Until the Colours Fade (34 page)

Tom paced up and down the room, now and then glancing at the clock, and always listening for footsteps, longing for the door to open, and knowing that if at that moment she were to come in smiling with some transparently improbable excuse, he would at once feel happy again. He despised himself for his weakness, but could not help himself. Nor was he comforted by the thought
that her lack of consideration increased his feeling of
attachment
. He accused himself of being a grovelling parvenu, of having allowed Helen’s superficial social graces to blind him to her underlying selfishness, of being seduced by the beauty and grandeur of the house, of having had his head turned by a little attention. What if her encouragement, which had led him to hope so fondly, had been a device to destroy his already slender powers of resistance? Everything part of a deliberate plan to humiliate him for ever having supposed himself deserving of being her lover? When he had been sure that her love was
genuine
, he had felt a god, capable of anything, brilliant, witty,
self-assured
and entirely worthy of her. Just an hour of doubt and he could not tell how she could ever have seen him as anything other than plodding, gauche and ordinary. He tried to think of
something
amusing and cutting to say when she might eventually appear, but could only contrive remarks that would sound bitter or spiteful. Lightness of touch was what he believed she valued most but, obsessed as he was with the seriousness of his emotions, everything he thought of seemed portentous and over-earnest. Either that, or he would chatter incoherently because of his
nervousness
. Lovers always said banal and stupid things to each other and found in the most commonplace ideas truth and
profundity
; but, if one were doting and the other detached, matters were very different.

Tom suspected that his only salvation lay in saying and doing little, in the hope that she would find such inaction enigmatic and perplexing. If he confessed his fears, he was certain he would be lost. Never must he admit that he found it all but impossible to think of anything other than her, that her most trivial actions seemed significant to him, that he could hardly concentrate enough to read a book, that he was in constant dread lest a chance remark of his might destroy the impression of him which had initially aroused her interest.

Just before eleven, Helen’s lady’s maid came in and told him that her ladyship could not sit and sent her apologies. When the girl had gone, Tom was left with a strong impression that she had looked at him strangely. Was it possible that his feelings were
evident
even to the servants?
Even
to the servants. The pattern of his thought shocked him. Had he come to think of himself as so different from these people, whose condition was much closer to his own than Helen’s or Catherine’s? Small wonder if it should be one of them to find him out. The idea of eyes following him and ears listening to him at table or from doorways made him
panic. He sank down in a chair and stared blindly at the swirling patterns in the carpet, imagining himself facing the admiral. The thought was so humiliating and terrible that he could not
envisage
any line of defence or justification. And Magnus – what would Magnus think? Magnus who had become his closest friend, whose friendship until a few days ago had been the single most important tie in the world, whose help had procured him his present employment. Magnus hated his father, but however intense that hatred, he could not be expected to welcome the news that his friend had become a lover of the woman his father intended to marry. As it was, his treatment of Catherine might lead her to try to turn Magnus against him, and given any
additional
opportunity her success could be guaranteed. Tom
foresaw
Magnus asking him to promise never to see or write to Helen. In his present state of mind he doubted whether he could give any such undertaking. But lose Magnus’s friendship – Tom buried his face in the angle of the back of his chair. He thought of his friend on the night he had watched him gamble at Bentley’s, recalled his manner of speaking, his courage on the day of the election, his indefatigable capacity for making plans and
carrying
them out. For a few minutes Tom was nearly convinced that he would after all have the strength of mind to pack his things and leave. A moment later Helen came in wearing her black riding habit; she came up to him, and touching his cheek lightly with the tips of the fingers of a gloved hand, said lightly:

‘A ride in the gig, Mr Strickland?’

The easy almost mocking confidence of her gesture coupled with the formality of her address made his heart swell. No doubts of him in her mind. She was looking at him expectantly through her veil, her head slightly inclined, her lips parted. He noticed her breath just moving the thin gauze. The servants, Catherine, Magnus, each and every one of his objections died before he had time to think them. Instead he nodded assent and followed her from the room, trying to disguise the elated spring in his step and the wild happiness, which made his face ache from the effort of concealment.

*

The horse stepping high, the tall wheels whirling so that the spokes blurred and merged, and the light open carriage cracking along at a fine pace with harness ringing and leather creaking, the wind cool in their faces as a long white cloud of dust billowed out behind. The effrontery: to drive him herself in a two-seat gig from the front portico, down the drive through the lodge-gates,
raising her whip to the gatekeeper as he ran out to open the heavy wrought-iron gates and smiling at his daughter helping him. All the time Tom sat impassively beside her, staring at the stone griffins on the flanking piers and longing to ask her where they were going, but remaining true to his determination to say little. She had taken the initiative; let her keep it.

When Helen had asked Tom to come with her, she had done so on impulse, really having intended to get away on her own to think. Since giving in to Humphrey, she had felt in a strange mood – sad because afraid for him, but carefree because she had appeased her conscience: as if by freeing him, her selflessness had granted her a brief dispensation to think only of herself. One moment she felt like saying outrageous things and laughing wildly, the next like listening to or telling a moving story and weeping without restraint. Although she disliked the tarnished and dull midsummer leaves and the parched burnt grass,
everything
around her seemed highly charged and significant as though she had previously seen obscurely through a mist which had suddenly cleared. With no precise plan of where to go she drove to where she had met Charles early that spring.

A very different scene now; the lane luxuriant with rank grass, cow-parsley and flowering dog-roses, the stream a mere trickle choked with ivy-leaved crowfoot and fringed with purple
loosestrife
. But even in this damp place the surrounding rough grass was dry and brittle. Hay-cutting had started in late May and the corn had been golden by early June; never could she remember a drier hotter summer. They crossed the field, Tom carrying a rug, and sat down under the silvery leaves of a willow.

