Gently with passion, p.5
Gently with Passion, page 5
‘I wondered . . . I noticed the dinghy was out.’
‘You went down to the summerhouse, did you?’
‘Yes, I thought you might like a trip.’
‘I did. But I didn’t wait to be asked.’
She smiled warmly into his earnest eyes. The lamb, he’d devised an excuse to visit her! And he’d squandered a clean shirt and pressed his shorts, and combed a severe parting into his hair.
‘You’d better drop your sails, hadn’t you? They’ll drag us both off the mooring.’
He flushed as though she had made a daring suggestion.
‘Yes, I’d better . . . I’ll tie up to yours.’
‘It’s very pleasant moored here. It’s curious, but people don’t seem to stray much from the channel.’
He took in sail with a clumsy briskness. He seemed far too large for the delicate National. Under the parade of lighting another cigarette, Stella coolly appraised him. At thirty-three, she was not a woman lacking in experience. Her curiosity had provoked her into more than one affair. She had embarked on them critically and with affection rather than passion; it had been reserved for Justin to touch her heart – and to fob her off with a salute. She knew something about men and she was not ashamed of her knowledge. She had taken pleasure in their attentions and she was not ashamed of that. And she knew now, eyeing Keith, that she would find him intriguing to love, and that his shamefaced virginity made no small part of his attraction. It was a novelty that piqued her. She had never had a student lover.
‘There . . . that’s about it. I don’t think we shall rub.’
‘You had better come into my dinghy. You look cramped over there.’
‘Well, if you like . . .’
‘Then we’ll bask and have a chat. You can tell me about yourself, and perhaps recite some of your poetry.’
She thought he would have them both in, he was so awkward in changing boats; their two masts waved drunkenly and the National shipped water. She made use of the opportunity to take him by the hand, then sat him firmly on the floorboards by her seat.
‘Do you smoke, by the way?’
‘No. No, thanks.’
‘You will never make a poet. You should buy yourself a pipe.’
‘I don’t think I’d like it.’
‘You are at the experiencing age. It’s your business to try everything that offers, my lad.’
He crossed his long legs and tried to look at his ease, but his situation on the floorboards was neither dignified nor comfortable. The seat on which Stella perched was pressing into the small of his back and he had to screw his head round when he wanted to speak to her. She was well aware of his discomfort. She smoked her cigarette placidly. At her feet was where he belonged and where she intended he should be. She carelessly flicked away some ash, brushing his shoulder as she did so. She felt a sense of well-being, of an honest woman aboon her might.
‘How long have you been down here?’
‘Oh, on Tuesday. I came straight from Cambridge.’
He made an effort to twist his body so that he could remain looking up at her.
‘When do you see your people?’
‘People? Well, there’s only grandfather. My father was killed, you know. He was in that train crash at Glasgow.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’
‘That’s all right. We weren’t very . . . close. And then there’s my mother. I’ve never met her. She was divorced soon after I was born.’
‘I’ve put my foot in it, haven’t I?’
‘But it doesn’t matter. I want you to know.’
She laughed, but rather wryly. The poor dear soul! So he was quite alone. He not only looked but he was bereft, there was only a grandfather and Uncle Simon. She was going to have something to shoulder if she took up with Master Keith.
‘So you live with your grandfather, do you?’
‘Yes. He’s interested in my career. I’m supposed to go into the family firm – that’s Lea-Stephens Engineering. I’m the only one left to go in, so there isn’t much I can do about it. But I loathe the business really. I think I’ll probably be a flop.’
‘Why do you think that?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I just feel it. I’m not a bit like my father, I don’t take much to engineering. I didn’t want to take physics. I would have liked an arts degree. I shall scrape through it somehow, but that’s about all.’
‘What did you want to do, then?’
‘I don’t know.’ He looked dreamy. ‘That’s been the whole trouble, I didn’t have an alternative.’
‘You just want to be a poet?’
‘No. Definitely not.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s got no meaning any longer. One might as well want to be a dodo.’
She glanced at him, surprised. ‘You’re a fine one to talk!’
‘But it’s true,’ he replied earnestly. ‘Didn’t you tell me so yourself? It’s elementary, one grows out of it. I’ve been thinking about what you said. Poetry doesn’t mean anything any longer. We’ve got past it. It’s too naïve.’
‘I didn’t go so far as that.’
‘No, but it’s true, and I’ve known it, really. It never occurred to me to set up as a poet. But I didn’t know why, until you told me.’
She drew hard on her cigarette and eyed him a little askance. He was a more complicated person than Stella had taken him for. She didn’t know why, but she had been inclined to think of him as a silly young man. Quite obviously he wasn’t, he had a brain. She felt the tiniest bit aggrieved.
‘Perhaps you want to write novels, then?’
‘I don’t think I could do that.’
‘It’s easy. You just sit and you write and write and write.’
‘It can’t be as easy as all that.’ He gave her a shy little smile. ‘Besides, I’m only twenty, you know. I haven’t got much material.’
‘There’s a stack of it at Lazy Waters.’
‘Oh yes, but I couldn’t use it.’
‘Take Dawn Le Fay, for instance.’
