XX

Christopher’s was the slowest motor-cycle on the road that day. At times it proceeded with the leisureliness of a station fly. They loitered along in the sunshine, stopping at the least excuse–a view, an old house, a flock of primroses. They had tea at Salisbury, and examined the Cathedral, and talked gaily of Jude the Obscure, surely the most unfortunate of men, and from him they naturally proceeded to discuss death and disaster, and all very happily, for they were in the precisely opposite mood of the one praised by the poet as sweet, and the sad thoughts evoked by Sarum Close brought pleasant thoughts to their mind.

How much they had to say to each other. There was no end to their talk, their eager exchange of opinions. Chickover was dim as a dream now in Catherine’s mind; and the Catherine who had gone to bed there every evening in a growing wretchedness was a dream within a dream. With Christopher she was alive. He himself was so tremendously alive that one would indeed have to be a hopeless mummy not to catch life from him and wake up. Besides, it was impossible to be–anyhow for a short time–with some one who adored one, unless he was physically repulsive, and not be happy. That Christopher adored her was plain to the very passers-by. The men who passed grinned to themselves in sympathy; the women sighed; and old ladies, long done with envy, smiled with open benevolence between their bonnet-strings.

Unconscious of everybody except each other, they walked about Salisbury looking at the sights and not seeing them, so deeply were they engaged in talk. What could be more innocent than to walk, talking, about Salisbury? Yet if Stephen, Virginia, or Mrs. Colquhoun had met them they would have been moved by unpleasant emotions. Once during the afternoon this thought crossed Catherine’s mind. It was when, at tea in a confectioner’s, Christopher was holding out a plate of muffins to her, his face the face of a seraph floating in glory; and she took a muffin, and held it suspended while she looked at him, arrested by the thought, and said, “Why mayn’t one be happy?”

“But one may, and one is,” said Christopher.

“One is,” she smiled, “but one mayn’t. At least, one mayn’t go on being happy. Not over again. Not in this way. Not–” she tried to find the words to express it–“out of one’s turn.”

“What one’s relations think, or wish, or approve, or deplore,” said Christopher, who scented Stephen somewhere at the back of her remarks, “should never be taken the least notice of if one wishes to go on developing.”

“Well, I seem to be going on developing at a breakneck rate.”

“Besides, it’s jealousy. Nearly always. Deep down. The grudge of the half dead against the wholly alive, of the not wanted against the wanted. They can’t manage to be alive themselves, so they declare the only respectable thing is to be dead. The only pure thing. The only holy thing. And they pretend every sort of pious horror if one won’t be dead too. Relations,” he finished, lighting a cigarette and speaking from the depths of an experience that consisted of one uncle, and he the most amiable and unexacting of men, who never gave advice and never criticised, and only wanted sometimes to be played golf with, “are like that. They have to be defied. Or they’ll strangle one.”

“It seems dangerous,” said Catherine, pursuing her first thought, “to show that one likes anything or anybody very much.”

“Isn’t it the rankest hypocrisy,” said Christopher with a face of disgust.

“If you were bald, and had a long white beard–” she began. “But even then,” she went on after a pause, “if we looked pleased while we talked and seemed very much interested, we’d be done for.”

She smiled. “They wouldn’t mind at all,” she said, “if you were eating muffins happily with a girl of your own age. It’s when somebody like me comes along, who has had her turn, who is out of her turn.”

“They would have people love by rule,” said Christopher.

“I don’t know about love, but they would have them be happy by rule,” said Catherine.

“They must be defied,” said Christopher.

She laughed. “We are defying them,” she said.

Proceeding from Salisbury with the setting sun behind them, they continued with the same leisureliness in the direction of Andover and London.

“Oughtn’t we to go a little faster?” Catherine asked, noticing the lowness of the sun.

“If you’re home by nine o’clock, won’t that be soon enough?” he asked.

“Oh, quite. I love this.”

