The night grew warmer and brighter. Each rounded cock in the hayfields had its own blot of shadow. There was no sleep indoors or out. Small things rustled and twittered in the black thickets and a million grasshoppers were sawing away in the fields. Yet every sound was slight and clear, etched distinctly against the large quietness of the sky and the hills. Noises from far away, a dog barking from an upland farm, a car changing gear in the valley, fell into the cup of fields like single notes from a bell.
Hugo’s moon shadow dogged him through the fields and at first he hurried and stumbled as though he was trying to escape from it. But when he came to the gate on to the downs he went more slowly. The hill grew steeper. Gradually, as each step took him out of the human world of the valley, all sound slipped away from him. His breath returned and his heart left off hammering. He fell into a steady plod up the chalk path to the crest of the ridge. Soon he could hear nothing save the ghost of a whisper as a small wind blew among the dried harebells. The air was cooler up there, but a lingering warmth stole from the earth which had lain baking in the sun all day.
He got to the top and saw more, and yet more sky. Half the world was sky, and when he looked back he could not see the Ullmer valley, only a smudge of blackness below the silvery slopes. He stood still and his shadow stood still beside him. He had got to a place of absolute silence.
It was too silent.
A strange thing had happened to him, but he did not immediately know what it was. His private orchestra had stopped. For the first time in years he was able to listen to his own thoughts, to that secret voice which he shared with no one else. He had given his tyrant the slip and was walking alone with his shadow as anybody else might walk. He need no longer think of himself as the most successful young man who ever wandered in the moonlight.
But he was not ready, yet, to be alone. His success might be a tyrant but at least it was company and he had come to depend on it. He had not stumbled up this hill for the sake of solitude but because he wanted to find Marianne. For he must sleep soon, and he never could until he found her. When Solange said that she was on the downs he had gone in immediate pursuit. Not to argue, or to explain, did he go, but simply to be with her. For he knew that he had come very near the edge, down there in the drawing-room with Corny and Philomena. He was very near the edge still. He would go over if he did not find her.
There was no sign of her anywhere. The night was empty and the downs were bare. He went on a little way, scanning the faint, grey levels for her moving figure. But it seemed that she was not there. And then his loneliness grew to panic size. He began to hurry. He tried to get off the downs and lost himself. The Ullmer valley had disappeared, but he slipped and stumbled a little way down into another one, looking for the path that he had missed. A sea of gorse bushes cut him off and he tried to crawl through them, gashing his hands and arms. At last he got to the top of the ridge again, where his moon shadow dodged and bobbed beside him. It looked like a shadow cast by some other man and he grew afraid of it. At last, blindly terrified, he began to run, round in circles, and up and down over the grass, trying to find some shelter from the cold eye of the moon. But there was no refuge, even from that, only endless miles of turf full of rabbit holes that tripped him up. His shouts and calls were muffled in his throat and choked him. He went round and round like a squirrel in a cage.
When he had run for a long time he was walking again with Marianne beside him. She seemed to have come suddenly out of nowhere, to have taken shape out of the void sky. The moon glistened on the white frieze coat that she wore, and her lanky shadow stalked along the ground beside his. She had taken his arm, as they swung along, and tucked it under her own, thus preventing him from falling into rabbit holes as they took the path along the top of the ridge.
“Where were you?” he asked when they had gone a little way.
“Up there.”
She nodded at the great mound of Chawton Beacon, looming above them.
“Did you see me?”
“No. But I heard you calling.”
“Oh. Did I call?”
“Yes.”
“More than once?”
“Yes.”
“Was I calling you?”
“Yes.”
“You must have thought I was getting queer in the head.”
She did not answer that. Instead she pointed across the valley and said:
“Look!”
On the slope opposite a flame had spread out like a fan. The whole hillside was burning.
“They’ve lighted the grass,” she said. “Look, there’s another on Chawbury. And a little one on Callow Down. And do you see the one on Ullmer Ridge? They light it there in a ring and if it burns all the way round at the same time, then it’s going to be a lucky year. But it’s better when there’s no moon.”
They went along the ridge counting the fires, of which there were about a dozen. Hidden in the hills there must have been scores of men setting the grass alight and a faint shout floated now and then across the valley. Marianne kept spinning round and naming the more distant flickers. For the most part they looked wan and ephemeral under the steady light of the moon. But Ullmer Ring burnt bravely long after the others had gone out.
