Let Me Alone (28 page)

‘Why did you do it?’ she said, staring at him coldly. ‘Why did you take me to that horrible place?’

‘Why did you run away?’ he retorted. He avoided the issue entirely. He would not answer her. And she knew that he never would answer. Impossible to get anything
out of him. Perhaps he really failed to hear her question, or failed to understand. The impossibility of communication with him made her feel hopeless. She looked at his face. It was brown and blank.

‘We must go back to the boat,’ he said. ‘We must get a gharri.’

A carriage was called and they got in. Anna made one more attempt.

‘I want to know what your idea was in taking me to that beastly place,’ she said. Her eye was stony.

Matthew sat beside her listening to her question, to her voice of cold inquiry. He did not seem to hear. He seemed to hear only what he wished, to understand only what was acceptable to him. You might question him for a year and a day and he would never hear you – unless he wanted to hear.

Anna felt this, and gave it up. She was quite bewildered. She could not reconcile the Matthew who had inflicted the nightmare upon her with the innocent Matthew who came afterwards. She did not know which to believe in. Nevertheless, she knew he was more of a nonentity to her than a nightmare. He would never become important. He was not real. She looked at him with a certain horror and apprehension, at his close, round, meaningless head bobbing in her direction. She hurried away as soon as she could. But he was not really of any importance, although she found him repugnant.

The voyage went on, the Port Said incident dropped out of sight and was more or less forgotten. Matthew stuck closer to Anna. It seemed now that he had to be always with her. His popularity among the lady passengers was on the wane for some reason. Perhaps they had tired of his somewhat insipid attractions and had begun to see
through him. Or perhaps it was he himself who had changed, growing less gratifyingly obliging. He was rather touchy these days; he started to quarrel with the men, to take offence at everything. He seemed to have developed a childish fear of being ‘left out.’ And so, of course, he was left out. And so he turned back to Anna, and would not leave her. Which was distinctly trying.

Not that he interfered particularly. But he was always hanging round her deck-chair, urging her to partner him in the games, and, when she refused, sitting down beside her with his dumb, stonelike obstinacy and a rather martyrized expression.

Anna would not play in the games. Not so much because she disliked the games themselves – certainly they were inane and boring enough, but then the whole shipboard life was such a madness of inanity that the lesser, incidental imbecilities were excusable – but because she could not endure the determinedly jovial attitude which everyone adopted towards the skittle contests and the quoits and the deck-tennis and deck-everything-else. ‘Let’s get up a cheery party.’ ‘Let’s collect a cheery crowd.’ There was something about the very sound of the word ‘cheery’ that set her teeth on edge with repulsion. All this fizz of jovialness left her cold. She was somewhat contemptuous, somewhat dazed in the society of all these jolly good fellows who treated her to their peculiar mixture of gallantry and effrontery and mock-deference – all overlying, in some way, a fundamental slight. Presumably the slight was unconscious and unintended; but it was there, none the less. A kind of masculine all-highest condescension to which the other women played up disgustingly. The flighty feminine dove-cote always seemed to be in a flutter of coquettish excitement over some fine gentleman.
It was the sort of atmosphere which one expects to meet in mid-Victorian fiction. But it had a central nullity particularly its own. Underneath the superficial cheeriness and the little flirtatious excitements was a sort of flatness, an emptiness. As though at any moment the whole system might collapse into a black abyss of vacancy.

Anna found it all rather depressing. However, she sat calmly in her chair, and watched the slow, hot passage of the hours, and felt uneasy and dubious. A horrible empty feeling she had. And lonely, as if the universe were tumbling down in a watery swirl, and she alone stood solid on her solitary peak. The horizon was like a ruled line, clean-cut and rigid, cutting the world in two. The upper half, the sky, pale ultramarine; the lower, the watery half, cobalt, or sometimes prussian-blue with streaks of purple in it. The empty, empty world of water and blueness! In her eye came an ache like nausea, craving so keenly the relief of solidity. She wanted so much to find something to catch hold of. But what was there?

