Chapter VII: Part THREE: Part Three (2)

Jennifer looking shattered, tortured after a few hours spent by mistake over coachings and time-papers in stuffy rooms; starting up in the end with a muttered: “O God, this place!...” wrenching open the door and rushing downstairs, oblivious of all but the urgency of her mood. From the window you could see her in the grounds, running, running. Soon the trees hid her. She was tramping over the ploughed fields, her cheeks glowing, her hair like a light against the dark hedges. She was going, alone, tensely, over the long fields. What was she thinking of? She had her evasions. No good to ask her: her eyes would fly off, hiding from you. She would not let herself be known entirely.

By Judith’s shadowy side ran the hurrying flame of Jennifer; and from all that might give her pause, or cloud her for a moment Jennifer fled as if she were afraid.

The lonely midnight clouded her. Jennifer was afraid of the dark.

Was it that people had the day and the night in them, mixed in varying quantities? Jennifer had the strength of day, and you the strength of night. By day, your little glow was merged in her radiance; but the night was stronger, and overcame her. You were stronger than Jennifer in spite of the burning life in her. The light hid the things for which you searched, but the darkness and the silence revealed them. All your significant experiences had been of the night. And there, it was suddenly clear, was the secret of the bond with Roddy. He too had more shadow in him than sun. “_Chevalier de la lune_” that was he--“_Que la lumiere importune_”--ah! yes! “_Qui cherche le coin noir_”--yes, yes--“_Qui cherche le coin noir._” Some time--it did not matter when, for it was bound to happen--he would say in the dark “I love you.”

Meanwhile there was Jennifer to be loved with a bitter maternal love, because she was afraid. And because, some day, she might be gone. For Jennifer said “I love you” and fled away. You cried “Come back!” and she heard and returned in anguish, clasping you close but dreading your dependence. One day when you most needed her, she might run away out of earshot, and never come back.

But there was value in impermanence, in insecurity; it meant an ache and quickening, a perpetual birth; it meant you could never drift into complacence and acceptance and grow old.

* * * * *

There was Mabel, drifting into Judith’s life when conscience pricked and being joyfully dismissed again when the exigencies of duty seemed satisfied. There were little notes from Mabel found, with a sinking feeling, among her letters.

Dear J.,

Would you care to come to church with me on Sunday? I shall be
ready at 10.15. I do hope you will come this week.
Yrs.
M.F.

Dear Judith,

I thought you did not look quite yourself at lunch to-day. If there
is anything worrying you, perhaps I might help you? Or if you are
tired, come and rest in my armchair. I shall be working and will
not disturb you.

Yours Mabel.

P.S. It’s all _this rushing_ about that _wears you out_ and makes
you _unfit_ for work.

M.F.

Mabel wrote her advice now, more often than she dared speak it.

Mabel, always pathetic, so that you could never entirely disregard her; always grotesque and untouched by charm so that it was impossible to think of her or look at her without revulsion; so that the whole thing was a tedious and barren self-discipline.

Mabel little by little relinquishing the effort to draw Judith into her life and desperately endeavoring to fit herself into Judith’s: chattering to other girls, trying to be amused by their jokes, to share their enthusiasms and illusions; pretending to have a gay home-life, full of interesting friends and fun; pretending to laugh at the thought of work and to treat lightly that nightmare of the Tripos which crushed her to the earth.

Once or twice Judith tried to draw her into the evening circle, explaining her loneliness, appealing beforehand for her pathos.... But it was no good. She was of another order of beings,--dreary and unadaptable. And Jennifer, with a wicked light in her eye, spoke loudly and with malicious irreverence of dons, the clergy and the Bible; and mentioned the body with light-hearted frankness; and Judith felt ashamed of herself for thinking Jennifer funny.

Mabel striving doggedly to believe that Jennifer was in the nature of an illness from which Judith would recover by careful treatment, then striving to ignore the importance of the relationship--staking out an exclusive claim in Judith by references suggestive of a protective intimacy.

‘Now, now! Pale cheeks! What will your mother say, I’d like to know, if I let you go home looking like this? I shall have to come and put you to bed myself.’

And there followed the flush and the hungry gleam while awkwardly she touched Judith’s cheek.

Mabel at long last voluntarily dropping out of all the places into which she had tried to force herself, going back without a word to her solitary room and her doughnuts. There were no more little notes rearing unwelcome heads in the letter-box. She asked nothing.

From the window late at night Judith could see her lamp staring with a tense wan hopeless eye across the court. In the midst of talk and laughter with Jennifer, she saw it suddenly and knew that Mabel was sitting alone, hunched over note-books and dictionaries, breathing stertorously through her nose hour after hour, dimly hoping that her uncurtained window might attract Judith’s attention, persuade her to look in and say good-night.

‘Oh, Jennifer, I won’t be five minutes. I must just go and see Mabel. It’s awful. You don’t know. She expects me; and she’ll sit up all night working if I don’t go.’

‘Tell her about the young lady of Bute with my love and a kiss,’ said Jennifer in the loud voice edged with brutality which she reserved for Mabel. ‘And say the mistress is very disappointed in her because she’s discovered she doesn’t wear corsets. She’s going to speak about it publicly to-morrow night because it’s very immoral. And ask her what _will_ her mother say if you let her go home with all those spots on her face.’

Judith escaped, laughing, ran down the dark stairs to Mabel’s room and tapped.

‘Come in.’

It was clear from her voice she had been alert at the sound of the known footsteps. She raised a pallid face that tried for a moment to begrudge its gladness and preserve a stiffness.

‘Now, Mabel, I’m come to put you to bed. I like all your talk of looking after _me_. It’s you who need it. What do you suppose you’ll feel like to-morrow if you work any more? Come on now.’

