He laughed.
‘No, my dear, it is not. Nothing so grim.’
‘Ah, I see—your mistress.’
Her voice and her words made her wonder if she were not holding a conversation in a dream: there was the same feeling of having made a pronouncement of the first importance; but whose meaning you could not detect.
Julian’s mistress.... The idea was for some reason profoundly shocking.
A French, an Austrian, a Russian; and now an English.... But perhaps he had been lying then. He did tell such lies about his experiences.
‘I’m not made for matrimony any more than you are,’ he said in a voice of gentle explanation. ‘Can you imagine me as a husband? What hell for some poor fool!... Yet,’ he added with a sigh, ‘I’d be fond of my children. I’d like to bring up a son. But I shall never have one.’
‘If you would marry Mariella,’ she said, still out of her dream, ‘you could bring up Peter. She’d like that. I think she loves you.’
He took no notice; and she wondered if she had not spoken aloud, after all; or whether her small voice had not penetrated his absorption.
‘Why, what would we make of each other married?’ he went on. ‘It would be one long succession ofagaçements. We’re both so self-conscious, so fastidious, so civilized.... Oh, it would be appalling.’
‘Yes, it would.’
‘But, Judith, lovely delightful Judith,’ he pleaded, his voice deep and beautiful, ‘for a season, for a season! A clean leap in, and out again the minute it started to be a failure. Think what we could give each other!’
‘It would be very good for us I suppose....’ She held her head in her hands, trying to think. What could he possibly give her that she would want?
‘It would, it would. We’dlivea bit instead of thinking. I’d make you forget, I swear: and what things I’d give you to remember instead!—good things that have been my secrets for years, that I’ve longed for years to share, to offer to your lovely quick intelligence. No one else has had them, Judith. They’ve been waiting for you: nobody else has ever come near you in my mind. Judith, it wouldn’t be the irritating tiresome old bore you know: that isn’t I! I’ve got secrets. Let me tell you them. So much beauty I’d enrich you with, and then I’d let you go. Isn’t that fair? Isn’t that worth having? Go and marry and breed afterwards if you must, but let me give you this first. Try me, Judith, try me. You can’t refuse to try me. I want you so much.’
She wanted to stop her ears: for she felt herself helplessly yielding to the old syren of words.
‘Julian—I couldn’t give you—what you wanted. Oh, I couldn’t! It’s such a step—you don’t realise—for a woman. She can’t ever get back—afterwards, and be safe in the world. And she might want to.’
‘I’d see you got back if you wanted to. But I don’t think you will. You won’t want to be safe. That’s not for you. Oh, Judith, I know you better than you know yourself.’
‘No. No.’
She was locked away from him and he did not know it.What he mistook for her living self was a mummy, with a heart of dry dust. He had not the perspicacity to see it.
He was silent and then said:
‘I wouldn’t ask you for anything you—weren’t prepared to give me. I hope—that might come. But for the present all I want is to help you live again—in better, more enduring, ways. Will you let me? Will you allow me to love you, Judith?’
‘Perhaps. Perhaps, Julian. I’ll try. I’ll try to love you too.’ The words broke from her on top of a great sigh.
‘My dear!’ She felt his triumph. He put an arm round her and lightly kissed her, and she thought: ‘Now I’ve been kissed by all three of them.’
‘But wait, Julian!’ she protested, near to nervous tears. ‘Don’t say any more now. Take me home.’
‘Yes, yes. I’ll take you home now.’ His voice was soothing and tender. He was letting her see that his patience was infinite. This time, she was caught.
The car glided downwards from the hills into the plain, through the lovely calm. Once she broke silence to say:
‘Nothing’s worth while, Julian? It doesn’t matter what one does? There’s no point, really, in being alive?’
He laughed.
‘Poor Judy! Give it up! You’ll have to in time. Resign yourself, and the compensations won’t seem so preposterously inadequate. There was a time.... But that’s past. So long as there’s a balance of happiness I’m content to be alive. That it’s all futile has ceased to trouble me. It’s not really difficult to be happy, Judith.’
‘Well—you shall show me.’
But she felt crushed with melancholy to hear him; and his calm voice echoed drearily in her heart.
She bade him good-night in the empty lounge, and went upstairs to the bedroom’s rose and gilt harshness.
She was going to be Julian’s mistress.... He was sure of her: she had noted his triumphant eyes and smiling mouthwhen he said good night.... Perhaps if she had offered to be Roddy’s mistress he would have agreed with alacrity. He too was not made for matrimony.
She wished suddenly for Martin and sat down and started a letter to him; gave up after a few sentences, too heavy-minded to think; and went to bed.
The next day wasjour de fête: there were to be grand balls, carnivals and exhibition-dancing in all the hotels.
‘We’ll make the round of them, Judy,’ said Julian. ‘And afterwards we’ll take the car and go up into the hills—shall we?’
And she thanked him and agreed.
He was debonair, gay and gracious: the lines in his face seemed to have been smoothed out, and the likeness to Charlie was strongly in evidence.
Dreaming ahead, she saw herself reluctantly, helplessly, plunging further and further into relationship with him. He would not weary of her soon. When once the thing started, the break with the past would inevitably be complete. Together they would be reckless, free; together they would snatch pleasure out of life’s worthlessness; for Julian had promised faithfully that he was going to give her exactly what she wanted, that he had learnt precisely how happiness was to be come by, and would teach her.... She had given him leave to teach her.
Judiciously he absented himself for the day; and she spent the morning with Mamma, watching all the internally-disordered people pass, cup in hand up and down thePlacefrom spring to spring; and the afternoon with Mamma at the dressmaker’s; and the hours between tea and dinner with Mamma in the hotel-lounge, drearily banishing and recurring to thoughts of Roddy.
Mamma sent her out to buy a copy of the Continental Daily Mail, which shrill-voiced women were excitedly advertising in thePlace. Through her lorgnette, Mamma scanned the announcement of recent arrivals, the political outlook, the new French train smash, yawned, remarked that the holiday season in England seemed marked as usual by murders and drowning fatalities, yawned again and went upstairs to rest before her bridge-party.
