Ee’s door was closed.
The house was silent.
II
“In the morning, (16th November,) as soon as we could see the trace, we proceeded on our journey, and had the track until we had compassed the head of a long creek, and there they took into another wood, and we after them, supposing to find some of their dwellings; but we marched through boughs and bushes, and under hills and valleys, which tore our very armour in pieces, and yet we could meet with none of them, nor their houses, nor find any fresh water which we greatly desired and stood in need of, for we brought neither beer nor water with us, and our victuals was only biscuit and Holland cheese, and a little bottle of aquavite, so as we were sore athirst. About ten o’clock we came into a deep valley, full of brush, wood-gall, and long grass, through which we found little paths or tracts, and there we saw a deer, and found springs of fresh water, of which we were heartily glad, and sat us down and drank our first New England water with as much delight as ever we drank drink in all our lives.… There grew also many small vines, and fowl and deer haunted there; there grew much sassafras. From thence we went on and found much plain ground, about fifty acres, fit for the plough, and some signs where the Indians had formerly planted their corn.…”
Blue, blue-bright, gray-bright, gray — the fog-bright sun, the sun-bright fog — there had been a change overnight, a sea change, the sea had come rankly inland and upriver, the small screened window was pale with it, the fine wire screen hung softly luminous with sea dew. Sounds of dripping, too; the heavy patter, irregular and slow, of fog-drops from the poplar trees on the low roof overhead; and the thud of a fallen twig; or the sliding scrape of a dead leaf. But the change was not only this change, the change of weather — it was also something else, there was another change as well — older and stranger shapes hung in the softened light, melted into it, came out of it, were a part of it — and as he looked, or half looked, listened, or half listened, the dream and the actuality seemed but indivisible aspects of the same thing. The indiscreet dream about Nora—! Sharply and deliciously the slow bright turmoil of obscure shape swam upward out of the shadow, as if one glimpsed, through dark water, the turning and involved rondures of a sculptured group, a hand, a face, lifted, lifted as if alive, and then gone. Gone, but the emanations, the meanings, the thrust of the hand, the dark look of the face before it turned downward and under, hung, sang, vibrated, shone, in all shape and sound, ticked with the watch under the pillow, dripped with the sea fog, gave form to the window, extended themselves in and out of the fog-soft, fog-bright room, seemed even co-dimensional — like an aura — with himself. An aura? But which was aura and which was reality? This body — which jumped from bed, hurried down the stairs, shaved its blond face in a small dull square of mirror and plunged itself into the deep green-cold bath — which listened, as it pulled on its socks, to Buzzer singing in her room, or, as it pulled on the khaki trousers, to the church clock striking — was this, after all, only an aura for the dream? Was the whole world only an aura, a sort of Saturn’s ring, for the strange and delicious dream, and the dream itself the only reality—? Was that sculptural dream the real core of the world, its only true meaning?
“Tirra-loo — tirra-lee — shadows rising on you and me—”
The lilacs, in the morning fog, were a hundred years old already, they stood orderly and precise and hard in the sun-bright fog, sharply outlined where they stood on the terrace wall against the gray river, like sticks in snow. Sand was scattered on the grass, too, which would have to be raked gingerly, or brushed back into the borders, and the deep crescent hoof marks of Terence’s horse, which would have to be filled in and patted down. Shadows rising on you and me — very true, as one looked down from an autumn window; but where did they rise from, what was their source? From the dream? Like fog from the unconscious? Lilacs in sea fog, lilacs standing knee-deep in a dream?
The indiscreet dream about Nora went down the stairs with him like a suppressed radiance, like a dulled singing; the cat shot past him on the stairs—Skippity-skap! — he said, flicking at the striped tail with his hand, and in the dining room, over the little round white table, Buzzer’s round face opened a round mouth for the tilted spoon of porridge.
“I’m eating porridge,” she said.
“Porridge! No.”
“Yes, porridge.”
“And why, may I ask, didn’t you come to wake me this morning?”
“Mummy wouldn’t let me. She said you were sleeping.”
“Foo! How could you wake me if I wasn’t sleeping? Answer me that!”
“And Chattahoochee was out all night, the naughty cat, and came in hungry as a bear and all skedaddlish—”
“Skedaddlish — who ever heard such a word—”
“And he drank his milk like anything, slup — slup — slup — slup.”
“Quite true. He always drinks his milk four tonguefuls at a time — just the way you ought to eat your porridge.”
“I shouldn’t either! Ho ho, how silly! As if I was a little cat!”
“A red-haired cat.”
“It isn’t red — it’s gold!”
“Red.”
“Gold! And I saw the lilacs, too—”
He kissed the golden, corn-silk golden, curls, pushed the freckled nose solemnly with one finger, went quickly down the gray steps to the kitchen, but Enid, standing at the blue-flame stove in the far corner, didn’t turn, merely said, thus checking his impulse to go to her and kiss her:
“Your breakfast’s ready. I’m not having any.”
“Not having any! Why not, Ee?”
“Thank you, I don’t feel very much like it. You can take the toast and coffee. I’ll bring in your egg in a minute.”
“Didn’t you sleep, darling? Coffee might do you good.”
“I slept quite well, and I won’t want any coffee! Will you take it, please?”
Ah — so it was going to be like that. The preoccupied little hum again, the curved lips compressed a little, the dark curled head turning curtly and quickly — the shadow of the quarrel again, the closed bedroom door. They hadn’t slept together, she hadn’t allowed him to come and sleep with her! He took the coffee percolator from the table, hesitated.
“I think I’ll just take a look at the lilacs first.”
“Couldn’t they wait till after breakfast? I’ve got a hard morning ahead of me, and we’re late as it is.”
“Very well, Ee. Have you looked at them yourself?”
“I’m afraid I’ve been much too busy!”
The quick oblique smile, intolerant, the oblique green flash of the eyes — lovely! — she was wearing the pale green smock, with the gold threads, the one that was his favorite — but was it a concession or a challenge? It went well with the soft-sheened silver-gray of the corduroy skirt, gave an added brilliance and liquidity to the eyes — as, of course, she well knew. Ah, these cunning, vain, merciless wenches!