“Yes,” Michael answered. “We are put into this world for a purpose. If we could deny all our obligations at the first defeat and because we found it hard to fulfil that purpose, wouldn’t it be a travesty of all faith and all aspiration?”
“Sometimes we are tried beyond our strength.”
Michael shook his head.
“Never,” he said firmly. “One’s strength will always just stand the strain, believe me.”
Mona had a sudden vision of him crawling towards a deserted machine-gun post, dragging his injured leg, tortured by pain, yet determined, utterly and relentlessly determined, to get there. Instinctively and unconsciously her fingers tightened on his, then with a little sigh, she relaxed.
“I’m being very foolish,” she said.
She tried to make her tone light. She felt Michael’s reaction to her change of mood and somehow she knew instinctively that he was disappointed.
“One day, Mona,” he replied, “you will learn a little about yourself and then you’ll be surprised.”
“I shall have to learn something about you too, Michael.”
“That wouldn’t be very difficult if you were interested enough.”
She felt a sudden weariness descend upon her again.
“To be honest, I don’t think I’m interested in anything and I feel I never shall be again.”
“Wait and see,” Michael advised, “Don’t be in a hurry to generalise either about yourself or about other people. There’s one thing being a farmer teaches one – patience. Perhaps that is the lesson you have got to learn here, Mona, to be patient, to wait for the seeds that you plant to come up, not to rely on another person’s sowing.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, suddenly curious.
But Michael didn’t answer, instead he got out of the car, slowly and a little clumsily with his stiff leg and limped round to open the door for her. As she stepped out in the cold night air, she put her hand on his.
“I need a friend, Michael.”
“You’ve always had one. Am I forgiven?”
“I’ve forgotten about it.”
That was not true. While Mona undressed that evening, she found herself thinking of Michael, of his hard, brutal embrace, of his lips that bruised hers. She knew that her instantaneous reaction had been one of humiliation. Michael’s action had merely confirmed her own uncertainty and insecurity as to what people really thought about her.
“It’s my guilty conscience,” she told her own reflection in the glass. “I’ve been what the world knows as ‘a light woman’, and so I expect to be treated as one.”
She was glad that she had made it up with Michael. He was a solid stalwart rock on which one might lean and she felt now that she needed such people, would that there were more of them!
How hopeless, how utterly, ridiculously hopeless it was to concentrate on one person to the exclusion of all others! Now that Lionel had gone, what had she left? Nothing. Nothing at all except the memories of the years they had spent together. And yet she knew that if she could have her time over again, if she had the choice of going with Lionel and doing all she had done in the past years, she would not hesitate.
She could see him now walking into the sitting room of her flat in London, the flat that she and Ned had furnished so extravagantly, but which was being sold up to meet his debts. She had been sorting the jade in a cabinet when Lionel was announced and for a moment she could hardly believe that he was not a figment of her imagination, and had stood clasping a cool green ornament in her hands staring at him with wide, surprised eyes.
“Mona! I had to come.”
The words sounded as if they were dragged out of him and she saw that he looked older than when she had last seen him.
“Lionel! I can hardly believe it’s true.”
Then, in an effort to hide her emotion, she had said lightly.
“But it’s lovely to see you. Sit down and tell me all the gossip of Paris. I haven’t been there for some time.”
He had ignored her idle words and, coming slowly across the room, had advanced until he stood beside her, nearly touching her. Then she knew that she was trembling and she could not look up and meet his eyes, but must clutch the great lump of jade, moving her fingers desperately over its smooth surface in a feverish effort to still the tumult within herself.
“Mona!” Lionel’s voice was deep and held the note of urgency she knew so well.
“Don’t Lionel!” she whispered. “I can’t bear it! Go away! You can’t come here and do this to me. Don’t you understand?”
“I can’t live without you.”
His voice was raw and broken with emotion.
Just for one wild moment she had believed that he was free to offer her fulfilment of all her dreams – marriage. Then without anything being said, without a gesture or movement, she understood. Lionel wanted her, but on his terms.
She hesitated, something exquisite and beautiful within herself that had tentatively raised its head had died. And yet the world stood still, awaiting her answer.
Uncertainly she had raised her eyes.
“I don’t understand,” she murmured, but her words were lost.
She was in Lionel’s arms, his lips were on hers, they were clinging to each other as sailors might cling to a raft in a wild, tempestuous sea.
“Mona! ... Mona!” he was murmuring her name over and over again.
But the joy of feeling his lips and hands kept her silent. She had no words, her whole being was submerged in one vast throbbing ecstasy, half pleasure, half pain.
