say a bit out of the Litany, that bit we used to say when we went the long way round home at nights, after theatres and things, in the out-of-way streets, you know − “Fae ghaisties, ghoulies an’ lang-leggity beasties, fae things that go dunt in the dark, Good Lord, deliver us.” Only it wasn’t things that go dunt in the dark that you wanted protection from, but things that go lithe in the light. Ghosts of light, not of darkness. You never saw such a night! Moon up and the whole sky like silk − gleamed. So did the earth. You felt like − or at least I felt like − a stitch or two of Chinese embroidery. You know − as though you were on a panel of silk. Unreal. I went as far as Marty’s wood − the Quarry Wood. You’ve no idea, Duss − you couldn’t imagine what it was like. At least I couldn’t have. You know that thing − Rossetti’s − about going down to the deep wells of light and bathing. It was like that. Only it was like an ocean, not a well. Submarine. Seas of light washing over you, far up above your head, and all the boughs and things were like the sea-blooms and the oozy woods that wear − you know. It was like being dissolved in a Shelley ode. Your body hadn’t substance − it was all dissolved away except its shape. You walked about among shapes that hadn’t substance, unreal shapes like things under the sea. Even some of the horrid rapscallion fishes out of the sea-bottom were there − one was, anyhow. That great sumph of a man that lives near Marty − what’s his name? − Stoddart something. I met him just inside the wood − like a monstrous unnatural fish, one of those repulsive deep-sea creatures. Meeting him’s like finding a slug in your salad. It was that night, anyhow. He had his eternal pipe in his mouth, and when he cracked a spunk the lowe of the flame was like an evil eye winking. Horrid feel it gave you. But further into the wood you forgot ugly fishes. You forgot ugly everything, and when Marty came walking through the wood you knew she wasn’t real − just a ghost of light. I’ve no idea why she came − perhaps it really wasn’t herself but just her phantom. I don’t know. I didn’t ask. She didn’t speak a single word all the time. Just glided in and stood beside me − stood at gaze, so to speak. We looked and looked for a long time. Then she got tired, standing so long in one position, and made a stumbling sort of movement. And I put out my arm to give her support − and kept it there. And then somehow or other − God knows why I did it − I kissed her.’
He had paused there, diffident. Dussie had made no answer.
‘And she just melted away − if I were a mediaeval chiel I’d honestly be tempted to believe she was an apparition. A false Florimel. An accident of light. She never spoke, you see. A voice is rather a comforting thing, don’t you think?’
He paused again: and suddenly his wife was in his arms, her bright capriciousness gone out, sobbing as though she could not stop.
When he understood her fear, Luke went through one of those moments that are like eternity, so full it was of revelation. In that moment his boyhood was over. When he had held Martha in his arms in the wood, he had felt no lust for her possession but only a solemn wonder at his nearness to a thing so pure and rare: but now as he held his wife in his arms, and understood her fear that he might love Martha more than herself, he was ravaged by desire for Martha. At that moment he felt like universal Man assailed by the whole temptation of the universe; and because hitherto he had taken exactly what he wanted from life, the shock was extreme.
But there was rock in the welter: he did not know that Martha loved him. Had he been aware of her passion, there could have been no straight issue. Blindingly it flashed on him that she might be assailed. He put the thought from him. The contest was unimaginable but so brief that when he came to himself Dussie was still sobbing:
‘I know she’s better than me, but I love you so, oh Luke, I love you so.’
Afterwards he could hardly remember that he had thought of Martha thus. The lightning had been too keen. He was not quite sure that he saw it. But he took his wife in his arms very soberly. They had done playing at love. Henceforward they were man and woman, knowing that life is edged.
Dussie kept her own counsel concerning Martha.
‘She has just to get over it,’ she thought.
So when, in the street, Martha asked, ‘Did Dussie know?’ he looked at her with some surprise.
Martha perceived that she had not been in his innermost counsels. Hardly aware of the action she began to chafe her hands, which were clammy cold. In common daylight the insanity of her supposition − that she might be more to him than Dussie − was glaringly apparent. Hot black shame consumed her. She was too conscious of it to grasp very thoroughly the significance of his departure, but with a resolute mastery of her thoughts she forced herself to attend to what he was saying. She heard much detail about the new practice, the house they were moving into, the date of their going.
‘I wish you were coming too, Marty,’ he said. ‘We shall miss you horribly.’
She heard her own voice saying:
‘I’d have been away from you this year anyhow. I don’t know where I may get a school. Not at home, likely.’
He continued: ‘You’ve meant an awful lot to us. You’ve no idea how much. And do you know, it’s really you that’s sending me off on this new enterprise. They’ve been glorious, these last three years, but too easy. My work − oh well, I’ve done it all right, of course. Old Dunster wouldn’t be so sorry to let me go if I hadn’t. But somehow − well, it hasn’t used enough of me. There was too much over to caper with. Another year or two of this divine fritteration and I’d be spoiled for good solid unrelieved hard labour. I owe it to you to have realized that one must have singleness of purpose. Oh, I’m not condemning the fritteration. Capering’s an excellent habit. But not for me. Not just now. I feel in need of a cold plunge − you know, something strenuous that you have to brace yourself for. A disciplined march. A general practitioner hasn’t much leisure for capering. G.P.’s to be my disciplined march. Instead of a hundred things I’m going to do one.’
And something cracked within her. Suddenly, it seemed, the new self inside, that in the wood had not yet worked out to the surface, had issue. It surged out over her. It took form in a jest. Gaily she cried, throwing her head back and meeting his look:
‘And what about the other ninety-nine?’
‘Dussie will attend to them,’ he said, gay like herself.
Her mind began to work again. G.P.! − But his greatness? He was to have been − what was he not to have been? She saw the destinies she had dreamed for him float past, majestic, proud, inflated. … She found herself saying − and how queer it was, incongruous, unforeseen, that she was laughing over this also, twisting it to jest −
‘So it’s a P. after all. Remember all the P.’s we planned you were to be? Philosopher, Poet, Professor −’
‘Piper, Pieman, Priest. Sounds like prune-stones, doesn’t it? Or there’s Policeman − I’m tall enough. Or Postman. That would be a fate worth considering. A country postie − I’d love that. There I am again, you see! Can’t stick to one thing. A real Philanderer.’
They had reached the door in Union Street.
‘Dussie’s begun to pack already,’ he said. ‘Oh, that’s what I must be − a Packman! Come on up.’
The next five days were like a dream to Martha. Dazedly she helped with the preparations for departure, and stood on the draughty station platform among the crowd that was seeing the travellers off. There was chattering and jesting, and a ringing cheer as the train steamed slowly out. Martha chattered and jested with the others; but the jests she bandied, and the thoughts she had been thinking,
