Heritage

by Vita Sackville-West

  ‘“Yes,” I said, “I went to Scotland.”

  ‘He asked me, “What part of Scotland?”

  ‘“To Aberdeen,” I cried, “to Aberdeen!” and laughed, and left them.

  ‘I had been prepared to pass unrecognised after ten years, but for this friendliness, which had not “seen me lately,” I was unprepared. I turned into a park, longing instinctively for the country as the only palliative for my loneliness and melancholy. In all London that day I think there was no lonelier soul than I. I would have sought you out, but in such a crisis of world-sorrow as was mine, I could desire only one presence – a presence I might not have. She could have annihilated my sorrow by a word, could have made me forget the dirt, and the irony; all that hurt me so profoundly – though I don’t think myself a sentimentalist. For I was hurt as a raw sentimentalist is hurt, and this pain blended with my own trouble into a sea of despair. I wanted to find a haven of refuge, some beautiful gulf where the wind never blows, but where harmonious hills rise serenely from the water, and all is cultivated and easy and fertile.

  ‘I sat for a long time under the trees, gazing immovably at the ground between my feet, and then I got up mechanically, without any plan in my head, and wandered as mechanically home towards my club. My club burst incongruously enough on my dreams of a beautiful gulf; that, again, was part of the irony on this most cruel of days. But I had nowhere else to go to.

  ‘I began to write to MacPherson’s solicitors to inform them of their client’s death; the new life was so empty that I clung for as long as I was able to the old. As I wrote, the hall-boy came and stood at my elbow.

  ‘“Please, sir, there’s a young woman asking to see you.”

  ‘A young woman? Could it be Belle? so equipped for the day’s battle as to pass for young?

  “What’s her name? what does she want?”

  “She won’t say, sir; she wants to see you.”

  ‘I went out. Ruth was standing by the hall-door, plainly dressed in a dark coat and skirt, and a sailor hat, and holding a couple of faded red roses in her hand.

  ‘I looked at her incredulously, and all the world stood still.

  ‘She began, shyly and hurriedly,–

  ‘“Oh, I don’t want to bother you if you are busy . . .”

  ‘That made me laugh.

  ‘“I am not busy,” I told her.

  ‘“Oh, then perhaps I could speak to you for a few minutes? somewhere just quietly, and alone?”

  ‘I glanced round. The porter was standing there with a face carved in stone.

  ‘“You can’t come in here,” I said. “Where can I take you? Will you come to an hotel?”

  ‘“Oh, no!” she said, shrinking, and I noticed her little gray cotton gloves.

  ‘“At any rate, let us get away from here. Then we can think where to go.”

  ‘We went down the steps, crossed Piccadilly, and passed into the Green Park. There I stopped, but she would not sit on the chair I suggested. She stood before me, her eyes downcast, and her gloved fingers twisting the stems of her roses. I bethought myself to ask her,—

  ‘“How on earth did you find me, today of all days?”

  ‘“I came to ask,” she answered, still in that shy, hurried tone, “whether they knew when you would be coming to London.”

  ‘“And they told you I was there?”

  ‘“Yes.”

  ‘“You came up from the Weald on purpose to ask that?”

  ‘“But why?”

  ‘She was silent.

  ‘“Why, Ruth?”

  ‘“Because I wanted to see you.”

  ‘“To see me?”

  ‘“To tell you something.”

  ‘“What is it?”

  ‘“I can’t tell you here,” she murmured.

  ‘“Come to an hotel,” I said again, “we can get a private sitting-room; we can talk.”

  ‘“Oh, no, not that. I suppose . . . I suppose you wouldn’t I am sure you are busy.”

  ‘“No, no, on my honour, Ruth, I have absolutely nothing to do either today, or tomorrow, or the next day, or any day after that.”

  ‘“Sure?” she said eagerly, raising her eyes for one moment to mine and then lowering them again.

  ‘“Quite sure.”

  ‘“Then,” with sudden boldness, “will you come down to the Weald with me? now? at once?”

  ‘“To the Weald? Of course I will, I’ll do anything you like. We’ll go straight to Charing Cross, shall we?”

