The Young Desire It (22 page)

‘I'm sorry, sir, if it's been boring you to talk like this,' he said with shame. ‘I didn't mean…'

‘Boring!' Penworth laughed. ‘Make no mistake. It's been most entertaining, I assure you. Most illuminating.'

He spoke lightly, knowing well the superior power of levity as a destroyer of sensitive antagonists.

‘I'm sorry, sir,' Charles said again, and was unhappily silent. He wondered what he had done to annoy him; he had seemed so ready to hear, and now here he was—angry; or at least not interested any more, as though laughing at such confidence. There slowly awoke in Charles that which Penworth had never before aroused against himself—that defiance he showed to all others. He felt unhappy, struggling with it yet knowing himself to be in the right. And Penworth refused to speak.

Better for this boy, he was thinking angrily, to be made wiser by some married woman, like the rest of us; made ashamed of his own clumsiness, his own youth, his own manhood, when the thing is done, and comforted and forgotten and allowed to forget. Better that for the price of a little shame and self-disgust he should buy peace and the sort of freedom that will make the rest of his life his own concern…

As they walked, he tried to put aside such troubled and troubling thoughts, telling himself that they were hardly pertinent to the passing sentimentality of a boy-and-girl affair of first love. These two would of course become parted by the tide of youth's life, and would forget, as everyone forgot, the surprise and the harmless passions of childhood dreamery. But the magic of his vision lingered like a perfume in his brain; once more he was abashed by his own damnable desire for the whiteness and innocence of the boy even then by his side, sharing this silence with him as it could share other silences less obsessed by such longings.

In the darkness he drew in his lips between his teeth, biting upon them and made desperate by their folded softness. The tip of his tongue found their smooth warmth; he closed his right hand hard round the rough bowl of the pipe in his pocket, taking between his lips a thirsty breath of the cold air lying against his raised face, to cool his throat and steady the quickening pace of his thought.

‘Here we are,' he said, with deliberate curtness. ‘And in two minutes the bell will go for tea, so you'd better get a move on, or you'll miss your soup.' It was in his mind to say also, ‘And forget about the nonsense you've been talking', but instead he turned abruptly and walked away in the darkness.

There were several Masters staying at the School, and half a dozen boys, whose table was by the swing-doors leading to the kitchen. The Masters sat at the dais table, looking down the Hall, pleased with its emptiness.

From his seat against the wall Charles saw Penworth come in, his pale face marked with a frown under the mild light of globes high overhead. He sat between Waters and another, and it was some time before he began to join in their talk. His still face, seeming not to move as he took the food before him, was like a yellowish mask; only now and then, when they spoke to him, did he turn his head sharply to one side or the other, wiping his lips almost nervously before he replied. But in a while he began to smile, and before long there were loud shouts of laughter from that end of the long dim Hall, which made the little group of boys first look astonished, and then break into a merry conversation among themselves, with a great deal of argument, in which with an effort Charles joined.

He was still confused from the experiences and the atmosphere of the evening, upon which his thoughts had woven a pattern of colour and feeling as he urged memory to feed imagination; memory as much more rich now as imagination was ready and fruitful after Penworth's words about love.

Sitting there making himself break silence lest he should appear too deliberately isolated, he thought uneasily how strange Penworth had been while they talked together, and wondered whether having learnt of this surprising and lovely encounter, he would ever do again what he had done that day in his room. He had changed a little since then, though; until this evening he had become more easy in his looks and his informal speech, and now Charles's words and his discovery in them must help to set a seal upon that change after all, so that they could perhaps talk together as two men should, without either of them being troubled by the fear of finding in his own words some evocative overtone of remembrance or suggestion. Perhaps, he thought, all friendships should begin with something as regrettable and clumsy as that.

Going about it in his mind, he even felt ashamed of his inclination to withdraw from the warm weight and intimacy of that arm about his shoulders, telling himself that it was indeed childish, and showed his ignorance of how varied can be the meanings of one small thoughtless gesture.

But Penworth's sudden coldness remained in his memory, and he could not find complete contentment.

