“I know she was alone too much. She had got away from home. She was, we thought, so happy.” She had got away from home. Shirley had escaped and this happened. Would this happen to them all, to all of them? Darrington might help her to work and she could have something, claim something out of all this. Spain in the Californias. Strains of Dutch and Latin in their make-ups. Coming back to Europe. Flaming out like marsh-lights, brilliant with no roots. Here and there, trying to get lost. Henry James lost in Sussex marshes. One after another but she wouldn’t be lost. Henry James wasn’t really lost. Not Henry James, not Whistler, not Sargent. Lost yet not lost in London.
France was a book of beauty and of terror. Rising up to the highest attainment, Walter talking of notes in the air, beyond the air, harps. It was Walter who had killed her . . .
PART II
1
Darrington came across the room. Candles made a smudge in the distance. How far away was the other side of the room? It wavered and fell. It fell and wavered. Perhaps next time it really would fall down. “Jerrold.”
Darrington came across the room. He sat on her bed, their bed. She hadn’t really gone to bed, just piled the cushions behind her back and sat up and sat up and listened. Darrington came as he had always come at her voice, coming toward her, his head bent forward, his yellow French book half open in his hand. “Jerrold.” “Darling.” Darrington called her darling, had always called her darling, had been calling her darling forever. “Where—am I?”
“You’re right here, here right enough. Thank God we got you out of that damned nursing home.” “Yes. I forget. Keep forgetting. The funniest thing was when they stood at the end of my bed and told me about the crucified—” “Hush. Hush darling.” “Jerrold.” “Darling?” “Are there any men left, any at all in the streets, not, not in khaki?”
“Keep quiet. Don’t talk. Don’t talk about it, darling.” “I can’t think. Can’t think about anything else and yet all night (is it night?) my head has been going round and round. You remember that girl I almost forgot.” “Which girl Astraea?” “That American girl that crossed with me—when just was it?” “You mean when you first crossed, two years before the war.” “Yes two years before the war. Where was it?” “Where was what?” “Someone, something got—killed.” “Hush darling—don’t talk about killed.” “I don’t mean the nursing home. I don’t mean the horror of the nurses. I can talk of that now. I don’t mean their taking me into the cellar—while—it—was happening. I know they took me into the cellar. I know the baby was dead. I know all that. I’m not afraid of talking about it. Really Jerrold.” “Hush. Hush darling.” “I mean long ago, something happened long and long ago—the other side of a chasm. Someone. Something. A silver bullet—” “Don’t talk of bullets darling.”
“Read Browning to me.” “What just do you want dear and the room’s too dark; can’t turn on the electricity till the raid’s over.” “Read anything—your voice—it was always your voice—sometimes in the worst times, I hear your voice. I wouldn’t have minded if they hadn’t been so horrid to—you—” “Do keep still. Don’t fidget. Now rest there.” Darrington pulled the cushion to a flat plateau, lifted her by the shoulders, pushed her into the down cushions, “now don’t talk.”
“What shall I read, darling?” “That thing about Fortù—Fortù, was it? The Englishman in Italy, you know what I mean. It takes me back to Sorrento, to Ana-Capri. It makes things come right. Gaudy melon flower. I said those things over and over and over before—it—before it arrived, I was going to say. But it didn’t. I used to think I would keep all Italy, the melon flowers, the gold broom above Amalfi. It wasn’t England I loved having it. How could I have loved England? God—God—God—” “Stop talking . . . stop . . . stop, darling.” “I can’t stop talking. I’ve been quiet for weeks, all those weeks in that filthy place. They didn’t kill me anyhow. Their beastliness at least made me glad for one thing. I was glad, so glad it was killed, killed by them, by their beastliness, their constant nagging. The Queen brought Atkinson’s eau-de-cologne. But would eau-de-cologne mean anything to anyone who was having a baby, having I say a baby, while her husband was being killed in Flanders? They got exaltées, those nurses and their cheeks flushed with ardour and they said . . . O Mrs. Darrington, how lucky for you to have your husband when poor Mrs. Rawlton’s husband is actually now lying wounded . . . and Mrs. Dwight-Smith’s husband is MISSING. Their cheeks went pink with almost consumptive joy and fervour while they drove and drove and drove one toward some madness. Why isn’t Mr. Darrington in Khaki? What is khaki? Khaki killed it. They killed it. Italy died and eras amet and I send you Rhodocleia for your hair and swiftly walk o’er the western wave, spirit of night. Italy died with it— Why isn’t Mr. Darrington in khaki? Good old ecstatic baby-killers like the Huns up there. What is khaki?” “Hush hush—” “Another gun. Perhaps we’ll go this time—read Fortù.”
