The Secret Journey (46 page)

‘Shut the door. Quickly!' Peter then slammed it to with his own foot. He seemed agitated, breathless. Then he flung his arms round the woman. ‘Sheila! You see! I'm here! At last! Oh! Phew! I had to run for it. But I don't care! I'm here! And I've got something for you too. Oh, Sheila, Sheila!' And he covered her face with kisses. He took her face in his hands, raised it up so that the light from the kitchen gas fell upon it, and he said gently, ‘Is anything the matter, Sheila?' and kept his eyes fixed upon her own, and it was the eyes that had answered the question. For to-night they seemed so different, so strange, as though they were new eyes, the eyes of a stranger. That lovely face. A strange feeling came over him as he looked into them, as he saw their hard, lightless look. ‘Dear Sheila! Are you angry or something?'

‘Why, no, Peter! How funny you are! What makes you say that? And how hot you are—your hands are almost wet, and how you tremble. Dear, dear boy,' and she drew his head down upon her shoulders. ‘Darling Peter,' she said.

‘Why, you've changed, Sheila!' he said. ‘You've changed again. Oh, love! Love!'

Yes. That hard, indifferent look had gone. The face became animated. Her mouth was half-open—he saw the glint of teeth—and even her delicate nostrils began gently to quiver like those of a horse, and in her eyes shone warmth, he could feel it already. He was here at last. He was here, covered, hidden, secure, in the very aura of her presence. It was like a cloud that came down over him. Everything vanished. They were alone. Completely alone. The world had vanished. His agitation vanished, his hands no longer trembled, they caught her own, holding them tight. She could feel their hardness, even as she could feel the hardness of his body against her own.

‘Oh, Peter! I am glad you came! So glad! So glad! And you've brought something for me? What a dear kind person you are! But let's go upstairs. I want to dress and then we'll go out. I'm stifled.' He followed her upstairs, and sat down on the bed whilst she dressed, and as he watched her movements, it seemed that the whole room became full of her presence: the air, the walls, the bed, the table, the pictures, all seemed endowed with this something terrifying. They seemed to emanate her femininity, and it was this terrifying meaning of femininity that now held Peter to the bed as though he were rooted there. The whole room seemed to breathe it in as it flowed from her body in waves, breathe it in and become the slave of it. His own thoughts and his own body became entangled and helpless in every movement that the young woman made during this act of dressing. There seemed nothing more beautiful than the swing of her arm, the sway of her hips as she bent down to pick up a garment, the lovely movement of her head as once she turned to smile at him, as if to say:

‘You see, dear boy, that when I stand like this—when I unclothe and move, and look in the mirror, I forget you, forget everything, for I am myself. I am alone, free, sunk in my own woman's deep and living soul. I am deep down where no man can find me. My intuition walls round the sacred place that no man's hand can reach.'

All the essence of her very womanhood reached out and touched him, and again he felt that pain that was no pain, but a delicious feeling that flowed through him like rivulets of fire. He jumped from the bed and ran to her.

‘But I must be ruthless,' she said, laughing. ‘Now go downstairs and wait,' and she followed him to the door. But there he remained. He would not go. He put his back against the door, saying, ‘Hurry! Hurry, Sheila.'

‘Aren't I hurrying?' In a few minutes she was ready. They went downstairs. ‘Sheila! No matter how you dress, whether it's day or night, wet or fine, you always look lovely.'

‘Yes, but don't paw me like that, flatterer, or I'll think it's your brother and not you.'

‘He has gone to London, then? You are sure?' asked Peter, as he turned out the gas and they passed through the dark lobby.

After he had opened the door for her, she stood down on the step, saying, ‘Don't bang it. Look! I have a key. I can turn the lock and shut it without a sound. There you are! Now this way. We can catch a tram at the Custom House.'

‘Where are we going?'

He kept close to her, and they hurried through back Prees Street. ‘Here you are,' Sheila said.

It seemed that every time he came to her he shed a kind of skin, a growth that carried with it the very odour of the Hatfields neighbourhood. Now it was gone again. He felt light and clean, it was like a bath, a most invigorating bath, this sudden emergence from that skin, and feeling this being at his side, he could experience only a passionate tenderness, a longing to embrace her again, here in the very street. All that was monotonous and dull and miserable was meaningless until he walked by her side, and then it seemed he saw it all revealed as though under a microscope.