“We might go across and help them to keep it up,” she suggested. “Why are you limping?”
“I’ve got a blister on my heel. I don’t want to walk any more. Let’s sit down.”
“It’ll be cold here by and by. We’ll go along to the haystacks and then we’ll have something to lean against.”
“Where?”
“Just below here. Where the fields run up to the Down. There are two stacks. We can sit against them and see Ullmer Ring as long as it burns. Mind the rabbit holes.”
They went down, slipping a little on the cropped turf, and Hugo asked where Syranwood was. She pointed to an enormous mass of shadow like a dark lake, just below them.
“You know,” said Hugo, as he slithered along, “I did an extraordinary thing to-night. I pulled Corny’s nose.”
“Did you? Oh, look out! Have you sprained your ankle?”
He had stepped into a rabbit burrow and fell sprawling.
“Why didn’t you put on thick shoes if you wanted to come up here?” asked Marianne unsympathetically.
“I didn’t want to come up here. Did you hear what I said? I pulled …”
“Yes, you can tell me when we’re safe at the bottom.”
“Should I try rolling down?”
“You could if you liked. But if I were you I’d take my shoes off. The grass is quite dry.”
Hugo sat down and removed his shoes and socks. The grass was not only dry but warm, and his feet gripped it comfortably. But he encountered a good many thistles.
“I believe you take me over them on purpose,” he grumbled.
“It’s better than gorse. Here we are.”
The haystacks leant together like two little houses. But one of them had been cut on the side facing Ullmer Ridge and Marianne scooped out a nice warm hollow in the loose hay. It was soft to sit in but it tickled Hugo’s feet until he had to put his shoes on again.
“Now are you settled?” demanded Marianne.
“More or less. How long are we going to stay here?”
“I’m going to stay till the Ring is burnt out. But you needn’t unless you like.”
He did like. As far as he was concerned they could sit there all night. For it was still quite early. As they came down the hill he had heard the stable clock striking twelve among the trees below.
“Do you mind if I go to sleep?” he asked.
“Do.”
He stretched himself at full length in the hay and stared up at the sky.
“Why aren’t there any stars?” he asked presently.
“Because it’s a full moon. There never are.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Go to sleep.”
“I can’t. The hay scratches my neck.”
He shuffled and fidgeted about for a few minutes and then sat up. Marianne, who had been watching him, said gravely:
“You can put your head on my lap if you like.”
“Can I?”
He did, and sighed with contentment.
“I’m so comfortable.”
Marianne said nothing. She looked straight in front of her at the uncertain ring of fire across the valley. And after a little while Hugo went on, in a placid, drowsy voice:
“You know, Marianne, I can’t bear it any longer.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know. You couldn’t. Nobody could unless it had happened to them. I’m like a man driving some terrible, high-powered car and losing control of it. He tries to think, poor devil, that he’s driving it. But all the time he knows it’s driving him.”
He spoke slowly, pausing for words, as if at any moment he might drop off to sleep. But he went on:
“Something outside of me has got hold of me. I’m a slave. Even my thoughts aren’t my own any more. I haven’t got a private life any more. I always seem to be leading a public life, even when I’m alone. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“My mind is simply an enormous reverberator for other people’s thoughts. I’m hardly a real person any more. The nearest to reality I get is to give a marvellous imitation of myself.”
Marianne moved, as though she was going to speak. But he stopped her.
“I know what you’re going to say. Why not go away? I’ll tell you why. There’s nowhere to go to. People can’t get away nowadays. Wherever I went, they’d come too. Nothing will make any difference. I’d thought of trying something new: writing poetry instead of plays. But I hadn’t considered the idea for more than ten minutes before I found myself telling Adrian all about it. Doing a little advance publicity. When a man gets into the state I’m in he can only produce abortions. When things grow you have to hide the roots of them. But I’ve got nowhere to hide them in.”
“I know,” said Marianne. “So if I were you I shouldn’t write any more.”
“What?”
He turned his head round on her knee and peered up into her face to see if she was laughing. But she looked quite serious.
“How do you mean … not write?”
“Do something else,” suggested Marianne.
“But, my dear, I’m a writer. What else could I do?”
“Anything else. Anything you like. Why not? If anybody could do what they liked I should think it was you. You must have made an awful lot of money.”
“Not as much as people think,” said Hugo instantly.