That was the way she loved to be talked to. Judith filled her hot-water bottle and made cocoa, while with laborious modesty she donned her flannel nightdress with its feather-stitched collar; and pouted coyly and happily, like any other girl, because Judith was such a dragon.

Then she leaned back in her chair with the work-lines in her face smoothing out, and yawned contentedly and talked of little intimate things, giving them to Judith without reserve, as Judith gave hers to Jennifer--suddenly, pitifully like any other girl.

These were her happy compensating moments: they made her think for a while that the friendship was rare and firm.

How easy it was, thought Judith, to permit her to enjoy your incongruous presence; to step right into her world and close the gates on your own so fast that no chill air from it might breathe against her security! Alone with her like this, no lapse of taste on her part ruffled the nerves. You accepted her and let her reveal herself; and she was, after all, interesting, human, gentle, and simple. There was nothing--this time you must remember--nothing grotesque or ridiculous to report to Jennifer afterwards, hatefully betraying and mocking....

She spoke of her life in the narrow church-bound village home; her future: she would teach, and so have her own little independent place in the world. She didn’t think she was the marrying sort; but you never knew. Independence was what she craved: to support herself and be beholden to no one. Only she must pass well: (and her eyes would wander haggardly to the books)--It all depended on her health--she’d never enjoyed very good health. She always thought if she felt better she wouldn’t forget so. It made work very hard. Freda had always been the strong one. Everything came easy to Freda. Everyone admired and petted her: she was getting so spoilt, and extravagant too. She wouldn’t go so far as to say she and Freda had much in common, but you couldn’t help but love her in spite of all her naughtiness. And the quick way she had of answering back! She recited some of Freda’s quick answers, giggling like any other girl.

There was a curate who had coached her in Greek and Latin. He was a wonderful man, a real saint: not like any one else at all, young, a beautiful face and such eyes. Once he had come to tea with her, and they had had a wonderful talk, just the two of them. Freda had been out. It really seemed as if he looked on her as a friend. She hoped so.... He had helped her.

Judith listened, asked questions, sympathized, cheered her with offers of notes and essays; tucked her into bed with an effort at motherliness; and flew with a light heart back to Jennifer.

The curate ... at all costs, she must _not_ tell Jennifer about the curate.

7

The long days of May stretched out before Judith and Jennifer. Each day was a fresh adventure in the open air, and work an unimportant and neglected nuisance. For weeks the weather remained flawless. Life narrowed to a wandering in a green canoe up small river-channels far from the town, with Jennifer paddling in wild bursts between long periods of inaction. To all Judith’s offers of help she answered firmly that a woman should never depart from her type.

They landed finally and made ready to bathe.

‘Off, off, you lendings!’ cried Jennifer. ‘Do you know, darling, that comes home to me more than anything else in all Shakespeare? I swear, Judith, it seems much more natural to me to wear no clothes.’

She stood up, stretching white arms above her head. Her cloud of hair was vivid in the blue air. Her back was slender and strong and faultlessly moulded.

‘Glorious, glorious Pagan that I adore!’ whispered the voice in Judith that could never speak out.

Beside Jennifer she felt herself too slim, too flexible, almost attenuated.

‘You are so utterly lovely,’ Jennifer said, watching her.

They swam in cool water in a deep circular pool swept round with willows, and dried themselves in the sun.

They spent the afternoon in the shade of a blossoming may bush. All round them the new green of the fields was matted over with a rich and solid layer of buttercup yellow. Jennifer lay flat on her back with the utter relaxed immobility of an animal, replenishing her vitality through every nerve.

Slowly they opened books, dreamed through a page, forgot it at once, laid books aside; turned to smile at each other, to talk as if there could never be enough of talking; with excitement, with anxiety, as if to-morrow might part them and leave them for ever burdened with the weight of all they had had to tell each other.

Judith crept closer, warming every sense at her, silent and utterly peaceful. She was the part of you which you never had been able to untie and set free, the part that wanted to dance and run and sing, taking strong draughts of wind and sunlight; and was, instead, done up in intricate knots and overcast with shadows; the part that longed to look outward and laugh, accepting life as an easy exciting thing; and yet was checked by a voice that said doubtfully that there were dark ideas behind it all, tangling the web; and turned you inward to grope among the roots of thought and feeling for the threads.

You could not do without Jennifer now.

The sun sank, and the level light flooded the fields and the river. Now the landscape lost its bright pure definitions of outline, its look as of a picture embroidered in brilliant silks, and veiled its colours with a uniform pearl-like glow. A chill fell and the scent of May grew troubling in the stillness. They turned the canoe towards home.

Nearer the town, boats became more frequent. Gramophones clamoured from the bowels of most of them; and they were heavily charged with grey-flannelled youth. Jennifer, observing them with frank interest, pointed out the good-looking ones in a loud whisper; and all of them stared, stared as they passed.

Above the quiet secretly-stirring town, roofs, towers and spires floated in a pale gold wash of light. What was the mystery of Cambridge in the evening? Footfalls struck with a pang on the heart, faces startled with strange beauty, and every far appearing or disappearing form seemed significant.

And when they got back to College, even that solid red-brick barrack was touched with mystery. The corridors were long patterns of unreal light and shadow. Girls’ voices sounded remote as in a dream, with a murmuring rise and fall and light laughter behind closed doors. The thrilling smell of cowslips and wall-flowers was everywhere, like a cloud of enchantment.

In Jennifer’s room, someone had let down the sun-blind, and all was in throbbing shadow. Her great copper bowl was piled, as usual, with fruit, and they ate of it idly, without hunger.

