Consequently, one thing was much surer in her mind than it had been: that if Flory asked her to marry him (and he would, there was little doubt of it), she would say yes. At another time it is just possible that she would have decided differently. This afternoon, under the spell of that glorious, exciting, altogether ‘lovely’ adventure, she had come near to loving Flory; as near as, in his particular case, she was able to come. Yet even after that, perhaps, her doubts would have returned. For there had always been something dubious about Flory; his age, his birthmark, his queer, perverse way of talking–that ‘highbrow’ talk that was at once unintelligible and disquieting. There had been days when she had even disliked him. But now her uncle’s behaviour had turned the scale. Whatever happened she had got to escape from her uncle’s house, and that soon. Yes, undoubtedly she would marry Flory when he asked her!
He could see her answer in her face as he came into the library. Her air was gentler, more yielding than he had known it. She was wearing the same lilac-coloured frock that she had worn that first morning when he met her, and the sight of the familiar frock gave him courage. It seemed to bring her nearer to him, taking away the strangeness and the elegance that had sometimes unnerved him.
He picked up the magazine she had been reading and made some remark; for a moment they chattered in the banal way they so seldom managed to avoid. It is strange how the drivelling habits of conversation will persist into almost all moments. Yet even as they chattered they found themselves drifting to the door and then outside, and presently to the big frangipani tree by the tennis court. It was the night of the full moon. Flaring like a white-hot coin, so brilliant that it hurt one’s eyes, the moon swam rapidly upwards in a sky of smoky blue, across which drifted a few wisps of yellowish cloud. The stars were all invisible. The croton bushes, by day hideous dungs like jaundiced laurels, were changed by the moon into jagged black-and-white designs like fantastic woodcuts. By the compound fence two Dravidian coolies were walking down the road, transfigured, their white rags gleaming. Through the tepid air the scent streamed from the frangipani tree like some intolerable compound out of a penny-in-the-slot machine.
‘Look at the moon, just look at it!’ Flory said. ‘It’s like a white sun. It’s brighter than an English winter day.’
Elizabeth looked up into the branches of the frangipani tree, which the moon seemed to have changed into rods of silver. The light lay thick, as though palpable, on everything, crusting the earth and the rough bark of trees like some dazzling salt, and every leaf seemed to bear a freight of solid light, like snow. Even Elizabeth, indifferent to such things, was astonished.
‘It’s wonderful! You never see moonlight like that at Home. It’s so–so——’ No adjective except ‘bright’ presenting itself, she was silent. She had a habit of leaving her sentences unfinished, like Rosa Dartle, though for a different reason.
‘Yes, the old moon does her best in this country. How that tree does stink, doesn’t it? Beastly, tropical thing! I hate a tree that blooms all the year round, don’t you?’
He was talking half abstractedly, to cover the time till the coolies should be out of sight. As they disappeared he put his arm round Elizabeth’s shoulder, and then, when she did not start or speak, turned her round and drew her against him. Her head came against his breast, and her short hair grazed his lips. He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face up to meet his. She was not wearing her spectacles.
‘You don’t mind?’
‘No.’
‘I mean, you don’t mind my–this thing of mine?’ he shook his head slightly to indicate the birthmark. He could not kiss her without first asking this question.
‘No, no. Of course not.’
A moment after their mouths met he felt her bare arms settle lightly round his neck. They stood pressed together, against the smooth trunk of the frangipani tree, body to body, mouth to mouth, for a minute or more. The sickly scent of the tree came mingling with the scent of Elizabeth’s hair. And the scent gave him a feeling of stultification, of remoteness from Elizabeth, even though she was in his arms. All that that alien tree symbolised for him, his exile, the secret, wasted years–it was like an unbridgeable gulf between them. How should he ever make her understand what it was that he wanted of her? He disengaged himself and pressed her shoulders gently against the tree, looking down at her face, which he could see very clearly though the moon was behind her.
‘It’s useless trying to tell you what you mean to me,’ he said. ‘“What you mean to me”! These blunted phrases! You don’t know, you can’t know, how much I love you. But I’ve got to try and tell you. There’s so much I must tell you. Had we better go back to the Club? They may come looking for us. We can talk on the veranda.’
‘Is my hair very untidy?’ she said.
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘But has it got untidy? Smooth it for me, would you, please?’
She bent her head towards him, and he smoothed the short, cool locks with his hand. The way she bent her head to him gave him a curious feeling of intimacy, far more intimate than the kiss, as though he had already been her husband. Ah, he must have her, that was certain! Only by marrying her could his life be salvaged. In a moment he would ask her. They walked slowly through the croton bushes and back to the Club, his arm still round her shoulder.
‘We can talk on the veranda,’ he repeated. ‘Somehow, we’ve never really talked, you and I. My God, how I’ve longed all these years for somebody to talk to! How I could talk to you, interminably, interminably! That sounds boring. I’m afraid it will be boring. I must ask you to put up with it for a little while.’
She made a sound of remonstrance at the word ‘boring’.
‘No, it is boring, I know that. We Anglo-Indians are always looked on as bores. And we are bores. But we can’t help it. You see, there’s–how shall I say?–a demon inside us driving us to talk. We walk about under a load of memories which we long to share and somehow never can. It’s the price we pay for coming to this country.’
They were fairly safe from interruption on the side veranda, for there was no door opening directly upon it. Elizabeth had sat down with her arms on the little wicker table, but Flory remained strolling back and forth, with his hands in his coat pockets, stepping into the moonlight that streamed beneath the eastern eaves of the veranda, and back into the shadows.
‘I said just now that I loved you. Love! The word’s been used till it’s meaningless. But let me try to explain. This afternoon when you were there shooting with me, I thought, my God! here at last is somebody who can share my life with me, but really share it, really live it with me–do you see–’
He was going to ask her to marry him–indeed, he had intended to ask her without more delay. But the words were not spoken yet; instead, he found himself talking egoistically on and on. He could not help it. It was so important that she should understand something of what his life in this country had been; that she should grasp the nature of the loneliness that he wanted her to nullify. And it was so devilishly difficult to explain. It is devilish to suffer from a pain that is all but nameless. Blessed are they who are stricken only with classifiable diseases! Blessed are the poor, the sick, the crossed in love, for at least other people know what is the matter with them and will listen to their belly-achings with sympathy. But who that has not suffered it understands the pain of exile? Elizabeth watched him as he moved to and fro, in and out of the pool of moonlight that turned his silk coat to silver. Her heart was still knocking from the kiss, and yet her thoughts wandered as he talked. Was he going to ask her to marry him? He was being so slow about it! She was dimly aware that he was saying something about loneliness. Ah, of course! He was telling her about the loneliness she would have to put up with in the jungle, when they were married. He needn’t have troubled. Perhaps you did get rather lonely in the jungle sometimes? Miles from anywhere, no cinemas, no dances, no one but each other to talk to, nothing to do in the evenings except read–rather a bore, that. Still, you could have a gramophone. What a difference it would make when those new portable radio sets got out to Burma! She was about to say this when he added: