“I thought that was it,” she said without moving, “but why this secrecy?”
He stared at her in amazement. The candour in her eyes struck him with a kind of fear. “Must it remain in the past tense?” she said. “You loved me. Is that all? Is it untrue now?”
He moistened his lips, but could not speak. “If you cannot say you love me,” she said with a slow but not mocking smile, “say again that you loved me an hour or two ago.”
“Do you mean—” he said. His hands moved out towards her hesitatingly, fingers afraid of the irrevocability of contact. Then with a leap of the heart he found his voice. “I love you,” he said. “I love you.” He held her now but at a distance. “I love you, too,” she said, her eyes closed and her body trembling a little. He shut his eyes so that they might be together in a darkness, which would be empty of everything but themselves. Stumbling blindly through that darkness their mouths at first lost and then found each other. After a while they began to speak in whispers lest the darkness should be shattered by sound.
“Why were you so long?”
“How could I expect—I was afraid.”
“Am I worse than death? You were not afraid of that.”
“I don’t fear it any longer. You are filling me with yourself. That means courage, peace, holiness.”
He opened his eyes. “Do you know they gave you a surname in court. It seemed so strange that you should have any other name than Elizabeth. A surname seems to tie you down to earth. I’ve already forgotten it. Open your eyes and tell me that this isn’t a dream.”
She opened them. “How you talk,” she said, “who were so silent about what really mattered.”
“I’m excited,” he said. “I want to laugh and shout and sing. I want to get wildly drunk.”
He took his arms away and began to move restlessly round the room. “I am so happy,” he said. “I’ve never felt like this before. What a curious feeling it is—happiness.”
“This is only the beginning,” Elizabeth said. “We have eternity.”
“We have at any rate all our lives. Don’t squander time for that ‘perhaps.’ Promise you’ll live long and slowly.”
She laughed. “I’ll do my best.”
“Come here,” Andrews said and when she came he gazed at her with wonder. “To think that I can say come and you’ll come. You shouldn’t though. I wish you could realise how unworthy I am of you. Don’t laugh. I know every man says that. But it’s true of me. I’m a coward. It’s no use shaking your head. You can never wholly trust me. I told you that I was with a woman last night. I’m dirty, I tell you, soiled.”
“Did you love her?”
“You are very young after all, aren’t you? Men don’t go with harlots for that.”
“Then it doesn’t touch me. Look,” she spread out her arms and her chin again tilted upwards with that instinctive fighting gesture, “I will stand now forever between you and them.”
A shadow crossed Andrews’s face. “Forever is a long word. You must stay with me always. You must not die before me. If you did I should fall away.” He laughed. “Here am I talking of death on the birthday of my life.” He glanced apprehensively at the place where the coffin had lain. “He won’t come between us, will he?” he implored. “His must be a jealous spirit.”
“Only a spirit,” Elizabeth said. “We must pity him. He was kind to me in his way. He said that if he could not have me he would never let another man love me.” Her fingers softly caressed the edge of the table. “Poor spirit,” she whispered. “So soon defeated.”
The thought of the dead man set up a chain of associations in Andrews’s mind. “It was Mrs. Butler,” he said, “who brought your name up in court. Will she be coming here?”
“Not for four days,” Elizabeth said.
“And we’ll be gone then from here. Where shall we go?” But it was not material facts of sustenance, of earning a living which passed, image by image, through Andrews’s brain. He thought of the seasons they would see together; of summer, blue sea, white cliffs, red poppies in the golden corn; winter, to wake in the morning to see Elizabeth’s hair across the pillow, her body close to his, and outside the deep, white silence of snow; spring again with restless hedgerows and the call of birds. They would hear music together—organs in dim cathedrals speaking of sad peace, the heartache of violins, the piano’s cold dropping notes, like water spilt slowly down a long echoing silence. And always the music of her voice, which seemed to him in this new foolish, drunken happiness more lovely than any instrument.
“We will not go yet,” she said, obstinate lines round her mouth. “What was it your Cockney Harry said? They will come today or tomorrow. We will face them first and then we will go.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “If you will. I will pay any price, I think, for this happiness.”
“You have not told me your story yet,” she said.
He hesitated. “We should be keeping a look out.”
She pouted her lips scornfully. “They will not come before dusk,” she said. “Let’s sit down here on the floor by the fire.” She smiled. “I’m tired of being old and wise. I want to be childish and be told a story.”
She curled into the crook of his arm and he told her of the past two days; of how he had watched the smoke from the cottage chimney and thought it a flock of white birds round a saint (“I was thinking most unsaintly thoughts of you,” she interrupted); of the soft-eyed cattle who drank with him at the blue dew-pond and of the bird which sang. He spread out the story of his walk slowly with meticulous detail, unwilling, as he had been in reality, to arrive in Lewes.
