I sat in the veranda downstairs and smoked and fumed and wished that I did not feel so sleepy and irritable, while the thunder rolled backward and forward, and pretended that it was going, and then came back again with new strength, and the streaming rain brought no relief to the tense atmosphere. At four o’clock I sent up tea to Constance, but when, at five, the thunder showing no sign of abating I went up to her, the tea stood untasted at her side, and I knew that Constance was in a very bad way indeed. Normally the bare thought of tea will rouse Constance and make her capable of anything.
Constance petulantly rejected my proffered attentions, turned away from me, and told me that she hated the sight of me and that the best thing I could do to help her recover was to get out of her sight and not to appear on her horizon until the storm was over. So I waited until the storm was over.
Constance came down at dinner time, and I rose with alacrity when I saw her come into the room. We dined together again at a table for two. I was anxious about Constance, thoroughly and genuinely anxious, and all through dinner I did my best to make her at ease and to give her a rather better opinion of the world than the one she held at the moment. One idea I had tempted me sorely. The surest thing to set Constance on good terms with herself would be wine—I had in mind a good rich Burgundy, well-aired and grateful to the palate. But Constance hardly ever drank wine, and she might perhaps guess the reason of my pressing it on her. I was more influenced, however, by the thought that it would be a hateful after-memory all the rest of my life that I owed my wife’s first favors to wine—it savored horribly of a commercial traveler dirtily seducing some shopgirl.
So we dined without wine, and all through the meal I watched Constance with growing anxiety. She was still distrait, and pale with the after effect of her headache. She tried bravely to meet my eyes, but she rarely succeeded. She crumbled her bread with nervous fingers, and she spoke in half a whisper. It was not a cheerful meal. And after dinner we sat in the veranda, and looked out over the river gray in the half light, and everything was very solemn and impressive—but not in the least conducive to the joining of a couple who had never been yet joined. And the mosquitoes came and bit us with devilish ingenuity. We sat, and we sat, and we sat, and neither of us would be the first to suggest going to bed. The lot fell on me in the end.
“Well, what about it, old thing?” I asked.
“What about what?” asked Constance in reply. Her tone was somber, and she gazed out over the river as she spoke.
“Bed, of course, dear,” I said, with all the casualness I could muster.
Constance waited some seconds before she spoke.
“Is that what you want?” she said.
“I don’t want anything except that you should be happy,” I said. But my loose tongue ran away with me and I went on—“and make the most of your honeymoon.”
I meant nothing by those last words, but Constance was not pleased with them. On the contrary.
“All day long,” said Constance, “you’ve been eying me and watching me and staring at me and fussing round me to see if there was going to be a chance tonight. At dinner it was hateful. I—I might as well be a cow or something like that. Something in a farmyard.”
I was too stunned by this surprise attack to utter a word.
“You know it’s true,” said Constance. “Oh, I hate you.”
I scratched my head and gasped.
“Oh, confound it, Constance,” I said, “you know that isn’t true. It isn’t fair to say things like that.”
“I think it is,” said Constance, in the same somber tone.
The mosquitoes were biting most infernally, and I was cross and irritable through worry and shortage of sleep, and this groundless charge was the last straw.
“Have it your own way, then,” I said. “I’m a dirty dog, with low and revolting ideas, and I only married you for the fun of outraging all your ideals—and outraging you into the bargain, for the matter of that. And if you really want to know, all that I was anxious about this evening was just because I didn’t want to spend another night in that blasted wicker chair.”
It was Constance’s turn to gasp. And my evil temper lured me on. “And you know perfectly well that the reason why you said that about me was because you have a guilty feeling yourself.”
It was true enough, I think, but it was an abominable thing to say at that juncture. Constance was just as nervy and worried as I was myself, more so, in fact. She stood up with a cold dignity.
“I’m going home,” she said, and that brought me to my senses with a jerk. I caught at her hand.
“Constance, dear,” I said, “you know I was only being a fool when I said that. I can wait—I can wait years—all my life if necessary, so long as you are only happy. Dear, I’m sorry. Be patient for this once.”
Constance lingered.
“Of course, you’re fed up after the day you’ve had,” I said, “but you’ll be all right in the morning after a good night’s rest. Dear, can’t you remember—lots of things? Can’t—damn.”
Some wretched angler and his wife made their appearance on the veranda.
“Slip up to bed, old thing,” I whispered. “I’ll be along later.”
Constance went.
When I arrived upstairs it was at once apparent that Constance was still nursing some shadow of her former grievance. For though she had undressed, she had put on her dressing-gown and swathed herself in the eiderdown, and was huddled in the wicker arm-chair. Her face bore an expression combining those of Joan of Arc and Saint Katharine.
“You won’t have to sleep in this b-blasted armchair,” she said. “It’s my turn tonight.”
I put my head into the lion’s mouth. He who tries to employ the iron hand with Constance usually finds that he has bitten off more than he can chew, besides getting his metaphors mixed, but I had the sense to know that argument would only make Constance more set than ever in her determination. I slipped my arms under her and lifted her out of the chair. The eiderdown fell to the ground. Still holding her in the air, I passed my arms under her dressing gown; I could feel her warm body beneath her cobweb nightdress.
