“But, Elizabeth,” George had said, when she propounded this argument, “of course I believe that people should be free, and it’s disgusting for them to stay together when they don’t any longer love each other. But suppose I happened to want someone else, just a sort of whim, and went on loving you, wouldn’t it be better if I said nothing about it? And the same with you?”
“And tell each other lies? Why, George, you yourself have said time and again that there can be no genuine relationship which involves deceit. The very essence and beauty and joy of our relation depend upon its being honest and frank and accepting facts.”
“Why, yes, but…”
“Look at the lives of our parents, look at all the sneaking adulteries going on at this very moment in every suburb of London. Don’t you see – why, you must see – that what’s wrong about adultery is not the sexual part of it at all, but the plotting and sneaking and dissimulation and lies and pretence…”
“That’s true,” said George slowly and reflectively, “that’s true. But – suppose I told you that when I was last in Paris I spent the nights with Georgina Harris?”
“Did you?”
“No, of course not. But, you see…”
“What would it have mattered if you had? My Swedish woman you make fun of is very sound about that. She says that two people should spend a few days or more away from each other every few weeks, and that it may be a very good thing for them to have other sexual experience. It prevents any feeling of sameness and satiety, and often brings two people together more closely than ever, if only they’re frank about it.”
“I wonder,” said George, “I wonder. Is there anyone you’re interested in, Elizabeth?”
“Of course not. You’re really rather unintelligent about this, George. You know perfectly well I love you passionately and shall never love anyone else so much. But there mustn’t be any lying and dissimulation, and no artificial fidelity. If you want to go off for a night or a weekend or a week with some charming girl or woman, you must go. And if I want to do the same with a man, I must. Don’t you see that by thwarting a mere béguin you may turn it into something more serious, whereas by enjoying it you get rid of it? Probably, as my Swedish woman says, one is so much disappointed that a single night is more than enough, and one returns to one’s love eagerly, cured of wandering fancies for the next six months.”
“Yes, I daresay there’s something in that. It seems sound. And yet if the original relationship is so secure and if the other affair is so slight and unimportant and merely physical, it seems unnecessary to hurt one’s love by speaking about it. I don’t tell you every day what I had for lunch. Besides, even if one spends only one night with another person, that implies at least a one-night’s preference, which might hurt.”
“Which might hurt!” Elizabeth mocked. “George, you’re being positively old-fashioned. Why, when you go to Paris, isn’t that a preference? And when I go to Fanny’s cottage in the country for a week-end, isn’t that a preference? How do you know we’re not Sapphic friends?”
“I’m jolly sure you’re not! You’re neither of you in the least bit Lesbian types. Besides, you’d have told me.”
“You see! You know quite well I’d have told you.”
“Yes, but going to Paris or the country for a few days isn’t the same sort of ‘preference’.”
The argument tailed off in a futile attempt to define “preference”. Ultimately Elizabeth carried her point. It was definitely established that “nothing could break” a relationship such as theirs; but that “love itself must have rest”, and therefore there was wisdom in occasional short separations; that so far from breaking up such a relationship, occasional “slight affairs” elsewhere would only strengthen and stimulate it. George allowed himself to be convinced. The snag here lay in the fact that he had definitely sensed the possible danger of arousing jealousy; whereas Elizabeth, confident in herself and the theories of her Swedish old maid, scorned the idea that so base a passion could even enter their relation.
About two months after this, George and Elizabeth were cheerfully dining in a small Soho restaurant when Fanny came in with a young man, the “young man from Cambridge”, Reggie Burnside.
“Oh, look!” exclaimed Elizabeth, “there’s Fanny and a friend with her. Fanny! Fanny!” signalling across the room. Fanny came across.
“This is George Winterbourne. You’ve often heard of Fanny, George. I say, Fanny, do come and have dinner with us.”
“Yes, do.”
“But I’ve got Reggie Burnside with me.”
“Well, bring him along too.”
