Dusty answer

by Rosamond Lehmann

4

It was on the next evening that she awoke to the realization that Roddy had not come—might not—certainly would not now. He was going away. He, who always found self-expression, explanations, so difficult, would be at a loss to know what to say when he too woke up. He who never made plans would be helpless when it came to making any which should include her too in the future. Last night he had been dumb, he had sighed and sighed, whispered inarticulately: he would find it hard to be the first to break silence, to endeavour to re-establish the balance of real life between them. She would write him a letter, tell him all; yes, she would tell him all. Her love for him need no longer be like a half-shameful secret. If she posted a letter to-night, he would get it to-morrow morning, just before he left.

She wrote:

Roddy, this is to say good-bye once more and to send you all my love till we meet again. I do love you, indeed, in every sort of way, and to any degree you can possibly imagine; and beyond that more, more, more, unimaginably. The more my love for you annihilates me, the more it becomes a sense of inexhaustible power.

Do you love me, Roddy? Tell me again that you do; and don’t think me importunate.

I am so wrapped round and rich in my thoughts of you that at the moment I feel I can endure your absence. I almost welcome it because it will give me time to sit alone, and begin to realise my happiness. So that when you come back—Oh, Roddy, come back soon!

I have loved you ever since I first saw you when we were little, I suppose,—only you, always you. I’m not likely ever to stop loving you. Thank God I can tell you so at last. Will you go on loving me? Am I to go on loving you? Oh, but you won’t say no, after last night. If you don’t want to be tied quite yet, I shall understand. I can wait years quite happily, if you love me. Roddy, I am yours. Last night I gave you what has always belonged to you. But I can’t think about last night yet. It is too close and tremendous and shattering. I gasp and nearly faint when I try to recall it. I dissolve.

When I came back to my room in the dawn I stared and stared at my face in the glass, wondering how it was I could recognize it. How is it I look the same, and move, eat, speak, much as usual?

Ought I to have been more coy, more reluctant last night? Would it have been more fitting—would you have respected me more? Was I too bold? Oh, this is foolishness: I had no will but yours. But because I love you so much I am a little fearful. So write to me quickly and tell me what to think, feel, do. I shall dream till then.

There is so much more to tell you, and yet it is all the same really. My darling, I love you!

Judy.

She posted it. Next morning she hurriedly dressed and ran downstairs in the sudden expectation of finding a letter from him; but there was none.

Now he would have got hers.... Now he would have read it.... Now he would be walking to the station....

She heard the train steam out; and doubt and sorrow came like a cloud upon her; but only for a little while.

In the cool of the evening she wandered down to the river and sat beside it dreaming. She dreamt happily of Jennifer. She would be able to love Jennifer peacefully now, think of her without that ache, see her again, perhaps, with all the old restlessness assuaged. Jennifer’s letter would surely come soon now....

If Roddy were to ask her to come away with him at once, for ever, she would take just the copper bowl from her table and spring to him, and leave all the rest of the past without a pang.

Perhaps Roddy had written her a letter just before he had gone away; and if so it might have come by the evening post. She left the river and went to seek it.

Who could it be coming towards her down the little pathway which led from the station to the bottom of the garden and then on to the blue gate in the wall of the garden next door? She stood still under the overhanging lilacs and may-trees, her heart pounding, her limbs melting. It was Roddy, in a white shirt and white flannels,—coming from the station. He caught sight of her, seemed to hesitate, came on till he was close to her; and she had the strangest feeling that he intended to pass right by her as if he did not see her.... What was the word for his face? Smooth: yes, smooth as a stone. She had never before noticed what a smooth face he had; but she could not see him clearly because of the beating of her pulses.

‘Roddy!’

He lifted his eyebrows.

‘Oh, hullo, Judith.’

‘I thought you’d gone away.’

‘I’m going to-morrow. A girl I know rang up this morning to suggest coming down for the day, so I waited. I’ve just seen her off.’

A girl he knew.... Roddy had always had this curious facility in the dealing of verbal wounds.

‘I see.... How nice.’

A face smooth and cold as a stone. Not the faintest expression in it. Had he bidden the girl he knew good-bye with a face like this? No, it had certainly been twinkling and teasing then.

‘Well, I must get on.’ He looked up the path as if meditating immediate escape; then said, without looking at her, and in a frozen voice: ‘I got a letter from you this morning.’

‘Oh, you did get it?’

There could never have been a more foolish-sounding bleat. In the ensuing silence she added feebly: ‘Shall you—answer it—some time?’

‘I thought the best thing I could do was to leave it unanswered.’

‘Oh....’

Because of course it had been so improper, so altogether monstrous to write like that....

‘Well,’ she said. ‘I thought.... I’m sorry.’

