Love, Again

by Doris May Lessing Little Dorrit

  Beyond the theatre, their house standing solidly behind them, and beside a yew carved into a griffin, were Stephen and Elizabeth, absolutely inside their roles as rich patrons of the arts. They accepted congratulations from innumerable people, friends and relations and friends of relations and their good humour had the slightest edge on it, because of the dicey nature of this enterprise of theirs, which could turn up failures as easily as it did successes. Against a dark hedge not far away, quite by herself, stood Susan, already in her own clothes, tight black trousers, black silk singlet, silver jewellery, black shoes described as 'medieval' and probably not far off what was worn centuries ago in this house. She watched the pair, host and hostess, and her eyes glistened with the sincerest tears. This girl had made her way up from a dingy little house on the edge of Birmingham, and for her the scene was an apotheosis of glamour.

  There was to be a reception for the company in the town, arranged by a local society funding the arts. Stephen and Elizabeth had said the company must go. 'We don't have to go, but you do. Sorry, but that's how it is,' said Elizabeth, with the jovial ruthlessness we all expect of the upper classes. 'We depend on goodwill. Without local goodwill we couldn't last a season.'

  A coach stood waiting.

  Sarah stood in the black shadow of a shrub, enjoying invisibility, but Henry came up and said in a low voice, 'Sarah, I'm going to get drunk.'

  'I think that is a pity.'

  'Another time, another place, Sarah.'

  'Henry, this is the other time and place.'

  The cry of 'Sarah!' he then let out was far from self-parody, but with the second 'Sarah' he was already mocking himself.

  She had already turned away, noting that the legendary small voice, never more reliable than when giving bad news, was telling her: No, that's it, finally and for ever.

  'Well, goodnight, then,' she said, her voice steady but only just, and walked past Susan, whose face shone with tears as she stood by herself in the moonlight. 'Isn't it beautiful?' she demanded wildly of Sarah. 'Isn't it all absolutely beautiful?'

  And Sarah watched how Stephen went into the house by himself, for Elizabeth had separated herself from him to become half of that other couple, Elizabeth and Norah, who were walking away somewhere by themselves.

  In the coach, Sarah sat by Mary Ford, who was going to take photographs at the reception. 'A pity,' mused Mary, 'that we couldn't have had Bill and Susan. Perfect casting.' Mary was not looking as well as she might: her mother was rapidly getting worse. The doctor said she should be in a home, but Mary was putting it off. 'One day it will be me,' she remarked.

  'And me,' said Sarah.

  At the reception Sarah behaved well, just like all the rest of the company, talking as long as she had to with anyone who wanted to talk to her, and she stood to be photographed with what seemed like infinite numbers of local people, all of them in love with the arts. Henry appeared, already tight but hiding it, sending her imploring but grieving looks, and only half histrionic, and then he disappeared with a smile that set fire to the air between them. Well, to hell with him. Susan was surrounded by men, as she was always bound to be, and had the look of a valuable thing conscious it might be stolen if she for one moment relaxed her guard.

  Sarah was sitting in the coach, by herself, when Andrew came to lean over the seat in front of her and, with a smile that made no attempt to mask anger, said, 'You made sure I wasn't going to be in the house.'

  'I had nothing to do with the sleeping arrangements.'

  He did not believe her. Rightly, for if she had said to Elizabeth… Still smiling, his arms folded on the back of the seat, those pale blue eyes of his hard, he said, 'Why not, Sarah Durham? Just tell me why not. You're a fool.' He gave that short laugh that is earned by wilful stupidity. Then he removed his folded arms from the seat, regarded her steadily, not smiling, and disappeared. She saw him walk past the window of the coach as it set off. He turned to give her a look that shortened her breath. Well, yes, she probably was crazy, at that.

  Sarah never took sleeping pills, or sedatives, did not drink to achieve sleep or numbness. Tonight she wished she did. Stood at the window of her room knowing that Henry was three doors away and might, if he wished, come to her room. But he would not, because he had made sure he would be drunk. And if his wife had not announced she was arriving and bringing his child? An interesting question, which she did not feel equipped to answer. She stood by the window and watched the moonlight carve black shadows on the lawn. In the hollow of her shoulder, above her left breast, was centred an ache, an emptiness. A head was lying there, and she shut her eyes and put a hand over the place. Grey light was filling the bushes, and the birds had awakened, when at last she slept a little. Ghostly lips kissed hers. A ghost's arms held her. When she woke and went to the window it was still early, though sunlight lay everywhere. The astonishing summer was continuing, as if this were not England.