‘She’s odd. She’s rather funny.’
‘She’s got a thing for you.’
He moved uneasily and turned away from her. ‘I don’t know . . . she’s a peculiar girl. She isn’t serious, it’s just a game.’
‘She’s beautiful.’
‘Oh yes . . . her looks.’
‘Her figure too.’
‘Yes, she’s got a figure . . .’
‘Then why not play with her, for what it’s worth. Some men would give their eyes for the chance.’
He hung his head over her knees, revealing a soft, downy nape, but though his face was turned from her he couldn’t conceal a hot flush. Stella smiled to herself. He wasn’t so complex, really. He was just a defenceless little boy whose emotions led him by the nose. She thought it would be rather nice to slip her arm around his shoulder, to ruffle the fine young hair which he had taken such pains with.
‘She would probably give you a good time.’
‘Yes . . .’
‘You like her style, don’t you? She mightn’t be an intellectual, but she isn’t stupid either. I think you’d get on well together.’ (You bloody liar, Stella.) ‘And there’s material for a novel, just waiting for you to pick it up.’
‘But I don’t want to write a novel!’
‘It’s material, all the same.’
‘Please, I don’t want you to think—’
‘You wouldn’t be scared by a chit like that?’
Now she did yield to the temptation to rest her arm on his shoulders, lightly, compassionately, with a sister-like touch. His reaction surprised her. He clasped her passionately by the waist. He buried his face in her bosom and held it there, shuddering.
‘Steady on, my lad!’
This was faster than she expected. She looked around hastily to make certain that their concealment was effective. Then she shifted herself to give a more comfortable position, gently removed one of his arms and placed her hand on his head. Some soulful exchanges, indeed! He’d got the makings of a wolf.
‘This isn’t the time and place, you know.’
‘Stella—’
‘You had better take things easy.’
‘Stella, I’ve got to tell you—!’
‘You’re a pet lamb, and you’re rather wicked.’
He moaned and went on pressing his face to her. She could feel the heat of his cheeks. She took charge of a hand which had fallen on her knee, but she didn’t think it entirely necessary to remove it. His lips sought her hotly through her thin blouse and she allowed herself a moment of luxurious sensation.
‘That’s enough, my pet. Now you’re going to behave.’
She took him briskly by the hair and drew his head away from her. His smoky, sultry eyes had a strangely broken look, like the eyes of an animal when it feels a fatal wound. He remained quite still, staring up at her, his lips slightly parted. She felt a strong impulse to kiss him but she countered it with a stronger one.
‘You’re not the angel you look, are you?’
‘Stella . . . you understand . . .’
‘I understand that we’re sitting in a dinghy, and that passers-by are likely to see us.’
‘I love you, Stella!’
‘You’re an idiot, Keith.’
‘I do . . . I love you. You must believe me.’
‘You’d do better to stick with Dawn.’
‘Dawn! She’s nothing. She’s just a girl.’
‘She’s nearer your age than I am, and she doesn’t lack the inclination.’
‘But she’s a girl, that’s the point. Stella, you must see it . . . I love you. It just happened. I can’t help it. I saw you, and I knew . . .’
‘I’m too old for you, my pet.’
‘No! It’s just because of that . . .’
‘Yes I am. It wouldn’t be fair to you.’
‘But I don’t care. I love you!’
This time he burrowed his face in her lap, and she let it stay there, still grasping his hair. She was more than a little startled by the vehemence of his passion, and perhaps even more by his clear-sighted intuition. He was plainly aware of what Stella represented. She was a sophisticated woman, and as such he was seeking her. He had understood with sure instinct what her brain had tardily surmised, that it was in a relationship such as this that he could find emotional salvation. Dawn, poor Dawn, she was only a girl; it was Dawn, not he, who was too young.
‘You really are a poppet, my dear.’
‘Stella . . .’
‘I probably ought to spank you.’ She stroked the soft hair which she found so attractive and didn’t interfere when he pressed kisses on her.
‘You’re only a boy, you know that, don’t you?’
‘I love you, Stella. I need you. I need you.’
‘To me you’re just a boy.’
‘I’ll be anything, Stella . . .’
‘An idiotic boy who should do what he’s told.’
‘I will, I promise.’
‘Then you had better begin now. Because it’s lunchtime, my lad, and I don’t like to be late for meals.’
‘But Stella—’
‘No buts – you’ll do just as you’re told. So break up the party and hop out of my boat.’
She was inflexible; and very reluctantly, he obeyed her command. She made him set out before her and watched him safely down the Broad. But when he was safely out of earshot she burst into uncontrollable laughter, certainly the first time she had done that since she’d read the announcement in the Telegraph.
TEN
AND THE MORE she thought about what had happened, the more Stella felt the inclination to laugh: it was so ridiculous, so sudden, and was having such an absurd effect on her. Less than twenty-four hours had passed since she had first met Keith, and yet during that time her whole outlook had taken a somersault. Quite frankly the effect was disproportionate to the cause. Keith was amusing, he was unexpected, she felt a qualified interest in him; but nothing could hide the fact that at first she had scarcely noticed him. And yet the cause had produced the effect: at lunchtime today she was a different person. She kept thinking of Keith, and giggling. She didn’t think of Justin at all.
