1
David left early next morning; a stiff, genteel little letter of thanks
came from him to the Doña, and then, for most of them, he might never
have been.
Each day life at Plasencia became more and more focused on the
approaching wedding; and the Doña and Jollypot spent hours in the
morning-room making lists of guests and writing invitations.
As soon as David had gone Teresa began to write—the mediæval books had
done their work and were no longer needed.
St. Ignatius de Loyóla, in his esoteric instructions to his disciples,
gives the following receipt for conjuring up a vision of Christ
Crucified: to obtain a vision, he says, one must begin by visualising
the background—first, then, conjure up before you a great expanse of
intensely blue sky, such as the sky must be in Palestine, next, picture
against this sky a range of harsh, deeply indented hills, red and green
and black, then wait; and suddenly upon this background will flash a
cross with Christ nailed to it.
Teresa had got her background; and now the vision came.
But she was doubtful as to whether it was a vision of the Past such as
De Quincey had had in his dream, or Monticelli shown in his picture; for
one thing, she found an almost irresistible pleasure in intagliating her
writing with antiquarian details, and indeed it was more a vision of a
_situation_, a situation adorned by the Past, than a vision of the Past
itself.
She wrote all day; neither thinking nor reading, but closely guarding her
mind from the contamination of outside ideas.
The play—the plot—was turning out very differently from what she had
expected; and as well as being a transposing of life at Plasencia,
it was, she realised with the clear-sightedness of her generation,
performing the function assigned to dreams by Freud—namely, that of
expressing in symbols the desires of which one is ashamed.... Though, for
her own reasons, she shrank from it, she was keenly aware of Concha’s
sympathy these days. It seemed that Concha had that rare, mysterious gift
that Pepa had had too—the gift of loving.
Guy came down in June for a week-end; with Teresa he was like a sulky
child, but she saw that his eyes were haggard, and she felt very sorry
for him.
“What about that Papist—I mean Roman Catholic, the stolid Scot?” he asked
at tea.
“Oh, I think he’s all right. He’s a dear thing ...” said Concha,
hurriedly flinging herself into the breach.
Teresa saw the Doña fumbling for her _lorgnette_. She had found her
_tête-à-tête_ with Guy after his arrival—had she been saying anything to
him?
“Uncomfortable, half-baked creature!” said Guy angrily; “he’s like a
certain obscure type of undergraduate that used to lurk in the smaller
colleges. They were so obscure that no one had ever so much as seen
them, but their praises would be sung by even more obscure, though,
unfortunately, less invisible admirers, who wore things which I’m sure
they called _pince-nez_, and ran grubby societies, and they would stop
one at lectures—simply sweating with enthusiasm—to tell one that Clarke,
or Jones, or whatever the creature’s name was, had read a _marvellous_
paper on Edward Carpenter or Tagore at the Neolithic Pagans, or that it
was Clarke that had made some disgusting little arts-and-crafts Madonna
on the chimneypiece. And then years later you hear that Clarke is chief
of a native tribe in one of the islands of the Pacific, or practising
yoga in Burmah ... some mysterious will to adventure, I suppose, but all
so inconceivably indiscriminating and obscure and half-baked! Well, at
any rate, the veil of obscurity has been rent and at last I have seen
“Clarke” in the flesh!” and he ended his shrill, gabbled complaint with a
petulant laugh.
“He’s not in the least like that, Guy,” laughed Concha; “he’s more like
some eighteenth-century highland shepherd teaching himself Greek out of a
Greek Testament,” she added, rather prettily.
“Yes, and having religious doubts, which are resolved by an examination
of the elaborate anatomy of a horse’s skull found on the moors—it’s all
the same, only more picturesque.”
“And why are you so angry with our friend Mr. Munroe, Guy?” asked the
Doña.
“Oh, I don’t know! I’m like Nietsche, I hate ‘women, cows, Scotsmen, and
all democrats,’” and he gave an irritated little wriggle.
How waspish the little creature had become! But who can draw up a scale
of suffering and say that an aching heart is easier to bear than a
wounded vanity?
“Well, you haven’t told us anything about Spain,” said Concha.
“Oh, there’s nothing to tell ... it’s a threadbare theme; _Childe Harold_
has already been written.... Of course, the theme of Don Juan lends
itself to perennial treatment....”
The Doña laughed softly: “But it is so unjust that Don Juan Tenorio is
supposed only to be found in Spain!”
“No more unjust than that Jesus Christ should be looked upon as a Jew.”
“_Guy!_”
“That is really the _comble_ to the insults we have put upon that
unfortunate people.”
“Guy! I will _not_ have you speaking like that in my house,” said the
Doña very sternly.