‘Now a little work,’ said Judith firmly. ‘Think! only three weeks till Mays....’

But it was impossible to feel moved.

Jennifer, looking childish and despondent, sat down silently by the window with a book.

Judith wrote on a sheet of paper:

_Tall oaks branch-charmèd by the earnest stars_; and studied it. That _was_ a starry night: the sound of the syllables made stars prick out in dark treetops.

Under it she wrote:

... _the foam
Of perilous seas in faëry lands forlorn_.

What a lot there were for the sea and the seashore!... The page became fuller.

_Upon the desolate verge of light
Yearned loud the iron-bosomed sea._

_The unplumbed salt estranging sea._

_From the lone sheiling of the misty island
Mountains divide us and a world of seas:
But still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland;
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides._

Ah, that said it all....

The lines came flocking at random.

_But the majestic river floated on,
Out of the mist and hum of that low land
Into the frosty starlight, and there flowed
Rejoicing through the hushed Chorasmian waste
Under the solitary moon...._

_Ah sunflower weary of time
That countest the steps of the sun...._

_Ah sunflower!_... Where were they--the old gardens of the sun where my sunflower wished to go? They half unfolded themselves at the words ...

_Nous n’irons plux aux bois
Les lauriers sont coupés._

_O mors quam amara est memoria tua homini pacem habenti in substantiis suis...._

How with one tongue those both cried alas!
And then in the end, sleep and a timeless peace.

_Nox est perpetua una dormienda._

There were so many tumbling and leaping about in your head you could go on for ever....

Now to study them. What did it all mean? Was there any thread running through them with which to make a theory? Anybody could write down strings of quotations,--but a student of English literature was expected to deal in theories. It was something to do with the sound ... the way sound made images, shell within shell of them softly unclosing ... the way words became colours and scents ... and the surprise when it happened, the ache of desire, the surge of excitement, the sense of fulfilment, the momentary perception of something unknowable.... Some sort of truth, some answer to the question: What is poetry?... No it was no good. But it had been very enjoyable, writing things down like that and repeating them to yourself.

Jennifer was half asleep with her head upon the window-sill. The bowl of fruit burned in the dimness. How like Jennifer was her room! Yellow painted chairs, a red and blue rug on the hearth, cowslips in coloured bowls and jars, one branch of white lilac in a tall blue vase; the guitar with its many ribbons lying on the table; a silken Italian shawl, embroidered with great rose and blue and yellow flowers flung over the screen: wherever you looked colour leapt up at you; she threw colour about in profuse disorder and left it. Her hat of pale green straw with its little wreath of clover lay on the floor. Nobody else had attractive childish hats like hers. A wide green straw would remind you of Jennifer to the end of your life; and beneath it you would see the full delicious curve of her cheek and chin, her deep-shadowed eyes, her lips that seemed to hold all life in their ardent lines.

She turned her head and smiled sleepily.

‘Hullo!’ said Judith. ‘Haven’t we been quiet? I’ve done such a lot of work.’

‘I’ve done none. I couldn’t remember the difference between ethics and æsthetics. What rot it all is!... Now listen and we’ll hear a nightingale. He’s tuning up.’

They leaned out of the window.

The icy aching flute in the cedar called and called on two or three notes, uncertain, dissatisfied; then all at once found itself and bubbled over in rich and complicated rapture.

Jennifer was listening, tranced in her strange immobility, as if every other sense were suspended to allow her to hear aright.

She roused herself at last as Judith bent to kiss her good night.

‘Good night my--darling--darling--’ she said.

They stared at each other with tragic faces. It was too much, this happiness and beauty.

The end of the first year.

8

The next moment so it seemed, the soft and coloured Autumn days were there again; the corridors, the echoing steps, the vast female yell of voices in Hall, the sense of teeming life in all the little rooms, behind the little closed doors--all these started again to weave their strange timeless dream; and the second year had begun.

Midway through the term came Martin’s letter.

Dear Judith,

Roddy is in Cambridge for two nights, staying with Tony. He wants
to see you. Will you come to tea with me to-morrow at 4.30? I am to
tell you he will never forgive you (a) if you don’t come (b) if you
come with a chaperon. He says that chance alone prevented him from
being your bachelor Uncle; and that I myself was a maiden aunt from
the cradle. So please come.

Martin.
Dear Martin,

Bachelor uncles are notorious; and curious things are apt to happen
to strictly maiden aunts as all we enlightened moderns know. But an
aunt and uncle bound by holy matrimony are considered safe (as
safety goes in this world) and I have notified the authorities of
their brief presence in the university and am cordially permitted
to wait on them at tea to-morrow at 4.30.

Judith.

Judith looked around Martin’s room. It was untidy and rather dirty, with something forlorn and pathetic and faintly animal about it, like all masculine rooms. It made you want to look after him. Men were helpless children; it was quite true. You might have known Martin’s room would give you a ridiculous pull at the heart.

‘I’m afraid things are in a bit of a mess,’ said Martin, blowing cigarette ash off the mantelpiece into the fire.

He was smoking an enormous pipe. His face was red. His great form looked lumbering and shapeless in an ancient tweed coat and a pair of voluminous grey flannel trousers.

‘How are you, Judith?’ His brown eye fixed itself on her. He was very shy.

‘I’ve been ill, Martin.’

‘Oh!...’ He looked troubled and embarrassed. ‘Did you--did you have a decent doctor?’

‘Oh yes. It was almost pneumonia, but not quite.’

‘I didn’t know you’d been ill....’

‘You haven’t been to see me for ages, Martin.’

