Vera
Copyright© 2024 by Elizabeth Von Arnim
Chapter 23
She sat after that without speaking on his knee, his arms round her, her head on his breast.
She was thinking.
Try as she might to empty herself of everything except acceptance and love, she found that only her body was controllable. That lay quite passive in Wemyss’s arms; but her mind refused to lie passive, it would think. Strange how tightly one’s body could be held, how close to somebody else’s heart, and yet one wasn’t anywhere near the holder. They locked you up in prisons that way, holding your body tight and thinking they had got you, and all the while your mind—you—was as free as the wind and the sunlight. She couldn’t help it, she struggled hard to feel as she had felt when she woke up and saw him sitting near her; but the way he had refused to be friends, the complete absence of any readiness in him to meet her, not half, nor even a quarter, but a little bit of the way, had for the first time made her consciously afraid of him.
She was afraid of him, and she was afraid of herself in relation to him. He seemed outside anything of which she had experience. He appeared not to be—he anyhow had not been that day—generous. There seemed no way, at any point, by which one could reach him. What was he really like? How long was it going to take her really to know him? Years? And she herself, —she now knew, now that she had made their acquaintance, that she couldn’t at all bear scenes. Any scenes. Either with herself, or in her presence with other people. She couldn’t bear them while they were going on, and she couldn’t bear the exhaustion of the long drawn-out making up at the end. And she not only didn’t see how they were to be avoided—for no care, no caution would for ever be able to watch what she said, or did, or looked, or, equally important, what she didn’t say, or didn’t do, or didn’t look—but she was afraid, afraid with a most dismal foreboding, that some day after one of them, or in the middle of one of them, her nerve would give out and she would collapse. Collapse deplorably; into just something that howled and whimpered.
This, however, was horrible. She mustn’t think like this. Sufficient unto the day, she thought, trying to make herself smile, is the whimpering thereof. Besides, she wouldn’t whimper, she wouldn’t go to pieces, she would discover a way to manage. Where there was so much love there must be a way to manage.
He had pulled her blouse back, and was kissing her shoulder and asking her whose very own wife she was. But what was the good of love-making if it was immediately preceded or followed or interrupted by anger? She was afraid of him. She wasn’t in this kissing at all. Perhaps she had been afraid of him unconsciously for a long while. What was that abjectness on the honeymoon, that anxious desire to please, to avoid offending, but fear? It was love afraid; afraid of getting hurt, of not going to be able to believe whole-heartedly, of not going to be able—this was the worst—to be proud of its beloved. But now, after her experiences to-day, she had a fear of him more separate, more definite, distinct from love. Strange to be afraid of him and love him at the same time. Perhaps if she didn’t love him she wouldn’t be afraid of him. No, she didn’t think she would then, because then nothing that he said would reach her heart. Only she couldn’t imagine that. He was her heart.
‘What are you thinking of?’ asked Wemyss, who having finished with her shoulder noticed how quiet she was.
She could tell him truthfully; a moment sooner and she couldn’t have. ‘I was thinking,’ she said, ‘that you are my heart.’
‘Take care of your heart then, won’t you?’ said Wemyss.
‘We both will,’ said Lucy.
‘Of course,’ said Wemyss. ‘That’s understood. Why state it?’
She was silent a minute. Then she said, ‘Isn’t it nearly tea-time?’
‘By Jove, yes,’ he exclaimed, pulling out his watch. ‘Why, long past. I wonder what that fool—get up, little Love—’ he brushed her off his lap—’I’ll ring and find out what she means by it.’
Lucy was sorry she had said anything about tea. However, he didn’t keep his finger on the bell this time, but rang it normally. Then he stood looking at his watch.
She put her arm through his. She longed to say, ‘Please don’t scold her.’
‘Take care,’ he said, his eyes on his watch. ‘Don’t shake me——’
She asked what he was doing.
‘Timing her,’ he said. ‘Sh—sh—don’t talk. I can’t keep count if you talk.’
She became breathlessly quiet and expectant. She listened anxiously for the sound of footsteps. She did hope Lizzie would come in time. Lizzie was so nice, —it would be dreadful if she got a scolding. Why didn’t she come? There—what was that? A door going somewhere. Would she do it? Would she?
Running steps came along the passage outside. Wemyss put his watch away. ‘Five seconds to spare,’ he said. ‘That’s the way to teach them to answer bells,’ he added with satisfaction.
‘Did you ring, sir?’ inquired Lizzie, opening the door.
‘Why is tea late?’
‘It’s in the library, sir.’
‘Kindly attend to my question. I asked why tea was late.’
‘It wasn’t late to begin with, sir,’ said Lizzie.
‘Be so good as to make yourself clear.’
Lizzie, who had felt quite clear, here became befogged. She did her best, however. ‘It’s got late through waiting to be ‘ad, sir,’ she said.
‘I’m afraid I don’t follow you. Do you?’ he asked, turning to Lucy.
She started. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Really. Then you are cleverer than I am,’ said Wemyss.
Lizzie at this—for she didn’t want to make any more trouble for the young lady—made a further effort to explain. ‘It was punctual in the library, sir, at ‘alf-past four if you’d been there to ‘ave it. The tea was punctual, sir, but there wasn’t no one to ‘ave it.’
‘And pray by whose orders was it in the library?’
‘I couldn’t say, sir. Chesterton——’
‘Don’t put it on to Chesterton.’
‘I was thinking,’ said Lizzie, who was more stout-hearted than the parlourmaid and didn’t take cover quite so frequently in dumbness, ‘I was thinking p’raps Chesterton knew. I don’t do the tea, sir.’
‘Send Chesterton,’ said Wemyss.
Lizzie disappeared with the quickness of relief. Lucy, with a nervous little movement, stooped and picked up Wuthering Heights, which was still lying face downward on the floor.
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