Later, as he came up the dim covered way and passed the empty unlit classroom on the ground floor, he heard from Penworth's room the reasoning of a Bach prelude, played with smooth, incisive bowing, marching upon the air like a philosophy; it reminded him how, during a dissertation one afternoon upon the effect of music on the mind and thought, and indirectly upon action, Penworth had amused him by describing how, when he found the content of his own playing degenerate into sentimentality, he made himself abandon all other compositions for a long study of Bach. He smiled now as he passed that closed door and went quietly up the stairs, pursued by the slow exhortation of the strings. This must be another period of discipline. Penworth believed that music known and remembered affected action; take the best, he said, and play it to yourself alone. Charles wished, as he walked into the dark dormitory, that the music rooms were open; he wanted to explore again some Beethoven slow movements, for that was his mood.

When he came down the stairs the words and actions of the music, which had haunted him above, still soared into the night. He sat on the lowest stair, shivering with cold, and held his face in his hands to listen. At last a pause came, and the rustling of sheet-music promised something further. The flow of his thought stopped and circled as the music ended; it hovered in question round the violin's silence, and was suddenly bound, and freed in a great leap, as the instrument's voice started in a key of passion and with hot emphasis the fourfold opening theme of the César Franck sonata, designed and sensuous, like a flower.

Charles had never heard it before, and so could not know why it was such a favourite with Penworth. He sat and listened, troubled now beyond belief, until the ultimate joy of the canon released him, and he could go away.

By the time the August holidays fell due there were signs of the final breaking of winter, although not until after the September gales would lovers of the hot sun begin to think of summer. The term ended in a mood of strain and excitement; the School went into the spring vacation, and there was none to feel sorry that two-thirds of the time-table year had been put by. The third term remained; it hovered dangerously in the minds of many, and Charles, whose mind was stretched and tired by those weeks of unceasing work, felt afraid but dared not let himself relax in the acknowledgment of fear. Mr. Jolly sent for him to come to the Big Study on the morning before classes were formally ended.

‘Well, Fox,' he said, leaning over the great wilderness of table and clasping his hands together on its edge. ‘What are
you
going to do with yourself in this holiday?'

‘I thought—I don't feel quite sure, sir,' Charles said. ‘I did think I'd better go on working a bit all the time.'

Mr. Jolly turned his full eyes to left and right; the lids drooped slyly as he observed the back of familiar books; he cleared his throat and growled to himself.

‘Well, that's what I wanted to ask you, old man,' he said hoarsely. ‘It's no good you going and getting yourself overtired before the examinations. It's absolutely no good. On the other hand…'

He glared amiably at Charles, and his mouth twisted in a smile that creased his face like laughter.

‘On the other hand, my lad, if you let go now you may find it damned hard to pick up again. You have worked hard; I wouldn't have thought you had it in you, son. But you've got it, all right. Now. As from the first week of next term there are—let me see.'

He took a calendar from a drawer and turned it over inquiringly with nose and forefinger. The lock of grey hair joined in the search.

‘Er. Now there will be nine weeks from the beginning of next term until you sit. The last week or so is for a general revision of the course; there's always a Master with you, but you'll be mostly left to yourself. But any questions, always ask, old son. And if you want any extra hours besides those you're having now…'

He put away the time-table and leaned forward again.

‘I can see you're a likely lad, Fox,' he growled. ‘Don't be a fool and get excited over this examination. Don't think it's a matter of life and death.' He glared. ‘If I had my way there'd not be any examinations. But I have an idea you can get through all right. And then you'll not be asked to work so hard again. Only I want you to do your best and get through. D'you hear?' he said loudly, ‘you're going to get through.'

With a smile suggesting great satisfaction he sank back into the chair, his eyes still on Charles, who was also smiling. He knew Mr. Jolly's growling manners, and they made him want to laugh.

‘Well, there—watch your step, er, Fox. Watch your step,' Mr. Jolly said finally, and waved him away.

