Island Magic

  V

  But the trials of that day were by no means over, the chief of them was yet to come. The children had gone down to the beach for a picnic. Rachell, André, and Ranulph had an early and very silent tea together. André’s distress of mind issued in an exceeding crossness. It was most unusual for André to be cross, but Rachell had humiliated him and his heart, for once in a way, was bitter towards her. His bitterness increased hers. Ranulph raised his eyebrows humorously and looked from one to the other. His humour, seeming as it did to drive a little wedge between himself and Rachell, exasperated André’s already rasped temper. He got abruptly to his feet, leaving his tea unfinished.

  “I’m going down to St. Pierre on business,” he said sharply, and looked at Rachell. His eyes had steel in them. She wondered if he was going to make secret inquiries about that clerkship and that horrible modern villa.

  “Certainly,” she said coldly, and he went. She was left with Ranulph.

  She leant back and sighed. After the scene with André she felt horribly tired. Once again she had fought her husband and wrested the leadership of the family from him, but this time she was so tired that she felt hardly able to shoulder the load. She almost wished she hadn’t done it. Moreover she had been so unskilful that she had made André antagonistic. Of what use to stay on at Bon Repos staggering under a burden too heavy for her, and losing André’s love? A thrill of panic went through her. If their love failed then the spirit of Bon Repos would indeed be dead and the three children in the garden would go away. A disagreement with André was so rare that it made her feel the end of the world had come, and the reaction from her output of strength made her feel horribly weak. . . . She wished André were a strong man. . . . If only she had someone strong to lean on what heaven it would be.

  “Come out into the garden,” said Ranulph suddenly.

  “I haven’t time,” she said. Some instinctive shrinking shot out the words almost without her knowledge.

  “You’ve all the time there is,” said Ranulph. “I happen to know that Peronelle has done the ironing for you, and as for the supper, it’s cold and in the larder. I saw it with my own eyes. Come out. You want air.”

  He dominated her. In her present mood of weakness it was almost pleasant to be dominated. Together they went across the courtyard and into the garden. The day was brilliant as ever and all its brightness seemed to Rachell to be centred in the crocuses. She remembered how she had seen Colette, hands outstretched, running down the path that morning between the golden borders. “And its streets were paved with gold.” The words made her heart ache. The heavenly country was so near, in her soul and all around her, yet now, in her bodily weakness, she could not enter in.

  Ranulph, aware of the weakness and melting softness in her, judged this a good moment to open a campaign he had long meditated.

  “Cheeky fellows, these crocuses,” he said, “they remind me of Colin.”

  “You’re very fond of Colin,” said Rachell.

  “Stuff in him,” said Ranulph, “I’d like to see him a sailor.”

  “Why?” she asked sharply.

  “Because he wants to be.”

  “Is that a good reason?” Rachell’s voice was more weary than defiant. There was no more fight left in her.

  “It’s like this,” said Ranulph, “happiness is hidden in life like gold in the rock, and there are many different ways of tunnelling down to it. A child’s instinct will tell him which way is best for himself to tackle. Try and make him tackle the tunnelling a different way and he’ll run amok—lay a fuse and blow up the whole thing, himself, and the gold, and all.”

  “Did André tell you to say that?” demanded Rachell.

  “No. Why?”

  “Because he said practically the same thing himself this afternoon and used the same metaphor. . . . I do find metaphors so fatiguing.”

  “Fatiguing but useful,” said Ranulph. “Don’t you think one grasps a truth best in the form of a picture? One does not even know a soul is there unless the thing is draped in a body. . . . It looks as though André and I had seen that boy alike.”

  Rachell was silent.

  “It’s difficult to say what’s most disastrous,” mused Ranulph, “an unloving and autocratic father or a loving and autocratic mother. I suffered from the first. I lit a fuse and blew up myself and the gold. Colin suffers from the second. He may do the same.”

  “I wonder,” said Rachell, “why I let you say these things to me? No one else would dare interfere between me and Colin.”

  “You let me because the poor devil means well.”

  They crossed the garden in silence. Though Rachell said nothing Ranulph was aware of a yielding in her silence. He judged himself a victor.

  They came to the orchard. The leaves of the apple trees, crinkled, jade green and spear shaped, were just unfolding and beneath them the primroses were thrusting up through the grass. Colette’s hoary old trees, still bare of leaves, twisted intricate black tracery against the sky. Great grey clouds, edged with silver, were sailing up out of the sea. The birds, now that the shadows were lengthening, sang less riotously but with a heart-piercing sweetness.

  “What loveliness!” said Rachell, “lovely and yet mocking. Nature can be very hard. When you are happy she laughs with you, but when you are miserable she mocks.”

  “Tell me why she is mocking now,” demanded Ranulph. Again he dominated her, and against her will she told him.

  “You are right,” he said, “you must stay here. Stick to it.”

  “But I have no practical reason for my certainty that all will come right,” she murmured miserably. “It is only an intuition. On the face of it, it is André who is right and I who am wrong—crazily wrong.”

  “It is you who are right. The kind of certainty that you have, based on no practical reason, is the only certain certainty, Irish as it may sound.”

