Heritage

by Vita Sackville-West

  ‘I came up to her. Her black skin was glistening with moisture, and her vast body rocked and swayed about inside her gaudy magenta wrapper; I suspected it of being her only covering. Still, I almost loved her as with a chatter of Turkish she produced a great black arm and hand out of the folds of her mashlak — a fat black hand so ludicrously like Mrs Pennistan’s fat white one, holding a little packet which she tendered to me.

  ‘I summoned my Turkish to thank her; this called forth a deluge of conversation on her part, with much shining of teeth and clattering of bangles, but I shook my head regretfully, and she, heaving her huge shoulders and displaying her palms in equivalent regret, turned herself round and started on the easier downward road to Ayasalouk. Could Ruth but have seen this voluminous magenta emissary! for the packet I held was indeed from Ruth and bore the Weald postmark.

  ‘I sat down by the roadside to open it. The seeds were there, and a letter, written in a round, Board-school hand, accompanied them. I was suddenly unable to read; it was the first word, remember, that had come to me from her since that memorable day. I was more than moved; I was shaken, like a tree in the wind.

  ‘I read:

  ‘ “Vale Farm, Weald,

  “15 IV. 22.

  ‘ “DEAR MR MALORY — Yours to hand, and enclosed please find mignonette seeds as requested. I hope they will do well in your garden. Our garden was baked hard in the drowt last summer, but hope we will have more favourable weather this year. My husband and the boys are well, and send their respects. Well, must stop now as have no more news. Hoping this finds you well, I am,

  ‘“Yours obediently,

  ‘“R. WESTMACOTT.”

  ‘That was her letter — I have it here to copy, old and worn and torn — and in its stiff conventionality, its pathetically absurd phraseology, it seemed to tear my heart into little fluttering ribbons. Anything less like her I couldn’t conceive, yet she was indescribably revived to me; I saw her bending, square-elbowed, over that bit of paper, hesitating when she came to the word “drought,” deciding wrong, tipping up the octagonal, penny bottle of ink which hadn’t much ink left in it; I saw her getting the seeds, making up the parcel, copying “Ephesus” conscientiously from my letter. You may think me sentimental; it was the only tangible thing I had of hers.

  ‘MacPherson met me at the top of the path.

  ‘“Letters?” he said.

  ‘“Not for you, but I’ve got the mignonette seed.”

  ‘He looked puzzled.

  ‘“The what?” Heavens! the man had forgotten! “Oh, yes, I remember,” he said; “let’s go and put it in.”

  ‘I had got ready a prepared seed-bed, where I think I had broken up every lump of earth, however insignificant, with my own fingers, and here I sowed Ruth’s packet of seed. I sowed it with the solemnity of a priest sacrificing at the altar. MacPherson looked on as was his wont, unaware of anything special in the occasion, and rather impatient to get to breakfast.

  ‘In a few weeks’ time the plants began to show; I watered them, and cherished them, thinned them out, put wire round them, treated them as never was hardy annual treated before. Soon the fragrant thing was all round our doorstep. I felt like a prisoner tending the plant between the flag-stones of his prison, or like Isabella with her pot of Basil. I laughed at myself, but still I continued my cult, and the nightly watering of the flowers throughout the hot summer became to me a species of ritual.

  ‘You used to call me a pagan; that’s as it may be, but anyway I dedicated my whole garden to Ruth, growing my flowers in her honour, enlarging my plot, planting the hillside outside the fence with broom and wild things, till the whole place was rich and blooming. This labour gave me the greatest satisfaction. My dreadful hungry craving for her living presence was momentarily lulled and I returned to that happier frame of mind when, as I described to you, I was content to live in the imagination. I could set her up now as a kind of idealised vision of all that was beautiful, all that was desirable. She was the deity of my garden, almost the deity of the great temple where I laboured. I should think MacPherson would have half killed me had I hinted this to him.

