Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [86]
‘We must go back,’ Sarah said. Only rage with him could have brought her this far; and all rage had gone, short-lived as always with her, succeeded now by apprehension at the passion she saw in his eyes and a sort of pity for his tenacity. All his being was there together – he never flickered, never faltered, he had no reserve. She was swept by a sense of his physical splendid-ness and the doggedness of his desire for her. This, though not quite an acknowledgement of his merit, came the more keenly for her recent upbraiding of him. An instinct of subterfuge, a desire to reduce the level of feeling, led her to say, almost as if in commiseration, ‘Of course, I know he did not have a high opinion of your acting, but I often heard Elisabeth say he was too severe in his judgement, and Mr Parker said so too.’
‘Good God,’ Erasmus said violently, ‘I don’t care what he thought of my acting. Do you think I would have killed him for that?’ He paused for a moment. His throat pained him with the sudden onset of his love. He knew, with the perception of the stronger, that she was improvising now, that she was spent, in retreat. ‘He touched you,’ he said. ‘He touched you and I mustn’t, that is why.’ The injustice of it released him. In vibrant tones he said, ‘And yet I have more right. I love you. I cannot rest for thinking about you.’ He moved towards her awkwardly, clumsily. ‘You are my life,’ he said. He was half blind with the force of his feeling and the terrible exposure of the declaration.
She started back a little, then stood still. The flush his words had brought faded, leaving her paler than before. Her breathing had quickened, but her eyes rested on him steadily. ‘Elisabeth,’ she said. ‘She will be watching us.’
‘I don’t care who is watching,’ Erasmus said.
Not to deter him, but for the sake of saying something in face of the advance upon her, she was beginning to speak of Elisabeth again when she felt herself taken in a strong embrace and urgently kissed on the mouth. Briefly, but with an unmistakable warmth, she returned the kiss. She felt a strange leaping motion within her as she was pressed against him. For some moments there was a sense of precariousness, as if she might fall if he let her go. Then she pressed her hands hard against him and broke free.
Neither of them said anything for some moments. Erasmus’s breathing was clearly audible to both. He glanced away from her, back the way they had come. The lake, scene of his tribulation, was not visible from here, but he could see a section of parkland and the upper part of the long-fronted house. It looked unbelievably distant. He felt the warmth of Sarah’s kiss still on his lips. ‘We had better go back,’ he said, looking steadily and unsmilingly at her.
Now it was she who seemed disposed to linger. ‘Look at the sheep there,’ she said. ‘They have found a place out of the wind.’
Slightly above them, a little further into the fold between the hills, enveloped in the same hush as themselves, sand-coloured sheep were grazing together, their fleeces unstirred by the wind which only a few yards beyond them was sweeping the grass.
‘They have found the one sheltered place,’ she said. She knew that this was a moment she would remember all her life. ‘Just like us,’ she said. Wonder at this caused her to meet his eyes, this time with a gaze protracted.
‘Say you will marry me,’ Erasmus said. ‘Say