The Drowned Sailor
Page 19
own, pretended that she had spent a while away from Hurlevor and had only just returned.
This new arrangement between them did nothing to secure Trevick’s peace, however; instead, he was sunk in turmoil. Each visit from Ravella reinforced his passionate feelings, both towards and against her. He adored, and regretted adoring her; reviled, and regretted reviling her. Her charms reminded him of his mistakes, and also of her vices; the sweet could not be taken without the bitter, and all was calculated to make him miserable, and despair.
Ravella seemed ambivalent towards him, but he could not be the same. He found himself longing for his next view of her, while severely reproaching that longing. When she was in the house he must be present, despite what it cost him in angst; he hated to be ignored by her, and yet dreaded her notice; he craved to say a thousand things, and yet loathed to mouth a word. Often, he was on the point of suggesting to Clare that they saw too much of her altogether, but was prevented by the danger that her visits might be restricted, or worse, cease. He was held between despair and desire in the most excruciating vice, from which he seemed to have no power to release himself, without some harm somewhere that could not be endured.
Clare was always by to reproach him further with her high spirits and jollity. Though she was so splendidly happy now, he knew, by the tenderness and pity with which he regarded her, that he did not feel love for her, and so could never, in the end, make her happy. Yet this was the woman he had pledged to marry— a pledge made in impetuous haste, now bitterly regretted.
It finally came to Clare’s blinkered attention that her fiancé did not appear to share her own enthusiasm for Ravella.
‘You’re very shy of her, James,’ she mentioned one day, ‘but you shouldn’t be. She’s the sweetest girl I know, and she thinks the world of you.’
‘Does she?’ he started. ‘Is that what she says?’
‘Well, not in so many words,’ she replied, a little surprised at his abruptness, ‘but I’m sure she loves you for loving me.’
Trevick suddenly pretended to be very absorbed in sharpening a pencil, and only murmured vaguely: ‘I can’t— take to Ravella.’
She queried his reservation, but he said no more.
‘I’m sure I can get her to draw you out,’ she promised with a smile, and kissed him. He trembled at the idea.
So it was that, on the feted guest’s next visit, Clare gamely attempted to lure Trevick into conversation.
‘Oh look at this, Ravella,’ she began, pulling out a paper. ‘James wrote this poem about a mermaid. Isn’t it clever?’
Trevick made a snatch to retrieve it, but Ravella already had it in her hand.
‘It’s nothing,’ he muttered.
‘Oh, do you still write poems, then, Mr. Trevick?’ said Ravella. ‘Or is this nothing just a shopping list?’ She read it over. ‘Ah, I see it’s a nothing after all.’
‘He’s so gifted with words!’ said Clare, beaming at him.
‘On paper, anyway,’ added Ravella wryly.
‘Of course, he’d never have them published,’ she continued with pride. ‘He doesn’t write them for that. Critics just don’t understand him. He writes for art, not fame.’
She kissed him, while Ravella carelessly tossed back the paper.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘once the muse takes you, it’s better to write than not. But as to being read, one should never suffer it, unless by the most indulgent friends, and then only if you’re convinced it’s a work of the foremost genius.’
Fuming at this, Trevick snatched up the abused poem and tore it into shreds at once. Clare exclaimed in despair and attempted to intervene, but he screwed up the tapers in his fist and quit the room. Clare was astonished.
‘Oh, dear,’ said Ravella, ‘I believe I’m too much the critic.’
The floodgates were now open to her raillery, and Trevick became the continual butt of her wit, as she scored a point for every burst of temper he displayed. Each time, he chided himself for revealing how much power she had to provoke him; but what was worse, she would occasionally interweave moments of kindness and affection with her mocking banter, and these stabbed him more deeply than any derision or ridicule. Infuriated by both her and himself, he was forced to avow an open dislike of Ravella, which only fuelled her attacks, and amazed Clare.
‘How can you not like Ravella?’ she exclaimed. ‘You mustn’t take her jokes to heart, James, she means no harm. I don’t know a more gentle or kind-hearted person!’
‘Don’t you?’ he queried.
‘What do you mean by that? What has Ravella ever done to really offend you?’
