Mor stood close beside her. His breath came quickly. He did not look at her yet. He said, ‘Rain.’
Rain saw at once that something had happened and she saw in the same moment what it was that had happened. She froze, her hand still holding her ankle, and looked down towards the ground. Then gradually she relaxed. She said very softly, almost thoughtfully, ‘Mor,’ and again ‘Mor.’
At the same instant they both turned to look at each other. Perched upon the ladder her face was level with Mor’s. He leaned forward and very. carefully enclosed her bare shoulders in his arms. Then he drew her towards him and kissed her gently but fully upon the lips. The experience of touching her was so shattering to him that he had now to hide his face. He let it fall first upon her shoulder, and then, as he felt the roughness of his chin touching her flesh, he bent down and laid his head against her breast. He could smell the fresh smell of her cotton dress and feel the warmth of her breast and the violent beating of her heart. His own heart was beating as if it would break. All this happened in a moment. Then Rain was gently pushing him away, and getting down from the ladder. She stood before him now, very small, looking up at him. ‘No,’ she said in a very quiet pensive voice. ‘No, no, please, dear Mor, dear, no, no.’ It was like the moaning of a dove.
She said, ‘Would you mind taking the ladder back to the studio? You could leave it just outside in the yard.’ She picked up the jacket of her dress, which had been lying on the grass, and drew it on.
Mor stood as she spoke, his hands hanging down, looking at her unsmiling as if his eyes would burn her. He had heard the beating of her heart.
She hesitated, looking down, her hand involuntarily held to her breast. Then she said, ‘I’m so sorry.’ Then she turned and ran away very quickly into the wood.
Mor did not attempt to follow her. He stood for a moment, leaning with one arm upon the step-ladder. Then, like one who is fainting, he sat upon the ground.
Chapter Ten
THE day of the House Match was, as everyone had predicted, a fine day. The heat wave had been lasting now for more than a month. The sun shone from a cloudless sky upon the cricket field, which was tanned to a pale brownish colour except where in the centre assiduous watering had kept the pitch a bright green. Mor was standing behind the double row of deck-chairs near the pavilion. He was in his shirt sleeves and suffering considerably from the heat. He would have liked to go away anywhere into the shade, preferably into the darkness. He would have liked to sleep. But he had to be there, to show himself, to walk and talk as if everything were perfectly ordinary.
Not that Mor was unmoved by the House Match. An irrational excitement always surrounded this ritual. Even the masters were touched by it; and this year Mor found himself almost excessively upset. He could hardly bear to watch the game. His own house were fielding. They had been batting in the morning and early afternoon and had put up a total of a hundred and sixty-eight. Prewett’s were now batting, and one of the two batsmen who had been in now for some time was Donald Mor, who had gone in first wicket down. Donald was playing extremely well, with style and with force, and two fours which he had recently hit had won prolonged applause. He had made twenty-three, and looked as if he was settling in. Prewett’s total stood at fifty-two for one.
Jimmy Carde had just come on to bowl. Carde was attached to Mor’s house by an arrangement whereby the scholars were, for certain purposes, distributed among the other houses. In effect, this merely meant that they played games for these houses and sometimes travelled with them on expeditions. Carde was a rather ostentatious fast bowler, with a long run and a good deal of flourishing and bounding. The ball came down the pitch like a thunderbolt when launched by Carde, but not always very straight. Mor watched him bowl once to Donald. Then he turned away his head. He was moved by the spectacle of his son, and his identification with him was at that moment considerable.
Mor began to mooch along slowly behind the deck-chairs. He was feeling extremely unhappy. He looked across the field to where the housing estate lay spread out along the far boundary, a sprawling conglomeration of bright red boxes. He looked back over his shoulder towards the wood. It looked cool and dark. Mor wondered if he could decently escape, and decided that he couldn’t. A burst of clapping arose, and he looked round to see that Donald had just driven the ball past cover point for another four. Donald s success was obviously pleasing to the school. He was standing now in the middle of the pitch, conferring with his fellow batsman. Carde came down and said something to them and they both laughed. Mor mooched onwards, watched as he passed by boys anxious to descry whether his loyalties at that moment were with his house or with his son.