“Ooh, what are you going to do with me?”
“Arms out of your dressing gown,” I whispered, and Constance was still too surprised to do anything else than obey me. Then I dropped a little wriggling Constance into bed, and drew the clothes over her.
“You’ll be more comfy there, dear,” I said, and I kissed her.
Two dressing gowns and a raincoat, and a chair to put my feet on, made me much more comfortable that night in the wicker chair than I had been last night. But I was not yet asleep when there came a voice from the bed.
“Dear,” it said timidly, “are you awake?”
I slipped off the chair and came over to her. I found her hand in the dark.
“Dear,” said Constance, “you’re beastly uncomfortable, and I’m a pig. I’m sorry, dear. Won’t you—won’t you—?”
That was the time when I had to fight desperately hard to keep myself in hand. I drew her close to my breast, but I could not take what was offered me out of pity before Constance had learned to offer it me in love. I explained somehow, and Constance was content. She kissed me sleepily.
“What big bulgy muscles you have,” she murmured inconsequently, as she turned over to sleep. And then, five minutes afterward: “It’s nice knowing that you’re near me in the night, dear.”
I slept more happily that night than I did the night before.
Next day was glorious. Constance breakfasted in bed, in her royally lazy fashion, but as I sat beside her we talked happily and gaily.
“I feel almost as though I were married,” said Constance, and stopped abruptly. I felt the same—on good terms with myself, and with Constance, and with all the world. I had to do something to prove to myself that I was being granted a privileged position with relation to Constance. I roamed round the room. I pulled her dressing table articles about, fooled with her pow
der puff, criticized her boudoir cap. With a dexterous twitch I removed from the chair the petticoat which concealed more intimate portions of Constance’s attire.
“Fie, for shame!” said Constance, but she wasn’t really upset about it, although I took hold of the garments and held them up to inspection.
“What in the name of fortune is this thing?” I asked. I held the thing up and peered at it. It was a stiff sort of waistcoat affair, with an intriguing lace running criss-cross down the back—or front, as the case might be.
“I didn’t know you wore corsets, old thing,” I said.
“Neither do I. That, young man, is a B.B., and at your age you shouldn’t know about such things.”
And no amount of urging would induce Constance to tell me anything further about the B.B. In the end she cast me from the room so that she could dress.
I was sitting in the veranda when she came down. As soon as she caught sight of me she set her features into an absurdly magisterial expression.
“Young man,” she said, “come away, where I can speak to you more privately.” She led the way out round the lawn, and I followed like a lamb to the slaughter. When we reached a caterpillary summer-house she stopped, drew me into it, and turned and faced me, with her hands on my shoulders.
“Now speak the truth.” I wondered what was coming. “What is the meaning of that dressing case in our room, with the silver fittings, marked ‘C. T.’?”
“Oh, that?” I replied. “I noticed it myself. I wonder what it can be.”
“Of course,” I added as an afterthought, “ ‘C. T.’ might stand for Constance Trevor.”
“Don’t wriggle, you coward,” said Constance. “Did it come down with us in the car?”
“It might have done,” I said cautiously.
“For goodness’ sake be sensible,” said Constance. “For the last time, whose is that dressing case?”
“It’s yours, dear,” I said, “Bridegroom’s present to the bride, and all that sort of thing, you know.”
“You dear,” said Constance, and she kissed me. “I’ve always wanted one like that,” said Constance, “it’s just the thing I’ve been longing for.” And she kissed me again.
“Why in the world didn’t you tell me about it, stupid?” asked Constance.
“I thought you might rather like to find it out for yourself,” I replied, taking refuge in the truth.
“And—and you were right for once,” said Constance, kissing me for the third time.
It was then that I noticed a gardener watching all this performance with the keenest interest, but I did not care a button. I at once brought the total up to four.
For the rest of that morning we bathed—at least Constance bathed for the rest of the morning; I am not equal to staying in the water for the hours Constance manages and enjoys. I lounged on the sun-warmed steps of the landing stage and smoked and admired Constance’s slim round body as she poised herself for diving. Constance’s waist is exactly the same diameter from front to back as it is from side to side—a fact which I verified later by actual measurement. Constance enjoys swimming with me. Perhaps it is because, although I can give her fifteen at tennis, and two strokes a hole at golf, she can make rings round me in the water. It pleases her enormously.
She ducked me neatly, twice, in the middle of the river, with about fifteen people looking on, and when I sought revenge she gurgled happily and put her head down and left me behind with a crawl stroke I can never hope to match. At lunch time our appetites were enormous.
Punts are comfortable things, and skiffs are fast. But in a skiff one can never “sit familiar,” and in a punt one can never put one’s whole soul and body into the work of getting along—at least I can not, with safety. But in a well-designed dinghy both these troubles are avoided. A dinghy is broad enough to permit of lounging carelessly, and if it should happen that circumstances bring both you and your companion to the same side at once (it does happen like that sometimes, if you are young and only newly married) there is no need for the embrace to be hurriedly interrupted for the purpose of trimming the boat. Yet for all that you can make progress in a dinghy—I mean progress reckoned in yards, not in heart-beats—and can tug and haul at the sculls to your heart’s content.
