Septimus Part 32

After dinner they sat on the beach and leaned against a fis.h.i.+ng-boat. It was full moon. The northern cliff cast its huge shadow out to sea and half way across the beach. A knot of fisher folk sat full in the moonlight on the jetty and sang a song with a mournful refrain. Behind them in the square of yellow light of the salon window could be seen the figures of the two English maiden ladies apparently still addressing picture post-cards.

The luminous picture stood out sharp against the dark ma.s.s of the hotel.

Beyond the shadow of the cliff the sea lay like a silver mirror in the windless air. A tiny border of surf broke on the pebbles. Emmy drew a long breath and asked Septimus if he smelled the seaweed. The dog came and sniffed at their boots; then from the excellent leather judging them to be persons above his social station, he turned humbly away. Septimus called him, made friends with him--he was a smooth yellow dog of no account--and eventually he curled himself up between them and went to sleep. Septimus smoked his pipe. Emmy played with the ear of the dog and looked out to sea.

It was very peaceful. After a while she sighed.

"I suppose this must be our last evening together."

"I suppose it must," said Septimus.

"Are you quite sure you can afford all the money you're leaving with me?"

"Of course. It comes out of the bank."

"I know that, you stupid," she laughed. "Where else could it come from unless you kept it in a stocking? But the bank isn't an unlimited gold-mine from which you can draw out as many handfuls as you want."

Septimus knocked the ashes out of his pipe.

"People don't get sovereigns out of gold-mines. I wish they did. They extract a bit of gold about the size of this pebble out of a ton of quartz.

I once bought shares in a gold-mine and there wasn't any gold in it at all.

I always used to be buying things like that. People sold them to me. I was like Moses."

"Moses?"

"Oh, not _that_ Moses. He could get anything out of anything. He got water out of a rock. I mean the son of the Vicar of Wakefield, who bought the green spectacles."

"Oh," said Emmy, who after the way of her generation had never heard of him.

"I don't do it--let people sell me things--any more, now," he said gravely.

"I seem to have got wise. Perhaps it has come through having had to look after you. I see things much clearer."

He filled and lit another pipe and began to talk about Orion just visible over the shoulder of the cliff. Emmy, whose interests were for the moment terrestrial, interrupted him:

"There's one thing I want you to see clearly, my dear, and that is that I owe you a frightful lot of money. But I'm sure to get something to do when I'm back in London and then I can repay you by instalments. Remember, I'm not going to rest until I pay you back."

"I sha'n't rest if you do," said Septimus, nervously. "Please don't talk of it. It hurts me. I've done little enough in the world, G.o.d knows. Give me this chance of--the Buddhists call it 'acquiring merit.'"

This was not a new argument between them. Emmy had a small income under her father's will, and the prospect of earning a modest salary on the stage.

She reckoned that she would have sufficient to provide for herself and the child. Hitherto Septimus had been her banker. Neither of them had any notion of the value of money, and Septimus had a child's faith in the magic of the drawn check. He would as soon have thought of measuring the portion of whisky he poured out for a guest as of counting the money he advanced to Emmy.

She took up his last words, and speaking in a low tone, as a woman does when her pride has gone from her, she said:

"Haven't you acquired enough merit already, my dear? Don't you see the impossibility of my going on accepting things from you? You seem to take it for granted that you're to provide for me and the child for the rest of our lives. I've been a bad, unprincipled fool of a girl, I know--yes, rotten bad; there are thousands like me in London--"

Septimus rose to his feet.

"Oh, don't, Emmy, don't! I can't stand it."

She rose too and put her hands on his shoulders.

"You must let me speak to-night--our last night before we part. It isn't generous of you not to listen."

The yellow dog, disturbed in his slumbers, shook himself, and regarding them with an air of humble sympathy turned and walked away discreetly into the shadow. The fisher folk on the jetty still sang their mournful chorus.

"Sit down again."

Septimus yielded. "But why give yourself pain?" he asked gently.

"To ease my heart. The knife does good. Yes, I know I've been worthless.

But I'm not as bad as that. Don't you see how horrible the idea is to me? I must pay you back the money--and of course not come on you for any more.

You've done too much for me already. It sometimes stuns me to think of it.

It was only because I was in h.e.l.l and mad--and grasped at the hand you held out to me. I suppose I've done you the biggest wrong a woman can do a man.

Now I've come to my senses, I shudder at what I've done."

"Why? Why?" said Septimus, growing miserably unhappy.

"How can you ever marry, unless we go through the vulgarity of a collusive divorce?"

"My dear girl," said he, "what woman would ever marry a preposterous lunatic like me?"

"There's not a woman living who ought not to have gone down on her bended knees if she had married you."

"I should never have married," said he, laying his hand for a moment rea.s.suringly on hers.

"Who knows?" She gave a slight laugh. "Zora is only a woman like the rest of us."

"Why talk of Zora?" he said quickly. "What has she to do with it?"

"Everything. You don't suppose I don't know," she replied in a low voice.

"It was for her sake and not for mine."

He was about to speak when she put out her hand and covered his mouth.

"Let me talk for a little."

She took up her parable again and spoke very gently, very sensibly. The moonlight peacefulness was in her heart. It softened the tone of her voice and reflected itself in unfamiliar speech.

"I seem to have grown twenty years older," she said.

She desired on that night to make her grat.i.tude clear to him, to ask his pardon for past offenses. She had been like a hunted animal; sometimes she had licked his hand and sometimes she had scratched it. She had not been quite responsible. Sometimes she had tried to send him away, for his own sake. For herself, she had been terrified at the thought of losing him.

"Another man might have done what you did, out of chivalry; but no other man but you would not have despised the woman. I deserved it; but I knew you didn't despise me. You have been just the same to me all through as you were in the early days. It braced me up and helped me to keep some sort of self-respect. That was the chief reason why I could not let you go. Now all is over. I am quite sane and as happy as I ever shall be. After to-night it stands to reason we must each lead our separate lives. You can't do anything more for me, and G.o.d knows, poor dear, I can't do anything for you. So I want to thank you."

She put her arm around his shoulder and kissed his cheek.

Septimus flushed. Her lips were soft and her breath was sweet. No woman save his mother had ever kissed him. He turned and took her hands.

"Let me accept that in full payment for everything. You want me to go away happy, don't you?"

"My dear," she said, with a little catch in her voice, "if there was anything in the world I could do to make you happy, short of throwing baby to a tiger, I would do it."