Читать книгу The Sea Tower - Hugh Walpole - Страница 9

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Joe’s state of happiness was complete. Three days after their arrival at Scarlatt, walking, with the Captain, across the early-morning fields, he could say to himself: ‘For the first time in my life I know perfect happiness. There is not a flaw anywhere. I am in love. My love is returned. I am in the place that I adore. There is love, work, vigour, health in me, around me, everywhere.’ These words did not form, of course, in his consciousness. Only as he strolled forward he whistled, a little awry, ‘Drink to me only,’ which was his favourite tune.

Shortly before six that morning he had woken to find Christina, her back curled up against him, lying towards the open window through whose dim shadow came the soft lazy purring of the sea. He encircled her with his arm, drawing her closer to him, kissed the back of her neck, buried his face in her hair. Then she turned and lay in the fold of his arm, staring up at the ceiling.

‘Slept well?’ he asked her.

‘Yes. Very.’

‘You know—I’ve slept steadily—ever since we said good-night. And yet I’ve been awake too. What I mean is that, through my sleep, I’ve been conscious of my happiness. I don’t suppose there’s anyone as happy as I am in the whole of England.’

Now he wanted her to say that she was as happy as he. But she did not speak, nor did she move. So he kissed her eyes and said:

‘Are you happy? Although I know you are—say so.’

She turned towards him and drew herself into his arms until her heart beat on his heart. Still she did not speak.

He whispered into her ear:

‘Say you’re as happy.’

‘I’m as happy.’

‘Say it again.’

‘I’m as happy.’

After a while she said:

‘Does your mother like me?’

‘Of course. She adores you.’

‘How do you know? Has she said so?’

‘I haven’t asked her.’

‘Then she hasn’t said so on her own account.’

‘One can see it. Everyone adores you.’

‘Simpson doesn’t. Snubs doesn’t.’

‘Of course they do. If they don’t, what does it matter?’

He moved as though to get out of bed. She pulled him back against her.

‘Listen,’ she said. ‘I thought I loved you in London. I thought I loved you in the train. But that was nothing at all to the way I love you now.’

He held her off from him a little, looking at her.

‘I don’t know why you do,’ he said. ‘I’m so ordinary. I’m not clever. And you’re so beautiful. Congreve is simply crazy about you. He says you’ve given him new life, a new sense of beauty. Last night he said it—that all his ambition’s rising again.’

She hadn’t heard. She was thinking something out.

‘Joe, I’ve discovered something. I always thought I was a meek and mild little thing. I let Anne do what she liked with me. Now I know I can be fierce, selfish, cruel.’

‘You!’ He leaned over her, stroking her face with his hand.

‘Yes. If anyone tried to take you away or come between us. I’ve read in novels about women murdering for their husbands. It always seemed such nonsense. Now I know it isn’t.’

‘Who are you going to murder?’

‘Nobody. But I could.’

He got out of bed, stripped, and did exercises. She watched him as the light grew ever stronger about him.

He strode with the Captain over the fields to the top of the hill. He always paused at the little gate that perched on the ridge between the hedges. He always paused and looked back, for this was the view that was the very heart of his fancy. How he had thought of it again and again in London. Once, he remembered, he had stood half-way across Piccadilly and been almost killed—seeing the house, the terraced garden, the sea-wall, the saffron-shadowed strip of beach, the long silk-flowing sea, and the Tower, pale and strong, defying old Neptune. Then, to the right, the coast curved on; there were the Duntrea Rocks, Colder Bay, the thin hook-nose of Colder Point—and from this swaying sea all the land leaning back, the brown, red, purple-shaded fields, hedges like elastic string and houses like upright dominoes. Now, this morning, there was an autumn-honey air and the gulls flying like scraps of paper.

A thought struck him. Christina ought to be here seeing this, standing here, leaning on the little gate and his arm around her. Another thought. Christina had wanted, every one of these three mornings, to get up and come with him. Although not a word had been spoken, that was what she had wanted. And he had known it. A further thought. He had not asked her because his mother would not have liked it.

He turned from the gate as though something had hit him. He caught the Captain’s arm.

‘Come on. We can’t dawdle here all day.’

‘All right,’ the Captain said, laughing. ‘It’s your stopping-place, not mine.’