“Fortù, Fortù, my beloved one,
Sit here by my side.”
“Go on, go on reading. Don’t let anything stop you. Go on. It will make things come right. Go on reading. Don’t let anything stop you. After all percussion or something only broke all the upstairs windows last time . . . they may do better this time . . .”
“Pomegranates were chapping and splitting
In halves on the tree . . . straight out of the rock side
Some burnt sprig of bold hardy rock-flower . . . great
butterflies fighting, some five for one cup . . .”
“Butterflies fighting makes me forget. Funny my being alone. And it was gone, all Italy was gone. Amalfi was gone . . . Amalfi’s gone with that crash. They’re trying for Euston station but they’ve got Amalfi . . . the things one didn’t know were real, until shattered by unreality . . . guns, guns, guns, guns. Our own gun makes more noise but it rattles nicely, just over us that anti-aircraft . . . Amalfi. They’ve got Amalfi this time. The zeppelins and the anti-aircraft guns are both shattering Amalfi. Butterflies fighting, some five for one cup . . . did you say some five for one cup? Somewhere butterflies are fighting . . . but what butterfly can fight against this thing any longer? I should never have dreamed five butterflies could fight some five for one cup. And why did we come here? Because that plaster Flora was spilling her plaster basket of plaster rose rosette roses like the one (almost) on the long road to Ana-Capri. Do you remember why we took these rooms? That was why. No. Don’t speak. Hold me closer. They always try for Euston. It was because that plaster Flora spilled her plaster flowers and we remembered she was just a little like the one in the Signorina’s garden. Oranges were in flowers . . . winter blossom and winter Hebridean apples, gold winter oranges above Mediterranean water. My grandfather said of all the things he wanted to see in Europe (we always spoke of Europe in those days, not France, not England, not Germany, just Europe) was the Bay of Naples. The Bay of Naples . . . . . . that was near enough. I can’t get any exaltation out of bombs bursting. God knows I’ve conscientiously tried to do it. Perhaps it’s because I’m not English, not European. I feel Europe is splitting like that pomegranate in halves on the tree, Europe, all of it that I so love . . . how long have we been married?”
“Why do you ask that? It’s almost three years now.” “One year before the war. Italy and coming back just in time and everything broken, everyone scattered . . . everything different. Italy . . . is Italy different? But it can’t be. Italy would be the same if all the Huns of all the universe (who exactly are Huns?) should over-run it. Things now are like Gibbon. The decline and Fall. This is history, I suppose. Go on reading.”
“. . . about noon from Amalfi . . . his basket before us
All trembling alive
With pink and grey jellies, your sea-fruit . . .”
“Yes. And lizards everywhere. Flowers burnt out of rocks, like volcanic embers. Those red anemones. O yes. Everything will come right. Everything has come right. Open my heart and you will see engraved inside of it Italy. But I love France too. But I
taly is to France what a red ember is to a polished gem. Yes France is a gem polished and cold and flawless and beautiful I can’t think of men dying, only of France, la patrie a polished amethyst or some eighteenth century cameo. No, no Hun (what is a Hun anyway?) should break and steal and plunder. A pity though it’s happened. That’s because I’m not English I suppose. We always spoke of Europe. I love Europe.”
“Meantime, see the grape-bunch they’ve brought you,
The rain-water slips
O’er the heavy blue bloom on each globe
Which the wasp to your lips, still follows
Still follows with fretful persistence:
Nay taste, while awake . . .”
