‘But you’ll come down here again soon, won’t you?’
I was expecting the question, of course. Indeed, I’d lain awake for more than an hour, this morning, wondering how much to tell her. And yet, I didn’t know for certain how I would answer until I heard myself saying: ‘Sure. Very soon.’
‘You won’t stay away another three months?’
‘Why, no—of course not.’ Then, to cover my embarrassment and take Sarah’s mind off the subject, I went on: ‘You said on your postcard there was something you wanted to discuss with me?
‘Well, yes, Stephen, there is. I’ve hesitated to mention it, because it’s a very great favour I wished to ask of you. It isn’t for myself—’
‘Not for you, Aunt Sarah?’ I pretended utter amazement. ‘I thought for sure you needed another pair of diamond clips. You mean, you haven’t lost the ones I gave you last year?’
‘Why, Stephen, I declare—you’re teasing me again! Not that I don’t know you’d give me anything for myself I cared to ask for … I must admit, I don’t quite understand you, though. Do you mean clips for holding papers together? Why in the world should anyone want them made of diamonds?’
‘No, Aunt Sarah—they’re to wear.’
‘Oh, how stupid of me! I might have guessed that, mightn’t I? … Well now, what I wanted to ask you is this. You know that our community centre never did get built? And now all kinds of building materials are being frozen—such an odd expression, isn’t it? Imagine keeping doorknobs in the icebox with the butter!—and I don’t suppose the centre can possibly be completed until this War is over. And so I wondered if you’d consent to our using Tawelfan? Just temporarily, I mean—’
‘Why, of course. Go ahead as soon as you want to.’
‘You’d always have your room when you wanted it, naturally. We shouldn’t be using the upstairs bedrooms. I’d put all the good furniture in storage, and we’d make every effort to prevent any damage. Just the same,’ Sarah sighed, ‘it does seem a kind of desecration … You know, I’d always hoped that you and Jane would live here, some day—’ She laid a hand on my arm. ‘You don’t mind my speaking of that now, do you, Stephen dearest?’
‘Of course I don’t. It’s practically ancient history, by this time.’
‘I know how deeply you must have felt it, though. And Jane, too … She’s a fine, sensitive person, Stephen.’
‘Yes. I think I understand her a lot better, now.’
‘Of course, I know you’d never bear any ill-will. Don’t you feel how this terrible War seems to make personal unkindness even worse than it usually is? Surely, we ought to be extra considerate of each other, nowadays? At least we can do that, even though we can’t stop what’s happening on the battlefields … You know, I met Charles Kennedy in the village, yesterday morning? He had just seen Bob off on the train. I wanted so to say something to him, but I couldn’t find the words—’
‘What did you want to say?’ I asked, feeling my curiosity suddenly aroused.
‘I wanted to tell him—Oh, it’s hard to express it without sounding presumptuous—not to mind too much if we haven’t understood him as we should have. I mean, I’m afraid we’re all of us apt to be very cruel and stupid, in the presence of what we’re not accustomed to. I fear that Charles feels cut off from us now, and bitterly lonely; and we refuse him any word of comfort. We refuse to recognize what it was that he and Bob shared together. Oh dear, we’re so dreadfully smug and arrogant, most of us; so very sure we know what’s right and what’s wrong. Sometimes, Stephen, this lack of charity—even among those of us who call ourselves Friends—it horrifies me!’
‘Oh, Aunt Sarah,’ I said, putting my arm around her shoulder and giving her a squeeze, ‘bless your heart!’
Sarah looked up at me innocently. ‘Am I being silly again, Stephen? I know you think me terribly sentimental, sometimes.’
‘I think it’s wonderful, that you feel this way. And it would mean a lot to Charles, to know that you do.’
‘Couldn’t you tell him? You’re so much closer to him than I am.’
‘No. You must tell him. It’d mean more, coming from you.’
‘Well,’ Sarah smiled shyly, ‘One day perhaps, I’ll try … All these last weeks, with so many young men going off to the wars, I’ve been reminded so often of those lines from William Penn: “They that love beyond the world—” You know them of course, Stephen?’
