Family History

by Vita Sackville-West

  It was even richer than Miles knew, for he forgot that Evelyn had never seen the girl Lesley,—had never previously heard of her existence. From the first moment Evelyn regarded the girl Lesley with suspicion; nay, with terror. She made up her mind instantly that the daughter of the Anquetils was the ordained wife for Miles, and having made up her mind she sat down to luncheon with death in her heart. Miles, who had never given a thought to Lesley Anquetil, beyond noticing her as a particularly unschoolgirlish schoolgirl, was unaware of all this. He was aware only,—which was also true,—that Evelyn was divided between a longing to loathe the Anquetils and a strong inclination to like them. Who, indeed, could fail to like them, he thought? so friendly, so easy, so intelligent? His affection for them was warm, as he surveyed them sitting at his luncheon-table. He was glad that they should be there, and he wished only that Evelyn could freely share his pleasure. There were other things in life, as he had said, than lovers’ quarrels. Lovers’ quarrels bored him; he liked the flowers of love, but not its thorns. There were other things: friendships, interests, conversation . . .

  Lesley Anquetil was very quiet; she never spoke much. Miles, glancing at her, supposed idly that she must reflect almost exactly what her mother was at her age: calm, self-contained, and full of unspoken criticism. Only, Viola in her luxurious upbringing had had much to criticise; Lesley could have had very little. She had grown up in a rational and enlightened atmosphere. Yet she remained detached and critical. Well, thought Miles,—who was only six years older than Lesley,—it is right that the young should criticise. The criticism of the young is what keeps things on the move,—so thought Miles, young himself, but just old enough and wise enough to add that the older generation could dump a corrective and steadying weight into the scales. Miles, of course, being a man, was far in advance of Lesley. In spite of the Sorbonne, he had seen more of the world. In spite of the House of Commons, he had contrived to see more of the world. He knew all sorts of people,—the variety of his acquaintance had sometimes come as a shock to Evelyn. Lesley was necessarily limited, yet she preserved somewhere within herself the same sense of values as Viola, at the same age, must have imposed upon the standards of her ancestral home. In her quiet way, she would take nothing for granted,—not even the advanced views prevalent in her parents’ house. She would think everything out for herself. But she had the good sense to keep quiet about it. Miles liked her; he liked her smooth brow, her reticence, the intelligence of the few remarks she made.

  “You’ve grown up in the last year, Lesley,” he said as they walked down to the lake after luncheon.

  Evelyn and Viola were together; the boy Paul and his father were looking for moorhens’ nests among the reeds. Miles wondered rather grimly how Evelyn and Viola were getting on. He wished that they might make friends. It would do Evelyn good for Viola to poke a little fun at her.

  Viola, however, could not win Evelyn’s confidence. She was polite, but formal. Viola, divining very well that Evelyn under her conventional exterior was a woman of passionate feeling, wondered whether she dared be bold and say outright some of the things in her mind, but decided that she had better be prudent. It was usually best to be prudent with women; they were secretive, suspicious, and apt to misunderstand. Her instinct told her that Evelyn Jarrold was a very feminine woman, in some ways quite unworthy of Miles, though in other ways singularly well suited to him. She was sorry for Evelyn Jarrold. She knew Miles well, and knew that he was not the man to deal with an exacting and passionate woman: he might be patient for a time, but in the long run he would revolt. Thatt kind of love was a tyranny, and Miles was not made to be its slave. She sympathised with Miles, yet she could not help being sorry for Evelyn Jarrold. Evelyn would end by having a bad time at Miles’ hands; and though she would have brought her trouble on herself; she would not have been to blame,—except in so far as anyone is to blame for the frailties of his own nature.

  She sighed, thinking how well Lesley could have managed Miles.

  Later on, she confided some of her thoughts to Leonard.

  “Thatt affair, Leonard, will end badly. I wish I could do something about it. I really feel worried, both for Miles’ sake and Evelyn Jarrold’s.”