‘I know. I’ve been so busy.’ Violently he blew the ash about. What a shame to pretend to reproach him. He was obviously overcome.... ‘And I didn’t think you wanted.... I suppose you’re all right again now?’

Footsteps sounded outside on the stair. Judith collected herself and sat rigid. The door opened and Roddy, smiling, eager, debonair, came into the room.

‘Hullo, Judy! Marvellous to see you.’

‘Roddy!’

He stood before her and looked down into her face.

‘I thought I was never going to see you again, Judy. You’re looking marvellous.’

He was going to be irresistible. Already something in her was starting to leap up in response to him; and watching his face, she saw with a terrible pang that it was true, unarguable, proved over again more clearly than ever, that he had some quality which separated him from everybody else in the whole world, startled the imagination and made him of appalling significance to her.

‘I’m cold. Thank God for a good fire. It’s starting to snow.’ He flung himself down on the hearth-rug. ‘Trust Martin to make a good thick atmosphere with no beastly fresh air about it. Tea! Tea! Tea! Let me make you some toast, Judy. I make it so well.’

While he toasted great hunks of bread, Martin buttered scones and cut the cake, and Judith poured out tea.

They chattered, joked, teased each other. They played absurd drawing and rhyming games. Judith made them laugh with malicious stories of dons and students. Roddy threw back his head, his whole face wrinkled and flattened with silent laughter, his eyes gleaming with amusement under their lids. Martin stared, laughed, Ha! Ha!--stared again. They encouraged her, listened to her, were delighted with her; and the old sense of abnormal self-assurance grew within her taut mind.

At last she made herself look at the clock. So late! There would barely be time to get back before Hall.

‘I’ve got a car outside,’ said Roddy carelessly. ‘I can run you out in no time.’

He added, interrupting her thanks:

‘It isn’t mine, it’s got no hood, it always breaks down and it’s hellishly uncomfortable, so I don’t advise it really.’

It sounded as if he were suddenly regretting his offer, trying to withdraw it. She looked at him, all her confidence collapsing in a moment. His face had become a mask.

She said swiftly:

‘If you would take me I should be very grateful.’ Her voice sounded to herself strained, beseeching, horrible.

He bowed.

It took ten minutes to get the car started, with Martin and Roddy madly swinging her by turns.

‘Good night, Martin. Thank you for my lovely tea party. I’ll see you again soon, won’t I?’

He nodded, looking gravely down at her in the lamp-light.

‘Don’t catch cold,’ he said. There was something dejected about his attitude, a flatness in his voice.... Things had gone wrong for him.... Ever since that panic-stricken voice had broken in on the laughter and talk, the game for three, with its vibrating cry: “If you would take me home ...” from that moment all had been faintly blown upon by a ruffle of uneasy wind. They were no longer three persons, but two men and one woman.

She knew it and loathed herself because Martin knew it too.

‘I’m due to dine with Tony in twenty minutes,’ said Roddy.... ‘You’d better come along too. I’ll call for you on my way back. I shan’t be long.’

Roddy’s voice had forced a note of carelessness ... as if he were trying to pretend to Martin that nothing had happened; that the female had not suddenly singled him out and stretched an inviting hand to him as he stood beside his friend.

Even Roddy was aware of it.

‘No,’ said Martin, ‘I won’t dine with Tony. I’ll see you to-morrow perhaps.’

He waved his hand and turned away. The car started. She was alone with a strange man.

The night was dark, with a piercing wind and a faint flurry of snow in the air. Roddy drove at a great pace, and she sat beside him in silence, her shoulder touching his.

‘Cold?’ he said suddenly.

‘No, I don’t feel--anything.’

All of life was concentrated in her dark beating mind: her body was insensible to the weather. She saw the gates of College fly past. Its lights gleamed and were gone; and she could not speak. On they went, the long straight empty road flung before them in small lengths by the headlights and rolled up into nothingness behind them, cast away for ever.

He stopped the car suddenly.

‘Where’s this place?’

‘I think we’ve passed it long ago.’

The wind took her small voice away from him. He leaned towards her.

‘What?’

She turned to him.

‘I think we’ve passed it long ago.’

‘I think we have.’

Silence. The great wind blowing through illimitable deeps of night lifted and whirled her beyond time and space. She saw his hand lying on the wheel--a pale blur; and her own crept out and lay beside it; and she stared at them both. He watched her hand fall beside his and did not move a hair’s breadth nearer to touch it. He and she were alone together. No need for speech or movement. Their hands would lie motionless, side by side, for ever and ever.

She heard him laugh softly; and as he laughed her hand came quickly to her lap.

‘Well, what d’you want to do?’ he said very low.

‘I don’t want to go back.’

‘Do you want to go on?’

‘Yes.’

The car went forward again. Once she leaned towards him and said in his ear:

‘Roddy!’

‘Yes?’

‘_You_ didn’t want to go back, did you?’

‘No.’

She lay back again, mindlessly at peace in the midst of the roaring of the wind, and the road’s monotonous unfolding.

Once he burst out laughing, patted her knee and cried:

‘_Aren’t we mad?_’

His voice rang boyishly, happily.

Now came the snow, thinly at first, but soon in wild drifting clouds, blotting out the road, settling thick and fast over all, sifting and piling on the wind-screen.

‘Oh Lord, we must turn,’ said Roddy. ‘This is frightful.’

He turned the car and then stopped her to light a cigarette. She saw his face, lit by the flare of the match, glow suddenly, warmly out of the darkness with unknown curves and strange planes of light and shadow, and narrowed eyes, eyes not human, never-to-be-forgotten.

He waved the dwindling flame in her face.

‘Solemn face! What are you staring at? Smile--quick, quick, before the match goes out!’

