A Sea-Grape Tree

by Rosamond Lehmann

  ‘Such a happy evening,’ said Ellie when finally, after midnight, they wished him goodnight and went their separate ways. ‘A happy happy evening.’

  But, for Anonyma, the night has only just begun. Stretched on her bed, two candles in glass funnels burning on the bedside table, thinking of Johnny, still savouring, with amazement, the taste of joy, she sees another figure rise: Mrs Jardine is present. She has come back, moves close, seems to be watching intently just the other side of the mosquito net. White face, pale blazing sapphire eyes; wrapped in a blue cloak. Mrs Jardine’s once-favoured child starts to spin this way, that way, backwards through a Hall of Mirrors, chasing elusive identities. How crowded, empty, how far away, how near the time seems between now and the primrose-picking candidate’s first step into the world of myth and magic.

  ‘Mrs Jardine!’

  The figure wavers and dissolves; the voice replies: ‘You called me.’

  ‘Did I? No. Yes, perhaps. Is it really you again?’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘You remember me?’

  ‘Faintly. The picture kindles only faintly—when you call me by that name. It is not my name.’

  ‘Mrs Jardine is not your name?’

  ‘No. It has been discarded.’

  ‘Sibyl?’

  ‘Sibyl will do well, Your name? I am not sure of it.’

  ‘I am Rebecca.’

  ‘Ah, Rebecca, yes. A curious child. Simpleton. Reckless.’

  ‘Reckless, was I? To myself I was always the reverse. Timid. Often frightened.’

  ‘Cela n’empêche pas … Easily impressed, imposed upon. Oh, I saw trouble ahead for you, a troubled destiny.’

  ‘Like yours.’

  Silence. Then: ‘Possibly a likeness in our natures, yes. I may have recognised it. Extravagant expectations. Well—they must be paid for. I paid.’

  ‘Truth was your ruling passion, so you used to say.’

  ‘I said that, did I? Yes. Do you care for truth?’

  ‘Yes, passionately.’

  ‘But how carefully we choose our truths, how cunningly we select.’

  ‘Your words sound mocking, harsh. You spoke differently to me once: as if you burned with passionate conviction. Oh, I lived in your shadow for a while!—or should I say your light? I thought myself your chosen one, your confidante. I was your slave, your messenger.’

  Long pause. ‘Well well … Matters of no importance.’ But the voice was shaken, had lost its note of sharp authority.

  ‘You said once, of paramount importance. Have you forgotten? Do you prefer not to remember?’

  Another long pause. ‘I dreamed many dreams, Rebecca. You played your part in them.’ Now the voice became nostalgic, tender. ‘We conspired to dream, my love. Such perilous stuff must be stripped off when we discard our bodies.’

  ‘Then death is oblivion. Sleep and forgetting.’

  ‘Nonsense, child. With whom are you conversing?’

  ‘Mrs—The ghost of Mrs Jardine, I suppose.’

  ‘You must learn to be more accurate. Long ago I told you so. Why do you laugh?’

  ‘Because it’s really you!—you haven’t changed. You were always so didactic—always instructing me.’

  ‘You had aptitude.’

  ‘Now you sound mocking, cold again. Were you all the time deceiving me?’

  ‘How, deceiving you?’

  ‘About love for instance. And caring nothing for the world’s opinion. All the things you went on and on about. I swallowed every word.’

  Another silence; then the voice said softly: ‘Well, love is all. I did not deceive you, little Rebecca—Mrs Jardine did not deceive you. But in some ways she has grown rather shadowy. Old unhappy far-off things, you know. Bitter bitter lessons—learnt and not learnt. Let us not dwell too much on her. She was not wholly admirable.’

  ‘I adored her.’

  ‘You were a dear child. I begin to see you clearly now. Rebecca—Laura’s grandchild. A touch of Laura in her.’

  ‘You said so. That’s why you—why I thought you loved me. It was because of her that we were allowed to know you. Oh, I remember everything! The blue door in the wall—it opened—we stepped in! Such narrow bread and butter lives we led outside. Inside was magic—honeydew.’

