Towards Zero (11 page)

Mary Aldin remained alone, staring at the reflection on the water. The tide was going out. She stretched herself out on the sand, closing her eyes.

They had had a good lunch at the Hotel. It was still quite full although it was past the height of the season. A queer, mixed-looking lot of people. Oh well, it had been a day out. Something to break the monotony of day following day. It had been a relief, too, to get away from that sense of tension, that strung-up atmosphere that there had been lately at Gull's Point. It hadn't been Audrey's fault, but Nevile—

Her thoughts broke up abruptly as Ted Latimer plumped himself down on the beach beside her.

“What have you done with Kay?” Mary asked.

Ted replied briefly:

“She's been claimed by her legal owner.”

Something in his tone made Mary Aldin sit up. She glanced across the stretch of shining golden sands to where Nevile and Kay were walking by the water's edge. Then she glanced quickly at the man beside her.

She had thought of him as nerveless, as queer, as dangerous, even. Now for the first time she got a glimpse of someone young and hurt. She thought:

“He was in love with Kay—really in love with her—and then Nevile came and took her away….”

She said gently:

“I hope you are enjoying yourself down here.”

They were conventional words. Mary Aldin seldom used any words but conventional ones—that was her language. But her tone was an offer—for the first time—of friendliness. Ted Latimer responded to it.

“As much, probably, as I should enjoy myself anywhere.”

Mary said:

“I'm sorry.”

“But you don't care a damn, really! I'm an outsider—and what does it matter what outsiders feel and think.”

She turned her head to look at this bitter and handsome young man.

He returned her look with one of defiance.

She said slowly as one who makes a discovery:

“I see. You don't like us.”

He laughed shortly.

“Did you expect me to?”

She said thoughtfully:

“I suppose, you know, that I did expect just that. One takes, of course, too much for granted. One should be more humble. Yes, it would not have occurred to me that you would not like us. We have tried to make you welcome—as Kay's friend.”

“Yes—as Kay's friend!”

The interruption came with a quick venom.

Mary said with disarming sincerity:

“I wish you would tell me—really I wish it—just why you dislike us? What have we done? What is wrong with us?”

Ted Latimer said, with a blistering emphasis on the one word: “Smug!”

“Smug?” Mary queried it without rancour, examining the charge with judicial appraisement.

“Yes,” she admitted. “I see that we could seem like that.”

“You are like that. You take all the good things of life for granted. You're happy and superior in your little roped-off enclosure shut off from the common herd. You look at people like me as though I were one of the animals outside!”

“I'm sorry,” said Mary.

“It's true, isn't it?”

“No, not quite. We are stupid, perhaps, and unimaginative—but not malicious. I myself am conventional and, superficially, I dare say, what you call smug. But really, you know, I'm quite human inside. I'm very sorry, this minute, because you are unhappy, and I wish I could do something about it.”

“Well—if that's so—it's nice of you.”

There was a pause, then Mary said gently:

“Have you always been in love with Kay?”

“Pretty well.”

“And she?”

“I thought so—until Strange came along.”

Mary said gently:

“And you're still in love with her?”

“I should think that was obvious.”

After a moment or two, Mary said quietly:

“Hadn't you better go away from here?”

“Why should I?”

“Because you are only letting yourself in for more unhappiness.”

He looked at her and laughed.

“You're a nice creature,” he said. “But you don't know much about the animals prowling about outside your little enclosure. Quite a lot of things may happen in the near future.”

“What sort of things?” said Mary sharply.

“Wait and see.”

VIII

When Audrey had dressed she went along the beach and out along a jutting point of rocks, joining Thomas Royde, who was sitting there smoking a pipe exactly opposite to Gull's Point, which stood white and serene on the opposite side of the river.

Thomas turned his head at Audrey's approach, but he did not move. She sat down beside him without speaking. They were silent with the comfortable silence of two people who know each other very well indeed.

“How near it looks,” said Audrey at last, breaking the silence.

Thomas looked across at Gull's Point.

“Yes, we could swim home.”

“Not at this tide. There was a housemaid Camilla had once. She was an enthusiastic bather, used to swim across and back whenever the tide was right. It has to be low or high—but when it's running out it sweeps you right down to the mouth of the river. It did that to her one day—only luckily she kept her head and came ashore all right on Easter Point—only very exhausted.”

“It doesn't say anything about its being dangerous here.”

“It isn't this side. The current is the other side. It's deep there under the cliffs. There was a would-be suicide last year—threw himself off Stark Head—but he was caught by a tree halfway down the cliff and the coastguards got to him all right.”

“Poor devil,” said Thomas. “I bet he didn't thank them. Must be sickening to have made up your mind to get out of it all and then be saved. Makes a fellow feel a fool.”

“Perhaps he's glad now,” suggested Audrey dreamily.

She wondered vaguely where the man was now and what he was doing.

Thomas puffed away at his pipe. By turning his head very slightly he could look at Audrey. He noted her grave absorbed face as she stared across the water. The long brown lashes that rested on the pure line of the cheek, the small shell-like ear.

That reminded him of something.

“Oh by the way, I've got your earring—the one you lost last night.”

His fingers delved into his pocket. Audrey stretched out a hand.

“Oh good, where did you find it? On the terrace?”

“No. It was near the stairs. You must have lost it as you came down to dinner. I noticed you hadn't got it at dinner.”

“I'm glad to have it back.”

She took it. Thomas reflected that it was rather a large barbaric earring for so small an ear. The ones she had on today were large, too.

He remarked:

“You wear your earrings even when you bathe. Aren't you afraid of losing them?”

“Oh, these are very cheap things. I hate being without earrings because of this.”

