirt. She shed her clothes as easily and naturally as if she were undressing in the privacy of her bedroom. With a start I pulled myself together and told her I would try to find some things she could wear, but I warned her to be as quiet as possible, for Uncle Luke was a light sleeper and would certainly rouse Aunt Thirza if he heard movements about the house.
I crept back to my room and foraged for a pair of corduroy slacks that I had outgrown and a roll-necked pullover that I used when I went swimming before breakfast. I also put on my mackintosh and slippers and on the way downstairs I pulled the chain of the toilet, hoping thus to account for any movement that had already been overheard.
When I re-entered the kitchen she was sitting before the fire wearing only a silk heliotrope slip. Her sweater, skirt, stockings, shoes and beribboned panties were spread on my aunt’s clotheshorse.
She enjoyed my obvious embarrassment and smiled when I offered her the slacks and pullover.
“In a minute, Jan, let me get warm first. You wouldn’t happen to have a comb handy, I suppose? My hair’s in a dreadful state, look at it!”
Her hair was certainly very wet and clung to her cheeks but it looked as pretty as ever, slightly darker than usual but retaining all its luster and vitality. I found her a comb in Aunt Thirza’s workbox but when I offered it she said, “You comb it, Jan, I’d like that!”
“You ought to have something hot to drink,” I said, looking her over with a tenderness that almost choked me. “I could make some cocoa, provided we got rid of all the evidence afterwards. Would you like cocoa?”
“Yes,” she said, “but while it’s brewing do my hair.”
I put the kettle on the hob and got out the cups, milk, sugar and cocoa can. Then I took the comb and stood behind her chair, letting the damp tresses run lovingly through my fingers. I think it was by far the pleasantest task I was ever engaged upon.
“Now tell me why you came,” I said.
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“Now I’ll tell you why I got in such a tizzy,” she replied, leaning back and lifting her long legs onto the fender. “It wasn’t really because of the jump, or the graze you gave Sioux, and it wasn’t because you beat me and made nonsense of what I said about your being a beginner. All those things had a little to do with it, I suppose, and I was a bit rattled by the fall, but when I had time to think about it I knew what it was that had really upset me. It was your going to someone else to learn and taking away the only real advantage I had over you. Does that sound stupid to a man?”
It did really, for any one of the reasons she had dismissed would have made more sense to me at the time. It was hard to understand why she should have resented Uncle Mark’s tuition, or what perverse line of reasoning made her regard her familiarity with horses as a hold over someone whose experiences in that field were so limited.
“You see, Jan,” she went on, “the main thing I admire about you is the fact that you stand on your own feet and earn your own living, and the only accomplishment I had to compete with that was my riding, and being able to patronize you when we were together. I had a feeling that it was my handling of horses that impressed you more than anything else, and apart from that it was nice to be able to teach you something that you weren’t likely to learn from anyone else. It was a kind of present but better than money, if you like.”
The kettle began to steam but I was reluctant to stop combing. I let it simmer for a moment and said:
“Riding is only one of the things I like about you, Diana, and it isn’t the most important by a long chalk. I like the way you accept me and take awful risks to be with me and I don’t see how anyone in my position could keep from being terribly proud that someone as rich and lovely as you bothers to want me around. That was why I spent so much time at Uncle Mark’s, learning to ride properly, and that was why I’ve been going up to Miss Beddowes’ twice a week to learn French and how to speak properly. I don’t want you to have to apologize for me wherever we go, and I’ve never forgotten what you told me over at Castle Ferry, about a person being anything they wanted to be, providing they wanted it hard enough.”
“What’s this about your learning French?” she demanded. “You never said anything about it this morning.”
“It was to be another surprise, like furnishing the Folly and the riding,” I said ruefully.
“Tell me about it.”
I told her and she listened with the closest attention. When I had finished she reached up and took my hand in both of hers, pressing it down to her small breasts and holding it there. There was absolutely nothing provocative about the gesture. Like all Diana’s gestures it was simple, natural and spontaneous. I could feel her heart hammering through the damp slip and the exquisite contact made the stuffy little room swim before me.
“That’s the loveliest thing anyone’s ever done for me, Jan, and it makes me love you more than ever! I did notice too, about the way you spoke, I mean. I’m not a snob about anything, especially accents, but it is the kind of thing I meant when we talked at Castle Ferry last hols. If speaking without an accent gives you more confidence, then it’s right, and I think you were brave and clever to think of it. Say something in French, Jan!”
I said, “To learn French correctly one must think in the language. One must wake up in the morning, go to the window and say, ‘Will the sun shine today? Am I hungry? Do I want my breakfast?”
She squealed with delight, so loudly that I had to shush her.
“Jan, that’s marvelous!” she exclaimed. “You’ve got a better accent than old Flossie, our Mam’selle. Say something else!”