  Two men appeared beyond a low hedge that interrupted, with a stile, a path leading to a field where horses stood absorbing the sun. They were large, slow-moving men, who stopped to admire or evaluate the horses. The scene could easily have a frame around it, to join others of the same kind hanging on the walls of this house. They went strolling around and among the horses, stopped to talk, strolled on, patted one horse, slapped the rump of another, went over to a hedge to look at something or other, came back. This went on for a good half hour, while the sunlight strengthened and the roses in the bed below Sarah's window glowed more confidently with every minute. Now the men were coming towards the house. They halted to examine the trunk of a beech, walked around it, advanced again, bent over a bush that, from the look of it, was growing in the wrong place, straightened, and stood facing each other, talking. This conversation too lasted for some minutes. Again they came on, towards the stile, and halted. Behind them a woman came out of the trees, carrying a saddle, going towards the horses. It was Elizabeth, her red head scarf like a tiny sail against all the green. Her voice rang out: 'Beauty, Beauty, Beauty… ' A tall black mare raised its head, whinnied, and stepped towards her to take titbits from her hand. Her hand was gentling its ears. The men had swung around at the sound of her voice, and now turned again, still talking. First one, then the other, stepped over the stile. They were walking with a steady assurance on this earth they owned, or ordered. One of the men was Stephen. They both wore earth-coloured clothes, and their trousers were pushed into their boots. They carried… what were they? Sticks? No, Stephen had a stick, the other man a riding switch. They stopped, conferred, and went off to one side, into a little apple orchard. There they walked about, studying the trees and at one point apparently disagreeing about one of them, for first Stephen doubtfully shook a branch, and then the other man pointed with his whip approving, or so it looked, at a satisfactory amount of apples. From the field behind them came Elizabeth's ringing voice: she was shouting endearments at her horse, which did not feel like being saddled. It was backing and even rearing, the black glossy mane flinging about like the fringe on a dancer's shawl.

  Now Stephen's face was in focus. The men were about fifty yards away. He looked ordinary and even cheerful, certainly good-humoured. The other's face was large and red, emphasized with black brows. Not a face she wanted to be any closer to than she was. He had a lowering defensive stare and shot out gloomy looks to either side of him, as if enemies might be lurking among the trees.

  The men stood facing each other again, on a gravel path. The voices rose and fell, but she could not hear the words. They gave an appearance of holding their ground against each other. Elizabeth had got on the horse and was cantering around the field, encouraging and calming the beast, and this sounded almost like a song, or a chant. 'There, there you are, there Beauty, now Beauty, there's my girl Beauty, there's a good girl, there's Beauty, now come on, calm down, gently there Beauty.'

  The two men now took off fast into a wood and there walked around a very old oak that had a branch propped on a stick, stopped, and walk
ed around the other way. They were disagreeing. A peaceable argument lasted for quite a time, and then they returned to the path. Now Sarah could see that the black-browed man's face was red because it was meshed with fine lines, his nose had the lumpy glare of a drinker's nose, and he seemed swollen with unhealthy blood. They stood talking. Nothing could seem more amiable than this long, leisurely chat. At last the riding whip lifted in a careless goodbye, the man nodded at Stephen, and he strode off back towards Elizabeth. At the hedge he stopped, bent to look at something on the sunny grass, and stamped once, twice, swivelling his heel on whatever it was, to make sure it was well and truly ground out of life. Then he went on, head lowered, riding crop at the ready. He vaulted heavily over the stile. Elizabeth was crooning at her horse and patting it to keep it patient. The man picked up a saddle from where he had left it in the grass to talk to Stephen, flung it on a brown horse, fastened it, climbed heavily on it, and then he and Elizabeth turned their horses' heads towards a far hedge. Stephen stood alone on the gravel path and gazed over the hedge at the scene of his wife and the neighbour talking as they rode slowly off together.

