1
Valérie stared at Stephen in amazement: ‘But . . . it’s such an
extraordinary thing you’re asking! Are you sure you’re right to take
such a step? For myself I care nothing; why should I care? If you want
to pretend that you’re my lover, well, my dear, to be quite frank, I
wish it were true—I feel certain you’d make a most charming lover. All
the same,’ and now her voice sounded anxious, ‘this is not a thing to be
done lightly, Stephen. Aren’t you being absurdly self-sacrificing? You
can give the girl a very great deal.’
Stephen shook her head: ‘I can’t give her protection or happiness, and
yet she won’t leave me. There’s only one way . . .’
Then Valérie Seymour, who had always shunned tragedy like the plague,
flared out in something very like temper: ‘Protection! Protection! I’m
sick of the word. Let her do without it; aren’t you enough for her? Good
heavens, you’re worth twenty Mary Llewellyns! Stephen, think it over
before you decide—it seems mad to me. For God’s sake keep the girl, and
get what happiness you can out of life.’
‘No, I can’t do that,’ said Stephen dully.
Valérie got up: ‘Being what you are, I suppose you can’t—you were made
for a martyr! Very well, I agree’; she finished abruptly, ‘though of all
the curious situations that I’ve ever been in, this one beats the lot!’
That night Stephen wrote to Martin Hallam.
2
Two days later as she crossed the street to her house, Stephen saw
Martin in the shadow of the archway. He stepped out and they faced each
other on the pavement. He had kept his word; it was just ten o’clock.
He said: ‘I’ve come. Why did you send for me, Stephen?’
She answered heavily: ‘Because of Mary.’
And something in her face made him catch his breath, so that the
questions died on his lips: ‘I’ll do whatever you want,’ he murmured.
‘It’s so simple,’ she told him, ‘it’s all perfectly simple. I want you
to wait just under this arch—just here where you can’t be seen from the
house. I want you to wait until Mary needs you, as I think she will
. . . it may not be long . . . Can I count on your being here if she
needs you?’
He nodded: ‘Yes—yes!’ He was utterly bewildered, scared too by the
curious look in her eyes; but he allowed her to pass him and enter the
courtyard.
3
She let herself into the house with her latchkey. The place seemed full
of an articulate silence that leapt out shouting from every corner—a
jibing, grimacing, vindictive silence. She brushed it aside with a sweep
of her hand, as though it were some sort of physical presence.
But who was it who brushed that silence aside? Not Stephen Gordon . . .
oh, no, surely not . . . Stephen Gordon was dead; she had died last
night: ‘A l’heure de notre mort . . .’ Many people had spoken those
prophetic words quite a short time ago—perhaps they had been thinking
of Stephen Gordon.
Yet now some one was slowly climbing the stairs, then pausing upon the
landing to listen, then opening the door of Mary’s bedroom, then
standing quite still and staring at Mary. It was some one whom David
knew and loved well; he sprang forward with a sharp little bark of
welcome. But Mary shrank back as though she had been struck—Mary pale
and red-eyed from sleeplessness—or was it because of excessive weeping?
When she spoke her voice sounded unfamiliar: ‘Where were you last
night?’
‘With Valérie Seymour. I thought you’d know somehow . . . It’s better to
be frank . . . we both hate lies . . .’
Came that queer voice again: ‘Good God—and I’ve tried so hard not to
believe it! Tell me you’re lying to me now; say it, Stephen!’
Stephen—then she wasn’t dead after all; or was she? But now Mary was
clinging—clinging.
‘Stephen, I can’t believe this thing—Valérie! Is that why you always
repulse me . . . why you never want to come near me these days? Stephen,
answer me; are you her lover? Say something, for Christ’s sake! Don’t
stand there dumb . . .’
A mist closing down, a thick black mist. Some one pushing the girl away,
without speaking. Mary’s queer voice coming out of the gloom, muffled by
the folds of that thick black mist, only a word here and there getting
through: ‘All my life I’ve given . . . you’ve killed . . . I loved you
. . . Cruel, oh, cruel! You’re unspeakably cruel . . .’ Then the sound
of rough and pitiful sobbing.
No, assuredly this was not Stephen Gordon who stood there unmoved by
such pitiful sobbing. But what was the figure doing in the mist? It was
moving about, distractedly, wildly. All the while it sobbed it was
moving about: ‘I’m going . . .’