  The voice started to murmur, as if in sleep or trance. ‘Children running in the garden, playing, laughing—just as I had dreamed. Oh! I am there again. I see them. Darlings. Beautiful. I thought … no matter. A cloud comes over. Sorrow, sorrow.’ The voice broke, sobbed, faded out; picked up again to say: ‘But Laura, who was your grandmother: indeed I loved her—love her. We have been together in one relationship or another through many lives on earth. I woke up after death to see her beside me, smiling, welcoming me. But she has gone a long way on. She visits me from time to time: sheds light on me, and love.’

  ‘Please ask her to shed light on me.’

  ‘I will. The beauty of spiritual forms like hers is unimaginable. You would not see them—too bright for you.’

  ‘But not for you, I suppose.’

  Appreciative chuckle. ‘Now you are mocking me. Well … sometimes my eyes open, I have glimpses. But when she met me—when I first arrived—she came in her old guise—in a crinoline dress that I particularly loved. To reassure me.’

  ‘There was a man you loved, called Paul.’

  ‘Yes, yes—Paul. But he is not for you.’

  ‘Of course not! He died long ago—before I was born. You can’t still be so possessive?—jealous of the dead?’

  ‘Jealous?—no indeed. The dead? I see I must go slowly with you, you are very backward, stupid. I meant, beware of such as he. The lordly, the destroyers.’

  ‘That sounds like the old you—like Mrs Jardine, since you make some sort of distinction, incomprehensible to me, between Mrs Jardine and—’

  ‘Sibyl. Ah well, it is confusing; and as I say you are rather dull. However I must admit I am still confused myself. I only know that Sibyl is my true name. It is Sibyl that dear Laura knows; and Paul.’

  ‘You are with him, then?’

  ‘We have been re-united. There was much to disentangle, to undo. Torments of self-imprisonment to break out from. But nothing is lost, Rebecca, nothing of love is lost.’

  ‘Then Harry too is with you?’

  Another pause. ‘Dear Harry. We have met of course. But no, we are not together. Harry has gone to his own place. As we all do.’

  ‘I remember him. And Cherry.’

  ‘Ah, Cherry, my little one—what joy! Incredulous joy! Laughter! Tears of joy! Laughter and tears together. Her hand in his once more. Miraculous journeys—into earth’s very heart. Into the scintillating dark of ocean beds, into strange countries of the air. Nourished by divine sonorities, by essences of light and colour. Oh, ineffable experiences!’

  ‘Yours as well?’

  ‘No, not mine. I am still too—There is nothing of Ariel in me. But I have news of them, my delicate spirits, never at home in your dense sphere. One slipped away betimes; the other was condemned to stay behind. A ghost man, drained. His light feet in the world left not a trace, not even of the blood they bled. I catch your scurrying rejecting thoughts. How, by whom condemned, you ask? Maybe an old debt he may have stayed to pay—chosen to pay. His silence went on sheltering me: a shroud of unaccusing silence into which, when his heart broke—I broke it—I went on creeping, to listen to the shot.’

  ‘What do you mean? What shot?’

  ‘A casual shot—one sunny afternoon. Experiment, infatuation, animal urge … call it what you will. I shot love out of the sky. Down, down it fell; one thud, like a dead bird. Finished.’

  ‘You mean … you mean you were unfaithful?’

  ‘That is what I mean.’

  ‘Paul?’

  ‘No, nonsense, rubbish, nothing
of that nature. That was incorruptible—we made it so in spite of—all. No, no. Just a passer-by. I beckoned—or he beckoned—what matter which of us? Hi! handsome hunting man! It was like that.’

  ‘Harry could not forgive you?’

  ‘Harry—a dû constater what he could never have imagined: that I could be base. It was a shock. It killed our marriage. He worshipped me, you see. Worship comes before a fall. However, after the—discovery, he continued to protect me. A perfect gentleman, was Harry.’

  ‘So you always told me.’ The recollected flick in the pupils of the eyes, the drumming fingers, the histrionic turn of speech …

  ‘We were a chaste couple for the remainder of our marriage.’ Then the voice rose, passionately assertive. ‘But Harry was not destroyed, no matter what they whispered—the evil tongues, I was not deaf to them, the sneering lips, I was not blind! His spirit remained intact—that was my consolation.’

  ‘Did he stop loving you?’