“I’d like to go on for ever,” said Christopher.

“Aren’t we friends,” said Catherine, looking up at him with a smile.

“Aren’t we,” said Christopher, in deep contentment.

The chimney stacks of an old house on their right among trees attracted her, and they turned off the main road to go and look at it. The house was nothing specially beautiful, but the road that led to it was, and it went winding on past the house through woods even more beautiful.

They followed it, for the main road was uninteresting, and this one, though making a detour, would no doubt ultimately arrive at Andover.

Charming, this slow going along in the soft, purple evening. The smell of the damp earth and grass in the woods they passed through was delicious. It was dead quiet, and sometimes they stopped just to listen to the silence.

Companionship: what a perfect thing it was, thought Catherine. To be two instead of one, to be happily two, with no strain, no concealing or pretending, quite natural, quite simple, quite relaxed–so natural and simple and relaxed that it was really like being oneself doubled, but oneself at one’s best, at one’s serenest and most amusing. Could any condition be more absolutely delightful? And, thought Catherine, to be two with some one of the opposite sex, some one strong who could take care of one, with whom one felt safe and cosy, some one young, who liked doing all the things the eternal child in oneself liked doing so much, but never dared to for want of backing up, for fear of being laughed at–how completely delightful.

They came, on the outer edge of the woods, to a group of cottages; a little hamlet, solitary, tucked away from noise, the smoke of its chimneys going straight up into the still air, so small that it hadn’t even got a church–happy, happy hamlet, thought Catherine, remembering her past week of church–and in one of the cottage gardens, sheltered and warm, was the first flowering currant bush she had seen that year.

It stood splendid against the grey background of the shadowy garden, brilliant pink and crimson in the dusk, and Christopher stopped at her exclamation, and got off and went into the cottage and asked the old woman who lived there to sell him a bunch of the flowers; and the old woman, looking at him and Catherine, was sure from their faces of peace that they were on their honeymoon, and picked a bunch and went to the gate and gave it to Catherine, and wouldn’t take any money for it, and said it was for luck.

It seemed quite natural, and in keeping with everything else that afternoon, to find a nice old woman who gave them flowers and wished them luck. In Salisbury people had all seemed extraordinarily amiable. This old woman was extraordinarily amiable. She even called them pretty dears, which filled their cup of enjoyment to the brim.

After this the country was very open, and solitary, and still. No signs of any town were to be seen; only rolling hills, and here and there a little group of trees. Also a few faint stars began to appear in the pale sky.

“Oughtn’t we to go faster?” asked Catherine again, her lap full of the crimson flowers.

“We’ll make up between Andover and London,” said Christopher. “If it’s half-past nine instead of nine before we get to Hertford Street, will it be early enough?”

“Oh, quite,” said Catherine placidly.

They jogged along, up and down the windings of the lane, which presently grew grassier and narrower, into hollows and out of them again. Not a house was to be seen, not a human being. Stillness, evening, stars. It seemed to Catherine presently, in that wide place of rolling country and great sky, that in the whole world there was nothing except herself, Christopher, and the stars.

About seven miles beyond the hamlet of the flowering currant bush, just at the top of an incline, the motor-cycle stopped.

She thought, waking from the dream she had fallen into, that he was stopping it, as so often before that afternoon, to listen to the silence; but he hadn’t stopped it, it had stopped itself.

“Damn,” said Christopher, pulling and pushing and kicking certain parts of the thing.

“Why?” asked Catherine comfortably.

“The engine’s stopped.”

“Perhaps it wants winding up.”

He got off, and began to stoop and peer. She sat quiet, her head back, her face upturned, gazing at the stars. It was most beautiful there in the great quiet of the falling night. There was still a dull red line in the sky where the sun had gone down, but from the east a dim curtain was drawing slowly towards them. The road, just at the place they were, curved southwards, and she had the red streak of the sunset on her right and the advancing darkness on her left. They were on the top of a rising in the vast flatness, and it was as if she could see to the ends of the world. The quiet, now that the motor had stopped, was profound.