An hour yet till dinner and nothing to do but sit and think of things.
Idly she picked up the evilly printed sheets.Triple Boating Tragedy.Why were they always triple? What must it be like to be relatives and friends of a triple boating tragedy? But that was a class disaster, like a charabanc death—not general.
Sailing Fatality off St. Catherine’s, Isle of Wight.That was where Martin and Roddy were yachting. They might have witnessed it.Tragic End of Well-known Young Yachtsman.
She had an impulse to put down the paper; but a name caught her eye and she had to go on reading.
A dense fog in the Channel is presumed to be the cause of the death of Mr. G. M. St. V. Fyfe, one of the best known of the younger Solent yachtsmen.According to information at present available, Mr. Fyfe, who was an expert sailor and swimmer, had been out since early morning of the—th sailing his small cutter “Sea Pink” single-handed. About noon a heavy sea-fog drove up from the channel with great suddenness and in the evening his friends became alarmed at his failure to return. Next morning a life-buoy and some other wreckage identified as belonging to Mr. Fyfe’s boat was found washed up on the shore near Brooke. It is thought that the boat must have been run down by a liner or other large vessel off St. Catherine’s Head during the fog of the previous afternoon. The body has not yet been recovered.Mr. G. M. St. V. Fyfe, who was twenty-four years of age, was the only son of the late Sir John Fyfe, K.C.B., and of Lady Fyfe of the Manor House, Fernwood, Hants. Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, he was among the most....
A dense fog in the Channel is presumed to be the cause of the death of Mr. G. M. St. V. Fyfe, one of the best known of the younger Solent yachtsmen.
According to information at present available, Mr. Fyfe, who was an expert sailor and swimmer, had been out since early morning of the—th sailing his small cutter “Sea Pink” single-handed. About noon a heavy sea-fog drove up from the channel with great suddenness and in the evening his friends became alarmed at his failure to return. Next morning a life-buoy and some other wreckage identified as belonging to Mr. Fyfe’s boat was found washed up on the shore near Brooke. It is thought that the boat must have been run down by a liner or other large vessel off St. Catherine’s Head during the fog of the previous afternoon. The body has not yet been recovered.
Mr. G. M. St. V. Fyfe, who was twenty-four years of age, was the only son of the late Sir John Fyfe, K.C.B., and of Lady Fyfe of the Manor House, Fernwood, Hants. Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, he was among the most....
There followed a few more words, but the type was illegible.
It could not be Martin, because he was Mr. Martin Fyfe. Martin’s initials were—O God!—forget you knew his initials. She could see them now written in her own hand on an envelope: G. M. St. V. Fyfe, Esq. Such dignified, satisfying initials.... It could not be Martin because an unfinished letter to him was lying upstairs waiting to be sent. Martin was sailing safely with Roddy and one or two others. He would not sail a cutter single-handed in a fog, because that was so dangerous; and he never did dangerous things.
The body had not yet been recovered....
If she read the thing through again calmly she would realize it was somebody else.
Perhaps better not.
Just the date though.... Two days old, this thing was now.... Mr. G. M. St. V. Fyfe—Martin Fyfe—Martinhad been nothing for two days....
She thought: If I pretend I never saw it, it will be just as if it hadn’t happened. I won’t know it, and then it’ll stop being true.
She folded the newspaper carefully, took it and went upstairs; and dressed for dinner with meticulous care. She was going to dine with Julian at the hotel which promised the best exhibition dancing; and she had agreed to wear his favourite frock to-night.
It was a very rich and expensive dinner that Julian had ordered; and a bouquet of red carnations lay beside her plate. Lobster and champagne. What a crowd of excitedpeople! Bare flesh was very ugly, and all those waved heads of women were intolerable. The monotony of faces in a crowd!...
Julian was studying her covertly, with flickering glances, though his attention was ostensibly for the company. He drank restlessly: the lines in his face were very marked. She would say something to him about the monotony of faces in a crowd; and then something about waved hair. After that she said:
‘Julian, does anybody know you’re here?’
‘No, not a soul.’
‘You left no address?’
‘No. Paris is my headquarters. When I go off like this I prefer that the great world should await my return, not follow me.’
‘Ah, you’re wise.’ She laughed. ‘It must make you feel so free.’
‘Why did you ask?’
‘Because it just occurred to me.’
Because they might have sent him a telegram: he was the eldest of the family, and they might have wanted him for all sorts of reasons: for the funeral.... But the body had not yet been recovered. Soon she must say to him: ‘Julian, Martin has been drowned.’ He would not much mind: they had never been very intimate: but of course they had shared that blood-intimacy of the circle. She must really tell him soon.
They were dancing now. The room was full of smoke and light and sickly scent; and the heat was choking. Everybody was rising to dance.
One of the American young men from her hotel was bowing and murmuring in front of her.
‘Not just now, thank you so much.’ She flashed a smile at him. ‘Perhaps later on....’
Oh, the queer marionettes bobbing up and down in their mechanical motions! How could people look so seriousand perform such imbecile antics? But they were not real people.
‘Look, Julian, there’s the Spanish boy we played against in the tournament. He’s good-looking, isn’t he? He’s simply enrapturing that girl. Hasn’t he got a lazy smile?... You know, however ugly a Frenchwoman’s body is at any rate it is a body and she’s not ashamed of it. Those English people are just bundles of clothes. If you undressed them there’d be nothing. That’s the whole difference.... Oh, look, they’re giving out favours. Oh, I’d like a fan. Let’s dance.’
Threading her way through the crowded tables, she passed a party of fat elderly Frenchmen and heard one say to another, loudly and with drunken excitement:
‘Mais regardez donc un peu! En blanc—vois tu? Elle est bien, celle-là. C’est tout à fait mon type.’
Their faces leered at her out of a dream.
Julian took her once round the room and then looked down at her and said:
‘You can’t dance to-night. What’s the matter?’
She gazed at him in dread, dumb. There was a reason. Soon—soon she would have to tell him; and then, when it had been spoken, imparted, it would be true for ever and ever. Not yet.
