The Pandervils (12 page)

‘Hush!' she said, pushing him
gently
away.

Her tone forbade him, and he was filled suddenly with shame. ‘Forgive me!'

‘Dear boy, dear love.' She fondled his bowed head, and with her own hands guided it to her lap. ‘Be my good child, and lie still.'

He lay still, quiet and still, under her stroking fingers. Peace slowly invaded his heart, and a delicious drowsiness filled his brain. And presently, in a half-dream, he became aware of a crooning voice, heavenly deep, heavenly soft, soft and deep as love itself, the voice of an immaculate mother.

He roused to hear her say: ‘I wonder what the time is!' But, when he opened his eyes, the poise
of her head bending over him was so still, her gaze so untroubled, that he fancied he must have dreamed that she had spoken. They remained for a few moments looking at each other in silence.

‘Egg, it must be very late.'

‘Is it? Have I been asleep?'

‘It must be ten o'clock. We must go.'

He stretched out his arms to her from where he lay. They kissed each other again, but as she drew away from him he saw that there was a shadow on her face.

‘Listen!' she said.

‘I can't hear anything.'

‘No. Listen to me. We must go now. These are our last moments together.'

‘Darling!' He was incredulous, protesting. ‘Our last?' He sat up and put his arms protectively, possessively about her. ‘How can you say that?;

With her face half turned away, so that he saw only her strong, perfect profile, she answered in a strange voice: ‘Our last moments to-night, I mean. We've stayed here too long—people will miss us and look for us. We shall be in disgrace.'

He kissed her cheek. ‘Come along, darling!' Even now he was shy of that word. ‘I'll take you to the Vicarage at once.' Realization of his folly swept suddenly over him; the world, jealous of perfection, reached back into his mind. ‘Will you get into trouble, Monica? What a selfish brute I've been! Let's go at once.'

He helped her to his feet, and they clung to
each other with tragic urgency. How could they walk out of this enchanted place and say farewell! Yet that was what they must do. She gave a little moaning cry. ‘Oh, Egg!' Tears glistened in her eyes.

He tried to comfort her. ‘There's to-morrow, Monica. Think of that.'

‘Yes.' She was staring past him, perhaps at a long vista of to-morrows. ‘But, Egg, even if there wasn't going to be any to-morrow, we've had to-night, haven't we, and we'll always have tonight. Nothing can take it away from us. And we'll always—love each other. We'll never feel any different, will we!'

‘Never, never!' vowed he with all his heart. ‘I'll get rich somehow. I'll work for you, so that we can be married soon.'

She said again: ‘We'll have this always. We'll keep this safe, safe.' And he again, kissing her eyes and her hair, vowed that nothing should ever part them. So with joy and pain in their hearts, and fear crouching behind them, they strove with words and wishes against the unappeasable tides. ‘We must really go now,' he said at last.

She stood rigid, terror in her eyes. ‘There's somebody coming.'

Footsteps approached. A voice near at hand called her by name, sternly. ‘Monica!' The lovers broke apart and turned round defensively.

‘It's Uncle,' whispered the girl. ‘And Mr Twigg's with him. They've seen us.'

The transition was too abrupt, the expulsion
from paradise too sudden. Dazed, like children reluctantly waking from a dream, they stood motionless, while the lean stooping figure of the Vicar sidled menacingly up to them. They were tongue-tied, in a silence that passed, no doubt, for shame, but was rather sheer stunned bewilderment.

‘Well, madam!' said the Vicar. ‘I never thought to be ashamed of my niece. As for you, sir—' He turned heavily to Egg. ‘What have you to say for yourself? No, don't dare to answer me, you young ruffian. I saw enough with my own eyes—too much, too much! Your father shall hear of this!' He made a dart at Monica, grasped her by the arm, and commanded: ‘Put your bonnet on, girl, this instant!' Monica stared back at him in terror and amazement, still dangling her sunbonnet by its strings. The delicious disarray of her hair made her look even younger than her years. ‘Do you hear me, Monica!'

‘Yes, Uncle.' She donned the hat.

‘Then come home at once!'

Egg, striving to collect his scattered wits, stumbled in their wake, stammering: ‘Wait, sir. I'm to blame, sir, not she. Let us explain. Won't you wait a minute, sir?'