  “But why?”

  “Practical reasons are as brittle as the material facts they are based on, but intuition is the pressure of fate upon you—the future that ought to be taking your hand.”

  “That ought to be?” she repeated.

  “That will be,” he said. There was something forceful in the way he spoke and she looked at him. His queer light eyes seemed to be looking through her. She felt, as she had felt on the night when he first came, that he had come right into the inner sanctuary of her, had sullied its whiteness with his footprints and disturbed its harmony with his harsh voice. She felt, as she had felt then, terrified, and turned quickly away through the little gate that led to the cliff. He followed her. On the farther side of the gate one of the old trees—was it on purpose?—had pushed a root out. She caught her foot in it and gave a little cry, feeling herself falling. Ranulph caught her, lifted her free of the roots, and carried her a few steps over the rough grass. They stood caught between the frieze of the old fantastic trees and the blue sheet of the sea. The world of Bon Repos was hidden from them by the trees and the horizon line of the sea was lost in a soft haze. As once before, evening was melting the colours of earth and sea and sky, and the walls of the world were contracting. They were shut away together.

  Ranulph’s arms, that had slackened, suddenly tightened round Rachell. His passion flamed out and he kissed her bent neck and the coils of her dark hair. She raised her face with her eyes closed, and he kissed her lips. His arms round her were strong as iron and seemed to her to be lifting her up above the sea of trouble that had been drowning her. She felt like a spent swimmer buoyed up by a flung lifebelt. Warmth and courage came to her from his strength. She leant against him in an ecstasy and time stopped. Then once more she lifted her face, her eyes wide open, and looked at him. Passion was alight and blazing in his face, transforming it, and the transformation was ugly. . . . And she had let him, this creature, walk right into her soul, defiling it. . . . She twisted agonizedly in his arms. “Let
go of me,” she whispered. For a moment he gripped her more fiercely and looking up at him, terrified, she saw a hideous struggle going on in his face, then, with the suddenness of a spent body falling from life to death, his arms fell from her. She turned and fled.

  VI

  Ranulph, left alone, paced the narrow strip of turf between trees and sea with the savagery of a leopard behind bars. The evil that was in him, caged so long, had got out and paced with him, unsatisfied, snarling. Striding backwards and forwards he fought it. The melting evening light had become sunset before he had got the thing caged again. He sat down under the trees. From the pinnacle of their great age, desire dead in them, they looked down at him pitifully. The warm day was closing with a hint of thunder and the sunset had a yellow tinge. The grey clouds edged with silver had become buff colour tipped with gold and the sea was muddy.

  “Sulphurous,” said Ranulph, and a harsh humour twisted his face. What in the world had come over him? What in the world had he done? Ever since he came to Bon Repos his love for Rachell had been growing but he had felt secure in his own power of self mastery. He had never intended, never for one moment expected, that the thing would become unmanageable. His natural recoil from all ties should surely have protected him from such an exhibition as this. What in the world had tripped him up? He thought it must have been the unexpected yieldingness, almost weakness, of her mood that afternoon. When with her he had grown accustomed to facing a strength that equalled his own, he had been like a man leaning against a strong wind. It had been suddenly withdrawn and he had fallen. Was that it? Or was it that his acceptance of human ties, after so many years of freedom from them, had made him subject to human frailty again? He had once more opened the doors to the sweetness of intimacy and the abusing of intimacy, once practised by him and so long dormant, had come alive again. His past, upon which he thought he had turned his back, had found him out and tripped him up. Well, whatever the reason, his momentary madness had landed him in a pretty mess. How was he now to carry out his plans for Bon Repos? He had seen himself, with his wealth behind him, taking over the management of the farm and freeing André, giving to Rachell comfort and ease, and helping the children to their life’s work. He had foreseen for them all a happy life together. Yet all this entailed his bodily presence at Bon Repos and that, now, would be difficult. For how account to Rachell for his behaviour without telling her that he loved her and how, with that knowledge between them, could they tolerate life together? Moreover the incident had possessed him of a piece of self-knowledge. He loved this woman more than he knew. The load was going to be one uncommonly difficult to carry. What was to be done? He supposed there was nothing to be done but to go on pursuing his self-appointed ends and hoping for the best. He got up heavily. It was evening now and he was stiff and cold, and slightly rheumatic. Rubbing his knees he looked up at the old twisted trees. They looked rheumatic too, and extremely mocking. Their attitudes suggested that at his age he should have had more sense than to have made such an exhibition of himself. As he went through the orchard he was cursing his folly in having returned to this blasted little Island. It had always played havoc with his emotions. His love for his mother and his grief at her death—his love for Blanche Tangrouille—his struggle with his father—his crazy young manhood, the result of all four—and now this love for his brother’s wife—the Island had seen them all, had, he felt, caused them all. There was something about this Island, its beauty, its magic, that made it impossible to chew the cud in torpor; one was obliged to think and feel. . . . A great mistake. . . . He wished he’d never come back to the wretched place.

