Turning, the ragged arch was before heir, brighter than the brightest window. It was easy to believe the light-fairies stood outside in a throng, excited with fine fear, throwing handfuls of light into the dragon’s hole.
‘How surprised they will be to see me!’ said Helena, scrambling forward, laughing.
She stood still in the archway, astounded. The sea was blazing with white fire, and glowing with azure as coals glow red with heat below the flames. The sea was transfused with white burning, while over it hung the blue sky in a glory, like the blue smoke of the fire of God. Helena stood still and worshipped. It was a moment of astonishment, when she stood breathless and blinded, involuntarily offering herself for a thank-offering. She felt herself confronting God at home in His white incandescence, His fire settling on her like the Holy Spirit. Her lips were parted in a woman’s joy of adoration.
The moment passed, and her thoughts hurried forward in confusion.
‘It is good,’ said Helena; ‘it is very good.’ She looked again, and saw the waves like a line of children racing hand in hand, the sunlight pursuing, catching hold of them from behind, as they ran wildly till they fell, caught, with the sunshine dancing upon them like a white dog.
‘It is really wonderful here!’ said she; but the moment had gone, she could not see again the grand burning of God among the waves. After a while she turned away.
As she stood dabbling her bathing-dress in a pool, Siegmund came over the beach to her.
‘You are not gone, then?’ he said.
‘Siegmund!’ she exclaimed, looking up at him with radiant eyes, as if it could not be possible that he had joined her in this rare place. His face was glowing with the sun’s inflaming, but Helena did not notice that his eyes were full of misery.
‘I, actually,’ he said, smiling.
‘I did not expect you,’ she said, still looking at him in radiant wonder. ‘I could easier have expected’ — she hesitated, struggled, and continued — ’Eros walking by the sea. But you are like him,’ she said, looking radiantly up into Siegmund’s face. ‘Isn’t it beautiful this morning?’ she added.
Siegmund endured her wide, glad look for a moment, then he stooped and kissed her. He remained moving his hand in the pool, ashamed, and full of contradiction. He was at the bitter point of farewell; could see, beyond the glamour around him, the ugly building of his real life.
‘Isn’t the sea wonderful this morning?’ asked Helena, as she wrung the water from her costume.
‘It is very fine,’ he answered. He refrained from saying what his heart said: ‘It is my last morning; it is not yours. It is my last morning, and the sea is enjoying the joke, and you are full of delight.’
‘Yes,’ said Siegmund, ‘the morning is perfect.’
‘It is,’ assented Helena warmly. ‘Have you noticed the waves? They are like a line of children chased by a white dog.’
‘Ay!’ said Siegmund.
‘Didn’t you have a good time?’ she asked, touching with her finger-tips the nape of his neck as he stooped beside her.
‘I swam to my little bay again,’ he replied.
‘Did you?’ she exclaimed, pleased.
She sat down by the pool, in which she washed her feet free from sand, holding them to Siegmund to dry.
‘I am very hungry,’ she said.
‘And I,’ he agreed.
‘I feel quite established here,’ she said gaily, something in his position having reminded her of their departure.
He laughed.
‘It seems another eternity before the three-forty-five train, doesn’t it?’ she insisted.
‘I wish we might never go back,’ he said.
Helena sighed.
‘It would be too much for life to give. We have had something, Siegmund,’ she said.
He bowed his head, and did not answer.
‘It has been something, dear,’ she repeated.
He rose and took her in his arms.
‘Everything,’ he said, his face muffled in the shoulder of her dress. He could smell her fresh and fine from the sea. ‘Everything!’ he said.
She pressed her two hands on his head.
‘I did well, didn’t I, Siegmund?’ she asked. Helena felt the responsibility of this holiday. She had proposed it; when he had withdrawn, she had insisted, refusing to allow him to take back his word, declaring that she should pay the cost. He permitted her at last.
‘Wonderfully well, Helena,’ he replied.
She kissed his forehead.
‘You are everything,’ he said.
She pressed his head on her bosom.
CHAPTER 18
Siegmund had shaved and dressed, and come down to breakfast. Mrs Curtiss brought in the coffee. She was a fragile little woman, of delicate, gentle manner.
‘The water would be warm this morning,’ she said, addressing no one in particular.
Siegmund stood on the hearth-rug with his hands behind him, swaying from one leg to the other. He was embarrassed always by the presence of the amiable little woman; he could not feel at ease before strangers, in his capacity of accepted swain of Helena.
‘It was,’ assented Helena. ‘It was as warm as new milk.’
‘Ay, it would be,’ said the old lady, looking in admiration upon the experience of Siegmund and his beloved. ‘And did ye see the ships of war?’ she asked.
‘No, they had gone,’ replied Helena.
Siegmund swayed from foot to foot, rhythmically.
‘You’ll be coming in to dinner today?’ asked the old lady.
Helena arranged the matter.
‘I think ye both look better,’ Mrs. Curtiss said. She glanced at Siegmund.
He smiled constrainedly.
‘I thought ye looked so worn when you came,’ she said sympathetically.