After a little while Julian held her as if he had ceased to expect or desire any response or rhythm from the lumpish wooden body he had to push. It was no good trying to keep things going much longer.... All things were coming waveringly to an end. The end would come with her own voice saying: “Martin has been drowned.” After that there would be a breaking-up and confusion, a going away to hide.... Not yet.
The dancing competition had started, amid loud laughter and applause. The couples, gradually thinning out, circled self-consciously. The little soft-eyed half-caste brother and sister—they were the ones. Their bodies were lithe andflat and sinuous, their proudly-carried small heads shone like black water, their eyes and lips were dreamy, sensual, sad, their limbs made poetry and music as they moved. They agreed, as prize-winners, to dance an exhibition dance.
Blushing, her teeth sparkling in a smile, she glided from the other end of the room towards her brother. He gave her his hand, she paused with a swirl of her long full yellow skirt,—and then they started swaying and circling together. They whirled; stopped dead; whirled again. He lifted her in the air and there she hung poised, laughing at him, pointing her tiny foot, then dropped like a feather and went weaving on.
Oh, let them dance for ever! While they danced, people could die, gently, easily, as a dancer sinks to earth, without pain to them or horror to others. Let them dance for ever!... It was over. Hand in hand they curtsied and bowed, and ran off the floor.
‘That was dancing,’ said Julian. ‘Nobody but each other to dance with, you see, poor little devils. That’s the way to learn.’
Roddy would have danced with that soft-smiling side-long-glancing little dancer: he would have made a point of it, not out of pity. Martin would have left her alone with quiet distaste.
Then, in a flash, saw the sea tryWith savage wrath and efforts wildTo smash its rocks with a dead child.
Then, in a flash, saw the sea tryWith savage wrath and efforts wildTo smash its rocks with a dead child.
Then, in a flash, saw the sea tryWith savage wrath and efforts wildTo smash its rocks with a dead child.
Then, in a flash, saw the sea tryWith savage wrath and efforts wildTo smash its rocks with a dead child.
To smash its rocks with Martin.
Everybody was very gay now. Through the smoke, all the eyes and mouths laughed, excited with wine and dancing. Balloons and favours waved; the band blared. The musicians donned false noses and moustaches and stood up, leaping and shouting.
Oh, this place is Hell!
Yes, Hell. Grimacing faces, obscene bodies, chattering parrot and monkey voices; Hell’s musicians, with vicious tunes and features dark with unmentionable evil....
The lights were dimmed, the floor cleared. A dancing girl leapt into the middle of the space, throwing flowers. Her white ballet skirts spun mistily. The lights were extinguished altogether, and you saw that the outline of her bodice and her skirts, her shoe-buckles and the star on her forehead had been painted with luminous paint; so that now she was three stars and some circles and loops of light, wheeling fantastically in the dark.
Now was the time to slip out. Julian would not notice.
Half-way across thePlacehe caught her up.
‘Where are you going?’
‘There’s something I must show you. Come with me.’
He followed in silence, into the hotel, upstairs, into the sitting-room.
‘Wait there, then. I’ll come back.’
She saw that she was carrying a purple balloon. She dropped it and watched it go bouncing like a great bubble across the room.
In the bedroom she found the letter in the folds of the blotter. ‘What a silence, Martin! I have been missing you....’ Aghast, she tore it in shreds.
Now to go back to Julian.
He was standing in the middle of the room, waiting.
‘Julian, what are Martin’s initials?’
He thought.
‘Something St. V.—G. M. St. V.—George Martin St. Vincent.’
He raised his eyebrows—but grew pale.
‘Ah, yes.’
The paper lay on the window-seat; she went to get it. ‘Take it away and read. There, where I’ve marked it.’ She made a cross with her thumbnail.
She went back to the bedroom and locked the door; and, after a few minutes, heard him going downstairs again.
Then she flung herself upon the bed, weeping for Martin whom she loved: whom she had left crying for her sake; who should have lived to be loved by his children, and honoured and full of years; Martin who was kind when all else was unkind—Martin who had been dead two days, rolling about in the waves; Martin for whom poor Roddy had searched the sea in vain; Martin who had been comely and now was destroyed utterly and made horrible,—sea-water in his mouth and eyes and hair, sea-water swelling his shapely body to a gross lump.
Whom had he thought of while he drowned? Had he fought and cursed? Or had he welcomed death because of somebody’s unkindness and deceit?
‘Martin, I didn’t mean it.’
Martin was almost in the room—quite in the room—standing just behind her, saying: “I’m all right.” He had come to comfort her.
Martin had entered into everlasting life. Yes!
No. No. No. Dead. Unconscious. Nothing. Beyond sight and touch for ever.
IT was the end of September. She had come home again, alone. Morning, noon and evening she sat about or wandered by herself, and watched the coloured procession of the days. Chill mornings wrapped in bluish mist broke softly towards mid-day, bloomed into shining pale yellow afternoons, died early, wistfully, in mists again, in grey dews shimmering upon the leaf-strewn lawn and the fallen apples, in motionless massed pomp of foliage burning softly beneath sunsets of muffled crimson, in moonrises strange with a bronze light.
The river lay stretched like a silken substance, with an oil-smooth sheen upon its dark olive surface; and all the poplars and willows upon the bank grew both ways—into the air, and down through the water with their long trunks shortened and their brightness tenderly blurred.
Next door, the shutters were up, and the copper beech dropped its leaves upon the deserted lawn.
In that deep-weighing, windless, mellow hush, alone in the house and garden, by the river, and on the hill, she saw all things begin to turn lingeringly, richly towards their end; and, at long last, felt in herself the first doubtful stir of new awakening.
Mamma had not come home. She was in Paris now, and was to remain there for the present.
