1
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 very _famille rose_ bowl
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 disposing the 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 and flat. 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. But _I 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 very charming, 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,
_almost_ remember?... 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. So _never 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! you were 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.