She ought to apologise to him, because he had meant to go away without saying anything, and she had come on him unawares and spoilt his escape.

‘I was very much surprised at the way you wrote,’ he said.

‘How do you mean, surprised, Roddy?’ she said timidly.

She had known all along in the deepest layer of her consciousness that something like this would happen. Permanent happiness had never been for her.

It was not much of a shock. In a moment that night was a far, unreal memory.

‘Well’—he hesitated. ‘If a man wants to ask a girl to—marry him he generally asks her himself—do you see?’

‘You mean—it was outrageous of me not to wait—to write like that?’

‘I thought it a little odd.’

‘Oh, but Roddy, surely—surely that’s one of those worn-out conventions.... Surely a woman has a perfect right to say she—loves a man—if she wants to—it’s simply a question of having the courage.... I can’t see why not.... I’ve always believed one should....’

It was no good trying to expostulate, to bluff like that, with his dead face confronting her. He would not be taken in by any such lying gallantries. How did one combat people whose features never gave way by so much as a quiver? She leaned against the wooden fence and tried to fix her eyes upon the may-tree opposite. Very far, but clear, she heard her mother at the other end of the garden, calling her name: but that was another Judith.

‘I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood me,’ he said.

‘Yes. I’ve misunderstood you. You see—this sort of thing has never happened to me before and I thought ... when a person said.... Why did you say.... I didn’t know people said that without meaning it.... I suppose we must mean different things by it. That’s what it is. Well....’ Her voice was terrible: a little panting whine.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

Probably that was true: he had forgotten he had ever said: ‘I love you.’ She could not remind him; for in any case he would not be affected. What were three little words?... And after all, she had probably more or less forced him to say them: she had wanted to hear them so much, she had driven him to say them. Yes, he had groaned, and quickly repeated them to keep her quiet, stop her mouth so that he could go on kissing her. She said:

‘But why, Roddy, why did you take me out ... behave as you did ... kiss me so—so.... I don’t understand why you bothered ... why you seemed....’

He was silent. O God! If only he would wound and wound with clean thrusts of truth, instead of standing there mute, deaf.

‘Roddy, after all these years, these years we’ve known each other, can’t you tell me the truth? We were good friends once, weren’t we?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Oh, I see! I see! And you could never feel like being—more than that.’

He shook his head.

‘I see, Roddy.’ The pain was sharp now, hard to fight down. ‘I see. And you thought there had better be an end ... because you were never going to love me: and I obviously—was it obviously?—was becoming more and more—foolish—and tiresome. So you thought—you’d say good-bye—like that—and then go away for good. Was that it!’

He passed a hand across his forehead: his first gesture. Then he too was feeling, however slightly.

‘I thought that was what you wanted: what you were asking for,’ he said.

‘Oh, so you thought you’d oblige——’ No, no, not sarcasm. She waited a moment and added: ‘I see. You misunderstood me. I daresay it was quite natural. You thought I wanted what you wanted—just a little—a little passion—to round off a flirtation—and be done with it. Well....’

The lane was so still that she could hear the dull beat of oars in passing boats on the other side of the fence. The evening had become very cold.

She gave a little laugh and said:

‘I really am very sorry to make this fuss. It’s too laughable that I should—I! ... I suppose you never dreamed I—wasn’t used to this sort of thing—from men?’

‘I thought you knew pretty well what you were about.’

‘And I didn’t! I didn’t! I was being deceived—like any.... Oh, it’s so vulgar!’ She shut her eyes, laughing weakly. ‘That’s why you didn’t make your meaning plainer, I suppose. You thought I was quite used to—that sort of thing—kissing—just for a lark. Just for a lark, Roddy—that was it, wasn’t it? And I got serious, and tried to—to let you in for more.... I tried to catch you. Poor Roddy! But you’d never get let in, would you? You know your own mind. You’re cautious. You’ll see—,’ she waved her hand slightly, ‘I’m not dangerous. I’ll never bother you any more. And I’m very very sorry.’ She broke down with a gasp, but did not weep.

‘I’m sorry, Judith. I apologise. I——’ His voice had now the faintest trace of emotion.

‘Oh!’ She controlled herself. ‘Apologise! Have I accused you? This is just another damned muddle. I’m only trying to understand it.’

‘I really think I had better go,’ he said.

‘No!’ She put out a hand and clutched his arm in desperate protest. ‘Not yet, Roddy. Not for a moment. Can’t we—O God! I wish I’d never written that letter. Then there’d have been no need for all this.... You’d have gone away and said nothing—and gradually I’d have understood. I should have seen it all in its proper light. Things would have somehow come right again, perhaps. And now I suppose they never can.... Can they, Roddy, can they? Oh, if they could!’