  ‘I was happy again, and in the next spring I got Ruth to send me out some more seeds from her own garden. With them came another stilted little note, but this time there was a postscript: was I ever coming back to England? That disturbed me terribly; I knew it contained no double meaning, for I knew perfectly well that Ruth would never leave her children to come away with me, but at the same time it stirred up my sleeping desire to see England again. I analysed this, and found that I didn’t in the least want to see England; I only wanted to see Ruth. This frightened and distressed me; I had been so calm, so comparatively happy, and here a few idle words had thrown me into a state of emotional confusion. The ruins seemed odious to me that day, my garden seemed a mockery, and in the evening I said to MacPherson,—

  ‘“I am afraid I must go away.”

  ‘He said, “Oh?’ less in a tone of dismay than of polite inquiry, and, as usual, of acceptance.

  ‘“I am getting restless here,” I said, “but if I go and stretch my limbs a bit I shall be better; I will come back.”

  ‘“All right,” he answered, as though there were no more to be said on the matter.

  ‘“That is, if you want me,” I added, provoked.

  ‘“Naturally I shall be glad to see you whenever you choose to come back,” he said, without a trace of emotion or cordiality in his tone.

  Chapter Four

  Before I left I made arrangements with the Albanian to look after my garden during my absence; much as I hated leaving it to other hands I felt that I must get away or I should begin to scream upon the hills of Ephesus. I went down to Smyrna without much idea of what I should do after that, but when I got there I found a ship bound for Baku, so, thinking I might as well go there as anywhere else, I got on board and we sailed that night. I don’t want to give you a tedious account of my journey; I will only tell you that it did me all the good in the world, and that I walked up to Ephesus one evening in the late autumn with my toothbrush in my pocket and real home-coming excitement in my heart. There was the little house; there was my garden, showing quite a fair amount of colour for the time of year; there was MacPherson sitting outside, gravely playing his interminable Patience. The puppy — puppy no longer, but a dog of almost inconceivable ugliness — rushed out barking, and seized the ankle of my trousers in its joy. MacPherson looked up.

  ‘“Hallo,” he said. “Evening.”

  ‘“Evening,” I replied, and sat down.

  ‘“I believe this Patience is coming out,” he said presently.

  ‘“Is it?” I answered, vastly amused.

  ‘“Yes,” said MacPherson, “if I could only get the three I should do it. Ah!” and he made a little pounce, and shifted some cards. “Done it,” he announced in a tone of mild triumph, adding regretfully, “now it won’t come out again for at least a week.”

  ‘“That’s a pity,” I said. “Yes,” he replied, “I reckon it comes out about once in every hundred times. Garden’s all right, isn’t it?”

  ‘“Splendid,” I said; “I was just looking at it. How’s your digging?”

  ‘“That’s all right, too. Glad you’re back.”

  ‘I was surprised at this and gratified, but my gratification was damped when his obvious train of thought had occurred to me.

  ‘“Ready to work tomorrow?” he asked, confirming my suspicion.

  ‘“Rather.”

  ‘“That’s all right,” he said again.

  ‘He did not ask me where I had been, and I thought I would not volunteer it, but after a day or two I did.

  ‘“I went to the Caucasus,” I said.

  ‘He answered, “Oh.” I was not offended, only greatly amused; he was a perpetual joy to me, that man.
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  ‘I took up my life again very much where I had left it, and now again a change came about in my thoughts; they were constantly occupied with Ruth and with that examination I had so long put off, of her relations with her husband. As the story which I shall presently tell you will make them quite clear to you — if anything so involved can ever be made quite clear — I shall not bore you now with my own conjectures. It is quite bad enough that I should bore you with my own life, but you will agree that I couldn’t say to you. “Now ten years passed,” without giving you the slightest idea of my movements during those ten years. Those ten years, you see, are my little Odyssey; I look back on them now, and I see them in that light, but while they lasted I naturally didn’t look on them as a poetic spell out of my life; no, I looked on them as a sample of what my life would be till it came to the simplest of all ends: death. I supposed that I should stay at Ephesus with MacPherson till he got tired of excavating, which I knew would never happen, or till I got tired of excavating, which I thought was much more likely, or till the authorities turned us out. After that I didn’t know what I should do, but I thought, so far as I ever thought about it at all, that something would turn up in much the same way as the boat at Smyrna had turned up to take me to Baku. What did occasionally exercise my mind was the question whether I should ever see England again? If I couldn’t have Ruth I didn’t want to go to England; it would be a torment to know her so near; but on the other hand I foresaw that as an old man of seventy I should not want to be still knocking about the world or excavating at Ephesus. The ravens would have to provide. Why make plans? Fate only steps in and upsets them. How angry I used to make you by talking about Fate, do you remember?

