Flowers Stained With Moonlight

by Catherine Shaw

  The girl at the window is not playing the game, is not aware of any game; has never, perhaps, heard that one must hide one’s thoughts; has, perhaps, no thoughts to hide, but contents herself with existing, with the quiet inexorable strength of being which defies reason and effort and purpose.

  The lilies of the field toil not, neither do they spin.

  Why struggle, why hope and strain and worry, why weary oneself with vain attempts? Why play the cosmic game?

  ‘Camilla, Camilla, what are you doing, dear? They’re beginning to dance, won’t you go?’

  She awakens, startled, out of her reverie, and transfers her gaze with difficulty to her hostess, standing in front of her. It is a moment where nothing but truth is possible.

  ‘I was wondering who the girl at the window is,’ she says, so directly that her hostess raises her eyebrows, but she turns and glances.

  ‘Oh, her. That’s Sylvia Bryce-Fortescue, the daughter of an old school friend of mine. Now look at her; what is she doing? Isn’t she impossible! I shall fetch her at once.’

  Camilla gazes fascinated, her heart pinched. Will the idol fall, smashed? Will the girl stand up, unfold her fan, laugh, dance, blink up into her partner’s face? Mrs Clemming is blind; all people are alike to her. Cogs in her large, well-oiled machine, they must be made to behave. She is talking to Sylvia, smiling and beckoning, but her tone is cross. Sylvia turns her face from the gathering darkness to the glittering room. Camilla cannot hear the words. The scene passes silently in front of her, and she is afraid, afraid of losing what she has just found. The unknown girl will not, cannot possibly resist the order to come, to move, to dance, to mingle, to talk, to eat an ice. She is rising, she is following her hostess. They are approaching the place where Camilla is still standing.

  ‘Here’s Camilla Wright. She was asking about you,’ says Mrs Clemming brightly, thrusting Sylvia forward. ‘Camilla, this is Sylvia, the daughter of an old friend of mine, as I told you, just up from the country for the season. I’m sure you two girls will be friends. You’re the same age, aren’t you? Both eighteen, like my Helen. Camilla, see that Sylvia spends a nice evening, show her about, will you, dear? She’s a little lost here tonight.’

  And she moves away, leaving Camilla in front of her lily, her idol, whose whole expression and demeanour are exactly as before; even now, as she stands and moves and speaks, she is surrounded by an aura of silent stillness. Her smiles and words are not those of other people, masks in front of their true faces; her smiles and words spring unconsciously and directly from the inner source of still power. And Camilla takes her arm, and searches for expression, and speaks it slowly.

  ‘You were looking at the terrace. It is very pretty in the moonlight. Would you like to take a turn?’

  III. Obsession

  Camilla cannot think about anything else. The colours of the days of this season, this social season during which Camilla was to come out, to enter into the great world, to see and be seen, to marry and be married, are now determined exclusively by a single factor. The days where she is not to see Sylvia are dove grey, wrapped in felt. They have their beauty, those empty days; they have the quietness of waiting and the secret excitement of using them to build the self into something greater than before, something that can charm and conquer her. Yet the mystery is how to set about it, how to be worthy of Sylvia, for Sylvia does not care about worth; not moral worth, nor riches, nor sparkling intelligence, nor beauty. What, then, does she want? She wants nothing, is content, is not even content, but quite simply, is. And so Camilla spends the empty days seeking the words and gestures with which she can transmit this most fragile and delicate of all notions: love, that which reaches and enfolds and protects without spoiling or crushing even the tiniest petal.

  Then there are the diamond days, when she knows that this evening, she will enter, somewhere, some house, and search in the crowded room until her eyes, irresistibly attracted, locate the slender figure, who, with the passing of time, has become less solitary; indeed she is always surrounded by young men and dances nearly all the dances, yet she has not lost an iota of her original quietness. On those days, from early in the morning, Camilla watches herself, observes herself like an outsider, bursting with verve and laughing too much, eating nothing and looking constantly in the mirror; hears herself saying eagerly,

  ‘Oh, tonight’s party is sure to be wonderful! The Mannings are such marvellous hosts!’ –

  – and doesn’t know whether to be annoyed or amused.

  Worst are the black days where Camilla must go to some party, some fête, some ball, not knowing whether Sylvia will be there or not. On those days, Camilla frets and counts the hours in spite of herself. She hates it, stamps her foot alone in her room, argues to herself that such frenzy can have no good effect, is merely foolish, wearying and wasteful, snatches up a book and glares at the pages, walks with great strides up and down the avenues, buys white flowers for her dark hair, and finally, lies on her bed, dreaming, dreaming the hours away, until finally she is late, not yet dressed, and her body seems heavy as lead. The effort of rising, dressing and crossing the streets of the city seems beyond human strength. And sometimes, the hope of seeing Sylvia pushes her through these gestures like a rusty automaton, rewarded by the gift of life if Sylvia is present after all, whereas on certain other days she pleads a headache and falls asleep, a heavy sleep, tormented with strange dreams like lush tropical flowers, which seize her like a prisoner until morning, leaving her wearier than when she lay down.

