The Dangerous Years (33 page)

“Both making up for lost time, eh, Tom?” said his brother, putting a hand on his shoulder. With happiness and laughter, the four of them moved to the door, and the doctor and his wife stood outside at the head of the stairs, waving to the descending couple.

The lovers drove off in silence, Tom concerned with the pleasure of handling a fine car, and coping with the swift traffic of Paris. Mary was content to bask in her new happiness. She sat upright, superficially interested in the passing scene, and admiring Tom's driving. Not until they had emerged from the traffic and the
pavé
did she break the silence.

“That confirms Joan's letter, Tom.”

“What does?” he asked, his attention half-engaged on driving. “You talk like an oracle, and you look like a goddess.”

“You're foolish,” she murmured, pausing to enjoy this adulation. She put a hand on Tom's thigh, to reassure herself still further. He glanced swiftly at her, then resumed his watching of the road, as he increased speed. Mary studied the scar in his cheek, and recalled what Luke had told her.

“I don't believe you're more than twenty-one, Tom.”

He chuckled, and began to sing “I'm twenty-one to-day”, dropping the effort after a bar or two. His attention was mostly on the road to Rambouillet, where he proposed to stop for luncheon.

“We'll have a meal at the Gerbe d'Or, Mary. It's time we began to economise. It's a nice little place, and you'll like it.”

He said this without looking round. His face was impassive, and Mary was content not to examine closely for
evidence of his attitude toward the present awkward situation about money matters. If that had to come, it would come later, after they had been living together for years perhaps. And by then, there would be no need to raise the query herself, for surely Tom would have won through. She mused over this vaguely, under the hot sunshine of happiness and sheer physical satisfaction. Meanwhile, Tom was being economical; a sign of realism. She increased the pressure of her hand on his thigh, and thus they sat side by side, silent again.

This mood lasted through the excellent luncheon, eaten quickly so that no time need be lost in pushing on for the second half of the run to Chartres. They arrived there while the ancient town was still somnolent in the early afternoon. The Cathedral square lay empty, except for two priests walking briskly across and disappearing behind the cathedral of Notre Dame. A dog trotted out, studied the scent of those two black figures, and returned to his home.

“How's this, my love?” said Tom, having parked the car. “Peaceful enough, eh? Makes one feel an intruder, don't you think? Are they all looking at us from behind their little windows, these French folk?”

As though to reassure them of his good fortune, he took Mary by the arm, and they walked round the cathedral, lost in admiration, or pretending to be, for they were much concerned still with each other, lost in admiration there also.

They entered the cathedral, having decided to see the interior before daylight weakened. Nobody was about, and they had explored the nave before they encountered another human being, a dusty old concierge with a bead of moisture on the tip of his nose, glimmering roseate in a coloured beam of sunshine filtering through a medieval window. He nodded, shifted his broom from right hand to left, and offered to show them round, assuming instantly
that they would agree. He trotted along beside Mary, occasionally touching her arm to indicate a tomb, or an altar, and pouring out a stream of eloquence as incongruous with his appearance as pearls emerging from a shabby oyster-shell.

Neither listened very attentively; Tom Batten because he was filled with his own newly-found well-being; Mary because she was preparing herself to broach the question of practical affairs to her lover. She had been thinking eagerly since the breakdown of the American plan. Thus her response to Gothic relics, and the poetry of medieval stonework, was negligible. However, the old man's voice, so musical and precise, and his obvious enthusiasm, were soothing music to the happy but anxious couple, restraining them for a few impersonal moments from their own affairs, that carried an over-emphatic query, yet to be answered.

Mary was resolved that it should be answered to-day, as she had suggested to Tom when proposing the excursion to Chartres. They left the cathedral with only a vague set of impressions, awe-stricken but not vastly interested. But they had been sufficiently impressed to remain silent again while they walked down through the narrow streets of the town to the river. Life was reviving as the luncheon hour passed into afternoon, and by the time the couple reached the ancient bridge, they found the old stone washing-slabs by the waterside fully occupied. It was warming, after the chilly solitude and aloofness of the cathedral, to see these hefty women rubbing and scrubbing in the sunshine, slapping away at the sheets and garments spread on the flagstones, reaching over to seize more dirty linen from their baskets, and sending out clouds of milky-blue soapsuds to adulterate the river-water flowing rapidly past.