  Stephen was now standing over a pile of lemon-coloured honeysuckle that was interweaved with a purple clematis. He poked his stick into the mass of bloom, and at once intense waves of scent rose to her window. He was fishing out a green rubber ball, which had a glossy look: it had not been lying there long. He threw the ball hard, for at least fifty yards, onto a lawn at the side of the house.

  'Good throw,' she remarked to his head. He said, without looking up, 'I knew you were there, Sarah.' Then he did look up and gave her a warm and even tender smile. He waved a hand at her and went into the house.

  She was feeling angry with herself- foolish. She had been watching this man, inside his own real life, for well over an hour. This was Stephen, this the reality of Stephen. Sarah told herself, repeated it, to make herself take it in, that Stephen the man of the theatre and Julie's besotted lover was only one aspect of Stephen. Suddenly Sarah was wondering about that black-browed red-faced man now cantering away with Elizabeth a long way off across the fields — what did he say, he and his sort, about Stephen and this hobby of his, the theatre? For after all, Stephen's visits to France, and attending rehearsals in London, and arranging the Entertainments, probably had not taken up so much time. His real life was here, on this estate.

  About fifteen years ago, a conversation on these lines must have taken place in all the houses near this one:

  'Elizabeth's done it. Queen's Gift will be all right.'

  'Good for her. He's got money, then?'

  'Yes, plenty. Stephen Ellington-Smith.'

  'Gloucestershire? The Gloucestershire Ellington-Smiths aren't too well off.'

  'No, Somerset. It's a branch of the Gloucestershire lot.'

  'Oh, I know him, then. He was at school with my cousin.'

  'Anyway, it's wonderful. Awful if she'd lost Queen's Gift.'

  So they must all back Stephen, stand by him, even if they. think him eccentric. But after all, the arts were fashionable, and Queen's Gift was not the only country house round about that went in for summer festivals. Was there anyone among the people he must call his friends with whom he talked about his secret miseries? Probably he wouldn't dare, for if his confidante (bound to be a woman) was indiscreet, then he would be seen as mad, barking, round the bend, loco. Well, he was. But it was easy for her now to turn that life of his around slightly, as one turns an object to catch a different light, and all she could see was the life of a country gentleman, and Julie just a little dark blot on a sunny scene of trees and fields safely enclosing this ancient house. Just as her own life, Sarah's, which she had seen for years as a competent progression, with proportion in all its parts, could be turned around to be seen as a stoic one, ending now in old age with an ache and a hunger for love — but that is not how it would look to her, she knew, quite soon. Within weeks, probably, her present state would seem like a temporary fever. And — but this was the point: her concern for Stephen was like a kind of illness. Anxiety invaded her at the thought of him. Just as it did when she considered Joyce. What was the matter with her, Sarah? Why did she seek burdens?

  Meanwhile there was breakfast, in last night's supper room. Mary Ford was there. So was Roy. Two large, com- petent, healthy people placidly consuming sensible breakfasts. The other person there was Andrew. He had no right to be there at all. Had he spent the night somewhere in the grounds? Perhaps sitting on a bench somewhere, mooning — yes, Sarah actually almost used that word — at the house where his love — herself- was lodged. He was not eating. A cup of black coffee stood in front of him. His face was as pale as a face can be that is surfaced with a tan. He stared long and deliberately at Sarah, with enough irony to shrivel her. If he was hating her, with all the fury of a despised lover, then she watched in herself that primitive reaction (had she felt it since she was pubescent?), the outraged amour propre expressed by How dare he? How old is the girl who feels this mixture of indignation and contempt because of the impertinence of an old man (probably thirty years old) who dares to think himself good enough for her? Thirteen? She poured herself coffee, her back turned, trying to recover some sense of the appropriate, let alone some humour, and heard a door slam. When she turned he had gone. She looked deliberately at Mary and Roy to see if they wanted to comment, but neither looked at her.

  Then Mary said, 'I think I'll go and see if I can get some pictures. The light is good now.' And Roy said, 'Sarah, I'm going to have to take some leave. I'm due two weeks. This divorce thing is doing me in.' With this, he left.

  Sarah told herself that what this good friend of hers was going through was every bit as bad as anything she was feeling, but it was no good.

  Henry arrived. He looked quite awful, which Sarah felt served him right. He scattered a dozen cornflakes into a bowl and sat opposite her. They sat looking at each other. There is a stage in love when the two stare in incredulity: how is it that this quite ordinary person is causing me so much suffering?