Christopher came and looked at her. She smiled at him. She was perfectly content and happy.

He didn’t smile back. “The petrol’s run out,” he said.

“Has it?” said Catherine placidly. In cars, when petrol ran out, one opened another can of it and ran it in again.

“There isn’t any more,” said Christopher. “And from the look of this place I should say we were ten miles from anywhere.”

He was overwhelmed. He had meant to have his tank filled up at Salisbury, and in his enchanted condition of happiness had forgotten. Of all the infernal, hopeless fools …

He could only stare at her.

“Well, what are we going to do?” she asked, waking up a little to the seriousness of his face.

“If we were near anywhere–” he said, looking round.

“Can’t we go back to those cottages?”

“The thing won’t budge.”

“Walk?”

“At least seven miles.”

They stared at each other in the deepening dusk.

“Well, but, Christopher–”

“I know,” he said. “We’re in a hell of a fix, and it’s entirely my fault. I simply forgot to have her filled up at Salisbury.”

“Well, but there must be some way out.”

“Not unless some one happens to come along, and I could persuade him to go to the nearest petrol place and fetch us some.”

“Can’t you go?”

“And leave you here?”

“Can’t I go?”

“As though you could!”

In silence they gazed at each other. The stars were growing brighter. Their faces stood out now as something white in the darkening landscape.

“Well, but, Christopher–” began Catherine incredulously.

“If I thought we could by walking get anywhere within reasonable time, I’d leave the blighted machine here to its fate. But we might get lost, and wander round for hours. And besides, where would we find a railway station? Miles and miles we might have to go.”

“That wouldn’t matter. I mean, however late we got to London wouldn’t matter as long as we did get there.”

“I quite see we’ve jolly well got to get there. What beats me is how.”

Catherine was silent. They were indeed, as Christopher said, in a fix. She would even, mentally, agree with him that it was a hell of a one.

“Catherine, I’m sorry,” he said, laying his hand on hers.

The words but feebly represented his feelings. He was crushed by his folly, by his idiotic forgetfulness in Salisbury. Would she ever trust herself with him again? If she didn’t, he deserved all he got.

“I was so happy in Salisbury,” he said, “that I never thought about the petrol. I’m the most hopeless blighter.”

“But what are we to do?” asked Catherine earnestly.

“I’m hanged if I know,” he said.

Again they stared at each other in silence. The night seemed to have descended on them now with the suddenness of a huge swooping bird.

“I suppose we had better leave it here and walk on,” she said. “It seems a dreadful thing to do, but there’s a chance perhaps of our meeting some one or getting somewhere. Or couldn’t we push it? Is it very heavy?”

“I could push it for two miles, perhaps, but that would be about the limit.”

“But I’d help.”

“You!”

He smiled at her, miserable as he was.

“We might strike the main road,” he said, gazing across the dim space to where–how many miles away?–it probably lay.

“It can’t be very far, can it?” she said. “And then perhaps a car passing might help us.”

He struck a match and lit the lamps–their light comforted them a little–and took out his map and studied it.

As he feared, this obscure and attractive cart-track was not to be found on it, nor was the group of solitary cottages.

Far away to the north, in some distant trees, an owl hooted. It had the effect of making them feel more lost than ever.

“I think we’d better stay where we are,” he said.

“And hope some one may come along?”

“Yes. We’ll have the lights on. They ought to be seen for miles round. Somebody may wonder what they’re doing up here, not moving. There’s just a chance. People are so damned incurious, though,” he added.

“Especially if being curious would mean walking up here in the dark.”

She tried to talk in her usual voice, but it was difficult, for she was aghast at the misfortune that had overtaken them.

“Perhaps if you shouted–?” she suggested.

He shouted. It sounded awful. It emphasised the loneliness. It made her shiver. And after each shout, out of the silence that succeeded it, the owl away in the distant trees hooted. It was the only answer.

