Lillian Merrick. The school at Rome. No. This couldn’t conceivably go on forever. Eugenia with her many letters and these last ones, “We may be coming over so your father thinks you may stay. Be sure to see Mrs. de Leinitz and don’t let your summer things be shabby. You hadn’t enough last year and I can’t imagine how you’re managing. We love to hear all about your friends and your good times. I am glad Mrs. Walter Dowel has been so kind to you. How fortunate you are in knowing these brilliant people.” Brilliant people. Yes George in a red monkey jacket, Fayne with a white face painted like a circus rider, Fayne doing her little “stunt” balancing on toe on a white galloping stallion and holding two clowns (Llewyn and Morrison?) balanced on quivering buttocks. Not hers. The buttocks of the great white horse, and Fayne Rabb pirouetting in white face and white frilled petticoats, Fayne turned from Pygmalion with strong sturdy thighs and staunch young shoulders into a parody of womanhood. Doing her little prize stunt for the world to see. “But you can’t marry him.”
No, one didn’t marry. One did stunts. But she wasn’t any longer interested in George. “Don’t rumple and ruffle my dress.” “Since when Dryad, have you begun to worry about dresses?” “Since this minute.”
Hermione emerged from behind the shelter of the very grand baby-grand piano. “Shirley, we never ask you to play for us—” “Gawd, don’t ask her—” Shirley looked up an odd twist to her fine straight eye-brows. A white flame of pain crossed her eyes, dark eyes, wide apart staring like a crystal gazer’s. Why had George said that? Was he being rude simply? But now his rudeness seemed insanity, seemed blatant cruelty. His rudeness, his casual approach to both of them, for she was sure he had kissed, had long been kissing Shirley. Don’t marry him or her—just go on kissing them. Well, what anyhow did it matter. Wide flame of pain in the almond eyes of Shirley flashed, went, and the almond eyes of Shirley were just odd almond eyes with a little glow of passion. “O George is like that. He thinks I play so badly.” Play badly? Was that it? Was that the thing between them? Hermione knew there had been something there. Something that had drawn her near though so straightly separated, from Shirley. “O but you don’t—I’m sure you don’t. I know you do play nicely.” It was Darrington. For a moment pain swept away and Hermione loved Darrington. Darrington who was making her write again, who was bringing almond eyes back to their normal level of just rather odd blank kindness. Shirley was very kind. Little suppers, tea at any time, people coming and going. It must be lovely to have such a charming flat, a place you could see people, not crowding odd hours in at the Louvre, in restaurants, in tea-shops. It was exhausting never being able to talk properly to Darrington. Shirley was very fortunate, clever too, that was what was wrong really with Shirley. She was clever.
“The trouble is you’re too clever to be a real musician.” “O?” “I feel it. You could write. Criticism. The two don’t go together.”
What was lies, what was truth in all this? But this wasn’t true. This table, this chair, this supper, this coffee after supper, this cigarette. But was this true, just this, this smoke wreathing up and up in the rose-shaded light of the lamp casting its again shaded glow through the half drawn curtain of the inner room beyond the wide French window. Was this true? Was this smoke curling up and up and the numb beatific column of its beauty quite true? “I’m glad I’ve at last taught you to smoke properly.” The voice at her elbow as part of the vagueness of the cigarette was true in the same sense that the smoke was true. Darrington’s voice. Darrington’s voice had always been true for it had always (from the first) been vague, been apprehended through a sort of trance state as first apprehended in that vague drawing room somewhere (London?) where George had made pronouncements on sandal wood and thy painted bark. Whose painted bark? “O George I thought you’d written them to me.” “What made you think that Lointaine?” “I thought you’d told me you had.” “O but I tell that to everybody.” So George had apparently. Told that to everybody. But George Lowndes with his stark beauty, with his brush of beard, with his velvet jacket, with his now accepted scholarship and his little recognized position wasn’t true. He had suddenly projected himself out, become a certain person with a certain reputation and something had departed. Was he a cigarette simply that had been smoked out? “I’m glad Astraea that at last you’re dedicated.” “Dedicated?” It was Walter asking the question, Walter resting his great weight heavily in the low garden chair with the light from within and the shadow from without struggling across his alabaster features. O God. Again pity wracked her. Pity rose and spoiled the dream, the drift and drug of the thing, this smoke that curled up, up in Vérène’s garden, that was reality. Pity cut across like white hail across a smoke-blue lilac bush. Pity was white hail that slashed and tore and rent her. Pity. For who simply? Could it be for Vérène all smooth and small and dark opposite Walter, presiding in her own little garden (their own little garden) over the excellent and exquisite al fresco little supper? Could pity blight with its arrogant assumptions this place of peace, this garden, this far and far and far slow rumble and pulse and beat of light that was far Paris. Could pity so arrogantly enter this demesne? “O Vérène darling, Shirley (I saw her yesterday) sent a message to you—something—I’ve half forgotten—” “Was it about coming in on Monday?” “Yes. That was it. I said I was due out here this evening. She was having some people in and asked—me—” (Hermione had almost said—“us”) “to meet them. When I said I was dining at Vérène’s she said, ‘give her this message for me. Say Shirley’s sorry but she can’t possibly come Monday.’ ” “But she promised—long—ago—” “Why worry with her?” It was Walter, alabaster rose and shadow. Walter spoke seated massive and great in the low chair. “Why, Vérène, have you been so concerned about her?” Vérène said, pouring coffee that she didn’t know, had never really liked the girl, but as she was one of Walter’s pupils—“Was she? Did she ever do anything?” It was Darrington who asked this, evidently half out of curiosity, half to fill the gap, and Vérène said before Walter could anticipate her, “nothing.”
