‘We could make some excuse. We could pretend –’
‘Pretend? Pretend, Daphne?’
‘Some illness. We could say my mother’s ill,’ she hurriedly said. ‘Or some aunt who doesn’t even exist. We could hire a car and drive around the coast –’
‘Daphne –’
‘Why not?’
‘For a start, I haven’t my driving licence with me.’
‘I have.’
‘I doubt it, Daphne.’
She thought, and then she agreed that she hadn’t. ‘We could go to Dublin,’ she said with a fresh burst of urgency. ‘Dublin’s a lovely place, people say. We could stay in Dublin and –’
‘My dear, this is a tourist country. Millions of tourists come here every summer. Do you really believe we’d find decent accommodation in Dublin in the middle of the season?’
‘It wouldn’t have to be decent. Some little clean hotel –’
‘Added to which, Daphne, I must honestly tell you that I have no wish to go gallivanting on my honeymoon. Nor do I care for the notion of telling lies about the illness of people who are not ill, or do not even exist.’
‘I’ll tell the lies. I’ll talk to Mr Doyle directly after lunch. I’ll talk to him now.’ She stood up. He shook his head, reaching for the hand that was nearer to him.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
Slowly she sat down again.
‘Oh, darling,’ she said.
‘We must be sensible, Daphne. We can’t just go gallivanting off –’
‘Why do you keep on about gallivanting? What’s it matter whether we’re gallivanting or not so long as we’re enjoying ourselves?’
‘Daphne –’
‘I’m asking you to do something to please me.’
Jackson Major, about to reply, changed his mind. He smiled at his bride. After a pause, he said:
‘If you really want to, Daphne –’
‘Well, I do. I think perhaps it’ll be awkward here with the Angusthorpes. And it’s not what we expected.’
‘It’s just a question,’ said Jackson Major, ‘of what we could possibly do. I’ve asked for my mail to be forwarded here and, as I say, I really believe it would be a case of out of the frying pan into nothing at all. It might prove horribly difficult.’
She closed her eyes and sat for a moment in silence. Then she opened them and, being unable to think of anything else to say, she said:
‘I’m sorry.’
He sighed, shrugging his shoulders slightly. He took her hand again. ‘You do see, darling?’ Before she could reply he added: ‘I’m sorry I was angry with you. I didn’t mean to be: I’m very sorry.’
He kissed her on the cheek that was near to him. He took her hand. ‘Now tell me,’ he said, ‘about everything that’s worrying you.’
She repeated, without more detail, what she had said already, but this time the sentences she spoke did not sound like complaints. He listened to her, sitting back and not interrupting, and then they conversed about all she had said. He agreed that it was a pity about the hotel and explained to her that what had happened, apparently, was that the old proprietor had died during the previous year. It was unfortunate too, he quite agreed, that the Angusthorpes should be here at the same time as they were because it would, of course, have been so much nicer to have been on their own. If she was worried about the partition in their room he would ask that their room should be changed for another one. He hadn’t known when she’d mentioned the partition before that it was the Angusthorpes who were on the other side of it. It would be better, really, not to be in the next room to the Angusthorpes since Angusthorpe had once been his headmaster, and he was certain that Doyle would understand a thing like that and agree to change them over, even if it meant greasing Doyle’s palm. ‘I imagine he’d fall in with anything,’ said Jackson Major, ‘for a bob or two.’
They finished their drinks and she followed him to the dining-room. There were no thoughts in her mind: no voice, neither her own nor Mrs Angusthorpe’s, spoke. For a reason she could not understand and didn’t want to bother to understand, the tension within her had snapped and was no longer there. The desire she had felt for tears when she’d walked away from Mrs Angusthorpe was far from her now; she felt a weariness, as though an ordeal was over and she had survived it. She didn’t know why she felt like that. All she knew was that he had listened to her: he had been patient and understanding, allowing her to say everything that was in her mind and then being reassuring. It was not his fault that the hotel had turned out so unfortunately. Nor was it his fault that a bullying old man had sought him out as a fishing companion. He couldn’t help it if his desire for her brought out a clumsiness in him. He was a man, she thought: he was not the same as she was: she must meet him half-way. He had said he was sorry for being angry with her.
In the hall they met the Angusthorpes on their way to the dining-room also.
‘I’m sorry if I upset you,’ Mrs Angusthorpe said to her, touching her arm to hold her back for a moment. ‘I’m afraid my temper ran away with me.’
The two men went ahead, involved in a new conversation. ‘We might try that little tributary this afternoon,’ the headmaster was suggesting.
‘I sat there afterwards, seeing how horrid it must have been for you,’ Mrs Angusthorpe said. ‘I was only angry at the prospect of an unpleasant fortnight. I took it out on you.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘One should keep one’s anger to oneself. I feel embarrassed now,’ said Mrs Angusthorpe. ‘I’m not the sort of person –’
‘Please don’t worry,’ murmured Daphne, trying hard to keep the tiredness that possessed her out of her voice. She could sleep, she was thinking, for a week.
‘I don’t know why I talked like that.’
‘You were angry –’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Angusthorpe.
She stood still, not looking at Daphne and seeming not to wish to enter the dining-room. Some people went by, talking and laughing. Mr Gorman, the solicitor from Dublin, addressed her, but she did not acknowledge his greeting.
‘I think we must go in now, Mrs Angusthorpe,’ Daphne said.
In her weariness she smiled at Mrs Angusthorpe, suddenly sorry for her because she had so wretched a marriage that it caused her to become emotional with strangers.
‘It was just,’ said Mrs Angusthorpe, pausing uncertainly in the middle of her sentence and then continuing, ‘I felt that perhaps I should say something. I felt, Mrs Jackson –’
‘Let’s just forget it,’ interrupted Daphne, sensing with alarm that Mrs Angusthorpe was about to begin all over again, in spite of her protestations.
‘What?’
‘I think we must forget it all.’
Daphne smiled again, to reassure the woman who’d been outrageous because her temper had run away with her. She wanted to tell her that just now in the bar she herself had had a small outburst and that in the end she had seen the absurdity of certain suggestions she had made. She wanted to say that her husband had asked her what the matter was and then had said he was sorry. She wanted to explain, presumptuously perhaps, that there must be give and take in marriage, that a bed of roses was something that couldn’t be shared. She wanted to say that the tension she’d felt was no longer there, but she couldn’t find the energy for saying it.
‘Forget it?’ said Mrs Angusthorpe. ‘Yes, I suppose so. There are things that shouldn’t be talked about.’
‘It’s not that really,’ objected Daphne softly. ‘It’s just that I think you jumped to a lot of wrong conclusions.’
‘I had an instinct,’ began Mrs Angusthorpe with all her previous eagerness and urgency. ‘I saw you at breakfast-time, an innocent girl. I couldn’t help remembering.’
‘It’s different for us,’ said Daphne, feeling embarrassed to have to converse again in this intimate vein. ‘At heart my husband’s patient with me. And understanding too: he listens to me.’