“Let us wait quietly,” she said, laying her hand on his arm. “Some one is sure to see the lights, sooner or later.”

A little wind began to creep round them, a mere stirring, to begin with, of the air, but it was a very cool little wind, not to say cold, and any more of it would be decidedly unpleasant.

He looked round him again. The ground dropped on the left of the track into one of the many hollows they had been down into and up out of since leaving the cottages.

“We’ll go and sit down there,” he said. “It’ll be more sheltered, and we shall hear all right if anybody comes along the road.”

She got on to her feet, and he helped her out, unwinding the rug as he had done that morning–was it really only that morning?–in the sunny cove by the sea.

“What a day we’re having!” said Catherine, trying to be gay; but never did anybody feel less so.

He carried the rug and cushions across the grass and down the slope. He had nothing he could say. He was overwhelmed by his folly. Of what use throwing himself at her feet and begging her to forgive him? That wouldn’t help them. Besides, she wasn’t angry with him, she couldn’t forgive an offence she didn’t recognise. She was an angel. She was made up of patience and sweet temper. And he had got her into this incredible mess.

Silently Christopher chose, by one of the lamps he took off his machine, a little hollow within the hollow, and spread the rug in it and arranged the cushions. “It’s not much past eight,” he said, looking at his wrist-watch. “Quite early. With any luck–”

He broke off, and covered her up, as she sat on it, with the ends and sides of the rug, for what did he mean by luck? If anybody were to come across that plain and consent to go and fetch petrol, what hours before it could be found and brought! Still, to get her back to Hertford Street in the small hours of the night, even in the very smallest, would be better than not getting her back till next day.

“You stay here,” he said, “and I’ll go up to that confounded machine again, and do a bit more shouting.”

“It sounds so gruesome,” she said, with a shiver. “As if we were being murdered.”

“You won’t hear it so much down here.”

He went up the slope, and presently the forlorn sound echoed round again. The night rang with it. It seemed impossible that the whole world should not be startled into activity by such a noice.

When he was hoarse he came back to her, and sat listening with a cocked ear for any sounds of approaching footsteps.

“You’re not cold?” he asked. “Oh, Catherine–forgive me.”

“Quite warm,” she answered smiling. “And I don’t mind this a bit, you know. It really is–fun.”

He said no more. He who was so ready of tongue had nothing to say now. In silence he sat beside her, listening.

“I’m glad we ate all those muffins for tea,” she said presently.

“Are you hungry?”

“Not yet. But I think I shall be soon, and so will you.”

“And soon you’ll be cold, I’m afraid. Oh, Catherine–”

“Well, I’m not cold yet,” she interrupted him, smiling again, for what was the good of poor Christopher reproaching himself?

Peering into her face, white in the darkness, he could see she was smiling. He tucked the rug closer round her. He wanted to kiss her feet, to adore her for being so cheerful and patient, but what was the good of that? Nothing he did could convey what he thought of himself. There they were; and it was getting cold.

He fancied he heard a sound on the track above, and leapt up the bank.

Silence up there. Silence, and the stars, and the lonely lights of his deserted machine, and black down below, and all round emptiness.

He shouted again. His shout seemed to come back to him mournfully, from great distances.

By this time it was half-past nine.

He stayed up there, shouting at intervals, for half an hour, till his voice gave out. When he scrambled down again into the hollow, Catherine was asleep.

He sat down carefully beside her. He didn’t dare light a cigarette for fear the smell would wake her. It was better that she should sleep.

He sat cursing himself. Suppose she caught cold, suppose she was ill from fatigue and exposure? Beyond this, and her natural, and he was afraid inevitable, loss of trust in him, he saw no other danger for her. These were bad enough, but he saw no others. Nobody would know about this. None of her detestable relations would ever hear that she did not after all get home till–when? How should they? It wouldn’t enter Mrs. Mitcham’s head, or the porter’s, to mention it. Why on earth should they? His mind was quiet as to that. But Catherine out there, in a damp field, at night, perhaps for hours–Catherine who was so precious a jewel in his eyes that he felt she ought never to be let out of the softest, safest nest–Catherine brought there by him, marooned there by his fault–these were the things that made him swear under his breath, sitting beside her while she slept.