Walter said, “I shouldn’t exactly say that Vérène. She had ideas.” “What sort of ideas?” “O, things that you—wouldn’t—follow—” And someone laughed, was it Vérène simply, blind in her arrogance, full and blown open like a summer rose? The wind had ruffled her petal, the lordly king-wind had stooped from the North, had swept down from the cold irradiance of glaciers to embrace her. Vérène might laugh proud in her little moment. Rose that the wind must pass.
“O I thought her rather odd—her eyes—charming—” Hermione said this. She had thought her odd, began to see her as charming now that she was wreathed about with smoke, with lilac-blue that was the odd and prevalent image of the vague sensation of rest and of recognition Darringtons voice brought her. It had been that way from the first. Darrington had been a voice before he was a presence. He was a presence now, permeated as white wine with alcohol. Alcohol was crude, a poison without the white wine. Darrington’s voice was the distillation of pure aether. What was his voice? Again it broke across her musings. “Old Lowndes, it appeared, was one time thick with her.”
The thing that Darrington said was not exactly the right thing to say on the verge of George Lowndes’ engagement. But that was the nice thing about Darrington. He said the wrong thing in the right voice. There was something piquante, engaging in his manner. He said these things deliberately, one felt he knew he said them, not crudely like George, with his “for Gawd’s sake don’t,” when they had asked Shirley to play for them. Walter said, “yes, we thought here, she was going to marry him.”
Talk about Shirley, about nothing, about something. It appeared suddenly to Hermione cruel, petty, unmitigatedly mean to talk this way about Shirley. She supposed, with a little shiver of apprehension that this is the way they would (obviously) go on about her if she stayed hanging on much longer, alone, not with her people, a bit of drift-wood. But there was Darrington. “Darrington to the rescue.” There was Darrington. But
she must do something—do something. Smoke of cigarette. Let me smoke, forget. Let me forget simply. What was it that she wanted to forget and was forgetting? She tried numbly to recall the thing she was forgetting. Walter spoke anticipating her thought, her half remembered image, “funny that girl marrying.” “What girl?” It was Vérène asking. “That friend of Hermione’s. Fayne Rabb.”
“Mademoiselle is dead.” The maid said this simply. She made no gesture of apology. Something was lacking. People didn’t say in French, “Mademoiselle is dead.” They didn’t say in English “Miss est morte.” “Mademoiselle est morte.” That is what she said. Was it possible that Hermione had mistaken it. Was she saying, Mademoiselle is out, or had she forgotten her French, did morte mean asleep or gone away to the country or married or engaged or writing a grand opera? It might, it appeared mean any of these things but it couldn’t possibly mean what the word meant in the dictionary. Hermione had never to her knowledge heard this word, pronounced so blatantly. Morte. Or was it Morgue? Morgue, a place for dead people. The idea did not enter her head. Her heart stopped beating. “But Mademoiselle asked me here for tea; it is Sunday?”
The maid in her ordinary voice assured Hermione that it was Sunday. Hermione assured the maid that she had been asked for Sunday. They continued in their odd detached way to argue for it couldn’t be true what she said. Shirley wasn’t dead.
