It seems a plausible theory that it was that last change of mind of Marjorie’s in the darkness of the garden which precipitated affairs and made disaster possible. The kisses she had given George at sunset – even those particular kisses – might have been forgotten, and George might have come to look back on the incident as an unaccountable lapse on Marjorie’s part, never to be expected again. But she had changed her mind in the garden, and when she had changed her mind once she might be expected to do so again. And there was that fateful word ‘tomorrow’, which she had uttered. Marjorie had meant, if she had meant anything at all by it, merely that she wished to postpone all thought of the matter to some indefinite date, but to George’s simple mind the word meant literally that on the morrow she would kiss him again; it was that thought which helped him through a restless night during which, like any young lover, he went over in his mind every unconsidered action of hers, and analysed every single word, reading meanings and drawing inferences which were as likely as not quite unwarranted.
Deep within him Marjorie had wakened into activity a volcano of passion which might perhaps have appeared unlikely in someone as insignificant and retiring as George Ely. He had reached his comparative maturity with little or no contact with women. Now that the spark had been fired he was as ardent as any boy. The last few weeks had piled up explosive ingredients within him at a rate far greater than had been the case during the preceding years, and Marjorie last night had touched them off. He was mad with a man’s first love. He worshipped her dark beauty, and what he considered to be her poise and her tact and her ability. He tossed and turned through the night, conjuring up pictures of her before his mind’s eye, and waiting expectantly for the morning – it would be hard to say exactly what he expected of the morning, but he expected something.
Needless to say, the morning brought him small comfort. His glance followed Marjorie round the room as he devoured her with his eyes, but she tried to avoid meeting it; she appeared to be a tiny bit more preoccupied than usual with attending to the children and serving the breakfast. She granted Derrick’s petition (while they were all debating how they should spend the day) that she should accompany him and Anne to the beach that morning, and it was only in reply to a direct question from Anne that she agreed that ‘Uncle’ should come too, if he cared to. He cared to. He accepted the invitation eagerly.
Yet on the walk down to the beach Marjorie had Anne on one side of her and Derrick on the other, and when they had chosen their place for the day, on the leeside of a groyne, she was very busy suggesting to the children what game they might play. George was on the point of sulking before he was able to secure a moment of her attention when the children were not about. He caught her hand.
‘Marjorie!’ he said urgently, leaning towards her, compelling her to look at him. ‘Marjorie! What’s the matter this morning?’
The touch of him, and the anxiety in his face, broke down the indifference she had striven to assume.
‘Oh don’t,’ she said pitifully. ‘Wait. Wait till this evening.’
That was enough for George. It was all he wanted. He cursed himself for being a blind tactless fool – of course she would not want to risk word or gesture to him which might be observed by her children. That would of course be horrible, although (as George assumed quite for granted, without thinking for a moment of the cost) they would be looking on him as their father in a few months’ time. As long as Marjorie still loved him he was content to spend all day on the beach, to play with the children, to go bathing with her and to pretend the heart-whole camaraderie he had felt towards her when this holiday had begun, to treat her in her mother’s presence with what he intended to be respectful indifference and which did not deceive Mrs Clair for a single instant, neither when they came in to dinner nor when, with the children tired and sleepy, they finally left the beach and arrived for tea.
At tea time Mrs Clair made a surprising announcement.
‘I want to go and see my young man tonight,’ she said, archly.
‘Your what, Mother?’ asked Marjorie, a little startled.
‘My young man. Gary Cooper. He’s on at the Majestic in Mr Deeds. It’s no good asking you to come, of course. You’ve seen it already with Ted. Besides, someone’s got to stay at home and I think it’s my turn to have an evening off. Don’t you think, so, George?’
‘Yes,’ said George, fighting down the eagerness in his voice.
Mrs Clair was clever. It was perfectly true that someone had to stay in the house while the children slept. But it was equally true that Ely was a lodger and his own master; it was unthinkable that he should be asked to stay while the two women went out. He must be allowed to do whatever he chose.
‘Is George going to take you in the car?’ asked Marjorie. That might mean a postponement.
‘Oh no. I wouldn’t think of troubling him. The six-thirty bus will do for me quite well. I’ve travelled in it often enough. And there’s the bus at ten-thirty to bring me back.’
‘Oh,’ said Marjorie, with no inflexion of tone in the monosyllable at all.
‘I know you won’t think I’m rude, George,’ said Mrs Clair. ‘I do want to see that picture. Everyone says it’s so good, and I’m dreadfully fond of Gary Cooper. It’s such a good chance for me now that it’s on down here after I missed it in London. And tomorrow night we’ll be too busy packing.’
‘Of course,’ said George.