The House Match, which was the final in a knock-out contest, normally lasted for two days, but it was the first day which was the great occasion; it ended with a dinner given by the Headmaster to the housemasters, a festival which under Evvy’s consulship had reached an unprecedented degree of dreariness. Mr Baseford, who was a man who liked his bottle, had tried to coach Evvy into making something of this dinner, so far with little success, and now Baseford was away Mor did not care enough to try to continue his work. In the morning and afternoon, parents and other visitors were not encouraged to appear, although a few did sometimes turn up. The match was kept as a domestic occasion, the two lines of deck-chairs being occupied mainly by masters and by their families if any, and a few local friends. The School lounged along the edge of the wood, half in and half out of the shade, wearing the floppy canvas sun hats which St Bride’s boys affected in the summer, or else crowded near the pavilion within talking distance of the batting side. Mor judged that almost every body must be present. The crowd by the wood was especially dense. Occasionally a soft murmur arose from it, or the voice of a boy was heard far back under the trees, but mostly there was complete silence except for the intermittent patter of applause.
Mr Everard was sitting in one of the deck-chairs in the front row talking to Hensman, who was always the hero of this particular day. Prewett was just emerging from the pavilion. Tim Burke, who was present as usual on Mor’s invitation, was also sitting in the front row. He seemed in good spirits, looking slightly bronzed and healthier than usual, and was talking over his shoulder to one of the Sixth Form boys. Tim always got on well with the boys. Mor decided that it was about time he went back to Tim or else sat down near the wood, but he did nothing about it. On this occasion no women were present. Nan, whom duty would have constrained to come, was away, and Mrs Prewett, who was an enthusiastic cricket fan, was at home suffering from a touch of sunstroke. Mor looked round the edge of the field and sighed. He wished the day was over.
It was now five days since Nan’s departure and since the extraordinary scene in the wood. Since that time, Mor had not met Rain, nor had he made any attempt to meet her. She on her part had equally avoided him. He had caught not even a glimpse of her in the intervening days. Mor had gone to bed that night in a state of dazed and blissful happiness such as he could not remember having ever experienced before. He woke on the following morning in despair. He was ready then to attribute his outburst to a sudden relaxing of tension connected with Nan’s disappearance, to a revengeful anger against Nan for her behaviour, to overworking, to the relentless continuance of the heat wave. Whatever the explanation, it was clear that nothing more must come of this. To have made the declaration at all was insane; he could not think how he could have been so foolish.
He was, in particular, astonished that he could have let himself be so moved and softened merely by putting to himself the idea that he was in love. It seemed almost as if this phrase in itself had done the damage. Yet he knew perfectly that the notion of being in love, which was all very well for boys in their twenties, could have no possible place in his life. Mor took seriously the obligations imposed by matrimony. At least he supposed he did. He had never really had occasion to reflect on the matter. He had always been scrupulously responsible and serious in everything that related to his wife and children. But
it was not so much considerations such as these which made him feel that he had acted wrongly. It was simply the non-existence in his life, as it solidly and in reality was, of any place for an emotion or a drama of this kind. When he had imagined himself to be swayed by an overwhelming passion he had been a man in a dream. Now he had awakened from the dream.
