Will You Surrender? Read online

  "Why should you remember it?"

  "Just a fancy."

  "You indulge in fancies, don't you?"

  "Like ?"

  Quietly, deliberately, she said, "Tom."

  "So it's Thomas at last." He said it even more quietly than she had. He added, "You've taken a long time to ask."

  "You've taken a long time to tell."

  "I thought you had forgotten."

  "I thought he was forgotten."

  "I told you when I took him down to Sydney that I would not give him up. It's as I said just now, you only

  trust me on the water." He laughed lightly, but she did not join in.

  "You've not said yet about Thomas," she reminded. "He is well and comparatively happy. He wrote a letter, obviously copied, and it was signed in block print FROM

  TOM."

  "The same as Mrs. Betts's chocolates?"

  "Yes," said Damien, "the same as that parcel to his Mum."

  A pause, then:

  "What is going to happen?"

  "The police are still looking for his father. You have to give the man the benefit of the doubt. He might not know of the plight of his son."

  "And then if he wants him?"

  "He is his, Gerry."

  "But why, why? He didn't want him before."

  "That was Mrs. Betts's story."

  "Don't you believe it?"

  "I did—from her lips. But other people—people in authority might not believe it from Tom's."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Betts could say she ran away with the child—refused to live with his father. There would be no one to prove otherwise."

  "The landlady in Sydney."

  "She, too, had only Mrs. Betts's story—but don't let us meet trouble halfway. My hazard is that the man won't want the boy."

  "And then?"

  "Then he becomes a state ward and available for adoption."

  "And if Betts is not located?"

  "If he is not located nor yet proved dead, Thomas will be a state ward but only available for boarding out." "You would not want that?"

  A moment of thought, then Damien answered very soberly, "It's an odd thing, Geraldine, but I've always demanded entirety. Entirety in everything. I want you to remember that."

  Athol was changing his position. His snores had diminished and now he only breathed heavily.

  Geraldine whispered, "I don't understand you—"

  "Don't you?" he whispered back, "don't you? Well, sleep on it, Geraldine. Entirety in everything. Dream about that."

  Entirety . . . Entirety in everything .. . Not just entirety in the possessing of a boy, but entirety apart from Tom . . .

  Her lids grew heavy, she found them closing. She slept and she dreamed, but not the dream he had directed. There were three strands to make a cord, one was Damien, one was Cynthia, and one was herself. But the cord kept snarling. She believed she was trying to unravel it when she was awakened by a low laugh.

  Damien was looking down on her and it was morning. The makeshift bunks on the floor had been taken up and folded. He took her own blanket off and folded it as well. "What were you trying to do with this?" he asked.

  "It was a cord and it was ravelled."

  "It certainly was," he grinned. "Look at the way you've rumpled it like a rag. Mr. Athol would not thank you." "Where is Mr. Athol?"

  "Gone with the wind, which is certainly much tamer this morning. He did not exactly promise it, but I have a strong suspicion we might have fish for breakfast."

  "Then hadn't you better light the fire?"

  "That might be too anticipatory, besides, during our conversation last night Clem told me the only way to cook fish is between new young banana leaves on an outside grid."

  "Is there a banana tree?"

  Damien confessed he had ascertained that there was.

  "Greedy of me, but I'm hungry—or is it fish-cooked-inbanana-leaves-hungry," he said. "However," he concluded, "I suppose it would not be too anticipatory of us to expect tea or more cocoa." He knelt down and put a match to the wood at the hearth.

  Gerry lay back, curiously happy.

  "There's a nice smell," she told him "Not a sea smell, something else."

  "Apples—Winesaps, Russells, Seek-No-Furthers, so Athol informed me. Last week he traded in some lobsters for a case from the coast."

  "He's a nice man."

  "He's a wise man. Over here he needs no shell of metallic sophistication. He can be just himself. That's what

  I would like, Gerry—to be alone by myself—with somebody else."

  "Then you would not be alone."