“But still, quite a lot. Have you spent it all?”
“No. I’ve saved enough to live on, if it comes to that.”
“Then, my goodness, why go on doing things you don’t like. Plenty of people that don’t have any money at all have a nicer time than you. Why should you go on writing?”
“I’ve got into a habit.”
“It’s a bad habit.”
“And then, you can’t get away from it. I’m so successful. To leave off writing altogether, to give up, that would be failure, wouldn’t it?”
“Well?”
She seemed to scrutinise the word as if trying to discover the secret of its menace. And Hugo lay there wondering idly what he would like to do besides writing. He might sail a small boat perhaps. He liked sailing.
“Well,” pronounced Marianne at last, “you’ve tried success and you don’t like it. Now try failure and see.”
It was absurd. He left off toying with his little boat.
“But darling … what am I to do with my life?”
“Oh I don’t know. Just live it. Do nothing at all for a good long time, till you find there’s something you really and truly want to do. Don’t you realise how lucky you are? You’re free. You don’t have your living to earn. And you quite like doing nothing, don’t you?”
“Do I? I don’t know. I’ve done nothing this week-end, but I can’t say I’ve liked it.”
“Done nothing? You’ve been at it the whole time, I should say.”
Hugo considered this but found no answer. So he went back to the impossibility of getting away.
“Darling, you don’t know what you’re talking about. My agent would never allow it. I’m afraid of my agent.”
Marianne made a movement of impatience. It was a hard task to disentangle his mind from its mesh of publicity.
“Nobody need know,” she insisted. “Give an address to your bankers or your solicitor or somebody like that, so they won’t think you’ve fallen off a cliff. And then disappear.”
“Where to?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I should go to a cheap hotel at Torquay or somewhere for a bit till you’ve thought of a place you’d like. Nobody would think of looking for you at Torquay.”
“You’ve got it all very pat. Have you been thinking it over?”
“Yes, I have. Ever since dinner.”
“Nice of you. But you know there’ll be an awful hullabaloo. Disappearance of Hugo Pott.”
“Oh no, not if you say you’ve gone a pleasure cruise. You’ve no idea how quickly they’ll forget you. They’ll say: ‘Oh, by the way, where’s Hugo? Still cruising?’ And then they’ll leave off even saying that. They’ll find another King Toad to …”
She broke off with a gasp.
“Go on,” murmured Hugo contentedly. “I don’t mind. A King Toad, did you say? So that’s what you really …”
And then, thinking of his arrival, and those two faces looking down at him from the old schoolroom window, he laughed.
“I didn’t really …” stammered Marianne.
“Oh yes, you did. And you wouldn’t tell me at dinner. You think I’m a King Toad, Marianne, but you’re terribly nice to me all the same, and in three minutes I shall go to sleep on your lap. Do you mind?”
“No.”
And in three minutes he did, slipping off suddenly into that dreamless void which he had so desperately desired. He lay absolutely still, breathing slowly.
Marianne settled herself more comfortably into the hay and leant back. She watched the fires die out, one after another, and heard the stable clock chime out beneath her. The night was a little cooler now and as the moon slipped down the sky it grew darker.
She was so completely happy that she had almost left off being herself. The barrier between herself and everything round her, the dark cooling air, the huddled stacks, crumbled away, so that her peace was one with the peace of the sleeping world. This was her whole life, since an entire existence is no longer than its moment of highest fulfilment. She knew that when she was old she would not think: I have lived long. She would think: ‘He slept one night with me in the hay.’ She held his sleeping spirit in her hands and she was content.
To-morrow he would go away. And perhaps she might never have him near to her like this again. Tomorrow night, and for many, many nights after she must lie alone with her grief. He would be lost to her arms but never to her love. For her love would send him out, away from her, just as, to-night, it had brought him close. To-morrow and its loss would be born of this happiness just as surely as light follows darkness and sweet flowers bear bitter fruit. But in this hour, when all time seemed one, she could think of it without sorrow.
The moon had slipped out of sight. Its milky beams grew dim and the outline of the hills disappeared as it set. All the fires were out now. Hugo lay still as death, but when she moved a little, to ease her cramped limbs, he sighed and said something about ringing up in the morning.
His head rolled off her lap but he did not wake. Very softly she lay down in the hay beside him, took him in her arms and pulled his poor head into that hollow of her breast where it ought to lie. In a few minutes she was fast asleep herself.