Shirley wasn’t dead. It was impossible. There were a thousand things she might have said to her. Shirley with eyes gone wide like a crystal gazer’s. Hermione had suspected something terrible. What was terrible? Was marriage—no it was death—terrible? “But we thought she was going to marry George.” Little May day communicants going to church in long veils and long frocks and white slippers and hands crossed over prayer-books. Brides of God. Little wise virgins. Virgins. Shirley was a virgin. That was what made them laugh, asking why she didn’t marry George Lowndes. Soon they would laugh at Hermione who hadn’t married George Lowndes. “But of course you can’t marry him.” Marry. No. Dress up and parade like a vulgar midinette in a bride’s veil and let your mother-in-law (by proxy) hold up the long glove with the severed finger. “But its for the bride’s ring.” Let them all do that. Chestnuts had never been so glorious. Trois sous la botte. Livre. But that was muguet. It wasn’t a pound, it was a book. France little book like in the revelation for her to devour simply. Bitterness of things too sweet. O broken singing of the dove. What was it all about? Was this why she couldn’t go to Vérène’s and Walter had said why worry so about her. Wide rose, Vérène, with little intuitions, with a conscience. Did she know this was about to happen? Monday. This was Sunday. “But this is—Sunday.” Hermione repeated it to the maid who was standing ghouling at her. “She asked me to come Sunday.” Still the heavy figure with its impassivity blocked the door way. Black beetle. That was it simply. Black beetle. Insensitive. Grasping. Did one tip people? What for? She didn’t want to go in. “What, wh-aaat did Mademoiselle die of?” The face looked at her. Face blurred. Vérène pitied them all. All bride’s of God. Little communicants. Wise virgins. But she was with God. Afternoon spoiled. Late for tea. She had hurried but she needn’t have hurried. She was too late anyhow. “What did Mademoiselle die of?” Faces blurred. Fayne Rabb. What was it all about anyway? The maid leaned toward her whispering.
But who killed her? Walter was looking at Vérène, Vérène was looking at Walter. The letter lay between them. Shadows in the room. “How dreadful for you, Hermione.” Someone was saying it was dreadful for Hermione. Someone was breaking the silence that lay between Vérène and Walter, the silence that became tighter and harder like an ice floe that becomes harder the harder the river presses on it. Someone should say something. Someone did. It was Darrington. “But poor Hermione rushed out to tea. I was to meet her there. I met her coming back—on the stairs.” Someone had met someone. Who? Darrington had met Hermione. “Darrington to the rescue.” Someone was thinking in all this of Hermione. But Hermione looked at Walter, looked at Vérène. Walter though he did not turn his head, felt Hermione. He felt Hermione staring as he had felt her in his music. He knew Hermione was there though he was looking at Vérène. Must they all feel sorry for Vérène because Vérène had done it? But had Vérène done it? Who had killed Shirley. The letter lay on the floor. Walter was twisting one great hand with great strong fingers. Fingers that had begun at three, tiny fingers, going on and on and Walter had that kind of power, detached power. It was detached power that had killed Shirley. Walter simply. It was Walter’s music. “But how was—I—to—know—” Walter was asking this of the void though Vérène as usual thought anything addressed to the void by Walter was meant for her. She would mother Walter. O don’t let me see her mothering Walter. “It wasn’t—your—fault— Vrrralter.” No. Don’t let him know it was his fault for it was his fault. The letter said so though she had not read the letter. She had found Walter reading the letter as she stumbled in to Clichy. She had rushed to them . . . a letter had reached Walter. What did the letter say? It was on the floor there. Pick up the letter, someone, its shameful lying on the floor—no, I didn’t see her. She was lying on the floor. Anyone could look at her, inspectors, horrible people for she was outside the law. She couldn’t be cremated. She had killed herself. She had left another letter asking to be cremated. Did it matter? But she couldn’t be. All these letters, meaning nothing, meaning everything. They had all killed her.
George had killed her certainly. It was Walter saying it, “But we thought she was going to marry—George.” George must be blamed, scape-goat. He was a scape-goat. Kissing them all. Let all the sins of all the kisses be upon him. For this was a sin. Kisses that had killed Shirley. Vérène was making it right, was trying to make it right. “She should have married—someone.” She should have married. Then it would have been all right. Then she wouldn’t have been a virgin, gone mad, simply, like Cassandra. Shirley was like Cassandra smitten by the sun-god. Music. Walter.