  An entirely unfamiliar voice, after a pause, said quietly, reflectively: ‘I think he did not stop. Love dies hard, you know. But he did not like me any more, my dear. That hurts one’s self-esteem. However this is an old story. We have forgiven one another, gone our ways.’

  ‘One another?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why should the one betrayed need to be forgiven?’

  Sound as of someone laughing—a harsh sound. ‘I recall a child with somewhat simplistic moral views. I sometimes marvelled. Oh, I was aware of being strong meat for such as she. But innocents, I told myself, are equipped with phenomenal digestions.’

  ‘So you did have qualms?’

  Another laugh. ‘No, I did not. The woman you remember did not deal in qualms.’ Then briskly: ‘Well now!—these questions of treachery, forgiveness, are troubling you at present?’

  ‘Torturing me. Help me, take pity on me.’

  ‘I do pity you, poor child. I doubt if I can help you.’

  ‘What am I to do? How can I live like this, in exile, in suspense? Am I unlovable? If so, how can I bear to live? I cannot bear it.’

  ‘That is yesterday talk. Tonight life is more than bearable again. Is it not so? Be truthful!’

  ‘Can it be so? Yes, it is so. But what has happened? What is going to happen?’

  ‘That I cannot tell.’

  ‘And why have you come back?’ No answer. ‘Now and then, since I’ve been here, I have almost seen you.’

  ‘Indeed! What makes you think so?’

  ‘You know why … In that blue cloak of yours.’

  ‘Oh, my blue cloak. It covers him.’

  ‘And you are on the watch—as once you were before, so I was told. Watching me, I suppose.’

  Silence. Then: ‘He cannot help you. Don’t imagine it. Do not presume on his—response.’

  ‘As if I would!’

  ‘Well, we shall see.’

  ‘And he has already helped me. The voice in my ear that went on whispering: “End your life” has ceased.’

  ‘I am aware of that. How you would rue it, should you have succeeded. Nothing—less than nothing—solved, all to do again. A grotesque mistake. I have told him so, more often than he knows. You had good instincts once, Rebecca: surely they told you that life goes on—relentlessly one might say. I hear your thoughts—arrogant, summoning your sceptical defences, your intellectual nihilism—’

  ‘No, not that.’

  ‘Stupidity, then, if you prefer. Once you had imagination: you have let it atrophy. Wake up, Rebecca! Yes, I am naming you. Wake up, Rebecca!’

  ‘Yes, I must wake up. This is another dream: but not a bad dream. Where can it be coming from? Some of my dreams burn me, soil, claw at me—monsters from the pit. This is quite different. I’m still not sure though if you wish me well. Why am I not afraid of you? Long ago I had a dream of you that terrified me. Now you have lost your power. I feel—forgive me—I seem to feel sorry for you. Are you—forgive the question if it is tactless, naïve—are you an Unquiet Spirit?’

  Silence. A chuckle. Silence. ‘Not exactly. But love, concern, still draws us back to earth. Thoughts directed to us, strong thoughts, urgent, seek us out, call us, touch us: we are connected, we respond. That is the law of love.’

  ‘Of hate as well?’

  ‘We will not speak of hate.’

  ‘Shall we speak of Ianthe?’

  ‘My daughter. No, we will not speak of her.’

  ‘Poor Sibyl. Does he call to you? You know who I mean.’

  A pause. A sigh. No answer.

  ‘Can you help him?’

  After a pause, a broken mutter, the words ‘my punishment …’ otherwise impossible to catch.

  ‘He doesn’t want your help?’

  ‘He does not wish to be saved.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We shall see.’ Something nameless, like a groping tentacle, reached out. ‘Pray, Rebecca. We must pray.’

  ‘I don’t pray. Do you pray? That seems strange.’

  ‘I am learning.’ A humble voice.

  ‘Talking to God! I can’t imagine it. I don’t want to learn.’

  ‘What is it that you do want, Rebecca? Ah, I know! No need to pretend, protest. You want a lover.’

  ‘Not any lover. I’m not like you—promiscuous.’

