The Woman Who Had Imagination (8 page)

He walked along by the lake. The grass was spongy and noiseless to walk on, the air very still and warm under the shelter of the rhododendrons, and pigeons made a soft complaint in the silence.

Abruptly he was aware of something moving on the opposite bank. He half stopped and looked. It seemed like a group of yellow irises fluttered by a little deliberate wind. Then he saw that it was someone in a yellow dress. The sleeve was waving. He stopped quite still. The sleeve seemed to be making signals for him to go on.

He began to walk slowly along the bank and the woman on the opposite bank began to walk along in the same direction, hurrying. At the end of the lake, where the water sluiced in, was a wooden bridge. The woman began to run as she approached it. Her dress was very long and hampered her movements and she paused on the bridge to straighten her skirt and then hurried on again to meet him.

‘You shouldn't come along here, you know,' she began to say, as she approached him.

She seemed to be very agitated. Henry stopped. He felt that she had not recognised him.

‘I am very sorry,' he said.

And then, perhaps because of his voice, she recognised him. Her face broke into a half smile, but the agitation remained:

‘But you shouldn't, you shouldn't,' she kept saying.

‘But it was you who told me to come.'

‘It makes no difference.'

He did not speak. All this time they had stood at a distance from each other, four or five yards between them. Now she came nearer. In the house he had thought of her as very young, a girl. Now, as she came nearer, she seemed much older. He took her now for twenty-seven or eight. And perhaps because of the yellow dress she seemed darker too. Her eyes were utterly black, not merely dark, and brilliant without the faintest mistiness, like black glass. And she seemed taller also and her body finer in shape, again perhaps because of the yellow dress, and her skin had a kind of creamy duskiness, soft, very smooth, a rich duskiness that had covered also her heavy southern lips and her straight black hair.

Staring at her, he was still at a loss for something to say. She had begun to bite her lower lip, hard, making little white teeth-prints on the dusky flesh, as though in agitation or perplexity. And it occurred to him suddenly why she did not want him there. She had
come down not to meet him, but someone else. And she was angry and troubled at finding him there.

‘I'm very sorry,' he said again. ‘But I'll go at once.'

He put his hand to his straw hat. She startled him by saying instantly:

‘I'll walk back with you.' And then added: ‘I'm going back the same way.'

It looked as if she didn't trust him. But he said nothing. A path slanted up the slope through the rhododendrons and they began to walk up it. The rhododendrons, old wild misshapen bushes, were full of withered seed-heads. He said something about their having looked wonderful in early summer. She did not answer. He thought she seemed preoccupied. Once, without stopping, she glanced back at the lake as though looking for someone, and as she turned back he remarked:

‘It's been a wonderful day.'

‘Yes,' she said. She said it unthinkingly, the word meant nothing. And suddenly she added:

‘You think so?'

And, as she spoke, she was smiling, an extraordinary smile, vivacious, dark, allusive. It had in it something both tender and mocking.

‘You don't think so?' she said.

‘No, perhaps not.'

She seemed to feel instinctively that he was bored.
He felt it. And he felt that she might have triumphed over him for knowing, but she said nothing, and they walked slowly on up the path.

All the time he wondered why she had been so agitated at finding him by the lake. And finally he asked.

‘I didn't recognise you,' she said.

That was all. He didn't believe her. And she sensed his unbelief at once. She looked quickly at him and he smiled. She smiled in return, the same vivacious tender smile as before, and in a moment they were intimate. She said then:

‘I didn't want you to get into any unpleasantness, that's all.'

‘What unpleasantness?'

‘Well, the lake is private. The fish are preserved and there are keepers and so on.'

He said nothing, but at heart he was disappointed at leaving the lake.

‘You're not disappointed?' she said at once.

‘Yes,' he said.

And then she did an extraordinary thing. She suddenly lifted her arms with a gesture of almost mocking abandonment and declared:

‘All right. We'll go back.'