‘Where are we going?' he asked. They stood at a street corner waiting for a tram.

‘You'll see,' she said. A tram came up; they boarded it, and had to be content with single seats until Ferry Place was reached, when they alighted.

‘Ah! I know where you are going,' he said. ‘I used to often wonder why you went off alone to sit on the shore. Do you like the sea, Sheila?' he asked.

She put an arm in his, and they went down a tiny cobbled street to emerge at the end on to the shore itself. ‘How lovely and fresh and clean,' she said. ‘Isn't it, Peter? Oh, I love coming here. Do you know this is the first time I haven't been alone? Often I used to go to the shore when we lived in Vulcan Street. I used to walk for miles on the beach. And I had a favourite place too. I used to sit against an old, rotten, upturned boat, and I'd sit there for hours looking out over the sea, seeing nothing but those wide stretches of water, and drinking in the clean air, alone. I thought of nothing, at least I tried to at first. I tried to let my mind sink into the whole scene, to be drawn into all that peace and loneliness. But I never could. Somehow something would move—some thought disturb. I'd see something on the horizon when there was really nothing. Let's go along near the edge of the water, for I like to hear the ripple as it comes up on the beach. And the smell. Isn't it wonderful?' He felt a tug on his arm. She had stopped.

‘Here's an old wooden bench. It must have come from some park or other.' They sat down. Peter looked one way, Sheila Fury another. They spoke no word. It was as if the sea itself had cleaved them apart, as though each had unconsciously surrendered to the magic of the sea, as though the watching of those restless waters had cast a spell upon them. She felt his arm in hers, but even consciousness of this disappeared after a while. They were one with the silence, a silence broken only by that ceaseless murmur of the water. When Peter looked at her he felt as though he had spied upon something sacred and lovely in her person that in this quiet moment had come to flower. Her eyes had a yearning, far-away look. He drew back, put his hands in his pockets and stared down at the sand, and at the hole he began to dig with the toe of his boot. How far off Hatfields seemed, how far off that college in Cork—how dim the faces of his mother, and of his father, faces that seemed to rise out of those waters and then rapidly disappear again. It was like living upon the edge of another world, as though, stripped naked, he had plunged into the water of a new life.

‘Sheila!' He broke the silence at last. ‘Sheila! Have you thought over what I have said?' He put his arm round her neck. ‘Have you, Sheila?'

‘And have you thought too? Have you asked yourself those questions yet? Aren't you afraid of Desmond, and aren't I many years older than you?'

‘I'm not afraid of Desmond,' he said quietly. ‘It's only you I'm afraid of, Sheila.'

‘I wish you were afraid of him. Then we would both start from scratch. I mean we would both be equal. For I'm afraid too!' She lowered her head.

‘Afraid! Afraid! Of who? Desmond? Sheila, how silly! Silly!' And Peter laughed.

‘I'm afraid of myself,' she said. ‘Now you see. Now you understand. Before, all was freedom and emptiness. Now, it's prison and contentment. Sometimes a woman is glad to be imprisoned, shut up behind walls. And I'm shut up. I'm behind the walls of Gelton. Now you've come and all is changed over again. It's cruel to be a woman sometimes. Nature's not fair. I married your brother when I was desperate, and a moment later I hated him. I don't know why. I hated him. Perhaps I was beginning to feel the chain for the first time, and then after a while it wore off. I can't help myself now, and I'm afraid.'

‘Why, Sheila? Why? I knew you weren't happy. Oh, Sheila!' and he kissed her mouth. She saw his earnest, passionate face, so young, so full of enthusiasm, of confidence, of blind faith. In her! ‘And you said you'd tell me all about yourself, but you haven't. Won't you tell me, Sheila? I'd so love to hear it.'

‘Do you want me to tell you, then?'

‘Yes. Do tell me,' he said. They snuggled into each other on the seat.