A hand on his shoulder arrested him. ‘I shall deal with
you
,' said the Reverend Mr Twigg, in his best organ voice. He paused before adding, with tremendous emphasis: ‘As—you—deserve!'

‘Be damned! Let me go!'

Mr Twigg's grip tightened, and with sonorous
unction he answered: ‘Profanity will not avail you, Egbert Pandervil. If there is one sin, boy, more loathsome in God's sight than any other, it is this sin of yours, the seduction of innocent girlhood.'

Egg jerked himself free. ‘It's not true, Mr Twigg. Let me explain.'

‘Don't add lies to your other sins, I implore you. You have lingered in this orchard an hour or more in the company of that young lady, your mother's guest. I trusted you; she trusted you. It is not too much to say that God trusted you. And you have betrayed your trust… No, don't deny it! I have seen more than you know. You lay in the grass together—' A hungry gleam shone in the curate's eyes, and suddenly he lost control of his smooth sentences. He began shouting, and brandishing the stick he carried. ‘You dissolute young cur, you vile seducer … I shall thrash you for this night's work.' It was a performance in his best manner.

He advanced threateningly upon Egg. The boy did not move; a queer smile played about his lips; his heart sang. The imprisoned savage in him saw its chance of a holiday. With something like hope he felt Mr Twigg's fingers fumbling for a grip of his shoulder; the stick descended on his legs—a sharp cut. He twisted round quickly, and fury welled up in him, gloriously uncontrollable at last. ‘Lying bastard!' There was a kind of happiness in his voice. He dealt a smashing blow at the curate's face, and shouted again—the same ugly
exultant cry. ‘Lying bastard! Lying bastard!
Dirty
lying bastard!' Mr Twigg staggered back, letting the stick fall to the ground; and returning to the attack with a blind impetuous rush he ran into a second blow as damaging as the first. Egg was fighting madly, without pity or thought. He hit and hit again, careless of his guard and quite unmindful of the rough-and-ready science he had picked up in the fights of schoolboyhood. And this savage method, or lack of method, useless though it had been if matched against skill as well as strength, served him well enough now. Mr Twigg had fight in him; he had, moreover, the advantage of Egg both in weight and reach; but the suddenness of the assault had overwhelmed him, and by the time he was intelligently aware of what was happening, and had settled down to systematic fighting, his nose was copiously bleeding and one of his eyes closed. With this double handicap he was already beaten, though he fought gamely for a few minutes. Egg himself was severely bruised; his face burned; there was a curious singing sensation in his ears. Yet it was with disappointment, his anger being still unquenched, that he at last saw the curate beaten to his knees and seeking cover behind helplessly waving arms. Egg stared down at him, his clenched fists slowly relaxing. What was next to be done? He realized, dispassionately, that there was a mess to be cleared up; and he walked unsteadily away in search of the brook, whose voice was now the only sound in that disenchanted Eden.
It seemed a long journey to the brook, and the orchard trees swayed, lurching drunkenly towards him, as he walked. The way back was easier, for the touch of cold water had refreshed him.

He found Mr Twigg lying on his back full length in the grass, his face swollen and bloody, his eyes closed. With a handkerchief, which to this end he had dipped in the brook, Egg laved his enemy's features. Anger was spent; he no longer hated Mr Twigg. Nor, on the other hand, did he experience any compassionate revulsion of feeling. He regarded the man with a cool indifference tempered only by the realization that he was weak, in pain, and needing help. But when Mr Twigg, being roused by the cold wet pad of handkerchief held gently against his forehead, turned over, and then, with a sigh, slowly raised himself to a sitting posture, some small kindlier feeling—something between impersonal charity and positive friendliness—stirred in Egg.

‘Feeling better?' he asked.

‘Thanks,' mumbled Mr Twigg. ‘I'm quite all right.' He rose unsteadily to his feet. ‘Right as rain.' He passed a hand across his forehead. ‘I'll go now.'

They faced each other as equals.

‘Good night,' said Egg. ‘And,' he added slowly, as an afterthought, ‘what you said wasn't true, you know.'

