Family History

by Vita Sackville-West

  Then as she remained silent, he took other steps; he wrote again; he telephoned. His temper rose after repeated rebuffs; he decided that if she wanted to sulk, he would let her sulk. And so, almost before he realised it, many days went by, and the gulf between them widened until it began to seem improbable that it would ever close up.

  Why, then, had he not taken some really drastic measure? This was what, looking back, he could not explain to himself. Why had he not forced himself into her presence? A truly desperate lover would have found some means. Was it possible that, in spite of his pain and his remorse and his regrets, he was not a truly desperate lover?

  He was unhappy enough to roam restlessly up to London; unhappy enough to confide in Viola; but somehow the ultimate urge to take violent action was lacking. It was as though something held him back. And whenever he was with the Anquetils he came near to admitting what thatt something was: Evelyn had never been meant for him.

  In this way the Anquetils were Evelyn’s worst enemies. The contrast was too great. Viola herself was well aware of what was happening. She wondered where her duty lay.

  “Miles,” she said, “have you still heard nothing from Evelyn?”

  “Not a word, not a sign.”

  “How long is it now?”

  “Two months, nearly.”

  “It looks as though she meant it to be final. Why don’t you do something, Miles? I confess, I am puzzled by the way you have allowed things to slip.”

  “What more can I do?” he said with the irritability of an unquiet conscience. “I’ve written, I’ve telephoned, I’ve tried to see her; I’ve even asked you to see her. She won’t have anything to do with either you or me. I can do nothing more.”

  “Lesley thinks you ought to force her to see you.”

  “Lesley? What does she know about it?”

  “Don’t be an ostrich, Miles; everybody knows about it. People talk, you know.”

  “The devil they do. What does Lesley say, then?”

  “She says you have no right to let anyone make themselves as wretched as Evelyn must be making herself.”

  “Look here, Viola, why are you taking Evelyn’s part suddenly? Even though you may deny it, and even though you never said so in so many words to me, you know you were relieved on the whole when we quarrelled.”

  “I don’t deny it. I was relieved. I always thought her unsuited to you. But thatt doesn’t prevent me from listening to Lesley when she comes to me very solemnly and says you ought not to leave Evelyn quite alone to bear the consequences of what, after all, was a very heroic action.”

  Miles stared at her, amazed.

  “An heroic action?”

  “Oh, Miles, don’t be so stupid! Really I have no patience with men sometimes. Don’t you see that Evelyn left you entirely because she thought she was destroying you?”

  “She left me for my good, I suppose?” said Miles bitterly.

  “You may be sarcastic, but thatt is what it amounts to. I’ve had time to think it over, and I see the whole thing quite clearly. So does Lesley.”

  “Lesley must be possessed of powers of divination. Or is it what you call feminine intuition?”

  “I don’t mind how disagreeable you are. Have I at any rate made you see the situation in a new light?”

  “You’ve appalled me,” said Miles. “I never thought,” he added naively, “that Evelyn was capable of anything like thatt. Now I believe that you must be right. Oh, God, I told her something of the sort! I said she was spoiling my life. I said so during thatt last quarrel we had, the day she left me. I’ll go to her at once, Viola; I’ll go down to Newlands. Bless you for having opened my eyes. Now if she comes back to me,” he said with a smile, “you’ll only have yourself to thank,” but already he was on his feet and his face was irradiated with happiness and expectancy.

  “He loves her still,” thought Viola, and she wondered whether her sympathy for Evelyn had not led her into a great foolishness. “One moment, Miles,” she said, detaining him; “you jump to the conclusion that I want you to get her back. I don’t mean that you should try to do thatt. Only make her believe that you understand her motives; that you appreciate them. I think, if I have any knowledge of your Evelyn, that you’ll find she will stick to her decision. Well, don’t make it too hard for her. If you will use your reason for a minute, instead of rushing off in this hot-headed way, you will see that you are both really much better apart. Look forward, Miles. You know the quarrels would surely begin again. Don’t, don’t try to get her back! If you try hard enough, you may succeed, when she actually sees you. You can be very eloquent when you choose, and you may convince her. Don’t try. Try only to remove all the bitterness and the soreness, and lei her feel that what she has done hasn’t been done in vain.”

