If you could just be sure.
CHAPTER VI
D avid kept his eyes on Effie. He kept willing her to detach herself from the others’ attention. Then, when she’d seem about to do so, he’d chill with the thought of speaking this message of his she was so ignorant of. At last he moved beside her. She was staring at a geranium blossom she had plucked from the wreath his mother had made. She thrust it into her pocket quickly. She smiled her light impenetrable smile.
He was tongue-tied. You planned how it would be with someone, seeing ahead how their part must go as certainly as your own. Then when the time came, they started off with an altogether different speech or mood, and your part became useless and wooden. She was smiling. It would sound abrupt and foolish to tell her she would never have to cry alone again.
“Have you learnt your piece for the concert?” he said.
She nodded.
“Mother made me a new dress,” she said. “It’s shot silk. It’s blue and then it goes green.” Her eyes were soft and bright, as if just to speak the word “silk” gave her the touch of it too. “Do you know yours?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s go somewhere and say them,” she said.
“All right,” he said.
They went down where the brook crossed the road and wound through the alder-circled meadow on its way to the river. Where they’d be all alone.
They began to speak the lines of the school play.
“Who are you?” she said.
“I came to play with you.”
“I am rich and beautiful,” she answered haughtily, “I’m not allowed to play with beggars.” David was startled. She sounded as if she really was rich. She moved about as if she really had fine clothes on, without knowing it.
“Do you
always
play alone?”
“I like to play alone. No one takes my things, and I never have to laugh or cry unless I want to.”
“I know,” he said. “I play alone too.”
“Are there no other beggars?” she said.
It was his turn to speak proudly. “I am a prince,” he said. At the sound of the word “prince” he became tall and strange and wonderful. “I put on this disguise, to find out what it would be like to play with someone else. See my ring?”
He held out his hand. He could see the great emerald stone as plainly as if it were there; his fingers were long and fine.
“You
are
a prince,” she said. “Oh yes, I see it now. I will ask my father if …” She stopped.
A spontaneous breeze swept the black alders low to the brook. A fresh, awful, gust of sadness came out of the word “father.” The magic of the word “silk” was gone. Her face came through the mist of lightness, twisted like a precarious smile falling apart.
She sank down onto the meadow moss, as if she wanted to make herself small. She hid her face in her arms and sobbed.
David looked at her cheap cotton dress. Her crying seemed to endow it more with forlornness than her face. The word “prince” emptied out of him too. He sat down on the moss beside her and put an arm around her shoulders.
And they knew then what it was like for two people to cry together. The breeze of sadness blew outward now, not inward. Even children can never cry together equally: there is a sort of selfishness in the one whose hurt is the more immediate, a sort of desperation in the one who cannot share equally the burden of that immediacy. But they were crying together.
David found his message easy to say then. He said, “Effie, someday we’ll be married, won’t we?”
Her lips were trembling, but she nodded and nodded.
The word “marry” filled them both. It was like a
place—
a place waiting for you when you got older. It was like a house. You could go in and close the door. The lamp would not flicker in any breeze.
II
It was different with Chris and Charlotte. They maintained an air of having found themselves side by side by accident; though, edging through the groups, their eyes had been on each other, sidelong, all the time.
Just before the funeral
CHAPTER VI
D avid kept his eyes on Effie. He kept willing her to detach herself from the others’ attention. Then, when she’d seem about to do so, he’d chill with the thought of speaking this message of his she was so ignorant of. At last he moved beside her. She was staring at a geranium blossom she had plucked from the wreath his mother had made. She thrust it into her pocket quickly. She smiled her light impenetrable smile.
He was tongue-tied. You planned how it would be with someone, seeing ahead how their part must go as certainly as your own. Then when the time came, they started off with an altogether different speech or mood, and your part became useless and wooden. She was smiling. It would sound abrupt and foolish to tell her she would never have to cry alone again.
“Have you learnt your piece for the concert?” he said.
She nodded.
“Mother made me a new dress,” she said. “It’s shot silk. It’s blue and then it goes green.” Her eyes were soft and bright, as if just to speak the word “silk” gave her the touch of it too. “Do you know yours?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s go somewhere and say them,” she said.
“All right,” he said.
They went down where the brook crossed the road and wound through the alder-circled meadow on its way to the river. Where they’d be all alone.
They began to speak the lines of the school play.
“Who are you?” she said.
“I came to play with you.”
“I am rich and beautiful,” she answered haughtily, “I’m not allowed to play with beggars.” David was startled. She sounded as if she really was rich. She moved about as if she really had fine clothes on, without knowing it.
“Do you
always
play alone?”
“I like to play alone. No one takes my things, and I never have to laugh or cry unless I want to.”
“I know,” he said. “I play alone too.”
“Are there no other beggars?” she said.
It was his turn to speak proudly. “I am a prince,” he said. At the sound of the word “prince” he became tall and strange and wonderful. “I put on this disguise, to find out what it would be like to play with someone else. See my ring?”
He held out his hand. He could see the great emerald stone as plainly as if it were there; his fingers were long and fine.
“You
are
a prince,” she said. “Oh yes, I see it now. I will ask my father if …” She stopped.
A spontaneous breeze swept the black alders low to the brook. A fresh, awful, gust of sadness came out of the word “father.” The magic of the word “silk” was gone. Her face came through the mist of lightness, twisted like a precarious smile falling apart.
She sank down onto the meadow moss, as if she wanted to make herself small. She hid her face in her arms and sobbed.
David looked at her cheap cotton dress. Her crying seemed to endow it more with forlornness than her face. The word “prince” emptied out of him too. He sat down on the moss beside her and put an arm around her shoulders.
And they knew then what it was like for two people to cry together. The breeze of sadness blew outward now, not inward. Even children can never cry together equally: there is a sort of selfishness in the one whose hurt is the more immediate, a sort of desperation in the one who cannot share equally the burden of that immediacy. But they were crying together.
David found his message easy to say then. He said, “Effie, someday we’ll be married, won’t we?”
Her lips were trembling, but she nodded and nodded.
The word “marry” filled them both. It was like a
place—
a place waiting for you when you got older. It was like a house. You could go in and close the door. The lamp would not flicker in any breeze.
II
It was different with Chris and Charlotte. They maintained an air of having found themselves side by side by accident; though, edging through the groups, their eyes had been on each other, sidelong, all the time.
Just before the funeral
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