  “The sooner he gets rid of Evelyn Jarrold the better,” said Leonard who had no patience with very feminine women, however pretty.

  “I agree, but I think you judge her too harshly. You think her simply empty-headed and vain. There’s more in her than thatt. For instance, she’s passionately in love with Miles.”

  “You can be passionately in love, and yet be empty-headed and vain.”

  “Of course you can, but I think she is capable of loving exceptionally deeply, and thatt softens me towards her. She loves in a way that will make her suffer horribly, and if she suffers horribly she might do anything desperate. I am really anxious, Leonard. Evelyn Jarrold, whom you think such a fribble, is the sort of woman who commits murder or suicide.”

  “My dear, what has happened to your imagination? She is merely the sort of woman who loves selfishly, sensually, and acquisitively. She has no respect for Miles as an individual; she is the sort of woman who wants a lover to be a slave.”

  “You’re right about thatt, but I am right too. And, what makes it more serious, is that Miles is the last person to allow himself to be made into a slave. You know, Miles is a hard man.”

  “Well, we shall see,” said Leonard, who was nearer to agreeing with Viola than he wished to admit.

  The next thing they heard was that Evelyn had broken with Miles. Viola heard it from Miles himself. He appeared unexpectedly one evening, and Viola, divining that he had something on his mind which he wanted to say and could not, asked him point-blank what was the matter. Then it came out: Evelyn had refused to see him for three weeks. He was very worried and unhappy, but also obstinate and angry.

  “It was becoming intolerable, Viola; we quarrelled all the time. Nearly all the time. When we didn’t quarrel it was perfect. I blame myself, of course; I wasn’t amenable enough; she said I put other interests before her, and I daresay I sometimes did. I knew, you see, that if I wasn’t firm she would absorb me entirely, and I could never stand thatt.”

  “What did you quarrel about mostly?”

  “Oh, ridiculous things,—my work, my book, my engage-ments . . .”

  “Other women?”

  “I never gave her cause to quarrel about any other women,” said Miles after a pause.

  “Still, you did quarrel?”

  “Viola, you’re very shrewd, aren’t you? Well, yes, we did. Any women I saw or spoke to.”

  “She spied on you? Suspected your engagements?”

  “Viola, please don’t make me say things I don’t want to say.”

  “I’m sorry, I oughtn’t to have asked. Please believe that I’m not prejudiced against her. On the contrary, I’m very, very sorry for her, and I think I can understand both her point of view and yours. Would she consent to see me, do you think?”

  “How can I tell? I haven’t heard a word from her for three weeks. When I go to her flat, I’m told she’s out. When I telephone, a servant answers and says Mrs. Jarrold is out. When I write she doesn’t answer my letters. The boy must be home for his holidays by this time, too, but I haven’t heard a word from him either. She must have forbidden him to write to me. I wonder what reason she gave him? She’ll probably take him down to the country for his holidays, and then she’ll be more than ever out of my reach. What on earth am I to do? I could waylay her on her doorstep, of course, but I’m damned if I’ll do thatt.”

  “You want her back, Miles?”

  “Good God, of course I do.”

  She wondered if he was being quite sincere, even to himself.

  “You’re quite, quite sure, Miles, that in the end you won’t be happier without her than with her? Don’t be angry with me. You see, I never tho
ught it was a very happy affair. You didn’t seem to understand each other very well. Besides, think of the future. You’re a young man, a very young man.” She paused.

  “I want her back,” said Miles obstinately, as she had foreseen. She thought she had said enough. She had annoyed him, thereby arousing his loyalty, but thatt would not prevent her words from dropping fertile seeds. She was sorry for the woman, but her first interest must be for Miles.

  “Well, if you think it will do any good, I will go and see her.”

  “You’re an angel, Viola. I knew you would offer to do thatt, and honestly I can think of no one but yourself. Her own friends are all such ninnies, and besides one can’t trust most women. What worries me, is that she must be making herself unhappy. She does, you know. Perhaps you won’t believe me, but she really has an unhappy nature.”

  “I believe you entirely.”

