Giant's Bread (17 page)

Americans were rather long-winded – he was getting tired of the sound of Chetwynd's voice. If only dinner could come to an end! If he and Nell could wander together under the trees.

Wandering with Nell wasn't easy. He was foiled by Mrs Vereker. She asked him questions about his mother and Joe, kept him by her side. He was no match for her in tactics. He had to stay there, answer, pretend he liked it.

There was only one crumb of comfort. Nell was walking with the old boy – not with Dacre.

Suddenly they encountered friends. Everyone stood talking. It was his chance. He found his way to Nell's side.

‘Come with me – do. Quickly – now.'

He had done it! He had got her away from the others. He was hurrying so that she had almost to run to keep up with him, but she didn't say anything – didn't protest or make a joke about it.

The voices sounded from farther and farther away. He could hear other sounds now – the hurried unevenness of Nell's breathing. Was that because they had walked so fast – he didn't somehow think it was.

He slowed up. They were alone now – alone in the world. They couldn't have been more alone, he felt, on a desert island.

He must say something – something ordinary and commonplace. Otherwise she might think of going back to the others – and he couldn't bear that. Lucky she didn't know how his heart was beating – in great throbs, right up in his throat somewhere.

He said abruptly:

‘I've gone into my uncle's business, you know.'

‘Yes, I know. Do you like it?'

A cool, sweet voice. No trace of agitation in it now.

‘I don't like it much. I expect I shall get to, though.'

‘I suppose it will be more interesting when you understand it more.'

‘I don't see how it ever could be. It's making the shanks of buttons, you know.'

‘Oh, I see – no, that doesn't sound very thrilling.'

There was a pause, and then she said, very softly:

‘Do you hate it very much, Vernon?'

‘I'm afraid I do.'

‘I'm awfully sorry. I – I understand just how you feel.'

If someone understood, it made the whole world different. Adorable Nell! He said unsteadily:

‘I say, that's – that's most awfully sweet of you.'

Another pause – one of those pauses that are heavy with the weight of latent emotion. Nell seemed to take fright. She said rather hurriedly:

‘Weren't you – I mean, I thought you were taking up music?'

‘I was. I – I gave that up.'

‘But why? Isn't that the most awful pity?'

‘It's the thing I wanted to do most in the world. But it's no good. I've got to make some money somehow –' Should he tell her? Was this the moment? No, he daren't – he simply daren't. He blundered on quickly. ‘You see, Abbots Puissants – you remember Abbots Puissants?'

‘Of course. Why, Vernon, we were talking about it the other day.'

‘Sorry. I'm stupid tonight. Well, you see I want awfully to live there again some day.'

‘I think you're wonderful.'

‘Wonderful?'

‘Yes. To give up everything you cared about and set to like you are doing. It's splendid!'

‘It's ripping of you to say that. It makes – oh! you don't know what a difference it makes.'

‘Does it?' said Nell in a very low voice. ‘I'm glad.'

She thought to herself: ‘I ought to go back. Oh! I ought to go back. Mother will be very angry about this. What am I doing? I ought to go back and listen to George Chetwynd, but he's so
dull
. Oh, God, don't let Mother be very cross.'

And she walked on by Vernon's side. She felt out of breath – strange – what was the matter with her? If only Vernon would say something. What was he thinking about?

She said in a would-be detached voice:

‘How's Joe?'

‘Very artistic at present. I thought perhaps you might have been seeing something of each other as you were both in town?'

‘I've seen her once, I think. That's all.' She paused and then added, rather diffidently: ‘I don't think Joe likes me.'

‘Nonsense. Of course she does.'

‘No, she thinks I'm frivolous, that I only care for social things – dances and parties.'

‘Nobody who really knew you could think that.'

‘I don't know. I feel awfully – well, stupid sometimes.'

‘You? Stupid?'

That warm incredulous voice. Darling Vernon. He did think her nice, then. Her mother had been right.

They came to a little bridge across some water. They walked on to it, stood there, side by side, leaning over, looking down on the water below.