‘Will you barf me, Uncle?’ said Derrick, hastily. He had remained out of the conversation for quite as long as a small boy could be expected to.
‘Uncle doesn’t want to be bothered with little boys,’ put in Marjorie, more by instinct than by reason.
‘He likes little boys,’ said Anne. ‘He told me so. But he likes little girls best.’
Derrick was a sociable little creature at bath time, and it seemed as if the collector’s instinct was early manifesting itself in his case, judging by the way he tried to add new names to the lengthy list of people who had bathed him. He had his way, and while Mrs Clair put on her hat and coat it was Ely who, a little nervously, soaped him and rinsed him and dried him, and buttoned up the blue and white pyjamas which Derrick had laboriously demonstrated, as he had proudly boasted, he could put on all by himself. Derrick rode triumphantly on Ely’s shoulder to say goodnight to his mother, who with Anne’s assistance had just completed washing up the tea things.
‘Goodnight, Mummy,’ he shrieked, wriggling on his lofty perch while Ely held him in an anxious grip. ‘Goodnight, Anne.’
Ely took him away and lowered him into his bed. He lay there looking like an angel with his hair all newly brushed and his fresh-washed baby’s complexion.
‘Goodnight, Uncle,’ he said. He was sleepy already, in his usual startling contrast with his high spirits of a moment ago. He snuggled down into his pillow.
‘Goodnight, old man,’ said Ely. Tenderness was welling up within him. It was as unusual for him to be fond of a child as of a woman, but as he did not stay to analyse his feelings he was not surprised at himself.
His mind was in a turmoil as he sat down in the living room and listened to the splashings upstairs which told that Anne was in her bath under Marjorie’s supervision. Yet nothing had come of the turmoil when Anne came scampering in in her nightgown to sit at his feet while she ate the two biscuits which constituted her supper.
‘I want Uncle to put me into bed, too,’ said Anne, with decision, when Marjorie appeared to fetch her away.
‘You big silly,’ said Marjorie. ‘Uncle can’t put little girls to bed.’
‘Yes he can. You will, won’t you, Uncle?’
‘If it’s all right,’ replied Ely, looking up at Marjorie.
‘If you don’t mind, I don’t,’ said Marjorie.
Ely picked up the little skinny creature in his arms and bore her away. The touch of her arm round his neck was oddly pleasant – so was the sight of Derrick, already fast asleep in the other bed.
‘Prayers first,’ said Anne. She crouched beside the bed and whispered earnestly to herself. Then with a whisk of spider limbs she scrambled into bed and pulled up the clothes.
‘Did you hear what I said?’ she asked anxiously.
‘No.’
‘You weren’t supposed to hear, because I said something nice about you to God,’ said Anne. She snuggled down just like Derrick. ‘Goodnight, Uncle.’
‘Goodnight, dear,’ said Ely.
He came out of the room and shut the door quietly behind him, his mind still in a turmoil. Marjorie would be downstairs.
At the head of the stairs he heard a slight noise through the door of the women’s bedroom beside him – a faint ‘ping’ as a hairpin or a brooch was laid down in a glass pintray on the dressing table. Marjorie was not downstairs; she was in there. He was not properly conscious of what he was doing as he put out his hand to the handle and opened the door. Marjorie was standing at the mirror close beside him; she had taken off her frock and was in her petticoat, with her neck and arms bare, and her hair loose. She had fled to this sanctuary ostensibly to put right the disorder in her appearance consequent upon bathing Anne; actually because she had found the seconds of waiting while George was away too much to bear, and had come up here to occupy her mind on the only task she could think of at that moment. It would help to postpone the inevitable tête-à-tête with George, at which she did not know what she wanted to say nor what she ought to say.
Marjorie looked round as the door opened. It was as though her doom had descended upon her. She felt her knees go weak at the sight of George. There was something like tears in her voice.
‘George!’ was all she could say – she was not ready with any other speech. She put out one hand and moved towards him as though to drive him back, but it was only the feeblest of gestures.
‘George! I – you –’
George had nothing to say at all. The last traces of any hesitancy on his part were erased by the sight of Marjorie on the verge of tears. He came forward to comfort her, and then the touch of her flesh put an end to the thought. Marjorie came into his arms; out of a desert of indecision into a sweet oasis of heedless submission. The bed was there beside them. For one second, like a lightning flash across a darkened sky, the thought came into Marjorie’s mind that her husband was a murderer. When it had passed all that remained was a greater eagerness to anticipate this new lover’s every wish. Ely was an inexperienced lover, gentle and yet clumsy, infinitely tender while passion tore at him. Marjorie felt her whole heart and soul go out to him in love.
‘Darling,’ she said. ‘Darling. Darling.’