That was what she called taking a cue.
‘I’d love it,’ she answered, putting into her tone the slight blush which she felt would have well become her cheek.
They got into his car and drove to Hill Street. He took her into his study. It was on the ground floor and looked on a tiny garden. The french windows were wide open. They sat down on a sofa.
‘Put out some of the lights and let the night into the room,’ said Julia. She quoted from The Merchant of Venice. ‘“In such a night as this, when the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees…”’
Charles switched off everything but one shaded lamp, and when he sat down again she nestled up to him. He put his arm rould her waist and she rested her head on his shoulder.
‘This is heaven,’ she murmured.
‘I’ve missed you terribly all these months.’
‘Did you get into mischief?’
‘Well, I bought an Ingres drawing and paid a lot of money for it. I must show it you before you go.’
‘Don’t forget. Where have you put it?’
She had wondered from the moment she got into the house whether the seduction would take place in the study or upstairs.
‘In my bedroom,’ he answered.
‘That’s much more comfortable really,’ she reflected.
She laughed in her sleeve as she thought of poor old Charles devising a simple little trick like that to get her into his bedroom. What mugs men were! Shy, that was what was the matter with them. A sudden pang shot through her heart as she thought of Tom. Damn Tom. Charles really was very sweet and she was determined to reward him at last for his long devotion.
‘You’ve been a wonderful friend to me, Charles,’ she said in her low, rather husky voice. She turned a little so that her face was very near his, her lips, again like Lady Hamilton’s, slightly open. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t always been very kind to you.’
She looked so deliciously yielding, a ripe peach waiting to be picked, that it seemed inevitable that he should kiss her. Then she would twine her soft white arms round his neck. But he only smiled.
‘You mustn’t say that. You’ve been always divine.’
(‘He’s afraid, poor lamb.’) ‘I don’t think anyone has ever been so much in love with me as you were.’
He gave her a little squeeze.
‘I am still. You know that. There’s never been any woman but you in my life.’
Since, however, he did not take the proffered lips she slightly turned. She looked reflectively at the electric fire. Pity it was unlit. The scene wanted a fire.
‘How different everything would have been if we’d bolted that time. Heigh-ho.’
She never quite knew what heigh-ho meant, but they used it a lot on the stage, and said with a sigh it always sounded very sad.
‘England would have lost its greatest actress. I know now how dreadfully selfish it was of me ever to propose it.’
‘Success isn’t everything. I sometimes wonder whether to gratify my silly little ambition I didn’t miss the greatest thing in the world. After all, love is the only thing that matters.’ And now she looked at him again with eyes more beautiful than ever in their melting tenderness. ‘D’you know, I think that now, if I had my time over again, I’d say take me.’
She slid her hand down to take his. He gave it a graceful pressure.
‘Oh, my dear.’
‘I’ve so often thought of that dream villa of ours. Olive trees and oleanders and the blue sea. Peace. Sometimes I’m appalled by the dullness and vulgarity of my life. What you offered was beauty. It’s too late now, I know; I didn’t know then how much I cared for you, I never dreamt that as the years went on you would mean more and more to me.’
‘It’s heavenly to hear you say that, my sweet. It makes up for so much.’
‘I’d do anything in the world for you, Charles. I’ve been selfish. I’ve ruined your life, I didn’t know what I was doing.’
Her voice was low and tremulous and she threw back her head so that her neck was like a white column. Her décolleté showed part of her small firm breasts and with her hands she pressed them forward a little.
‘You mustn’t say that, you mustn’t think that,’ he answered gently. ‘You’ve been perfect always. I wouldn’t have had you otherwise. Oh my dear, life is so short and love is so transitory. The tragedy of life is that sometimes we get what we want. Now that I look back on our long past together I know that you were wiser than I. “What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape?” Don’t you remember how it goes? “Never, never canst thou kiss, though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve; she cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss. For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!”’
(‘Idiotic.’) ‘Such lovely lines,’ she sighed. ‘Perhaps you’re right. Heigh-ho.’
He went on quoting. That was a trick of his that Julia had always found somewhat tiresome.
‘Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new!…’It gave Julia an opportunity to think. She stared in the unlit fire, her gaze intent, as though she were entranced by the exquisite beauty of those words. It was quite obvious that he just hadn’t understood. It could hardly be wondered at. She had been deaf to his passionate entreaties for twenty years, and it was very natural if he had given up his quest as hopeless. It was like Mount Everest; if those hardy mountaineers who had tried for so long in vain to reach the summit finally found an easy flight of steps that led to it, they simply would not believe their eyes: they would think there was a catch in it. Julia felt that she must make herself a little plainer; she must, as it were, reach out a helping hand to the weary pilgrim.
‘It’s getting dreadfully late,’ she said softly. ‘Show me your new drawing and then I must go home.’
He rose and she gave him both her hands so that he should help her up from the sofa. They went upstairs. His pyjamas and dressing-gown were neatly arranged on a chair.
‘How well you single men do yourselves. Such a cosy, friendly bedroom.’
He took the framed drawing off the wall and brought it over for her to look at under the light. It was a portrait in pencil of a stoutish woman in a bonnet and a low-necked dress with puffed sleeves. Julia thought her plain and the dress ridiculous.
‘Isn’t it ravishing?’ she cried.
‘I knew you’d like it. A good drawing, isn’t it?’
‘Amazing.’
He put the little picture back on its nail. When he turned round again she was standing near the bed with her hands behind her back, a little like a Circassian slave introduced by the chief eunuch to the inspection of the Grand Vizier; there was a hint of modest withdrawal in her bearing, a delicious timidity, and at the same time the virgin’s anticipation that she was about to enter into her kingdom. Julia gave a sigh that was ever so slightly voluptuous.
‘My dear, it’s been such a wonderful evening. I’ve never felt so close to you before.’
She slowly raised her hands from behind her back and with the exquisite timing that came so naturally to her moved them forwards, stretching out her arms, and held them palms upward as though there rested on them, invisibly, a lordly dish, and on the dish lay her proffered heart. Her beautiful eyes were tender and yielding and on her lips played a smile of shy surrender.
She saw Charles’s smile freeze on his face. He had understood all right.
(‘Christ, he doesn’t want me. It was all a bluff.’) The revelation for a moment staggered her. (‘God, how am I going to get out of it? What a bloody fool I must look.’)
She very nearly lost her poise. She had to think like lightning. He was standing there, looking at her with an embarrassment that he tried hard to conceal. Julia was panic-stricken. She could not think what to do with those hands that held the lordly dish; God knows, they were small, but at the moment they felt like legs of mutton hanging there. Nor did she know what to say. Every second made her posture and the situation more intolerable.