The match went out.

‘I am smiling, Roddy.’

‘That’s right. Poor Judy covered with snow! There you sit, so modest and unassuming. Shall I get you home alive?’

‘I don’t care.’

She slipped her arm through his, and he gave it a quick friendly pressure and drove on.

Now they were before the gates of College. After all they had not driven very far. Time started again with a reluctant painful beat as the car crept in under the archway; and she realized that it was little more than an hour since they had left Martin. It seemed so short now--less than a moment; a pause between a breath and another breath.

They sat side by side in the car without moving.

‘I suppose I must go in now,’ she said at last. ‘They’ll still be at Hall.’

He shivered and beat his hands together. She took one and felt it, and it was icy.

‘Your hands. Oh, Roddy! Will you come in and get warm by my fire?’

He seemed to be considering and then said in a stilted way:

‘If I may--just for a minute--I’ve got rather chilled driving without gloves.’

She could find nothing to say. A cold shy politeness had descended on them both. She led the way into the hall and up the stairs. At every step snow fell off them: their shoulders and arms were covered in it. The corridors were silent and deserted, echoing only her light footsteps, and his heavier ones. She heard her tread, and his following after it, marching, marching towards her far-off door. Judith was bringing Roddy, Judith was in sober truth bringing Roddy to her room. If anyone saw her there would be trouble.

Somebody--Jennifer perhaps--must have drawn the curtains and heaped the fire in the little room. The warmth drew out the smell of the chrysanthemums; and their heavy golden heads, massed in a blue jar, held mysterious intensity of life in the firelight. She switched on the reading lamp, and all the colours in the room leapt up dimly, secretly: purple, blue and rose-colour glowed around them, half-lit, half obscured.

‘This is rather seductive,’ he said. He sank on his knees by the fire and held out his hands to the blaze, looking about him with a faint smile. She came and knelt beside him; and his eyes fastened narrowly on her face.

‘It’s like you: seductive,’ he said softly.

‘Oh, Roddy! Seductive. That’s all it is. I see it now. I hate it. Am _I_ nothing more than that?’

‘You.... I don’t know what you are. I can’t make you out. You _never_ behave as I think you probably will.’

‘I’m glad of that.’

‘Why are you glad?’

‘Because I believe you ascribe to me the worst motives,--the most ambiguous. You suspect me--you guard yourself against me.’

‘I don’t, Judy.’

‘Ah, you do. But you needn’t. I won’t do you any harm. Unless being--very fond of you can do you harm. But I don’t think I’m a _femme fatale_.’

‘I don’t know what you are. You disturb me very much. You seem to me completely incalculable. Your eyes watch me and watch me. Such marvellous eyes.’

She lifted them to his in a long steady look and remained silent.

‘You’re very nice,’ he said. ‘Rather a dear. I believe you’re quite without guile really. Why do you trust people so? It’s very foolish of you.’

‘Is it foolish of me to trust you?’

‘Incredibly foolish.’ He added, raising his voice and speaking slowly: ‘It’s no good trying to make me--adequate.’

‘Ah, you like to destroy yourself to me.’

‘But don’t you see? I go through the days in a sort of apathy; blind and deaf; blinder and deafer every day. I never think, I never care. I’d much better be dead only,--I’m too lazy to shoot myself.’

‘Oh, Roddy, don’t.’

She covered her ears with her hands. He had never spoken at such length, or with such obvious intent to convince.

‘I’m only trying to warn you,’ he said, rather defiantly, ‘I’m not worth saving. Nobody must _ever_ take me seriously. I’m not worth wasting a moment over. Nobody can do anything with me.’

His mood was verging towards laughter. His face broke up teasingly as he finished speaking and turned to look at her. But she averted her face, drearily pondering.

Why had he spoken like that? A self-contempt so settled, so hopeless.... He had seemed to be warning her to keep away from him for her own sake.

‘It’s no good,’ she said suddenly, involuntarily.

‘What’s no good?’

‘You’re what I choose to think you are. There’s no point in heaping yourself with abuse. You can’t make me dislike you; you can only make me sad. But I suppose that gives you pleasure.’

He was silent. She went on tremulously,

‘And when you--when people say they don’t feel or care--that they’re no good--it only makes me think--I could show them how to feel and care. I could make them happy. I could look after them. I dare say you know that’s--the effect it has on me. That’s why you say it.’

He was still silent. She leaned her head forward against the wall and felt tears smart under her lids.

He seemed to be musing, his eyes fixed on the fire, his hands held out to it.

‘Are your hands still cold?’ she said wearily. ‘Get them warm before you go.’

Suddenly he held them out to her.

It was a gesture so impulsive, so uncharacteristic it seemed of startling significance; and she could not answer it.

‘Yes, they are cold,’ he said. ‘Let me feel yours. Yours are cold too. What funny hands--so thin and narrow, such delicate bones. Rather lovely.’ He clasped them hard in his own. ‘When I do that they seem to go to nothing.’

She smiled at him dimly, half-tranced, feeling her eyelids droop over her eyes, giving him, with her helpless hands, all of herself; as if, through her finger-tips, he drew her in to himself in a dark stemlessly flowing tide. He stroked her palms, her whole hand, over and over with a lingering careful touch, as if learning the outline by heart.

‘They feel so kind,’ he said musingly. ‘They are, aren’t they, Judy? Dear little kind things--like the rest of you. Are you always kind, Judy?’

‘Always to you, Roddy, I shouldn’t wonder.’

He relinquished his clasp suddenly, saying with a shake of the head:

‘You shouldn’t be.... However, I’ve warned you.’

‘Yes, you’ve warned me.’

She smiled at him sadly.