Music could kill people. Love could kill people. It was Hermione who had killed her. Hermione on May-day might have reached her. Shirley looking wan and odd, seeing that Hermione was unhappy Shirley had seen this. Hermione might have reached across, said simply, “I am so unhappy.” Hermione hadn’t done this. Hermione had killed her.
“But I killed her.” “You are mad, dear child. She fell in love with Walter. The letter made it all clear. Vérène asked me, as someone from outside to read the letter. I read it carefully. Dementia. Suicide in the family. She was obsessed with the idea of some white afterlife, words like that. I can’t remember. It was a touching document. She died of love simply.” “No. I might have helped. I was so immersed in my own idiotic little petty hurt, I couldn’t see her. She asked me to come to her house that first day, May-day, in such an odd voice. If I hadn’t been so immersed in myself, so shattered with the web of myself, I would have seen her. Myself had wound round myself so that I was like a white spider shut in by my own hideous selfishness. I should have been a bird, a sort of white star or bird winging up and up and up—I’m not religious. The Rabbs said I wasn’t. I should have been a sort of saint, a sort of flaming thing loving my martyrdom. I should have been white and clear and like a sword at the head of armies or a banner in the hands of soldiers. I should have said love is like this, see I have loved and I am a banner, a star. It would have hurt me to have said that and I didn’t want to be hurt. I was too small. I let my own petty pain wind about me. I let myself be obscured by myself and I became a white spider hidden in web, a mesh of self. A grey hideous web, I can almost see it. Fayne Rabb killed her.”
“Killing and not-killing have nothing to do with it. The letter made it all clear. She had been in love with Walter for some years. She couldn’t go on any longer with it—” “It isn’t true. It’s all lies. No one of us is in love with any one of us. What is love? A circus dancer with a white horse balancing to a fanfare on the back of a black stallion. Circus dust, spectators. What is love? A monkey in a velvet jacket r
eflected in the back of a polished hand-organ, embracing a white satyress. What is love? A parody—smoke wreathing between lilac bushes, another in a crinoline or a bustle, a dart catching a feather in a gallant hat, a march, a drum, a beating, a forgetting, a memory, I send thee Rhodocleia for thy hair—” “Astraea.” “What is Astraea? What are we all? You are the only one that said a kind word to her—” “Astraea, you exaggerate. You were very nice to her, always.” “Nice? Sheer nice as anyone might have been nice. I, with my flair for rightness, my spirit, my wings. I the thing that Walter said drew out his music, the nymph, the Dryad. I the Spirit you all talk about sat and watched another topple—topple—fall—” “Astraea. This is all wrong, morbid of you.” “I have lost faith in the thing they loved so. Walter saying I drew music out of him. What is music to a soul lost?” “It isn’t lost. Her soul isn’t—” “Plato says we are servants of the gods. No servant can neglect his work. To kill oneself is to drop out, lacking in service.” “The gods won’t look hard on her, Hermione.” “Maybe not. It’s me, I’m thinking of. What have I been doing? Where have I been? Wandering in a maze. Hermione this. Hermione that. An angel, a saint, a poet, a child. I am none of these things.”
“You are all of these things.” “I’m tired of this. I’m sick of my own attitude. What is Fayne Rabb beside this thing? It was so clean. They said she had planned it all so carefully. She left money for the maid’s taxi fare, just the right amount so that she should rush out with that letter to the Dowels. So clean. Not anything horrible. So clean under her breast. All gone. That is true love. That is true marriage. Fear gone. A white bullet—” “Hermione. This thing has upset you. Hermione . . .”
Voices down the street. Voices down the hall. Fatigue so great that she held her head up under it, above it like a drowning man gasping, gasping for breath. Herself, the immaculate image, the saint, the spirit, had been shattered for her. Forever. A white bullet had so shattered it. Intuition and fine feeling had not been fine enough to sense this. The very proximity of this other spirit. The very nearness of this authentic sister, tangled in a worse web than she was. Herself had wound about herself blinding herself to the soul’s unhappiness about her. Life had been cruel she had thought. It was herself simply who had been stupid in being so deceived by sheer appearances. Fayne on a white horse led the fantastic circus. Parade round and round a room, parade round and round a world. The whole world was girded by this fantastic procession. Monkeys in velvet jackets jibbered at her. None of the world escaped them. Venice, Prado, Spain, Holland, Dresden— Names came and went like lights flashing on a white screen. Was there no reality in all this? Names and fantastic backgrounds. America, the wilderness, the rockies. How could Americans cope with all this? How could they cope with so much having so many racial strands and counter-impulses? America had killed her.
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