  ‘Meanwhile my Odyssey continued, and I found that every year my restlessness returned to me, so that sooner or later the moment always came when I said to MacPherson,—

  ‘“I am afraid I shall have to go away tomorrow,” and he replied invariably,—

  ‘“Oh? All right.”

  ‘I went to all manner of places, but never to England, and always in the autumn I returned to Ephesus to find MacPherson there unchanged, always glad to see me because of my help in his work, and in all those years he never once asked me where I had been to. I forget now myself where I went, except that I never once went anywhere near England, much as I wanted to go, because I knew the temptation would be too strong for me. This journey of mine became thus an annual institution. There was another annual institution of which MacPherson knew only the outer and less important part; this was the arrival of seeds from England, with Ruth’s little letter attached; I came to know all her phrases, which revolved with the years in a cycle: she hoped the seeds would do well with me; her garden had been dried up, or washed out, as the case might be, the previous summer – there is never a perfect summer for a gardener, just as there is never a perfect day for a fisherman; her children were well and sent their respects, varied by love; her husband was well too; she must stop as she had no more news, or as the post was going. Occasionally she ended up, “In great haste,” though what the haste could be in that leisurely life I failed to imagine.

  ‘I came to look for this letter in my year as the devout man looks for a feast-day; it was, so to speak, my Easter. My little packet grew, that much-travelled little packet, which went with me on all my pilgrimages. I wondered whether she cherished my letters, over in England, as I cherished hers at Ephesus? In the meantime she was there, in the house I knew, living through these years in a calm monotony which was a consolation to me, because I could so well imagine it; I could call up a picture of her, in fact, at practically any moment of the day, for what variation could there be to her quotidian round of cooking, housework, washing, sewing? This was, I say, a pleasant reflection to me, though I was enraged to think that her care and labour should be expended upon another man and another man’s children. A placid existence, broken only by the calving of cows, the farrowing of swine, the gathering in of crops . . . And I at Ephesus!

  ‘MacPherson never spared me my share of the work, and a hard taskmaster he was, as hard to himself as to me. In the summer we breakfasted soon after the dawn had begun to creep into the sky, then with pick and mattock we trudged to the ruins, there to toil until the heat of the sun glaring upon the quantities of white marble which lay about us drove us indoors until evening. MacPherson was always very grudging and resentful with regard to this enforced siesta. In fact he would not admit it as a siesta, but affected to consider it merely as a variation of work, and would remain below in our little sitting-room, turning over for the thousandth time his scraps and fragments of glass, pottery, and other rubbish, while I lay on my bed upstairs damning the mosquitoes and trying to go to sleep. No sooner had I dozed off than I would be aroused by MacPherson’s remorseless voice calling up to know if I was ready. Evening in the ruins I did not mind so much; a little breeze often sprang up from the sea, and I had the prospect of an hour’s gardening immediately in front of me. On the whole I was happy in those hours of toil. Living in my thoughts, and sparing just the bare requisite of consciousness to the needs of my tools, I became almost as taciturn as my companion. Yet I never came to look on Ephesus as a home; I was only a bird of passage – a passage lasting ten years, it is true, but still only a passage. I didn’t see how it was going to end, but my old friend Fate stepped in at last and settled that for me.