In a minute she must tell him to go. They would be coming out of the Hall, bursting into the room to discover the cause of her absence.

‘Are you tired?’ he said.

She nodded, realizing suddenly the collapsed forward droop of her body, the whole pose of deadly fatigue.

‘I’ve been very ill, you know.’

‘Oh, Judy! You never told me. You let me take you for that bloody cold drive. You’ll be ill again.’

‘It’s all right. I shan’t be ill again.’

‘You _are_ naughty,’ he said, looking at her anxiously.

He never could bear people to be ill or in pain.

‘Come and lie down at once on the sofa,’ he said.

She obeyed him, and let him arrange the cushions beneath her shoulders, with a delicious sense of dependence.

‘The drive won’t have hurt me,’ she said, ‘because I enjoyed it so much.’

He stood looking down at her.

‘Did you enjoy it?’ he said softly.

‘Yes, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wasn’t it a queer unreal drive?’

‘Quite unreal, I suppose.’

‘I wish it had never stopped.’

He made no answer to this but still stood watching her.

‘You’ll have to go, Roddy. They mustn’t find you. Besides you’ll be missing your dinner.’

‘I’ve missed that long ago, I should think.’

‘Oh, Roddy, how awful! I’ve made you miss your dinner.’

‘I know. It’s monstrous of you. And I’m so hungry.’

‘I’ve missed mine too but I’m not hungry.... Roddy, what will Tony say to you?’

‘He’ll be very much annoyed.’

‘Shall you say you were with me? He wouldn’t like that, would he?’

‘No.’

‘Tony is jealous of me. Once he looked at me with pure hatred. I’ve never forgotten it. Does he love you?’

‘I think he does.’

‘I think he does too. Do you love him? You needn’t answer. I know I mustn’t ask you that.’

‘You can ask me anything you like.’

But he did not answer.

‘It is so terrible to be hated. Tell him I won’t do you any harm.’

But perhaps that was not true. Perhaps she meant endless mischief. Supposing she were to take Roddy from Tony, from all his friends and lovers, from all his idle Parisian and English life, and attach him to herself, tie him and possess him: that would mean giving him cares, responsibilities: it might mean changing him from his free and secret self into something ordinary, domesticated, resentful. Perhaps his lovers and friends would be well advised to gather round him jealously and guard him from the female. She saw herself for one moment as a creature of evil design, dangerous to him, and took her hand away from his that held it lightly.

‘I’ll tell him you won’t do me any harm,’ he repeated absently. He was staring into her face.

‘You’re going away now,’ she said, ‘and I don’t know when I shall see you again.’

‘I don’t know either,’ he said smiling.

‘To-morrow you’ll have forgotten. But I shan’t forget this evening.’

‘Nor shall I. I don’t forget you, Judy. I sometimes wish I could. I’m a little afraid of you.’

‘Afraid of me?’

‘Afraid of you--and me.’

Later on when he was gone she must make herself think of that. It might have power to hurt: she could not tell now, with his unmasked, disturbed face watching her. Now there was nothing but depth under depth of welling happiness.

‘You know, Roddy,’ she said after a silence, ‘the awful thing about you is that I can never pick up again where we left off. To-night you’ve talked to me as I’ve always longed for you to talk to me, as if we could trust each other, as if we were two creatures of the same sort alone together. Don’t you feel we know each other better after to-night, Roddy?’

He was silent for a moment, his eyes twinkling; then he said:

‘I feel you’ve made me say a great many indiscreet things.’

‘Poor Roddy! You’d better go, before I wring something out of you you’ll regret to your life’s end,’ she said bitterly. ‘You know I shan’t rest until I’ve forced you to tell me all your secrets. And when you have, I’ll go and tell them to everybody else.’

She shut her eyes and turned her face from him. There was a long silence.

‘Don’t be cross with me,’ he said in the end.

‘I’m not.’

‘Didn’t I tell you I was inadequate?’

‘Yes, you told me.’

‘Well now you believe it don’t you?’

‘No. No. No.’

‘Ah--you’re incorrigible.... Good-bye, Judy.’

She turned towards him again, took his hand in both hers and clung to it.

‘Roddy, you _have_--quite liked--being with me ... haven’t you?’

His face softened.

‘I’ve adored it,’ he said gently.

‘And when shall I see you again?’

He shook his head.

‘Oh, Roddy, when?’

He stooped swiftly until his face almost touched hers, and murmured, watching her:

‘Whenever you like.’

His lips closed on hers very lightly. She put her arms round his neck and kissed his cheek and forehead. When after a moment or two he raised himself she thought he was smiling again.

She lay perfectly still, watching him while he lit a cigarette, smoothed his hair, put on his coat and went to open the door. Then he turned, still smiling, and nodding as if encouraging her to smile back. But she continued to lie and stare up at him as if from the bottom of a well; as if all of her were dead except the eyes which just moved, following him.

The door closed after him. Soon the sound of his footsteps faded along the corridor.

She raised her hand slowly and with difficulty, as if a weight were holding it to her side, and pulled the lamp’s green shade down; and the whole room sank softly into semi-obscurity.

Some trick of green light brought suddenly to mind the look of early spring woods at twilight: fresh buds and little leaves dashed with rain, an air like dark clear water lighting the branches with a wan glimmer.

She looked at her body lying long, slender and still on the couch; she saw her breast rise and fall faintly with her breathing; and she had a sense of watching herself return from a long swoon, bathed in crystalline new life, transformed and beautified.

The trivial femininities of the room had made, she thought, an inept background for his elegance. But now there seemed something graceful, foreign, curious in the lights and shades, in the forms of flowers, books, furniture; as if he had left his impress upon them.

