With a coldness which matched her own, and which he felt as deliciously provocative as the tenderest badinage of love, he said, 'will you get her dough?
Lindsay smiled faintly and respondingly and her hand sought his.
'Not unless I stay till the end.
'And how near is the end? Lindsay shrugged her shoulders.
'She pretends to be old, doesn't she, said Randall, 'and she isn't really so old at all. Do you think she's ill?
'She's not ill. She'll live forever.
'Hmm, said Randall. 'Then we must think of something else.
'You must think of something else.
'You're bloody helpful, aren't you. He squeezed her hand. 'I tell you one thing. I must go to bed with you soon, my darling, or I'll die of unreality. The two of you have made me into a bloody dream object. I've got to have you Lindsay, or I shall just cease to be. So I suggest the programme is, first we go to bed, then I get hold of some money, then we think what to do next.
'No, said Lindsay, withdrawing her hand again. 'The programme is, first you think, then you get the money, — then we go to bed.
'Ah, he said, 'you're going to put me to the question. He trembled but he adored her for it. 'Yes?
She said impatiently, 'Yes, if you will!
He would, he would. He murmured submissively, 'You are a tormentor —’
'Oh, don't be so feeble, Randall, Lindsay said with irritation. She looked at her watch. 'It's time for us to go back now.
'Not already, said Randall. 'God! He regarded her, frowning. 'Suppose I were just to take you away now, not to let you go back?
'You couldn't, she said simply, rising.
It was so patently true that Randall did not even trouble to think in what sense it was true. He followed her dejectedly out of the pub.
'Don't look so hangdog, said Lindsay, thrusting her Ann through his as they went up the hill. 'After all, you must think, mustn't you? You must count the cost in detail. You may not really want me at all. Think of all that lovely furniture at Grayhallock!
'You bitch, said Randall softly. 'I count the cost day and night. Miranda. Everything. I've counted, and I want you, as you bloody well know.
'Miranda, said Lindsay. 'Yes. She sighed a long sigh and leaned more heavily upon his Ann.
He knew that she feared this topic and he was at once in a flurry lest he should have discouraged her. He did not want to have thrown into her consciousness any hard thing round which hostility to him might quietly collect. He said, 'That will be all right, you know. Miranda is nearly grown up and she's a very wise little person. You'll see. You'll like her and she'll like you.
'I doubt that, said Lindsay. 'But never mind. There, there! Never mind.
They reached the door of the flats and paused in the dark vestibule.
He took her two hands now, regarded her, and then took her slowly in a strong embrace. A moment later, as he almost groaned aloud with desire, he wondered why, in that sacred hour, he had accepted her idea of going to the pub, instead of taking her by taxi to his little room in Chelsea. But that was just another thing that, in that undefined way, he couldn't do. Then he felt in the sway of her body to his such an unambiguous answer to his fierceness that he became unaware of all else.
'Randall, Randall, she whispered, as if waking him from a long sleep, and gently undid his clasp. 'Come, she said.
'No, said Randall. 'I'm not coming in. You em go alone.
'She'll be disappointed if you don't come. Don't displease her. She's an old lady.
Randall hesitated. 'No, he said again. He could feel himself swelling with strength. 'I'll come tomorrow. But not now. I want to be quite alone now and think about you. I don't want this lovely piece of your presence to be spoiled before I quite make it over into my soul.
'Think, yes, she murmured. 'But not about me. Think practical thoughts, will you, Randall darling, practical thoughts.
Subdued by her tenderness he said 'Yes, yes, yes. And with a sort of triumph born of his recent abstention he watched her go down the long corridor. The green door opened and shut again and all was silence. He waited a minute or two. What in the world were they saying to each other now?
Chapter Fourteen
'THE Reverend Swann! Miranda announced with a giggle, putting her head round the door. She: never tired of this simple jest. She could then be heard pounding away down the stairs.
Ann was dusting Randall's room. She paused now with the duster in her hand. She did not want to see Douglas. She desired to stay quiet and melancholy, to be: left alone. The melancholy itself was a sort of precious achievement. She came sometimes to Randall's room, though never without a pretext. She looked about her for a moment before going down. The sun shone brightly into the small bright room. Everything was neat. The little row of gold-rimmed Dresden cups stood in descending order on the mantelpiece. The bright blue bird-woven William Morris tiles glowed on either side of the grate. The two quartets of rose prints, with their dark red mounts, paraded upon the wall. The blue and white Welsh bedspread swept smoothly up the incline of the pillow. The only shabby things in the room were the two toy animals. Toby and Joey, who had their place on the bed, their limp threadbare paws intertwined. Toby was brown and Joey was white, and each had lost an eye and a good deal of fur in the course of the years. Ann felt an affinity with them, as if she too were an old dusty object off which from time to time pieces of vague woolly substance fell. She was glad they were still there. Randall had taken his big Redoute away with him when he left; she had noticed at once its absence from the white-painted bookshelves in the alcove. But where Toby and Joey were Randall would come back. She still had in keeping the innocent part of him. She paused again at the door. It was so oddly like a boy's room: the room of an aesthetic slightly feminine boy.
Ann had scarcely met Douglas Swann since the evening of Randall's departure, when the unfortunate priest had been made to retire with so little dignity, since Swann's mother had become very ill and he had had to depart almost at once to sit by her bedside. So that she had not yet had an opportunity to discuss her new situation, if it was a new situation, with her clerical friend. She was not sure if she was glad or sorry at the prospect of now receiving his consolation, perhaps his advice. Douglas Swann often seemed to her to take, perhaps for professional reasons, too rosily optimistic a view of Randall's character. The same could not be said of Clare, whose enthusiastic sympathy Ann had had in abundance, and whose picture of Randall tended rather to the lurid. Clare was not of course unaware of Douglas's chaste concern for Ann. As a counterpart to this, she maintained a somewhat morbid interest in Ann's husband, over whose excesses there was a certain licking of the lips. In some curious way, Ann had long felt, Randall played an important part in Clare's imagination; and when, after some Randallian outrage, Clare cried with particular vehemence 'I wouldn't stand it from my husband. I'd leave! Ann felt in her friend a positive yearning for violence: a yearning which could scarcely have been satisfied by the gentle and rational Swann.
Just lately, however, Ann suspected because of admonitory letters from Douglas, Clare's 'Don't you stand it, dear! had changed into 'He'll come back, dear, you'll see.’ This doubtless would be the tone of Swann's own admonitions now that he was returned to offer them in person; and Ann felt, as she descended the stairs, a sense of guilty discouragement. The particular quality of her long battle with Randall had seemed progressively to empty the certainties by which she lived, as if the real world were being quietly “taken away, grain by grain» and stored in some place of which she had no knowledge. This did not make her doubt the certainties. There would be for her no sudden switch of the light which would show a different scene. But there was a dreariness, a hollowness. She could not inhabit what she ought to be. She felt this, anticipating the things which Douglas would certainly say. Though as she approached the drawing-room she felt also a simple pleasure in the visit of a friend.