‘Only vaguely. Say them to me.’
‘Oh dear, my memory! I know I’ve forgotten part of it, in the middle, but—“They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies … If absence be not death, neither is theirs. Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still—“How I wish I could remember all of it! I must look it up again …And do you know who first showed me that? Your Father.’
There was a long pause, as we both looked up at the painting. Something very strange was happening to me, I found; a kind of hypnotic effect. For the first time, I seemed to be seeing it through Sarah’s eyes. Was she willing this? The face on the canvas didn’t exactly change, but it presented a different expression. As I examined it, feature by feature, the mouth looked to me more flexible, the eyes deepened. Wasn’t there, after all, a certain humour in them, as Sarah had claimed?
‘I think,’ said Sarah reflectively, ‘that that’s a much better picture than most people realize. It may seem a little cold and official, at first glance. But the painter caught something, underneath … You know, sometimes, when I look at it for a long while, it seems to me as if the real man were hidden inside it? It’s as if he didn’t wish everybody to see behind the outward appearance. Only those who loved him—’
‘You loved him, didn’t you, Aunt Sarah?’ I had said it without thinking. There was such a sense of rapport between us at this moment that the question didn’t even seem particularly personal. But it startled me, after I’d asked it. And I added, awkwardly and apologetically: ‘It’s funny—I’ve never asked you that before.’
‘Yes, I loved him, Stephen,’ Sarah answered simply. ‘Very much. I never loved anyone else.’
‘I always knew that, I guess … Did he know?’
‘Yes, I think so. We never spoke of it, of course.’ Sarah hesitated a moment, then she continued: ‘Stephen dearest, since we are talking of this, there is one thing I want you to be quite sure of. Never was there any doubt in his own mind that your dear Mother was the one he loved—I am certain of that. And, even if he had never met her, I am sure that he would never have felt otherwise than he did—’
Sarah didn’t add ‘about me’; but it was obvious what she meant. There was something so touchingly young and innocent about her at this moment that it made my eyes fill with tears.
‘You can’t be sure of that, Aunt Sarah. And, who knows? He might have been a lot happier, if—’
‘Hush, Stephen! We must never think that. Never once did he give me the smallest reason to imagine—And then, your darling Mother was like a sister to me. There couldn’t possibly have been any question of jealousy between us. I put the thought completely out of my mind—’
‘And my Mother? Did she know?’
‘No. Oh no, I’m sure she didn’t. She was a very dear, trustful person. She thought of me always as her friend, with absolute faith. Even if she had been told—I mean, if there had been anything to tell—she simply wouldn’t have believed it.’
‘But, all those years you were together—It must have been terribly hard for you?’
‘It wasn’t. Not after the first. When one really loves, these situations have a way of solving themselves, I think.’
‘I guess I’ve never really loved anybody. Not like that. I don’t believe I have it in me.’
‘Oh, but you will, Stephen dearest! I’m sure you will, one day. And then you’ll know what I mean. There’s no question of asking more than the other person is able to give. One’s so grateful for what one has.’
‘But why in the world should I complain, Stephen? I have such an enviable life. I often wonder if it isn’t downright selfish of me to be so happy with all my interests and concerns, seeing that most of them arise out of other people’s troubles. But I can’t help it. There’s so much to do and see and know, and people are so good to me. You, above all—’
‘I wish you could teach me to live like that.’
‘I don’t think it’s something that one person can teach another. Each of us has such different problems. But you’ll find your own way, Stephen. Whatever you do, wherever you go—in the end it’ll be all right.’
‘That’s what I’ve often noticed. You worry about all kinds of things, but you never seem to, about me. Why don’t you?’
‘Why should I worry, Stephen? Whatever you do, you’ll be guided. I know that.’
‘I don’t understand. How do you know?’
‘I just know,’ Sarah told me, smiling. ‘Believe me.’
‘But how do you know?’ I insisted.
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, exactly, Stephen dear. It isn’t the kind of thing one can explain in so many words. But I’m quite, quite sure.’