  She spoke very urgently, saying exactly what she thought, for the energy of his response had alarmed her. She should have remembered how impetuous he was, and she foresaw what might happen if they came face to face.

  “Couldn’t you write, instead of going to see her?” she suggested.

  “Too late, Viola! you’ve done the mischief now.” He was as gay and excited as a schoolboy. “Bless you, and bless Lesley. May we both come to dinner with you one day next week? And may we bring Dan? He must have left Eton at the end of the summer half. You’d like Dan,—and who knows? he might fall in love with Lesley. He’s a very good match, you know.”

  “You won’t listen to me, then?”

  “No, darling Viola, I won’t listen to you. I’ll kiss your hand instead,—ich küsse Ihre Hand, madame. And I’ll ring you up tomorrow morning.”

  He had never been to Newlands before, but he reached it faster than William Jarrold’s Rolls-Royce had ever reached it, only to be told by Paterson that Mrs. Jarrold had left England thatt morning with Lord Orlestone. They had gone on a motoring trip to Spain; had left no address; and would be away for about a month.

  “So you see, there’s nothing to be done,” he concluded despondently to Lesley.

  It astonished him to find that he had talked to Lesley. He could not think how it had come about. It was not his habit to scatter his confidences broadcast to all and sundry. He had, however, gone to see Viola, and, finding her out, sat down to wait for her in such obvious dejection that Lesley finally asked him what was the matter. The conventional denial rose to his lips, but he had no use for such a farce. So he looked at her and said, “I think you know.”

  Thus, he remembered, had it come about. He had found himself talking quite naturally and simply to Lesley. She was easy to talk to, because she just listened and nodded and said something from time to time,—not something sympathetic,—he was in no mood for sympathy,—but something firm and, usually, severe. He accepted her severity; it stung him, but it braced him. It was, indeed, a relief for him to be subjected to criticism by a person he scarcely knew, but who through a chance of circumstances possessed a knowledge of his most intimate affairs, and whose judgment remained entirely without bias. Lesley was neither on his side, nor on Evelyn’s. To her, they were just protagonists, like people in a play. If she judged him severely, it was because he deserved a severe judgment. She did not spare him, and he respected her for her candour.

  Only afterwards did it strike him as rather out-of-the-way, this discussion of his mistress with a girl of nineteen. He grinned. “How horrified the Jarrolds would be!” he thought.

  It was difficult to regard Lesley as a girl of nineteen. She had nothing of the fabled innocence of adolescence. It seemed that she had already made her mind up on such problems of life as are fundamental and yet elementary.

  Miles thought again how much she must resemble her mother when her mother had been nineteen, both of them remaining faithful to their own standard of values. Viola in the luxurious surroundings of Chevron. Lesley in the austere yet stimulating atmosphere of
her parents’ house. He liked Lesley very much indeed, partly because he was so fond of Viola and because it amused him to fancy that he was talking to the Viola of twenty-odd years ago, but also for her own sake. When he had finished pouring out his rage, disappointment, and frustration, emptying himself of these things until there was no more emotion of any sort left in him, he suggested to Lesley that they should spend the rest of the evening together. A surprising change came over her then. She ceased to be the severe young mentor, and became merely the play-fellow ready for an evening’s fun. He had been inclined to think her if anything a trifle solemn; the revelation came to him as a welcome and amusing surprise. He liked people who could change their mood more rapidly than they could change their clothes; he was like thatt, himself. So they went out together. They did not mention Evelyn again thatt evening, but simply enjoyed themselves according to the ideas of people of their age. If recollection stabbed Miles every now and then when the band played some tune he had been accustomed to dance to with Evelyn, he consoled himself rather angrily by thinking that she was now happy without him, drinking coffee with Dan—and with whom else?—on some warm, flat roof overlooking Seville. Their explanations could be deferred.