Why would his mother not like it? How did he know? She wouldn’t like it because he’d told her often enough in the past that he didn’t want women hanging round when he was on a job. He had told the Old Lady that because she’d suspicioned he’d been talking with her arch-enemy, Mrs. Lavinia Peacock, or that girl, Betty Goos, he’d had a bit of flirtation with. But his wife? Wasn’t that different? Of course it was. And Christina should come with him. Would she not love it, the early morning freshness, the grass damp with dew or crackling with frost, the animals friendly and unsuspicious, the coffee and bread and butter at Dewlap’s? Would not Christina love it? Sharing, she would fondly fancy, his work....

In olden days the Old Lady had sometimes walked with him. But it had not been a great success. She had wanted everything done her way, dear Old Lady. She could not help herself. She was made that way, to see clearly what was right; but naturally she could not know everything. Sometimes her ideas were very odd indeed. She had not enjoyed it. And then—how like her!—when she had decided not to come she had wanted him not to go! Why couldn’t he have breakfast at home like any other sensible man? He could go the rounds later in the day. There had been quite a battle about it, he remembered—a scene or two—but for once he had been obstinate. Those early-morning hours were everything to him and he couldn’t get through his work properly without them. He gave in to the Old Lady about most things: about this, no.

There had been, he was now remembering, a number of battles just before his departure for London. In one of her tempers she had said: ‘You shall go to London and see that Scarlatt is your home.’ And, by Jove, she had been nearly right. With every added week in London he had longed for Scarlatt more; and not only Scarlatt but also the Old Lady herself, because there was no one like her, no one he loved.... He pulled himself up. There was Christina. And if he had not, by so miraculous a chance, met Christina, he would indeed have come rushing back to Scarlatt swearing to the Old Lady that he would never leave it again. Even as it was, in that first meeting with his mother again, the kiss on those soft cheeks, the scent of her freshness and age-old motherliness, the surrender of her little strong dauntless body to his arms, in that instant he had, for a second, forgotten Christina. Christina whom he loved with so passionate a longing, desire, fulfilment. Well, it was lucky that they two were friends. They had taken to one another at sight. He had known, of course, that they would.

They were turning down the deep lane to Dewlap’s.

‘Well, then, Tim, old boy,’ he said. ‘What do you think of my wife now you’ve seen her?’

The Captain stopped and looked at him; there was a quizzical look, and a tenderness too in his eyes.

‘I’ve been waiting for you to ask me that,’ he said. ‘I thought you would. And what can I say but she’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen in my life?’

Joe grinned like a pleased boy.

‘Yes. She’s lovely, isn’t she?’

‘Lovely!—and I know something about women.’ He pointed down the lane in the direction of the invisible sea. ‘Two passions of my life—the sea and women. I’ve failed one and the other’s failed me. That night my wife left me—and me off to the West Indies in the morning as I’ve often told you—I swore I’d be done with them, for what but cruelty and unkindness had they ever shown me? And what had the sea been to me but just the opposite? Kind and faithful and rewarding. Yet here I’ve been six months now just because your mother likes to keep me, and I so feeble that I can only murmur “Next week I’ll be off....” Yes, staring out to sea from the top of the Tower. But your mother’s a woman, even though she’s an old one now, and she has a power over me no man could ever have. And all my backbone waters away. And I eat my meals and run her errands.’

‘My mother’s not such a tyrant as all that,’ Joe said, smiling.

‘Isn’t she? Well, maybe you don’t know your mother. Oh, there’s other things of course. There’s a boat and there’s fishing and there’s yourself I’ve grown fond of and there’s women in Polchester....’ He turned and spat into the hedge. ‘All the same I was going next week. By God’s holy throne I was. For one thing I can’t stand your brother, as you know well enough. And then that girl comes, the lovely child, as fair as the sun on water; if she weren’t your wife, Joe, my boy, I’d have to make love to her.’

Joe put his hand through the Captain’s thick arm and they went on walking down the lane together.

‘I want you two to be friends, Tim. I’m fonder of you than any man alive. But aren’t I lucky? Aren’t I? Aren’t I? To think that it should happen to me! Anyone so beautiful ...’

