Marian had by now, though still based in her hotel, ventured a little out of Sydney on various expeditions. She had also acquired some Australian friends, been invited to parties, then to dinner parties. She was, after all, a totally unaccompanied beautiful girl. The bright friendly atmosphere of lovely Sydney suited her, especially so since that shadowy uncertainty had been removed. She would of course go home soon, only not just yet. She wanted to go to the Great Barrier Reef, to the Brisbane Zoo, to Ayers Rock, to see Aborigines, real bush and real free animals, koalas, kangaroos. As happens in Sydney she met all sorts of people. She met a man called Cantor Ravnevik. She met his name before him and thought it a strange lovely name, and she was glad to meet its eccentric owner. They had a drink together, they lunched together, they danced together. He told her about his family and his name. His great grandfather on his father’s side had come to Australia from Norway. His mother’s family had come more recently from Germany, half German and half Irish, also half Jewish. That, he said, accounted for his name. His other Scandinavian family name, being unpronounceable for Australians, had been smoothed down to its more attractive present form. His parents were dead, he had only one brother, who was older than him, and who ran a sheep farm. He was very fond of his brother, his brother had a lovely wife who was going to have a baby, no, he himself was not yet married. Marian, though still not sure what the man was, began to like him very much. She had felt it proper to mention that she was engaged (or as she put it ‘perhaps sort of engaged’) to ‘someone in England’. She showed him pictures of Lipcot, and Hatting and Penn, and country all around, and Benet and Rosemary and Edward and Mildred and others. Cantor noted these and smiled. He did not ask who the people were. He expressed his wish to take her to the farm. Marian, now feeling ‘safe’, allowed him to drive her out into the country, and was suitably amazed at the immensity of the farm, the vast distances, the hundreds and hundreds of sheep, ‘not at all like England’. His elder brother (Arne Ravnevik) and his sister-in-law (Judith, Jewish, long known to the family, hence Cantor’s name) welcomed Marian warmly. When Cantor asked her if she could ride she was delighted to say she certainly could! Then they rode together over beautiful wild country. She found Australian horses naughtier than Canadian ones and they laughed about that. Back in Sydney Marian visited Cantor in his flat and they made love.
Before this Marian had already explained, in answer to a question by Cantor, that she was not a virgin. She had indeed had a few adventures after leaving school, amounting, she said, to nothing. She had of course informed Edward of these facts. Edward accepted them calmly and said no more. Marian had not asked about him, about his previous life, though she was certainly curious about it. She had heard Benet say that ‘really nobody knows about Edward’. Marian had asked Edward a few tame questions; she was content to leave more information until later. That would be what Edward would desire. She loved him and was proud to be, as it was emerging now, chosen as his wife. She was also a bit afraid of him, but that of course, would pass. She knew, as everyone knew, of Randall’s death. This was a dark shadow, and there might be other ones, in Edward’s life. She hoped and believed that love and patience might in time dispel them.
Marian lay down again with Cantor. She lay with her face deep in his blond hair. She had received another letter from Edward. She had booked her seat in the aeroplane which was to take her home. She told Cantor that she was leaving. He took the news with a little gesture and a slightly rueful smile. She was grateful for his calmness, she had been an episode, he had been so gently beautifully kind to her, but he would easily do without her. He also, perhaps because she was going, told her more about himself, how he did work for his brother, how he ran a literary newspaper, how he wrote a bit, how he attempted to help the Aborigines. Marian, on the point of leaving, was sorry now that she had not questioned him more about the Aborigines. Anyway it was too late and she would never see him again. She gently made a habit in the last days, of talking a little about Edward. The time came for departure. Cantor drove her to the airport.
