The Raft
“Peter shall know; perhaps before we reach London.”
There was a low rumble, followed by a crash. The rain came smashing
against the panes. They pushed back their chairs and ran to look out.
In an incredibly short time streets were flooded; gutters were turbulent
with muddy rivers. Rain thudded against the pavement and sprayed up in
little fountains.
“Doesn't look to me,” said Harry, “as though we'll ever get as far as
London.”
“Got to,” said the golden woman.
The deluge commenced to slacken, but the storm still hung above
the valley, moaning and grumbling. Rain swept like smoke across the
house-tops.
Harry laughed. “Got to! You can't drive a four-inhand to London through
that. May as well make the best of it. We've to be back in Oxford before
midnight, or else----. Perhaps there's still time to do it. We'll give
it a chance.”
Some of the party burst into the room. “I say, you chaps, we've
discovered a regular circus. Such a rum old cock! Come out and talk to
him!”
The golden woman raised her head. “Why not bring him in here?”
“But we didn't think you'd------.”
She lifted her hands and let them fall despairingly. “You men! How
selfish you are, keeping everything that's vulgar to yourselves!”
Scuffling sounded in the passage and a voice booming protests, “Not like
this! It ain't fitting. Not before a lady.”
A red-faced sailor, in the loose blouse and baggy trousers of the
Royal Navy, was pushed through the doorway. In a deep bass voice he
immediately commenced to excuse himself. “Not my fault, miss.” He tugged
at an imaginary lock on his forehead. “I'm Mr. Taylor, I am--'ome on
a 'oliday, tryin' to find a nice gal wot'll appreciate my h'un-doubted
fine qualities.”
The golden woman stretched back her neck, half-closed her eyes and
chuckled. “Are you sure you have any, Mr. Taylor?”
The man fumbled at his cap. “Used to 'ave--used to sing terrible.”
“Sing terribly for me now, won't you?”
He struck an attitude, flattered by the request, and hitched up his
trousers. It was a ballad of betrayed maidenhood that he sang, solemn as
a dirge and intended to be hugely affecting. It told of the home-coming,
with her two babies, of a girl whose sweetheart had deserted her. It had
a chorus in which, with an unhappy wag of his head, the sailorman signed
to his audience to join:
“Go ring those village bells,
Let all the people know,
It was on a dark and stormy night,
One, two, three--perished in the snow.”
When they came to the enumerating of precisely how many perished, they
stuck out their fingers three times. But some of them weren't content
with only three deaths in one family; they wanted to go on counting.
Then the sailorman would stop singing and reprove them gently, “You
know, young gen'lemen, that ain't right. It ain't fitting to joke on
death.”
At last it occurred to him that something was amiss. “I'm afraid I'm
a-makin' a fool of meself.”
“Don't mention it, Mr. Taylor,” they shouted.
Their answer didn't reassure him, though they hurled it at him in
varying keys many times. He insisted on leaving, making his exit
backward because he had heard that a gentleman must always keep his face
toward a lady.
The rain was over. The sky had a sorry look for having been petulant.
The sun, though he still refused to come out, hung golden ladders from
the clouds. They stepped into the street, gazing up and feeling the air
with their hands.
“What about it?” asked Harry.
“Why, of course we're going,” said the golden woman. Her eyes met
Peter's; they seemed to beg him not to call off, but to accompany her.
Why was she so insistent about getting him to London? Who was waiting
there? Why wouldn't she tell him anything about the Faun Man or Cherry?
He calculated how long the drive would take. They were not quite
half-way. If they continued the journey they'd barely catch that last
train back. Again he recognized the appeal in her eyes.
“What about it? What do you say, Peter?”
“I? Why, I'm game. I'm going.”
Some of the men refused. The party was reduced to six when they started.
What a wet clean world they entered! It had all been made new and,
somehow, tender. The spray of rain was still in the air; it swept
against their faces coolly, vanished unexplained, and touched them again
without warning. In meadows and tree-tops there was a continual muffled
patter, as of little unseen people treading softly. From the back seats
came bursts of laughter and snatches of song, mimicking Mr. Taylor's
impressive chorus:
“It was on a dark and stormy night,
One, two, three--perished in the snow.”
The golden woman bent her head aside, “Tryin' to find a nice gal wot'll
appreciate my undoubted fine qualities! That's what all you men are
doing.”
“Oh, I don't know.”
“Yes, you are, from the minute you put on long trousers to the last
moment when you step into the grave. Men don't find her often; when they
do, as likely as not she doesn't want them.”
“I know a little about that,” said Peter; “so does Lorie. Women aren't
very kind to the men who love them.”
“Oh, aren't they!” She flicked at the leaders so that they leapt like
stags. “You're young; you need civilizing. You don't know nothin', as
that sailorman would say. How many marriages are made for love? They're
made because women are kind. Many a woman marries because she can listen
to a man talking all about himself without letting him see that she is
bored by it. Happiness is the only reality; and love--love's almost,
almost a delusion.”
