King of the Sea

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

And now, this Sunday, everything had changed. Now such an arrangement was the last thing he wanted to suggest. Not that he'd gone off her - quite the reverse; but the very thought of forming such a shallow, mercenary alliance with her now made him cringe with shame. The difference may be summed up in two daydreams he had, with Emma at the centre of each. In the week leading up to last Sunday's non proposition, he had pictured her in that dainty apartment, which was all turkey carpets and silks and divans and a bearskin rug, slowly removing her garments and permitting him to adore each revelation with his eyes and hands and lips; he had nearly driven himself demented with it. The second daydream belonged to the past seven days. Gone was the bearskin rug, incandescent desires. In their place was padded the silks, and all the trappings of his leather, uncut moquette, antimacassars, and all the ornaments of domestic bliss. She no longer removed her clothing but rather permitted him to add to it with Jewelled lockets, pendants of ivory and gold, and a diamond tiara to outshine even her shining hair. I adore what I adorn, he wrote, thinking to knock it up into a sort of poem for her, And adorn what I adore! But then it seemed such a complete and well-rounded thought, in itself, that there was nothing to add.

His taking of her arm now was part of that same adoration. His adoring fingers adorned her adorable arm. "It's a miracle," he told her happily.

"What is?" she asked, raising her eyebrows and smiling in what she hoped was an encouraging manner. If he didn't come out with something soon - something to the point, that is - she'd have to start taking the initiative herself, which was the last thing she wanted.

"Your arm."

"Ohmigawd," she replied wearily. "No, listen! It's not just your arm, it's all of you. I mean ... how long were you with us? A year? Eighteen months?"

"Best part of," she said, now more wary than weary. "Why?"

"Well, there we were, all that time, you and me, living under the same roof, and I hardly ever thought about you at all. Of course, when I saw you - I mean when you were actually in my sights..." He withdrew his hand for a moment to aim an imaginary rifle at her. "Pow! Didn't my heart just race at the thought of kissing you! But no more so than with any one of a dozen pretty girls, to be honest. I mean, I hardly ever thought about you in between times. But now ... I mean I just kick myself now at what a clod I was."

"Was you?"

"Were you. If you're serious about wanting to talk properly, say were you."

"Were you? How?"

"Not to have realized how utterly different you are from all those other... I mean, from any other girl. How unique and wonderful you are."

"Am I? Me?" She gulped. His sudden leap from childish nothings to what sounded like the confession of a lifetime left her breathless and bewildered.

"To me it's a miracle that you're there, in the world, that you exist, that I've had the good fortune to meet you. He took her arm again. "I have to touch you just to be sure it's not a dream. A wonderful dream that'll leave me shattered when I wake up."

"Blimey!" She stopped in her tracks and, laying a hand to her breast, fought a little to breathe. "Why this all of a sudden?"

"Oh, it's not all of a sudden, Emma, my darling. It's taken an eternity all this week. Each day has seemed like a hundred years. You've transformed the world for me, you know. I think about you all the time." None of these were from the phrases he'd practised but now he was off and running nothing could stem the flow. "When I go to sleep at night I carry your image with me into the dark. When I wake in the morning, your smile is there to put the dawn to shame. You're everywhere, all about me, all the day. And when I come home, when I get off the tram, I cross the road at once and peer into Goldsmith's Place

but I daren't put a foot into it." She laughed, half with delight, half with embarrass ment. "Why ever not? You ain't half silly!"

"I I know. Only bear with me, Emma, my dear. I'm so sick in love with you I don't know what to do. Just humour me, eh?" "Why can't you put a foot in Goldsmith's Place? It

just sounds daft."

they "I just look at the paving stones and say to myself, 'She has trodden here! The bits of grass between them and the dandelions at the foot of the walls seem so green! And I say, "That's because she has passed this way!' The very air seems to cage the magic of your presence there. Honestly, before I saw you today, I was petrified."

"Garn!" she mocked. She was by now even more embarrassed at his outpouring of passion.

"It's true. I couldn't even hold my hands still enough to pull on my gloves. Did I go to church today? I must have, but I can't remember a thing. I live like an automaton except when I'm with you. But you've no idea how frightening you are to me."

"Silly!" was all she could say. Much to her annoyance she felt tears sprouting behind her eyelids. "You are! I mean, just to touch your arm like this, is

almost as much as I can bear. This" - he gave her elbow a squeeze "is the most precious stuff in the entire universe to me. I'd give my life a thousand times rather than have it suffer the slightest scratch. Just to be able to touch you is like the most wonderful dream I ever had - you know, the kind you know is a dream even when you're dreaming it, so you're desperate not to wake up and you already feel the sharpness of the loss." Artlessly he added, "I daren't

even think about the rest of you." "Oh!" she exclaimed on three wounded notes, currying humour to vanquish her sadness.

He was so intoxicated with confession by now that he rushed on: "I did, of course. Last week, that's all I could think of. I wanted to rent an apartment for you - I could afford it, you know and, and just keep you there, and, and visit you, and ..." The hæmorrhage fell to a trickle and swiftly petered out.

Suddenly she felt more miserable than ever before in her life and she was not one to whom misery came easily. Lawrence's absurd outburst- not just this final confession but the entire pouring out of his feelings for her left her so far behind him that she felt deserted, desolate, barren of any worthwhile thought or emotion.

"Now you'll never talk to me again," he concluded miserably.

"Listen!" She stopped abruptly and pulled him to face her, gripping him by his arms and holding him away from her. What are you doing? she asked herself. Nothing was going the way she had planned it at all. The whole point of aiming at Lawrence was - apart from the fact that he was there - the whole point was that she had no feelings for him either way, neither love nor hate, nor their milder cousins, like and dislike. Nothing at all. The idea was to ensnare him, make such a fool of him that his mama would come to her on bended knee. And after that? Well, she hadn't thought too much about after that; it had all been hatched in the sting of the moment, anyway. But none of it would work if she started getting feelings about him. However hazy her scheme, it had to allow her to walk away from him at any moment.

"What?" he asked when she said nothing. He ought to look like a silly little puppy, she thought. That was what the plan had called for. Instead, he looked ... all right. The intensity of his gaze sent a small shiver through her. "I can't feel as deep as what you do," she said, surprising herself even more than him. "D'you see? I like a good time. I stuff."

like a laugh. I can't go in for all that ... "I know." He swallowed hard. "I shouldn't have said any of it."