“I beg your pardon,” he muttered, in some confusion; and then took up his
shrill monologue: “As a matter of fact, Don Juan is the greatest glory of
Spain; he is own brother to Sancho Panza—a superb pair; they are the true
αὐτόχθων, made of the mud of _this_ planet, and they understand life as
it is meant to be lived down here. The rest of us shriek, like Coleridge,
for a ‘bread not made of wheat’.... Yes, we behave idiotically, like
creatures in some fable that has not yet been written, when we want
cheese for supper, we take our bow and arrows and go and shoot at the
moon—the moon, which is the cradle of the English race....” On and on
went his voice, the others sitting round in silence, to conceal their
embarrassment or boredom.
“To return to Don Juan, I see there is a new theory that he is an
_Eniautos Daimon_—one of those year-spirits that die every winter and
vegetation dies with them, and are born again in spring with the crops
and things ... seeds, and crops and souls dying and springing up again
with Don Juan. So there is hope for us all, _sic itur ad astra_—rakes
during our life, manure afterwards; so horticultural! I wonder if our
friend Mr. Munroe would make a good year-spirit?”
This time they had beaten her: the blood rushed to Teresa’s cheeks.
“I expect he would only be able to make oats grow—‘man’s food in
Scotland,’” laughed Concha, as if it were merely the ordinary Plasencia
bandying of conceits; “I think Dad would make a better one,” she added;
“he’s so good about flowers and crops and things, and the farmers and
people say he has ‘green fingers,’ because everything he plants is sure
to grow.”
Teresa felt sincerely grateful to her: she had cooled the situation,
and, as well, had given the whole conversation about Don Juan an amazing
significance; the play would have to be re-cast.
2
On Monday morning Teresa had a little talk with Guy before he went
away—after all, he was but a fantastic little creature, powerless to hurt
her; and he was suffering.
“Don’t be cross with me, Guy,” she said, laying her hand on his sleeve;
“it’s so difficult to feel ... to feel as you want me to ... you see,
it’s so difficult with some one one has known so many years; besides, you
know, you can’t have it both ways,” and she smiled.
“How do you mean?” he asked sulkily.
“Well, you see, you’re a poet. We take _poetry_ seriously, but sometimes
we ... well, we smile a little at _poets_. _Sub specie æternitatis_—isn’t
that the expression? You are _sub specie æternitatis_, and the worst of
being under that species is that both one’s value and one’s values are
apt to be ... well, snowed over by the present. Milton’s daughters, at
the actual moment that they were grumbling about having to have _Paradise
Lost_ dictated to them, were really quite justified—the darning of their
fichus or ... or young Praise-the-Lord Simpkins waiting for them by the
stile were much more important _at that moment_. It’s only afterwards,
when all these things—the young man, the stile and the fichus—have turned
long ago into dust, and _Paradise Lost_ grows more glorious every year,
that they turn into frivolous, deplorable fools. You can’t have it both
ways, old Guy.”
Her instinct had been true—this was the only possible balm.
Now, at last, he knew what she really thought of him—she mentioned him in
the same breath with Milton; she thought him a genius.
He felt wildly happy and excited, but, of course, he did not allow this
to show in his face.
Then he looked at her: the pointed arch her mouth went into when she
smiled; the beautiful oval teeth, the dark, rather weary eyes, for the
moment a tender, slightly quizzical smile lurking in their corners ...
oh! he wanted this creature for his own; he _must_ get her.
* * * * *
“What about this thing you’re writing?” he asked with a little gulp.
“What thing?”
“Concha said you were writing something. What is it ... a ‘strong’ novel?”
“It’s ... it’s historical, I suppose.”
“Oh, I see—‘historical fiction.’”
“It isn’t fiction at all; it’s a play.”
“Well, anyway, may I read it?”
“Oh no! It isn’t finished ... it....”
“We must get it acted, when it is.”
“Oh, no!” and she shrank back, as if he had threatened to strike her.
“Of course it must be acted; it’s _much_ better than having to struggle
with publishers, that’s the devil—cracking one’s knuckles against the
Bodley Head, tilting with Mr. Heinemann’s Windmill, foundering in Mr.
Murray’s Ship ... it’s....”
“But nothing would induce me to have it either published or acted. It’s
just for myself.”
“Oh, but you’ll change your mind when it’s finished—it’s biological, one
can’t help it; the act of parturition isn’t complete till the thing is
published or produced—you’ll see. I was up at Cambridge with the chap who
has started this company of strolling players—they’re very ‘cultured’ and
‘pure’ and all that sort of thing, but they don’t act badly. If you send
it to him, I’ll tell him he must produce it. They might come and do it
here—on the lawn.”
“No! no! no!” she cried in terror, “I couldn’t bear it. I don’t want it
acted at all.”
He looked at her, a little impishly: “You mark my words, it _will_ be
acted ... here on the lawn.”