He protested. But she turned and began to walk back down the path to the lake, not heeding him. He turned and followed her, a yard or two behind, protesting again. And suddenly she let out a laugh and
began to run. For a moment he stood still with astonishment and then he ran after her.

At the bottom of the path she paused and waited for him. She was still laughing.

‘What shall we do?' she said recklessly. ‘There's a punt. We could go out on the lake.'

‘All right.' He was ready for anything.

And then, as suddenly as she had turned and run down the path, she was saying:

‘No, I mustn't. You must excuse me. I must go back.'

‘Don't go,' he said.

She caught the tone of entreaty in his voice. And it seemed to hurt her. Her eyes filled with pain, then abruptly with swimming wetness, and he stood still, too astounded to speak, while she bent her head and let the tears fall helplessly down her face. She began to cry with the helplessness of utter dejection, like someone worn out, not even lifting her hands to her face to hide it, but letting them hang spiritlessly at her side, not moving. She hardly made a sound, as though her tears were flooding away her strength. And when gradually she ceased crying and at last lifted her head she never uttered a word of apology or excuse or regret. But she gave him one amazing look, her black eyes swimming with many conflicting emotions; anger, helplessness, dejection, bitterness, fear and pain.

A moment later they were walking back up the path
again. He could not speak. She dried her eyes with the sleeve of her dress, making a little yellow handkerchief of it. He felt that there was something unforgettably strange and touching about her, about her beauty, her amazing changes of mood, her tears and her silence.

And just as he had given up the idea of her ever speaking again, she made a sort of excuse, half for her tears, half for her behaviour on first seeing him:

‘My brother might be very angry if he knew people had been down by the lake. And that might mean the end of the singing contests.'

That was all. It was very lame, very unconvincing, but he said:

‘I understand.'

She must have felt that the excuse was poor and that he didn't understand, for a moment later she began to tell him, half apologetically, something about her brother: of how he was passionately fond of music, of singing especially. Twenty years before, her father had brought her mother to live there. Her father had been an English doctor and her mother Italian, an opera singer, a very gay woman, but a little irresponsible. Now that her father and mother were dead the brother and sister lived alone in the place and the brother devoted himself to music.

‘He lives for nothing else,' she concluded.

She told him all this quietly, a little disjointedly, offering it as an excuse. But there was a curious
bitterness in her voice, sharpest when she said ‘He lives for nothing else.' He said nothing at all and by the time she had finished speaking they had reached the crest of the path.

There they paused. Across the park, through the thick summer trees, they could see the tent with its flags, the fluttering panorama of dresses across the lawns, the flowers on the terraces. And as they stood there the evening singing began, the harmony of male voices low and soft but very clear on the still evening air. They listened a moment; the choir was singing ‘Calm was the Sea', and the voices, falling, crooned away almost to silence. There was a gate in the iron fence beyond the rhododendrons. The woman put her hand on the latch and he pushed it open and she slipped through and before he could say anything she smiled and was going away in the direction of the trees.

Just before she disappeared she turned as if to wave her hand and then, as though remembering something, she let it fall loosely to her side.

It was nearly midnight, the sky was clear and dark, a pattern of blue and starlight. Down the avenue of elms the line of conveyances gave departing winks of light. The horses hoofs made hollow clock-clocking echoes under the roof of thick leaves. The air was still
warm. There was a scent of limes, an odour of horses, an acrid whiff of candles from the carriage lamps. Above the noises of departure a thin emasculate voice kept piping continually:

‘T'ank you a t'ousand times! T'ank you a t'ousand times. T'ank you so much.'

It was all over. Henry was in the brake, squeezed between the fishmonger and the school teacher who sat half lost already in a pair of dark entwining arms; the brake was moving away, the lamplight was shining down the avenue, the lawn with its web of fairy-lights, azure and red and emerald and gold, was receding, fading, vanishing at last.