She had been kind on that morning, when Judith had come to her bedside, told her that Julian had gone, that Martin was dead and that she herself was not feeling very well. She had asked not a single confidence, spoken no word of pity, but with merciful everydayness looked after her, revived her body with the practical comfort of brandy and hot-water bottles; and then, the next day, abandoned her cure and taken her away. They had motored all over France and into Italy and Switzerland; and Mamma, between long intervals of silence, had talked light sharp surface talk of the places and people they encountered, of food and clothes: talk that could be listened to with adequate attention and answered with ease. Through the close wrapping of lead upon her mind Judith had understood the deliberate and painstaking scheme of help, and been grateful for it. But when, after three weeks, Mamma started to make plans for an autumn together in Paris, Judith had suddenly asked to be allowed to go home. It was the first spontaneous impulse from a mind diseased, so it had seemed, beyond hope of revival. Sluggishly it stirred, but it remained: she must go home, be alone, find work, write a book, something.... Acquiescing, Mamma had not been able to conceal her relief. What a bore these weeks must have been for her!
Judith saw England once more with the senses of one waking before dawn exhausted from a nightmare, apprehending reality with shrinking and confusion, and then, gradually, with a faint inflowing of relief, of hope in the coming of the light.
Each morning she thought:
“To-day I will begin to write—start practicing again—apply through College for some post....”
But each evening found her still folded in the golden caressing solitudes of the garden, mindless and inert. There was no subject that could conceivably provide material for a book; no music that was not far too difficult to learn to play; no post that did not seem entirely distasteful.
Then, one afternoon, she paused by the grand piano, hesitated, opened it and sat down to play—Schumann, Chopin, Brahms, Debussy, Ravel ... a little of each, stumbling, giving up, going on again. At the end of two hours she stopped. At first her hands had not obeyed her; but after a time they had begun to remember, she had forced them to remember a little. She must practice scales and exercises: it was too humiliating to be at the mercy of stiff clumsy fingers.
She looked round the drawing-room and saw that it was empty of flowers. She took a basket and went out into the misty sharp-smelling garden and gathered dahlias and late roses. The flower petals seemed to caress her cheek as she stooped to them, the stalks to yield gladly and fall towards her. They loved and welcomed her. She chose, picked, stroked them, held them against her face with voluptuous delight in their colour, form and texture. It was thrilling, living alone and gathering flowers.
She looked around her, up at the sky. The evening was like Jennifer.
She went in to put her flowers in water.
Sheaves of cut lavender still lay drying on newspaper in the little room where the vases were kept. She finished stripping the brittle stalks, dividing the fragrant dried bluish heaps of buds and pouring them into bowls. The feel of lavender held in the palms and sifting through the fingers was delicious.
That day, years ago, when Roddy had come to tea, he had plunged both hands into a bowl of lavender in the hall and then buried his nose in them with a long ‘Ah!’ of satisfaction. This veryfamille rosebowl she was filling had been the one. She had said that, when the fresh lavender was ready, she would make him lavender bags to keep among his ties and handkerchiefs.... How long ago!...
She longed for Roddy suddenly with a new and unenvenomed pang: she thought of him with tenderly regretful, half-maternal sorrow. He too would be lonely now. She would have liked to give him lavender, to walk with him in the autumn garden, quietly talking, sharing with him its loveliness and tranquillity. She would have liked to show him she wanted nothing now save to take his hand and tell him that she was sorry for him; that they must be friends now, always, remembering whom they had both loved.
The evening post came just as she had finished disposingthe bowls of lavender about the house. It brought a letter from Julian.
Judith,Now that I know that my moment is over and will never come again, I must speak to you these last few words; and then be silent. If you reply to me, I beg you not to say you hope we may still be friends. We may not. I am not one who has friends.That night I went from you and from that vile town raging, cursing God and man. I had been thwarted, so I thought, by a monstrous trick of chance in the very hour of my life’s most delicious triumph. I never could endure failure, as you know. I have generally succeeded in getting what I wanted. I have been very successful. That is because I am such a supreme egoist; and because in spite of all my window-dressing and general ambiguity and deceitfulness I don’t—often—deceive myself. I know very well what I want: I go straight for it in spite of my path’s apparent twists and deviations; and indeed, indeed, Judith, I wanted you. I say to myself: ‘Fool! There are plenty of others worth the wanting;’ and yet—and yet it does not seem so. No! Despite a life’s endeavours, I am not proof yet against the slings and arrows. And when at last they do cease to assail me, it will, I begin to fear, be merely because I have become moribund, not philosophical.God, I raged!—against Martin for dying, against you for being so foolish as to care, against myself for being made uncomfortable and ridiculous; for I was ridiculous in my own eyes because I had declared myself—shewn all my cards and lost.Now I have become sane again.Looking back on it all, I think (with surprise) that I was mistaken. It never would have done. You were not for me, or I for you. I never could have made you passionate—and that was essential. You are all dark andflat. If anything flashes in you it flashes hidden: you never would have let me warm all myself at you. I see now how you would have given me nothing but the polite, faintly curious attention which I have had from you since our first meeting. It would have been a tedious game trying to knock a spark out of you. I should soon have wearied of it. But before that I should have hurt you. I am a not unaccomplished mental sadist. It would not have done either of us much good.About Martin: I thought you would like to know. They found his body on the beach two days later; and took him home and buried him beside his father. He had been cheerful all the time, enjoying his sailing; and went out in high spirits on the day of the accident. You must not grieve about him. He doesn’t know he was young and loved life and now can’t love it any more. He won’t get old and past loving it. He’ll never miss dead friends and lovers and long in vain to follow them. Fortunate Martin to die before he wanted to.... But there! These are empty consolations. I also loved my Martin. We shall never see him again. It’s little comfort to tell ourselves we shall stop missing him when we’re dead too. I am told his mother is calm and courageous, fortified by a complete faith in a loving God. Roddy I saw at the funeral, but had little speech with. He looked unhappy. A brief note I had from him yesterday, concerning the disposal of some of Martin’s things, remarks that it is easily the worst thing that’s ever happened. This is the only comment he has made or is likely to make—to me at least. He will get over it. He is now in Scotland with friends, shooting. I give you these tidings of him because I surmise that—you will like to have them. ButI know nothing of all that... nor do I wish to know....Ah, Judith, in spite of all I am very romantic and sentimental, and I say to myself that I have my memories; and they cannot be taken from me. You were verycharming, very kind and tolerant. We did some good things together—good vivid things: though I suppose the fact of my physical presence never made them to you what yours made them to me: a superb excitement and intoxication. Twenty years hence when you’re long since married and have indulged your deplorable philoprogenitiveness, and are stout, Judith, stout, comfortable, domestic, I shall write one sentence upon a blank page and send it to you:Do you remember an inn, Miranda,Do you remember an inn?and perhaps—for one instant—you will stir in your fat and almost,almostremember?... But no! There spoke indeed the sentimental egoist. For the inns you remember will not be those you visited with me; and you have made it clear—haven’t you?—that I may never call you Miranda. Besides, for my own part, like enough I shall by then have forgotten the amenities of bathing and omelette-eating and motoring by night, and disremembered all my apt quotations. You will be a placid matron and I a gaunt, stringy and withered madman: one of the kind with livid faces and blazing eyes, who dog young women down lonely lanes. Sonever more, Miranda, never more....I read this through, my Judith, and I say to myself: words, words, words! And I think: for whom, for whom shall the close dark wrappings of your mind be laid aside and all the flame come leaping out? I sit and consider how in all these years I never so much as kindled a little glow to warm my hands at; and dream of how happily things might have fallen out if I hadn’t been as I am, and all had been different; and I feel lonely and wonder what I shall do without you. Don’t for God’s sake pity me. I shall forget you. But oh, Judith! youwere lovely to me: never quite real. And still, still persists this ridiculous feeling that I should like to do something for you. There is nothing, I suppose?Next month I go to Russia. For what purpose? I know not. To hear some music, and learn a smattering of the language; to write newspaper articles (“Impressions of an Unprejudiced and Unofficial Wanderer”), to pick up a few acquaintances, to forget you; to contract, perchance, some disease and die of it.... At all events, to Russia I go. Farewell.J. F.