‘He had been working hard,’ said Helena, also glancing at him.
He bent his head, and was whistling without making any sound.
‘Ay,’ sympathized the little woman. ‘And it’s a very short time for you. What a pity ye can’t stop for the fireworks at Cowes on Monday. They are grand, so they say.’
Helena raised her eyebrows in polite interest. ‘Have you never seen them?’ she asked.
‘No,’ replied Mrs. Curtiss. ‘I’ve never been able to get; but I hope to go yet.’
‘I hope you may,’ said Siegmund.
The little woman beamed on him. Having won a word from him, she was quite satisfied.
‘Well,’ she said brightly, ‘the eggs must be done by now.’
She tripped out, to return directly.
‘I’ve brought you,’ she said, ‘some of the Island cream, and some white currants, if ye’ll have them. You must think well of the Island, and come back.’
‘How could we help?’ laughed Helena.
‘We will,’ smiled Siegmund.
When finally the door was closed on her, Siegmund sat down in relief. Helena looked in amusement at him. She was perfectly self-possessed in presence of the delightful little lady.
‘This is one of the few places that has ever felt like home to me,’ she said. She lifted a tangled bunch of fine white currants.
‘Ah!’ exclaimed Siegmund, smiling at her.
‘One of the few places where everything is friendly,’ she said. ‘And everybody.’
‘You have made so many enemies?’ he asked, with gentle irony.
‘Strangers,’ she replied. ‘I seem to make strangers of all the people I meet.’
She laughed in amusement at this mot. Siegmund looked at her intently. He was thinking of her left alone amongst strangers.
‘Need we go — need we leave this place of friends?’ he said, as if ironically. He was very much afraid of tempting her.
She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and counted: ‘One, two, three, four, five hours, thirty-five minutes. It is an age yet,’ she laughed.
Siegmund laughed too, as he accepted the particularly fine bunch of currants she had extrica
ted for him.
CHAPTER 19
The air was warm and sweet in the little lane, remote from the sea, which led them along their last walk. On either side the white path was a grassy margin thickly woven with pink convolvuli. Some of the reckless little flowers, so gay and evanescent, had climbed the trunks of an old yew tree, and were looking up pertly at their rough host.
Helena walked along, watching the flowers, and making fancies out of them.
‘Who called them “fairies’ telephones”?’ she said to herself. ‘They are tiny children in pinafores. How gay they are! They are children dawdling along the pavement of a morning. How fortunate they are! See how they take a wind-thrill! See how wide they are set to the sunshine! And when they are tired, they will curl daintily to sleep, and some fairies in the dark will gather them away. They won’t be here in the morning, shrivelled and dowdy ... If only we could curl up and be gone, after our day....’
She looked at Siegmund. He was walking moodily beside her.
‘It is good when life holds no anti-climax,’ she said.
‘Ay!’ he answered. Of course, he could not understand her meaning.
She strayed into the thick grass, a sturdy white figure that walked with bent head, abstract, but happy.
‘What is she thinking?’ he asked himself. ‘She is sufficient to herself — she doesn’t want me. She has her own private way of communing with things, and is friends with them.’
‘The dew has been very heavy,’ she said, turning, and looking up at him from under her brows, like a smiling witch.
‘I see it has,’ he answered. Then to himself he said: ‘She can’t translate herself into language. She is incommunicable; she can’t render herself to the intelligence. So she is alone and a law unto herself: she only wants me to explore me, like a rock-pool, and to bathe in me. After a while, when I am gone, she will see I was not indispensable....’
The lane led up to the eastern down. As they were emerging, they saw on the left hand an extraordinarily spick and span red bungalow. The low roof of dusky red sloped down towards the coolest green lawn, that was edged and ornamented with scarlet, and yellow, and white flowers brilliant with dew.
A stout man in an alpaca jacket and panama hat was seated on the bare lawn, his back to the sun, reading a newspaper. He tried in vain to avoid the glare of the sun on his reading. At last he closed the paper and looked angrily at the house — not at anything in particular.
He irritably read a few more lines, then jerked up his head in sudden decision, glared at the open door of the house, and called:
‘Amy! Amy!’
No answer was forthcoming. He flung down the paper and strode off indoors, his mien one of wrathful resolution. His voice was heard calling curtly from the dining-room. There was a jingle of crockery as he bumped the table leg in sitting down.
‘He is in a bad temper,’ laughed Siegmund.
‘Breakfast is late,’ said Helena with contempt.
‘Look!’ said Siegmund.
An elderly lady in black and white striped linen, a young lady in holland, both carrying some wild flowers, hastened towards the garden gate. Their faces were turned anxiously to the house. They were hot with hurrying, and had no breath for words. The girl pressed forward, opened the gate for the lady in striped linen, who hastened over the lawn. Then the daughter followed, and vanished also under the shady veranda.
There was a quick sound of women’s low, apologetic voices, overridden by the resentful abuse of the man.
The lovers moved out of hearing.
‘Imagine that breakfast-table!’ said Siegmund.