  "My dear Geraldine, have you not yet learned that two in love make one?"

  She did not reply. She just lay back, still curiously happy.

  I'll always remember this little room, she thought, lighted first by a hurricane lamp, and then by morning and a fire. I'll remember the rain on the roof; the apple orchard smell where there should only be sea tang. I'll remember its moods, laughing, snug, warm.

  He was by her side. She had not noticed him approaching.

  "I believe breakfast is coming," he warned, and he bent over to hurry her up. His arms were around her waist, lightly, deliberately casually, and yet in some odd sweet way as though they belonged there, his face, breathlessly close, looked into hers.

  He put her on her feet. She knew a quick moment of disappointment. As though sensing it, he turned back and came forward a step.

  She felt his presence with a sharp immediacy—then the door opened and it was almost as though he had not crossed to her at all.

  "Flounder," said Athol. "You're lucky. I had a feeling you might be out of luck after last night's storm."

  "It's even cooked," marvelled Gerry, rapidly clearing the table.

  "Cooked and ready," nodded Clem, and he slid off the leaves and slapped on some butter from the earthenware cooler.

  "Get it into you, Miss Prosset," he invited. "It's food at its best." He added in rough apology, "Fingers were made before forks."

  Forks were not needed, not for this ambrosia. The white flesh came away cleanly, smoothly. Gerry had never tasted fish like this before.

  They drank tea. They talked. Clem walked with them around the little island. They would have stopped longer, but Geraldine thought the Professor might be worried.

  "You'll have a smooth trip over," promised Athol. "The sea's like a mill-pond. Thank you for calling."

  "Thank you, Clem."

  "You'll come again?"

  Damien looked at Geraldine. She saw he was waiting for her to answer.

  She said, "Thank you, Clem."

  Damien said, "Yes, we'll come."

  They rowed back to the anchorage, the waters holding no remembrance of last night's violence, almost the only movement the flapping wings of the gulls.

  They did not speak. Even when they moored and were greeted by a small crowd on the beach they did not speak to each other.

  They climbed the track in silence, then parted, Geraldine to the Meadow House, Damien to Galdang.

  Before she descended to the lower level, Gerry glanced out to the sea, out to Harvest Home.

  It lay enchanted as before, she thought, a faerie place, a lilac island—but now it was no longer withdrawn.

  CHAPTER XIX

  THERE is no room for dreams in a boys' boarding school at the beginning of a new term.

  "Especially the year's last term," said Matron busily, allotting Gerry, upon her request, jobs that must be completed before the boys came back.

  "Why especially the last term, Matron?"

  "Double-checking, for one thing. Some of the pupils might leave after this quarter. Then some will transfer to senior house. But why am I telling you this, Gerry?" and Matron laughed.

  Gerry did not answer. She thought guiltily, I should be hanging my head. All my years here at Galdang, and apart from fraternizing with the boys all I have done is covet the master house. I have loved the homesick ones and bought curtain
s that are still in the closet, but I have nothing informative stored up in me at all.

  Matron was continuing with her busy reasons. "Then

  end-of-season brings the usual change of temperature storage worries. Safeguarding the woollies from moths, all that. If spring stayed on to a certain date, if summer started on another, it would make it so much simpler. I just know, for instance, that I'll only get Semple's singlet under naptha flakes and the wretched boy will start a chill."

  Her voice went on and on, and Gerry listened and did not hear. All these years Galdang has obsessed me, she was thinking with dawning realization, and now—and now it does not.

  It's lovely, and I love it, but Father—and Aunt Isabel—are right, it's still only bricks and mortar. I remember another roof, a little humble roof, the rain on it; the apple orchard smell where there should have only been sea tang; I remember its moods, laughing, snug, warm.

  And most of all, she thought shyly, I remember Damien, his arm around my waist as though it belonged there, his "Geraldine, have you not learned yet that two in love make one?"