Judith,
Now that I know that my moment is over and will never come again, I must speak to you these last few words; and then be silent. If you reply to me, I beg you not to say you hope we may still be friends. We may not. I am not one who has friends.
That night I went from you and from that vile town raging, cursing God and man. I had been thwarted, so I thought, by a monstrous trick of chance in the very hour of my life’s most delicious triumph. I never could endure failure, as you know. I have generally succeeded in getting what I wanted. I have been very successful. That is because I am such a supreme egoist; and because in spite of all my window-dressing and general ambiguity and deceitfulness I don’t—often—deceive myself. I know very well what I want: I go straight for it in spite of my path’s apparent twists and deviations; and indeed, indeed, Judith, I wanted you. I say to myself: ‘Fool! There are plenty of others worth the wanting;’ and yet—and yet it does not seem so. No! Despite a life’s endeavours, I am not proof yet against the slings and arrows. And when at last they do cease to assail me, it will, I begin to fear, be merely because I have become moribund, not philosophical.
God, I raged!—against Martin for dying, against you for being so foolish as to care, against myself for being made uncomfortable and ridiculous; for I was ridiculous in my own eyes because I had declared myself—shewn all my cards and lost.
Now I have become sane again.
Looking back on it all, I think (with surprise) that I was mistaken. It never would have done. You were not for me, or I for you. I never could have made you passionate—and that was essential. You are all dark andflat. If anything flashes in you it flashes hidden: you never would have let me warm all myself at you. I see now how you would have given me nothing but the polite, faintly curious attention which I have had from you since our first meeting. It would have been a tedious game trying to knock a spark out of you. I should soon have wearied of it. But before that I should have hurt you. I am a not unaccomplished mental sadist. It would not have done either of us much good.
About Martin: I thought you would like to know. They found his body on the beach two days later; and took him home and buried him beside his father. He had been cheerful all the time, enjoying his sailing; and went out in high spirits on the day of the accident. You must not grieve about him. He doesn’t know he was young and loved life and now can’t love it any more. He won’t get old and past loving it. He’ll never miss dead friends and lovers and long in vain to follow them. Fortunate Martin to die before he wanted to.... But there! These are empty consolations. I also loved my Martin. We shall never see him again. It’s little comfort to tell ourselves we shall stop missing him when we’re dead too. I am told his mother is calm and courageous, fortified by a complete faith in a loving God. Roddy I saw at the funeral, but had little speech with. He looked unhappy. A brief note I had from him yesterday, concerning the disposal of some of Martin’s things, remarks that it is easily the worst thing that’s ever happened. This is the only comment he has made or is likely to make—to me at least. He will get over it. He is now in Scotland with friends, shooting. I give you these tidings of him because I surmise that—you will like to have them. ButI know nothing of all that... nor do I wish to know....
Ah, Judith, in spite of all I am very romantic and sentimental, and I say to myself that I have my memories; and they cannot be taken from me. You were verycharming, very kind and tolerant. We did some good things together—good vivid things: though I suppose the fact of my physical presence never made them to you what yours made them to me: a superb excitement and intoxication. Twenty years hence when you’re long since married and have indulged your deplorable philoprogenitiveness, and are stout, Judith, stout, comfortable, domestic, I shall write one sentence upon a blank page and send it to you:
Do you remember an inn, Miranda,Do you remember an inn?
Do you remember an inn, Miranda,Do you remember an inn?
Do you remember an inn, Miranda,Do you remember an inn?
Do you remember an inn, Miranda,Do you remember an inn?
and perhaps—for one instant—you will stir in your fat and almost,almostremember?... But no! There spoke indeed the sentimental egoist. For the inns you remember will not be those you visited with me; and you have made it clear—haven’t you?—that I may never call you Miranda. Besides, for my own part, like enough I shall by then have forgotten the amenities of bathing and omelette-eating and motoring by night, and disremembered all my apt quotations. You will be a placid matron and I a gaunt, stringy and withered madman: one of the kind with livid faces and blazing eyes, who dog young women down lonely lanes. Sonever more, Miranda, never more....
I read this through, my Judith, and I say to myself: words, words, words! And I think: for whom, for whom shall the close dark wrappings of your mind be laid aside and all the flame come leaping out? I sit and consider how in all these years I never so much as kindled a little glow to warm my hands at; and dream of how happily things might have fallen out if I hadn’t been as I am, and all had been different; and I feel lonely and wonder what I shall do without you. Don’t for God’s sake pity me. I shall forget you. But oh, Judith! youwere lovely to me: never quite real. And still, still persists this ridiculous feeling that I should like to do something for you. There is nothing, I suppose?
