Part 39 (1/2)
”Probably. Do you object? You asked for it.”
”Not a bit. I don't mind your telling me any thing that's a fact. Bad thoughts are different, but facts, good or bad, coa.r.s.e or refined, are the stuff the world's made of, and why should we shut our eyes to them? I like to take life as it comes without expurgation. Lawrence, Lizzie never had any children, did she?”
”By me?”
”Yes.”
”No, our married life didn't last long. I should have warned you, my dear, if I had had any responsibilities of that description.”
”So you would--I forgot that.” Isabel lay silent a moment, nestling her closed eyelids against his throat. ”Lawrence, my darling, I don't want to hurt you; but tell me, did she have any children after she left you?”
”Yes--one, a boy: Rendell's.”
”What became of him after Rendell died?”
”When it became impossible to leave him with Lizzie I sent him to school. He spends his holidays with my agent here at Farringay.
He's quite a nice little chap, and good looking, like Arther, and by the gossip of the neighbourhood I'm supposed to be his father.
Do you mind leaving it at that? It's no worse for him and less ignominious for me.”
”Nothing in what I've heard of your married life is ignominious for you. So you brought up Rendell's child? Essentially generous . . . . Kiss me.” Isabel's pale beauty glowed like a flame. A Christian malagre lui and very much ashamed of it, Lawrence gave her the lightest of b.u.t.terfly kisses, one on either eyelid. ”Oh, I suppose you'll say I am--what was it?--towardly too,”
murmured Isabel. ”Don't you want to kiss me?” He shook his head.
Isabel, a trifle startled, opened her eyes, but was apparently satisfied, for she shut them again hurriedly and let her arm fall across them. ”We'll go and see Rendell's boy tomorrow. You shall take me. I can say what I like to you now, can't I? . . .
Shall you like to have one of our own?”
”Isabel, Isabel!”
”But it's perfectly proper now we're married! Oh Lawrence, it'll so soon come to seem commonplace-- I want to taste the strangeness of it while I'm still near enough to Isabel Stafford to realize what a miracle it'll be. Our own! it seems so strange to say 'ours.'”
”I don't want any brats to come between you and me.”
”Aren't you always in your secret soul afraid of life?”
”Afraid of life--I?”
”You have no faith . . . Everything we possess--your happiness, our love, the children you'll give me--don't you hold it all at the sword's point? You're afraid of death or change?”
”Yes.”
”How frank you are!” Isabel smiled fleetingly. ”Aren't there any locked doors?--no?--I may go wherever I like ?--Lawrence, are you sorry Val's dead?”
”Oh, for heaven's sake, not Val again!”
”One locked door after all?”
”I was fond of him,” said Lawrence with difficult pa.s.sion. ”He told me once that I broke his life, it was no one's doing but mine that he had to go through the crucifixion of that last hour at Wanhope, and he was killed for me.” He left her and went to the window, flung it up and stood looking out into the night.
”I'd have given my life to save him. I'd give it now--now.”
”I heard from Laura this morning.”