Nothing from Simon.
Nothing from Simon, indeed! I was still sitting numbed with
disappointment when a motor horn hooted in the lane. The next minute a van drew up and the driver plonked a crate down on the drawbridge. I
yelled up asking Father to come down and between us we prized the lid off. Inside was a wireless and a gramophone combined--oh, the most
wonderful thing! When shut, it is like a fat suitcase, with a handle
to carry it by. The outside is a lovely blue, like linen but shiny.
There was a record case to match.
Nobody ever had such a glorious present.
Simon had enclosed a note saying:
Dear Cassandra, I wanted to send you an electric one, but remembered
you've no electricity. The radio works from batteries that can be
re-charged at the garage in Scoatney, but the phonograph is only the
old-fashioned type that has to be wound up--still, it's better than
nothing.
I am sending you the Debussy you liked, but couldn't get the Bach
record I played to you. Borrow anything you want from Scoatney until
you find out what your musical tastes really are and then I'll buy you lots more records.
They swear the thing will get to you on the right day and I do hope it does. Many, many happy returns. I'll be seeing you soon. Love from
Simon It was in pencil, written at the shop, so I couldn't expect it to be long or personal. And it did say "Love"--he might have put just
"Yours" or "In haste" or something. Of course, I knew it didn't mean my kind of love, but it was valuable.
I read the note again and again, while Father got the most agonizing
noises out of the wireless.
"Oh, stop!" I cried at last.
"It can't be good for it to shriek like that."
"Sounds like the lost souls of sea gulls, doesn't it?" he shouted above the din.
I pushed past him and turned it off. In the sudden quietness, we could just hear Stephen's wireless playing away by itself up in the gatehouse room. Father said:
"Has it occurred to you what this thing is going to do to your swam
?"
All that I felt was resentment against Stephen because his being hurt was going to interfere with my pleasure in Simon's present;
not very much though--nothing could do that.
Luckily Father didn't wait for an answer.
"This is a much stronger wireless," he went on. I'll borrow it awhile."
I shouted "No!" so loudly that he stared in astonishment.
"I'm longing to try the gramophone," I added, trying to sound calm and reasonable. He suddenly smiled and said, "Well, well"-in an almost fatherly voice; then actually carried the machine indoors for me and
left me alone with it. I got the records out of their corrugated paper and played them and played them. There were some Bach Preludes and
Fugues as well as the Debussy album.
Simon hadn't sent the "Lover" record.
By the time Stephen got home, my better nature had asserted itself and I was terribly worried about his feelings. I had his wireless in the
kitchen (father had lost interest in it) and was careful to have it on full blast when he came in. I nearly burst myself thanking him for it and I don't think I have ever seen him look so I had asked Father
during lunch if it would be a good idea to Simon's present for a day or two, but he thought that would harder for Stephen in the end.
"Just tell him how glad you are to have a really lightweight wireless you can carry around--and that you'll probably only use Simon's for the gramophone," he suggested, and I thought it was very sensible of him; but the next minute record round and round as if he were reading the
grooves, and surely a man who tries to read a gramophone record cannot be normal?
I did my best to break the news to Stephen tactfully--I said all Father had advised and a lot more besides.
"Yours has a real wooden case," I told him, "with such a beautiful high polish." But the light went out of his eyes. He asked if he could see Simon's present I had carried it up to my bedroom. After staring at it a few seconds," he said: "Yes, that's very handsome"--and turned to go.
"The wireless part isn't very good," I called after him,
untruthfully.
He went on downstairs.
Oh, I was so sorry for him! After all the months he had been saving
up! I ran after him and, from the top of the kitchen stairs, I could
see him staring at his little brown wireless.
He turned it off, then went out into the garden with a most bitter
expression on his face.
I caught up with him as he was crossing the drawbridge.
"Let's go for a little walk," I said.
"All right, if you want to." He said it without looking at me.
We trudged down the lane. I felt as I did once when Rose had very bad toothache--that it was callous of me to be so separate from the pain, that just being sorry for suffering people isn't enough. Yet when I
asked myself if on Stephen's account I would be willing not to have had Simon's present, I knew that I wouldn't.
I tried to talk naturally about the two machines, enlarging on how I
could carry his little one from room to room and even take it out of
doors (although I knew that unless Stephen was around I should lug
Simon's everywhere, even if it broke my back). I suppose I overdid it because he interrupted and said:
"It's all right, you know."
I looked at him quickly. He tried to smile reassuringly, but didn't
quite let his eyes meet mine.
"Oh, Stephen!" I cried.
"It was a much bigger present from you.
Simon didn't have to save--or work for it."
"No, that was my privilege," he said quietly.
That seemed to me a most beautiful way for him to have put it.
It made me sorrier for him than ever--so sorry that I found myself
almost wishing I had fallen in love with him instead of with Simon.
Just then he added, very softly, "My dear." And that second, a wild idea flashed into my mind. Oh, why did it his Was it something in his voice awoke that feeling in me? Or was it because we were passing the larch wood and I remembered how I once imagined going into it with
him?
I stopped walking and stared at him. His face was golden from the
sunset. He asked me if I wanted to turn back.
I said, "No. Let's see if there are any late bluebells in the wood."
He looked at me quickly, right into the eyes at last.
"Come on," I said.
As we pushed aside the first green trails of larch I thought, "Well, this will disprove my theory that things I've imagined happening never really do happen." But it didn't- because everything was so different from my imagining. The wood had been thinned out, so it wasn't cool
and dark as I expected; the air was still warm and the rays of the
sinking sun shone in from behind us. The tree trunks glowed redly.
There was a hot, resinous smell instead of the scent of bluebells- the only ones left were shriveled and going to seed.
And instead of a still, waking feeling there was a choking
excitement.
Stephen didn't say any of the things I once invented for him; neither of us spoke a word. I led the way all the time and reached the little grassy clearing in the middle of the wood before he did. There I
turned and waited for him. He came closer and closer to me, then stood still, staring at me questioningly. I nodded my head and then he took me in his arms and kissed me, very gently. It didn't mean a thing to
me--I know I didn't kiss him in return. But suddenly he changed, and
kissed me more and more, not gently at all-and I changed, too, and
wanted him to go on and on. I didn't even stop him when he pulled my
dress down over my shoulder. It was he who stopped in the end.
"Don't let me, don't let me!" he gasped, and pushed me away so violently that I nearly fell over. As I staggered backwards I had a