Dusty Answer

by Rosamond Lehmann

  ‘Rather!’

  He was happy again.

  She called after him:

  ‘And Martin, I’m sorry I was cross.’

  ‘My fault,’ came his ringing cheerful voice; and his engine started and he departed with a roar and a rush.

  Alone in the dark she stood still and contemplated the appalling image of Roddy risen up again, mockingly asserting that only he was real; that his power to give himself or withhold himself was as the power of life and death.

  It was urgent, now, to find Jennifer quickly. She was in her room, lying on the floor, staring at the flicker of firelight over her yellow velvet frock.

  ‘Oh Jennifer!’

  Judith sank down beside her, burying her face in her lap.

  ‘Darling.’

  ‘I’m not very happy tonight. It’s a mood. I think I don’t feel very well. And the night seems so sad and uneasy, with this wind. Don’t you feel it?’

  Jennifer put out her hands and clasped them round Judith’s face, gazing at her sombrely.

  ‘What has he said to you?’ she whispered.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That Martin.’

  ‘Nothing. It’s nothing to do with him.’

  ‘You love somebody, I think. Who is it you love?’

  ‘I love nobody.’

  Jennifer must never never know, suspect, dream for a moment …

  ‘You mustn’t love anybody,’ said Jennifer. ‘I should want to kill him. I should be jealous.’ Her brooding eyes fell heavily on Judith’s lifted face. ‘I love you.’

  And at those words, that look, Roddy faded again harmlessly: Jennifer blinded and enfolded her senses once more, and only Jennifer had power.

  When the longer days came and Martin wrote to ask her to come for a walk one Sunday, she had another engagement and regretfully refused; and after that he wrote to tell her to bring a friend to a river picnic with him and another young man. She brought Jennifer; and Jennifer flirted broadly with the other young man; and the picnic was not a success.

  After that the year closed without sight or sign of him; and she forgot to care.

  6

  Gradually Judith and Jennifer drew around them an outer circle of about half a dozen; and these garnered for conversation in Jennifer’s room every evening. That untidy luxuriant room, flickering with firelight, smelling of oranges and chrysanthemums, was always tacitly chosen as a meeting-place; for something of the magnetism of its owner seemed to be diffused in it, spreading a glow, drawing tired heads and bodies there to be refreshed.

  Late into the night they sat about or lay on the floor, smoked, drank cocoa, ate buns, discussed – earnestly, muddle-headedly – sex, philosophy, religion, sociology, people and politics; then people and sex again. Judith sat in a corner and watched the firelight caress and beautify their peaceful serious faces; talked a great deal suddenly now and then, and then was silent again, dreaming and wondering.

  Even the most placid and commonplace faces looked tragic, staring into the fire, lit by its light alone. They were all unconscious; and she herself could never be unconscious. Around her were these faces, far away and lost from themselves, brooding on nothing; and there was she, as usual, spectator and commentator, watching them over – curiously, ready to pounce on a passing light, a flitting shade of expression, to ponder and compare and surmise; whispering to herself: ‘Here am I watching, listening. Here are faces, forms, rooms with their own life, noise of wind and footsteps, light and shadow. What is this mystery? …’ And even in her futile thoughts never quite stepping over the edge and staring mindlessly and being wholly unaware.

  They broke up at last with sighs and yawns, lingered, drifted away little by little. Judith was left alone with Jennifer.

  ‘One more cigarette,’ she suggested.

  ‘Well, just one.’

  Jennifer let down her hair and brushed it out, holding it along her arm, watching it shimmer in the firelight with an engrossed stare, as if she never could believe it was part of her.

  Always Jennifer. It was impossible to drink up enough of her; and a day without her was a day with the light gone.

  Jennifer coming into a room and pausing on the threshold, head up, eyes wide open, darting round, dissatisfied until they found you. That was an ever fresh spring of secret happiness. Jennifer lifting you in her arms and carrying you upstairs, because she said you looked tired and were such a baby and too lovely anyway to walk upstairs like other people.

  Jennifer basking in popularity, drawing them all to her with a smile and a turn of the head, doing no work, breaking every rule, threatened with disgrace, plunged in despair; emerging the next moment new-bathed in radiance, oblivious of storm and stress.

  Jennifer dispensing her hospitality with prodigal and careless ease, recklessly generous in public and in secret, flashing the glow of her magnetism suddenly into unlit and neglected lives, allowing them to get warm for a little, and then light-heartedly forgetting them. But never forgetting Judith – or not for long; and coming back always to sit with her alone, and drop all masks and love her silently, watchfully with her eyes.

  Jennifer singing Neapolitan folk-songs to a be-ribboned guitar. Where she had picked up the airs, the language, the grace and fascination of her manner, no one knew. But when she sat by the window with bright streamers falling over her lap, singing low to her soft accompaniment, then, each time, everyone fell madly in love with her.

  Jennifer chattering most when she was tired, or depressed, her words tripping over each other, her absurd wit sparkling, her laugh frequent and excited: so silent, so still when she was happy that she seemed hypnotized, her whole consciousness suspended to allow the happiness to flow in.

  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: ‘Oh 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 lumière 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 acc
eptance 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 today. 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 endeavouring 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 check.

  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.

  ‘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 tomorrow 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 tomorrow 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 anyone 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 tendings!’ 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 lovely,’ Jennifer said watching her.

  They swam in cool water in a deep circular pool swept round with willow, 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 tomorrow 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 entirely 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 bud whisper; and all of them stared, stared as they passed.