Next month I go to Russia. For what purpose? I know not. To hear some music, and learn a smattering of the language; to write newspaper articles (“Impressions of an Unprejudiced and Unofficial Wanderer”), to pick up a few acquaintances, to forget you; to contract, perchance, some disease and die of it.... At all events, to Russia I go. Farewell.
J. F.
That night she woke from a deep sleep and knew that Martin was dead: not an object of horror tossed about decaying by the waves; not a thing alive somewhere in some nightmare form, appalled at its own death, watching, accusing, reproaching, desiring, reading the secrets of her heart; not a Martin going on obliviously in another, beatific life—but a dead man whose end had chanced upon him swiftly and mercifully, whose bones were in their grave beside his father’s, quietly mingling with the earth he loved. Martin had not died out of spite, or because her crookedness and Roddy’s had somehow wrought upon him like an evil charm and driven him to be drowned. He had been in high spirits, full of interest in which she had never played a part and so could never spoil; and in the midst of his enjoyment he had died. Drowning was a good death, so people said. Now neither happiness nor unhappiness was possible to him any more: that was all death meant. He had loved her, and now she was nothing to him; he was insensible to her remorse and her regrets. She dared at last to sink in that deep well of sorrow; but its waters were pure now, and in the end she drew herself from them refreshed.
To-morrow she would be able to write to Martin’s mother.
She wrote, briefly; and when she had finished, the paper was spotted here and there with irrepressible hot tears; but they were for Martin’s mother. She would never shed any more for Martin now.
She dried her eyes and wrote to Julian.
My dear,I was extraordinarily glad to get your letter. I thought I had lost you as well as everybody else. You have done something for me, Julian: the thing I thought no one and nothing could do. You have made my imagination stop shrieking like a fiend in hell about Martin. It’s not only what you so wisely say about a young man’s death: it’s the knowing that he was found again, and buried in the earth as he wanted to be: that he isn’t a derelict, our beloved Martin, in the unfriendly sea. It has all stopped being monstrous to me; it is a natural grief and now I can bear to live again. He was in love with me and I was unkind to him and longed too late to tell him I never meant to be. That was the trouble. But it is all over now.Thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you have told me of Martin—and of Roddy whom I shall never see again, to whom I may not write and say how I grieve for his sake. You have done a great thing for me: so now it will be easier than ever—won’t it?—to dismiss me from your mind.Oh, Julian, you wrote to me in a softened mood. Now you are regretting it, perhaps, or laughing at yourself and me. No, it never would have done. You imagined me: you say so yourself. Thank your stars you were spared the boringness, or worse, of seeing me come true. What coils and glooms and sickened moods poor Martin perhaps saved us! But I hope and believe we’d have ended it and parted, laughing, before we’d even thoughtof crying. I wish you much success and joy with all the not-impossibles who are to follow me.What a year this has been, and how we grow up! Shall I really never see you again? It would be bathos after the elegant farewells we are now exchanging: but it may happen.My harmless Julian, you would not dog a fly—let alone young women in lonely lanes. I do like you very much and I have the greatest respect for the high quality of your morals, and if I die a widow with lots of children I shall bequeath them all to you to bring up. You will have so many of your own that a few more will make no difference. Think how happy you’ll be instructing, admonishing and advising them.What of Peter and of Mariella?—sad, strange, lovable Mariella and her child? Their pathos weighs upon me; but I can do nothing.Only you can, Julian.I should have liked news of them. Rumour has it that the house next door is to be put up for sale.I am all uprooted, and don’t know what I shall do. I must begin to make plans. I suppose I shall never emerge from obscurity in any way. I used to think it a certainty that I should. I see you smile unkindly.Yes, I will be Miranda to you, Julian. What we shared meant as much to me, in a different way, as it did to you; and it will never come again.Perhaps there will never be any more inns, with anybody, in my life. Enchantment has vanished from the world. Perhaps it will never come back, save in memory. Perhaps I shared with you the last gleam I shall have of it.Judith.
My dear,
I was extraordinarily glad to get your letter. I thought I had lost you as well as everybody else. You have done something for me, Julian: the thing I thought no one and nothing could do. You have made my imagination stop shrieking like a fiend in hell about Martin. It’s not only what you so wisely say about a young man’s death: it’s the knowing that he was found again, and buried in the earth as he wanted to be: that he isn’t a derelict, our beloved Martin, in the unfriendly sea. It has all stopped being monstrous to me; it is a natural grief and now I can bear to live again. He was in love with me and I was unkind to him and longed too late to tell him I never meant to be. That was the trouble. But it is all over now.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you have told me of Martin—and of Roddy whom I shall never see again, to whom I may not write and say how I grieve for his sake. You have done a great thing for me: so now it will be easier than ever—won’t it?—to dismiss me from your mind.
Oh, Julian, you wrote to me in a softened mood. Now you are regretting it, perhaps, or laughing at yourself and me. No, it never would have done. You imagined me: you say so yourself. Thank your stars you were spared the boringness, or worse, of seeing me come true. What coils and glooms and sickened moods poor Martin perhaps saved us! But I hope and believe we’d have ended it and parted, laughing, before we’d even thoughtof crying. I wish you much success and joy with all the not-impossibles who are to follow me.
What a year this has been, and how we grow up! Shall I really never see you again? It would be bathos after the elegant farewells we are now exchanging: but it may happen.
My harmless Julian, you would not dog a fly—let alone young women in lonely lanes. I do like you very much and I have the greatest respect for the high quality of your morals, and if I die a widow with lots of children I shall bequeath them all to you to bring up. You will have so many of your own that a few more will make no difference. Think how happy you’ll be instructing, admonishing and advising them.
What of Peter and of Mariella?—sad, strange, lovable Mariella and her child? Their pathos weighs upon me; but I can do nothing.Only you can, Julian.I should have liked news of them. Rumour has it that the house next door is to be put up for sale.