Vernon said in a choked kind of voice:

‘It's jolly here.'

‘Yes.'

It was coming – it was coming. She couldn't have defined what she meant, but that was the feeling. The world standing still, gathering itself for a leap and a spring.

‘Nell –'

Why did her knees feel so shaky? Why did her voice sound so far away?

‘Yes.'

Was that queer little ‘Yes' hers?

‘Oh, Nell –'

He had got to tell her. He must.

‘I love you so – I do love you so –'

‘Do you?'

It couldn't be her speaking? What an idiotic thing to say! ‘Do you?' Her voice sounded stiff and unnatural.

His hand found hers. His hand was hot – hers was cold – they both shook.

‘Could you – do you – do you think you could ever manage to love me?'

She answered, hardly knowing what she was saying. ‘I don't know.'

They continued to stand there like dazed children, hand in hand, lost in a kind of rapture that was almost fear.

Something must happen soon. They didn't know what.

Out of the darkness two figures appeared – a hoarse laugh, a girl's giggle.

‘So here you are! What a romantic spot!'

The green girl and that ass Dacre. Nell said something, a saucy something – said it with the utmost self-possession – women were wonderful. She moved out into the moonlight – calm, detached, at ease. They all walked together, talking, chaffing each other. They found George Chetwynd with Mrs Vereker on the lawn. He looked very glum, Vernon thought.

Mrs Vereker was distinctly nasty to him. Her manner when bidding him goodbye was quite offensive.

He didn't care. All he wanted was to get away and lose himself in an orgy of remembrance.

He'd told her – he'd told her. He'd asked her whether she loved him – yes, he had dared to do that, and instead of laughing at him, she had said, ‘
I don't know
.'

But that meant – that meant – Oh! it was incredible! Nell, fairy-like Nell, so wonderful, so inaccessible. She loved him, or at least, she was willing to love him.

He wanted to walk on and on through the night. Instead he had to catch the midnight train to Birmingham. Damn! If he could only have walked – walked till morning.

With a little green hat and a magic flute, like the prince in that tale!

Suddenly he saw the whole thing in music – the high tower and the princess's cascade of golden hair – and the eerie haunting tune of the prince's pipe which called the princess out from her tower.

Insensibly, this music was more in accordance with recognized canons than Vernon's original conception had been. It was adapted to the limits of known dimensions, though at the same time, the inner vision remained unaltered.

He heard the music of the tower – the round globular music of the princess's jewels – and the gay, wild, lawless strain of the vagabond prince, ‘Come out, my love, come out –'

He walked through the bare drab streets of London as through an enchanted world. The black mass of Paddington station loomed up before him.

In the train he didn't sleep. Instead, on the back of an envelope, he wrote microscopic notes. ‘Trumpets', ‘French Horns', ‘Cor Anglais', and alongside them lines and curves that to his understanding represented what he heard.

He was happy …

‘I'm ashamed of you. What can you be thinking of?'

Mrs Vereker was very angry. Nell stood before her, dumb and lovely.

Her mother uttered a few more virulent and incisive words, then turned and left the room without saying good night.

Ten minutes later, as Mrs Vereker completed her preparations for the night, she suddenly laughed to herself – a grim chuckle.

‘I needn't have been so angry with the child. As a matter of fact, it will do George Chetwynd good. Wake him up. He needed prodding.'

She turned out her light and slept, satisfied.

Nell lay awake. Again and again she went over the evening, trying to recapture each feeling, each word that had been spoken.

What had Vernon said? What had she answered? Queer that she couldn't remember.

He had asked her whether she loved him – what had she said to that? She couldn't tell. But in the darkness the scene rose up before her eyes – she felt her hand in Vernon's, heard his voice, husky and ill-assured. She shut her eyes, lost in a hazy delicious dream.

Life was so lovely – so lovely …

‘Then you can't love me!'

‘Oh, but, Vernon, I do. If you'd only try and understand.'

