Chapter 17

The noise, the shaking, the wind, made it impossible to say much. Perhaps up there above her on his perch he really didn’t hear; he anyhow behaved as if he didn’t. Getting no answer to any of the things she said, she looked up at him. He was intent, bent forward, his mouth tight shut, and his hair—he had nothing on his head—blown backwards, shining in the sun.

The anger died from her face. It was so absurd, what was happening to her, that she couldn’t be angry. All the trouble she had taken to get away from him, all she had endured and made Stephen and Virginia endure that week as a result of it, ending like this, in being caught and carried off in a side-car! Besides, there was something about him sitting up there in the sun, something in his expression, at once triumphant and troubled, determined and anxious, happy and scared, that brought a smile flickering round the corners of her mouth, which, however, she carefully buried in her scarf.

And as she settled down into the rug, for she couldn’t do anything at that moment except go, except rush, except be hurtled, as she gave herself up to this extraordinary temporary abduction, a queer feeling stole over her as if she had come in out of the cold into a room with a bright fire in it. Yes, she had been cold; and with Christopher it was warm. Absurd as it was, she felt she was with somebody of her own age again.

They were through the village in a flash. Stephen, still on his way to the sick-bed he was to console, was caught up and passed without his knowing who was passing. He jumped aside when he heard the noise of their approach behind him, —quickly, because he was cautious and they were close, and without looking at them, because motor-cycles and the ways of young men who used them were repugnant to him.

Christopher rushed past him with a loud hoot. It sounded defiant. Catherine gathered, from its special violence, that her son-in-law had been recognised.

The road beyond Chickover winds sweetly among hills. If one continues on it long enough, that is for twenty miles or so, one comes to the sea. This was where Christopher took Catherine that morning, not stopping a moment, nor slowing down except when prudence demanded, nor speaking a word till he got there. At the bottom of the steep bit at the end, down which he went carefully, acutely aware of the preciousness of his passenger, where between grassy banks the road abruptly finishes in shingle and the sea, he stopped, got off, and came round to unwind her.

This was the moment he was most afraid of.

She looked so very small, rolled round in the rug like a little bolster, propped up in the side-car, that his heart misgave him worse than ever. It had been misgiving him without interruption the whole way, but it misgave him worse than ever now. He felt she was too small to hurt, to anger, even to ruffle; that it wasn’t fair; that he ought, if he must attack, attack a woman more his own size.

And she didn’t say anything. She had, he knew, said a good many things when they passed that turning, none of which he could hear, but since then she had been silent. She was silent now; only, over the top of her scarf, which had got pushed up rather funnily round her ears, her eyes were fixed on him.

‘There. Here we are,’ he said. ‘We can talk here. If you’ll stand up I’ll get this thing unwound.’

For a moment he thought she was going to refuse to move, but she said nothing, and let him help her up. She was so tightly rolled round that it would have been difficult to move by herself.

He took the rug off, and folded it up busily so as not to have to meet her eyes, for he was afraid.

‘Help me out,’ she said.

He looked her suddenly in the face. ‘I’m glad I did it, anyhow,’ he said, flinging back his head.

‘Are you?’ she said.

She held out her hand to be helped. She looked rumpled.

‘Your little coat——’ he murmured, pulling it tidy; and he couldn’t keep his hand from shaking, because he loved her so—’your little coat——’ Then he straightened himself, and looked her in the eyes. ‘Catherine, we’ve got to talk,’ he said.

‘Is that why you’ve brought me here?’

‘Yes,’ said Christopher.

‘Do you imagine I’m going to listen?’

‘Yes,’ said Christopher.

‘You don’t feel at all ashamed?’

‘No,’ said Christopher.

She got out, and walked on to the shingle, and stood with her back to him, apparently considering the view. It was low tide, and the sea lay a good way off across wet sands. The sheltered bay was very quiet, and she could hear larks singing above the grassy banks behind her. Dreadful how little angry she was. She turned her back so as to hide how little angry she was. She wasn’t really angry at all, and she knew she ought to be. Christopher ought to be sent away at once and for ever, but there were two reasons against that, —one that he wouldn’t go, and the other that she didn’t want him to. Contrary to all right feeling, to all sense of what was decent, she was amazingly glad to be with him again. She didn’t do any of the things she ought to do, —flame with anger, wither him with rebukes. It was shameful, but there it was: she was amazingly glad to be with him again.