And she sensed something helpless, even derelict, about the man beside her.
‘Go to sleep.’
‘Yes, Mrs Gandell,’ and he turned over, and stretched, and lay quite still.
‘What a strange, strange mixture he is,’ she thought.
He suddenly mumbled something but it was quite incomprehensible to her.
‘Poor Jones. Perhaps it was a mercy, Jones, that you never knew who your father was.’
‘Perhaps, Mrs Gandell,’ Jones said, ‘perhaps,’ and fell asleep.
She lay there, listening to the first gentle snores. She heard the clock strike two, the rain beat suddenly against the window. It was still February.
7
The bridge leading to the sea was quite deserted, and in the gathering dust of the evening nobody had noticed the man stood at the northern end of it, leaning on the rail, huddled in his overcoat, leaning heavily as from some quite recent exhaustion. And as he stood there he was aware that the discipline of his days, the very simplicity of his life, mocked him. He was aware that he had walked out of the silent house, but could not remember how long he had remained huddled over his desk, a sheet of paper crushed in his hands. He had come out to walk, to find a peaceful spot, to make a decision, and he could not. He thought again of the words on the paper, he read them, he felt them.
‘Dear Miss Vaughan, there was once a woman that was careless in her years, and heeded not the words spoken unto her, and after a while she became sorely troubled by this, for in her country no vintage fell. Thus, a gathering never arrived to raise her up, and the land in her country came up with nought save briars and thorns.’
And he summoned the words in defence of his feelings. ‘I harm none.’
‘It is my life, my life.’
He turned his head to look south, and turned it again to look north. He was glad that he was alone. ‘Should I – go away?’
And in a moment life was a darkness, chained to the ground. He defended and he doubted.
‘I could marry her, we could be happy. Why not?’ But Margiad was suddenly close again, the self-appointed lifebelt, the final succour.
‘She said that they opened my letters to her at the hotel, said they read them, and laughed at them.’
He imagined a hand on the Jones throat, pressing hard.
‘What a place for her to live in.’
He knew that room, and the stairs to it; dream room, dream stairs. He thought of the Gandell woman, he loathed the Gandell woman, felt Jones’s breath in his ear, heard the words. ‘She draws pennies from stones.’
‘I wish .…’
He walked slowly along the bridge, and when he came to the other end, stopped. The morning had returned to him, the waves of it, and suddenly he saw both women, struggling for a place beside him.
‘I am lonely.’
Then he turned and made his way back to the house. Would she be there? Wouldn’t she? He remembered the words of anger that had hit the ceiling. ‘I am going,’ Margiad said, and he heard the slam of the door, and then the silence.
Had she really gone? Deserted him. Not a soul passed him by, and he was glad of that. And there was Ty Newdd, and he thought of the study that was once peaceful, as he thought of the bridge he had just left, where of an evening his sister and he would sometimes stand and look out to the sea, watching the dying light.
The front door lay open just as he had left it, and now he longed to be in, dreading to be in.
‘She wouldn’t leave me. She couldn’t.’ He loved her, she was his sister, she was. ‘She can’t.’
He stepped into the hall and closed the door, removed hat and coat, glanced anxiously up the stairs, listening, wondering.
‘Margiad! Are you there, sister?’
There was no answer. When he opened the sitting-room door the sight of the still bright fire was as welcoming arms to him. He crouched in front of it, warming hands that were blue and knotted with cold. He listened again, hoped again, and he pressed out the words. ‘Are you there, Margiad?’
The silence un-nerved him. ‘She has gone.’
He went upstairs, opened bedroom doors into empty rooms, then came down again. He sat down in his chair, made to pick up his pipe and light it, then suddenly exclaimed, ‘No, of course not.’
He leaned to the fire again, rubbing his hands; there had been a kind of nakedness in the darkness outside that he was now glad to shed. He got up and opened the door, and called up the stairs. ‘Margiad! Are you there, sister?’
There was no reply and he shut the door. Staring vacantly about the room he suddenly noticed that the window was closed, and went to open it. He had not drawn the curtains and the light from the room streamed down the garden. Something made him stand there, made him look out. And then he saw her, and his relief overwhelmed him. He opened the window and put his head out, wanting to cry, ‘Margiad! Why there you are, you’re still here. Thank God,’ but the words remained locked on his tongue. He looked bewildered at this sight of her, her head turned away from the house, as though at this moment she was asking herself a question, still, in still air. His heart leapt, and he called out, ‘Margiad! What on earth are you doing there?’
And then he went out to her, and took her hand and pressed it. ‘Margiad.’
She did not answer, she did not look at him, and the sound of his voice roused in her only a feeling of loathing and disgust.
‘You’ll catch your death of cold standing there, sister. Come along now. My God,’ and he caught her in a fierce embrace. ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he said.
There was no response, and she had not moved. In his gentlest voice he said, ‘Do come along, Margiad, do come into the house,’ and he led her back up the path, and they paused for a moment on the step. ‘I really thought you’d deserted me.’
He took refuge behind the words that were normal. ‘Come along, I went for a walk myself, just got back.’
She would not look at him, and then he realised she had freed her hand from his own. They went inside, stood in the hall, faced each other in a confusing silence. He led her into the sitting-room. ‘There,’ he said, ‘there, Margiad.’