‘Aye,’ said the Captain. ‘It’s a wonderful thing to happen to a man, a happy marriage—as wonderful as commanding a ship or discovering a piece of land no one’s ever seen before. Yes, you’re lucky, Joe. She’s good as well as beautiful. I’ve been watching her. How could a man with two eyes help it? She loves you and is going to try to love your family too—not so easy, the second of these.’

‘What do you mean? Are we a difficult family?’

‘Difficult! Yes, I should say you are in a way. At least ... Oh, your girl will manage you all, I haven’t a doubt.’ He paused as though he had something to say. Then changed his mind.

‘But women—they’re extraordinary, as you’ll find out before you’ve been married six months. They’ll be all sweetness in bed and all contrariness the very next morning. They’ll fight for their lover with a courage no man can summon, then tear that same lover to pieces. When they’re fine there’s nothing in this world finer. When they’re bitches there’s nothing so low they won’t sink to. They’ve no truth, no honour, no fairness in them, and they’re saints, here and there, like the angels in glory. I thought sometimes of the peaceful and grand place the world would be with only men in it, the restful, peaceful place, just going about your work, riding, walking, sailing a ship, telling a tale, having a quarrel that is a quarrel with a word and a blow all above board. No sex tearing your loins, and a quiet sleep at night. Yes, and then my eye takes a turn and it seems a dead world with the one thing out of it worth all the rest. A lovely woman like your wife, Joe, and all the values go up. There’s a fire in the sky and your heart beats like a hammer.’

Joe knew that the Captain liked his own voice and he had not been listening. Now he passed through the Dewlap gate, crying: ‘Henry! Isaac! Where have you got to?’

Dogs began to bark, some children ran out. They went into the farm kitchen and soon they were drinking coffee and eating bread and bacon while the flames leapt in the stone fireplace, and you could see through the window, beyond the line of fields, the band of silver light that was the sea.

It was homely and most pleasant with stout Mrs. Dewlap and long, thin, brown-faced Dewlap himself, dogs, cats and children. Then old Dewlap, Dewlap’s father, came in. He was stone blind and helped himself along by touching familiar things, the case of the clock, the shelf, the pot of chrysanthemums, the ledge of the window. By that last he stayed, leaning forward and staring out as though he saw the little walled garden, the great barn, the fields and the sea: and maybe he did see them, for he had known them by heart before he was blinded in the War.

Emma Dewlap bustled about paying special attention to the Captain, whose exaggerated and poetic way of talking always fascinated her. Also he had his ways, when no one was looking, of pinching her fat arm or bosom and, once and again, of kissing her. He had told her once that she smelt of blackberries and cream, which pleased her. On the other hand, he cast at times a glance on their elder girl, Lucy, seventeen and not so bad to look at, and this she did not like and would smack his face one day if he tried any of his games.

Joe, who had been away so long, had plenty to talk over with Dewlap. The lectures and discussions in London had fired his brain.

‘Soon, Mr. Joe,’ said Dewlap, ‘you’ll know so much you’ll be managing a richer place than this.’

‘I’ll never leave here, Isaac,’ Joe said. ‘This is the only place in the world for me.’

The Captain cried: ‘Mind, Joe, you’re married now. Freedom ceases with marriage.’

‘For shame, Captain,’ Emma Dewlap said. ‘You to be talking against marriage.’

The old blind man in the window said: ‘The gulls are inland. There’s a storm blowing up.’

How had he heard their cry? To Joe’s fancy it seemed that the wide kitchen was suddenly filled with that complaining shriek.

‘We must be moving,’ he said. ‘We’ve to be back to the house by midday. I’ll come and see the calves to-morrow, Isaac.’

They climbed the lane and the Captain said: ‘The Dewlap girl’s growing.’

At the top of the lane, standing and looking at them, was Mrs. Charles Peacock, Lavinia. She was a gaunt woman, dressed in faded tweeds, carrying a riding-whip, an old black hat, her sparse grey hair caught into a tight bun at the back of her bony head. She had bright blue eyes, a long nose, high cheek-bones, and a figure as straight up and down as a man’s.