The days went by, and they were at Colombo – the voyage was ending. She came up on deck one morning, very early, and saw the land, a tremulous, rosy scarf floating on the blue rippling water, but pearly, pearly, a very precious and diaphanous thing, lucent and phantasmal. She remembered that Ceylon was called the pearl-drop of India. And there it was, the pearl, before her eyes.

Many passengers were leaving the boat, Findlay among them. Matthew and Anna went ashore with him. They had arranged to make an expedition together, a sort of farewell party. They would drive to Mount Lavinia, dine and stay the night. It was not necessary to return to the ship till the following day.

Anna was very excited. It was dry land, solidity at last.
She was in the East, in the great continent of ancient Asia, with the hot earth underfoot. And really, in the blue and glittery atmosphere, in the reckless, transparent flood of sunshine, in the hot dazzle of buildings, and palm trees bursting up, there was something different, something romantic. And the fantastic figures of the men going about, so womanish with their coloured skirts and their long black hair turned up in a bun or swathed round a tortoiseshell comb – altogether womanlike until you saw their smallish, metallic faces which had a curious small-scale maleness of their own, a sort of masculinity in minature. Like men dressed up as women in a pantomime they were, after you had seen their male faces. Anna was exhilarated.

In the afternoon they motored into the country, in a whirl of dust and palms and scarlet and vivid green, and chickens scattering at the sides of the roads – all rather gaudy and unconvincing, like a pantomime. There was even a glimpse of elephants solemnly trundling. Then, in the evening, a hotel by the sea, gardens, people bathing, and palm trees darkly leaning over the pale sand.

Anna was very aware of Findlay. But what did she feel about him? She looked at him to find out. He smiled at her. And the blood stirred in her veins. This was her response, but what did it mean? She was on the alert for him, she wanted to make contact.

But she could not speak to him. There was no opportunity. The presence of Matthew and of the other people was like a wall of rock round her. She hated them. In a fury of intolerance her grey eyes looked out at them. But she gave no sign. She sat quietly, concealed and secret behind her smiling face. So the whole evening passed without any trace of intimacy. Findlay and Anna
were like affable, shipboard acquaintances taking leave of each other. Matthew sat near Anna and refilled her glass. And as she drank she began to grow angry. A sort of shame was at the root of her anger, her heart was cold. She looked at Findlay with a smiling, cold face which he seemed not to see. Then, laughing, saying that they must go and look at the moon, he led the way out of doors.

Anna went with him into the garden. The night was brilliant, the moonlight burned and glittered. The moon seemed smaller, more distinct, much more dazzling and intense than the English moon. It was like a small round hole in the sky through which the white fire of brightness poured in a concentrated beam. The air was quite warm.

The warm night air was on Anna’s face, not stirring, but lying softly upon her, like a flower. It was an alien, soft air, heavy with the suggestion of unknown things. And she was alone with Findlay. Out in the mysterious, nocturnal garden he walked beside her.

‘Shall we go down to the sea?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ came his airy voice.

And smiling, he took her hand. A sharp tremor went over her.

‘Which is the way?’ she said.

‘Here,’ he answered.

He walked holding her hand in the moonlight, she saw his face strangely blanched and masklike, and yet beautiful. It was the beautiful curve of his mouth which so enthralled her.

They went in silence, wading through the pale brightness. The moonlight was like a fluid, a magic, silvery element, buoyant and wonderful.

They came to the shore, a ghostly silver waste, with grey wraiths of palm trees writhing and bending. The
sea moved with mysterious massiveness, shadowed and brightly flashing, the mysterious, slow waves of the Indian Ocean rolled in, slowly, heavily, without spray, and flattened themselves with a dull, muted crash. It was all mysterious and unfamiliar; rather oppressive, the heavily swinging ocean, in the flare of dead white light.

She stood on the sand, on the unstable, treacherous body of the sand, and watched the slow rhythm of the unfurling waves. Her heart was cold like the sea. And yet an emotional excitement burned hotly in her veins, because of Findlay, and because of the wine she had drunk.

‘I don’t like it,’ she said, in an unfamiliar tone. ‘It’s a dead sea.’

