XVII

The noise, the shaking, the wind, made it impossible to say much. Perhaps up there above her on his perch he really didn’t hear; he anyhow behaved as if he didn’t. Getting no answer to any of the things she said, she looked up at him. He was intent, bent forward, his mouth tight shut, and his hair–he had nothing on his head–blown backwards, shining in the sun.

The anger died from her face. It was so absurd, what was happening to her, that she couldn’t be angry. All the trouble she had taken to get away from him, all she had endured and made Stephen and Virginia endure that week as a result of it, ending like this, in being caught and carried off in a side-car! Besides, there was something about him sitting up there in the sun, something in his expression, at once triumphant and troubled, determined and anxious, happy and scared, that brought a smile flickering round the corners of her mouth, which, however, she carefully buried in her scarf.

And as she settled down into the rug, for she couldn’t do anything at that moment except go, except rush, except be hurtled, as she gave herself up to this extraordinary temporary abduction, a queer feeling stole over her as if she had come in out of the cold into a room with a bright fire in it. Yes, she had been cold; and with Christopher it was warm. Absurd as it was, she felt she was with somebody of her own age again.

They were through the village in a flash. Stephen, still on his way to the sick-bed he was to console, was caught up and passed without his knowing who was passing. He jumped aside when he heard the noise of their approach behind him–quickly, because he was cautious and they were close, and without looking at them, because motor-cycles and the ways of young men who used them were repugnant to him.

Christopher rushed past him with a loud hoot. It sounded defiant. Catherine gathered, from its special violence, that her son-in-law had been recognised.

The road beyond Chickover winds sweetly among hills. If one continues on it long enough, that is for twenty miles or so, one comes to the sea. This was where Christopher took Catherine that morning, not stopping a moment, nor slowing down except when prudence demanded, nor speaking a word till he got there. At the bottom of the steep bit at the end, down which he went carefully, acutely aware of the preciousness of his passenger, where between grassy banks the road abruptly finishes in shingle and the sea, he stopped, got off, and came round to unwind her.

This was the moment he was most afraid of.

She looked so very small, rolled round in the rug like a little bolster, propped up in the side-car, that his heart misgave him worse than ever. It had been misgiving him without interruption the whole way, but it misgave him worse than ever now. He felt she was too small to hurt, to anger, even to ruffle; that it wasn’t fair; that he ought, if he must attack, attack a woman more his own size.

And she didn’t say anything. She had, he knew, said a good many things when they passed that turning, none of which he could hear, but since then she had been silent. She was silent now; only, over the top of her scarf, which had got pushed up rather funnily round her ears, her eyes were fixed on him.

“There. Here we are,” he said. “We can talk here. If you’ll stand up I’ll get this thing unwound.”

For a moment he thought she was going to refuse to move, but she said nothing, and let him help her up. She was so tightly rolled round that it would have been difficult to move by herself.

He took the rug off, and folded it up busily so as not to have to meet her eyes, for he was afraid.

“Help me out,” she said.

He looked her suddenly in the face. “I’m glad I did it, anyhow,” he said, flinging back his head.

“Are you?” she said.

She held out her hand to be helped. She looked rumpled.

“Your little coat–” he murmured, pulling it tidy; and he couldn’t keep his hand from shaking, because he loved her so–“your little coat–” Then he straightened himself, and looked her in the eyes. “Catherine, we’ve got to talk,” he said.

“Is that why you’ve brought me here?”

“Yes,” said Christopher.

“Do you imagine I’m going to listen?”

“Yes,” said Christopher.

“You don’t feel at all ashamed?”

“No,” said Christopher.

She got out, and walked on to the shingle, and stood with her back to him, apparently considering the view. It was low tide, and the sea lay a good way off across wet sands. The sheltered bay was very quiet, and she could hear larks singing above the grassy banks behind her. Dreadful how little angry she was. She turned her back so as to hide how little angry she was. She wasn’t really angry at all, and she knew she ought to be. Christopher ought to be sent away at once and for ever, but there were two reasons against that–one that he wouldn’t go, and the other that she didn’t want him to. Contrary to all right feeling, to all sense of what was decent, she was amazingly glad to be with him again. She didn’t do any of the things she ought to do–flame with anger, wither him with rebukes. It was shameful, but there it was: she was amazingly glad to be with him again.

Christopher, watching her, tried to keep up a stout heart. He had had such a horrible week that whatever happened now couldn’t anyhow be worse. And she–well, she didn’t look any the happier for it, for running away from him, either.

He tried to make his voice sound fearless. “Catherine, we must talk,” he said. “It’s no use turning your back on me and staring at the silly view. You don’t see it, so why pretend?”

She didn’t move. She was wondering at the way her attitude towards him had developed in this week. All the while she was so indignant with him she was really getting used to him, getting used to the idea of him. Helped, of course, by Stephen. Immensely helped by Stephen, and even by Virginia.

“I told you you’d never get away from me,” he said to the back of her head, putting all he had of defiance into his voice. But he had so little; it was bluff, sheer bluff, while his heart was ignominiously in his boots.