  ‘“Oh, yes, please, you are very good. And please, don’t ask me any questions till we get there.”

  ‘My ten years’ training with MacPherson proved invaluable to me now, and I can say with pride that neither by direct nor indirect means did I seek to extract any information from Ruth. Indeed, I was content to observe her as she sat by me in the cab, no longer the girl I remembered, but a woman of ripe beauty, and yet in her confused manner there was a remnant of girlishness, in her lowered eyes, and her tremulous lips. I saw that she sat there full of suppressed emotion, buoyed up by some intense determination which carried her over her shyness and confusion as a barque carries its passenger over high waves. I was too bewildered, too numb with joy, to wonder much at the cause of her journey.

  ‘At Charing Cross she produced the return half of her third-class ticket from her little purse, refusing to let me pay the excess fare which would allow us to travel first. I think she was afraid of being shut alone with me into a first-class carriage, knowing that in the humbler compartment she could reckon on the security of company. So we sat on the hard wooden benches, opposite one another, rocking and swaying with the train, and trying to shrink away in our respective corners from the contact of the fruit-pickers who crowded us unpleasantly: Ruth sat staring out over the fields of Kent, her hands in their neat gray cotton gloves lying on her lap, and the tired roses drooping listlessly between her fingers; she looked a little pale, a little thin, but that subtle warmth of her personality was there as of old, whether it lay, as I never could decide, in the glow under her skin or in the tender curves of her features. She looked up to catch me gazing at her, and we both turned to the landscape to hide our confusion.

  ‘Ah! I could look out over that flying landscape now with no need to pull down the window-blinds, and Penshurst station, when we reached it, was no longer a pang, but a rejoicing. The train stopped, I struggled with the door, we jumped out, the train curved away again on its journey, and we stood side by side alone on the platform.

  ‘It was then about five o’clock of a perfect August day. Little white clouds stretched in a broken bank along the sky. Dorothy Perkins bloomed in masses on the palings of the wayside station. The railway seemed foreign to the country, the English country which lay there immovable, regardless of trains that hurried restless mankind to and fro, between London and the sea.

  ‘“Let us go,” I said to Ruth.

  ‘We set out walking across the fields, infinitely green and tender to my eyes, accustomed to the brown stoniness of Ephesus. We walked in silence, but I, for one, walked happy in the present, and feeling the aridity of my being soaked and permeated with repose and beauty. Ruth took off her jacket, which I carried for her, walking cool and slender in a white muslin shirt. In this soft garment she looked eighteen, as I remembered her.

  ‘We took the short cut to Westmacotts’. There it was, the lath and plaster house, the farm buildings, the double oast-house at the corner of the big black barn, simmering, hazy and mellow, in the summer evening. A farm-hand, carrying a great truss of hay on a pitchfork across his shoulder, touched his cap to Ruth as he passed. There was no sign of Westmacott.

  ‘“Where . . .” I began, but changed my question. “Where are the children?”

  ‘“I left them over with mother before I came away this morning,
” she answered.

  ‘We went into the house, into the kitchen, the same kitchen, unchanged.

  ‘She took refuge in practical matters.

  ‘“Will you wait there while I take off my things and get the tea?”

  ‘I sat down like a man in a dream while she disappeared upstairs. I was quite incapable of reflection, but dimly I recognised the difference between this clean, happy room of bright colours and shining brasses, and the tawdry, musty flat I had penetrated that morning, and the contrast spread itself like ointment over a wound.

  ‘Ruth returned; she had taken off her hat and had covered her London clothes by a big blue linen apron with patch pockets. Her sleeves were rolled up to the elbow; I saw her smooth brown arm with the delicate wrist and shapely hand.

  ‘“You’ll want your tea,” she said briskly.

  ‘I had had nothing to eat since breakfast.

  ‘You told me once in a letter that you had been to tea with Ruth, so you know the kind of meal she provides: bread, honey, scones, big cups, and tea in an enormous teapot. She laid two places only, moving about, severely practical, but still quivering with that suppressed excitement, still tense with that unfaltering determination.

