Independent People (66 page)

“Wild animals!” she repeated excitedly. “Are you going to hunt wild animals?”

Yes, of course he was, now that he came to think of it; how lucky he was to have mentioned wild animals, he who had every intention of hunting wild animals!

“Listen,” she said, “you haven’t a photograph of your brother in America, have you?”

No, he hadn’t a photograph of him.

‘What’s he like? Isn’t he awfully, you know what I mean, sort of foreign in appearance?”

“He’s tall,” replied Gvendur, “yes, awfully tall. And he’s much stronger than I am. He can sing too. Awfully well. And he’s always well-dressed. I should think he must have two or three Sunday suits. And he’s clever, too. You can see it in his eyes. He has learned everything; no one knows how much he has learned. He always wanted to travel.”

“Has he hunted wild animals, too?” she asked.

“Yes, yes, in a forest,” he replied. “Harts and panthers. In a frightfully big forest. He lives in a forest. I will be with him in a month’s time.”

“Just think of it,” she said. “Lord, how I wish I were going to America!”

The speed and felicity with which he answered this lovely girl’s questions astonished him greatly; but she was so nice to talk to; he had never met anyone so easy and inspiring to the tongue, it was almost as if a flower sprang from every word, however insignificant, that one addressed to her. But now that he had time for reflection, it struck him that there was something rather odd about her. “I don’t quite understand why you should want to go to America when you live in a big house with a tower on it,” he said. “And when you can have anything you fancy out of the co-operative stores. And when you have such a fine pair of horses.”

After a few moments’ introspection she was inclined to agree with him. “Yes, I suppose you’re quite right really; yes, I suppose it’s all just a lot of nonsense,” said she. “I haven’t the slightest desire to go to America really, I wouldn’t go if I was paid. Though I believe I might have thought about it if Father had been going with me. It’s just that I get all excited when somebody else is going to America, because it’s such a long, long way and because it’s so romantic and because I think the sea is so marvellous, it’s so big, and they’re such great men when they come back, they’re so manly. When I was little, I thought that everyone who went abroad must be a great man, like Father for instance. Maybe
it’s all nonsense. But there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be true for all that, is there? Listen, you mustn’t forget me while you’re in America.”

“No,” he said, blushing and not daring to look up, because he knew that she was looking at him.

“Do you know what?” she said. “I’ve taken such a fancy to that brother of yours that you were talking about just now. Tell me more about him. Isn’t he ever coming back at all?”

“No,” said Gvendur, “I don’t suppose he’ll ever come back. But I, I may come back some day.” Then, plucking up courage,
he
added: “That is, if you would like me to.”

She looked him over a few moments, weighing him up in the present and in the future, in reality and in imagination, and mixing the two together, with one eye on the vast ocean he was about to cross; and he enchanted her so because of the vast ocean he was about to cross, and because he was such a great man on the other side of the ocean, and because there were wild animals in America, and yes, because he would be so very manly when he returned, that she said:

“I’ll be awfully glad when you come back.”

Yes, she was young, very young, possibly fifteen, possibly no more than fourteen; and possibly it was nothing but sheer pedantry to mention any particular year in connection with her, for she was youth in person, the youth that the Summerhouses children had never known. No, he had never seen the like of her, or she the like of him, for that matter. “When you come back, you’ll be taller than you are now, and you’ll be just as broad across here,” and she passed her hand across his chest and shoulders, “or even broader perhaps, and you’ll be wearing a light grey summer suit and brown shoes. Yes, and a hat. And a striped shirt. And a lot of other things, too. And when it rains you’ll go about in a big rainproof coat. And you’ll have hunted wild animals.” She leaned her head back and looked at the sky with dreaming vision, and he saw the under side of her chin; then she leaned forward laughing almost into his arms, and he was looking at the white parting in her thick, fair hair, the golden hair that the sun loved. Yes, she laughed into his arms almost, and his thoughts were in whirling disorder, and he did not really believe that it could be true. Why should this happen to him just when he was leaving? Already he was firmly resolved that some day he would return.

Presently she began to prepare herself for the rest of her trip.
She sat in the grass and tidied her hair and canted her head to one side; the boy watched her and canted his head to one side also, just a little, unconsciously, and presently they had finished canting their heads to one side. “Now we’ll have to get hold of the horses,” she said. They got hold of the horses. The horses went on snorting and trying to rub the bits out of their mouths. They hung to a rein each, she gazing once more in admiration over the ocean he was about to cross, he no longer able to take his eyes off her.

“I suppose we’ll have to say good-bye now,” she said very sorrowfully.

She offered him her hand, so warm, so young, stretching her arm so smooth and bright over the horse’s neck. He took it in silence and she saw that he wanted to accompany her farther, and thought she was in some ways very, very pleased, in others she was half inclined to be sorry.