  Slowly, quietly, sweetly it came to Gerry that she had surrendered. The house that had been her Barbary did not matter so much any longer. She, not Barbary, had surrendered because she loved a man.

  And that night she told the Professor. She had not intended to do so. It was such a small plant yet . . . so frail . . . so sensitive . . . so vulnerable. How could she put into words that from instinctive dislike had grown and blossomed this thing, that she was in love with the one person she had not wanted to love but that she was powerless to stop it, that he felt as she did—she had sensed it—although there had been no words. How could she tell her father all that?

  But parents do not need words, it seemed.

  "Gerry, you have a smile in your eyes like birds singing. That's a bad comparison, I know, but what else can you expect from an exponent of Archimedes instead of Wordsworth?"

  Gerry felt the colour coming up in her face like a sunrise. When every moment shines for you as if in its own halo, she thought happily, it's no wonder it shows.

  "Well, Geraldine?"

  "Well, Professor?"

  "Is it what I am suspecting it is?"

  "Yes, darling, yes, yes, yes."

  "Damien?"

  "Yes, Daddy."

  "I'm happy."

  "I knew you would be."

  "What's more, now I can die happy."

  "Oh, Dad!"

  They laughed together and talked of a hundred foolish things—but later Gerry was to remember his words .. .

  She had seen very little of Damien, but it did not seem to matter. She supposed contentedly that this was what was meant when people spoke of "the peace of loving". She knew he must be busy, for it was the school's busy time. Had he found, as she had, that even away from each other they were still close? She was even a little glad of the distance. Although she was longing to see him already she knew that when that time came she was going to be quite absurdly, quite childishly shy. And Damien, would he know diffidence as well?

  The morning before the school was expected back Geraldine took up her basket and went down to the village. She had some silks to match for Hilda and some books to change for Cook.

  Indulgently, she permitted Mr. Felix to talk her into some expensive groceries she had not intended to purchase, then, errands over, turned back towards the Galdang hill.

  A car was coming from the bluff. It was a long, cream sports model—Cynthia must have chosen the colour to match her hair.

  It stopped. Cynthia looked out and waved a lazy arm.

  "The forsaken mermaid," she greeted. "But then you weren't forsaken, were you? Damien went in to rescue you. You weren't exactly a mermaid either, you were pretty well drowned." For a moment Cynthia laughed silently at a secret memory of a drenched puppy with bloodshot eyes, oyster complexion and streaked brown hair. Then another thought struck her and she bit her lower lip.

  "Get in, Miss Prosset, and I'll drive you up the hill." "No, really, Miss Trenning, I love walking."

  "With that basket? Don't be silly." Cynthia opened the door and repeated, "Get in."

  For a moment Gerry hesitated. She did not want to go with Cynthia. The new happiness inside her warned

  urgently, "No, don't go; don't get in." It was, she thought foolishly, like a secret alarm going off.

  But she could not refuse. It would be impolite to do so. With a murmured thanks she got into the car.

  Cynthia drove very slowly for one who always drove too quickly. Gerry had seen her on the Marlborough Road and it was said that the police had warned her not to go so fast.

  "You're quite recovered, Miss Prosset?"

  "Quite, thank you."

  "It was clever of Damien to try out that hair-of-the-dog trick."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "The boat excursion."

  ". . . Oh, of course. Yes, very clever."

  "It was a success?"

  "Oh, yes, I think so."

  "And Harvest Home Island—did you, too, like Harvest Home?" There was a slight pause, a significant emphasis on the two words. "Damien was doubtful about it, but I said how could you help but like it, it's such a darling place."

  The morning that had seemed so perfect, with a breeze like silk and a soft brightness in the air, seemed suddenly dull and distorted. Gerry herself felt dull and distorted. But she was not deaf. It seemed to her that she had never heard more clearly, and as Cynthia kept talking she felt her heart turn to stone.

