The Light Heart (8 page)

“Must you do this?” he said after a moment.

“Must I—what?”

“Marry a man who can’t face things,” he said, and threw up a hand quickly before she could reply. “No, sorry, I never said that. You know best, of course. Forgive me.”

Phoebe stole a glance at his profile and thought it looked, for him, rather grim. In that instant he turned, and caught her eyes upon him, and gave a sort of half-laugh, and held out his gloved hand to her as they rode.

“I’m not much good as a father, am I,” he said ruefully. “Try me as a friend, will you? I’ll do my best.”

Phoebe put her gloved hand trustfully in his and said, “I feel better now, anyway,” and Oliver said, “Good,” and gave her fingers a quick squeeze and dropped them. Engaged, he was thinking with his closed, one-sided smile. Both of them, then. Well, that settled that. All cards on the table now. Everything understood. Better that way.

“I like what you said about growing up,” she was saying with some diffidence. “You think it’s childish to cry over spilt milk, is that it?”

“Foolish, at least. There’s likely to be lots more in the cow.”

She laughed her surprised, rather belated laughter, as though she had caught the joke just in time.

“You do know how to enjoy life, don’t you!” she said enviously.

“I’m enjoying it very much this morning,” he replied, and the words were warm and comforting. “Perhaps I’m too easily satisfied. It’s spring, after a fashion, and the sun is coming out, I’ve got a good horse and a lovely companion—but suppose I was saying to myself, it won’t always be spring, and at the end of the summer you must rejoin the regiment, marry Maia, set off for India, or Egypt—God knows where—and you may
never see Phoebe Sprague again.” He was not looking at her now, his eyes were on the edge of the wold ahead of them where it met the pale, misty sky. “If I allowed myself to think like that I should be utterly miserable in no time,” he said, almost as though he had forgotten she was there.

It was impossible not to take the words at their full value, impossible to discount them as a mere pretty speech—futile to throw up conventional defences of misunderstanding or
indifference
, even if that had been a game Phoebe knew how to play. She felt herself flooded through with a warm tide like a blush, and her hands were shaking on the reins. She spoke impulsively out of her own swift insurgent need, casting herself on his mercy for guidance in this unforseen, exciting thing that had happened to her because of him—so different, so much more compelling than anything that had ever happened because of Miles.

“And can you teach me how not to mind—too much—before the summer ends?” she asked humbly, and his expressive face turned towards her, lit with amazement and ungovernable delight, so that she had to look away, and fixed her blurred gaze on her horse’s ears. Oliver reached for her bridle and brought the horses to a stop.

“No, let me see,” he commanded softly. “Look at me, Phoebe.”

She obeyed him slowly, but willingly, her lower lip a little out.

“You feel it too, then,” he said, very low. “You would, of course, it couldn’t happen to just one of us. It began at luncheon yesterday—didn’t it?”

“At first I thought it was only me,” she confessed. “But just now, when you said—I realized you must have noticed—something—yourself—” Her voice died away breathlessly, her eyes hung on his steady gaze, shy but not embarrassed, sweet and very candid.

“It was rather like noticing a landslide,” he remarked at last. “And yet I tried all night to think I was imagining things. Tell me—what’s it like with you? Can you think straight? Can you sleep? Can you hear what people are saying to you, and give a
coherent answer? Can you get on with your life in any way, shape or form?”

“No,” said Phoebe, looking back at him fearlessly.

“Nor can I. Thank you for being so honest. Let’s go on being honest, shall we? Now that it’s happened to us, what would you prefer to do about it? Stop right here, which means both of us run like hell and pretend it never was at all—or try to cope with it, get what we can out of it while it lasts, and then let it go—or smash up everything and start again, with two very bad consciences and the whole world before us? And I haven’t even the right to ask you, remember that.”

“Let’s—cope with it,” said Phoebe, looking at him.

“Try to be just friends, knowing very well it will never be enough? That’s the hardest way of all, I think.”

“Half a loaf,” said Phoebe, wondering how she dared.