  He came through the trees of the orchard into the crocus-bordered path. Through the door that led into the courtyard he could see the open front door of Bon Repos. The lights in the house were already lighted and a long orange finger stretched from the front door across the courtyard and right down the garden path to his feet. It seemed like something alive, the spirit of the house made visible, stretching out to him and touching him, claiming him. He belonged to it. There was no escaping from that now. He belonged. He quite suddenly changed his mind and, in spite of difficulty and suffering to come, was glad he had returned to his wretched little Island.

  Then, standing on the garden path, tethered as it were, by that long finger of light, he began to wonder about Rachell. She had yielded to him. She had clung to him. It was not until their mutual passion was a little spent that fright had seized her. . . . Why? . . . Her love for André was, he felt, one of the unshakeable facts of nature. . . . Then why? . . . There was, of course, love and love. . . . That finger of light pulling him he began to walk slowly towards the house.

  VII

  Rachell, when she left Ranulph, fled for the second time that day to her bedroom. But she did not lie on her bed this time. She paced, as Ranulph had done, backwards and forwards, fighting this sudden flaring up of passion in her. It was not until dusk fell and the silver-fringed clouds were gold-tipped that some measure of tranquillity was restored to her. What in the world had come over her? How could she, Rachell, who for sixteen years had been dedicated, body and mind, to her husband, have behaved in this appalling manner? What to another woman would have seemed a pleasant interlude in a drab life seemed to Rachell treachery of the deepest dye. The memory of her yielding, of her kiss voluntarily and passionately given, filled her with self-loathing. Desperately she tried to understand herself and to look the thing in the face. First and foremost there had been her own weakness. The day’s doings, above all the tussle with André, had exhausted her. Then there had been her rare bitterness towards André. That, she knew, had come from her own sense of failure. She had been unskilful in her handling of him and, human like, had chosen to be exasperated with him instead of with herself. Bitterness between her and André was so rare that it had about it the quality of an earthquake. It was disintegrating. Feeling herself weak and in pieces she had cried out for something to prop and bind her, and had found it in Ranulph. That was it. She had always felt the man had a great strength in him, a great power of binding up and re-organizing the broken and the chaotic. But that was not all. She had not only been the weak woman yielding to strength. She had given as well as yielded. What then? Did she love him? This made her stop in her pacing and stand still at her window. For a long time she stood, then she sighed and turned away, groping for a chair. She sat down weakly. She did love him. The love she had for André, a thing of use and wont, and of many years’ growth, was unshakeable. This other thing was something entirely different. There was more of passion in it than of actual love. She was so utterly weary after years of hard work and struggle that the man’s strength had touched her. She felt towards him as a child feels towards arms that pick her up and carry her through a storm. And then, too, Ranulph was in his queer way picturesque, almost romantic. He brought with him the flavour of adventure and something of the excitement of worldliness. She was a beautiful woman who for years had had no homage paid to her beauty. She had had to fight hard, in the old days, to batten down her longing for pleasure and for admiration. She supposed now that her imprisoned vanity was revenged on her. It had come out of its cage, clamouring for food. Yes, that was it. This love of hers and Ranulph’s was based on weakness and on the clamouring of imprisoned things—a despicable thing and to be treated as such. . . . One more thing to fight. . . . The supper bell rang. . . . She got up and slowly washed her hands and prepared herself for supper. . . . One more thing to fight. . . . She had heard of this happening to other women, but never had she thought it could possibly happen to herself. . . . Well, there it was. . . . One never knew. She took some primroses from a vase on her dressing table and tucked them into her belt. She put a smile upon her lips, drew herself erect and sailed down to supper.

  They were all there and waiting for her, André, Ranulph and the children. “Am I late? I’m so sorry.”

  Her eyes swept over them all, resting caressingly on each child, meeting Ranulph’s
glance fearlessly, looking long and searchingly at André. He returned her glance and smiled. The cloud that had been between them lifted and was gone, and they were back again on the old footing. Rachell sighed a little with relief. If things were as ever between her and André she felt secure to tackle this new and puzzling relationship.

  Supper passed as usual, the children went to bed, and André to some job about the farm. Toinette cleared the table, and Rachell and Ranulph were alone. Any other Victorian woman, Ranulph thought, would have taken very good care not to be left alone with him again, but not so Rachell. She crossed to the “jonquière” and sat down, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes fixed on him. Ranulph, his arms folded, stood in front of the fire and looked at her. He gave a short laugh. “Well?” he said.

  Rachell smiled a little. It was, she thought, characteristic of him to offer no word of apology.

  “I am in a predicament,” she said. “I would like to ask you to leave Bon Repos, but yet, somehow, I feel you are necessary to it.”

  He raised his eyebrows and shot out his hands in a French gesture that he used now and then. “I am,” he said, “and I have no intention of leaving here.”

  “Why is it that we both feel you are necessary?” asked Rachell a little tartly. “You have done nothing, that I can see, to justify that feeling.”

  “Wait,” said Ranulph, “fate, weaving the pattern of Bon Repos, introduced a new colour when she cast me up here. When she’s finished with the colour we’ll see its place in the pattern. Let us trust our intuition—the pressure of fate upon us.”