“Your methods amaze me,” said Catherine to the view.

“Why did you run away?”

“Why did you force me to?”

“Well, it hasn’t been much good, has it, seeing that here we are again.”

“It hasn’t been the least good.”

“It never is, unless it’s done in twos. Then I’m all for it. Don’t forget that next time, will you. And you might also give the poor devil who is run from a thought. He has the thinnest time. I suppose if I were to try and tell you the sort of hell he has to endure you wouldn’t even understand, you untouched little thing–you self-sufficing little thing.”

Silence.

Catherine, gazing at the view, was no doubt taking his remarks in. At least, he hoped so.

“Won’t you turn round, Catherine?” he inquired.

“Yes, when you’re ready to take me back to Chickover.”

“I’ll be ready to do that when we’ve arrived at some conclusion. Is it any use my coming round to your other side? We could talk better if we could see each other’s faces.”

“No use at all,” said Catherine.

“Because you’d only turn your back on me again?”

“Yes.”

Silence.

“Aren’t we silly,” said Christopher.

“Idiots,” said Catherine.

Silence.

“Of course I know you’re very angry with me,” said Christopher.

“I’ve been extraordinarily angry with you the whole week,” said Catherine.

“That’s only because you will persist in being unnatural. You’re the absurdest little bundle of prejudices, and musty old fears. Why on earth you can’t simply let yourself go–”

Silence.

She, and letting herself go! She struggled to keep her laughter safe muffled inside her scarf. She hadn’t laughed since last she was with Christopher. At Chickover nobody laughed. A serious smile from Virginia, a bright conventional smile from Mrs. Colquhoun, no smile at all from Stephen; that was the nearest they got to it. Laughter–one of the most precious of God’s gifts; the very salt, the very light, the very fresh air of life; the divine disinfectant, the heavenly purge. Could one ever be real friends with somebody one didn’t laugh with? Of course one couldn’t. She and Christopher, they laughed. Oh, she had missed him…. But he was so headlong, he was so dangerous, he must be kept so sternly within what bounds she could get him to stay in.

She therefore continued to turn her back on him, for her face, she knew, would betray her.

“You haven’t been happy down here, that I’ll swear,” said Christopher. “I saw it at once in your little face.”

“You needn’t swear, because I’m not going to pretend anything. I haven’t been at all happy. I was very angry with you, and I was–lonely.”

“Lonely?”

“Yes. One misses–one’s friends.”

“But you were up to your eyes in relations.”

Silence.

Then Catherine said, “I’m beginning to think relations can’t be friends–neither blood relations, nor relations by marriage.”

“Would you,” asked Christopher after a pause, during which he considered this remark, “call a husband a relation by marriage?”

“It depends,” said Catherine, “whose.”

“Yours, of course. You know I mean yours.”

She was quiet a moment, then she said cautiously, “I’d call him George.”

He took a quick step forward, before she had time to turn away, and looked at her.

“You’re laughing,” he said, his face lighting up. “I felt you were. Why, I don’t believe you’re angry at all–I believe you’re glad I’ve come. Catherine, you are glad I’ve come. You’re fed up with Stephen and Virginia, and the old lady with the profile, and I’ve come as a sort of relief. Isn’t it true? You are glad?”

“I think they’re rather fed up, as you put it, with me,” said Catherine soberly.

“Fed up with you? They? That ancient, moulting, feathered tribe?”

He stared at her. “Then why do you stay till Monday?” he asked.

“Because of Virginia.”

“You mean she, of course, isn’t fed up.”

“Yes, she is.”

“She too?”

He tried to take this in. “Then why on earth stay?” he asked again.

“Because I don’t want her to know I know she is fed up. Christopher, how catching your language is–”

His face broadened into a grin. “Lord,” he said, “these twists-up one gets into with relations.”

“Yes,” agreed Catherine.

“Thank heaven I haven’t got any.”

“Yes,” agreed Catherine; and added with a faint sigh, her eyes on the distant sea, “I oughtn’t to have come at all.”

“Well, as though that wasn’t abundantly clear from the first.”

“I mean, because young people should be left undisturbed.”

“Young people! Stephen?”

“Well, young couples.”

“He isn’t a young couple.”

“Virginia has made him young. They ought to be left to themselves. It isn’t that Virginia doesn’t love me–it’s that she loves Stephen more, and wants to be alone with him.”

“She’s a horrid girl,” said Christopher with conviction.

“She’s mine,” said Catherine, “and I love her. Don’t forget that, please. It’s very important in my life.”

He took her hands and kissed them. “I adore you,” he said simply.

“Well, it’s not much good doing that,” she said.

“Doing what?”

“Adoring somebody old enough to be your mother.”

“Mothers be damned,” said Christopher.

“Oh, that’s what I’ve been thinking all the week!” cried Catherine–and then looked so much shocked at herself that Christopher burst out laughing, and so, after a minute, did she, and they stood there laughing, he holding both her hands, and happiness coming back to them in waves.

