“I expect our little cemetery gave you quite a surprise?” said the nun.
“It did!” said Toby.
“It’s a beautiful place, don’t you think?” said the nun. “It’s so cosy and enclosed, rather like a dormitory I sometimes think. It’s nice to know that one will sleep there oneself one day.”
“It’s beautiful, yes,” said Toby, desperate.
They passed under a large cedar tree from whose spreading lower branches Toby noticed something hanging. It was a swing. Involuntarily he reached out his hand as he neared it and touched the rope.
“It’s a fine swing,” said the nun. Her voice was by now betraying her as Irish. “Why not try it? It would cheer the old swing up. We sometimes do ourselves.”
Toby hesitated. Then blushing violently he sat in the swing and urged himself several times to and fro. The nun stood by smiling.
Mumbling something Toby got out of the swing. He was ready to run, to dive into the ground. Averting his head he walked on beside the nun, who was still talking, until they reached the gate in the enclosure wall.
The nun opened the gate.
“It wasn’t locked!” said Toby with surprise.
“Why, we never bother with locking the gates!” said the nun. “I expect you enjoyed your climb. Young boys are forever climbing things.” Beaming she swung the gate open. Toby stepped through and for a moment they looked at each other through the gateway. Toby felt he ought to apologize and struggled for the words.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I know I oughtn’t to have come in.”
“Don’t be after worrying,” said the nun. “They say that curiosity killed the cat, but I never believed it when I was your age. Besides, we have a special rule which says that children can sometimes come into the enclosure.” She closed the gate between them and it seemed to Toby that her smile lingered on the outside of the gate for a second or two after it clicked shut. He turned to face the avenue.
All was silent. No one had seen his entry and no one had seen his ignominious exit. He began to run down the avenue, anxious to get as far away as possible from the dangerous and it now seemed to him even more impregnable enclosure. He felt ridiculous, humiliated, and ashamed. He ran with his head down saying, “Damn, damn, damn” to himself as he went along.
He emerged panting into the open grassland by the drive, and as he crossed it he saw the Land-Rover come sweeping in through the gates. His heart had time to give one violent jump; but the next moment he saw that it was Mark Strafford and not Michael who was at the wheel.
When he saw Toby, Mark slowed down and called out,“Give you a lift? We’re nearly late for lunch.”
Toby climbed in beside Mark and tried, as they drove round towards the house, to make coherent replies to his remarks about the tiresomeness of people in the market at Cirencester. They stopped on the gravel in front of the steps and Mrs Mark at once came bustling up to them, asking her husband if he had remembered all the shopping.
Toby said to her, “You don’t happen to know where Dora is just now, do you?”
Mrs Mark turned her round shining face on him portentously. “You don’t know?” she said. “Mrs Greenfield has left us. She’s gone back to London.”
CHAPTER 14
DORA GREENFIELD was lying in bed. It was the morning of the same day. Paul had been making love to her. Now he was gone to his work. Dora had submitted to his love without enthusiasm, and after it she felt tired and unreal. Breakfast-time was past and there was no reason to get up now rather than later. She lay looking at the open window where a clear sky was once more displayed. She contemplated this depth of space, wondering whether to call it blue or grey. The sun must be shining and the sky must be blue, only since her room faced north and she could see nothing sun-lit from her bed, the colour eluded her. She pulled the bed-clothes more closely round her and lit a cigarette. It was a chilly morning all the same with an autumnal dampness in the air.
With Paul, nothing had gone right since he had made that little speech about Catherine. It was not that Dora was jealous, or that Paul was really infatuated with Catherine. It was just that Dora had then estimated, with a devastating exactness which was usually alien to her, how much of sheer contempt there was in Paul’s love; and always would be, she reflected, since she had few illusions about her ability to change herself. It did not occur to her to wonder if Paul might change, or indeed to hope from him anything at all. She felt his contempt as destructive of her, and his love, consequently, as unwelcome. Yet all the time, in a shy roundabout way, she loved him herself, rather hopelessly and gloomily, as one might love someone to whom one had never spoken.
They had started quarrelling again. Dora had gone round to the parlours, several times, to look at Paul’s books; but, apart from one or two pictures, they seemed to her dull, and Paul exclaimed bitterly about boring her, which made it all the harder for her to show interest. She left him alone now during the day, and mooched about by herself, or else performed small tasks in the house under the direction of Mrs Mark. She felt herself watched. Everyone, she imagined, was covertly observing her to see if she was cheerful, to see if she was settling down again with her husband. She felt organized and shut in. Mrs Mark had now suggested three times that it would be a good idea if she had a talk with Mother Clare; and on the third occasion out of sheer inertia Dora had said perhaps she would sometime. Today, no doubt, Mrs Mark would try to pin her down to a definite appointment. Dora stubbed out her cigarette carefully on the back of a matchbox and began to get up.
On the way to the window she looked at herself in the tall mirror. She was wearing her blue nylon pyjamas which had been lost with the suitcase. She looked at herself gravely, wondering if she was really thinner, and whether cutting down on alcohol had improved her complexion. But she could not interest herself in what she saw or quite believe in it. She could not even focus her eyes properly upon the stupefied face of her image. She went on and leaned out of the window. The sun was shining, the lake was hard and full of reflections, the Norman tower presented to her one golden face and one receding into shadow. Dora had the odd feeling that all this was inside her head. There was no way of breaking into this scene, for it was all imaginary.
Rather startled at this feeling, she began to dress and tried to think about something practical. But the dazed feeling of unreality continued. It was as if her consciousness had eaten up its surroundings. Everything was now subjective. Even, she remembered, Paul this morning had been subjective. His love-making had been remote, like something that she imagined, like a half-waking fantasy, and not at all like an encounter with another real human being. Dora wondered if she was ill. Perhaps she ought to borrow Mark Strafford’s thermometer, to ask for something from the medicine chest. She went again to the window, and an idea occurred to her of trying somehow to break into the idle motionless scene. She thought that if she threw something very hard out of the window it would fall into the lake with a splash and disturb the reflections. She opened the window wider and looked for something to throw. The match-box was not heavy enough. She took her lipstick, and leaning well back, hurled it out. It vanished, falling presumably far short of the lake, somewhere in the long grass. Dora felt almost tearful.
It was then that she began to want to go to London. Since her arrival at Imber she had not for one second seriously contemplated leaving. But now, driven by this fit of solipsis-tic melancholy one degree more desperate, she felt the need of an act: and it seemed that there was only one act which she could perform, to take the train to London. The idea sent the blood rushing to Dora’s head. She felt her cheeks hot, her heart beating: at once more real. She put on her coat and examined her handbag. She had plenty of money. Nothing stopped her from going, she was free. She sat down on the bed.