  'All right,' said Henry, in reply to a thousand silent accusations from the rhetorics of love (which there is no need to list since no one has not used them), the first of which is always the incredulous: But if you love me, how can you be [LOST!!! I clapped

  on those headphones you despise and put the music on so loud I couldn't think, and when I woke this morning it was blasting into my ears. Well, all right' — for she was laughing at him — 'I did get through the night.'

  'Are you expecting me to congratulate you?'

  'You might as well.'

  He even seemed to be waiting for her to do this, but she had to shut her eyes, for the lower half of her body had dissolved into a warm pond. He was asking, 'Are you coming to Stratford today? Did you know we are all going to Stratford?'

  'No, I'm not coming with you to Stratford.'

  'Sarah,' came the low reproach, for he was unable to prevent it, and then, already in parody, 'You aren't, you aren't coming with me to Stratford?'

  'No; nor, it seems, anywhere else,' she said, while tears made the room and Henry's face swim in a watery kaleidoscope.

  'Sarah!' He leaped up, as if to go to the sideboard, and actually did whirl around towards it, but turned back and stood behind his chair in a posture of wild accusation, but whether of her or himself she could not have said. Then he visibly took command of himself, actually got to the sideboard, poured coffee, which he drank there and then, a consoling or a narcotic draught, came back, sat down. All she could see was two wounded, accusing eyes. She blinked, and the shining white cloth, the silver, and Henry's face dissolved and reassembled.

  'It's messy,' said Henry suddenly.

  This was so absolutely in line with the culture clash that she began to laugh. It seemed to her so funny that she was thinking, Oh, God, if only I could share it with someone — who? Stephen? She said, 'You mean, I'm in one room dreaming of you — if I can put it like that — and you're in another room dreaming of me.
But that's not messy?'

  He laughed, but he didn't want to.

  'Well,' she said, her voice back under control, 'if anyone had told me when I was young that when I was — I'm not going to say old — that I would be reasoning with a young man in love with me… I suppose I may say you're in love with me without straining the truth?'

  'I suppose you could, at that. And I'm not so young, Sarah. I'll be middle-aged soon. I notice that the young girls these days, they don't see me. It happened quite recently. I tell you, that was a bad day for me, when I first realized.'

  'Reasoning with him into sleeping with me, I think I would have slit my throat. But to put it another way — it's amazing how often this one comes in useful — "We know what we are but we know not what we may be." And thank God we don't.'

  'Shakespeare, I have no doubt.'

  Susan appeared from the garden. 'The coach is here for Stratford,' she said, obviously disappointed about something, which could only be that Stephen wasn't there.

  Henry got up, saying, 'This deprived American has never actually seen Romeo and Juliet.'

  'A pity it isn't A Midsummer Night's Dream,' said Sarah.

  'A quip that's wasted on me. I haven't seen that either.'

  Susan was shocked by the anger in this exchange: she looked from one to the other with the timid smile of a peacemaker who doesn't much hope. 'Aren't you coming, Sarah?'

  'No.'

  'No, she isn't,' said Henry, and accused her with his eyes. 'Enjoy yourself,' he said bitterly.

  Sarah borrowed Mary's car and drove to the Cotswolds to see her mother. This was an impulse. It had occurred to her that she sat for hours brooding about the puppet strings and their manipulators, but after all, there was nothing to stop her asking her mother. Why had she not done this before? This is what she was asking herself as she drove, for the idea had seized her with all the force and persuasiveness of novelty. It was absurd she had not thought to ask. Now she would say to her, Why am I like this? and her mother would say, Oh, I was wondering when you'd ask. But as she contemplated the forthcoming scene, doubt had to set in. Her relations with her mother were good. Cool, but good. Affectionate? Well, yes. Sarah visited her three or four times a year and telephoned her sometimes to find out how she did. She did very well, being alert, active and independent. She had lived in the little village for as long as Sarah had in her flat. Briony and Nell liked her, and might drive up to visit her. The one person she wanted to see — Hal — did not visit her. It occurred to Sarah that she could not ask, 'Why is my brother, your son, such a deplorable human being?' Her mother still adored him. She boasted often about the famous Dr Millgreen, but made polite enquiries about Sarah's work.