‘Off already?’ he questioned, half turning, but not so far that he could see the other’s face.
‘I d-don’t think I shall g-go out this m-morning.’
Anthony nodded approvingly, like a family doctor. ‘That’s good,’ he said, and added that he himself proposed to hire a bicycle in the village and nip down to Ambleside. There were some things he had to buy. ‘See you at lunch-time,’ he concluded.
Brian said nothing. The door closed behind him.
By a quarter to one Anthony had returned his borrowed bicycle and was walking up the hill to the cottage. This time it was settled, definitely, once and for all. He would tell Brian everything – almost everything, the very moment he came in.
‘Brian!’ he called from the doorstep.
There was no answer.
‘Brian!’
The kitchen door opened, and old Mrs Benson, who did their cooking and cleaning, stepped out into the narrow hall. Mr Foxe, she explained, had started for a walk about half an hour before; wouldn’t be back for lunch, he had said, but had wanted (would you believe it?) to set off without anything to eat; she had made him take some sandwiches and a hard-boiled egg.
It was with a sense of inner discomfort that Anthony sat down to his solitary lunch. Brian had deliberately avoided him; therefore must be angry – or worse, it occurred to him, was hurt – too deeply to be able to bear his presence. The thought made him wince; to hurt people was so horrible, so hurting even to the hurter.
And if Brian came back from his walk magnanimously forgiving – and knowing him, Anthony felt convinced that he would – what then? It was also painful to be forgiven; particularly painful in the case of an offence one had not oneself confessed. ‘If only I could have told him,’ he kept repeating to himself, ‘if only I could have told him’; and almost contrived to persuade himself that he had been prevented.
After lunch he walked up into the wild country behind the cottage, hoping (for it was now so urgently necessary to speak), and at the same time (since the speaking would be such an agonizing process) profoundly fearing, to meet Brian. But he met nobody. Resting on the crest of the hill, he managed for a little while to forget his troubles in sarcasms at the expense of the view. So typically and discreditably English, he reflected, wishing that Mary were there to listen to his comments. Mountain, valleys, lakes, but on the pettiest scale. Miserably small and hole-and-cornery, like English cottage architecture – all ingle-nooks and charming features; nothing fine or grandiose. No hint of thirteen-century megalomania or baroque gesticulation. A snug, smug little sublimity. It was almost in high spirits that he started his descent.
No, said old Mrs Benson, Mr Foxe hadn’t yet come back.
He had his tea alone, then sat on a deck-chair on the lawn and read de Gourmont on style. At six, Mrs Benson came out, and after elaborately explaining that she had laid the table and that the cold mutton was in the larder, wished him good-evening and walked away down the road towards her own cottage.
Soon afterwards the midges began to bite and he went indoors. The little bird in the Swiss clock opened its door, cuckooed seven times and retired again into silence. Anthony continued to read about style. Half an hour later the bird popped out for a single cry. It was supper-time. Anthony rose and walked to the back door. Behind the cottage the hill was bright with an almost supernatural radiance. There was no sign of Brian. He returned to the sitting-room, and for a change read some Santayana. The cuckoo uttered eight shrill hiccoughs. Above the orange stain of sunset the evening planet was already visible. He lit the lamp and drew the curtains. Then, sitting down again, he tried to go on reading Santayana; but those carefully smoothed pebbles of wisdom rolled over the surface of his mind without making the smallest impression. He shut the book at last. The cuckoo announced that it was half-past eight.
An accident, he was wondering, could the fellow have had an accident? But, after all, people don’t have accidents – not when they’re out for a quiet walk. A new thought suddenly came to him, and at once the very possibility of twisted ankles or broken legs disappeared. That walk – he felt completely certain of it now – had been to the station. Brian was in the train, on his way to London, on his way to Joan. It was obvious, when one came to think of it; it simply couldn’t be otherwise.
‘Christ!’ Anthony said aloud in the solitude of the little room. Then, made cynical and indifferent by the very hopelessness of the situation, he shrugged his shoulders and, lighting a candle, went out to the larder to fetch the cold mutton.
This time, he decided, as he ate his meal, he really would escape. Just bolt into hiding till things looked better. He felt no compunction. Brian’s journey to London had relieved him, in his own estimation, of any further responsibility in the matter; he felt that he was now free to do whatever suited him best.
In preparation for his flight, he went upstairs after supper and began to pack his bag. The recollection that he had lent Brian The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman to red in bed sent him, candle in hand, across the landing. On the chest of drawers in Brian’s room three envelopes stood conspicuously propped against the wall. Two, he could see from the doorway, were stamped, the other was unstamped. He crossed the room to look at them more closely. The unstamped envelope was addressed to himself, the others to Mrs Foxe and Joan respectively. He set down the candle, took the envelope addressed to himself, and tore it open.
A vague but intense apprehension had filled his mind, a fear of something unknown, something he dared not know. He stood there for a long time holding the open envelope in his hand and listening to the heavy pulse of his own blood. Then, coming at last to a decision, he extracted the folded sheets. There were two of them, one in Brian’s writing, the other in Joan’s. Across the top of Joan’s letter Brian had written: ‘Read this for yourself.’ He read.
‘DEAREST BRIAN, – By this time Anthony will have told you what has happened. And, you know, it did just happen – from outside, if you see what I mean, like an accident, like being run into by a train. I certainly hadn’t thought about it before, and I don’t think Anthony had – not really; the discovery that we loved one another just ran into us, ran over us. There wasn’t any question of us doing it on purpose. That’s why I don’t feel guilty. Sorry, yes – more than words can say – for the pain I know I shall give you. Ready to do all I can to make it less. Asking forgiveness for hurting you. But not feeling guilty, not feeling I’ve treated you dishonourably. I should only feel that if I had done it deliberately; but I didn’t. I tell you, it just happened to me – to us both. Brian dear, I’m unspeakably sorry to be hurting you. You of all people.
If it were a matter of doing it with intention, I couldn’t do it. No more than you could have hurt me intentionally. But this thing has just happened, in the same way as it just happened that you hurt me because of that fear that you’ve always had of love. You didn’t want to hurt me, but you did; you couldn’t help it. The impulse that made you hurt me ran into you, ran over you, like this impulse of love that has run into me and Anthony. I don’t think it’s anybody’s fault, Brian. We had bad luck. Everything ought to have been so good and beautiful. And then things happened to us – to you first, so that you had to hurt me; then to me. Later on, perhaps, we can still be friends. I hope so. That’s why I’m not saying good-bye to you, Brian dear. Whatever happens, I am always your loving friend,
JOAN.’
In the effort to keep up his self-esteem and allay his profound disquietude, Anthony forced himself to think with distaste of the really sickening style in which this kind of letter was generally written. A branch of pulpit oratory, he concluded, and tried to smile to himself. But it was no good. His face refused to do what he asked of it. He dropped Joan’s letter and reluctantly picked up the other sheet in Brian’s handwriting.
‘DEAR A., – I enclose the letter I received this morning from Joan. Read it; it will save me explaining. How could he have done it? That’s the question I’ve been asking myself all the morning; and now I put it to you. How could you? Circumstances may have run over her – like a train, as she says. And that, I know, was my fault. But they couldn’t have run over you. You’ve told me quite enough about yourself and Mary Amberley to make it quite clear that there could be no question in your case of poor Joan’s train. Why did you do it? And why did you come here and behave as though nothing had happened? How could you sit there and let me