She heard the footsteps of Jennifer coming swiftly towards her door.... Not a word, not a whisper to Jennifer. She and he could never meet, even in mind. The profoundest instinct forbade it.

Jennifer came gaily in.

‘Tired, darling?’ she said. ‘You were quite right not to come to Hall. It was bloodier than ever. Come, darling, let me put you to bed--you’re so tired. I’ll look after you. I’ll make you some scrambled eggs after you’re in bed.’

Then Jennifer suspected nothing. She did not see that all was changed. She was deep in the mood of tender solicitude which came upon her now and then since the illness, when she remembered to think Judith fragile. She lifted her in her arms, and carried her into the bedroom....

Nothing has changed after all. There was Jennifer laughing, talking, letting the eggs get burnt while she did her hair; bending down finally to kiss you a tender good-night. Judith tried to think of Roddy. A little while ago he had been stooping over her as Jennifer stooped now, with eyes that were different and yet the same. But he had disappeared; she could not now remember what he looked like.

Nothing was altered then, no order was reversed or even shaken. There were these moments; but all around and about the extravagant incongruous brilliances, the divine crudities, the breath-taking magnificences of their pattern, life went on weaving uninterruptedly: weaving uncoloured trivial things into secure fabric.

9

Then, almost it seemed, while she still told herself these things; while the memory of Roddy’s brief presence still surged up bewilderingly to drown her a hundred times a day, and then slipped away again, lost in the mysterious and doubtful darkness cast by his ensuing silence; while Jennifer remained the unquenched spring of all gaiety and reassurance, all delight: while the whole ordered dream went on as if it could never break; even then, with the third year, the shadow of change began to fall.

It was a look, a turn of the head, a new trick of speech, a nothing in Jennifer which struck at her heart in a moment; and then all had started to fall to pieces. Jennifer was no longer the same. Somewhere she had turned aside without a word, and set her face to a new road. She did not want to be followed. She had given Judith the slip, in the dark; and now, when she still pretended to be there, her voice had the false shrillness of a voice coming from far away.

She remembered Jennifer saying once, suddenly: “There’s one thing certain in my life: that is, that I shall always love you.” And afterwards her eyes had shone as if with tears and laughter. She remembered the surprise and joy, the flooding confidence of that moment; for it had been said so quietly, as if the realization of that “always” held for something sorrowful, a sobering sense of fate. Her manner had had a simplicity far removed from the usual effervescence and extravagance: she had seemed to state a fact to be believed in forever, without question. In her life where all else was uncertain, fluid and undirected, where all turned in mazes of heat and sound, that only was the deep unshaken foundation, the changeless thing.... She had seemed to mean that, sitting back in her chair, her arms laid along her lap, her hands folded together, everything about her quiet and tender, her eyes resting on Judith as they never had before or since, long and full, with a depth of untroubled love.

That had been on a day in late April, at the beginning of the last Summer term. The happiness of reunion had never before seemed so complete. She had been in Scotland, Judith in Paris with Mamma, living resentfully in a reflection of Mamma’s alien existence. And then they were together again, and the summer term had opened with its unfailing week or so of exquisite weather.

They had taken the green canoe one morning and wandered up the river to Grandchester. There was no one at all in the Orchard when they reached it.

“Thank God I see no grey flannels,” said Jennifer. “I suppose the grass is still too wet for undergraduates to sit out.”

A light breeze was blowing through the orchard, ruffling long grass, dandelions, buttercups, and daisies. Under the trees, the little white tables, set in the green silken brilliance, were dappled with running light and shadow, and the apple branches, clotted with full blossom, gleamed against the sky in a tender childish contrast of simple colours,--pale pink upon pale blue. The air was dazed with a bewilderment of bird-song.

A rough brown terrier with golden eyes came prancing out on them, making known their presence with barkings half-ferocious, half-friendly. The dark waitress came lazily from the house, reluctant to serve them.

‘Is the Orchard open?’

‘Oh yes, it’s open.’

‘Can you let us have lunch?’

‘Oh I dare say.’

‘What can you let us have?’

‘You can have a cheese omelette and some fruit-salad.’

‘Divine,’ said Jennifer, and leapt for joy.

‘You better have it in the shelter. The grass is wet.’

She wandered away, smoothing her black untidy hair. She would not smile. There was something arresting and romantic in the thin sallow dark-browed young woman, preserving her ugliness, her faint unrelaxing bitterness among all the laughing renewals of her surroundings.

‘I’d like to pick her up and shake her into life. Make her smile and be young. Make her cheeks pink and her eyes bright,’ said Jennifer. ‘If I were a man I’d fall bang in love with her. What is her name do you think? Jessica? Anne? Rosa?’

‘Miriam.’

‘Yes, Miriam.’

How the remembered insignificant words brought flooding back the irrecoverable quality of that day!

Tits and robins, perching all around them, and the golden-eyed dog, had helped them to finish their meal.

Then they had lain back in their chairs, staring and saying nothing. And then it was that Jennifer had turned and broken the silence with her quiet, inevitable-seeming declaration; and after it Judith had reached out to touch her hand for a moment; and continued to sit beside her and dream.

Later in the afternoon they had seen grey-flannelled legs approaching and risen to go.

They met the dark girl walking down the gravel path towards the orchard, carrying a trayful of crockery.

‘We’ve come to pay you,’ said Jennifer radiantly smiling.

She gave the price without a flicker.

‘Judith, have you that much on you, darling?’ said Jennifer, and added, turning again to the girl: ‘We _have_ so enjoyed ourselves.’

There was no response save a quick suspicious glance.