  Strength seemed to be ebbing away from her. Every word Cynthia uttered seemed to be taking away a little bit of her life. She never said anything in actual words but the meaning was unmistakable. So she, too, knew that house in all its moods, laughing, snug, warm. She knew it, thought Gerry, as only a woman who loves knows it... as only a woman who is loved knows it as well?

  All at once the misery in Gerry seemed bigger than eternity. She remembered the sound of the rain, the firelight on the walls, the smell of apples—Winesaps. Russells, Seek-no-Furthers . .

  Seek no further, said a cool voice within her, seek no further, Geraldine, she has been there as well as you.

  But why had Damien deceived her? Why had he said, "I want to see Harvest Island very much?"

  Was it to recapture another memory, a memory of another time with another girl, a girl with shining blonde hair?

  As his arms were around her waist as though they belonged there, had they belonged in memory to Cynthia? Was it Cynthia, then, he had meant when he had said two in love make one?

  The girl beside her was still talking. Gerry realized she was being offered the ashes of a fire. Out of the ashes emerged one solid fact—her own ability to love but not be loved herself. Not by Damien. And could she blame him? This girl had everything, the right looks, the right way with her, the right style.

  She was delivering Gerry to the Meadow House door now with that right degree of smiling apology, that mixture of bland innocence of what she might have said coupled with a sympathetic did-I-say-too-much.

  "Thank you, Miss Trenning."

  "Any time, Miss Prosset. It's a steep hill."

  "Yes, isn't it." Gerry took her basket and went up the steps.

  Matron met her. "Mr. Manning's phoned twice. You're to go over." She put her hand to take the basket, but Gerry hesitated.

  One hour ago, she was thinking, I would have wanted to run across. Now I don't want to go at all. For a moment she thought of disobeying the order, then, knowing it would only make the inevitable encounter all the more difficult, she relinquished the basket and walked up the slope.

  The saint at the door smiled his battered smile down on her. Gerry passed beneath his outstretched arms and went down the hall.

  Before she could knock on the door Damien had swung it wide open. He stood on the threshold, smiling, expectant, one hand half outstretched, his lips curved in a boyish, half-shy smile.

  "Geraldine—" he said.

  Gerry sai
d, "Good morning, Mr. Manning."

  She went into the room and stood by the desk.

  It seemed a long time before he joined her there. When he did his face had completely altered. The smile had gone, the expectancy, he was grim more than boyish.

  "So," he spoke at last, "it was all a mistake."

  "I beg your pardon, Mr. Manning?"

  He brushed aside her apology with an authoritative wave of his hand. "At least acknowledge it as a mistake," he ordered furiously. "Don't try to make of it something that did not happen; regret it if you like, but don't deny it. You're a cheat, Geraldine, but even cheats need not be dishonest."

  "I don't understand you."

  "More cheating." He looked down on her, feeling his fury almost suffocating him. Love happened only once in a great while, he was thinking. There was no fitful glimmer to it; it was clear and shining. There was no indeterminate notion about it; it was there.

  Yet this girl . . . this wretched girl .. .

  Gerry stood stiff and still. No one would have known that everything was tumbling around her, the odds and ends of a little house on an island, a house of apples and firelight and warmth—and a man who loved someone else.

  A sense of emptiness assailed her. It made her even more stiff and stilted.

  "You sent for me?"

  "Yes."

  The suffocation in Damien prevented him from looking at her. Looking at the desk instead he found control of himself, and eventually words.

  "I have had five wires and three long-distance calls from parents of the boys in your pre-preparatory."

  "Yes, Mr. Manning?"

  "It appears we have started an epidemic of measles." "The boys have measles now?"

  "Eight of them, and I expect more."

  "What do you intend doing?"

  "The eight under the weather will remain in their own homes, naturally. The others must be contacted and kept back also in case they have the germ ready for transmission elsewhere."

  "Can you contact them in time?"

  "I have contacted most, but three of them, Quenton, Boscastle and Ellerslie, have already left their country homes. They must be prevented from travelling any further at Sydney."