Mary watched them, fascinated by the physical exuberance of those massive arms, shoulders, flanks. Most of the women were middle-aged or elderly, and none of them
appeared to have suffered at any time from malnutrition. Their voices rose from the river, hoarse, ribald, a Rabelaisian chorus. The neat and handsome Englishwoman, by comparison, had a nunlike grace. Her thoughts belied her appearance, for she was feasting on that sensuous richness below; the dance of the sunlight on the moving water, the flap and roll of the linen, the movement of the women's bodies and the gusto of their voices. Here was a pagan world, coloured and tempestuous, shrewd with mirth and those minor appetites that demand a constant diet of everyday indulgence and earthiness.

The spectacle fed Mary's resolution, and her new-found confidence in her own ability, this daring sensual ability, to enrich her own life and to re-establish her lover's. She looked at him slyly, wondering if he was equally interested in the almost bawdy scene below. But he was watching the stream, studying the flights of fish that shot like transparent arrows from one shadow to another across the pebbled bed. Feeling this coolness to be inimical to what she wanted to say, Mary slipped her arm between him and the time-worn stone of the balustrade. He worked his hand up the sleeve of her fur coat and clasped her bare arm, moulding her flesh with his thumb. She saw him flush, and noticed that he drew even nearer to her.

“Mary,” he whispered, first looking round guiltily. “I love you, by God. I love you!”

“Don't say it as though you are apologising, Tom,” she replied, almost irritated.

He stared at her, uncomprehending.

“You're a dark little devil, Mary. What the hell do you mean by that?”

“Not dark now, Tom, transparently silver; a faded old woman.”

He chuckled, and continued to caress her forearm with his thumb, working it up a little higher into the crook of her elbow.

“What must you have been like when you were twenty-five, I wonder!”

They were silent again, listening to the ripple of the river, and the activities of the laundresses. Traffic had begun to fill the streets, and the loiterers on the bridge had to press themselves from time to time against the balustrade to avoid being hit by passing cars and carts. The sunshine fell over all; flaming on roofs, flashing on the stream, on shop-signs, on window-panes. The blue dome overhead was cloudless.

“What a day,” said Tom. “We shall never forget this, Mary. Why can't life go on this way?”

She saw her opportunity.

“We'll make it, Tom. It is in our hands now. We have proved it, darling, surely? These days and nights; what do they mean but that? It is so absolute, so solid. I wish I could say what I want; but words are no use. Do we need to talk about it though? After what we have given to each other—surely not. Nothing can take that from us, Tom; no, whatever happens. But we must
make
things happen the way we want. It is in our hands. Look, darling, I've been thinking about it for days past; ever since Mr. Sturm told us about his change of plan over your nephew. I don't really blame him. He must know what is best in that world of music. I know nothing about it. I wish I did. But I know this, Tom; I am not going to be defeated by one setback. You and I have not much time left; we are no longer young. Let us make the most of the remaining years. I'm going to London with you!”

These last words made him start up. She felt his grasp of her arm relax.

“Who said I was going to London?” he demanded suspiciously. “Luke fetched me over here to get away from this foolish mess. And the lawyers have since agreed with him, and want me to remain while they await what happens. I'm not proud of the job, I can assure you. But
it would be folly to fly in the face of these experts. The trouble is, I'm a damn fool in these matters. I ought never to have gone into that world. But you know, I thought all these financial wallahs were bona-fide chaps, professional men with a standard to keep up. I'd no idea the City was such a sketchy affair, full of chance and duck-shoving—well, I won't say fraud. That's a bit strong.”