How he was hating this scene! It was a shame to prolong it. He swallowed hard and said, rather nervously:

‘Do you suppose you really meant—all you said in your letter?’

It was her chance. She must say it was all nonsense, that letter, that it was written in a moment of madness; that she did not mean it now. Then they might somehow manage to laugh together and part friends. He was such a good laugher! She could go away and bury her disappointment; and next time they met, be to him what he wanted: a light flame of passion, blown out, relit again. He had given her the taste for his kisses. She would miss them, and desire them painfully. If she could act her part skilfully now, she need not be for ever without them.

But it was no good: the thing would not be lied about.

She nodded, gazing at him in utter despair. She went on nodding and nodding, asserting the truth in silence and with all her force, compelling him to believe it. She saw him flush faintly beneath his sallow skin.

‘I’m very sorry then,’ he said, in his frozen voice.

She cried out:

‘Oh, Roddy! Did you never like me? Didn’t you even like me? All these years! It seemed as if you did.... I couldn’t have grown to—like you so much if you hadn’t given me a little—a little return....’

‘Of course I liked you very much,’ he said. ‘I always thought you were extremely attractive.’

‘Attractive!’ She bowed her face in her hands. ‘Yes. I was attractive to you. And so.... That you should have treated me so lightly, Roddy! Oh, did I really, really deserve that?’

He was silent.

‘If you’d warned me, Roddy ... given me some hint. I was so romantic and idealistic about you—you’ve no idea.... I thought you must think of me in the same sort of way I thought about you.... Couldn’t you have warned me?’

He said in a voice choked with exasperation:

‘I did try to shew you, I tell you. I should have thought I’d shewn you often enough. Didn’t I say I was never to be taken seriously?’

She sighed and nodded her head drearily. She was beaten.

‘Yes. Yes, you did. I wouldn’t be warned, I was such a fool. Oh, it’s all my fault. A good sell for me.’

‘Well, I’d better go now,’ he said after a pause.

He took a step or two and then turned back. She still leaned against the wall, and something in her attitude or expression seemed suddenly to move him. He lingered, hesitated. His face shewed a little trouble and confusion.

‘I suppose you’re all right?’ he said.

‘Oh, I shall be quite all right.’

‘Please forget all about me.’

‘I shan’t forget about you. But I shall forget all this—if you will do the same. We will meet in the future, Roddy, won’t we?—just as usual,—with all the others?’

‘I think it would be better not to. I think we’d better not write to each other or ever meet again.’

‘Not ever meet again, Roddy?’ How did he come to be master of such cold decisions? She felt like a child in futile conflict with the fixed and unalterable will of a grown-up person. ‘Why? Why? Why? Please do let me. Please do. I won’t ever be a nuisance again, I promise. You’ve said you liked me. Oh, I must see you! If I can’t see you, I can’t ever see any of them again. Don’t you see? And then I’d have nothing.... You wouldn’t tell them, would you, Roddy? Please let me see you again.’

It had lasted too long. In another moment she would be on her knees to him, hysterical, loathsome.

A nervous quiver of his lips checked her suddenly and made her quiet. In some obscure way he was suffering too. He looked like the little boy whose face had implored her not to cry that time of the rabbit’s death. Yes, the spectacle of other people’s pain had always affected him unpleasantly.

‘It’s all right, Roddy,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll get on without you.’

‘I’m not worth wasting one moment’s regret on,’ he said, almost earnestly. ‘Believe me, Judith. It’s true.’ He looked at her for the last time. ‘I can only say again I’m very sorry and ask you to forget all about it.’

She took a deep breath.

‘One thing more,’ she said. ‘I’m not ashamed of anything I’ve done. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in loving a person and saying so.’

It was not true. The shame of her surrender, her letter, her unrequited love would go on gnawing, burning, till the end of her life.

He left her, walking away from her with a graceful and noiseless tread.

After all, it did not seem to hurt much: certainly not more than could be borne in secret, without a sign.

It had all been experience, and that was a salutary thing.

You might write a book now, and make him one of the characters; or take up music seriously; or kill yourself.

It was all so extraordinary.... That night had seemed to Roddy so insignificant that instead of hurrying away quickly when he got that letter, he had had a girl he knew down for the day: and that was how he had spoilt his own escape.

Shut the door on Roddy and turn the key and never open that room again. Surely it would be quite easy. She saw herself as a tiny person walking firmly away and not once looking back. There were plenty of other things to think about.... What was there, safe and simple, to think about?

Strawberries and cream for supper. Good. Two new frocks: but he was to have admired her in them.... A visit to London next week, and a play.

She noticed suddenly that her hands were bleeding from slight abrasions. How had that happened? Best to go in now and arrange her face a little. This shivering had been going on for a long time.