Mary said, very conscious of the unnoticed hand: “Do you really want to go away, Stephen? Wouldn’t it interfere with your writing?” Her voice, Stephen thought, sounded strained and unhappy.
“Of course I want to go,” Stephen reassured her, “I’ll work all the better for a holiday. Anyhow, I must see you looking more fit,” and she suddenly laid her hand over Mary’s.
The strange sympathy which sometimes exists between two human bodies, so that a touch will stir many secret and perilous emotions, closed down on them both at that moment of contact, and they sat unnaturally still by the fire, feeling that in their stillness lay safety. But presently Stephen went on talking, and now she talked of purely practical matters. Mary must go for a fortnight to her cousins, she had better go almost at once, and remain there while Stephen herself went to Morton. Eventually they would meet in London and from there motor straight away to Southampton, for Stephen would have taken their passages and if possible found a furnished villa, before she went down to Morton. She talked on and on, and as she did so her fingers tightened and relaxed abruptly on the hand that she had continued to hold, so that Mary imprisoned those nervous fingers in her own, and Stephen made no resistance.
Then Mary, like many another before her, grew as happy as she had been downhearted; for the merest trifles are often enough to change the trend of mercurial emotions such as beset the heart in its youth; and she looked at Stephen with gratitude in her eyes, and with something far more fundamental of which she herself was unconscious. And now she began to talk in her turn. She could type fairly well, was a very good speller; she would type Stephen’s books, take care of her papers, answer her letters, look after the house, even beard the lugubrious Pauline in her kitchen. Next autumn she would write to Holland for bulbs—they must have lots of bulbs in their city garden, and in summer they ought to manage some roses—Paris was less cruel to flowers than London. Oh, and might she have pigeons with wide, white tails? They would go so well with the old marble fountain.
Stephen listened, nodding from time to time. Yes, of course she could have her white fan-tailed pigeons, and her bulbs, and her roses, could have anything she pleased, if only she would get quite well and be happy.
At this Mary laughed: “Oh, Stephen, my dear—don’t you know that I’m really terribly happy?”
Pierre came in with the evening letters; there was one from Anna and another from Puddle. There was also a lengthy epistle from Brockett who was praying, it seemed, for demobilization. Once released, he must go for a few weeks to England, but after that he was coming to Paris.
He wrote: “I’m longing to see you again and Valérie Seymour. By the way, how goes it? Valérie writes that you never rang her up. It’s a pity you’re so unsociable, Stephen; unwholesome, I call it, you’ll be bagging a shell like a hermit crab, or growing hairs on your chin, or a wart on your nose, or worse still a complex. You might even take to a few nasty habits towards middle life—better read Ferenczi! Why were you so beastly to Valérie, I wonder? She is such a darling and she likes you so much, only the other day she wrote: ‘When you see Stephen Gordon give her my love, and tell her that nearly all streets in Paris lead sooner or later to Valérie Seymour.’ You might write her a line, and you might write to me—already I’m finding your silence suspicious. Are you in love? I’m just crazy to know, so why deny me that innocent pleasure? After all, we’re told to rejoice with those who rejoice—may I send my congratulations? Vague but exciting rumours have reached me. And by the way, Valérie’s very forgiving, so don’t feel shy about telephoning to her. She’s one of those highly developed souls who bob up serenely after a snubbing, as do I, your devoted Brockett.”
Stephen glanced at Mary as she folded the letter: “Isn’t it time you went off to bed?”
“Don’t send me away.”
“I must, you’re so tired. Come on, there’s a good child, you look tired and sleepy.”
“I’m not a bit sleepy!”
“All the same it’s high time. …”
“Are you coming?”
“Not yet, I must answer some letters.”
Mary got up, and just for a moment their eyes met, then Stephen looked away quickly: “Good night, Mary.”
“Stephen … won’t you kiss me good night? It’s our first night together here in your home. Stephen, do you know that you’ve never kissed me?”
The clock chimed ten; a rose on the desk fell apart, its overblown petals disturbed by that almost imperceptible vibration. Stephen’s heart beat thickly.
“Do you want me to kiss you?”
“More than anything else in the world,” said Mary.
Then Stephen suddenly came to her senses, and she managed to smile: “Very well, my dear.” She kissed the girl quietly on her cheek, “And now you really must go to bed, Mary.”
After Mary had gone she tried to write letters; a few lines to Anna, announcing her visit; a few lines to Puddle and to Mademoiselle Duphot—the latter she felt that she had shamefully neglected. But in none of these letters did she mention Mary. Brockett’s effusion she left unanswered. Then she took her unfinished novel from its drawer, but it seemed very dreary and unimportant, so she laid it aside again with a sigh, and locking the drawer put the key in her pocket.
And now