She touched her left ear. Thomas remembered.

“Oh yes, that time old Bouncer bit you.”

Audrey nodded.

They were silent, reliving a childish memory. Audrey Standish (as she then was), a long spindle-legged child, putting her face down on old Bouncer who had had a sore paw. A nasty bite, he had given her. She had had to have a stitch put in it. Not that there was much to show now—just the tiniest little scar.

“My dear girl,” he said, “you can hardly see the mark. Why do you mind?”

Audrey paused before answering with evident sincerity:

“It's because—because I just can't bear a
blemish.
”

Thomas nodded. It fitted in with his knowledge of Audrey—of her instinct for perfection. She was in herself so perfectly finished an article.

He said suddenly:

“You're far more beautiful than Kay.”

She turned quickly.

“Oh no, Thomas. Kay—Kay is really lovely.”

“On the outside. Not underneath.”

“Are you referring,” said Audrey with faint amusement, “to my beautiful soul?”

Thomas knocked out the ashes of his pipe.

“No,” he said. “I think I mean your bones.”

Audrey laughed.

Thomas packed a new pipeful of tobacco. They were silent for quite five minutes, but Thomas glanced at Audrey more than once though he did it so unobtrusively that she was unaware of it.

He said at last quietly:

“What's wrong, Audrey?”

“Wrong? What do you mean by wrong?”

“Wrong with you. There's something.”

“No, there's nothing. Nothing at all.”

“But there is.”

She shook her head.

“Won't you tell me?”

“There's nothing to tell.”

“I suppose I'm being a chump—but I've got to say it—” He paused. “Audrey—can't you forget about it? Can't you let it all go?”

She dug her small hands convulsively into the rock.

“You don't understand—you can't begin to understand.”

“But Audrey, my dear, I do. That's just it. I
know.
”

She turned a small doubtful face to him.

“I know exactly what you've been through. And—and what it must have meant to you.”

She was very white now, white to the lips.

“I see,” she said. “I didn't think—anyone knew.”

“Well, I do. I—I'm not going to talk about it. But what I want to impress upon you is that it's all over—it's past and done with.”

She said in a low voice:

“Some things don't pass.”

“Look here, Audrey, it's no good brooding and remembering. Granted you've been through Hell. It does no good to go over and over a thing in your mind. Look forward—not back. You're quite young. You've got your life to live and most of that is in front of you now. Think of tomorrow, not of yesterday.”

She looked at him with a steady wide-eyed gaze that was singularly unrevealing of her real thoughts.

“And supposing,” she said, “that I can't do that.”

“But you must.”

Audrey said gently:

“I thought you didn't understand. I'm—I'm not quite normal about—some things, I suppose.”

He broke in roughly,

“Rubbish. You—” He stopped.

“I—what?”

“I was thinking of you as you were when you were a girl—before you married Nevile. Why did you marry Nevile?”

Audrey smiled.

“Because I fell in love with him.”

“Yes, yes, I know that. But why did you fall in love with him? What attracted you to him so much?”

She crinkled her eyes as though trying to see through the eyes of a girl now dead.

“I think,” she said, “it was because he was so ‘positive.' He was always so much the opposite of what I was, myself. I always felt shadowy—not quite real. Nevile was very real. And so happy and sure of himself and so—everything that I was not.” She added with a smile: “And very good-looking.”

Thomas Royde said bitterly:

“Yes, the ideal Englishman—good at sport, modest, good-looking, always the little pukka sahib—getting everything he wanted all along the line.”

Audrey sat very upright and stared at him.

“You hate him,” she said slowly. “You hate him very much, don't you?”

He avoided her eyes, turning away to cup a match in his hands as he relit the pipe, that had gone out.

“Wouldn't be surprising if I did, would it?” he said indistinctly. “He's got everything that I haven't. He can play games, and swim and dance, and talk. And I'm a tongue-tied oaf with a crippled arm. He's always been brilliant and successful and I've always been a dull dog. And he married the only girl I ever cared for.”

She made a faint sound. He said savagely:

“You've always known that, haven't you? You knew I cared
about you ever since you were fifteen. You know that I still care—”

She stopped him.

“No. Not now.”

“What do you mean—not now?”

Audrey got up. She said in a quiet reflective voice:

“Because—now—I am different.”

“Different in what way?”

He got up too and stood facing her.

Audrey said in a quick rather breathless voice:

“If you don't know, I can't tell you…I'm not always sure myself. I only know—”

She broke off, and turning abruptly away she walked quickly back over the rocks towards the Hotel.

Turning a corner of the cliff she came across Nevile. He was lying full length peering into a rock pool. He looked up and grinned.

“Hullo, Audrey.”

“Hullo, Nevile.”

“I'm watching a crab. Awfully active little beggar. Look, there he is.”

She knelt down and stared where he pointed.

“See him?”

“Yes.”

“Have a cigarette?”

She accepted one and he lighted it for her. After a moment or two, during which she did not look at him, he said, nervously:

“I say, Audrey?”

“Yes.”

“It's all right, isn't it? I mean—between us.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

“I mean—we're friends and all that.”

“Oh yes—yes, of course.”

“I do want us to be friends.”

He looked at her anxiously. She gave him a nervous smile.

He said conversationally:

“It's been a jolly day, hasn't it? Weather good and all that?”

“Oh yes—yes.”

“Quite hot really for September.”

There was a pause.

“Audrey—”

She got up.

“Your wife wants you. She's waving to you.”

“Who—oh, Kay.”

“I said your wife.”

He scrambled to his feet and stood looking at her.

He said in a very low voice:

“You're my wife, Audrey….”

She turned away. Nevile ran down on to the beach and across the sand to join Kay.