Peter looked at her quietly. She could say jaded things like that
when she was made so beautifully--when everyone turned to look after
her--when the finest man in the world would give his life to save her
from pain! What had God done with the years of her life? She never
looked any older. And she wasn't grateful. Perhaps, after all, Harry was
right--all her goodness had been put into the perfection of her body,
and her soul had suffered.
She was aware that his eyes rested on her in judgment. She tried to
refrain from the impulse. Turning, she flashed on him a sudden smile.
“Too bad to say things like that to you--you who hope for so much from
life! What's the trouble?”
“I was thinking.”
“Thinking?”
He spoke slowly, “That love only seems a delusion to people who refuse
to be loving.”
A common-land sprang up; geese wandered across it. Evening was falling
early, washing colors from the landscape, blurring everything with its
watery light. The sky stooped near to earth, threatening to tumble,
monstrous with bulging clouds.
They drew up at the inn at Gerrard's Cross. Peter climbed down to
stretch his legs while the horses were being changed. He found his
friends gathered about a timetable, peering over the shoulders of the
man who held it.
“We're not going to manage it,” one was saying. “There's another storm
brewing. Besides, we're not making haste--going as leisurely as if we
had all the day before us. Nothing for it, we'll have to drop off and go
back by train.”
“There's a train leaving here in half an hour,” said the man who held
the time-table. “I'm going to catch it. Getting sent down just before
your Finals isn't good enough.” Harry interrupted. “Before we decide
anything, we'd better go out and speak to her.”
The case was explained to the golden woman. They were most awfully
sorry. It wasn't very gallant conduct on their part; but what other
choice had they? Wouldn't she leave the horses and the guard at the inn,
and come back with them to Oxford? Or could they see her on the train
to Paddington? Having told the guard to go on with the harnessing, she
listened to them quietly. When they had finished she said, “Peter and
I are going to drive to London. You're willing to take a chance, aren't
you, Peter?”
He broke into his boyish laugh. “It'll be sport. I'll chance it.”
As the coach moved off he turned and waved to the others, who stood
watching from the common. The guard from his back seat, raising the
horn, gave them a farewell flourish. In his heart of hearts Peter wished
that he were among them. But----. Well, the golden woman had a secret.
She was going to tell it to him. It had something to do with Cherry. And
it wouldn't have been decent to have left her to finish the drive
alone to London. He'd get the last train back from Paddington, barring
accidents.
She was speaking to him. “That's better. At last we're alone together.”
“Do you think we'll do it?” he asked. .
“Do what?”
“Get there in time.”
She drew her brows together. “Peter, Peter, what does it matter? You
take life so seriously.”
They laughed.
“What are you going to do with it?” she asked. He looked puzzled. “With
life, I mean,” she added.
“Don't know. It depends.”
“On what?”
“People,” he answered vaguely, taking care to avoid mentioning Cherry.
“I may travel for a year. Perhaps Kay will come with me. After that I'm
going into my father's business.”
The golden woman's face became grave; beneath its gravity was a flame of
excitement. Her voice trembled and reached him softly. “That's not what
I meant. That's not doing anything with life. Those things are
incidents--externals. I meant, are you going to live life, or are you
going to miss everything? Life's an ocean, full of enduring, dotted with
a few islands. Are you going to be an explorer--or are you going to miss
everything?”
Odd that she, of all persons, should have asked him that! He remembered
how Harry had said that she was a ship, always setting sail for new
lands and never coming to anchor.
“An explorer! I'll first see the islands.”
A strand of her hair broke loose and fluttered about her eyes. “I can't
put it back,” she said. “I wish you'd do it.” Her hands were occupied
with the reins. He leant across her. As his face came under hers, she
held her breath. To him it was nothing. The horses, feeling her hands go
slack, broke into a gallop; for a moment she lost control of them. When
she had quieted them, she turned to him impulsively, “Peter, you're a
darling.” Her eyes held his with an expression of appeal and challenge;
then faltered, as though they were afraid to look at him.
Her excitement communicated itself. He was embarrassed. He didn't
understand. He guessed that she was in trouble and was asking for his
kindness. “Golden woman, how easily you and I say things like that. If
Cherry had said it to me, or if you had said it to the Faun Man, how
much more----.”
She cut him short. “Don't.”
They had traveled half a mile in silence, when she whispered, “It wasn't
easily said.”
In the west, behind them, the sky began to burn. Little tongues of flame
licked the edges of black clouds. Mists writhed and drove across the
sinking sun. Peter stood up in his seat, looking back; it was a glimpse
of hell. He glanced ahead--everything over there was blackness. Trees
looked blasted; they bowed their heads. Roads and fields were empty.
There was no life, no color in the meadows.
“We're in for it,” he said.
Rain began to patter, softly at first. Wind was getting up and breathed
across the country in a long sigh. He spread a coat across the golden
woman's shoulders. She didn't thank him. Gathering the reins more firmly
in her hands, she whipped up the horses.
Their heads were bent together. Behind them, out of ear-shot on the
back-seat, the guard huddled. She spoke. “We're going to be late. I
intended we should be late. I wanted to get rid of the others. I knew
that you'd stick by me.”
And again she said, “You were talking of women not being kind.---- Men
aren't kind to the women who love them.”
She had changed. Her face had sharpened out of its contentment. Usually