When she had finished her lunch and tidied up she went to sit on the bench in the garden. She had ceased to have any idea of working; she had a premonition that novel was about to slide into oblivion. It was the greatest shame, of course, after the unhappy week she had spent on it, but it was a novel of mood, and she’d lost the mood, so it was really pointless to grind away at it. Meanwhile, she had thinking to do and, putting up her legs, she gave it her attention.
First, Simon: could the brute have foreseen that something like this was going to happen? She remembered his lecture. It seemed very odd that he should discuss with her the logic of affairs, and then five minutes later produce Keith from up his sleeve. It had the appearance of contrivance, of astute stage-management, and she wouldn’t put it past Simon to play such a trick. An amoral person himself he would see in it nothing reprehensible: on the contrary, he would probably view it as a kindly little gesture. And he could have a deeper motive, too. She suspected he was interested in Dawn. If that were the case, then it would be to his interest to have Keith occupied elsewhere. Yes, her suspicions of Simon were fair, he had been the tiniest little bit two-faced. She didn’t blame him, but she didn’t like it – damn it, he might have come out in the open!
But then she smiled at her indignation because, after all, how could Simon have been open with her? In her present mood he might have been, but yesterday had been different. She forgave him; she saw that he was only being tactful. He had jogged her attention, that was all, and she couldn’t quarrel with him for doing that. He had wished Keith on her without pain, and now it was up to Stella whether Keith was one of her acceptances.
Well, she hadn’t fallen for Keith, and she had too much common sense to suppose that he was really in love with her. He thought he was, she didn’t doubt; his protestations were sincere. In a whirlpool of anxious emotions he had equated his need for her with love. But it wasn’t love at all: it was an alarmed and fearful instinct. He wanted the knowledge of her person and the reassurance of her consent, along with the relief of having his own desire acknowledged and accepted. He was a neophyte facing a mystery and she the priestess who could unfold it, she was mature in the ways of love. In every sense she would be his mistress.
She sighed a little complacently at the end of this analysis, for it wasn’t unpleasing to feel that she was such an important person to him. To be the focus of so much ardour at the age of thirty-two was a compliment to her attraction that was worth lingering over. About Keith, however, there could be no illusions, and she was glad that she could view the young man objectively. She wasn’t even certain if she particularly liked him; beneath his romanticism she suspected there lay much that was commonplace. No: if she accepted Keith – and here Stella looked keenly into her soul – it would be mostly because she was rather attracted to the poor lamb physically. She had a yearning to take unto herself all his blind, tremulous youth, to deflower him with her body, to crop the bloom of his callowness. Having admitted this she reviewed it with meticulous care. It was true: she had felt the pang of it when he was with her that morning. And he was willing – but was it fair? That was the truly critical question. As she turned it over she frowned, and dug her thumbnail into the bench.
Then suddenly she realized that she wasn’t alone, and the circumstances gave her a start. Standing near her, cap in hand, was the man who had wanted to do her garden. He must have approached very silently because she hadn’t heard a sound, and now his thin-lipped mouth grinned at her, obviously in triumph at her surprise.
‘Didn’t mean to scare you, missus.’
She put down her legs and smoothed her skirt. He wasn’t elderly by any means, and she noticed now that he had a roving eye. She gave him a stare that was intended to quell him.
‘I don’t remember hearing you knock.’
‘That’s all right, missus, I didn’t knock. Thought I might find you sitting out here.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Well, I just came by. You were going to consider me, if you remember. I’ve always seen to the garden here – once or twice a week, that’s the regular thing.’
She got up. She wasn’t sure that she liked his familiar grin, while he had an attitude about him of being very much at home. He was a hard-framed, wiry-haired man with narrow, pinched and weathered features, and his eyes, as well as roving, had a quirk of mockery in them.
‘I still think you might have knocked.’
‘Well, you know, I’m not used to your ways.’
‘They are much the same as other people’s.’
He smirked as though she had said something witty.
‘I used to come looking for the other lady, and it’s hard to break a habit. Very fond of the garden, she was, she was always lying about on a rug. She never minded me a bit. Aren’t you an actress sort-of lady?’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘But that’s all right, though.’
‘I’m glad you think so.’
‘Ah. You’re all right.’
Stella tried another stare but found it quite without effect. The fellow, Sam, she remembered his name was, seemed armed against reproofs of that kind. She came to the point.
‘I shan’t need your services.’
‘Ay?’ It was his turn to be surprised. ‘But missus, I always see to the garden. I know how things are run around here.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m making other arrangements.’
He didn’t seem able to take it in. He stood staring, his mouth open, the coarse skin wrinkling on his forehead.
‘But missus, look you here! I’m a bloke you can trust, just ask Mr Simon. You needn’t worry about me. I’m as quiet as the grave when it comes to that sort of thing.’
‘Exactly what do you mean?’ She felt a pinprick of apprehension – could this lout have been a witness to what passed that morning in the dinghy? Seeing that his words had made an impression, he drew closer, at the same time sinking his voice confidentially.