‘Imagine a valley, a valley so green that there is no other green like it in all the world, and in this valley and on the bank of an old river a large white house. And imagine the hills, the woods, the streams, the birds, flowers, think of all these things, and then think of the white house in the middle of it all. Sometimes I think of it as on the shore, and though I can see it all so clear if I look long enough and hard enough, I don't feel anything, the living thing has gone. But I always think of it in the winter-time. It's funny, isn't it? In the winter I used to love the rain, and all the smells that come into the air, wet leaves, wet grass, glistening moss on the banks, the dull leaden sky, the running water, the flights of birds over the house just as it was getting dusk. I used to walk in the rain, all by myself. Father was always away in London, Mother didn't care much. I had all this to myself, and nobody to say nay to even my smallest wish. Everything was mine, everything. I was as free as the birds in the air.'

‘Why did you run away?' asked Peter. ‘Weren't you happy even there?'

‘That doesn't matter now,' she replied. ‘I'm here, living in Gelton, married to a man who wants to rise in the world, and if he only realized what I thought about it all——'

‘And what do you think, Sheila?'

‘Nothing. But I am thinking of that extraordinary life I led at home. So full and yet so barren, so hopelessly empty, but I didn't realize it at the time. Father was rarely at home. Mother suffered silently, she knew something was going on in London. My brother didn't care, and I was left entirely to myself. Quite alone. Every day I used to go for long walks, all by myself, and I used to think how futile everything was. Nothing to do, nothing to think about—just wandering aimlessly, no discipline, no care, no worry. I knew what my father was doing. Still Mother said nothing, and I grew to hate her for her silence. I loathed her. And yet I was only loathing her for a cowardliness that held me too. It was shameful. Oh, I can't talk about it. Please don't ask me. Yes, I know I said I would tell you all about myself.' She began to laugh. ‘But does it really matter? And what good will it do, resurrecting these old ghosts? Peter dear, do you know what I'm thinking now? I'm telling myself that at last I am secure, at last I am content, because I'm buried alive in Gelton. How funny that seems, and here you are wanting me to escape out of this prison. But is it a prison? And can you be sure that you love me? That I love you? That in my deep self I might not have some feeling for your brother? He is like a big child. I could work him round my little finger. Do you know he doesn't even know what part of Ireland I come from? He doesn't know who my parents are. In fact, he knows nothing, and how wise he is—he asks no questions. Once we were really angry with each other, and then he did ask where in Christ's name I had come from. But I never told him. Why should I? It's not worth it. And the next minute he was on his knees saying how sorry he was. And he has never asked since. It's not what he says, but how he looks at you. He has a sort of dog-like devotion for me. There are times when I do feel I really love him, and that's when the beautiful simplicity of his nature shines out, all unknown to him. The way he looks at me when he comes in of an evening. The way he stands watching me as I move about the kitchen, or making the bed, or putting on a dress. And you can tell by his eyes that he knows well that this voiceless adoration is his best security. I've been married to him two years, and now something strange has happened. Peter! I believe I love him. Can't you see now how cruel it is for me? I was never used to this kind of life. Now I am. My weakness is money. Desmond knows this, and, wise man, he keeps it. But I look after the house, feed him, in fact I am a good, devoted housewife now. Sometimes I tell myself that I am a fool. Peter, why do you want me to run away with you? Where could we go? We have no money. And what can you do? You're only beginning to realize what life is really like, and suddenly you want to run away from it all. From what? From your mother, from that house in Hatfields. But why? Is it all so dull, and after all, aren't there thousands like you? Aren't we all dissatisfied, aren't we all mean, selfish, thinking only of ourselves? Aren't we all wanting to do things without having to care a hang about the responsibilities involved? And aren't we dissatisfied even when we've got what we want? You hate the monotony, and I like it. It sounds strange, but I do. Desmond hates it, and he is bewildered by my calm acceptance of everything.'

‘You weren't always like this, Sheila?' Peter said, and something seemed to freeze in his breast.

‘Sheila! Dear Sheila! What are you telling me? Don't you love me any more?' And he crushed her mouth against his own. ‘Don't you understand? Will you understand? And can't I get money? How do you know that I can't get money? And what has my mother to do with it? What has Hatfields got to do with me? You see—oh, you don't realize how much you mean to me. Be honest with me. You don't really love my brother.'