The time between Marian’s return and the completion of their wedding plans was longer than she had expected. When they met again she was shy and Edward was nervous. They lay together in Marian’s flat and made some gentle fumbling love with closed eyes. They both, tacitly, reserved this time as a sort of holy preparation. Their great perfect union lay ahead when all would be achieved and revealed. Everyone was delighted with them. Rosalind’s feelings (much discussed of course) about Edward were in fact of relief, not (as some believed) of envy. Watching her sister, whom she loved, she could quite early on see her ‘made for him and Hatting’. Benet meanwhile, almost too briskly, arranged for the pair to be alone when they might have preferred company. For some unspoken reason there was to be no love-making in Hatting Hall, or of course at Penndean, only in Marian’s flat. Hatting was ‘out of bounds’ until afterwards, until ‘after the wedding’. Meanwhile, immediately after the wedding, they were to go (still in secret of course) to France. Weeks had passed and everything was moving in slow motion. Marian’s heart beat faster and faster and she was longing for it all to be over and they could be in France.
Something disturbing did occur which Marian felt she must conceal from Edward. She had considered from the first days of her return whether she should tell him what ‘had happened to her’ in Australia. At first she was ready to tell, only somehow she couldn’t quite find the moment, and Edward seemed to have little interest in Australia anyway. Then it was too late and she was beginning to forget it all, absorbed in church services, invitations, dresses, and dealings with her flighty mother. Sometimes she and Edward thought they should just run away instantly to a Register Office! But of course there were always reasons which made this impossible. Meanwhile she watched Edward closely and thought about the ‘gloom’ which she was now relied upon to send away. As ‘the day’ grew very near, Edward returned to Hatting and Marian stayed in London, finishing her wedding clothes and packing up a box of ‘secrets’ destined for various ‘worthies’. However, at a time now nearing the date of the wedding Marian received a letter with an Australian postmark. It was of course from Cantor and it was a love letter. Marian cried over this letter, suddenly she felt - what did she feel? She remembered the farm and the horses and - she hastily replied at once that she was getting married, but she gave no details. Cantor replied that she had been so vague about marriage he was not sure whether it was serious! But anyway he was soon coming to England on business and hoped to see her. This was a cooler letter. Marian was already very disturbed, and alarmed at finding herself so. She wished now that she had told Edward about Cantor. Now she could not, it was too late. She spent some time wondering whether she should reply to the letter, but finally decided not to. It was a matter of weeks, now of days, everything was fixed.
Then one afternoon, coming back alone to her flat, she saw an envelope upon the floor with a London postmark. Cantor was in London and this was once again a love letter. He said he was on business, not for long, he was assuming that she was as yet unmarried and would she come and have lunch with him? He would ring her up. The telephone rang. She went into the kitchen and covered her ears. Half an hour later it rang again. Of course she must answer telephone calls, it might be anybody. She lifted the telephone. It was Cantor’s voice. She began hurriedly to babble, no she could not see him today or tomorrow, no not for lunch or dinner, she was sorry - as Cantor’s charming and familiar voice went calmly on she said, ‘Cantor, please stop, please please, I cannot see you, I am to be married to Edward.’ He said ‘When?’ Today was Monday, the marriage was on Wednesday. Marian said quickly, ‘The end of next week.’ She was terrified that Cantor would want to be invited, perhaps ‘butt in’. After a short silence he said, ‘Well, that’s it.’ Then he said, ‘I’d like to see you all the same. I’ve got a present for you - well, now it’s a wedding present! Can we meet, can we have lunch, tomorrow for instance?’ She said quickly, ‘Lunch, no, sorry - ’ ‘
Then before lunch then — I must give you my present!’ ‘Oh, all right, but not for long and where - ?’ She thought, I’ll see him and get it over! He said, ‘I suggest Kensington, Barker’s, why not, tomorrow and the ground floor among the shirts, at eleven?’ Marian, who had no lunch plans and only a desire not to spend lunchtime with Cantor, said all right and put down the phone. She felt extreme irritation and annoyance with herself as well as with Cantor. She had not even asked him for his telephone number - she could have rung up and cancelled it all!
The next morning, the day before the wedding, Marian, talking on the telephone with Edward, suddenly recalling Cantor’s tryst, fell suddenly silent. Edward said, ‘Are you still there?’ Am I still there? Yes, I am still there. Of course she is. A day had passed, another day was to be. Yes, she would come tomorrow with all her ‘secrets’. Yes, now, she might be out. ‘Oh Edward - Edward -’ He said, ‘Don’t worry, it will be all right!’ She thought, my clothes are nearly ready now, at once, I could go to Penn now-only now I have to wait for that man! But I did want to wait anyway, didn’t I? I still have so many little things to do! She set off for Barker’s to ‘get all that over’.