I am all uprooted, and don’t know what I shall do. I must begin to make plans. I suppose I shall never emerge from obscurity in any way. I used to think it a certainty that I should. I see you smile unkindly.
Yes, I will be Miranda to you, Julian. What we shared meant as much to me, in a different way, as it did to you; and it will never come again.
Perhaps there will never be any more inns, with anybody, in my life. Enchantment has vanished from the world. Perhaps it will never come back, save in memory. Perhaps I shared with you the last gleam I shall have of it.
Judith.
Martin’s mother answered, in a large, old-fashioned feminine handwriting, by return of post.
Dear Judith,Of course I remember you. I do not forget pretty and charming people with sweet voices; and as a friend of Martin’s you are dear to me, as all his friends are, because they were responsible for so much of his happiness. It was kind of you to write. I miss my darling boy every moment of the day. Never was a better son born. But he would not have wished me to grieve, and so I try not to. He is in God’s keeping and I feel him very near to me; please God there will not be many years in store for me before he and I and his dear father are reunited.It is a great comfort to think how happy his life was. His nature was all sun, and from his birth till the day he was taken from us I verily believe not a cloud came over him. Should not that console us?Thank you again, dear Judith, and believe that Martin’s mother remembers you affectionately.Eleanor Fyfe.
Dear Judith,
Of course I remember you. I do not forget pretty and charming people with sweet voices; and as a friend of Martin’s you are dear to me, as all his friends are, because they were responsible for so much of his happiness. It was kind of you to write. I miss my darling boy every moment of the day. Never was a better son born. But he would not have wished me to grieve, and so I try not to. He is in God’s keeping and I feel him very near to me; please God there will not be many years in store for me before he and I and his dear father are reunited.
It is a great comfort to think how happy his life was. His nature was all sun, and from his birth till the day he was taken from us I verily believe not a cloud came over him. Should not that console us?
Thank you again, dear Judith, and believe that Martin’s mother remembers you affectionately.
Eleanor Fyfe.
“Not a cloud came over him.” She would believe that and smile, ageing, stricken, lonely as she was, till her life’s end.
Perhaps after all it was so. Perhaps he had not allowed one woman’s petty favours and denials to make a shadow across the large and perpetual sunshine of his way. How little, after all, they had been together, how few words exchanged; how insignificant a figure she must have been, when all was said and done, among all the figures in his thousands of days!
Slowly, the darkness was lifting. Soon now, Jennifer’s letter must come, and a new beginning dawn out of this end of all things.
It came, one morning when the first gale had started to sweep in upon the season’s painted picture; a day whenlights, shadows, leaves and wings of birds moved, flew, shone, flickered, paused in a restless harmony.
Darling,Something makes me write to you now. I have often nearly started and then given it up, but now it feels as if I must, it feels rather like an evening that perhaps you don’t remember but I do, when Ihadto come and see you after not having been able to for ages—that time you were ill.I have felt such a sort of disgrace to myself, and you, and College, and English girlhood, going away like that, that I decided I’d better keep quiet for a bit. Icouldn’twrite. But now I must. Have you been waiting and waiting for a letter, and thinking I’d forgotten you? Darling, I haven’t forgotten you. Perhaps you’ve forgotten me. But I don’t think so. It is most damnably difficult writing to you. As you see, this is more illegible even than usual with the effort. College does seem so far away. Higher Education for Women never did me any good—except it gave me you and you are an angel and so lovely. I feel very old and different. You remember my hair—you liked it—I have had it all cut off. Just because Geraldine’s was short I thought I must have mine the same. Just like me. Mother can’t get over it, she now thinks my morals are past praying about, which is a step in the right direction. It all waves and curls and it is marvellous to be without the weight of it and the bloody hairpins prodding my scalp under hats. I thought getting rid of it would be a good way to cut off the past as well. I thought I’d be a different person, more adapted to Geraldine, if I did it. And anyway I couldn’t bear her brushing it after you. You remember Geraldine. It was because of her I left College.Darling, do you hate me now, you ought to. Oh, that last term and the night when I said good-bye to you. I try never to think about it, because it makes me feelso awful. I promised I’d explain everything, didn’t I, but it’s not much easier now than then because I suppose whatever’s been happening to you you’re still an innocent baby, while I feel like the most corrupt disreputable I don’t know what. Have you had a tremendous love-affair yet? I always used to think there was a man you were on the verge of loving. Perhaps he’s made you understand by now what it really means being in love. I loved you frightfully from the very first. I used to think about you night and day. I was in a fever about you. I began to be absolutely afraid of my feelings for you, they were so extremely strong. I couldn’t understand them. Then I met Geraldine, and I realized a lot of things. You know what I am—she swept me off my feet. I was too excited to think. She dazzled me. I simply let everybody and everything else go.And all the time I loved you more than ever.You may not believe it but it’s true. But I couldn’t explain to you how I felt—I didn’t care. You’d have hated it really, wouldn’t you? You are pure and ethereal and I am not. Nor was Geraldine. You used to look after me and kiss me as if you were my mother (notreallymine of course, who is quite awful, one of those lipless women. I suppose Nature wanted to readjust the balance of mouth and that accounts for mine.) I got into such a ghastly muddle over it all, I thought the best thing I could do was to go away. Geraldine clung rather—I knew she’d always be coming up, and I didn’t want her and you to meet, I knew she’d be jealous (she’s the most jealous person I ever knew). And I saw things could never be happy between you and me again. Oh, it was a hellish muddle. It doesn’t bear thinking of. Ihadto go away and try and forget. Just like me. I’m such a coward. I went abroad with her and she gave me a marvellous time, I must say. I was absolutely fascinated by her to start with, almost hypnotized, and we went all over Europe. You know I can’t help more or less enjoying life frightfully, especiallywhen it’s being rather wild and queer—and it was. But then one or two people I met fell in love with me and I suppose I fell a bit in love with them, I always do, and she got jealous and more and more full of accusations and reproaches. I was so sick of her I could hardly bear to look at her. She never could see a joke. So in the end I left her and came home. She goes on writing me reproachful letters, but I don’t answer them.Oh, dear, you seem to be very far away from me now. I shall never find anyone who understands like you again. Why did you ever waste your time over me? I’m rotten and I always shall be. As you see I’m at home now, but I shan’t stay long. There are far too many raised eyebrows and disapproving chins about. I’m only waiting till I can raise some money and then I expect I’ll go abroad again. I always prophesied I’d come to a bad end, didn’t I? I seem to like nearly all the vices.I suppose we shall never meet again. What’s the good? You’re probably full of new things and people by now, and I daresay I’m changed for the worse. Quite a Fallen Woman. And you wouldn’t like me any more. I simply couldn’t face it. But write to me once and tell me everything. Tell me if you understand. Tell me I was right to go away. Oh, I’d like to be back with you in Cambridge—just for a day, even for an hour—just you and me. There’ll never be anything like that, again.Darling, have you cut off your hair I wonder. It was lovely too, parted in the middle, so smooth and thick and dark purple. You can’t have changed it. You will never change, will you, only get more and more deep and clear and yourself. I shall change, but you must always remember I love you.Jennifer.
