The Sandcastle

  ‘Rain!’ said Mor. He ran to the foot of the ladder and shook it violently as if he wanted to hurl her to the ground.

  She steadied herself, and then turned back to the picture. He saw that as she worked the tears were streaming slowly down her face, steadily one after the other.

  ‘Rain!’ said Mor, ‘that was not true. It was simply a trick of Nan’s. Surely you weren’t taken in?’

  ‘It is true,’ said Rain, in a dull voice. ‘I asked Mr Demoyte.’

  ‘Well, it was an idea I had once,’ said Mor, ‘but Nan misrepresented the whole thing. And we never discussed it or agreed anything like she said. You can’t possibly have believed that!’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Rain, ‘it’s what you want to do.’ She was still staring through her falling tears at the picture.

  ‘That isn’t so,’ said Mor. ‘I swear it isn’t so! I’d quite given up any plans of that kind.’

  ‘Yes, said Rain, ’because of me.‘ She took the brush away and turned to look down at him. Her small feet were neatly together upon a high step of the ladder, the toes of her shoes just visible under the white dress. Mor reached up to touch her.

  ‘No, no,’ said Mor. Holding her feet he leaned his head against the ladder. How could he convince her?

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘this makes no difference at all. Why should it? I ought to have told you long ago, only I didn’t want to complicate things. If I’d told you myself you wouldn’t have made this into a difficulty, would you? You’re just upset because it came from Nan. Well, don’t be such a fool. I love you, and nothing else is of any importance. This other thing is empty in comparison, it’s nothing. I love you, I should perish without you. Will you understand that?’ He spoke savagely, trying to force the ideas into her mind.

  ‘Don’t, you’re hurting my leg,’ said Rain. ‘I do understand. I had just not realized that I was wrecking your whole life. I see it all quite differently now. I see your children, I see your ambitions. You love me, yes. But you wouldn’t really forgive me for having deprived you of so much. And I would not forgive myself for doing so.’ She spoke in a monotonous slightly whining voice, and her tears were very slow but ceaseless.

  ‘No, no, no, it’s not like that!’ cried Mor. How could he bear it, that Nan had bewitched her so? She saw it all exactly as Nan had intended. How could she be so stupid? ‘No!’ he cried. ‘I shall not let you do this thing to both of us!’

  ‘It’s useless, Mor,’ said Rain. ‘What am I doing in your life? I’ve often wondered this, you know, only I never told my doubts. You are a growing tree. I am only a bird. You cannot break your roots and fly away with me. Where could we go where you wouldn’t always be wanting the deep things that belong to you, your children, and this work which you know is your work? I know how I would feel if I were prevented from pointing. I should die if I were prevented from painting. I should die. For a moment she shook with sobs and the ladder trembled under her.

  ‘I love you, Rain,’ said Mor, ‘what else can I say? I haven’t cared for these other things at all since I’ve known you. I shall never be an M.P. now, whatever happens. I no longer want this. I want you. Don’t kill me, Rain. He leaned against the ladder, embracing the lower steps.

  ‘You would be happy with me for a short while,’ said Rain, ‘but then what would happen? It’s all dry sand running through the fingers. I can wander about the world and where-ever I go I can paint. If we were together my work would continue. But what about yours? Would it in the end satisfy you just to be with me? Would you be able to write and to go on writing? If you had really wanted to write as much as I want to paint you would have written by now, you would have found the time somehow, nothing would have stopped you.

  ‘I could write,’ said Mor, ‘or I could start a school. I’m not an idiot. I’ve thought of these things too. I could make my life with you. What sort of life do you think I have now, or would have even if I were an M.P.? You’ve made me exist for the first time. I began to be when I loved you, I saw the world for the first time, the beautiful world full of things and animals that I’d never seen before. What do you think will hop-pen to me if you leave me now? Don’t abandon me. Don’t do such a wicked thing. Don’t!’

  He reached up his hand towards her. She leaned forward and took it in a strong grip. They paused for a moment, pressing each other’s hands. But all the comfort was gone out of the contact. They both knew it and felt despair. Rain withdrew her hand.

  ‘Rain, do you love me?’ said Mor. He stood squarely at the foot of the ladder gazing up at her. ‘If you’ve just changed your mind about me, say it, and don’t wrap it up in this torturing way.’

  ‘I love you,’ said Rain, ‘I do love you, I do. But what does that mean? Perhaps, after all, it has all been because of-father.’ She laid the palette down on her lap and rubbed her face violently with both hands. Patches of red and blue paint appeared on her cheeks and forehead.