‘I feel,’ said Helena, with a keen twang of contempt in her voice, ‘as if a fussy cock and hens had just scuffled across my path.’
‘There are many such roosts,’ said Siegmund pertinently.
Helena’s cold scorn was very disagreeable to him. She talked to him winsomely and very kindly as they crossed the open down to meet the next incurving of the coast, and Siegmund was happy. But the sense of humiliation, which he had got from her the day before, and which had fixed itself, bled him secretly, like a wound. This haemorrhage of self-esteem tortured him to the end.
Helena had rejected him. She gave herself to her fancies only. For some time she had confused Siegmund with her god. Yesterday she had cried to her ideal lover, and found only Siegmund. It was the spear in the side of his tortured self-respect.
‘At least,’ he said, in mortification of himself — ’at least, someone must recognize a strain of God in me — and who does? I don’t believe in it myself.’
And, moreover, in the intense joy and suffering of his realized passion, the island, with its sea and sky, had fused till, like a brilliant bead, all their beauty ran together out of the common ore, and Siegmund saw it naked, saw the beauty of everything naked in the shifting magic of this bead. The island would be gone tomorrow: he would look for the beauty and find the dirt. What was he to do?
‘You know, Domine,’ said Helena — it was his old nickname she used — ’you look quite stern today.’
‘I feel anything but stern,’ he laughed. ‘Weaker than usual, in fact.’
‘Yes, perhaps so, when you talk. Then you are really surprisingly gentle. But when you are silent, I am even afraid of you — you seem so grave.’
He laughed.
‘And shall I not be brave?’ he said. ‘Can’t you smell Fumum et opes strepitumque Romae?’ He turned quickly to Helena. ‘I wonder if that’s right,’ he said. ‘It’s years since I did a line of Latin, and I thought it had all gone.’
‘In the first place, what does it mean?’ said Helena calmly, ‘for I can only half translate. I have thrown overboard all my scrap-books of such stuff.’
‘Why,’ said Siegmund, rather abashed, ‘only “the row and the smoke of Rome”. But it is remarkable, Helena’ — here the peculiar look of interest came on his face again — ’it is really remarkable that I should have said that.’
‘Yes, you look surprised,’ smiled she.
‘But it must be twenty’ — he counted — ’twenty-two or three years since I learned that, and I forgot it — goodness knows how long ago. Like a drowning man, I have these memories before....’ He broke off, smiling mockingly, to tease her.
‘Before you go back to London,’ said she, in a matter-of-fact, almost ironical tone. She was inscrutable. This morning she could not bear to let any deep emotion come uppermost. She wanted rest. ‘No,’ she said, with calm distinctness, a few moments after, when they were climbing the rise to the cliff’s edge. ‘I can’t say that I smell the smoke of London. The mist-curtain is thick yet. There it is’ — she pointed to the heavy, purple-grey haze that hung like arras on a wall, between the sloping sky and the sea. She thought of yesterday morning’s mist-curtain, thick and blazing gold, so heavy that no wind could sway its fringe.
They lay down in the dry grass, upon the gold bits of bird’s-foot trefoil of the cliff’s edge, and looked out to sea. A warm, drowsy calm drooped over everything.
‘Six hours,’ thought Helena, ‘and we shall have passed the mist-curtain. Already it is thinning. I could break it open with waving my hand. I will not wave my hand.’
She was exhausted by the suffering of the last night, so she refused to allow any emotion to move her this morning, till she was strong. Siegmund was also exhausted; but his thoughts laboured like ants, in spite of himself, striving towards a conclusion.
Helena had rejected him. In his heart he felt that in this love affair also he had been a failure. No matter how he contradicted himself, and said it was absurd to imagine he was a failure as Helena’s lover, yet he felt a physical sensation of defeat, a kind of knot in his breast which neither reason, nor dialectics, nor circumstance, not even Helena, could untie. He had failed as lover to Helena.
It was not surprising his marriage with Beatrice should prove disastrous. Rushing into wedlock as he had done, at the ripe age of seventeen, he had known nothing of his woman, nor she of
him. When his mind and soul set to develop, as Beatrice could not sympathize with his interests, he naturally inclined away from her, so that now, after twenty years, he was almost a stranger to her. That was not very surprising.
But why should he have failed with Helena?
The bees droned fitfully over the scented grass, aimlessly swinging in the heat. Siegmund watched one gold and amber fellow lazily let go a white clover-head, and boom in a careless curve out to sea, humming softer and softer as he reeled along in the giddy space.
‘The little fool!’ said Siegmund, watching the black dot swallowed into the light.
No ship sailed the curving sea. The light danced in a whirl upon the ripples. Everything else watched with heavy eyes of heat enhancement the wild spinning of the lights.
‘Even if I were free,’ he continued to think, ‘we should only grow apart, Helena and I. She would leave me. This time I should be the laggard. She is young and vigorous; I am beginning to set.
‘Is that why I have failed? I ought to have had her in love sufficiently to keep her these few days. I am not quick. I do not follow her or understand her swiftly enough. And I am always timid of compulsion. I cannot compel anybody to follow me.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 51