“When you come back again, you can come and see me, then,” she said, to comfort both herself and him.

He made no reply. She lingered for a while and went on gazing at him; rested her elbows on the grey’s withers and went on gazing at him over the horse’s neck.

‘They’re a fine pair of horses,” he said, stroking the grey. She laughed then, for men are always the same, always seeking some excuse to spin out the occasion.

“Would you like to sell me them?” he asked.

“Sell you them? When you’re leaving for America? What would you want with horses?”

“Oh, I just want them,” he replied. “I have so much money, you see.”

“No, I won’t sell them to you, I’ll make you a present of them,” she said, “until you come back.”

“What do they call you?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you when you return.”

“I want to know your name while I’m away,” he said.

“Why, were you going to write to me?”

“Yes.”

“Ride a little farther with me, then,” she said, “and we’ll talk it over.”

They sprang on horseback and set off at the same furious speed as before, the grey leading, the roan following, westward over the moors. The ground was dry and the dust rose behind them in billowing clouds; the wind blew in their laughing faces
as they sped straight into the eye of the westering sun, like supernatural beings riding the clouds into a burning fire. It was the loveliest journey in all the world. On and on they sped, without slackening speed, without talking it over. Far over the heath they glimpsed the sheen of a little white lake, otherwise the moss was grey and the withered grass white, the rocks black, the turfless patches of earth red. The mountains far away to the south were bathed in violet, the glaciers beyond them snowy white, the ocean lost behind them long ago, night day. Along the side of the road panic-stricken heath-birds scuttled squawking over the grass before they rose into the air. Mother ewes and their lambs took to their heels and were lost to sight.

When at length they reached the lake, she turned her horse without warning off the road, and the roan followed, first over a tract of moss-grown stones, then over a marshy patch, and finally on to the banks, which were covered with dry meadow grass, green as if it had been cultivated. There were two swans on the lake. She jumped down from her horse, and he also jumped down. They were on the higher part of the moors now; the shadows very long, the sun touching the western brink of the heath, the air growing rapidly cooler. Strapped to the back of her saddle she carried a thick coat, and when she had unbuckled it and cast it over her shoulders, she produced sweets from all pockets and offered him some. Then she sat down on the bank.

“Sit down,” she said, and he sat down.

“Look at the swans,” she said, and he looked at the swans.

“Aren’t you cold?” she asked.

“No,” he replied.

“I can see from your face that you’re cold. Come a little closer and I'll give you a corner of my coat round you.”

“It isn’t at all necessary,” he said, moving closer so that she could throw a corner of her coat round him.

“Your clothes smell of smoke,” she said with a laugh. “And feathers too.”

“Eh?” said he. “Smoke? Feathers?”

“Yes, but your hair is ever so lovely,” she said, stroking his hair with her bright hands, “and you’re so broad across here. And here. And you have such manly eyes.”

The swans swam nearer the land, peering at the girl and the boy curiously, with an occasional low gobble. “Look how nobly he swims, how gracefully she follows in his wake.”

“Yes,” he said, looking at the swans and seeing all that she
saw. At first they had seemed just ordinary birds, but now he realized that they were a couple, a he and a she, not just any two birds, but two birds with a significance.

“They’re in love, you see,” she said, her eyes still fixed upon them.

He gripped her hand in silent answer, quite involuntarily; what other answer could he make? He sensed the warmth of her young bosom; it was life itself; and he sat holding her hand and she offered no objections and went on gazing at the swans as they swam to and fro in wary patrol, a yard or two from land, peering at them inquisitively. “Aren’t they lovely?” she said, and she shivered and moved nearer still; her hair tickled his face. He pressed his burning lips to her cheek.

“How do you think you’re going to get back to Fjord again now?” she asked, with a roguish sidewise glance of her eyes.

“There’s no hurry,” he said. “I have the night before me.” And added, in a whisper: “I’m ever so fond of you. Won’t you promise to wait for me?”

“Sh, don’t talk like that,” she said, and kissed him on the mouth, first once with a laugh, then twice with a little sob, then repeatedly and passionately, as if she owned him; and closed her eyes.

When at long length he threw aside the coat, under which they had been lying, and rose to his feet, the sun was far below the mountains, the air chilly, and the swans—the swans had disappeared. Perhaps there had never been any, all sheer illusion, it was only an ordinary night, a spring night over the heath. She told him to go look for the horses, then turned her back on him and hiding herself under the coat, proceeded to arrange her clothes and tidy her hair beneath its protection. He was completely devoid of thought, a man who had lost every aim in time and place, both point and line. The horses had wandered round to the other side of the lake, far away. The roan had rubbed his bit out, the rope halter was lost. He was very refractory without a bridle, and the lad had great trouble in catching him; he had to wade knee-deep in mud through the bogs. There was very little glory left in his patent-leather shoes by the time he was finished. He enticed him eventually alongside the grey and, catching hold of him, hastily tied the cord he had bought under his lower lip. When he returned at last with the horses, the girl had grown very impatient and asked him why he had been away so long. She threw the reins over the grey’s neck without loss of
time, mounted, slapped her horse on the groin, and was off at full speed, over all that lay before her.