  If she could only penetrate Sylvia’s opacity. But Sylvia does not seek to understand the minds of others any more than a flower does, as it stands in its spot, spreading its green leaves in the sunshine.

  ‘There’s a soirée at the Kinnocks the day after tomorrow,’ Camilla says to her tentatively. ‘You know them, don’t you? So I expect you’ll be there.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sylvia answers, and her answer gives no sign: I don’t know – it can mean a thousand things, hint a thousand desires, hide or reveal an infinity of thoughts, be garnished, like a dish, with smiles or frowns, dimples or eyelashes. But Sylvia’s words are as plain as school cooking; quite literally, she does not know, and there is nothing further to be said.

  ‘How can you not know? Haven’t you an agenda?’

  ‘Mrs Clemming arranges everything for me,’ she says, and again, one could seek in vain the meaning behind her words; is she annoyed, does she find it silly, or on the contrary, does the arrangement suit her perfectly?

  ‘Can’t you ask her? I’ll only come if you do,’ the words are on the tip of Camilla’s tongue, poised, ready to slip off; and yet no, it is impossible. One does not speak to Sylvia in hints. So Camilla goes to see Mrs Clemming, sitting in her corner, following her daughter Helen with her eyes.

  ‘The Kinnocks, yes of course. Why, naturally. Oh, Sylvia, I don’t know, I really don’t! She’s such a very difficult girl, changes her mind without notice, has no idea how annoying it can be. I wash my hands of her. She can come or not, as she likes. But Helen will be there.’ And she watches her daughter intently, and Camilla follows her gaze, staring uncomfortably at the hefty girl standing alone at the refreshment table, while Sylvia cannot get away from three young men who clamour for the next dance and seem not at all put out by her inability to banter, quite the contrary. So Camilla remains in the same position as before, thinking of the following Thursday, knowing that she will suffer, not knowing how to avoid it, tormented by the desire to exert pressure on Sylvia, to exact a promise from her, yet knowing that it would serve no purpose at all, that her promises would slip away from her as innocently as clouds floating across the sky.

  For promises are binding, and Sylvia cannot be bound.

  IV. The Kiss

  Camilla no longer knows exactly when the idea first took shape within her, exactly how it eventually came to take her psyche prisoner. When she thinks back, she perceives a myriad of fragmented origins.

  She is stan
ding quite far from Sylvia; she still hardly knows her, but she watches her across the heads and shoulders of a cheerfully swirling crowd. A young man is talking to Sylvia, earnestly, intensely. Camilla is far too distant to be able to hear or even guess at what he is saying. Sylvia listens quietly, motionlessly. The young man leans towards her a little more, then suddenly bends so that his face approaches hers. Camilla is transfixed.

  ‘If he kisses her, I’ll strangle him.’

  The thought flashes through her mind so quickly she has no time to note it. Already the young man has straightened up. He is shaking Sylvia’s hand cordially, he seems to be taking his leave. He is walking away, he is gone. Camilla feels suddenly safe and yet fustigates herself for such ridiculousness.

  Camilla is walking alone under the trees, on the lane which runs along the little, sparkling stream. The place is absurdly right for lovers, and indeed, all the other occupants of the lane seem to be grouped in pairs; gloved hands linked under arms, parasols hanging from wrists. Only Camilla is alone. She has given herself a task: she will walk a mile up the stream, and a mile back down, and she will count the minutes it takes her, walking slowly. As slowly as possible, for the goal of the game is to cheat time, to make it move along, to push it faster than its present crawl. She advances slowly, and crosses couples passing in the other direction. Look at this young girl coming towards her now. Slender and pale, she could be Sylvia, but is not; she is with a young man, she is hanging on his arm, her face is turned up to his. He looks down at her patronisingly.

  ‘You’ll see then, sweet,’ he is saying as they pass Camilla, ‘by this time next year we’ll be married and you’ll be the mistress of your own home.’ The girl simpers, and Camilla wants to scream. Look at him – all the charm of feminine youth clinging to his arm, and he talks to her as though to some tame pet. Ah, if Camilla were in his place, she could tear through clothes and flesh with her breath, with her eyes, and there would be no room for idle talk within the flame of her passion. She would not speak in words, she would speak in kisses. And her body feels tense with the strain of passing, turning her head away, and continuing her walk, slowly, in rhythm, one step after another, under the arching willow branches which dangle their tips, loose and abandoned, into the endless lapping caresses of the water.

  Or they are walking together, arm in arm, during one of those moments stolen from the duties imposed upon them; those duties which consist, essentially, in displaying the self like merchandise for sale, to best advantage. They have slipped out, as they quite often manage to do, sometimes for just a few minutes, sometimes for the better part of the evening. They are strolling across the garden tinged with moonlight, and everything seems abnormally beautiful to Camilla, as grass and trees, sky and stars breathe their magic headily forth. Sylvia’s face glows softly in the darkness, a pale dim vision, yet its warm life radiates and Camilla knows that she is going to stop everything, stop the world in its tracks, seize that face between her hands and drown it in the kisses that have been restrained for so long – she knows she will do it, except for this one obstacle: she knows she will not do it. The fear of frightening away forever something as wild and uncontrollable as a fawn, of sending it scampering back eternally into the shadows of outer darkness – is stronger than even such desire.