They faced each other desperately, bewildered by this sudden rift between them – by the queer unexpected vagaries of life. One minute they had been so near that each thought even had seemed to be shared by the other – now they were poles apart, angry and hurt by the other's lack of comprehension.

Nell turned away with a little gesture of despair and sank down on a chair.

Why was it all like this? Why couldn't things stay as they ought to be, as you had felt they were going to be for ever? That evening at Ranelagh – and the night afterwards when she had lain awake, wrapped in a happy dream. Enough that night just to know that she was loved. Why, even her mother's scathing words had failed to upset her. They had come from so far away. They couldn't penetrate that shining web of misty dream.

She had woken up happy the next morning. Her mother had been pleasant, had said nothing more. Wrapped in her secret thoughts Nell had gone through the day doing all the usual things, chattering with friends, walking in the park, lunching, teaing, dancing. Nobody, she was sure, could have noticed anything different, and yet all the time she herself was conscious of that one deep strand underneath everything else. Just for a minute, sometimes, she would lose the thread of what she was saying, she would remember, ‘Oh, Nell, I do love you so –' The moonlight on the dark water. His hand in hers … A little shiver and she would recall herself hastily, chatter, laugh. Oh, how happy one could be – how happy she had been.

Then she had wondered if, perhaps, he would write. She watched for the post, her heart giving little throbs whenever the postman knocked. It came the second day. She hid it beneath a pile of others, kept it till she went up to bed, then opened it with a beating heart.

‘Oh, Nell! – oh, darling Nell! Did you really mean it? I've written three letters to you and torn them up. I'm so afraid of saying something that might make you angry. Because perhaps you didn't mean it after all. But you did, didn't you? You are so lovely, Nell, and I do love you so dreadfully. I'm always thinking about you, the whole time. I make awful mistakes at the office just because I'm thinking about you. But – oh, Nell, I will work so hard. I want so dreadfully to see you. When can I come up to town? I must see you. Darling, darling Nell, I want to say such lots and lots of things, and I can't in a letter, and, anyway, perhaps I'm boring you. Write and tell me when I can see you. Very soon, please. I shall go mad if I can't see you very soon.

‘Yours ever,

‘Vernon.'

She read it again and again, put it under her pillow when she slept, read it again the next morning. She was so happy, so dreadfully happy. It was not till the day after that she wrote to him. When the pen was in her hand she felt stiff and awkward. She didn't know what to say.

Dear Vernon –

Was that silly? Ought she to say Dearest Vernon? Oh, no, she couldn't – she couldn't.

‘Dear Vernon, – Thank you for your letter.'

A long pause. She bit the stem of her penholder and gazed in an agonized way at the wall in front of her.

‘A party of us are going to the Howards' dance on Friday. Will you dine here first and come with us? Eight o'clock.'

A longer pause. She'd got to say something – she wanted to say something. She bent over, and wrote hastily.

‘I want to see you too – very much. Yours, Nell.'

He wrote back:

‘Dear Nell, – I'd love to come on Friday. Thanks ever so much. Yours, – Vernon.'

A little panic swept over her when she read it. Had she offended him? Did he think she ought to have said more in her letter? Happiness fled. She lay awake, miserable, uncertain, hating herself in case it had been her fault.

Then had come Friday night. The moment she saw him she knew it was all right. Their eyes met across the room. The world changed back to radiant happiness again.

They did not sit near each other at dinner. It was not till the third dance at the Howards' that they were able really to speak to each other. They moved round the crowded room, gyrating in a deep-toned, sentimental waltz. He whispered:

‘I haven't asked for too many dances, have I?'

‘No.'

Queer how absolutely tongue-tied it made her feel being with Vernon. He held her just a minute longer when the music stopped. His fingers tightened over hers. She looked at him and smiled. They were both deliriously happy. In a few minutes he was dancing with another girl, talking airily in her ear, Nell was dancing with George Chetwynd. Once or twice her eyes met Vernon's and they both smiled very faintly. Their secret was so wonderful.