He could hardly reply without touching on the truth of his disappointed hopes, nor expand upon her machinations without offending Clare’s loyalty. So he did not reply at all, and Clare took extreme umbrage at it, saying he had no right to object to her friends, especially Ravella, who she thought of almost as a sister. Besides, she was put out that he did not even have the good grace to keep his resentment to himself —which provoking chastisement he suffered without a response.
Nevertheless, he found it increasingly difficult to disguise his ardent feelings, and because he could not love Ravella, they must instead have their expression in effusions of hatred. But every time he bellowed, or sulked, or frowned at Ravella’s jibes, his expression confessed what he really felt, with humiliating clarity, to her eyes.
He lived with a vexing urgency to speak, to tell Ravella, or Clare, or anybody about his paradox, in case they might be able to guide him out of it; but of course those he might consult were equally embroiled in the confusion. Now his loner-lifestyle told against him: he had never fostered close friends, never felt the need; but how he longed for sympathetic and understanding companions now!
Who can endure so long a state of the most exquisite anxiety, and not sustain the damage of it? Though he appeared, outwardly, as rational and lucid as usual, within, all was chaos and confusion. Every emotion was contradicted: he desired what he least desired, loved most what he hated; and this wore so heavily on his senses that his outward conduct and conversation became a mere mask to cover what passed beneath. In his solitude, when he lay awake at night, he was often struck with a terror of going insane; his continual dreams and visions of Ravella caused him to doubt what was real and what imagined, until he felt as far removed from the calm and clear façade he presented, as he had formerly felt removed from madness.
One night in early March, when he had already borne near half a year of intoxication and torture, he decided to confront Ravella, and left the house to walk to the village. Somehow he missed his way on the beach, however, and the tide cut him off. Wading into the water, he attempted to proceed, but the strong currents dragged him further and further out. Realising the danger, he made a desperate effort to gain the shore, walking heavily against the swells, and at last, exhausted, stumbled from the brine, drenched through and wild with determination. He made for the village, for the guesthouse, with all his strength, resolved to unburden himself. Reaching the door, he beat against it desperately with his fist, saltwater and his shadow dousing the old panels; but then he suddenly became aware of someone behind him, someone who had followed him from the sea, tracking his footsteps all the way. Not daring to turn around and face this preternatural horror, he thundered the harder, but there was no answer, and the door would not open, and now this figure was almost upon him, and he could feel the damp breath on his neck— and with that, he started awake in the utmost confusion. It was nothing but a fevered, frustrating dream, feigning reality. His mind flew in a thousand directions, and he knew he could endure it no longer: he needs must bring a term to his suffering.
It happened that Clare and her friend meant to visit the camp of some travellers nearby, and to this end set out after lunch the following afternoon. The travellers had put up some stalls with interesting craftwork for sale, which the women wished to investigate. Trevick, withdrawn almost to a torpor, nevertheless made himself one of the party, in the
hope of having an opportunity to talk to Ravella. As they made their way through the woods from Hurlevor Point, Clare noted to her companion that this was once part of the parkland of the old estate.
‘Oh yes,’ said Ravella. ‘I understand they have hunting here.’
‘Oh, no,’ refuted Clare, ‘James won’t let the hunt on his land. He has very strong feelings about it.’
‘Does he? Well nevertheless, I hear this was a hunting forest, once. A friend I’ve made in Hurlevor told me the legend. It seems there was a lovely young woman who owned everything she could see, and would lead her rout through these woods to catch any fair game.’
‘Did they hunt foxes in those days?’
‘She hunted harts,’ replied Ravella, with a sly glance at Trevick, who, hearing ‘hearts’, lost all his colour. ‘Well, but she came to a bad end,’ Ravella went on bemusedly, ‘though I daresay her ghost still haunts these glades. Do you believe in ghosts, Mr. Trevick?’
He started at this direct question, but did not reply before they arrived at the encampment. Here the friends browsed over the various trinkets on display, the emotion-beads, dream-catchers, rings and charms. Ravella bought a rune that betokened power, and Clare chose one that meant love; and as the latter was handing over her money, the lady taking it mentioned pleasantly: ‘Oh, I see you’re