  ‘“It’s ready,” she said at length, summoning me.

  ‘I couldn’t eat, for the emotion of that meal alone with her was too strong for me. I sat absently stirring the sugar in my cup. She tried to coax me to eat, but her solicitude exasperated my over-strained nerves, and I got up abruptly.

  ‘“It’s no good,” I said, “I must know. What is it, Ruth? What had you to tell me?”

  ‘The moment had rushed at her unawares; she looked at me with frightened eyes; her determination, put to the test, hesitated.

  ‘I went over to her and stood before her.

  ‘“What is it, Ruth?” I said again. “You haven’t brought me down here for nothing. Hadn’t you better tell me before your husband comes in?”

  ‘“He won’t come in,” she said, hanging her head so that I could only see the wealth of her hair and her little figure in the big blue apron.

  ‘“How do you know?” I asked.

  ‘“He isn’t here.”

  ‘“Where is he, then?”

  ‘She raised her head and looked me full in the face, no longer frightened, but steady, resolute.

  ‘“He has left me,” she said.

  ‘“Left you? What do you mean? For good?”

  ‘“Yes. He’s left me, the farm, and the children; he’s never coming back.”

  ‘“But why? Good Heavens, why?”

  ‘“He was afraid,” she said in a low voice.

  ‘“Afraid?”

  ‘“Yes. Of me. Oh,” she broke off, “sit down and I will tell you all about it.

  Chapter Six

  ‘And then she unfolded to me the extraordinary story which, as I warned you at the very beginning of my letter, you will probably not believe. Nevertheless I offer it to you as a fact, so tangible a fact that it has driven a man — no chicken-hearted man — to abandon his home and source of wealth, his wife, and his children, and to fly without stopping to pack up his closest possessions, to America. I will not attempt to give you the story in Ruth’s own words, because they came confusedly, transposing the order of events, dealing only with effects, ignoring the examination of causes. I will tell it you as I see it myself, after piecing together all my scraps of narrative and evidence. I only hope that, in dragging you away with me to Ephesus, and in giving you the events of my own life, you have not forgotten those who, in the Weald of Kent, are, after all, far more essential characters than I myself. Please try now to forget the MacPhersons, and project yourself, like a kind, accommodating audience, to the homestead, outwardly so peaceable, inwardly the stormy centre of so many complicated passions.

  ‘And, again like a kind, accommodating audience, put ready at your elbow a little heap of your credulity, that you may draw on it from time to time, like a man taking a pinch of snuff.

  ‘I do not know how far I should go back, perhaps even to the day when Ruth, in a wild state of reckless misery, ran away with Rawdon Westmacott. At once, you see, I am up against the question of their relationship, and you will understand that, situated as I now am with regard to Ruth, it isn’t a question I like to dwell upon. There is a certain fellowship, however, between us, Ruth, Rawdon, and I, and when I consider that fellowship, my resentment — I will go further than that, and call it my loathing, my disgust — bends down like a springing stick and lies flat to the ground. By fellowship I mean, in myself, the restless spirit which drove me onward until, blinded by the habit of constant movement, I couldn’t see the riches that lay close to my hand. In Ruth and Rawdon, I mean the passionate spirit that was the heritage of their common blood, and that drew them together even when she, by an accident of dislike, would have stood apart. We talk very glibly of love and indifference, but, believe me, it is largely, if it doesn’t come by sudden revelation, a question of accident, of suggestion. It simply didn’t occur to me that I might be in love with Ruth; I didn’t examine the question. So I never knew. . . . And she, on her part, was there, young, southern, trembling on the brink of mysteries, pursued by Rawdon, whose character and mentality she disliked, from whom she, afraid, wanted to fly, and in whose arms she nevertheless felt convinced that she must end. From this I might have saved her. I see her now, a hunted creature, turning her despairing eyes on me, for a brief space seeking a refuge with Leslie Dymock, but finally trapped, captured, yielding – yielding herself to a storm of passion that something uncontrollable in her own nature rose up to meet.

