Needless to say, he was wasting his time; Rejane refused to listen. In her head was the romantic picture of Coffee flying off to the wilds, free as air — nothing could change it. Oswald didn’t want to oppose her, and felt unequal even to the attempt. It occurred to him that Coffee would probably be forgotten, anyhow, in the excitement of her departure.
*
Superficially, calm and friendliness were restored. But neither of them had much to say, and, by mutual consent, they started back to The Hope Deferred earlier than they usually did.
To Rejane the moors were already unreal, outside the reality of her own world. The great pale waste, its purple and gold extinguished, looked phantasmal to her, huge and lonely, with the hummocks of distant tors hunched on the horizon. She’d had more than enough of it, and didn’t want to look.
However, the ponies having plodded and scrambled up a long rise, she was confronted by the steep slope down to the valley, floating below in the last luminous light of the sunset, with its farms in their trees, water flashing bright in the folds of the moor beyond. The little lost valley caught her eye for a moment with its gemlike delicacy and brilliant clearness, in miniature there. It had the fragile look of something about to vanish, the almost-bare trees ghostly looking in their few yellow leaves. At ground level, dusk was already thickening, while the treetops still shimmered ghostlike in sunset gold. Suddenly, as she looked, the valley sank out of sight, all its toylike brightness put out as the sun disappeared and the lumpish tors heaved themselves up all round it in startling significance, huge and uncanny, the gloomy dark masses of moorland standing out menacingly.
Suddenly then, at this first moment after the sun had set, she shivered, feeling frost in the air. The cold seemed to leap upon her like some wild animal. She had a brief moment of superstitious fear, feeling for the first time the power of the hostile north, feeling this country as her enemy — she wouldn’t be really safe from it until she was on the ship. Her one desire now was to get away. She had a positive craving for the noise and bustle of cities after the silence and emptiness of the north — if only she could be gone, and all this left far behind and forgotten!
Now up came Oswald to ride at her side, a bit subdued, but protective as ever in his knight-errant way, to guard her from her own superstitious fears. Odd how he always seemed to sense what she was feeling.
‘Chilly?’ He now put out a comforting, helpful hand, to turn up her coat collar. Then, evidently thinking that conversation was called for, he began telling her about the ancient castle fortress of Bannenberg, to which the old halflegendary kings were supposed to have gone, after receiving magical warning of their approaching end. An echo of his musical lilt could be heard; but his brilliant eyes brooded over her, filled with melancholy and misgiving. She got the impression that he was talking to reassure himself almost as much as her.
And, being sensitized just then, whether she liked it or not, to northern influences, she had an instantaneous impersonal vision of him as a man bom to a certain tradition of nobility and honourable service, now lost to the world. Finding no one and nothing to serve with the nobility in him, he was rejected, left isolated and unfulfilled. He’d dedicated his knightly service to her; that was why his need for contact with her was so urgent. It was more than being in love with her — something more compelling. His life, almost, depended on loving her. She alone could save him from being rejected, cast out.
All this she saw in an instantaneous flash, as if from outside herself, immediately afterwards thinking, from inside. Why couldn’t he save himself? Why should he expect her to save him? It seemed presumptuous, as if he were making use of her as a means to an end. At the same time, she was gratified because at last she possessed his secret; which meant that the man himself was no longer in the least interesting — anyhow, she’d finished with him already as she had with everything here. She was about to send Coffee cantering on, leaving Oswald behind, when she changed her mind, and continued to ride beside him.
She’d never been to Bannenberg, or wanted to go, always avoiding the places that tourists went to. But now she suddenly said she must see the final resting-place of the old kings before she left the country — it would make a suitable expedition for her last day here.
Oswald had already planned in his head a sentimental tour of their favourite places, hoping they might have a softening effect at the end, and at once started protesting. Bannenberg was much too far for the ponies; even by car they could only just get there and back in one day. And wouldn’t she have a lot to do then? Surely she wouldn’t want to spend the whole day in the car? What about her packing?
No longer susceptible to the north or its influences, she cared nothing for the horrible country, simply regarding it with extreme repugnance. But she had her reasons for wanting to go on this trip, and was quite determined.
They came down to the little cluster of dwellings, which seemed huddled together as if for warmth in the dismal twilight. And, the whole length of the village street, Oswald continued his argument: it was too late in the season for Bannenberg, which could be approached only by a lonely coast road, liable at this time of the equinoctial gales to be swept by high tides and rendered impassable. Only a year ago a section of the cliff had collapsed, and with it part of the castle, carried away by the rough seas that incessantly battered the wild, exposed coastline.
Rejane was hardly listening, he hardly seemed real. Only, occasionally, in the dusk, her eye caught the ghostly white gleam of his hair, falling forward as he leaned towards her, talking with spectral emphasis and persistence; till at last, to her relief, the lights of The Hope Deferred came in sight. Its bright windows looked hospitable and cheerful; it seemed the one point of life and light in all that dreary cold desolation.
With a charming smile for the youth who ran out to take Coffee’s bridle, she slid from the saddle and hurried in, into the warm; Oswald, like winter personified with his white head, closely pursuing.
*
Now, under the lights, he could see the inflexible look he’d known all the time must be on her face, against which no words or actions of his could prevail. But, obsessed, he insisted on finding an atlas and showing her Bannenberg, the northernmost headland of his northern country, like a signpost, pointing straight to the Pole.
Holding out her hands to the pile of logs blazing in the wide fireplace, Rejane gave the map a perfunctory glance. And, in spite of the heat of the fire, she suddenly shivered again, as she had on the moor, feeling the hostility of the frozen north, exclaiming, ‘Heavens, how cold it is tonight!’
Always obliging, Oswald hastily threw on some more logs without being distracted from his argument. While swarms of sparks fled up the chimney, he told her that the castle was already considered unsafe; tourists were warned that they went there at their own risk — one of these days the whole ancient edifice would sink under the waves, ceaselessly eroding its foundations.
All the more reason, Rejane lightly answered, for her to see it while this was still possible. Her momentary chill forgotten, she stood in the firelight, smiling and adamant, not to be deflected from her purpose, which was no mere whim but a calculated design: by keeping him fully occupied throughout her last day, she would prevent any inconvenient display of emotion.