‘Well, it's been a grand day. And if you ask me we done well. Yes, it's been grand. I'm satisfied. I shan't be sorry when I'm going up wooden hill, now. I like my rest.' The voices of the women were tired, disjointed, the words broken by yawns. A mutter of dissatisfaction ran among the men. They had won the second prize, there had been some unfairness, they had expected the first, they were sure of it, they had sung beautifully. The judges were too old, they were finicky, they had been prejudiced. The voices of the men, discussing it, were petty, regretful. ‘A day wasted, I call it.' Little arguments flamed up in the darkness. ‘Ah! not so strong. It's been grand.' Jokes cracked out, someone made the sweet wet sound of a kiss, laughter flickered and died, the petty arguments were renewed. A woman suddenly complained: ‘There! and I forgot
my honeysuckle,' and a voice quietened her from the darkness: ‘Come here and I'll give you something sweeter'n honeysuckle.'

The brake went slowly on into dark vague country. The night was warm and soundless, the houses were little grey haystacks clustered together, the woods were blacker and deeper. It was like a tranquil dream: the lovely glitter of summer starlight, the restfulness of the dark sky after the glare of sunshine.

Henry sat silent, only half-conscious of what the voices about him said. He was thinking of the woman: he could see her in the room with the old man, he could see her crying by the lake and half-waving her hand. He could see her clearly and could hear her voice unmistakably; yet he felt at times that she had never existed.

The fishmonger broke in upon his thoughts, his breath sweetish with wine, his voice a little thick and excited:

‘Remember I was tellin' you about old Fiddlesticks, Antonio? I been havin' a glass o' wine with him.'

Henry only nodded.

‘Would make me have it. Dragged me into the house. Drawing-room. Kept shaking hands wimme. Nice fellow, old Antonio. You'd like him. Nice wine an' all — beautiful — like spring water. Made your heart sing, fair made your heart sing.'

His voice trailed off and he sat silent, as though overawed by these memories. Thinking of the woman,
Henry said nothing. His mind puzzled over her with tender perplexity. Who was she? Why had she wept? What was she doing now?

The fishmonger broke in again, a little garrulously:

‘Did I tell you the old man came in? No? Came in about half-way through the second glass. Dirty old dressing-gown, all gravy and slobber down the front. I tell you, nobody knows how the rich live only those who do know. Had the girl with him. In a yellow dress. Know who I mean? The girl who never comes out, never goes nowhere.'

Henry was listening now. He listened a little incredulously, but gradually there crept into the fishmonger's voice a quality of earnestness, of sober truth:

‘I know now why that girl never goes out. Do you know — she didn't drink. That was funny. She just sat looking at the old man. I should like you to have seen her looking at him.'

‘How did she look at him?'

‘Just as if she hated him. Every time he slopped his wine down his dressing-gown she looked just as if she would shriek. And then another funny thing happened. She went out. Just as if she couldn't bear it no longer.'

‘Went out?' His heart was beginning to beat with a curious excitement.

‘Yes — and then, perhaps you won't believe me, the old man went mad. Raving mad, all because she'd gone. Jealousy! That's all. Mad with jealousy. In the end he went clean off — sort of fit, and Antonio and
me had to rub his hands and get him round. Old Antonio was very upset. Kept apologizing to me. “Excuse,” he kept saying. “Excuse. He is so jealous about her. He never wants her out of his sight. And she is so young. And then she is a woman of great imagination.” What did he mean by that? — a woman of great imagination?' The fishmonger broke out in answer to himself, in a little burst of disgusted fury:

‘Imagination! It needed a bit of imagination to marry that old cock.'

The brake had reached the crest of the hill and had begun to descend on the other side. The dew, falling softly, was turning the air a little cooler. The figures in the brake were silent, the lovers enfolded each other. A clock chimed its quarters over the still fields, the fishmonger took out his watch and verified it and dropped it back into his pocket.

‘Half-past one,' he murmured.

Henry was silent and as the brake drove steadily on there was a sense of morning in the air in spite of the stars, the silence and the darkness.

Sitting on an iron seat fixed about the body of a great chestnut tree breaking into pink-flushed blossom, two old men gazed dumbly at the sunlit emptiness of a town square.