  Or so she tells herself, as the days slip by, until, without her being at first aware of it, new little thoughts begin to emerge, like droplets forming on a cold surface. For she sees Sylvia differently now, sees more deeply into her nature, begins to understand the ineffable femininity of her. She is the slender creature for whom great stags battle in duels, crashing their antlers together until one of them lopes away, defeated. She is the Sabine seized by the desperate Roman in his thirst for woman, the trophy awarded to the conquering hero, seated unresisting within the circle of his arm. Sylvia need not be conquered nor persuaded nor convinced. She is there for the taking, like a glass of sweet wine.

  If I don’t take her, someone else will.

  And the evening comes when Camilla prepares her mind, her dress, her words, her gestures, reflects for hours on the very nature of what she is about to do, hesitates between the endless languor of something infinitely long and warm, or a lightning stroke, brutal and blinding.

  And in the end it is so simple.

  Sylvia melts in her arms with a small, secret smile. She is not angry, not shocked, not even surprised, yet neither is she worldly-wise, nor had she expected anything. She is just flower-like Sylvia, preserving her quiet mystery intact in spite of the snatching and seizing and plucking and bruising. The ultimate possession, ultimately unpossessable.

  V. Marriage

  And now, just as she thought she had reached the haven of security, Camilla finds herself more storm-tossed than ever. Mad with desire, obsessed with discoveries renewed every day, seeking endlessly to penetrate Sylvia’s secret, leaving no stone unturned, no place untouched, like a drinker of vinegar, never quenched, only inflamed.

  And she is invaded by nameless doubts. Sylvia is like a landscape of shifting sands, she thinks, and tries to tear reassurance from her with words. Her light-heartedness is torture.

  ‘I wish I could marry you, Sylvia.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Because I want you for myself for ever and ever.’

  ‘Marriage has nothing to do with that.’

  ‘If I married you I would keep you prisoner and tie you up and lock you in and visit you every night.’

  ‘Do it anyway.’

  But Camilla can’t. It has something to do with the eyes of the world.

  Marriage looms thick in the air that Mrs Clemming breathes.

  ‘Sylvia, they’re trying to marry you off!’

  ‘Of course. They’re trying to marry you off, too.’

  ‘I’ll never marry.’

  ‘It’s easy for you. You’ve a castle of your own and something to live on. I don’t.’

  Camilla doesn’t dare to tell her that she doesn’t have a castle, not really. Not forever.

  ‘But you don’t want to marry, do you?’

  ‘I don’t want to, but what I want doesn’t matter at all, it never has.’

  ‘It matters to me! I want you to do what you want.’

  ‘I don’t know what I want.’

  ‘Ah, because you haven’t lived yet. Come – let me show you, and then you’ll know what you want forever and ever.’

  It is hopeless. Nothing will bind Sylvia, not even her own desires. Abandoned in Camilla’s arms, a secret little half-smile on her lips, she says as though the previous conversation had never been interrupted,

  ‘Yes, but Mother won’t agree. If I don’t marry, we’ll have nothing to live on, and Mother will have to give up the house.’

  ‘You traitress – you want to get married, don’t you?’

  ‘No, I don’t. I don’t care.’

  ‘Sylvia, don’t you understand – if you had a husband, he would want to take – what’s mine, only mine.’

  She merely shrugs.

  ‘I’d never let a husband do anything I didn’t want to.’

  ‘Oh, heavens,’ Camilla says, staring up at the sky.

  VI. Absence

  The branches of the trees are darker grey against the grey sky, and the new leaves tremble colourlessly. Camilla sits on the tow path staring at them, counting the passing seconds, the passing minutes, the slowly shifting and passing clouds.

  Sylvia has left London. She had enough of parties, enough of balls, enough of coming out, enough of Helen, so she went home. Quite simply went home, Mrs Clemming said, with mingled resentment and satisfaction.

  Elle n’en fait qu’à sa tête, Camilla says. She is right, and I am wrong. If she wants to do a thing, she does it. If she doesn’t like it, she drops it. She can no more force herself than a plant – and why should she?

  Her mind wanders over the subject, trying to dull pain by curiosity. Why do we insist, labour, struggle, so stupidly? We want the end and dislike the
means – is that it? Yet no. Camilla does not desire the end which looms before her.

  Then what do I want?

  She wants Sylvia, nothing else. Her arms ache with absence, with emptiness. And if it were just the secret union of their souls, of their lips, of their hands … But she knows already that it would not be enough. Ah, she wants more, she wants to walk in the streets, her head high, Sylvia on her arm – she wants a banner to proclaim her possession, a burning brand to mark her publicly.

  Why? It’s stupid, she thinks. Why offend everyone? Why not be satisfied with the sweetness of clandestinity? Why long for public recognition? She grinds her teeth.