After what seemed to Tom a long silence, she took his hand and raised it to her lips, inclining her head towards him in the same movement; again her initiative sanctioning him, he moved closer and kissed her through her veil, drawing back and then kissing her more lightly several times; once more waiting.
Without
taking her eyes from his face she pulled the fine gauze aside with a slow deliberate gesture, but now both moved together, their lips meeting eagerly. He drew off her gloves and kissed her hands, noticing a few light freckles against the pale skin and the faint blueness of veins.

She held him back for a moment, so that he felt that he had
exceeded
what was expected and looked away to hide his confusion; but when she placed her palms lightly on his cheeks and turned his face towards her, he realised that she had simply wanted to see him better. She reached forward tentatively, almost in
shyness
,
and touched his hair, letting her fingers trail across his cheek down to his neck, looking at him all the while with a
tenderness
and longing that set his heart pounding wildly and brought a dull inner roar to his ears. Her lips moved a little but she did not speak. Incapable of remaining still, he pulled her to him, oblivious of the small pointed buttons on her bodice jacket and the brushing feathers of her hat. They slipped sideways, their bodies clinging and colliding, but without pain, as if falling in air like gliding birds – their element the rapt absorption of their misting eyes and their quickening breath: breathing and seeing together, as one. Her eyes were half-closed and her parted lips searching for his mouth, kissing his ears and neck as he turned away; her fingers stroking the hair at the nape of his neck, loosening his neck-cloth. He jumped up like a man
wrestling
to shake off unseen wires that yield a little but still hold him. She rose too and took his arm, understanding and feeling grateful for his restraint. Still breathing deeply, he bent down and picked up the rug. His shirt was soaked with sweat.

They walked beside the stream towards the bridge, Helen patting her hair as they went to see what damage her chignon had suffered. She touched her veil and felt that it was torn; as she tossed it aside, Tom plucked it from the grass, blushing at such an obvious piece of chivalry, but she smiled at him and
murmured
:

‘Those who play at hide-and-seek in love are not worth
seeking
.’ She sighed and rested her back against the stone arch of the bridge. ‘Even if I pretended to care for the diplomacy of passion and all its tactics and intrigues, we would not have time for them.’ He sensed her changing mood and felt an ache of fear. She squeezed his hand to reassure him. ‘Coming here together was unwise.’

‘Are we never to be alone?’

‘Except for my sittings, no; at least not at Hanley Park.’ She paused and went on rapidly: ‘I have various arrangements to make before the sale of our London house. I had not intended to leave a visit longer than three weeks. We will meet then.’

‘Perhaps I should go sooner than you suggested?’

‘It would be better for us.’

His look of resigned sadness pierced her to the heart.

‘What will you work at when you get back?’ she asked gently.

‘God knows. Perhaps I’ll stare at the wall or drink….’ He shrugged his shoulders and stared down at the sluggish stream, already amazed that he could have thought that absence from
her would be easier than staying and pretending indifference. ‘I may paint what you suggested – the monk and his pig.’

‘I should like that; I should like you to think of me.’

She kissed his cheek, but they did not embrace; like sailors, he thought, after a rough passage, getting used to firm ground and stepping carefully. It seemed terrible to Helen deliberately to be stifling emotions which their every wish and longing had been to prolong and which she had feared she would never know again. Ahead of them, only the uncertainty of moments snatched, of plans unexpectedly overturned, of tensions and tears. Foreseeing such a future, why should he wish to go on loving her? The thought weakened her resolve to send him away so soon.

Beyond the bridge cattle were drinking from the stream, and in the still air numerous bees sought out the white clover in the meadow, their humming interrupted by the sharper chirp of grasshoppers. Clouds were forming above the hazy outline of the distant hills.

Helen imagined arriving in London to discover that he would not see her. Other women would console him; he might confess his unhappiness to Magnus who would mix sympathy with advice to forget her. His work would divert him; being younger than she, he would be more resilient. Although Helen often smiled at the mention of truth and duty, her own honesty did not even now allow her to contemplate marrying a man with the
definitely
formed intention of deceiving him afterwards. Tom’s chances for love would come again; this, she believed, might be her last. They had been silent for some minutes when she took his hand and murmured without looking at him:

‘Come to me tonight.’ She felt his fingers tighten around hers.

‘I don’t know your room,’ he replied, blushing deeply, keenly aware of the bathos of his reply; his skin was tingling and there was a warm throbbing in the muscles of his calves.

‘Then I’ll come to you.’ A moment later she laughed and began pulling on her gloves. ‘I can’t imagine why we should be whispering.’

He said nothing, but started to pick seeds and dry grass from her long black skirt, finally rising and securing a stray lock of hair at her temple. His care for her appearance and his caution made her eyes fill. He had nothing to gain by preserving her reputation – quite the reverse. Only when they were driving home did she wonder whether he had done such things before to avoid discovery. His regular mistress might be a married woman. I know nothing about him; nothing. Yet tonight we will make
love. Helen felt faint with shock. She imagined him showing this other woman her veil, telling her how easily her ladyship had been seduced, how he could now expect more portrait work from her aristocratic friends. She reigned in the horse and looked at him beseechingly.

‘Never talk about me to anybody. I beg you not to.’

‘I won’t; I swear it.’

She shut her eyes for a moment and then nodded.

‘I believe you,’ she replied in a low fervent voice as she lifted the reins. A few minutes later they were approaching the gates.

*

That afternoon Catherine stood in the doorway of the library watching Tom reading; in fact he had managed barely three pages during the hour he had been sitting there. Since their
conversation
in the Sculpture Gallery they had addressed no more than a dozen sentences to each other. Tom heard the rustle of a dress and stood up.