So it was in a dinghy that Constance and I and the tea-basket started off that afternoon. We went upstream; in a prophetic mood I realized that perhaps when coming home we should need the help of the current. Upstream through the sunshine. Tiny ripples danced and glittered, a little breeze ruffled my hair, and Constance in her white frock in the stern sheets looked perfectly wonderful. I seemed to be possessed of Herculean strength as I tugged at the sculls.
As a matter of fact, we covered some considerable distance that afternoon. We went past Quarry Woods, lovely in the sunshine, through Marlow Lock, and out to the lonely stretch of river that lies the other side. Very lonely and very lovely. At Hurley we had tea, sitting lazily and happily together afterward.
“Oh, look!” said Constance suddenly. A kingfisher broke from the trees of the other bank and flung himself neatly down on the water. A second later he shot up again with a struggling minnow in his bill. Then he vanished again, leaving us with only the memory of the brilliant flash of color as he passed through the trees.
Constance had never see this stretch of river before—I had been saving it up for her for a long time, and she snuggled down into the bottom of the boat with a sigh of content. The sun was drowsy and comforting, and the trees were whispering lovesongs to the bass accompaniment of the distant roar of Hurley Weir. Love and peace—I do not think that either of us had ever known the two in unison before. The long grasses on the bank wavered in the wind, and the water chuckled to itself as though at a ridiculous joke as it rippled round the dinghy. I had started with some idea of showing Constance the little village of Hurley, placid and content, a quarter of a mile away, beyond the trees, but when I made a tentative suggestion that perhaps she might like to walk over there with me one look in her eyes told me that she would not dream of leaving all this quiet beauty even for a moment. So I leaned in drowsy comfort back against the cushions, with Constance’s smooth little head against my knee, and her smooth, cool, white hand resting in mine.
And the shadows grew longer as the sun sank lower and lower, and the songs of the birds became clearer and more sustained, and even as we breathed the cooler air, lo, it was evening! We were very quiet and thoughful as I loosed the painter and the current took hold of us and drifted us away downstream. No sculls now; the mood of Herculean action was passed. Instead I perched in the bows, with Constance against my knees and the stern cocked into the air, and kept the dinghy lazily in midstream with the canoe-paddle I had somehow remembered to bring. Slowly and peacefully downstream, through the beginnings of the summer twilight, while the breeze died down and the sweet Thames took on its loveliest aspect in the fading light.
Temple lock-keeper and Marlow lock-keeper smiled to themselves half-pityingly, half-enviously, as they passed us through. Perhaps they, too, had once lived in Arcady. Perhaps there was a look on our faces which told them all that they needed to know of our story. Perhaps Marlow lock-keeper saw Constance touch my hand and point away to the east, where the evening star shone out marvelous against the fading sky. Perhaps he watched us away from the lock, to where we dallied for a moment in midstream while I debated whether a hotel dinner would be at all equal in the scale against the prospect of another few wonderful minutes here in this calm beauty with Constance. Perhaps he drew his own conclusions from the fact that we turned aside from the main stream, and drifted down into the reedy, tranquil backwaters just below the lock.
I did not have to move or to disturb Constance as I caught a branch of willow as we crept along, and looped the painter around it. And I laid the paddle down softly, not daring to break the wrapt silence which was enfolding us. Constance turned to me with the little smile I love, and lay wordless in my arms.
Darkness fell around u
s, and all was quiet save for the chuckling of the ripples round the boat, and the gray river flower on, silently, soundlessly, irresistibly.
And through my mind there ran the words—
“Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song.”
Sweet Thames run softly till I end my song! The stars shone out above us, and the water around us was dark and mysterious. Constance’s face was flower-white in the dim light, her cheek resting on my shoulder.
From the spinney beside us came a few muted notes of music. Then a few more. Then, clear and triumphant, reaching to the stars in a pillar of honeyed sweetness, we heard the full, wildly-sweet song of the nightingale. Penetratingly sweet it was; music that tore your heartstrings and set your pulses throbbing in delirium. The golden notes rained round us, stirring me, rousing me, until the pain of my longing and the ache of love for Constance seemed more than mortal could ever bear.
Constance stirred beside me, and her flower-petal lips were parted and her eyes were soft and tender—and grave. So grave! I caught my breath as I looked. It was then that I realized something of what a woman’s love means, and that what is sometimes so lightly taken is not so lightly given. Constance put her arms up to me, and I drew her close, and felt her little round bosom warm against my breast. And we kissed and strained to each other, and Constance tried to tell me that she loved me, and to sooth away the ache at my heart. She drew my head down to her breast, strangely maternal, and kissed my forehead. Her arms held me to her, and she rocked gently with my head upon her breast. And with the coming of passion our tongues were loosed, and we were freed from the dumb devils that had so beset us.
Constance’s face was pale in the starlight, and as I passed my arms round her and she leaned to me her white hands fluttered on my breast.