  ‘To be back in the time of roses, that is what you want. To loose your hair and be undressed and bathed and scented: prepared for—ah! what wild expectations and fulfilments! Not only that, you say, not erotic pleasure only. No, of course not! Let us not be coarse, explicit. I too preferred reticence, hated immodesty, rejected the crude thick words. Of course that is only part of what you long for. You yearn to be telling yourself: “I am precious, preferred above all other women …” scarcely daring to believe it; but then how smoothly, rapidly accepting it! You thought you had known love before, he thought so too. But past experience was schoolroom stuff! This is the true, the once-in-a-lifetime love. Each of you the other’s bright particular star, fixed in the firmament. Ah, and how effortless from your galactic heights to condescend to those less fortunate!—to show gracious gratitude for services formerly taken for granted; to listen patiently to bores, be considerate to parents and other impedimenta usually neglected. Impregnable within your luminous cocoon, you fly in sure and certain expectation to answer the distinguishable bells: the telephone voice that does not need to name itself; the post that brings the letter whose very envelope causes your heart to constrict with the mystery of the recognised handwriting.’

  ‘The letter, yes! Where is it? When will it come? What will it say? Has it been lost? Intercepted? Wrongly addressed? Do I wait here for it, in this mad limbo? How shall I dare to open it? Shall I tear it up unread? Must I return without it? Will all be as before? Shall I telegraph Returning Meet me, and find him waiting, with the same face—or with a changed face, sheepish? Pompous? Wary? Hostile? A stranger with a murderer’s face?’

  ‘Hush! Calm yourself. I am no fortune teller, I cannot read your future. Besides, this man is not important.’

  ‘There now, as usual you contradict yourself. You are wicked, heartless, my father always said so. You tell me love is all—and then you shrug your shoulders. Love is consuming me, I tell you. I am sick, I must die.’

  ‘Nonsense, you will not die. Men have died and worms have eaten them … you know the rest.’

  ‘Well then, I shall do as I was told. I will trust my unhappiness and great good will come to me. Great good will come to me! I have decided: I will make those words my daily bread. Whatever he says, whatever he does, whatever, I will go on trusting him. I will trust the promises he made me, and I will trust his broken promises, his treacheries. So I cannot lose, I am bound to win, I am bound to …?’

  Silence. Silence. Then a brisk counselling voice: ‘Your mother now, Rebecca, such a charm
ing woman. Upright, unselfish, unworldly, loyalty itself. Strong moral principles yet tolerant. Such a help long ago with that difficult girl Maisie. Full of years now, but all her faculties. Creep back home and take a rest. Surround yourself with innocence and comforts. Hot milk, soft single chintzy bed, regular meals, family news and photographs. What a treat for her, what pleasure it would give her.’

  ‘No, it would not. The mere sight of me would utterly dismay her. Trouble, trouble, she would guess. Were I to break down and tell her, she would give dreadful good advice. Strange but true, families are the cruellest company in these predicaments: forcing you back to the roots, and oh! how the roots tug, threaten, ache; whispering the old competitive comparisons, guilts, atavisms, insecurities. Plain, pretty; clever, stupid; naughty, good; bad marks, top marks; spiteful; selfish; jealous; unfair; unkind; unjust; your fault; my fault; his fault; her fault; best loved, not loved, lonely, lonely, failure FAILURE. . .’

  ‘Well well!—what a macabre picture—hysterical, ridiculous­­­­. I had no family to cushion me—a bitter deprivation. I tried but failed to found one—my own flesh and blood to hand my treasures down to. Wait though!—one has arrived on earth, a true descendant, just as I prepared to leave. Made in my likeness­­­­—’

  ‘Tarni?’

  ‘Bearing the fatal gift of beauty. I shall watch over her. But to revert: your father now, he thought me wicked, did he? He thought me something else as well, I fancy, in his salad days. Young men are not averse to wicked women. Our paths crossed once upon a time—oh yes! They crossed. But what a family man he did become in later years: so protective of his lambs.’

  ‘He is dead, I suppose you know.’

  The sense of someone smiling, an ambiguous smile.

  ‘Yes. Our paths crossed once again, but briefly. I am no longer anathema to him. Humour saved us—humour, compassion, repentance—’ The voice took on a note of passion. ‘Ah, the good old days! Horsewhipping and high melodrama! Fallen women, ruined, disgraced for ever, better dead. Oh, those were stirring, titillating times! Infamous humbug, abominable cruelty in every walk of life. How we were spat upon, humiliated, we women with the courage to defy convention and win our independence. We fought to win your freedom. Don’t forget it.’