Coming into the shop and into the shirt department she looked about. Had he not come? Oh be it so! Then she saw him some way off examining a shirt. She felt at once a sort of shock, and put her hand to her breast. Had she forgotten him, how could she have forgotten him? For an instant she saw him as she had seen him at the very first, before he had seen her, just before someone had introduced him to her, just before he had danced with her, his thick blondish heavy hair ‘long enough to tuck in behind his ears’, his narrow slightly curved nose, his look as of a picture of some commander, perhaps a Doge of Venice. Venice! She felt slightly faint. The vision passed. He turned, saw her, and waved. She waved. They approached each other smiling, he with his large blue eyes, yet wild, like an animal. They shook hands, smiling, laughing, he kissed her cheek, and they wandered together towards the exit and out into the street, walking and talking to each other. She noticed he was carrying a large leather bag. She asked after the farm, after Judith, had her baby come? Yes, a lovely baby, a boy of course. Why of course! And why had Cantor come to London? Oh on business for his brother, who had all sorts of investments over here, and was even considering a London office. Was he staying long? Not very long, but he had rented a little flat. What was in that big bag? Well, it was, in part, her present! Why in part? If she were patient she would soon see!
Marian had not, in all their quick laughing conversation, noticed where they were going. They had left the High Street and were now in a maze of small streets near Gloucester Road. ‘Where are we?’ ‘Wait and see.’ Marian was only now beginning to feel uneasy, and was about to say ‘I must go’ when suddenly they reached their destination. Stables. What? Horses.
Everything, including boots, which so beautifully fitted, had been unloaded and donned, they had trotted across the road and into the Park. Marian was intoxicated with joy. She had, since her return from Australia, simply given up riding. Now she was back in the saddle, even though in the demure surroundings of Hyde Park. Of course Cantor was a better rider, but Marian was good, they rode knee to knee upon their beautiful frisky horses, Jinny and Samuel. Then Cantor and Samuel went ahead, beginning to gallop, which was strictly forbidden, and Marian had difficulty in restraining Jinny, the horses loved it, the riders loved it, and at one moment when they were close side by side Cantor murmured to her: ‘The Last Ride Together.’ She had remembered the poem too. After that they took their excited horses back to the stables where Marian kissed them both. After that, as they walked away together, it appeared that it was lunchtime. They had lunch together at a pleasant restaurant in the High Street. It was then that Marian discovered that she had lost her watch. After that she said that she must take a taxi back to her flat, and at first there were no taxis, and when they found one Cantor gave his address not hers. Marian complained but Cantor said he just wanted to show her something and she could easily get back afterwards.
Then somehow they were at Cantor’s flat where they were having tea sitting side by side upon the sofa, Cantor with his arm round her. He asked her again when her wedding was, and she replied, ‘Wednesday.’ ‘This Wednesday?’ Feeling suddenly very tired she said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Really? You have been deceiving me!’ After that they lay down side by side on the sofa and Cantor kissing her said that she had cruelly deceived him, and anyway she could not possibly be in love with Edward, she did not believe what she was saying, she knew that she was in love with him, Cantor. Marian started to cry. Then they were lying in bed together and she had taken off some clothes. She said that he was deceiving her and that he had drugged her, she was frightened, he must let her go, only their arms were round each other, and she had lost her watch. After that they made love and she slept again. Cantor said he was certain that she was going to marry the wrong man, and that it was not too late, she must know that it was not too late, and he wanted her to write down what she really felt. She loved him, Cantor, and no one else, and he wanted her to write this out, and he would show it to ‘other people’, he could not bear her giving herself away to someone else. He made her sit up and write out on a piece of paper, ‘forgive me, I am very sorry, I cannot marry you’. Marian wrote out something and drank some more tea, only now it was whisky, or something else. After that she fell into a deep sleep.