  ‘It was July, and my annual restlessness had been creeping over me for some time; besides, it was getting unpleasantly hot at Ephesus, and I panted for the cold air of the mountains. So I said to MacPherson at breakfast,—

  ‘“I think the time for my yearly flitting has come round again; in fact, I think I’ll be off today.”

  ‘I waited for the, “Oh? All right,” but it didn’t come. Instead of that, he said after a little pause,—

  ‘“I wonder if you would put off going until tomorrow?”

  ‘It was the first time I had ever heard him raise an objection to any suggestion of mine, and I was faintly surprised, but I said,—

  ‘“Of course I will. One day’s just as good as another. Got a special job for me?”

  ‘“No,” he said, “it isn’t that.”

  ‘I did not question him; I had long since followed his lead, and we never questioned one another.

  ‘Still, I wondered to myself, as one cannot help wondering when anything unusual, however slight, occurs to break a regularity such as ours. A stone thrown in a rough sea falls unperceived, but thrown into a pond of mirror-like surface it creates a real disturbance. So all the morning I observed MacPherson as closely as I dared; I saw him go to get his things, and I detected a slight weariness in his walk; still he said nothing. It was glaringly hot at the ruins. I thought of suggesting that we should go home earlier than usual, and, turning round to look for MacPherson, I saw him at a little distance, sitting on a boulder, with his head in his hands. This was so unusual that I immediately crossed over to him.

  ‘“I say, aren’t you feeling well?”

  ‘He raised to me a livid face.

  ‘“I shall be all right presently . . . A touch of the sun.”

  ‘“You must come indoors at once,” I said firmly. “You must be mad to sit here in this heat. Can you walk?”

  He rose with infinite weariness, but without a word of complaint, and attempted to lift his pick.

  ‘“I’ll take that,” I said, taking it from him, and he gave it up without a word. “Is there anything else to bring?”

  ‘He shook his head, and began to stumble off in the direction of the house. Long before we had reached home, I knew what was the matter with my companion. The sun was not responsible. He was in the grip of cholera.

  ‘The Albanian, who was splashing cold water from a bucket over the tiled floor of our little sitting-room when we arrived, stared at us in astonishment. MacPherson, his face faded to the colour of wood-ashes, had his arm round my
neck for support, and already the terrible cramps of the disease were beginning to twist his body as he dragged one leaden foot after the other. I called to Marco, and between us we half carried him upstairs and laid him on his bed, where he lay, silent, but drawing his breath in with the long gasps of pain, and with his arm flung across his eyes so that we should not observe his face.

  ’I drew Marco out on to the landing. I bade him saddle the mule and ride straight to the station, where he must take the train for Smyrna and return without delay with the English doctor. I did not think, in my private mind, that the doctor could arrive in time, or that he could do more than I could, who had some experience of cholera, but still I was bound to send for him. Marco nodded violently all the time I was speaking. I knew I could trust him; he was an honest man. I went back to MacPherson.

  ‘I had never been into his bedroom before. The Venetian blinds were lowered outside the windows, and the floor and walls were barred with the resulting stripes of shade and sun. A plaid rug lay neatly folded across the foot of the bed. On the dressing-table were two wooden hair-brushes and a comb, on the wash-stand were sponges, but no possessions of a more personal nature could I discover anywhere. The man, it seemed, had no personal life at all.

  ‘He was lying where I had left him, still breathing heavily; his skin was icy cold, so I covered him over with the quilt from my own room, knowing that it was no use attempting to get him into bed, and feeling, in a sympathetic way, that he would prefer to be left alone. I went to get what remedies I could from our medicine-chest downstairs, and as I was doing this my eye fell on his little cupboard where behind glass doors he kept his precious shards, all labelled and docketed in his inhumanly neat handwriting, and I wondered whether, in a week or so, I should see him sitting down there, fingering his treasures with hands that, always thin, would surely be shrunken then to the claws of a skeleton.