“I did taste . . . but it’s gone. They’ve broken it . . .”
“Next, sip this weak wine
From the thin green glass flask, with its stopper
A leaf of the vine.”
“It was you who taught me to love those things, Capri Nero, Capri Bianco, cigarettes, the pear trees against Solaro were a mass of blossom and there were prickly pear and cactus. The small goats scampered before us and there was that singular goat-herd (for a long time we thought we’d dreamed it) piping under that one clump of cool willows. Cool willows and below, so far below that one could for a breath have flung oneself down, the sea. The sea. Thalassa. Yes, it was Greece, not like Tuscany. We had Greece, having Italy.”
“The wild fruit trees bend . . .
All is silent and grave;
’Tis a sensual and timorous beauty,
How fair but a slave.
So I turned to the sea . . .”
“So I turned to the sea. Do you remember? I went first. You were heavier. You were surprised and I loved plaguing you. You had only seen me in London and in Paris and you had no idea what I was like really. You found what I was like really. I think it frightened you. Open my heart and you will see engraved inside of it Italy. How could I have known, loving France, loving England that I would love so much better, Italy? France is a polished gem, a priceless intaglio, England is a great wide rose spread just before its falling, Italy is a live ember burning the hearts of men.”
Now why must he do this? Why must he do this? She might have known he would do this, clutching her in his arms, the moment she was happy with him. Everything had come clear talking of Italy. Images smudged, as it were, on a square of thick glass were smudged out by this Sirocco rain they read of. Italy and the talk of Italy had washed out the black, dark grey and khaki-coloured images. Khaki images were splashed like mud across the clear window of her mind and now the clear images of beauty, the gaudy melon flower, the rock islets showed clear. She looked through her mind into a far country. Pays lointain . . . pro patria. She looked through a clear glass far and far and just before her as if the wall of the room had parted, she was looking through between columns (the two sides of the enormous book-case) into a fair country, rocks, the silver lentisk, the white plaques of sea-rosemary, a flute in the distance and the lines of Theocritus. Why must Darrington now spoil it? Hadn’t she had enough? Months and months of waiting and now this. Now this, this curious weakness and this reward of weakness; the mind clarified past all recognition, herself gazing through her mind into a fair country. There was no wind. The sea so far below gave no sound. A boy far and far and far was pulling a boat and colours familiar through cheap water colours all their lives took vivid form, were prismatic colours seen through crystal. The walls of cone-shaped Vesuvius and the jagged edge of Capri, the wall that was Capri was rising out of the sea, an island, a Greek island, the island where Odysseus heard the Syren voices. Little plots of earth set like bright rugs on the vertical island mountain, were bright marigolds, and clumps of early winter flowering irises. Irises, white, yellow, blue and lavender. Marguerites growing in enormous balls of white flower made the immaculate white walls a shade more subtle—shell grey. Oranges were flowering and against citron flowers great globes of ripe fruit, rocks and the crevices and the slopes of trees and flax flowers laid like rugs, true gardens of the Hesperides. A church bell (a cathedral bell) was ringing and it was Easter. “Do you remember that odd poor Christ we said looked like Adonis?” Darrington remembered, but he didn’t really care as she cared. He was living in the present and its terror.
Why didn’t he go then if he felt like this? He said he would wait now for conscription, he was dead sick of hypocrisy and can’t his “gov’nor” try to get him into a snobby regiment for the family kudos. Family. Kudos. But she was sick, so weak that she only wanted him to go, to go away somewhere, somehow quickly. Everyone took it out on her, would do when she got a little stronger. Nurses bending over her . . . watching her . . . asking . . . no, no. It was impossible. There was no such criminal cruelty in any world, never never in England. She had dreamed a horrible dream and reality was different. Reality that she looked at, propped on the heavy cushions while the guns went on, went on, went on, was something very different. Guns dropped sound like lead-hail and if the guns were quiet they might hear some more pertinent manifestation. One like last time, an enormous shattering, breaking and tearing . . . guns over-head were better though they dropped lead hail that beat and seared her brain, brought pain back to her consciousness. “O Mrs. Darrington. Everything’s arranged beautifully. There is at the moment, only one other—in— your—state.” Only two of them. Only two of them waiting. But the other woman had a husband in France so they were nicer to her. O God. Why isn’t my husband in France? Guns, guns, guns. Let him at least have the decency to leave me, let me lie here listening. I love listening. Maybe the next one will crash on us. Then I will go simply through the two tall columns (two upright edges of the enormous book-case) into a land that claims me. Patriotism. “There was that Austrian poet at Corpo di Cava, do you remember?” Darrington remembered but there was an odd wide glare to his eyes. He was thinking like those nurses of the cellar.