When she woke it was daylight and she was in Cantor’s arms and they were making love. She felt for her watch, she had lost her watch, she felt a little sick. Suddenly she sat up, where was she, with whom was she? She started to cry, to sob, and began to look for her clothes, which Cantor handed to her. Cantor sat down on the bed. She struggled, and began clumsily to put her clothes on, still crying. What day was it? Where was she, what time was it? Cantor said, ‘I have delivered your message.’ ‘What message?’ ‘You wrote the truth. You wrote “forgive me, I am very sorry, I cannot marry you”.’ They have seen it. Only they have not seen me. ‘I don’t understand. I don’t believe you. Oh God, what time is it?’ ‘It is the afternoon, and all is over.’ ‘What day? oh oh oh -’ ‘There is no wedding. You do not want this man. I know you do not want him. At this moment he is relieved. As you will very soon be. Rest now, rest my child.’
But Marian continued to sob, even to scream, as she put on her clothes and looked about for her coat and her handbag. Cantor, still sitting on the bed, watched her. He said, ‘Marian, will you marry me?’ ‘No, no, no, I hate you, I hate you! Oh God, I have been a fool, what an awful fool I have been, I have destroyed myself -’
‘Listen, you did not really want him -’
‘No, and I don’t want you either, I detest you, I shall kill myself. Why, why, why - I don’t even know if you tell the truth —you have drugged me, you are hateful.’
‘I tell the truth.’
‘Goodbye -’ She ran, holding her coat and her handbag, to the door. She struggled to put on her coat. She tried to open the door, in vain.
‘Listen, my child -’
‘I must go, go -’
‘Well, where to? Let us just go somewhere together in my car.’
She fell down the steps, got up, then got into the car, banging the door. Cantor got in the other side, locking both doors, and the car set off. He kept turning to look at her. She looked like a mad creature, transformed, grimacing, her eyes staring with terror and horror. Cantor shuddered, he repeated mechanically, ‘I have told them, I have been there in the night.’ She uttered a wailing cry, holding her mouth wide open. Then she said, ‘I have lost my watch,’ and ‘Leave me, leave me, I hate you — ’ He said, ‘Will you come with me, will you marry me - I am sorry to have hurt you - I must take you away - please please — I love you. I’m going home-come with me.’ He turned to her terrible face, she was crying, fumbling at the door. She said, ‘You have destroyed me, you have driven me mad, oh my wedding day, let me out, let me out.’ By now Cantor was crying too. He said, ‘Why did you
keep on lying?’ Then, ‘Oh hell! I’m going back to Australia.’ He turned the car into a side road, then leaned over and opened the door. She slipped out and fled, disappearing among people. Cantor struggled with his seat belt, tried to get out to follow her, then sat back cursing. After a while he turned the car.
Marian ran, then walked, among strange unknown streets, weeping. People stopped, some trying to speak to her, asking what was the matter, could they help. She hurried quickly as if she knew where she was going, turning at random down unfamiliar streets. At last, trying to conceal her agitation and her tears, she entered a little hotel.
Benet could scarcely sleep during those days, he did not know where to station himself, whom he should be watching or watching for. He prayed for some, even slightest, signal from Marian. How could she be so cruel as to vanish in that way! Surely she knew that no one would hurt her or blame her - yet perhaps the poor child was captive somewhere - or was dead. Edward too had disappeared without any word - was it possible that he had found her - found her and killed her - or killed himself? Oh what terrible mad thoughts! Later would theyall look back, in sunlight? Was it possible that it might all be put together again, the love, the marriage, all made clear and made happy? Perhaps they just wanted a Register Office marriage after all!
Owen was going through a drunken phase because, he said, Mildred was gone into the spirit world. When Marian was mentioned he cursed and said the little fool would never come back. Anna was remote and curt and spoke of ‘going away’ or ‘clearing off’. When Benet rang her she put down the telephone as soon as possible, sometimes at once. Benet had decided that he should at present stay at Penndean, since it was possible that Edward would, might, come back to Hatting. It was also, he felt, most likely if Marian were at some time, ashamedly, to return, he felt sure that she would come to him, and at Penn. But every day just brought more grief and anguish.