Chapter Thirteen
'SQUARE one, said Randall.
Lindsay laughed.
They were sitting side by side in a big Edwardian pub near the comer of Church Street. The door stood open to the dusty sunny road, and the endless line of traffic. Their hands were clasped under the table.
'I wonder how my father is getting on with your —’ said Randall.
The final word presented insuperable difficulties.
'I hope excellently, said Lindsay. She had her big bland wide face turned towards him.
He did not look at her, but let his delighted attention wander about the pub, noting a pair of very young lovers, also holding hands, a Chelsea pensioner, two aged crones and a Teddy boy. About all these people a glory shone. Randall was experiencing somewhat the emotions of a dog suddenly presented with the Sunday joint; and indeed he looked, with his expression of rapturous doubt joined with apprehension of a higher and inconceivably beneficent yet also dangerous world, positively dog-like.
He said, 'Do you really mean that? Her tender, intent, ironical gaze gently toasted one side of Iris face.
'Of course I do, said Lindsay. She squeezed his hand with an increasing pressure, digging in her finger nails..
Randall winced. 'She shouldn't have let us out, should she? he said. 'I mean, it puts ideas into our heads. We ought to have been sitting together on the sofa and being referred to as «the young people». He turned his wrist against Lindsay's hand until her grip relaxed.
'Ah, she trusts us!
'But she's wrong to trust us, isn't she? said Randall eagerly. He turned for a moment to face Lindsay. The big, intent, slightly mocking yellow eyes were very close to his own. He could not search their speckled depth for images of victory or flight. Joy and humility confused him utterly.
'That's up to you, boy, said Lindsay. She gave his hand another squeeze and withdrew hers. The pale eyes widened a moment with an intensified mockery and were withdrawn too. Randall now studied her profile. The lips and cheeks were moulded with a spiritual complacency which made him faint with delight. Just so arrogantly self-filled would an angel look in repose.
'Well, it's up to you too, my queen, said Randall. 'You want to be — taken, don't you?
'If you're brave enough to take me. Not otherwise. Otherwise I'm very well off as I am, thank you. She spoke with a little-girlish satisfaction.
Randall sighed. This was the point they had got to the last time, just before Emma had so obligingly swallowed them up. 'But you've got to help me to be brave. Don't let us have a vicious circle here.
'I'm afraid I'm not going to help you, said Lindsay. She spoke judiciously. 'But I expect I shall watch your struggles with sympathy. She laughed.
'They are struggles, you know, said Randall. 'I wonder how much you really imagine them? You know how I feel Ann now as a dead weight. Yet at the same lime I'm terribly sorry for her. And I'm hideously — connected with her. It's odd how that connexion survives any real relationship. And it seems to go out into everything. The roses. Even the bloody furniture!
Randall spoke sincerely. He knew that there was a world of difference between a secret liaison and a public rupture, and he feared the latter in a dozen ways. Yet there was also in him, and it seemed at times to shiver through him like a shaft of light, a pure desire for destruction, to smash everything to bits. He worshipped the purity of that urge. He wished he could explain to Lindsay how important it was to him that she should let her wildness play, as it were, upon him. His tiny purity yearned to her immense purity as to the ground of its being, and he struggled with her wordlessly as a mystic struggles with his God.
'How you manage your wife is your affair, said Lindsay. 'I don't want to hear about it.
'I don't see why I should do all the work!
'Assuming your marriage is over, said Lindsay, ignoring his remark. 'Is it? She turned towards him again and gave him a hard look. Her face had at such moments a strength before which Randall foundered.
'Yes, of course it is.
'Well then, act accordingly.
'Ah, you are honest, he said. 'You are so much honester than I am! So much stronger too, it was on the tip of his tongue to say, but he refrained. He did not want positively to suggest to Lindsay that she was dominant. Lindsay bestriding him had better remain a private fantasy.
Lindsay smiled. The strength passed without remainder into the smile. The other side of a turning screw. 'The world would not account either of us honest. I wonder how much you really fear the world. Randall?
Randall did not know. He said emulating her toughness, 'Time will show. He added, 'I suppose we are rather unprincipled, aren't we?
'We don't live by abstract rules, said Lindsay. 'But our acts have their places. They belong to us.
'Their places in a pattern, said Randall. 'Yes. In a form. Our lives belong to us. But he thought at once, I am talking nonsense. My life has not belonged to me for years. And then he thought, but it will belong to me, and he felt the shaft of light go through him. To cover up his last remark he said. 'Ann lives by rules and her acts don’t have places, they don't belong anywhere. It's a very depressing thing to witness. I wonder why it's so depressing? It makes me so gloomy sometimes I want to die. Ann is abstract. He spoke with a sudden passion. What was it he so positively hated here?
'Morality is depressing, said Lindsay. She was smiling slightly and drawing her finger in and out of the wet rings on the table to make a complex rosiform pattern.
'Your morality is not, said Randall. 'It invigorates, it inspires, it gives life. You have a marvellous moral toughness. You are so completely honest and genuine. You do me immense good.
'Get me another drink, Randall dear.
He rose and went to the bar. Simply drinking with her was paradise. He looked about him. A group of people had come in. A fat elderly woman joined them. She kissed each of them. They all began to chatter. Randall looked on them with amazement and affection. Wonderful ordinary people whose lives worked.
'You know, he said to Lindsay as he got back with the drink, 'I long to spoil you. It's almost incredible to me, and somehow marvellous, that you've never been out of England. Think of the places there are to show you I'
'Ah, it is I who would spoil you, she said. 'I would show you things you never dreamt of if you turned out to deserve them.
There was in her cool stare a pinpoint of yearning which Randall perceived with joy, while at the same time he felt, at her so turning him away from her lack of experience, a pure compassion. Strength flowed into him. 'We're pretty evenly matched, aren't we?
She smiled now, and just touched him on the nose with her finger. 'Lindsay, Lindsay, he said, in an overflowing of tenderness. 'This is the beginning of something? We will go away together, won't we?
'I don't know, she said. 'It's a matter of your deserts, isn't it? Don't for a moment forget that we're very well off as we are.
'We are well off, of course, said Randall cautiously. He was not sure how serious Lindsay was and he wanted to say nothing wrong. 'All the same, he said, 'I'm going quietly crazy.
'I'm not! said Lindsay, with an affected little pout of complacency. 'But you will come? said Randall. He desperately wanted to feel her spurs in him. 'You do love me, Lindsay, for heaven's sake?
She looked at him sombrely, and as he gazed in supplication he seemed to see another symbol taking shape in her eyes, as if her beloved initial, on which he had used to meditate as upon one of the names of God, had transformed itself into the relevant question.
'Money, he said. 'Yes.
Lindsay nodded.
'Yes, he said. 'We must have money. That's the trouble, isn't it? He did not insult her by saying, 'I can earn money, if you help me. That was not a thing to say to a girl such as Lindsay. The turn which the discussion had taken was a sobering one; but the cold touch of even a hostile reality, after the substanceless fantasy of the last year, thrilled his blood. He felt, blindly, almost hopeful.