Array Sapper - The Complete Works of H. C. McNeile Sapper

Street. Then she turned to Vane.

"You'd better see about your letters," she said demurely. "And then we might go over the Castle. There is a most wonderful collection of oleographic paleographs brought over by the Americans when they discovered England. . . ."

"In one second," threatened Vane, "I shall kiss you. And I don't know that they'd understand it here. . . ."

"They'd think we were movie actors," she gurgled, falling into step beside him. "Do you know the way?"

"In the days of my unregenerate youth I went to the races here," he answered. "One passes a prison or something. Anyway, does it matter?"

She gave a sigh of utter contentment. "Nothing matters, my man—nothing at all—except that I'm with you. Only I want to get out into the open, with the fresh wind blowing on my face—and I want to sing for the joy of it. . . . Do you think if we sang up the town here they'd give me pennies?"

"More probably lock us up as undesirable vagrants," laughed Vane. "It's a county town and they're rather particular. I'm not certain that happiness isn't an offence under the Defence of the Realm Act. Incidentally, I don't think there would be many convictions these days. . . ."

She stopped for a moment and faced him. "That's not allowed, Derek; it's simply not allowed."

"Your servant craves pardon," he answered gravely, and for a while they walked on in silence.

They passed two ragged children who had collected on their faces more dirt than seemed humanly possible, and nothing would content Joan but that she should present each with a sixpence.

"Poor little devils," and her voice was very soft. "What a life to look forward to, Derek—what a hideous existence. . . ."

"It's all they've ever been brought up to." He put sixpence into each little grubby paw, and smiled down at the awestruck faces. "Go and spend it all on sweets," he told them, "and be really, wonderfully, happily sick for once in your lives. . . ."

And then at last they turned a corner, and in front of them stretched the Downs. On their left the grim, frowning prison stood sombre and apparently lifeless, and as Joan passed it she gave a little shudder.

"Oh! Boy," she cried, "isn't it impossible to get away from the suffering and the rottenness—even for a moment?" She shook herself as if to cast off the mood, and stretched out her arms to the open hills. "I'm sorry," she said briefly. "Come into the big spaces and tell me what you want to say. . . ."

For a while they walked on over the clean-cut turf and the wind from the sea swept through the gorse and the rustling grasses, and kissed them, and passed on.

"There is a hayrick, I see, girl o' mine," said Vane. "Let's go and sit under it. And in defiance of all laws and regulations we will there smoke a cigarette."

They reached the sheltered side of it, and Vane threw down his coat on the ground for her to sit on.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" she whispered, and he drew her into his arms and kissed her. Then he made her sit down, and arranged the coat around her shoulders.

"You come in too," she ordered. "There's plenty of room for both. . . ."

And so with his arm around her waist, and his cheek touching hers they sat for awhile in silence.

Then suddenly Vane spoke. "Grey girl—I'm going away to-day."

"Going away?" She echoed the words and stared at him incredulously.

"But . . . but . . . I thought. . . ."

"So did I," he returned quietly. "When I came down here yesterday I had only one thought in my mind—and that was to make you give up Baxter. I wanted it from purely selfish reasons; I wanted it because I wanted you myself. . . ."

"And don't you now?" Her voice was wondering.

"More—infinitely more—than I did before. But there's one thing I want even more than that—your happiness." He was staring steadily over the great stretch of open country to where Crowborough lay in the purple distance. "When you came to me last night, little Joan, I thought I should suffocate with the happiness of it. It seemed so gloriously trustful of you . . . though, I must admit that idea did not come at first. You see I'm only a man; and you're a lovely girl. . . ." He laughed a little shortly. "I'd made up my mind to drift these next two or three days, and then when you came it seemed to be a direct answer to the problem. I didn't realise just to begin with that you weren't quite capable of thinking things out for yourself. . . . I didn't care, either. It was you and I—a woman and a man; it was the answer. And then you started to cry—in my arms. The strain had been too much. Gradually as you cried and clung to me, all the tearing overmastering passion went—and just a much bigger love for you came instead of it. . . . You see, it seemed to me that you, in your weakness last night, had placed the settlement on my shoulders. . . ."

"It's there now, dear man," she whispered. "I'd just got tired, tired, tired of fighting—— And last night it all seemed so clear." With her breast rising and falling quickly she stared over the hills, and Vane watched her with eyes full of love.

"I know it did—last night," he answered.

"Don't you understand," she went on after a moment, "that a woman wants to have her mind made up for her? She doesn't want arguments and points of view—she wants to be taken into a man's arms, and kissed, and beaten if necessary. . . . I don't know what was the matter with me last night; I only know that I was lying in bed feeling all dazed and bruised—and then suddenly I saw the way out. To come to you—and get things settled." She turned on him and her face was very tense. "You weren't—you weren't shocked," her voice was very low. "Not disgusted with me."

Vane threw back his head and laughed. "My lady," he said after a moment, "forgive my laughing. But if you could even, in your wildest dreams, imagine the absurdity of such an idea, you'd laugh too. . . ." Then he grew serious again, and stabbed at the ground with the point of his stick. "Do you suppose, dear, that I wouldn't sooner have taken that way out myself? Do you suppose that the temptation to take that way out isn't beating and hammering at me now? . . . That's why I've got to go. . . ."

"What do you mean?" Her face was half-averted.

"I mean," he answered grimly, "that if I stopped at Melton to-night, I should come to your room. As I think I said before, I'm just a man, and you're a lovely girl—and I adore you. But I adore you sufficiently to run away from a temptation that I know would defeat me. . . ."

She turned and faced him. "And supposing I want it to defeat you?"

"Ah! don't—don't. . . . For the love of God—don't!" he cried, getting up and striding away. He stood with his back towards her, while a large variety of separate imps in his brain assured him that he was an unmitigated fool.

"For Heaven's sake!—take what the gods offer you," they sang. "Here in the cold light of day, where there's no question of her being overwrought, she's asking you to settle things for her. Take it, you fool, take it. . . ."

And the god who concerned himself with that particular jig-saw among a hundred others paused for a moment and gave no heed to the ninety-nine. Then he turned over two or three pages to see what was coming, and forthwith lost interest. It is a bad thing to skip—even for a god.

Suddenly Vane felt Joan's hand on his arm, and looking down he found her at his side.

"Don't you understand, dear man?" she said. "I'm frightened of being left to decide . . . just frightened to death."

"And don't you understand, dear girl," he answered, "that I'm frightened of deciding for you? If one decides wrong for oneself—well, it's one's own funeral. But if it's for somebody else—and it's their funeral. . .."

"Even if the other person begs you to do it?"