It was not a happy awakening. Mor was tormented by the thought that he had startled Rain, perhaps shocked her, and might, for a while, be contributing to make her unhappy, or at least anxious. He had no idea what exactly her thoughts and feelings might be; but he was certain that her concern with him could not possibly extend farther than a mild and vaguely friendly interest. That being so, his outburst and subsequent withdrawal were not likely to cause her any serious suffering. At worst, there would be a certain amount of embarrassment at such few inevitable social encounters as might remain to be got through before she went away for good. All the same, it grieved Mor to think that he had subjected her to this unpleasant experience. Then he reflected also upon their previous tête-à-tête, and concluded that really Rain must have a very poor view of him indeed; and he was tempted to write her a note of apology. He resisted this temptation. The idea of writing to her was at once suspiciously attractive, and Mor had been made wary by his earlier experience of letter-writing. To write would merely be to add yet another act to a drama which had better simply terminate at once. He would just be silent and absent and hope that Rain would understand.
He had been anxious that morning in case she might take it into her head to come and watch the House Match. Evvy would have been certain to invite her to come. But she had not appeared, and would not be very likely to come at this late hour. Mor’s attention returned abruptly to the pitch. Donald had hit a ball short to mid-on, had decided to run, and had been almost run out. The School gasped and relaxed. It was the last ball of the over, so now Donald had to face the bowling again. Mor wished half-heartedly that he would soon be out. The strain was too disagreeable. Anyhow, it was nearly time for the tea interval, thank heavens.
Just then a peculiar figure emerged from the wood. It was Bledyard. Bledyard seemed to think it incumbent on him on occasions such as this to make some sort of an effort to fit him self into the picture. His effort, in this case, consisted mostly of dressing himself in white flannels and wearing a blazer. It was through phenomena of this kind that Mor had become aware on purely sartorial evidence that Bledyard was an old Etonian. Bledyard came towards him, nodded, Mor thought a trifle coldly, and then went on to take a deck-chair in the second row by himself. Mor felt curiously wounded by Bledyard’s coldness. Although he rarely reflected upon it, he valued Bledyard’s good opinion. A gloomy guilty feeling crept through him, which changed into an exasperated misery. Everything was against him.
Then somewhere beyond the pavilion a patch of white shimmering light began to form itself. It quivered at the corner of Mor’s field of attention as he was wandering slowly back again in the opposite direction. He stopped and took in what it was. It was Rain, who was approaching the scene across an expanse of open grass. She was dressed in a light-blue cotton dress with a wide skirt and a deep round neck, and she was carrying a frilly white parasol. She had rather a diffident air, and twirled the parasol nervously as she came forward. The moving pattern of shadows fell upon her face. Mor looked at her, and he felt as if an enormous vehicle had driven straight through him, leaving a blank hole to the edges of which he still raggedly adhered.
Rain’s arrival created a stir. Someone tapped Mr Everard on the shoulder and pointed. All the incumbents of the deck-chairs began to jump up and to run backwards or forwards. Sixth Form boys began picking up chairs and moving them to what they took to be suitable places. Evvy struggled up, tried to squeeze backwards between the chairs, caught his foot in one, lost his balance, and was set upright again by Hensman. The eyes of the School were turned away from the cricket field. Everybody was looking at Rain, who was now walking along in front of the deck-chairs. Evvy was squeezing back again between the chairs so as to hand her to the seat next to his. Even some of the fielders were turning round to see what was happening, shading their eyes as they did so. ‘Over!’ shouted the umpire, waking up to his duties. The field began to change places. Donald, who had stolen another run, was still at the batting end. The ball was thrown to Carde.
As Carde crossed the field, he passed near to Donald. ‘Your pappa’s poppet!’ he said - and he went away down the pitch dancing and whistling ‘A nice girl, a decent girl, but one of the rakish kind!’ and tossing the ball rhythmically up and down.
Donald coloured violently, looked towards the pavilion, then looked away and leaned over his bat, keeping his head down. He straightened up to face the bowling.
Carde took his usual long run and bounded up to the wicket like a performing panther. The ball left his hand like a bullet. Donald poked at it ineffectually; and turned to find that his middle stump was lying neatly upon the ground. There was a burst of applause. Donald turned at once and walked rapidly towards the pavilion. He did not look at Carde.