Her husband, Charles Peacock, had left her long ago. She had money of her own and lived in a house, Bagge Hall. Some five years ago a young man, called Eastlake, had come to live in Bagge Hall. He was a pretty young man and was known in the district as the Canary. He went about with Lavinia Peacock everywhere. The Peacock and the Canary. Bagge Hall was nicknamed the Aviary. Everyone assumed that they ‘lived in sin.’ It was known that they quarrelled and Lavinia’s temper was something remarkable. Last year the Canary had departed. He told his friends that he had a job in the Air Ministry. However, the great point about Lavinia Peacock was that she was Mrs. Field’s mighty and abiding enemy. The feud was an old one now—no one knew its origin. The two ladies rarely met, but what they said about one another was a wonder—for it seemed that there were always new things to say.

Joe himself liked Lavinia—men did for the most part—but he knew that it was a perilous matter to talk with her. Birds carried the news to Scarlatt within a day and a night, and then ... oh, but there was trouble!

So now he touched his hat, and the Captain gave a roguish grin and they would have passed on. But Lavinia had something to say.

‘Here, Joe, wait a minute. I must congratulate you.’

He grinned.

‘Thanks, Lavinia.’

‘I hear she’s lovely. I’m really delighted.’ Lavinia had a deep, almost masculine voice. She always spoke as though she saw a joke.

Joe said: ‘Thanks ever so much,’ and took a step forward.

‘Here, what’s the hurry? Afraid your mother will see us? Why not bring your bride to tea one afternoon?’

Joe looked sheepish. ‘Well—you see, Lavinia—it’s like this——’

Lavinia laughed heartily and slapped her thin thigh with her riding-whip.

‘Afraid of the Old Lady? I’m ashamed of you, Joe. You’re not a baby any longer. You’re a married man.’

Joe, furious that his mother should be mocked, said: ‘That’s all right, Lavinia, I must be getting on.’

She looked at him with warm kindliness. ‘I didn’t mean to tease you, Joe. There’s no one alive wants your happiness more than I do. You ought to know that.’ She turned on her heel and strode away.

‘Old Dewlap was right,’ the Captain said. ‘There’s a storm coming up.’ Then he added: ‘Mrs. Peacock’s a bit in love with you.’

Joe had turned and, looking out to sea, found that the world had changed. A dirty-white cloud, speckled with dark spots like a shredded newspaper, was spreading over the blue. The sea ran in a grey shadow, trembling, it seemed, with chill. The bare autumn trees seemed to quiver in some melancholy anticipation. The early morning had been too bright, and Joe, very young and conscious of weather, had lost his first joy, as it seemed, in the bottom of the lane. He was angry, too, with the Captain.

‘Oh, drop it, Tim! Why is your head always crammed with sex? Can you never think of anything else?’

‘I’m a natural man,’ the Captain said. ‘Sex is the finest flower in the garden until you’ve plucked it. That Dewlap girl is growing pretty.’

Joe turned and swore at him. There were times when he hated Captain Timothy Green, when he saw him only as a lazy, lecherous, worthless loafer. The Captain knew it. He put his hand through Joe’s arm.

‘You’re right to swear. There’s half of me as rotten as a garbage-can, and there’s half of me as sweet and generous as Saint Francis himself. I say to myself, looking at myself: “Timothy, my son, why can’t you watch where you’re going and think before you speak?” A little thought and I’d be a picture of a man, for I’m as sweet inside as a nut and I hate the Devil as fiercely as any saint. But what sort of a life is this for a man, middle-aged, in his full powers and no woman of his own to hold in his arms? It’s my own woman I’m hungry for, and yet I don’t want to be tied. What do you make of that?’

‘What you want,’ said Joe crossly, ‘is to leave here and go back to work. It’s because you’re idle that you think of women so much. Get back to the sea. That’s where you belong.’

The Captain drew a terrible sigh.

‘I know. I know. You were never more right. Another week, just to look at your wife a little, and I’ll be off.’

But Joe was filled with fears. He hadn’t wanted to be talking to Lavinia Peacock so soon after his return. He didn’t want a quarrel with the Old Lady. He wanted to be well with all the world now, in his great new happiness. He didn’t know why, under this dirty cloud that had swallowed the whole sky, he should suddenly feel an apprehension so acute that he stopped and looked behind him as though someone were following him.

From where they now walked they could see again the house, the gardens, the Tower. But now colour was drained from the scene: the house was squat and hideous, the Tower menacing. What if something had happened to Christina? How absurd! And yet he began to walk swiftly, his arms swinging, his head up. The Captain grinned.