Going? But where could it go? Somewhere out of the mist, somewhere into
the light? Who was it that had said . . . wait, what were the words? ‘To
give light to them that sit in darkness . . .’
No one was moving about any more—there was only a dog, a dog called
David. Something had to be done. Go into the bedroom, Stephen Gordon’s
bedroom that faced on the courtyard . . . just a few short steps and
then the window. A girl, hatless, with the sun falling full on her hair
. . . she was almost running . . . she stumbled a little. But now there
were two people down in the courtyard—a man had his hands on the girl’s
bowed shoulders. He questioned her, yes, that was it, he questioned; and
the girl was telling him why she was there, why she had fled from that
thick, awful darkness. He was looking at the house, incredulous, amazed;
hesitating as though he were coming in; but the girl went on and the man
turned to follow . . . They were side by side, he was gripping her arm
. . . They were gone; they had passed out under the archway.
Then all in a moment the stillness was shattered: ‘Mary, come back! Come
back to me, Mary!’
David crouched and trembled. He had crawled to the bed, and he lay there
watching with his eyes of amber; trembling because such an anguish as
this struck across him like the lash of a whip, and what could he do,
the poor beast, in his dumbness?
She turned and saw him, but only for a moment, for now the room seemed
to be thronging with people. Who were they, these strangers with the
miserable eyes? And yet, were they all strangers? Surely that was Wanda?
And some one with a neat little hole in her side—Jamie clasping Barbara
by the hand; Barbara with the white flowers of death on her bosom. Oh,
but they were many, these unbidden guests, and they called very softly
at first and then louder. They were calling her by name, saying:
‘Stephen, Stephen!’ The quick, the dead, and the yet unborn—all calling
her, softly at first and then louder. Aye, and those lost and terrible
brothers from Alec’s, they were here, and they also were calling:
‘Stephen, Stephen, speak with your God and ask Him why He has left us
forsaken!’ She could see their marred and reproachful faces with the
haunted, melancholy eyes of the invert—eyes that had looked too long on
a world that lacked all pity and all understanding: ‘Stephen, Stephen,
speak with your God and ask Him why He has left us forsaken!’ And these
terrible ones started pointing at her with their shaking, white-skinned,
effeminate fingers: ‘You and your kind have stolen our birthright; you
have taken our strength and have given us your weakness!’ They were
pointing at her with white, shaking fingers.
Rockets of pain, burning rockets of pain—their pain, her pain, all
welded together into one great consuming agony. Rockets of pain that
shot up and burst, dropping scorching tears of fire on the spirit—her
pain, their pain . . . all the misery at Alec’s. And the press and the
clamour of those countless others—they fought, they trampled, they were
getting her under. In their madness to become articulate through her,
they were tearing her to pieces, getting her under. They were everywhere
now, cutting off her retreat; neither bolts nor bars would avail to save
her. The walls fell down and crumbled before them; at the cry of their
suffering the walls fell and crumbled: ‘We are coming, Stephen—we are
still coming on, and our name is legion—you dare not disown us!’ She
raised her arms, trying to ward them off, but they closed in and in:
‘You dare not disown us!’
They possessed her. Her barren womb became fruitful—it ached with its
fearful and sterile burden. It ached with the fierce yet helpless
children who would clamour in vain for their right to salvation. They
would turn first to God, and then to the world, and then to her. They
would cry out accusing: ‘We have asked for bread; will you give us a
stone? Answer us: will you give us a stone? You, God, in Whom we, the
outcast, believe; you, world, into which we are pitilessly born; you,
Stephen, who have drained our cup to the dregs—we have asked for bread;
will you give us a stone?’
And now there was only one voice, one demand; her own voice into which
those millions had entered. A voice like the awful, deep rolling of
thunder; a demand like the gathering together of great waters. A
terrifying voice that made her ears throb, that made her brain throb,
that shook her very entrails until she must stagger and all but fall
beneath this appalling burden of sound that strangled her in its will to
be uttered.
‘God,’ she gasped, ‘we believe; we have told You we believe . . . We
have not denied You, then rise up and defend us. Acknowledge us, oh God,
before the whole world. Give us also the right to our existence!’
THE END
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where
multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer
errors occur.
Book name and author have been added to the original book cover.
The resulting cover is placed in the public domain.
[The end of _The Well of Loneliness_ by Radclyffe Hall]