Currant bushes, wallflowers, narcissi, pansies, yellow daisies and tulips blossomed richly on each side of the path.

‘What a delicious garden!’ said Jennifer. ‘It’s at its very best, isn’t it?’

‘It’s looking nice,’ she admitted.

Jennifer pointed to a clump of stiff, serious purple-black tulips.

‘Those tulips are like you,’ she said, her eyes and mouth, all her glowing face, coaxing and appealing.

And suddenly the girl gave a little laugh, looking with soft eyes first at Jennifer, then away, shyly and deprecatingly, as who should say: ‘The idea! Me like a tulip! Well, you _are_ a one--Daft ...’ but gratified and amused all the same.

‘I shall always think of you when I see tulips like that,’ said Jennifer. ‘Good-bye!’

‘Good-bye, Miss....’ She smiled, almost mischievously this time, and hurried on with her tray.

‘She was quite human,’ said Jennifer. ‘I wonder if she’s got a lover or if she’s longing for one, or if she’s been jilted, or what.... What makes her all shadowy and tight inside herself?’

She stood looking after the girl, as if meditating going back to ask her.

How Jennifer struck sparks from ordinary people! She knew how to live. To be with her was to meet adventure; to see, round every corner, the bush become the burning bush.

In a little while she would have forgotten the girl whose problem was now so urgent and exciting; but you yourself would always remember,--seeing it all dramatically, seeing it as a quiet story, hearing it as an unknown tune: making of it a water colour painting in gay foolish colours, or an intricate pencil pattern of light and shadow.

They left the Orchard.

‘I think,’ said Jennifer, ‘we will never come here again.’

They had not come again. That time had remained unblurred by any subsequent return in a different mood, with more companions, in another weather or season.

But Judith had thought, while she nodded agreement: ‘Some day, when I’m much older, I’ll come back alone and think of her; and then perhaps write and say: do you remember? Or perhaps not, in case she has forgotten.’

And now, it seemed, far sooner even than Judith had feared, Jennifer was forgetting everything. They had meant to go away together during the summer vacation; go to Brittany, and bathe and walk and read: but in the end Jennifer’s don had said cold things regarding Jennifer’s progress, and requested her to attend college during the Long. Judith had gone on a reading party with three of the circle, and written Jennifer long letters which were answered briefly and at rare intervals. But that was not surprising. Jennifer’s letters had always been spasmodic, if passionately affectionate. Then the letters had ceased altogether. Judith had written asking if they could not spend September together, and Jennifer had answered in five lines, excusing herself. She was going to shoot in Scotland in September.

And then the third year had started, with everything as it had always been, or seeming so, for a few moments; and then in one more moment shivered to pieces.

She would not stay behind alone, after the others had gone, to say good-night. She ceased to talk with abandonment and excitement, her eyes shining to see you listening, to feel you understanding. There seemed nothing to say now. In particular, she would not speak of the Long.

It was, of course, Mabel who was the first to hint of ill-tidings. Eating doughnuts out of a bag, late one night, during one of Judith’s charity visits, she said:

‘Has that Miss Manners been up lately?’

‘Who’s Miss Manners?’

‘Why--that Miss Manners, Jennifer’s friend, who stayed with her so much during the Long.’

‘Oh yes----’

‘I was sure you must have heard about her, because they seemed such very great friends. They were always about together and always up to some lark.’ She gave a snigger. ‘We used to wonder, we really did, how long it would be before Jennifer got sent down, the way they used to go on, coming in so late and all. But somehow Jennifer never gets found out, does she?’ Another snigger. ‘What a striking-looking girl she is.’

‘Who?’

‘Miss Manners.’

‘Oh yes.... I’ve never seen her. Only photographs.’

‘Everybody said what a striking pair they made.... I expect she’ll be up soon again, don’t you?’

‘I don’t know at all,’ said Judith. ‘I expect so.’ Mabel looked solemn.

‘The wrestling matches they used to have out there on the lawn! I used to watch them from my window. I wonder they didn’t.... I really wonder ... any of the don.... It looked so ... throwing each other about like that.... It’s not the sort of thing you expect--quite, is it? I mean....’

‘Oh, wrestling’s glorious,’ said Judith. ‘I love it. Jennifer’s tried to teach me. But I’m not strong enough for her; the--the--Manners girl is much more of a match for her.’

Mabel pursed up her mouth and was silent.

It was necessary to leave her quickly for fear of striking her; because her deliberate intent was obvious; because she knew quite well now that you had never before heard of Miss Manners; because you were seeing that girl plainly, tall, dark and splendid, striding on the lawn with Jennifer, grasping her in strong arms, a match for her in all magnificent unfeminine physical ways, as you had never been. Her image was all at once there, ineffaceably presenting itself as the embodiment of all hitherto unco-ordinated and formless fears, the symbol for change, and dark alarms and confusions. And the unbearable image of Mabel was there too, watching by herself, gloating down from the window with glistening eyes that said:

‘At last!’

She stopped short in the corridor, and moaned aloud, aghast at the crowding panic of her thoughts.

* * * * *

Judith, returning from her bath, heard voices and laughter late at night behind Jennifer’s door. Should she stop? All the circle must be there as usual, laughing and talking as if nothing were amiss. She alone had excluded herself, sitting with a pile of books in her room, pretending to have important work. It was her own fault. She had said she was busy, and they had believed her and not invited her to join their gathering. She would go in, and sit among them and smoke, and tell them things,--tell them something to make them laugh; and all would be as before. They would drift away in the end and leave her behind; she would turn and look at Jennifer in the firelight, put out a hand and say: ‘Jennifer....’

She opened the door and looked in.

The voices stopped, cut off sharply.