“Aren’t we friends,” she said, looking at him in a kind of glad surprise.

“Aren’t we,” said Christopher, kissing her hands again.

They wandered along the sands for a little after that, after their simultaneous laughter had loosened them from their reserves and fears, both feeling that an immense stride had been made in intimacy. Catherine, as they wandered, expounded her view of the nature and manifestations of true friendship, as other women have done on similar occasions, and Christopher, even as other men on such occasions, pretended that he thought just like that too.

He wasn’t going to frighten her away again. She had been flung back to him in this unexpected frame of mind, this state of relief and gladness, because it happened that Stephen was Stephen and Virginia was Virginia–but suppose she had chanced to run to appreciative friends, friends delighted to have her, who petted her and made her happy, to the enthusiastic Fanshawes, for instance, he would have had a poor hope of anything but being avoided for the rest of his life. And he had suffered, suffered. It had been the blackest week of misery. He wasn’t going to risk any more of it. He would walk along the sands with her and talk carefully with her of friendship.

And Catherine, used only to George, and without experience of the endless variety of the approaches and disguises of love, was delighted with Christopher, and felt every minute more reassured and safe. He agreed, it appeared, completely with her that in a world where nobody can get everything it is better to take something rather than have nothing, and that friendship between a man and a woman, even a warm one, is perfectly possible–only reverting to his more violent way of speech when she added, “Especially at our unequal ages,” upon which he said, in his earlier manner, “Oh, damn unequal ages.”

For a moment he had difficulty in not holding forth on this subject, and her ridiculous obsession by it, but stopped himself. He wasn’t going to spoil this. It was too happy, this wandering alone together on those blessed solitary sands–too, too happy, after the dark torments of the week, to risk spoiling it. Let her say what she liked. Let her coo away about being friends; in another moment she would probably assure him that she would like to be his sister, his own dear sister, or his mother to whom he could always turn in trouble, or some absurd female relation of that sort. He wouldn’t stop her. He would only listen and laugh inside himself. His Catherine. His love. As sure as she walked there, as sure as there behind her, reaching farther and farther back, was a double ribbon of her little wobbly footprints in the sand, she was his love. And presently she too would know it, and all the sister and mother and friend talk go the way such talk always went, and be remembered some day only with wonder and smiles.

“Catherine,” he said, “just to walk with you makes me so happy that it’s as clear as God’s daylight we’re the wonder-fullest, most harmonious of friends.”

The relief of being with Christopher! To be wanted again, to have some one pleased to be with her, preferring to be with her than anywhere else in the world–what a contrast to her recent experiences at Chickover. She no longer had the amused feeling of gratified vanity that had warmed her in London before he began to behave badly; what she felt now was much simpler and more sincere–not trivial like that. They had both been through their rages, and had come out into this fresh air, these sunlit waters. They were friends.

“I’m so glad I came away,” she said, smiling up at him; and she very nearly added, as she looked at him and saw him such a part of the morning, and of the fresh sea and the clear light, so bright-haired and young-limbed, “I do love you, Christopher–” but was afraid he would misunderstand. Which he certainly would have.

They arranged, before they turned back, that he should drive her up to London that afternoon. Her luggage could be sent by train. It seemed silly, he said, to stay till Monday when she didn’t want to, and Virginia didn’t want her to, and nobody wanted her to, while in London there were her friends, all wanting her–

“One friend,” she smiled.

“Well, one friend is enough to change the world.”

“Oh yes,” she agreed, her eyes shining.

Still, it would be difficult, she said. Virginia would be astonished at the motor-cycle–

“She knows all about that by now,” said Christopher. “You bet the old lady has told her about it long ago. Rushed straight round on purpose.”

Well then, in that case, on the principle of being hung for a whole sheep while one was about it, Catherine thought she might as well drive up with him that day. Especially–

“Now don’t say especially at our ages.”

“I wasn’t going to. I was going to say, especially as it will make everybody happy all round.”

“Yes, my love–I mean, my friend. Even though they won’t admit it,” said Christopher.

He was to leave her, they decided, at the Chickover gates, and at lunch she would explain him to Virginia, and then he would call for her at two o’clock and take her away. Introduced, however, to Virginia first.

“Must I be?” he asked.

“Of course,” said Catherine.

With what different feelings did Christopher pack her up in the rug this time. There was no fear now, no anxiety. She laughed, and was the Catherine of the afternoon at Hampton Court–only come so much nearer, come so close up to him, come indeed, and of her own accord, almost right into his heart.

“My blessed little angel,” he thought, propping her up in the seat when she was wound round and couldn’t move her arms; and her eyes were so bright, and her face so different from the face that he had seen in church two hours before, that he said, “You looked ten years older this morning than you did in London, and now you look twenty years younger than you did then.”

“What age does that make me?” she asked, laughing up at him.

“So you see,” he said, ignoring this, “how wholesome, how necessary it is to be with one’s friend.”