I was so elated by her praise that I forgot all about Aunt Thirza and sang a verse or two I had learned from the phonograph, the opening lines of the inevitable “Au Claire de Lune.” She looked at me with shining eyes.
“Well, who would have thought it! And you did it for me! Would you do anything for me, Jan? Would you?”
There was a kind of teasing ecstasy in the question, as though the contemplation of her power was intoxicating and she wanted to proclaim it.
“I’ll make you a nice cup of cocoa and then you’d better put on my things, bundle up your wet clothes and get on home before someone finds us and sends a cable for your people,” I told her. I said it casually but I felt very far from casual. The delight of being alone with her in the middle of the night was only slightly held in check by the fear of bringing Aunt Thirza down and having to go into a wealth of humiliating explanatory detail.
We sipped our drink and talked on. She seemed quite unconscious of her state of undress and I don’t think that the fact that she was sitting in front of me, clad only in a semitransparent underslip, had any other effect upon me than that of increasing my wonder at her loveliness. Zest for life, and uninhibited enjoyment of the occasion seemed to me to be radiating from her smooth white shoulders and pink toes, and I thought I must have been mad to have felt so bitter and resentful about her a few hours before. Now it was enough to live in the same world; anything additional was a bonus.
About two-thirty we washed up the cups and then crept back into the kitchen to see if her clothes were dry. The stockings and panties were so she slipped them on, laughing when I turned away and saying, gaily, “Poor Jan, I’m always embarrassing you! I wonder if the real Jan blushed the first time he saw Lorna dressing.”
“The only thing you and Lorna Doone have in common is the habit of getting swains into awkward situations,” I said, partly in jest but also to mask my shyness.
“And love for our particular Jan!” she said, and suddenly caught up my hand again and pressed it to her cheek, like a child demonstrating affection toward its parent. Then, as suddenly, she let my hand drop and stood away.
“Now, how do I look? Good enough for the road?”
She looked as lithe and supple and feminine as when she was dressed in her own expensive clothes. Even my ill-fitting slacks and grubby jersey could not deprive her of natural grace. We crept across the yard and retrieved the gardener’s bicycle from the passageway. I walked with her as far as the end of the quay. The rain had ceased and the cobbled paving stones gleamed under the yellow glow of the guard light.
“Am I quite forgiven, Jan?” she said, as we went along.
“Nothing you could do would ever make me stop loving you,” I told her, soberly. “If I never saw you again it wouldn’t make any difference to how I’ve always thought about you!”
She stopped and looked at me across the bicycle. The lamplight shone in her hair, as she put her head on one side and said, “Dear Jan, I think you honestly believe that.”
“I do believe it,” I said.
“Kiss me good night, then.”
We kissed lightly across the machine and then she swung herself onto the saddle with the same easy grace as she displayed mounting a horse. I watched her pedal away toward the High Street, remaining still under the light and listening to the rattle of the mudguard long after she had disappeared. Then, on feet that seemed not to touch the ground, I went home and upstairs to bed.
Chapter Six
I HAVE described this quarrel at length because it marked the very beginning of a subtle change in our relationship.
Up to that time the initiative had always been Diana’s. She was the democratic little ladyship, I the adoring swain. Never, during our various meetings, had she gone out of her way to emphasize the social gulf between us, but whenever I reflected upon our friendship I did so with a kind of reverence, as though I were acting in a play in which she was the star and I an insignificant, walking-on character.
After our first quarrel and the midnight scene in our kitchen, the relationship between us altered. I lost none of my admiration for her but my pleasure in her company was no longer qualified by awe. I don’t think she was conscious of this change, or of the more important fact that all future adventures and expeditions we shared taught me something new and vital about her.
I have a few special memo
ries of the weeks that followed. My work enabled us to meet almost every day and Diana would occasionally appear at some of the local functions I attended on behalf of the paper.
I would see her waving at me from behind the ropes at an athletic meeting and would hasten over between events to ply her with ice cream and a free program. She would drift into a Methodist Sale of Work, or even the annual general meeting of the National British Women’s Total Abstinence Union, taking a seat at the back and waiting for me to finish my work before plying me with questions about the activity I was reporting. She even appeared in the spectator’s gallery of the petty sessional court and sat through several tedious hearings, listening with the closest attention to the charges, evidence and decisions.
I was sufficiently vain to imagine that she attended these local events in order to see me as much as possible, but I had to admit, as time went on, that this was not the case. Small-town life was totally unfamiliar to her and she was the kind of girl who welcomed the unfamiliar and applied to it an eager, questioning mind. After the first court session, for instance, she plagued me to explain everything I knew of the rules of evidence and the difference between indictable offenses and offenses that could be disposed of summarily. She also wanted to learn something of local politics and this led us to the council chamber, where she was fascinated by the apparent acrimony that existed between our local diehards and the group of business people styling themselves progressives.
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