It was then, suddenly and for the merest fraction of an instant, that I saw, or thought I saw, what Gerda had seen. There was something about the smiling little woman, at that moment; something that wasn’t the Sarah I’d known. That wasn’t Sarah at all. The look in her eyes wasn’t hers. I had an uncanny feeling—it was very close to fear—that I was somehow ‘in the presence’—but of what? The whatever-it-was behind Sarah’s eyes looked out at me through them, as if through the eyeholes in a mask. And its look meant: Yes, I am always here.
I wanted to ask, ‘What are you?’ but I couldn’t. I didn’t dare admit that I had seen what I’d seen. That would be getting in too deep. The whatever-it-was was so vast that I daren’t let myself go toward it. And, already, the instant had passed—before the clock could tick or the dust-motes move in the shaft of sunlight from the window. Sarah was just Sarah again, and everything was as usual. From the kitchen, we could hear Saul barking. ‘My lands,’ Sarah exclaimed, ‘that must be the plumber!’
‘I’d better go up and pack my bag,’ I said. ‘It’s getting late.’
When the taxi arrived, Saul got so furiously excited that Sarah had to hold him. This gave me a moment alone with Gerda, the only one I’d had that morning. She came close to the taxi window and took my hand in both of hers. Her eyes were full of tears. ‘Goodbye, my dear friend,’ she whispered.
‘Goodbye, Gerda. Come safe to Peter.’
As we drove away, I found that I was crying, too. I looked back and saw the house, and Gerda waving, and Sarah doing her best to wave, with Saul barking in her arms.
‘Maybe this is the last time—’ I said to myself. But that was just a lot of melodramatic nonsense. I didn’t really believe it for a moment. And, by the time we got to the station, I was feeling fine.
3
‘SO SARAH DOESN’T know yet?’ Jane asked.
This was the next day, in New York. Jane and I had met — for the first time since our divorce—to have cocktails and lunch at a hotel on Central Park; and I had just finished telling her about the civilian ambulance unit in which I’d enlisted as a driver, to go to North Africa.
‘I simply couldn’t tell Sarah,’ I said. ‘I meant to, while I was down at Tawelfan. I told Gerda—the German girl. But Sarah would have gotten so upset. I couldn’t face that. I’ll write her about it just before I leave.’
‘When’ll that be?’
‘Quite soon, I guess. It depends on convoys, or something. We have to be ready all the time. We only get twenty-four hours’ notice.’
‘How thrilling that sounds! Only I wish it wasn’t you that was going. Oh, damn this War! I did hope you’d be sticking around for a while. I want to see you in your uniform.’
‘It’s just a uniform.’
‘I’m sure you look cute in it.’
‘Well, thanks,’ I grinned. ‘You aren’t looking any too repulsive yourself, right now.’
Jane smiled vaguely, as she always did when she had been flattered. She was a shade plumper—in a few years, she would have to watch her figure—but, at present, it suited her. In California she had gotten a tense, even, at times, an almost haggard expression. Now her face had smoothed out. That wonderful skin of hers was in full bloom; and, of course, she was dressed exactly right, as usual.
‘How does Roger look in his uniform?’ I asked.
‘Fine,’ Jane said. Then she added quickly and rather defensively: ‘But they won’t let him go overseas. There’s something lined up for him in Washington. Pretty important.’
‘Intelligence?’
‘Well—no. It’s something to do with Army supplies. Clothing and equipment and so forth. Roger understands all that, because of his business. He’s awfully good at organizing things.’ Jane gave a nervous little laugh. ‘I suppose somebody has to.’
‘Of course. And that means you’ll be able to be with him. That’s swell. When are you two getting married?’
‘Oh, soon.’ Jane gave me a quick look. ‘Does it make you jealous, talking about him?’
‘Maybe just a little,’ I said politely, feeling so wonderfully thankful that it didn’t.
‘I think that’s sweet of you.’ Jane squeezed up her nose. ‘I want Roger to be jealous of you, too. In moderation, of course. No knives. Nothing Latin.’