  He went out again with Lesley. They fell into the habit of going out together. He would arrive at the Anquetils’ house and would ask Viola quite naturally for the loan of Lesley, much as he might have asked for the loan of a handkerchief. There were no complications of emotional feelings; simply a comfortable companionship. Viola, a wise but prophetic woman, knew this and contemplated the possible results. Miles and Lesley? well, she knew Miles’ faults, as she knew Lesley’s faults, and came to the conclusion that they might make a good mixture. There would be the right degree of antagonism and understanding. Viola was no believer in smug matrimony; she believed in sparks of disagreement struck every now and then, with a basis of common concord.

  She foresaw, too, that Miles would soon begin to draw comparisons between Lesley and Evelyn. They would not be quite fair comparisons; in fact, they would not be fair at all, in one sense, and yet in another sense they would be sound enough. He would contrast their behaviour, and in such measure as he found Lesley easy-going he would find Evelyn proportionately difficult and tiresome. She observed, for instance, that he had no hesitation in telephoning at the last minute to cancel an engagement with Lesley, confident that she would under-stand and that there would be no fuss. Viola could well imagine the fuss there would be if he treated Evelyn in the same way,-as he probably often had. (It was part of Miles’ make-up to be rather insolently casual about such things; he could no more help it than he could help the colour of his hair; but Viola could imagine the effect on a woman violently in love.) Lesley made no fuss, partly because she was casual herself and wholly free from feminine vanity, partly because she was not in love with Miles. Thatt made all the difference. It was easy not to make a fuss when one did not mind very much one way or the other; difficult to refrain from making a fuss when one minded vitally. Still, even after making thatt allowance, a fundamental difference remained between Lesley and Evelyn. Viola conceded it, and knew that Miles sooner or later would begin to notice.

  Then, in a purely maternal way, which surprised and interested her by its novelty, she began to wonder what Lesley would be like, in love.

  PART FOUR

  Obituary Notice of

  Evelyn Jarrold

  Autumnal Spain was hot and parched in the north, hot and scented in the south. Dan and Evelyn lingered at Granada, for Granada pleased them, and there was no reason why they should hasten to one place rather than remain content in another. Neither of them had any ties or obligations: Dan had left Eton, and Evelyn had left Miles. -They were both therefore quite free to follow their inclinations in each other’s company, with this difference,—and it was an important one,—that Dan would presently resume his life, going to spend six months with a French family before he went up to Oxford, and that Evelyn felt her life to be at an end. There was no sense or meaning in a life without Miles. Dan, in leaving Eton, had merely left something behind him which would lead on in natural consequence to other things; Evelyn, in leaving Miles, had cut life short. She looked forward to nothing. She desired nothing,—nothing could replace Miles, and indeed a strange and unexpected loyalty (or was it sentimentality?) prevented her from wishing anything to replace him. She felt only, that she would wish to consecrate the rest of her life to the memory of her few months’ happiness, though, at the same time, she wished nothing more ardently than that she might forget him. Whichever wish should find its fulfilment, her life was ended and empty. Miles had filled her life richly; she realised now that he had been like the sun and the breeze and the thunder-storm and the rainbow and all the colours of the flowers in his garden; she reproached herself with not having truly appreciated him while she possessed him. She saw him now, in retrospect, as a person who could give, and who gave, so much. Cruel at times, even deliberately cruel, at other times he gave so generously out of the riches of his nature that it made up for all the cruelty and harshness of his more irritable moments. She thought, at times, humbly, that she had been fortunate to know Miles as intimately as she had known him. For indeed, in her own poor judgment, she estimated him as a remarkable young man; and stray observations from other people confirmed her estimate. This induced an absurd pride in her. She knew, herself, that it was absurd. It was not for her intellectual companionship that Miles had chosen her; far from it! She had never been his companion, but only his mistress, and any effect she had ever had on his work was to interfere with it: thus did she now abase herself in her own mind. Well, it was over; Miles should never be worried or hampered by her again.