“I’m not sure,” he murmured, and his eyes were
compassionate
. “It depends on how hungry you are, perhaps.”

“I seem to be starving,” said Phoebe, realizing it at last.

“So am I. Famished. It won’t be simple, you know. People have so many eyes. And the walls have ears.”

“There must be nothing for them to see or hear,” she said bravely. “Only when we’re alone like this will I even dare to look at you—like this. Promise you won’t mind if I seem to snub you when they’re watching.”

“But I shall mind, like anything. And I shall give myself away with every breath I draw, I’m afraid. You won’t believe me, but nothing like this ever happened to me before, and I’ll be thirty in the autumn. How old are you?”

“Twenty-one.”

“Are you, really?” He found this surprising, and searched her defenceless face with his quick, shining eyes—so candid she was, so without veneer and worldly wisdom, as though she had grown up in a convent. What sort of engagement must it be, then, to have left her so unknowing? “What about this Miles?” he heard himself demanding, rather abruptly for him. “Do you mind my asking, he does seem to come into it, rather!”

“He’s my cousin. I’ve loved him all my life. I thought.”

“You’re sure you want to go on with it?”

She nodded.

“I can’t back out on him now. You—feel the same way about Maia, don’t you?”

“Yes, I must. It’s been announced. But this isn’t what I want for you—you were meant for something
more,
you know that, don’t you.”

“I reckon this is all,” said Phoebe and tried to smile, and heard again in her mind Virginia’s sage words in the dog-cart—
a
woman
who
marries
a
professional
soldier
ought
to
be
the
sort
to
fling
herself
into
love
head first
and
not
care
if
it
drowns
her
—and I
don’t
care, Phoebe told herself valiantly—I
wouldn’t
care what became of me if only Oliver went with it—the ends of the earth—come hell or high water—for better, for worse—oh,
Oliver
—

“How honest you are,” he marvelled as though he read her thoughts, not touching her, just holding her bridle, while the horses fidgeted at a standstill in the road.

“It’s not much use trying to hide it from you,” she sighed. “Just sitting there beside you at the table yesterday—it was like being very drunk, I should think—is it always like this to fall in love?”

“No.” He was very grave. “Only once in a million it’s like this. It’s a sin not to do something about it, you know.”

She shook her head.

“I couldn’t go back on Miles. He doesn’t know how to stand up to things.”

“And so I must pay the penalty,” he objected unfairly and repented. “Oh, I know—I can’t jilt a woman, it’s like cheating at cards, it won’t do! So I’m no better than you are. If I were, I might try to change your decision.”

“No, don’t try,” she said quickly. “Don’t let’s waste time arguing about what can’t be helped. Let’s just be happy, while we can.”

“You learn fast,” he said, watching her.

“If only I can! We’ve got—how many weeks?”

“My dear, we shall have only hours together, all told.”

“But even
hours
—when I can talk to you—when I can learn from you—it’s better than nothing!” she insisted hopefully.

He gave his half-laugh, and dropped his hand from her bridle and the horses moved on slowly, side by side.

“I wonder how well I have learned the lesson myself,” he said. “I talk a lot. Now we shall see.”

“I don’t want to make trouble for you,” Phoebe said with her touching docility. “Would you rather we ran?”

“Lesson Number One,” said Oliver, and again all she could see was his profile. “
Never
apologize. You have made all the trouble in the world for me, and it’s
much
too late to apologize!’

“Well, I’m s-sorry,” said Phoebe, drooping in the saddle. “Maybe it would be better after all to just ignore the whole thing and avoid each other.”

“If you talk like that I shall really forget myself,” Oliver threatened, and he was laughing again, because she was so young and so dignified, and so ignorant still of what was before them. Phoebe glanced at him doubtfully when he laughed, confused, but contented just to be in his company, and eager for further revelation.

“What do you want me to say?” she asked.

“Whatever you like, in heavens’ name!” he told her firmly. “Will you do that for me? Will you always utter whatever comes into your funny head, and trust me to make some sort of intelligent guess at what you mean and what the answer is?”