‘Hi! Hold on, young fellow! There’s time enough!’

But Joe didn’t answer. He saw now only Christina, his darling, his wonder, his wife and child and friend. She should come out with him another morning whether his mother liked it or no. Had he not, that very first day, left her although before he had insisted that he, and he alone, should show her the place? Shameful! Shameful! And she had not reproached him with a word nor a look. She, so generous, unselfish, sweet-hearted!—his Christina, his darling, deserted by him so basely. Maybe, even now, she was crying her eyes out. And, at that terrible thought, he ran down the steps into the garden, up more steps into the house.

And so it was that, in the hall, he brushed against his mother, had not a word for her, but cried out: ‘Christina! Where’s Christina?’ and was up the staircase in a twinkling.

Christina, however, was quite pleasantly seated on the bed in their room sewing a button on to a blouse. She had been that morning with Aunt Matty into the village, and very pleasant it had been. Joe had never left her mind, but she had felt in no way uneasy. She would see him at luncheon and then perhaps in the afternoon....

He was upon her. He had thrown her back upon the bed; his arms were round her, he was kissing her eyes, her cheeks, her hair. His arms stiffened, he gazed down at her, adoring her. He was panting.

‘I thought something might have happened to you. I ran all the way home.’

‘Why—what could have happened?’

‘I don’t know ... I haven’t been looking after you as I ought. I’ve left you alone....’

‘But of course you have to. You’ve got work to do.’

The gong for luncheon sounded.

‘There’s the gong. I must brush my hair.’

Standing up, they embraced until they were indeed one flesh, one heart, one soul. But it hurts to make love standing, so Joe said:

‘Let’s not bother about lunch.’

‘Of course we must. What will your mother think?’

‘Yes. There’s the Old Lady.’ And now he remembered that he had brushed past her very rudely in the hall.

So they went down. Everyone was at table except Mrs. Field: Mr. Field, Matty, the Captain, Congreve. Everyone was very gay. Even Mr. Field said to Christina: ‘A nice colour on your cheeks, my dear. This place suits you.’ The Captain actually said, quite pleasantly, to Congreve: ‘How’s the painting?’ Everyone smiled and the dogs raised melting eyes to the table.

Mrs. Field came in.

It was exactly, Christina thought, like the old days at Guy House when Miss Hussett had neuralgia. The whole class had sat there shivering. Now she had to control her merriment, for surely there was something exquisitely absurd in the immediate freezing of these four grown men. There was a mortuary silence as Mrs. Field took her place. It was not so much that she was angry as that she was a remotely offended Queen of Heaven.... It was not only that she was silent but that her silence had a thousand voices all expressing royal anger. Her chair became a throne. She helped herself to soup as though she were ladling penalties for all mankind.

Then Christina laughed.

It was Aunt Matty’s face that provoked her. Aunt Matty looked so surprisedly dismayed. It was the very last thing that she had expected, this angry entrance. She had been prepared with an eager account of her morning village adventures. Everyone was so happy. She hated that anyone should be unhappy. Her face was a ruin of her expectations.

After Christina’s laugh there was a quite dreadful silence. Then Christina said:

‘Oh, do look at Snubs! He’s slobbering with greed.’

A poor attempt. Then Mrs. Field said:

‘I’m still waiting, Joe, for you to wish your mother good-morning.’

Joe got up, went to his mother, kissed her cheek.

‘Good-morning, mother dear.’

Then he went back to his seat.

‘You seemed in a great hurry just now when you came in.’

‘Was I? I wanted a wash after grubbing about all the morning.’

‘Yes. I’ve told you before that all that running about early is quite unnecessary. I’m sure your father agrees with me.’

Mr. Field put his monocle in his eye, looked languidly at his son and said:

‘I don’t know how you can do it, Joe—getting up so damned early.’

Joe said: ‘Sorry, mother. There’s a lot to see to after being away so long.’

And then Mrs. Field was, in the tick of the clock, warm with human love. She beamed upon them all.

‘I expect you’re right, Joe dear. It’s a good thing that there’s somebody to take the place seriously. Well, Christina dear—and what have you been doing with yourself? I hope somebody’s been entertaining you. I had so many letters to write....’

A spiritual sigh of relief, soundless but shaking the air, beat through the room. Aunt Matty began her account of her progress.