But when he was at home, installed in the quiet of his own room, unease grew in him like torment, and his heart beat heavily as he looked at his books and thought of the grove and Margaret. That place would be alive and murmurous on such a day; the pollen from the russet pine tips would lie like incense on the air; and she would be there. From the garden hedge the cold, intoxicating perfume of the pittosporum flowers assailed him perpetually; the flowering was early, and in the close masses of leaves cream-coloured clusters of blossoms thickened each day, and sweetened the sharp air always. Beyond his window the wattle-tree still piled its treasure of decaying gold; its perfume was heavy on the air, too, and it murmured alive with the bees. He struggled against this earliness of spring, and could not get his mind in order. Down in the garden his mother was talking to Jimmy; it was a day of warm, still sunshine out there, and the roses were as hot as the faces of amorous girls. Lassitude lay drowsy in his flesh, as though sleep were wooing him; but the chill of night lingered still in the room, where the sun would not shine until noon came round and found him there bent over the pages.

He walked to the window. Jimmy was at work with a weeding tool in one of the long beds which would be later a high sapphire splendour of delphinium; his mother stood near, watching, and the rich mild sunlight fell across her head and shoulders with such a golden reflection from earth and air that there was no shadow in her averted face. Her slender hands looked enormous and ludicrous in thick gloves of cotton; a pair of scissors dangling from her right wrist swung slowly and caught the sun on their gaping blades; it flashed into his eyes and was gone. He waited for it to come again; it was like the secret illumination of a thought.

‘If it comes again,' he said, ‘I'll go.'

He closed his fingers and felt the sudden moisture in his palms. The scissors swung more slowly, and seemed to stop. He wondered if she would move. If she moved, if the scissors were taken away so that the sun could not flash from them into his eyes, he would stay with the books and note-books until lunch-time. He dared not move his head. Slowly the wide blades turned, and a low, faltering glint of light ran down one of them like water. Surely that was the sun's own acquiescence in his desire to go? The glint of light had been hesitant; he remained there, staring down into the garden's green and red, not even realizing that his mother had moved away until he saw her face bent and grave above a cluster of pale roses far away, by the low wall shadowy with moss. Against the darkness of the old brick her head in sunlight shone silver. He wondered how old she was, and was glad that age could be so clear-cut and peaceful.

When she saw him coming across the garden in the sun she straightened her back, beating those big gloves together, looking at him. His hair was dark and unruly; the light slanting blindly across it showed how ruddy it had become. She regarded him gravely, unable to tell him how close was his likeness to his father, though she felt the blankness of a remembered grief when she saw it. There was just that same high and defiant carriage of the head in the man who had begotten him. She looked at his mouth and eyes, but did not recognize them, for they were her own.

Charles said: ‘I think I'll take Danny and go out for a while, Mother. I can't seem to settle down straight away.'

He looked at her and then away at all the garden about him, green and flowered and springing in its growth. The sky above the green, gold and pink of the camphor laurels and the deep darkness of the cypresses was brilliant, like water; there was no wind, and a madness of bees made the wattle-tree, blazing at a corner of the house, seem to swoon with the weight of its gold and abounding fragrance. None of its silver leaves could be seen now, so heavy was the tumult of its flowering.

‘Look at it,' he said. ‘It's never been so covered in blossom.' She looked instead at him, and his words said so much more that she too became happy, seeing his happiness. Understanding between them had grown up in his absence from her; but it was still impossible that they should test its strength with words. Their silence contented them both. She could in no way have talked intimately with him, and she doubted, as she was now made aware of the growth of his body and the conscious activeness of his thought, whether she was doing right in leaving him to learn for himself the interpretation of life in the flesh and in the spirit. It seemed to her at that moment that she would be wiser to know more of him, lest chance should rob her of his fealty. She was a woman who smiled but could not easily laugh, who would listen rather than talk, even among her friends. To her son she was as familiar and almost as unknown as he was to her; but because they had trusted each other even in imagination they had found no need to look deeply into the hidden springs of such confidence. So now, seeing him ruddy and happy in the sun before her as she looked up again from the roses she was touching, she could not inquire of him why he should seem to glow so vividly; but she observed it, and suddenly mistrusted it in him. He was not like that for her sake, she well knew.