‘What I said?' Mr Twigg had almost forgotten what he had said, just as he had forgotten, it seemed, his cloth. ‘Perhaps not …
I don't know … Good night.' He stooped to pick up his hat; then turned abruptly on his heel. For five seconds, Egg stood staring after him. …

He found the farmhouse in darkness. Everyone was in bed and asleep—Algernon aggressively so; his snores were like a trumpet. As Egg crept in between the cool sheets of his bed he recalled with disgust his momentary feeling of satisfaction at sight of Mr Twigg's bloody face. The events of the night repeated themselves over and over again in a series of sharp pictures—such beauty as had never before been poured into one hour of time, and a sequel unprecedented in its ugliness and folly. But already he was forgetting Mr Twigg, the Vicar, the threatened consequences, Algernon's snoring—everything but Monica. The fight had already become a well-nigh incredible tale, remote, irrelevant. But Monica—ah, Monica was with him in the darkness, her kisses on his mouth, the scent of her loosened hair in his nostrils, her soft breasts pillowing his head. Darling Monica. Lovely Monica. Three times, with a little conscious effort, he had called her darling; but now, in this secret place, he invented a hundred wild passionate endearments to whisper to her. They came leaping and tumbling from his busy brain. And then, crossing the yard, he saw her running towards him. But as quickly as his arms went out to her she evaded him and began walking away, looking back over her shoulder fearfully, imploringly, with hand outstretched beckoning
him on. He followed her down the lane, into the orchard; and there floating in the brook was Mr Twigg with wide staring eyes and a twisted smile on his lips. Monica was no longer to be seen; but in her place was a wizened old lady in a white cap who smiled at Egg toothlessly and pointed at the moon. And though he knew that this old lady was somehow Monica herself, he yet believed that by searching the orchard through, by shaking every tree and scanning every blade of grass, he would find the other and earlier Monica. He didn't do so, for he was now in Mercester Cattle Market; and there was Monica herself, young and beautiful again, tied to a post. The Vicar stood near, idly prodding her with the point of his umbrella; and when Egg attempted to reach her he found that he himself was tethered, and that a number of dirty-nosed children, with a dead goose swinging between them, were standing near him, pointing and laughing. He could see them laugh and shout, but he could hear nothing. He could see Monica's screams, and the auctioneer grinning, and the schoolmaster (for he was in school now) writing figures on a blackboard with a piece of chalk that suddenly, with the noise of a pistol-shot, broke into two pieces. One of the pieces of chalk became a white mouse and ran across the drawing room and up Sarah's back, but Sarah, seated at the piano, went on playing Mr Twigg's accompaniment, and nobody noticed the little sucking-pig nestling in her hair. And suddenly all the people in the world crowded round Egg, so that he saw a million
staring faces, one of which, the biggest and nearest, was Flisher's. Flisher carried a storm lantern which she held close to his eyes so that the light dazzled him. The lantern—or was it Flisher?— made a loud shouting noise … and sunlight was in the bedroom, and Algernon was shaking him by the shoulder. ‘Wake up, Eggie. Mowing to-day, boy!'

Egg answered sleepily, rubbing his eyes: ‘What's time?'

‘Hullo!' said Algernon. He stared in surprise. ‘Cut your cheek, have you! Pillow's all over blood.'

Egg, jumping out of bed, answered evasively; but by the time he had finished washing himself he had realized the wisdom of satisfying his brother's curiosity. Algy lacked finesse, but he was loyal. He could be relied upon not to betray a confidence, unless by a show of mystery he inadvertently betrayed it. But if he were left entirely in the dark he would sulk, his lonely heart would generate malice—after this very familiar pattern was Algernon made.

‘Doesn't look so bad now, does it?' Egg presented his face for inspection.

‘Only a scratch,' agreed Algernon.

‘It was Twigg's signet ring that did it, I'll wager,' said Egg.

‘Twigg's signet ring!' Algernon gasped.

‘Met him last night in the orchard,' explained Egg, carefully (too carefully) getting into his breeches. ‘He said things I didn't like, and there was a bit of a fight.'

‘A fight! You fought the Reverend Twigg!' Algernon's eyes widened.

‘Yes.' Egg strove to be quiet and matter-of-fact. ‘He said things I didn't like at all. So there was nothing for it but to have it out.'

‘Things? What things?' Algernon, after a moment's deep thought, was visited by an inspiration. ‘Things about that girl?' He was excited.

‘Yes. About Monica Wrenn.'

‘Did you lick him?'

‘Well, you see,' explained Egg, ‘I was a bit mad with him. He made out I'd done things I hadn't. And he let fly at me with a stick.'