She seemed to study him, with almost a clinical curiosity, seemed about to refuse, then relented.
“Well, then, though you should be punished, I shall stay. You must go upstairs and take your bath. Then to bed, for you are tired. I will speak with the servants and have a tray brought to you. Afterwards I will come.”
He looked at her abjectly.
“Bless you, Frida.”
She waited until he had climbed the stairs; then, passing through the drawing-room, she went out upon the terrace. The moon, behind ragged clouds, shone faintly. It was thawing, the snow on the lawn had turned a dirty yellow, a damp sensual smell of leaves filled the air. She gazed out across the lake. Yes, there was the steamer, a little fountain of light, cosy and bright, already on its way, quite far on its way, to Melsburg. A faint thrum of the engines came back to her. Kathy must just have managed to get on board. Turning, she looked down at the little pier. Yes. All quiet and deserted. The single yellow lamp that was kept alight all night shone upon the solitary wooden bench. No one was seated there.
Chapter Twenty
Starting painfully from a restless snatch of sleep Moray awoke to the muddled consciousness of unfamiliar darkness. Where was he? And why alone? Then, through the oppression clamped on his forehead, the first dulled glint of consciousness brought the humiliating answer.
God, it had been frightful, his inability to find consolation in Frida’s arms! She had tried to help him, at first with desire, then with encouragement, and finally in a state of weary patience. All useless—he could not succeed. And then, sorely tried by his futile fumblings, she had said, in a tone which concealed contempt but not bitterness and frustration: “We both need some rest if we’re to be off tomorrow morning. Would it not be wise if you moved to another room?”
And so he was here, in the guest room—a guest, almost, in his own house. Why, he agonised, had his normal virility deserted him? Had the sudden shock of Kathy’s reappearance induced a depressive impotence? It might well be so—the oversized female in his antique bed, her musky odours and muscular anatomy, had brought paralysing images of the slender young form he had once possessed: Kathy, whom he could easily have had, and instead had hopelessly lost.
Kathy . . . Stretched out on his back, he groaned. If only he had not failed her, everything would have turned out as he had wished. Oh God, what a fool he had been, in his weakness, his craving for sympathy, to marry Frida. She had caught him: he had swallowed the bait, hook, line and sinker, and was now landed, gasping, on the bank. And how skilfully she had angled for him: first that resigned acceptance of his departure, congratulations, sweet offers of assistance; then the gradual dissemination of doubt, working up to a frontal assault upon his fears; and finally, when he had been sufficiently reduced, that determined stand, a command virtually, to take her. Miserably he acknowledged her strength. She would possess him body and soul.
God, what a horrible situation! Weak rage flooded him, followed by a spasm of self-disgust. Tears came burning to his eyes at the thought of his disloyalty to Kathy. Yet it had not been a deliberate betrayal, he told himself, simply a moment of aberration, a lapse for which he had already been punished, and for which he would eventually make amends.
Amends—yes, that was still the key, the imperative word. At all costs he must not lose contact with Kathy. No matter what had happened she was still his responsibility, his charge, as essential to him as he to her. He must, yes, he must get in touch with her at once. A letter, explanatory; contrite yet constructive, was the immediate necessity, not only to outline his plans to make provision for her, but also to express the hope that when sorrow had been tempered by compassion they might meet again. He would pour out his heart in it, and since he must leave early with Frida tomorrow it was essential for him to write it now. A faint and wavering gleam dawned in the grisly prospect of his future. There was always hope—one need never give up; with his money especially there were many ways and means. Perhaps in due course everything might be straightened out. He began even to envisage, though dimly, an amicably arranged divorce that would set him free. Surely he could rely on his dear child’s forgiveness.
Stirring himself with an effort, he got up, switched on the light and, while struggling into his dressing gown, looked at his wrist watch. Twenty minutes to twelve—he couldn’t have been asleep for much more than an hour. Guardedly, he felt his way across the landing. Rhythmic unmelodious crescendos, percolating from his room, now hers, made him wince. He hastened past. Downstairs in the library, he sat at the bureau by the window, switched on the shaded lamp, and took notepaper from the central inlaid drawer. Then, pen in hand, he stared into the outer darkness, anxiously seeking the most appropriately, touching form of address. Should it be “Dear Kathy,” “My Dearest Kathy,” or even “Darling Kathy,” or simply the restrained, sombre, but oh, so significant, “My Dear’?
After some thought he had decided on the last when, through his abstraction, he became conscious of a glow, shining distantly through the opacity of the night. The moon is rising, he thought, seeing a hopeful omen in this sudden brightness; he was indeed in a mood receptive to signs and portents. Yet it could scarcely be the moon, for the sky still remained darkly unbroken and the light itself seemed less a radiance than a strange coruscation, a shifting sparkle of pin-point lights dancing like wildfire against the unseen waters of the lake below. What on earth was it? Accustomed to the wildest elements unleashed amongst these unpredictable peaks, he was unlikely to be startled by any terrestrial phenomenon: Yet so overwrought and unstable was his present state of mind, he could not repress a faint shiver of distrust. He got to his feet, opened the french window and, despite the lightness of his attire—he had always had a tendency to catch cold—went out on the terrace.
The night, as he had suspected, was pitch and unexpectedly chill. Clutching his thin dressing gown about him he peered down towards the lights. They were near, mysteriously and disconcertingly near. But suddenly he understood, and in a reflex of absurd relief could have smiled, though he did not, at his own foolishness. It was the little fishing fleet, half a dozen boats bouncing gaily on the waves, the men casting their nets, night fishing with naphtha flares. The felchen must be running, and in shoals, to have brought them out so late.
He was about to turn back into the comfort of the house when a thought arrested him. Surely the felchen didn’t run in winter and never, to his knowledge, in this part of the lake? They always swarmed at the mouth of the river where it flowed in through the Reisenberg gorge. And shading his eyes—though this was unnecessary—for a more particular scrutiny, he saw with amazement that a number of people were gathered on the pier. At this hour of the night! He hesitated. He wanted to leave it, leave the matter as it stood, but something impelled him to run into the house for his field glasses, the splendid Zeiss binoculars he had bought in Heidelberg.
At first he could not find them, but after rummaging untidily through several drawers, they came to hand. Back on the terrace, he focussed them hurriedly. Then, just as he saw that all the flares were now congregated round the pier, one by one all of them went out and a curtain of darkness, barely relieved by the feeble pier lamp, cut off his view.
He lowered the glasses uncertainly. He had a splitting headache and for some extraordinary reason his heart was fluttering against his ribs. He ought to go in, he had the letter to write, the letter beginning simply and movingly, “My Dear.” And he would have gone in, but the sound of approaching footsteps detained him. He swung round. Two men, at first dimly seen, then gradually taking recognisable shape, were coming up the path from below. The pier-master and Herr Sacht from the village Polizeiwache.