“Maud. At last. Maud. This is Roland. I'm in a call-box. There are disasters-"
"Indeed there are. We've got to talk. Leonora, do you mind if I just take the phone to the bedroom? This call is sort of private." A gap. A reconnection. "Roland, Mortimer Cropper came."
"A solicitor telephoned Blackadder.”
“Sir George made a horrid scene at me in Lincoln. About electric wheelchairs. He needs money.”
“It was his solicitor. Is he very cross?”
“Furious. It didn't help him seeing Leonora.”
“Have you told her?”
“No. But I can't go on without her guessing. Every day makes it worse.”
“They will see us in a bad light. Cropper, Blackadder, Leonora.”
“Listen-speaking of Leonora-she's found out the next stage. Christabel went to the family in Brittany. There was a cousin who wrote poems. A French scholar has them, she wrote to Leonora. She stayed some time. It might cover the suicide. No one knew where she was.”
“I wish no one knew where I was. I've actually run away from being sent for by Blackadder."
"I tried to phone you. I don't know if she told you. It didn't sound as if she would. I don't even know what we are or were trying to do. How did we ever hope to keep it from C and B?"
"And Leonora. We didn't-after we knew all we could find out.We just needed time. It is our Quest.”
“I do know. That isn't how they're going to see it.”
“I wish I could disappear.”
“You keep saying that. So do I. Living with Leonora's bad enough, without Sir George and all that-"
"Is it really?" He found himself voluptuously discarding a vision of Leonora, whom he had never seen, unwrapping the imagined white towel. Maud lowered her voice.
"I keep thinking of what we said to each other, about empty beds, at the Foss.”
“So do I. And about the white light on the stone. And the sun at the Boggle Hole.”
“We knew where we were, there. We should just disappear. Like Christabel.”
“You mean, go to Brittany?”
“Not precisely. At least. After all. Why not?”
“I've got no money.”
“I have. And a car. And good French."
So is mine. "They wouldn't know where we were.”
“Not even Leonora?”
“Not if I lied to her. She thinks I've got a secret lover. She's got a romantic soul. It would be an awful lie, to go off with her information and betray her.”
“Does she know Cropper and Blackadder?”
“Not to speak to. Nor who you are. Not even your name.”
“Val might tell her."
"I'll get her out of this flat. I'll get her invited away. Then if Val phones, no answer.”
“I am not a natural conspirator, Maud." Nor am I. "I can't face going home. In case Blackadder… In case Val…"
"You must. You must go home and have a row, and get your passport secretly, and all the papers, and just move out. Into one of those little hotels in Bloomsbury."
"Too near the BM.”
“ Victoria, then. I'll deal with Leonora and come there. I know one I used to stay in…"
Chapter 19
High howled the wind, the Ocean hurled
His mass of crested jet uncurled
Against the sea-wall and the tower
Where Dahud and her paramour
In shuttered silence, silky white
Lay side by side the live-long night.
The people ran about the street
Their fearful voice, their wet hands beat
Against the opposing steely door
All smoothly silent, as before.
Confusedly in Dahud's arm
He felt presentiment of harm
Raising his ears from her white skin
And heart's noise, to the people's din
And beyond them, the growling roar
Of angry Ocean at the door.
"Go to the window," then said she,
"Tell me the movement of the sea
His colour and his strategy."
"Lady, his waves are green as glass
The sky is jet, the small skiffs pass
From gulf to gulf like flying things
Soaked through, sucked down, with sodden wings."
"Then come to me and my embrace-
I will press kisses on your face
Whose heat and sharpness shall occlude
The murmuring of the multitude
The rumble of the waters rude."
Bewitched, he does her bidding, till
He hears a splashing at the sill
Of the tower's portal, and he cries,
"Lady, he comes, and we must rise."
" 'Tis he must rise," she answers fast,
"We are safe until the iron gate's past.
Go to the window, tell to me,
The pace and movement of the sea
His colour and his strategy."
"Lady, his waves are livid pale
The sky is covered with a veil
Of flying foam, and drowning men
Cry from the crests and sink again."
"Come and lie still within my arms,
What care we for these weak things' harms?
I can subdue him with my charms."
Again he stirs, again he cries,
"The Ocean comes, and we must rise."
"Go to the window, tell to me
The height and movement of the sea
His colour and his strategy."
"Lady, his waves are black and boil
Like stinking pitch, like raging oil,
He mounts and mounts, his million jaws
Snatch at the tower with open maws
Fringed with foam-teeth, curv'd and white
Shape-shifting monsters of the night
Now one, now myriad, open, high.
Lady, I cannot see the sky.
The stars are out, the waters race
Where the town was, over the place