He had lost the thread of Mary's argument, and she had to wait while he worked off this touch of bewildered grievance about his late colleagues on the Board of the Guaranty Trust.

“You can't undo all that,” she said, judging her opportunity. “The thing is, that we cannot afford to run away from it, Tom. Nothing is more incriminating, and I am surprised that the lawyers don't realise that.” She did not add that Luke had given her a reason for this; a reason which she now believed invalid. “It is quite obvious that you gain nothing by remaining here, worrying yourself by indecision. It is out of character, Tom. I know you because I love you. I would put my life in your hands. I
have
done so. I don't regret it. I am proud of you. I will come with you and tell the world so, my darling. Tom, Tom! You see what I mean! We must not run away from consequences, either of this business in London, or our conduct here. I believe in paying for what I have.” She drew close to him, and touched him, mutely imploring him to return to her from his reverie. “And for what you have given me, Tom, I would pay for with my soul, everything I've got!”

The force of her words, accompanied by the enhancement of her beauty as she looked into his face, eager, resolute, conquered his diffidence and fears.

He stood upright, both arms outstretched, with his fists clasped and resting on the coping. She could see the struggle in his mind. His mouth was set grimly, and from moment to moment he frowned, as though something, a
cobweb or a hair, were irritatingly touching his face. Suddenly he turned to her, and took her hands, losing all self-consciousness.

“Mary, I see what you mean. If we go back, then, you will come with me? I can do that. Maybe these lawyers are wrong. I don't care. I may get into trouble for having been a gullible fool. Does that matter? But what if it means disgrace, a term in prison? Good God, what an idea! But how would this affect us?”

She was in his arms now, and they stood on the middle of the bridge, locked together like a pair of adolescents.

“That would be all right,” she said quietly. “I would wait for you, and we could start again when you came to me. For you
would
come to me, Tom, no matter what happens?”

His reply, which she no longer doubted, was drowned by a cry from one of the washerwomen, who had suddenly noticed this elderly pair of foreigners making love on the bridge.

“Hi!” shouted the woman, in a rich scream, as she waved a pair of knickers to add to her comment, “Lucky little man! Look at them! You have a ripe apple there, my boy!”

Work by the waterside was suspended while the rest of the chorus joined in, waving other suggestive garments, and adding appreciative decorations to the first comment, most of which were fortunately incomprehensible or too shrill to be interpreted by the English ear.

Mary was not disconcerted. On the contrary, she welcomed this healthy assistance. After all, she told herself, here is evidence of the vitality which Tom and I have discovered for ourselves and in ourselves. It will bring us through. I can face anything now. I shall win.

“Come along, old girl,” said Tom, who had been laughing good-humouredly, though his face was red with boyish embarrassment at having been observed, and also
for having given occasion for being caught. “We'd better make ourselves small.”

But he was not retreating in reality. She knew that. His whole appearance reassured her. He was laughing, he strode forward gaily, taking her under the arm and almost carrying her off the bridge. He raised his hat to the women, a gesture of playful defiance and congratulation—to them, and to himself. He was on top of the world.

This mood did not change during the drive back to Paris. They talked of their plans, and by the time they reached the suburbs they had agreed on an immediate return, next morning, to London, where they would temporarily put up at an hotel while taking what steps were necessary for Tom to plunge into the legal maelstrom.

“It's all settled now, Tom,” said Mary, as they walked from the garage to the Rue Boissonade. Night had fallen, and a mist filled the streets, falling in frost that touched the pavements, the trees, and all flat surfaces with a deathly tint of grey. “You go to-morrow, eh?”

He was troubled. She felt him trembling, and heard him draw a deep breath. She clung to him, and put her cheek against his shoulder, murmuring, “What is it, my love? what is it?”

“You said, ‘
you
go to-morrow'. That sounds bad, Mary. Look here, I'm not so sure of myself. I can't face it without you, old lady. That's the truth. I can't face it without you. Remember that. You mean
we
go, don't you, Mary, don't you? Tell me!”

“My darling, of course. It is
we
. I shall never leave you now.”