The roan proved, if anything, even more intractable now that he had only an improvised bit and a single rein. He ran for a while in erratic curves and circles, then followed this up with a variety of other antics, so that soon Gvendur came to realize that he was sitting an unbroken foal whose tricks and whimsies made him an impossible mount. When at last he had got him on to the road again, the girl was far away on the crest of a hill and still maintaining her initial speed over the undulating heath. The roan caught sight of her and, giving vent to a loud neigh, set off in wild pursuit. But gradually it was borne in on Gvendur that his mount was less of a stayer than a sprinter; already he was in a bath of sweat, and when descending a hill, he lost his footing and tumbled, with the result that Gvendur grazed his cheek-bones and his knuckles. He took out his watch to see whether the throw had broken it, but it was unbroken; and two o’clock. The girl continued to increase her lead. Two o’clock—he had come much too far, he would be lucky indeed if he got back to Fjord by rising-time—and what was he to do with the horse? He would have to return the girl her horse, surely, before setting out on his return walk to Fjord. “Hey,” he yelled, “hey!” But they were so far apart by now that there was no hope of her hearing him, and besides, she was out of sight beyond a roll in the moors. There’s no two ways about it, I’ll have to catch up with her and give her the horse,” he thought He tried to make the cord into a double rein, to see if the roan would answer any better, then mounted and endeavoured to urge it forward. “Hey,” he yelled, “hey! Your horse, your horse!” But when he had reached the western brow of the plateau, whence one could see right down to Summerhouses, it was past three o’clock, dawn at his back, and far, far away down the valley puffs of dust from her horse’s hoofs told him that her speed had not lessened. There was no longer the remotest likelihood of his catching up with her, especially now that the roan was showing unmistakable signs of fatigue. He dismounted, and curlews, wide awake, bubbled at him from every rock, every mound on the ridges; what the devil was he to do now? If he left her horse here and walked back to Fjord, there was little chance of catching the ship the way that matters stood now, unless of course its departure had been considerably delayed. It was three o’clock. He was tired already, spent with the long bareback ride and the
falls he had sustained; and not only tired, but hungry as well; he remembered all at once that he had eaten nothing, except the sweets she had given him, since leaving the lodging-house some time early yesterday morning. Suppose he were to borrow the horse without, but in anticipation of, the owner’s consent, as was said to be justifiable in cases of extreme necessity; suppose he were to ride it straight back to Fjord, would it avail at all, would he be in time for the ship? After cudgelling his brains for a while, he decided that he ought at least to make the attempt; this was obviously a case of extreme necessity and no occasion for an over-scrupulous sense of honesty—and having decided to ride back to Fjord, he mounted once again. But the foal now refused to budge, and though the lad thumped it repeatedly with heel and fist, no amount of blows could produce any effect beyond a half-hearted effort to unseat him. It knew that its grey stall-brother was making off to the west, and no human power could persuade it to take the opposite direction. In the end the rider gave up in despair and allowed the horse to take its own road. Off it ambled down the hillside, picking its way cautiously down the road into the valley, with an occasional yawn, because of the cord, and an occasional shake of the head, an occasional snort or a neigh. When they reached the marshes opposite Summerhouses they caught a last distant glimpse of the girl and the grey on the skyline before they disappeared over the top of the ridge in the west. He managed to force his steed up the path leading to the croft. After unfastening the string, he let it loose in the home-field; the corners of its mouth were sore. It rolled about in the grass in front of the croft, stood up and shook itself, shivering a little at groin and shoulder, lathered in sweat. The sun was shining, the shadows cast by the croft long as those of some mighty palace. No part of night or day wears such beauty as the time of the sun’s rising, for then there is quiet, loveliness, and splendour over everything. And now over everything there was quiet, loveliness, and splendour. The song of the birds was sweet and happy. The mirror-like lake and the smoothly flowing river gleamed and sparkled with a silvery, entrancing radiance. The Blue Fells lay gazing in rapture up at their heaven, as if they had nothing in common with this world. They had nothing in common with this world. And in the unsubstantiality of its serene beauty and its peaceful dignity the valley, too, seemed to have nothing in common with this world. There are times when the world seems to have nothing in common with the world, times
when one can no more understand oneself than if one had been immortal.