  ‘Seeing her in this light, I am overcome, not only with my stupidity and blindness, but with my guilt. Yet she was not altogether unhappy. It is true that Rawdon ill-treated and was unfaithful to her almost from the first, but it is also true that in their moments of reconciliation, which were as frequent as their estrangements, that is to say, very frequent indeed – in these moments of reconciliation she found consolation in the renewal of their curiously satisfying communion. I don’t pretend to understand this. Ruth loved me – she has told me so, and I know, without argument, that she is speaking the truth – yet she found pleasure in the love of another man, and even a certain grim pleasure in his ill-treatment of her. Or should I reverse my order, finding more marvel in her humility under his caresses than under his blows?

  ‘What am I to believe? that she is cursed with a dual nature, the one coarse and unbridled, the other delicate, conventional, practical, motherly, refined? Have I hit the nail on the head? And is it, can it be, the result of the separate, antagonistic strains in her blood, the southern and the northern legacy? Did she love Westmacott with the one, and me with the other? I am afraid to pry deeper into this mystery, for who can tell what taint of his blood may not appear suddenly to stain the clear waters of his life?

  ‘This, then, is Ruth, but in Westmacott the southern strain seems to be dominant; the clear English waters are tainted through and through. He is a creature of pure instinct, and when his instinct is aroused no logic, no reason will hold him, any more than a silk ribbon will hold a bucking horse. Ruth has told me of her life with him after he had gained possession of her, all his humility gone, changed into a domineering brutality; sometimes he would sit sulkily for hours, smoking and playing cards, and then would catch her to him and half strangle her with his kisses. She seems to have lived with him, the spirit crushed from her, meek and submissive to his will. I remembered the days when he used to lounge about Pennistans’, leaning against the doorpost staring at her, and when she in disdain and contempt would clatter her milk-pans while singing at the top of her voice. Westmacott, I thought grimly, had had his own revenge.

  ‘Once, as you know, she rebelled, but I do not think you know what drove her to it. Westmacott had brought another woman home to the farm, and had ordered hi
s wife to draw cider for them both. When she refused, he struck her so that she staggered and fell in a corner of the room. She then collected her children and walked straight over to her father’s house. How she tried to shoot Westmacott you know, for you were there. – I can’t think about that story.

  Tut to come down to the day I went to the farm and asked her to come away with me. Westmacott suspected nothing at the time. About a week later he came home slightly drunk, and began to bully one of the children. Ruth cried out,—

  ‘“Hands off my children, Rawdon!”

  ‘“You can’t stop me,” he jeered.

  ‘She said,—

  ‘”I can. I nearly stopped you for ever once, and what’s to prevent my doing it again?”

  ‘He looked at her blankly, and his jaw dropped.

  Tor a week after that he was civil to her; their roles were reversed, and she held the upper hand. Then he started shouting at her, but, brave in her previous success, she defied him,—

  “Stop swearing at me, Rawdon, or I’ll go away and leave you.”

  ‘He roared with laughter.

  ‘“Go away? Where to?”

  ‘She says that she was wild, and did not care for the rashness of her words,—

  ‘“I shall go to Mr Malory.”

  ‘“He wouldn’t have you!” said Rawdon.

  ‘“He would!” she cried. “He came here – you never knew – and tried to get me to go with him. And I’d have gone, but for the children. So there!”

  ‘After this there was a pause; Rawdon was taken aback, Ruth was appalled by her indiscretion. Then Rawdon burst out into oaths, “which fouled the kitchen,” said Ruth, “as though the lamp had been flaring.” At this time, I suppose, I was at Sampiero.

  ‘Of course, these and similar scenes could not go on perpetually. Their married life, although long in years, had been interrupted by over four years of war and absence, but now they found that they must settle down to life on a workable basis. They were married, therefore they must live together and make the best of it. Ruth tells me that they talked it out seriously together. A strange conversation! She undertook not to resent his infidelities if he, on his side, would undertake not to ill-treat her at home. So they sealed this compact, and in the course of time sank down, as the houses of the neighbourhood sank down into the clay, into a situation of no greater discontent than many of their prototypes.