Mor turned about to see that his son had been clean bowled. Amidst the other shocks this shock was separately felt, palpably different in quality. Rain had seated herself beside Evvy, and the other spectators had settled back. Now they were clapping Donald into the pavilion. He had made thirty-one. The next batsman was walking out. Mor wondered whether he should go away. One of the junior masters came up to him and engaged him in conversation. He replied mechanically.
Two overs later it was time for the tea interval. Mor was still there, standing uneasily in the waste land between the deck-chairs and the wood. He saw Tim Burke coming towards him, and together they set off in the direction of the marquee which had been set up at the far end of the field. Mor deliberately blinded himself to what Evvy’s party was doing.
‘A fine show young Don put up,’ said Tim Burke.
‘Yes, Don did well,’ said Mor.
They entered the stifling marquee. There was a powerful smell of warm grass and canvas which brought back to Mor the long long series of past summer terms. A crowd of boys was already there fighting for their tea. A special buffet had been reserved for the masters, and here Mor and Tim were evidently the first to arrive. Mor pressed a tea-cup and a cucumber sandwich on his guest. With an effort he did not look back over his shoulder.
Tim Burke was saying something. He drew Mor away into a comer of the tent. ‘We haven’t had a moment to talk yet.’
Mor’s heart sank, he hardly knew why.
‘Look now, Mor,’ said Tim, ‘you said you’d give me the all clear today, and I’m asking you to give it now. The time’s short enough, and we must get cracking. You have it agreed with your wife, have you not?’
Mor shook his head. He had simply not been thinking about this matter at all. But now he knew that he could not, or at any rate not just now, carry out what had been his firm resolve to go ahead regardless of Nan. ‘You must give me a little more time, Tim,’ he said. ‘Nan is still terribly opposed. I will bring her round, but I don’t want to act now while she’s so obstinate.’
I seem to have changed my mind, Mor thought gloomily. Very lately he had been absolutely determined to go on. Now he was delaying again. It was only a delay, of course; but he didn’t like giving Tim this answer all the same. The fact was that his rage against Nan had quite evaporated. He felt, rather, a sense of guilt which took away any pleasure or interest he might have had in reading the two letters which she had sent since her arrival in Dorset. This was no moment for punishing Nan. It was rather he himself who deserved punishment. He must wait, and patiently attempt to make her see his point of view. If he was firm enough in his resolve she would have to agree in the end. Moreover, he was still feeling very upset and disquieted by recent events. He could not afford, at this time in the summer term, to have two crises on his hands at once. The battle with Nan, when it came, and especially if it came as a result of aggressive action on his own part, would b
e violent and bloody. He could not undertake it while he was involved, however momentarily, in another struggle too. Of course, the other matter could safely be regarded as closed; but he had to be realistic enough to see that it would be some time before he regained any sort of peace of mind. He just could not face fighting Nan just now.
The crowd behind them thickened. Tim Burke thrust his neck forward and was looking into Mor’s eyes as if he were about to remove a foreign body from them. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said, ‘that I oughtn’t just to beat you into it at this point. Haven’t I spent a year and more coaxing you and petting you until you’re willing to do what your plain reason should have told you to do from the start? And now you’re still dithering!’
‘I’m not dithering,’ said Mor impatiently. ‘I’ve decided definitely to stand. It’s just a matter of getting Nan used to the idea. Give me another three weeks, and for Christ’s sake, Tim, don’t make a fuss. I really can’t endure it.’ He returned his cup and saucer to the table with a crash.
‘All right, don’t bite my head off!’ said Tim.
Donald was coming towards them through the crowd. Mor reflected that if Tim had not been there Donald would certainly have avoided him. The boy greeted them shyly and accepted their congratulations on his innings. He bent down to scrape ineffectually at the green patches upon his white flannel trousers where the grass had stained them. Mor noticed how his face was forming and hardening. But Donald always looked more grown-up in the context of something that he could do well. A little more confidence would do him a lot of good.