It was what she had done half a dozen times already, with no thought of the pitfalls such a course might present to two people so little acquainted as they were. Even with Miles, she had learned long since, it was dangerous to say the first thing that came into your head, and she and Miles had grown up together. But with Oliver there were no pitfalls. One could relax. One could
let
go, and coast along on his quick comprehension, his uncanny perception, his embracing good will and indulgence. With Oliver there was no thin ice, it was firm footing all the way. One day of him was all you needed to be sure of that.
Phoebe drew a long breath, as though someone had opened a window somewhere inside her.

“Well, then, to begin with, suppose I meet Maia now,” she said frankly. “I feel as though this would be written all over me if she came into the room.”

“I’ll try to make sure that you don’t meet her—at least when I am in the same room,” he promised with equal frankness. “You must watch out for Virginia too, she’s pretty quick.” His eyes rested on her, searching, smiling, and kind. “Darling, you do understand me, don’t you. I don’t expect anything of you—and I won’t demand anything. There’s nothing to feel uneasy about, I promise you.” And he could see quite plainly that what he was trying to convey had not even crossed her mind. Such small risks as stolen kisses and perilous meetings at odd hours and dangerous whisperings in corners would never occur to Phoebe. Except when they were alone, she meant to snub him. It was a bleak prospect for a man whose blood was singing in his veins, but clearly Phoebe would not comprehend the possibility of anything else. “You’ll have nothing on your conscience when you go back to Miles,” he added with an inward sigh.

“Nothing but not loving him,” she said ruefully. “It’s queer—I might never have known that I didn’t. How
can
I feel that I’ve known you forever, when it’s not yet been a whole day?”

“They do it with mirrors,” he told her fatalistically. “We aren’t supposed to understand how it happens, we’re just supposed to say Thank you, and take what’s given to us.”

But we aren’t taking it, thought Phoebe, in her
uncompromising
way. We’re making up our minds to let it go. Shall we be punished for thinking
we
know best and doing what
we
think is right? How do we know it’s best? You’re not supposed to go back on your plighted word, of course. But then why has this other thing happened to us when it’s too late? Surely it was meant for some tiling. Suppose we’re wrong after all, to let it go….

Meanwhile they left the road, dismounted, and walked
through a grassy glade to where the anemones grew beside a stream. Led on by his skilful, sympathetic questions and his attentive silences, Phoebe found herself with all reserves down, telling how she happened to come abroad with her wealthy cousins all of a sudden, as a birthday present, and how Miles had proposed at last just before she left Williamsburg, and how they had bought her a trousseau in New York, and how she hadn’t come to England just to go to parties and wear pretty clothes, but to see things mentioned in the guidebooks and make the most of her opportunities and broaden her mind so that she would be able to write books too, because Cousin Sue had done very well at it, and there wasn’t any money at home except Mother’s and they couldn’t use that, and Miles would never make much as a teacher, and anyway she
wanted
to write books, she always had wanted to since she was a little girl….

It was a thing he came back to more than once, this writing of books. It seemed to amuse him, in a quiet way, that she should want to; it impressed him that Cousin Sue had made a success of it and a living for herself and Great-uncle Ransom, and he wanted to know how you began, and where the words came from, and he appeared to consider it something
tremendously
clever and difficult to do, the way playing the violin had always seemed to Phoebe. She could guess that he didn’t read much himself; a soldier wouldn’t have time for books and no place to own them either, on active service. But she wondered how anybody so fascinating as Oliver was could at the same time be so illiterate and not seem to mind, and found she didn’t mind either—

The novelty of each to the other was complete, the differences of background and habits of thought to be explored were endless. They seemed to have nothing in common but their blind, urgent need to know more of each other, to ask and answer personal questions, to marvel and discover and admire—that and the singing of their veins.

When finally they left the anemones and returned to where
the horses waited, he stood still a moment looking down at her beside her stirrup before she mounted.

“I begin to think we can do it after all,” he said, while his quick, caressing gaze played over her face from the cleft in her chin to the broad, childish brow.