  Oh, for Christ’s sake,‘ said Mor, ’don’t give me that. I shall not allow you to leave me, Rain, I shall just not allow it. Nothing has happened tonight which can alter anything between us. Don’t be tricked by my wife. Don’t look anywhere but to me.‘

  ‘Oh, Mor, Mor,’ said Rain, her voice wailing, ‘if you only knew how I do look to you! I’ve got nobody but you at all. But now I can see. I see that it was you that tricked me - and I too that deceived myself. I saw it all so simply, with nothing to it but you leaving your wife whom you didn’t love and who didn’t love you. But a life has so much more in it than that. I had not seen that I would break so many many things.’

  ‘If you love me — ’ he said.

  ‘That word cannot guide us any more.’ She spoke wearily, with finality.

  ‘Make it all right,’ said Moor. ‘Sweep away what has happened tonight, do not remember it.’

  ‘Oh, my dear,’ said Rain, ‘my dear — ’ She turned her eyes, red and hazy with tears, towards the face in the picture which was level with her own.

  ‘Make it all right,’ said Mor.

  ‘Oh, my dear -’ said Rain.

  It was the final negative. Mor stepped away from the foot of the ladder. He stood silent for a moment. The pain in his heart was almost beyond bearing. Then he said, ‘I accept nothing of what you say. We shall speak of this again.’

  Rain said nothing. She took up the palette and began to mix some paint, but could not see for her tears.

  Mor took two steps towards the door. He said, ‘You should stop that now, and go to bed. You’re far too upset to paint. Shall I fetch your car and bring it round into the playground?’

  Rain shook her head violently. It was a moment before she could speak. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I must finish this. I want to repaint the head. I see what to do now. I must go on working. Don’t wait up.’

  Mor hesitated. He had a terrible feeling that if he left her now he might never see her again. But he had to see her again. They would speak tomorrow. He would force her to agree with him. It could not be otherwise.

  ‘We are both too overwrought,’ he said. ‘We will speak of this again tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Rain, ‘please go. I must work now. Please go.’

  Mor got as far as the door. He stood watching her. She had begun to paint again, dashing the tears from her eyes.

  Rain,‘ he said.

  She did not answer.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Rain, ‘yes.’

  She went on painting. Mor stayed for a minute or two watching her, and then he went out and closed the door behind him.

  Chapter Twenty

  WHEN Mor awoke it was cold. He turned in bed and W looked towards the window. A very white dim light. It was early morning. No need to get up yet. Then as he turned again to settle down, the memory of last night spread through his mind like a crack. He sat up in bed and held his hand to his face as if to prevent great cries from issuing forth. He must see Rain very soon, immediately after breakfast, sooner. Last nig
ht she had been mad. If he had been less drunk himself he would have realized it and would have left her alone at once. He looked at his watch. Ten to six. He lay back on the pillow. There were still hours to wait. Then he found out that he could not stay in bed. He was in too great an agony. He began to get up and to dress, stumbling about searching for his clothes. He had a violent headache.

  When he was dressed, he wondered what to do. It occurred to him that Rain might have been painting all night and might still be there in the masters’ dining-room. But on reflection this seemed very unlikely. He sat for a while on the edge of his bed. The time was now five past six. He swung his legs and lit a cigarette. The time opened in front of him like an appalling steam-filled abyss. How could he wait so long? He walked about the room, keeping his footsteps silent. He began to think about his wife.

  Then a thought came to him, a thought which he had had last night, but which had been overwhelmed by the violence of the events. He crept downstairs, carrying his shoes with him, and went into the dining-room, where his writing-desk was. He opened the drawer of the desk where he had hidden the two draft letters which he had written, the one to Nan and the other to Tim Burke, announcing his intentions. The letters were there, but Mor could see at once that they had been moved from their original place. He stood for some time in a melancholy daze looking into the drawer. Nan must have found them. That explained the desperation which had driven her to make such a dramatic sacrifice of her own wishes.

  Mor closed the drawer and sat down on one of the chairs beside the dining-room table. The house was cold and very silent with the death-like abandoned silence of the early morning. He felt sick in his whole body as if ripped by innumerable wounds. He sat for a few minutes listening for a sound, but there was nothing to be heard. Then he decided he must go out into the road. He crept into the hall. At the front door he put his shoes on, donned an overcoat, and went out, closing the door quietly.

  He began to walk along the pavement. The morning was exceedingly still and pale. He was reminded of the day of Nan’s return when he had come out into this appalling morning air, and such a feeling of catastrophe overwhelmed him that he had to bite his hands. Today there was no rain, but the sky was pure white, covered over absolutely with an even sheet of cloud. When he reached the main road he wondered what to do. A car went by, desolate and portentous upon the empty road. He decided that he would go to Brayling s Close and wait outside until they were stirring. If he did not at least come near to where Rain was he would fall down faint at the pains that were eating his heart.