  She spoke so gravely that he gave her a look. She saw that he was deeply troubled.

  “Don’t worry too much, Miles; I’ll see what I can do.” They sat silent for a time, the same thought in the minds of both.

  “Miles,” she said then, “will you tell me something? Has she ever wanted to marry you? or perhaps I should say, have you ever wanted to marry her?”

  “She won’t,” he replied.

  “Thatt’s to her credit.”

  “Yes, thatt’s to her credit. There’s a lot to her credit,” he said with a sigh.

  Presently he got up and went away. Viola pitied him as she let him out into the warm and empty street, he looked so perplexed and forlorn.

  “Come and see me whenever you like, my dear. In the Meantime I’ll let you know the result of my interview.”

  Turning back into the house she took up the telephone and asked for Evelyn’s number. As Miles had said, a servant answered it.

  “Could I speak to Mrs. Jarrold, please?”

  “What name?”

  She hesitated. Should she lay a trap for Evelyn? No; it would be unfair.

  “Lady Viola Anquetil.”

  “Now she’ll refuse to speak to me,” she thought, wondering whether her scruples had perhaps been foolish, but then to her surprise she heard Evelyn’s voice.

  “Is thatt you, Mrs. Jarrold? Viola Anquetil,—yes. We haven’t seen you for such a long time, could I persuade you to come and dine with us? We should be quite alone. Any night, this week or next.”

  Thatt would show. If Evelyn meant to avoid her, she would make some excuse, and then more direct methods must be tried.

  Evelyn made the excuse; she said she was going out of London. Her regrets were civil, but her voice was icy. “This,” thought Viola, “is a very unhappy woman,” and the relief she had involuntarily experienced on hearing that Miles’ release had entered on its first stage turned to pure anxiety on behalf of the unseen and lonely offender. When matters became serious, discretion became a farce; she threw discretion aside.

  “Listen: asking you to dinner was a pretext. I want very particularly to see you. If you are really going out of London tomorrow as you say, may I see you this evening? I would come to your flat now, at once.”

  “I’m so dreadfully sorry, Lady Viola, I’m just going out to dinner and I’m late already. I do so wish I could wait . . . how awful London is, isn’t it? . . . never a moment to oneself . . . but perhaps I may let you know when I come back from Newlands? I have to go down there with Dan tomorrow, but when I come back I’d love to see you . . . I don’t quite know when thatt will be . . . some time towards the end of September, I expect . . . so dreadfully sorry . . . I’m afraid I must go now . . . do forgive me . . .” The voice trailed off, and Viola could hear the receiver being put down.

  “Poor Miles!” she thought; and then she thought, “Poor Evelyn!” and then she thought, “What am I to do next?”

  When Leonard came in, five minutes later, she went up to him and took his hand. They were an undemonstrative couple, as a rule, and he wondered what had happened to move her.

  “Leonard, our relationship has never been complicated, has it?”

  “I should have left you long ago, if it had,” he replied, taking his pipe out of his mouth and then putting it back again.

  Miles came frequently to their house; he turned to them in his distress. Summer was at its height, and officially he was supposed to be living at his castle, but his restlessness brought him constantly up to London. The Anquetils were oddly perverse people: they liked remaining in London through July and August, when most people who could: afford it went to the country, to the sea, or abroad. Miles teased them, saying that they were born Cockneys; but even as he teased them he remembered Viola’s up-bringing at Chevron and Leonard’s adventurous youth, both so different from the life they led now, both so ludicrously different from a Cockney birth. Their house was the meeting-place of young men like Bretton and Allen; a stream flowed through it, a stream of activity, of enterprise, of people engaged in some idea or other, a young painter, a young politician, or whatever it might be. Miles came there now, feeling that he came under false pretences. Ostensibly he appeared as the young politician, but really he came as an unhappy young man seeking Viola’s support. At dinner, and after, he might talk with his usual brilliance; but all the while he knew that Viola observed him, guessing that his heart yearned after his castle and the summer country and after a peaceful life with Evelyn who was lost to him and whose state of mind he could not gauge. He and Viola seldom talked privately together. She was not one to insist on the almost accidental privilege of intimacy. But her presence was encouraging to him; reassuring. Her standards were the standards by which he could measure everything: not only his disasters of the heart, but also his more permanent ideals. He found comparative peace in her house; elsewhere, he was tormented by his heart, his senses, and his conscience.