  She bore him no grudge, only loved him more deeply than before. The pain of loving him was so great that at moments she longed to die and be finished with it, but it was a different pain from the miserable pain of their recurrent quarrels and of her incessant jealousies; thatt had been sordid, degrading; this had a certain nobility, like fire. It seared, but it purified.

  She had hoped to escape it in some degree by leaving England and dashing off to Spain. Idle hope! she learnt only the bitter experience that one’s inward self goes with one, take the body where one will. She remained the same woman, leaning over the parapet of the Genera life, looking out over the vega of Granada, as leaning over the balustrade at Newlands looking out over the trim paddocks of Surrey. Personality could not be shed, and the same thoughts, the same memories, accompanied her through the changing landscape. She might writhe, but she could not escape.

  At least she was no longer pursued by Miles’ letters; she no longer started and turned faint at the ring of a telephone or a door-bell. Thatt, in itself, was a relief; thatt, and the knowledge that she could not possibly run into Miles at a street-corner or see him appear suddenly at Newlands, so familiar, so dear, with his shining head, slim body, and beautiful hands. How wise she had been to seek this relief by simply leaving England! Flight? yes, it was a fight, but it would give her a respite, it would give her time to gather her forces. She would not think of the day when she must go back to England, and court again the risk of colliding with Miles at a street-corner.

  But for Dan she would have gone off on a long journey. She could not leave the boy, however,—for towards him, at least, her love had never been selfish, and moreover she had learnt the lesson now that selfish love brings its own worst reward. She recognised the difference in herself; one does not pass through such an experience as she had undergone without emerging altered on the other side. Nor would she appeal to Dan to let her go; it would not be fair. He had developed astonishingly, ceasing suddenly to be a child; he no longer seemed tentative and perplexed, but firm and decided. He had at last realised himself as master of Newlands and the Orlestone works. Newlands, indeed, with its parks and paddocks, counted for nothing in his estimation; Orlestone with its slums and collieries counted a great deal. Dan now held very defi
nite opinions. Orlestone made him rich, but he had no intention of remaining rich at the expense of Orlestone. He had no desire for personal riches. On the other hand, he had a great desire for the Orlestone miners to benefit out of his profits. He had discovered that his income exceeded his needs, to an extent that seemed shocking and excessive to his democratic views; he wanted neither grouse-moors nor yachts; he wanted only to establish a fair understanding between his colliers and himself: What else could he do, he said, worried by the injustice of the whole system? what could he do, short of treating his people as decently as possible? He would be damned sooner than grind them down to a minimum wage; he would pay them the maximum and let Newlands grow grass on its gravel drives if need be. Evelyn listened, and, in her new-found wisdom, approved. Then Dan, encouraged by her approval, went on. He would make the Orlestone works into a model community. He would institute special schools, scholarships, a theatre, a picture gallery, a racquet-court, and a swimming bath . . . Schemes bubbled in his head, and he poured them all out to his mother looking towards the sunset over the vega of Granada. He would go to France for a bit, if it pleased her, but he would come over to England often, for the weekend, to see how things were getting on. She must promise to take his part against Uncle Geoffrey, who would be certain to disagree with all his ideas. Uncle Evan, thank goodness, had been left without any voice in the matter, but Uncle Geoffrey would be a difficulty.

  Dan was tactful enough not to say, “If only I had Miles to help me!”

  The necessity of mentioning Miles to Dan had been one of Evelyn’s incidental problems. She had no idea what Dan thought of their relationship; she knew only that he would begin to clamour for Miles directly he returned from school. She dreaded the moment, and, when it came, tried partially to shirk it.