‘And how does your family feel about Roger?’
‘Wildly in favour. Dad’ll probably take him into the firm, after the War. Make him a partner. You know, we’ve known each other ever since we were six? I told you that, didn’t I? Childhood sweethearts find each other at long last, is how they see it.’
‘And how do you see it Jane?’ I asked, in a tone inviting confidences.
Jane looked down at her hand, and its engagement-ring. ‘I’m all set to make a go of it this time, Steve. I’ve just got to.’
‘I want you to. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Sure, I know that.’
‘And I’m certain Roger’s going to be a lot less difficult than I was.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. He’s got a will of his own. I found that out when we were teenagers.’
‘Did you and he ever—?’
‘Mercy, no! Nothing more than kisses at proms. Roger was a good boy. He had principles. He was always accusing me of being too wild. We fought, mostly. But the point is, I’ve learned an awful lot. He’s never going to know how much he owes to you.’
‘No-—don’t you ever tell him. If you want it to stick.’
‘I won’t.’ Jane finished her drink, and sat looking at me. Her eyes were shining, the way they did when she was starting to get high. ‘Oh, Steve,’ she said, ‘why did you and I have to make such a mess of it?’
‘You got my letter? I went into all that—or as much as I can understand.’
‘It was a beautiful letter. And I agreed with most of it. Only—you don’t know everything … There’s one bit I think I ought to tell you.’
‘What’s that?’
Jane giggled. ‘It’s—kind of embarrassing. I couldn’t write it. That’s why I never answered yours. I’m no good at writing things, like you are. I could only tell you to your face … These cocktails are good, aren’t they?’
‘I’ll say!’
‘How many of them have we had?’
‘Four, I think. Or is it five?’
‘Well, let’s have another, I need support, if I’m going to tell you this. I wish I could do it in the dark.’
‘Shut your eyes, why don’t you?’
I ordered the cocktails. When the waiter had brought them, Jane continued: ‘I know I’m going to be sorry I told you this. But I don’t care. Only, don’t look at me until I’ve finished. Look out the w
indow—’ She took a big gulp of her cocktail. ‘You see, when I read that letter of yours, I realized, more than ever, that you’d never understood how I was feeling. All that time we were at St Luc, I mean. You never understood the one thing that stuck out a mile You don’t even realize it now.’
‘What don’t I realize?’
‘That I was in love with you, you dope.’
‘Oh, Jane—no!’
‘I was … Steve, I told you not to look at me! That’s better—Anyone but you would have known it. All the others did.’
‘But you always acted so uninterested. I mean—beyond a certain point.’
‘Wouldn’t you have, in my place? Look—I liked you. And you actually wanted to marry me—only it was all for the wrong reasons. I didn’t want you to want me just because you were lonely. I hoped, if I waited, you’d feel differently. So naturally I had to play hard to get. And the fact that we were sleeping together made it just that much more difficult … Well, then I found I was pregnant. I’ll never know how that happened. I thought I was being so careful. And it looked so damn’ much like a trap I’d set for you—a real lousy bitch trick. At first I thought I wouldn’t tell you at all. Just clear out and get rid of the baby. And then I thought, “Hell, no, I’ll see how he takes it.” And you were so terribly sweet about it. When you said, “Can’t we get married tonight?” I really loved you—and, what’s more, like an idiot, I began to think maybe you’d started to like me, too. I mean, in the way I wanted—’
‘Oh, Jesus! I certainly fouled things up.’
‘No, Steve! Please don’t think that. I’m not telling you this to make you feel like a heel. You were right, in your letter. It would never have worked, anyhow. You were never in love with me, properly. And I—well, that was just a kind of crush—’
‘You mean, it didn’t last long?’
Jane smiled at me teasingly: ‘Would you like me to be carrying a torch, Steve? I’ll bet you would! You’re a pretty conceited bastard. Well, even if I was, I wouldn’t tell you. So you’ll never know.’
‘I’ll never know,’ I said. ‘That suits me. I can imagine things.’
The World in the Evening Page 31