  He remembered that his bicycle was in the school. In his agitation of last night he had left it there, and had come home on foot. He walked through the school gates, his feet crunching loudly on the damp gravel in the midst of the empty gardens. He found his bicycle lying on the grass where he had thrown it. The Riley was gone. He wheeled the machine as far as the entrance to the drive. There was no point in making haste. No one would be up yet at the Close. He might as well spin out the time between into some sort of motion and activity. He began to wheel the machine up the hill, and then turned into one of the suburban roads which led past his own house to the fields. He thought he would go by way of the fields. He wanted to be in the open and in that kinder solitude to collect himself.

  As he came down the road he saw a figure approaching him. It seemed familiar. Then as it came nearer he saw that it was the gipsy whom he and Rain had first seen in the wood, and who had come to shelter under his porch with such strange results. Mor felt an immediate thrill of fear at seeing the man. The gipsy was walking on the opposite pavement with a slow loping stride, and carrying on his shoulder a bundle wrapped in a sheet. He was making for the main road. Mor thought at once: he is going. The man did not look across at him, though he could hardly have been unaware of the appearance in so empty a scene of another human figure. Mor wondered about him, wondering if he was right in thinking that he was deaf. The man passed, and disappeared from view, turning to the left into the main road. Mor walked on pushing his bicycle.

  He passed his own house. Then suddenly a sense of great urgency came over him. Why had he been dawdling like this? He must hurry. How could he have endured to delay? Why had he ever left Rain at all on the previous night? He was by now at the beginning of the path across the fields. He jumped on to his bicycle and began pedalling vigorously along the path; and as he rode the blanched coldness of the morning was becoming softer, and a slight almost imperceptible glow was spread through the air, to show that behind the thick expanse of cloud the sun was rising higher.

  Demoyte’s house, as Mor saw it from the fields, looked dead, surrounded still by silence and sleep. He turned sharply where the path came up to the wall, and rode along the narrower track beside it until he could turn into the drive. He dropped his machine near the gate, and walked forward on to the circle of grass which lay before the front door. The curtains were pulled in Demoyte’s bedroom. Their faded colourless lining closed the window like a dead eye-lid. Mor stood for a while looking up. Then he went forward and tried the front door. It was locked. He looked at his watch again. It was only six-thirty. Rain must be sleeping. She would surely want to sleep late after her exertions of last night. If he could have got into the house he would have lain down outside her door.

  He began to walk round to the garden at the side of the house. He wanted to look up at her window. The lawn was covered with a glistening sheet of dew in which his steps left clear footprints behind. He walked silently across the lawn, looking up at the corner window. Here too the curtains were still drawn. The house was asleep. He must wait. Now that he was so near to her he felt more tranquil. All would yet be well. He would make it so. The strength which all along he had lacked was in him at last, as if he had been touched by a wand and made invincible. He stood there, and his gaze wandered into the sky where a rift had appeared in the clouds and a streak of very pale blue was to be seen. A sharp breeze was blowing. He drew his overcoat more closely about him. He would have liked to lie down on the grass, only the dew was too thick.

  Several minutes passed. To warm himself a little he turned to walk a few steps along the lawn, his chilled hands thrust deep into his pockets. Then his eye was caught by a movement in the house. He looked up and saw that in one of the library windows Miss Handforth was standing and watching him. She stood very erect and motionless. It seemed to Mor that she must have been there a long time. She seemed like an apparition. He stopped and looked up at her. He hardly expected that there could be any communication between them, so far away did she seem. So they looked at each other for a moment without any sign.

  Then Miss Handforth undid the window and pushed up the sash. In a loud clear voice, without leaning out, she said, ‘She is gone.’

  Mor looked down at the grass, at the dew, and at the marks in the dew of his own footsteps. With bent head he began to walk very slowly back towards the front door. When he reached the door he found it open and came into the hall. Miss Handforth was standing on the stairs.

  ‘Is Mr Demoyte up yet?’ Mor asked.

  ‘He’s in the library,’ she said, and came down the stairs and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

  Mor mounted the stairs very slowly. It seemed an effort to lift each foot. He opened the library door, and saw Demoyte sitting at the round table near the window. He was in his dressing-gown. The curtains were all pulled well back and the morning light filled the room, warmer now, turning to a weak sunshine.

  Mor took a chair and sat down on the opposite side of the table. He did not look at Demoyte. There was silence for a moment.

  ‘Oh, you fool, you fool, you fool,’ said Demoyte in a tired voice.

  Mor said nothing. He leaned his elbows on the table and began rubbing his eyes and passing his two hands over his brow.

  ‘What happened?’ said Mor at last.

  ‘Nothing happened,’ said Demoyte. ‘She went on painting for two or three hours after you left her. Then she came back
here and packed all her things, and went away in the car.

  Mor turned towards Demoyte. The old man looked ashy grey with his sleepless night. Behind him near the wall Mor saw a square of colour. It was the portrait, which stood on the floor, ropped against one of the bookcases. Mor did not let himself look at it. ‘Is she coming back?’ he asked Demoyte.

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Demoyte. ‘She said she was going straight to France, but not to her own house. Then probably to America.’