Darling,
Something makes me write to you now. I have often nearly started and then given it up, but now it feels as if I must, it feels rather like an evening that perhaps you don’t remember but I do, when Ihadto come and see you after not having been able to for ages—that time you were ill.
I have felt such a sort of disgrace to myself, and you, and College, and English girlhood, going away like that, that I decided I’d better keep quiet for a bit. Icouldn’twrite. But now I must. Have you been waiting and waiting for a letter, and thinking I’d forgotten you? Darling, I haven’t forgotten you. Perhaps you’ve forgotten me. But I don’t think so. It is most damnably difficult writing to you. As you see, this is more illegible even than usual with the effort. College does seem so far away. Higher Education for Women never did me any good—except it gave me you and you are an angel and so lovely. I feel very old and different. You remember my hair—you liked it—I have had it all cut off. Just because Geraldine’s was short I thought I must have mine the same. Just like me. Mother can’t get over it, she now thinks my morals are past praying about, which is a step in the right direction. It all waves and curls and it is marvellous to be without the weight of it and the bloody hairpins prodding my scalp under hats. I thought getting rid of it would be a good way to cut off the past as well. I thought I’d be a different person, more adapted to Geraldine, if I did it. And anyway I couldn’t bear her brushing it after you. You remember Geraldine. It was because of her I left College.
Darling, do you hate me now, you ought to. Oh, that last term and the night when I said good-bye to you. I try never to think about it, because it makes me feelso awful. I promised I’d explain everything, didn’t I, but it’s not much easier now than then because I suppose whatever’s been happening to you you’re still an innocent baby, while I feel like the most corrupt disreputable I don’t know what. Have you had a tremendous love-affair yet? I always used to think there was a man you were on the verge of loving. Perhaps he’s made you understand by now what it really means being in love. I loved you frightfully from the very first. I used to think about you night and day. I was in a fever about you. I began to be absolutely afraid of my feelings for you, they were so extremely strong. I couldn’t understand them. Then I met Geraldine, and I realized a lot of things. You know what I am—she swept me off my feet. I was too excited to think. She dazzled me. I simply let everybody and everything else go.And all the time I loved you more than ever.You may not believe it but it’s true. But I couldn’t explain to you how I felt—I didn’t care. You’d have hated it really, wouldn’t you? You are pure and ethereal and I am not. Nor was Geraldine. You used to look after me and kiss me as if you were my mother (notreallymine of course, who is quite awful, one of those lipless women. I suppose Nature wanted to readjust the balance of mouth and that accounts for mine.) I got into such a ghastly muddle over it all, I thought the best thing I could do was to go away. Geraldine clung rather—I knew she’d always be coming up, and I didn’t want her and you to meet, I knew she’d be jealous (she’s the most jealous person I ever knew). And I saw things could never be happy between you and me again. Oh, it was a hellish muddle. It doesn’t bear thinking of. Ihadto go away and try and forget. Just like me. I’m such a coward. I went abroad with her and she gave me a marvellous time, I must say. I was absolutely fascinated by her to start with, almost hypnotized, and we went all over Europe. You know I can’t help more or less enjoying life frightfully, especiallywhen it’s being rather wild and queer—and it was. But then one or two people I met fell in love with me and I suppose I fell a bit in love with them, I always do, and she got jealous and more and more full of accusations and reproaches. I was so sick of her I could hardly bear to look at her. She never could see a joke. So in the end I left her and came home. She goes on writing me reproachful letters, but I don’t answer them.
Oh, dear, you seem to be very far away from me now. I shall never find anyone who understands like you again. Why did you ever waste your time over me? I’m rotten and I always shall be. As you see I’m at home now, but I shan’t stay long. There are far too many raised eyebrows and disapproving chins about. I’m only waiting till I can raise some money and then I expect I’ll go abroad again. I always prophesied I’d come to a bad end, didn’t I? I seem to like nearly all the vices.
I suppose we shall never meet again. What’s the good? You’re probably full of new things and people by now, and I daresay I’m changed for the worse. Quite a Fallen Woman. And you wouldn’t like me any more. I simply couldn’t face it. But write to me once and tell me everything. Tell me if you understand. Tell me I was right to go away. Oh, I’d like to be back with you in Cambridge—just for a day, even for an hour—just you and me. There’ll never be anything like that, again.
Darling, have you cut off your hair I wonder. It was lovely too, parted in the middle, so smooth and thick and dark purple. You can’t have changed it. You will never change, will you, only get more and more deep and clear and yourself. I shall change, but you must always remember I love you.
Jennifer.
She sat down clasping the letter between her palms, feeling the familiar glow steal over her, rising from the very sheets close-written in that sensitive erratic hand. Now,while her heart still beat with relief, joy, surprise, now while Jennifer seemed to have drawn near once more of her own accord, to be enquiring, holding out hands, hinting that she needed her—now it seemed plain at last what was to come. Whatever Jennifer had done, would do, they two must be together again.
She took up a pen and wrote.