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is a hundred not a hundred?’ he said sceptically, as they descended the dazzling white chalk. There were sixty-eight steps. Helena laughed at his exactitude.
‘It must be a love of round numbers,’ he said.
‘No doubt,’ she laughed. He took the thing so seriously.
‘Or of exaggeration,’ he added.
There was a shelving beach of warm white sand, bleached soft as velvet. A sounding of gulls filled the dark recesses of the headland; a low chatter of shingle came from where the easy water was breaking; the confused, shell-like murmur of the sea between the folded cliffs. Siegmund and Helena lay side by side upon the dry sand, small as two resting birds, while thousands of gulls whirled in a white-flaked storm above them, and the great cliffs towered beyond, and high up over the cliffs the multitudinous clouds were travelling, a vast caravan en route. Amidst the journeying of oceans and clouds and the circling flight of heavy spheres, lost to sight in the sky, Siegmund and Helena, two grains of life in the vast movement, were travelling a moment side by side.
They lay on the beach like a grey and a white sea-bird together. The lazy ships that were idling down the Solent observed the cliffs and the boulders, but Siegmund and Helena were too little. They lay ignored and insignificant, watching through half-closed fingers the diverse caravan of Day go past. They lay with their latticed fingers over their eyes, looking out at the sailing of ships across their vision of blue water.
‘Now, that one with the greyish sails —’ Siegmund was saying.
‘Like a housewife of forty going placidly round with the duster — yes?’ interrupted Helena.
‘That is a schooner. You see her four sails, and —’
He continued to classify the shipping, until he was interrupted by the wicked laughter of Helena.
‘That is right, I am sure,’ he protested.
‘I won’t contradict you,’ she laughed, in a tone which showed him he knew even less of the classifying of ships than she did.
‘So you have lain there amusing yourself at my expense all the time?’ he said, not knowing in the least why she laughed. They turned and looked at one another, blue eyes smiling and wavering as the beach wavers in the heat. Then they closed their eyes with sunshine.
Drowsed by the sun, and the white sand, and the foam, their thoughts slept like butterflies on the flowers of delight. But cold shadows startled them up.
‘The clouds are coming,’ he said regretfully.
‘Yes; but the wind is quite strong enough for them,’ she answered,
‘Look at the shadows — like blots floating away. Don’t they devour the sunshine?’
‘It is quite warm enough here,’ she said, nestling in to him.
‘Yes; but the sting is missing. I like to feel the warmth biting in.’
‘No, I do not. To be cosy is enough.’
‘I like the sunshine on me, real, and manifest, and tangible. I feel like a seed that has been frozen for ages. I want to be bitten by the sunshine.’
She leaned over and kissed him. The sun came bright-footed over the water, leaving a shining print on Siegmund’s face. He lay, with half-closed eyes, sprawled loosely on the sand. Looking at his limbs, she imagined he must be heavy, like the bounders. She sat over him, with her fingers stroking his eyebrows, that were broad and rather arched. He lay perfectly still, in a half-dream.
Presently she laid her head on his breast, and remained so, watching the sea, and listening to his heart-beats. The throb was strong and deep. It seemed to go through the whole island and the whole afternoon, and it fascinated her: so deep, unheard, with its great expulsions of life. Had the world a heart? Was there also deep in the world a great God thudding out waves of life, like a great heart, unconscious? It frightened her. This was the God she knew not, as she knew not this Siegmund. It was so different from the half-shut eyes with black lashes, and the winsome, shapely nose. And the heart of the world, as she heard it, could not be the same as the curling splash of retreat of the little sleepy waves. She listened for Siegmund’s soul, but his heart overbeat all other sound, thudding powerfully.
Chapter 7
Siegmund woke to the muffled firing of guns on the sea. He looked across at the shaggy grey water in wonder. Then he turned to Helena.
‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘they are saluting the Czar. Poor beggar!’
‘I was afraid they would wake you,’ she smiled.
They listened again to the hollow, dull sound of salutes from across the water and the downs.
The day had gone grey. They decided to walk, down below, to the next bay.
‘The tide is coming in,’ said Helena.
‘But this broad strip of sand hasn’t been wet for months. It’s as soft as pepper,’ he replied.
They laboured along the shore, beside the black, sinuous line of shrivelled fucus. The base of the cliff was piled with chalk debris. On the other side was the level plain of the sea. Hand in hand, alone and overshadowed by huge cliffs, they toiled on. The waves staggered in, and fell, overcome at the end of the race.
Siegmund and Helena neared a headland, sheer as the side of a house, its base weighted with a tremendous white mass of boulders, that the green sea broke amongst with a hollow sound, followed by a sharp hiss of withdrawal. The lovers had to cross this desert of white boulders, that glistened in smooth skins uncannily. But Siegmund saw the waves were almost at the wall of the headland. Glancing back, he saw the other headland white-dashed at the base with foam. He and Helena must hurry, or they would be prisoned on the thin crescent of strand still remaining between the great wall and the water.
The cliffs overhead oppressed him — made him feel trapped and helpless. He was caught by them in a net of great boulders, while the sea fumbled for him. But he and Helena. She laboured strenuously beside him, blinded by the skin-like glisten of the white rock.
‘I think I will rest awhile,’ she said.
‘No, come along,’ he begged.
‘My dear,’ she laughed, ‘there is tons of this shingle to buttress us from the sea.’
He looked at the waves curving and driving maliciously at the boulders. It would be ridiculous to be trapped.
‘Look at this black wood,’ she said. ‘Does the sea really char it?’
‘Let us get round the corner,’ he begged.
‘Really, Siegmund, the sea is not so anxious to take us,’ she said ironically.
When they rounded the first point, they found themselves in a small bay jutted out to sea; the front of the headland was, as usual, grooved. This bay was pure white at the base, from its great heaped mass of shingle. With the huge concave of the cliff behind, the foothold of massed white boulders, and the immense arc of the sea in front, Helena was delighted.
‘This is fine, Siegmund!’ she said, halting and facing west.
Smiling ironically, he sat down on a boulder. They were quite alone, in this great white niche thrust out to sea. Here, he could see, the tide would beat the base of the wall. It came plunging not far from their feet.
‘Would you really like to travel beyond the end?’ he asked.
She looked round quickly, thrilled, then answered as if in rebuke:
‘This is a fine place. I should like to stay here an hour.’
‘And then where?’
‘Then? Oh, then,