It got colder, much colder. A mist gathered below them, and crawled about among the hillocks. No wind could reach them in their hollow, but a mist, he knew, is a nasty clammy thing to have edging up over one’s boots.

Perhaps it wouldn’t come so high. He watched it anxiously. He was in despair. They could get warm, he knew, by walking, and he himself would get more than warm pushing his machine, but he couldn’t push it for anything like two miles, as he had told her, on that rough track, and when he was obliged to stop from exhaustion they would both very soon be colder than ever. Besides, imagine Catherine, with her little feet, slithering and stumbling about in the mud and the dark! And anyhow they’d get nowhere now there was that mist. Better stick where they were. At least they were sheltered from wind. But it was fantastic to think, as he was beginning to be forced to think, that they might have to stay there till daylight.

He sat with his hands gripped round his knees, and stared at the stars. How hard and cold they looked. What did they care? Cruel brutes. He wondered why he had ever admired them.

Catherine moved, and he turned to her quickly, and gently tucked the loosened rug round her again.

This woke her, and she opened her eyes and looked for a moment in silent astonishment at his head, dark and shadowy, with stars behind it in a black sky, bending over her.

It seemed to be Christopher’s, but why?

Then she remembered. “Oh,” she said faintly, “we’re still here….”

She tried not to shiver, but she was very cold, and what is one rug and damp grass to lie on to a person used at that time of night to a bed and blankets? Also, her surface was small, and she got cold more quickly than bigger people.

He saw her shiver, and without asking leave, or wasting time in phrases, moved close up to her and took her in his arms.

“This is nothing to do with anything, Catherine,” he explained, as she made a movement of resistance, “except a determination not to let you die of cold. Besides, it will keep me warm too–which I daresay I wouldn’t be, towards the small hours of the morning, if I kept myself to myself.”

“The morning?” she echoed in a very small voice. “Are we–do you think we shall be here all night?”

“It looks like it,” he said.

“Oh, Christopher–”

“I know.”

She said no more, and he held her and her coat and the rug tightly in his arms. As a mother holds her babe, so did Christopher hold Catherine, and with much the same sort of passionate protective tenderness. One arm was beneath her shoulders, so that her head rested on his breast, the other was round her body, keeping her coverings close round her. His own head was on the cushion from the side-car, and his cheek leaned against her soft motoring cap.

Like this they lay in silence, and what Catherine felt was, first, amazement that she should be there, on an unknown hillside in a lonely country at night with Christopher, forced by circumstances to get as close to him as possible; and secondly, as she became warmer and drowsier, and nature accordingly prevailed over convention, a queer satisfaction and peace. And what Christopher felt, as he lay leaning his cheek against her head and gazing up at the stars, was that he had never seen anything more beautiful than the way those blessed stars seemed to understand–twinkling and flashing down at them as if they were laughing for joy at the amount of happiness that was flung about the world. His precious little love–his precious, precious little love. …

“Of course–you know–” murmured Catherine, on the verge of sleep, “this is only–a kind of–precautionary measure–”

“Quite,” whispered Christopher, holding the rug closer round her.

But sleep is a great loosener of the moral sense. How is one to know right from wrong if one is asleep? How can one, in that state, be expected to be responsible? Catherine slept, and Christopher kissed her. Dimly through her dreams she knew she was being kissed, but it was so gentle a kissing, so tender, it made her feel so safe … and up there there was no one to mind, no one to criticise … and yesterday was infinitely far away … and to-morrow might never come….

She was not so much asleep that she did not know she was happy; she was too much asleep to feel she ought to stop him.