They had come to the end of the huts—at the foot of a steep slope a wall, the top heavily wired. Under the wall a sentry inhumanly paced like a pendulum. The country bore in its strong menace. Gerald looked out at it, face blinking in and out of the dark faintly red with the pulse of his cigarette. She nursed her bare elbows, unconsciously shivering. He seemed at once close and remote, known and unpersonal; she understood why, up to now, she had searched for him vainly in what he said. He had nothing to do with expression. She put out a hand to where he was, shadowy and palpable. He threw his cigarette away, turned—and said nothing. The sentry pa**ed.
They went back the way they had come, between the huts.
“Gerald, I wasn't angry… .”
“No, you were wonderful all the time.”
“Don't you understand—Gerald?”
“Understand? … Lois!”
While they kissed, she heard, in the silence of their footsteps, someone moving about in a hut up the lines. The sound was a long way off, at the other side of a stillness.
“Your arms are so cold.”
“I've been so lonely.”
“They're so cold.” He kissed them, inside the elbows. Later: “I like the back of your head,” she said with exploring finger-tips.
“I never thought you looked at me.”
“Gerald, I've been so … vacant.”
“I never thought you wanted me.”
“I—” she began. The soft sound of her dress in the wind became, by some connection of mood, painfully inexplicable to her—the pain was its own, from not being understood. “Gerald, your bu*tons hurt rather.”
“My darling—” he let her go, but still, above consciousness, held one of her hands solemnly. He said: “Shall you really be able to marry me?”
“I don't know till you've asked me.”
“Don't laugh—” he cried.
“Can't you hear I'm not laughing?”
“Lois—” Something more was coming; she waited, hearing him draw a breath. “Let's go back and dance,” he said religiously—”shall we?”
The hut was compact with movement: she stood in alarm, as before a revolving door in destructive motion. Now it was gone, she remembered sharply the smell of earth … David Armstrong leaned from his partner wildly and struck Gerald over the head with a red balloon.
[Jump to Next Excerpt- Back inside the hut with Lois and Daventry talking]
“Miss Farquar should float, not walk: she looks like a water-lily,” said Daventry, looking over her green frock with his discomforting eyes. “Come on and dance,” said David, taking her empty gla**. Lois began to say she was keeping the next for Gerald. But: “Miss Farquar and I are hungry, we are going to find a sandwich,” said Daventry.
In the box of a dining-room plates of dishevelled sandwiches sat in unmasked electric light. There was no one there. Mr. Daventry, looking hard at her, put the palm of his hand to his left temple with a curious, listening air, as though to see if a watch had stopped.
“Chicken and ham,” he said, “tongue and turkey, they're all cat, they say.” (“What shall I say?” thought Lois.) He looked at a chair with contempt, then sat down on it. “I don't think I've met you before,” he continued.
“Perhaps you didn't notice.”
“Dear me,” said Mr. Daventry, looking into a sandwich. “No, I don't think it could have been that.”
“Then it can't be explained,” said Lois, and (she felt) glittered excitedly. He suggested the army of Wellington: buckskins. Looking up thoughtfully, he directed upon the wall just over her head his strained dark look that was almost a squint. “You live round here?”
“More or less—” She was startled to meet the dark look on a level. Hers was, he said, a remarkably beautiful country.
“I am afraid you—”
He affably shrugged. Did that matter? He stared at her arms, at the inside of her elbows, with such intensity that she felt Gerald's kisses were printed there. Was this a bounder?—She knew she had no criterion.
“Have a nice walk?” he inquired.
“Did you?” she countered.
“I expect so,” said Mr. Daventry, after consideration. “As a matter of fact, I am not quite at my best.” They looked hard at each other. “Nothing,” he said, “appeals to me.” She moved her arms nervously on the silk of her dress. For she saw there was not a man here, hardly even a person.
“How do you mean ‘more or less'?” he said suddenly.
“Well, I don't live anywhere, really.”
“I do: I live near Birmingham.” He put the half-eaten sandwich down with distaste on the edge of the cloth and pulled up a plate to cover it. She felt she was quite finished with. Suppose, she thought, they were all like this! Should she go? She made a movement, he did not see; she was disappointed. He put the hand to his temple, again listening.
“Tired?”
“Oh no,” he said, with irony.
“I'm going back now.”
“Such a pity. Anyone so charming …”
“Well, I'm bored,” she said.
“It's a pity you don't know about my head, it's a most curious head, it would interest you … How shall I keep you? Look here, seriously, about Lesworth—”
“Oh!” she said, suddenly cold inside.
“About our young friend—” He pulled up his chair close; she had a feeling like gates shutting. “Tell me this—”
But the roar of merriment, solid and swerving steadily as a waterfall past the door, splintered off in a crash. Silence came, with a hard impact. “Thank God, they've upset the gramophone!” Daventry smacked his knee, remotely, as though rehearsing the gesture. His look decomposed in laughter. “Done in,” he said, drawing life from the thought. Simultaneously, a universal shriek went up: it was smashed, finished. “Really,” she thought, “you laugh like Satan!”
“Well, well,” said Daventry, tilting his drink about, “it's been a pleasant evening.” Here they all came—a stampede in the pa**age— She was glad of them, for under the storm of his mirth that swept their island, disarranging the interlude, she had sat cold and desolate. A gramophone pa**ing, a gramophone less in the world; it was not funny. But between bursts of laughter she had felt him look at her lips, at her arms, at her dress like a ghost, with nostalgic and cold curiosity. About their young friend?—she wasn't to know.
Mrs. Vermont seemed broken also, she leaned on the adjutant. “Stay her with sandwiches,” called out somebody, “comfort her with—with—more sandwiches!” Moira mopped her eyes with a trail of her dress, but nobody noticed. They jostled about the table. Plates rang, shunted in all directions. “Sitting in here!” cried Gerald, exalted. “Splendid!” Somebody waved a mouth organ; could one dance to that? More and more squeezed in at the door: the room would burst. The cracks of the walls that had been straight a minute ago like bars now seemed to bulge out visibly: light glared down on the resolution of backs and pink, reaching arms. “Our young friend, our young friend, our young friend,” thought Lois, and watched Gerald. Though she watched wherever he went, she could not see him. There was nothing, in fact, to which to attach her look except his smoothness and roundness of head, which seemed for the first time remarkable. She looked for his mouth—which had kissed her—but found it no different from mouths of other young men, who had also been strolling and pausing between the huts in the dark. The page of the evening was asterisked over with fervent imaginary kisses. And one single kiss in the wind, in the dark, was no longer particularised: she could not remember herself, or remember him.
As he came up, she looked quickly away. She looked at an empty plate down on the floor, at a thin disk of cucumber flaccid against its rim. “What have I done?” she thought; she looked at the plate with dread. And: “Oh, sandwich?” said Gerald, turning to bring up some more. Or perhaps it will be natural tomorrow? Nothing could keep her from having to eat a sandwich. “Darling …” he whispered, brushing against her shoulder.
“Tired?” asked Mr. Simcox, seeing her face. “Oh no,” she said, with Mr. Daventry's best irony.