He gave an odd, half-mocking jerk of his head, and began to laugh. She could not hear his laughter in the noise of the waves, but she saw his face laughing at her boldly, carelessly, mischievously, like the satyr he resembled. She had an impulse to abandon herself – to him? – to what? She was not certain.

‘Rex?’ she said to him.

‘Well?’ he answered.

The impudent smile showed on his face, he took hold of her hands. She felt the warm, firm swell of his chest. For the moment she was open to him. If he should take her at this moment she would yield. She waited for him: let him do as he wished. She leaned towards him in the moonlight, she felt his hands holding hers.

She saw his eyes looking down on her, dark and sparkling and alien. Gazing up, she saw the luminous pallor of his face above her, in the moonlight, something irresponsible and thrilling and rather sinister. She looked at him and her blood pulsed hot and expectant. She
waited, submissive, and he hovered above her in his elusiveness, his heart yearning to her.

He wanted so much to take her in the moonlight. But the desire in him was overborne by the knowledge of her difference. He knew that she was not for him. His airy nature sheered off in alarm. He wanted her, and yet he did not want her. His irresponsibility made a gulf between them. They were in different worlds.

So he could not touch her. He did nothing. He did not even kiss her. He sheered off, he had to retain his elvish freedom, though the leaving of her hurt him and lacerated him.

Anna stood still, feeling lost. Presently she realized his failure. Her heart flew to anger. She looked at Findlay, and there seemed to be a furtive look about him, an evasiveness, and she stiffened in sudden dislike, turning away. Then a sort of shame stabbed through her anger; she was ashamed, and only wanted to be gone.

‘Let us go back,’ she said.

They turned away from the heaving bulk of water, away from the darkly surging waves, back towards the hotel. Findlay glanced at her, and would have spoken. But she would not look at him. Pale and silent and angry, she walked in the gleaming, silvery night. And all the time at the back of her mind there was something shameful. She wondered angrily at her own shame.

They reached the lighted entrance. Anna’s heart trembled, but it was locked in bitterness.

‘Good night,’ she said, standing on the step above him, her face wearing its peculiar blank, almost stony look. She wondered what he was thinking, as he stood and watched her.

He looked at her, at her slender body, which he was
not able to touch. And he knew that his failure would always haunt him. He did not want her, he was in a different world; but he suffered at losing her.

‘What have I done?’ he asked, diffident, and smiling rather exquisitely.

She felt her heart stir. His smile still went to her heart. Yet her heart was not touched; it was cold and bitter. No response came on her face.

‘Nothing,’ she said, hating him.

She went into the hotel and turned her back on him. There were people moving about. She caught sight of Matthew. She went up and touched his arm.

‘I’m tired,’ she said. ‘I shall go to bed now.’

He looked at her very strangely. He looked at her hands, which trembled slightly. Then he looked at her face again, which was cold and blank and a little despairing.

A slyness came into his eyes, a strange suggestion of craft.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I will see you upstairs.’

He took her arm at the elbow to lead her away. She did not notice him. Findlay stood in the doorway, watching, but without any expression, the two people, the girl and the stiff-shouldered, rather insignificant man. Anna went on with Matthew. They began to walk up the stairs. Still she was locked in anger, feeling a great bitterness in her heart. Against her will her hands were trembling: but she was not softened: her anger was cold and shameful. She had a sensation of strange, cold lightness.

Matthew had opened her bedroom door, and was waiting for her to go in.

‘Can I do anything?’ he asked, watching her.

She was aware of a cold indifference, and also of
something else, not exactly excitement, but a kind of frozen recklessness, anguished and bitter. It was as if her disillusionment, her feeling of shame aroused some passionate desperation in her. She seemed to be in the grip of a kind of possession.

‘Can I do anything for you?’ persisted Matthew. There was a queer confidence in his voice and also a note of insinuation.

She hesitated, watching him. The blue glassiness was bright in his eyes, he was staring at her hungrily, as a starved creature might. Some certainty flared in her soul. She knew that if she let him come into the room she would have to submit to him.

‘Would you like me to open the shutters?’ he asked, humbly it seemed.

She shuddered with cold and with the intense premonition of what must follow.