  Evelyn had vanished out of his life. Her disappearance had been so complete and so sudden, that he could not yet take it in. It was as though he had had a limb lopped off,—a right hand that he had been accustomed to use, and must now do without. His feelings were exceedingly complex. Sometimes he longed for her so intolerably that he had to restrain himself from rushing off to Newlands. At other times he realised with shame that his freedom gave him a certain sense of relief. His innate honesty alone compelled him to make this admission to himself. He hated it, but he faced it. It was a relief, definitely, not to be rung up by Evelyn at all hours of the day, not to be questioned as to his appointments,—for her earlier good resolutions had broken down lamentably of late and she no longer tried to disguise her querulous curiosity,—not to be criticised and discouraged and rebuked, not to be reproached for some fancied neglect. Then again his mood would turn to sorrow as he remembered how exquisite she had been in the early days; how unhesitatingly she had surrendered herself; after the ball at Chevron House, when he came to her flat and told her that he loved her; how light-hearted and happy, in spite of her occasional qualms; how she had thought of nothing but pleasing him, making herself lovely for his delight, coming into his arms when he arrived, greeting him with such warmth and tenderness and passion that his rapture was wholly compounded of joy and gratitude, ecstasy and security. He could not endure to recollect those days, but, calling Caesar to follow him, would stride off across the fields in the hope of tiring himself out so that he might sleep through the night and not dream,—not dream! But the summer fields gave him an added anguish, for they reminded him of the day when she had come down in July and had asked him to dawdle as they drove through the lanes, and had said that she loved him more with the passing of the months. They had walked under the brick walls in the evening, crushing a sprig of southernwood between their fingers, and once, when unthinkingly he broke off a grey-green tip and its bitter smell reached him, he flung it from him and deliberately struck his knuckles against the rough brick as a corrective to his pain.

  Still,
he could not quite understand why he had let her go so easily. They had parted in anger, after a terrible scene; he had made no effort to stop her then, but had said the cruellest things he could think of,—their cruelty towards one another had indeed been well matched. All the day, after she had gone, he had raged; next morning only, when he came across her forgotten handkerchief; small and scented, had he begun to feel remorseful. Perhaps, even in anger, he should not have said the things he had said. He should not have told her that she complicated and hampered his life. He should not have taunted her with her limited outlook, her vanity, her lack of true companionship. He should not have told her that her love for him was destructive, not creative. (Thank God he had not added that perhaps the difference of generation accounted for many of their misunderstandings. It had come into his mind, as he searched round for things to wound her; but, angry as he was and violent as was his temper when he lost it, he had at least foreborne from saying thatt.) Yes, it had been a terrible scene, ugly, shocking, and quite naturally he had let her go; had even persuaded himself that he was thankful to be rid of her. He had driven her to the station at a speed reckless enough to terrify her; she had not said a word, but he saw how white she was when they arrived at the station. He had seen that her hand was shaking as she bought her ticket; still he had remained hard. He hated her; they hated each other. But with the softening that came to him next day, he began to suppose that even such terrible scenes as this could be forgotten; he began to suppose that a reconciliation would take place, as it had always taken place before, and sitting down at his table with her handkerchief in his pocket he had written to her, asking that his words might be wiped out and that they might make a fresh start on a better basis of understanding. He had purposely made the letter rather cold and sensible. When no reply came, for the first time he became seriously anxious. Up till then, he had felt no more than a little uneasy. They had had so many rows, and they had always blown over! She had always been so generously penitent,—even though within twenty-four hours the rows might begin again. Surely this time also she would return to him? and perhaps the quarrel might even be proved to have cleared the air?