‘Is there anywhere in the village where I can get petrol?’ Julian asked patiently.
‘Only here, and we’re run out,’ said the woman dispiritedly.
‘I think we’ll have to stay here, Julian,’ Alison said quietly.
‘Do you mind very much?’ He looked troubled.
Alison smiled reassuringly. ‘No. We’ll manage.’
He didn’t say anything, but he gave her an odd glance as he went out to fetch the cases and put away the car. Perhaps, of course, he was wondering how Rosalie would have reacted in similar circumstances.
‘You just been married to-day?’ the woman asked Alison as she led her up the stairs.
‘Y-yes,’ Alison admitted.
‘Ah!’ There was a wealth of meaning in the word, but, as Alison couldn’t decide what meaning, it didn’t help much. ‘I’ve buried three,’ was the startling addition to that.
Alison didn’t know quite what she was expected to make of this cheerful opening, so she just said politely-and rather fatuously, she felt-’Have you really?’
The woman nodded, and led the way into a fairly large, chilly room. But at least it looked clean, and the white ‘honeycomb’ quilts on the two iron bedsteads were spotless.
She seemed pleased when Alison declared it would do very well; and a moment later Julian came in with a couple of suitcases.
‘If you come down right away, you can have a hot supper,’ the woman remarked, and withdrew.
‘What-a cheerful-spot,’ observed Julian, setting down the cases and studying a steel engraving entitled ‘The Young Martyr,’ wherein a very pretty girl appeared to be thoroughly enjoying being drowned slowly.
‘Well, it’s clean-’ Alison began.
‘Alison, you’re an angel,’ he interrupted her. ‘Any other girl would raise hell at starting her honeymoon like this. Now come on and let’s see about this hot supper, or else I shall be making you emotional speeches of thanks, like a popular actor on a last night.’
Alison laughed a good deal, and came down with him to the really excellent meal which had been set for them by a good fire.
She supposed she ought to be feeling thoroughly embarrassed and nervous, but she felt neither. And, when supper was over, she said quite naturally. ‘I think I’ll go up right away. We’d better both get to bed soon if we want to start again fairly early to-morrow.’
This time it was he who didn’t do it quite so well. He nodded with elaborate casualness, however, and said, ‘All right. I shan’t be long.’
Upstairs in the cold bedroom again, Alison undressed rapidly, washing sketchily in the icy water supplied, and climbed into one of the unexpectedly comfortable beds.
When Julian came up half an hour later, she didn’t answer his knock. It would probably be less embarrassing for both of them if she pretended to be asleep.
He seemed to think so too, because she heard him moving about with exaggerated care so as not to wake her.
‘Poor darling!’ she thought. ‘Perhaps it’s even worse for him than for me.’
Or was it? Could anything really be worse than sharing a room with the man you loved, and having him behave like a courteous stranger?
She tried to remember one or two little incidents which had happened that day. The time he had spoken of himself quite naturally as her husband. The time he had called her ‘an angel’. She tried to gather courage from them-but it was hard.
She lay there for a long time, dozing fitfully. Then suddenly she woke to full consciousness. The storm had completely passed, and a clear, rain-washed moon was riding high in the sky and pouring its cold fight into the room.
Turning on her side, she could see Julian quite clearly. He was asleep, his dark hair inclined to fall forward over his forehead. But he evidently slept uneasily, and he had tossed off half the bed-clothes.
‘He’ll catch cold,’ Alison thought, with a sort of possessive tenderness that was very sweet, and she slipped quietly out of bed.
Very carefully and gently she put the clothes round him again. He sighed impatiently, but he didn’t move, and she thought how weary and unrested he looked.
She longed suddenly to kiss him. It didn’t seem very fair to do it without his knowing. But he had said she could yesterday-before Simon had interrupted.
She bent quickly and kissed him.
He did move then.
‘Rosalie,’ he said, half questioningly. Then he turned his cheek against the pillow like a contented child, and she saw that the look of strain had gone.
Alison stood there motionless for a long time, until she became aware of the iciness of the floor against her bare feet.
She crept back to bed, and lay for a while watching the moonlight slowly travelling over Julian. Then presently she pulled the bed-clothes over her head, so that he shouldn’t hear her crying.
CHAPTER VII
WHEN Alison woke next morning, Julian was evidently already up and dressed, for she was alone.
She looked round a little bewilderedly, slowly taking in the scene once more: the cold sunlight showing up the threads in the worn carpet, the picture of the cheerful young martyr smiling with the same fixed air of enjoyment, the brand-new suitcase labelled ‘Mrs. J. Tyndrum’, the unfamiliar masculine things on the narrow dressing-table, the tumbled bed where her husband had slept last night and dreamt of another girl.
Alison bit her lip. They were all like things in a stage drama. And she herself, she supposed, was the heroine of the drama.
She didn’t feel much like a heroine. Heroines were supposed to be courageous, and she didn’t feel courageous a bit. All she wanted to do was to press her face into the pillow and forget that the problem of living existed.
But one couldn’t get out of it that way, of course, and presently she got up and dressed and went downstairs.
‘Your husband’s out at the back there, talking to my boy Sam,’ the woman told her. ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ Alison said, not very thoughtfully, and she went out through the open doorway into the big yard. She wondered if she would ever get quite used to hearing Julian called ‘your husband.’
He was standing talking to a countrified young man who, presumably, was ‘Sam’. Julian was laughing a little at something that was being said, and Alison thought wistfully that he was really terribly handsome like that, with his head thrown back and those curiously light grey eyes of his narrowed against the sunlight.
Then he saw her, and immediately he held out his hand, with a smile which made her feel less isolated.
Alison came to his side, and he introduced her to Sam, who touched his cap.
‘Honeymoonin’, aren’t you?’ he said with an indulgent grin.
‘Yes, we are-honeymooning,’ agreed Julian calmly, and -perhaps as supporting evidence-he transferred his arm to Alison’s waist and drew her a little against him.
It made her feel happy and hurt all at once, and she remained perfectly silent while Sam and Julian talked a few minutes longer about farming in general.
‘If you like to go and have a look round, sir, you’re very welcome,’ Sam said. ‘I can’t come myself just now, but you go through that gate there. Breakfast’ll not be ready for. another ten minutes, I dare say.’
Julian thanked him and turned away with his arm still round Alison.
‘I think Sam’s nice,’ remarked Alison as they came out at the side of a field which stretched away in rain-soaked greenness to a row of bare trees, standing like skeletons against the November sky.
Julian looked amused. ‘Is that his name? How do you know?’
‘His mother told me.’
‘Oh. Yes, he seems a very good sort.’
Presently he said, ‘You’re not catching cold in this thin thing, are you?’ And he gently felt the sleeve of her suit.