“Darling wouldn’t it be better—in—your—condition—” “No. No. No. I can’t go downstairs with all the other people. At least it’s cool here and so quiet—” “Quiet?” “I mean with you—yes—quiet—” She wasn’t with Darrington really, not here. But how explain it to him? His eyes went wide, vacant. He didn’t dare think about it. O God don’t let his eyes go vacant, then he’ll spoil it, then he’ll bend and kiss me. Why can’t we be happy? Why can’t I just remember?
“But you don’t care?” “Darling. You—know—I—do—” Guns were quiet. Tea steamed into her face and she drank the fumes of the tea like some drug fiend, the scent of drug. Tea smelt of far sweet hours, of afternoons of all the happy little times they’d had together. Darrington had made the tea while she lay listening. He was nice, did nice things. She supposed he really did care, had been sorry. It’s so hard for a man to say such things. He knew it hurt her to talk about the baby. She supposed he had cared. He wouldn’t have let her go through it, almost a year and her mind glued down, broken, and held back like a wild bird caught in bird-lime. The state she had been in was a deadly crucifixion. Not one torture (though God that had been enough) but months and months when her flaming mind beat up and she found she was caught, her mind not taking her as usual like a wild bird but her mind-wings beating, beating and her feet caught, her feet caught, glued like a wild bird in bird-lime. Darrington hadn’t known this. No one had known this. No one would ever know it for there were no words to tell it in. How tell it? You can’t say this, this . . . but men will say O she was a coward, a woman who refused her womanhood. No, she hadn’t. But take a man with a flaming mind and ask him to do this. Ask him to sit in a dark cellar and no books . . . but you mustn’t. You can’t. Women can’t speak and clever women don’t have children. So if a clever woman does speak, she must be mad. She is mad. She wouldn’t have had a baby, if she hadn’t been. Darrington had said he would “take care of her.” Did they always say that? Darrington had said he would take . . . but he was, he had made the tea, had brought her the tea. He had been reading Browning and the words had c
leared her mind, swept away horrors like clean rain on a mud spattered window. Darrington had read her,
Next sip this weak wine
From the thin green glass flask, with its stopper,
A leaf of the vine.
Words had fused with her horror and the memories that weren’t real, like a drug. Words were a drug. Darrington had given her this drug.
Darrington had given her words and the ability to cope with words, to write words. People had been asking her (just before the war) for poems, had written saying her things had power, individuality, genius. Darrington had done this. Therefore she must remember, try to remember, try to be things she had been before the war—no before it started. The world was caught as she had been caught. The whole world was breaking and breaking for some new spirit. Men were dying as she had almost died to the sound (as she had almost died) of gun-fire. Guns, guns, guns, guns. Thank God for that. The guns had made her one in her suffering with men—men—men— She had not suffered ignobly like a woman, a bird with wings caught, for she was alone and women weren’t left alone to suffer. There were always doctors, and mothers, and grand-mothers. She had been alone . . . alone . . . no, there were nurses. No there weren’t nurses. Nurses had all run upstairs to get the others to bring the others . . . babies were crying . . . ghastly mistake . . . some doctor . . . and guns . . . but there were guns in France and she was in France for women didn’t suffer this way. She was suffering for two, for herself and Darrington. Darrington had refused suffering . . . “O no, Jerrold. Don’t let them push you in now. Wait decently for conscription.”
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