The young man was introduced, and they sat down at the table. In most respects Fanny was curiously different from Elizabeth; each was not so much the antithesis as the complement to the other. Fanny was just a little taller than Elizabeth (George disliked short women); and where Elizabeth was dark and Egyptian-looking and pale, Fanny was golden and English (not chocolate-box English) and most delicate white arid red. She was a bit like Priscilla, George thought, but with the soft gold of Priscilla made hard and glittering, like an exquisite metallic flower. There was something both gem-like and flower-like in Fanny. Perhaps that was due to her eyes. With other women you are conscious almost immediately of all sorts of beauties and defects, but with Fanny you were instantaneously absorbed by the eyes. When you thought about her afterwards, you just saw a mental image of those extraordinary blue eyes, disassociated from the rest of her, like an Edgar Poe vision. But, unlike so many vivid blue eyes, they were gemlike rather than flower-like; they were not soft or stupid or sentimental or languid, but clear, alert, and rather hard. You may see exactly their shade of colour in the deeper parts of Lake Garda on a sunny day. Yet the quality was not aqueous, but vitreous. Venetian glass, perhaps? No, that is too opaque. It is very hard to say what was the quality which made them so remarkable. Men looked at them once and fell helplessly in love, one might say almost noisily in love – Fanny didn’t mind, it was obviously her métier to have men fall in love with her. Perhaps Fanny’s eyes were simply made a symbol in the imagination of that mysterious sexual attraction which radiated from her, or perhaps they conformed to some unwritten but instinctively recognized canon of the perfect eye, the Platonic “idea” of eyes…
With Elizabeth you saw not the eyes alone, but the whole head. You would have liked to keep Fanny’s eyes, magnificently set in gold, in an open jewel-casket, to look at when you doubted whether any beauty remained in the dull world. But with Elizabeth you wanted the whole head, it was so much like one of those small stone heads of Egyptian princesses in the Louvre. So very Egyptian. The full, delicately-moulded lips, the high cheek-bones, the slightly oblique eye-sockets, the magnificent line from ear to chin, the upward sweep of the wide brow, the straight black hair. Oddly enough, on analysis Elizabeth’s eyes proved to be quite as beautiful as Fanny’s, but somehow less ostentatiously lovely. They were deeper and softer, and, which is rare in dark eyes, intelligent. Fanny’s blue eyes were intelligent enough, but they hadn’t quite the subtle depths of Elizabeth’s, they hadn’t the same reserve.
Elizabeth lived very much in and on herself; Fanny was a whole-hearted extravert. Where Elizabeth hesitated, mused, suffered, Fanny acted, came a cropper, picked herself up gaily and started off again with just the same zest for experience. She was more smartly dressed than Elizabeth. Of course, Elizabeth was always quite charming and attractive, but you guessed that she had other things to think about beside clothes. Fanny loved clothes, and, with no more money than Elizabeth, contrived to look stunningly fashionable where Elizabeth merely looked O.K. Oddly enough, Fanny was not devoured by the Scylla of clothes, the monster of millinery which is never satiate with its female victims. Her energy saved her from that. She and Elizabeth were both restlessly energetic; but whereas Elizabeth’s energy went into dreaming and arguing and trying to paint, Fanny’s went into all sorts of activities with all sorts of persons. She did not “do” anything, having sense e
nough to see that in most young women “arts’ is merely a kind of safety-valve for sex. Fanny, I’m glad to say, did not need a safety-valve for her sex; the steam-pressure was kept regulated and the engine worked perfectly, thank you very much. She was emotionally and mentally far less complicated than Elizabeth, less profound; therefore to her the new sexual régime, where perfect freedom has happily taken the place of service, presented fewer possible snags. I’ve said, of course, that Fanny sometimes came a cropper; she did, but she hadn’t Elizabeth’s capacity for suffering, Elizabeth’s desolate despair when her silk purse turned out to be a sow’s ear – which everyone else had known long before.
Perhaps the remarkable quality of Elizabeth’s mind and character is best showed by the fact that she never said or implied anything mean or nasty about Fanny’s clothes…
Reggie Burnside was a rich young man engaged in some mysterious “research work” at Cambridge, something connected with the structure of the atom, and highly impressive because the nature of his work could only be explained in elaborate mathematical symbols. He wore spectacles, talked in a high intellectual voice with the peculiar intonation and blurred syllables favoured by some members of that great centre of learning, and appeared exceedingly weary. Even Fanny’s impetuous dash never galvanized him into a spontaneous action or a natural remark. He also was extremely modern, and was devoted to Fanny. He was always at hand when nothing better presented itself – the permanent second string to the fiddle, or, as Fanny put it, one of her fautes, adding sotto voce, my faute-de-mieux.
The talk at first was the usual highbrow chatter of the period – Flecker and Brooke and Mr. Russell, referred to as “Bertie” in a casual way by Fanny and Reggie, to the mystification of George. This is one of the charming traits of the English intelligentsia. Everyone they don’t know is an outsider, and they love to keep the outsider outside by a gently condescending patronage. A most effective method is to talk nonchalantly about well-known people by their Christian names:
“Have you read Johnny’s last book?”
“No-oh. Not yet. The last one was a dreadful bore. Is this any better?”
“No-oh, I don’t think so. Tommy dislikes it profoundly. Says it reminds him of sports on the village green.”
“How amusing!”
“Oh, Tommy can be quite amusing at times. I was with him and Bernard the other day, and Bernard said…”
And if the outsider is silly enough to bite, and to say timidly or bluntly, “Who’s Johnny?” the answer comes swift and sweet:
“O-oh! Don’t you know…!”
And then the dazzled outsider is condescendingly informed who “Johnny” is, and, especially if a mere American or Continental, is crushed to learn that “Johnny” is Johnny Walker or some other enormously brilliant light in the firmament of British culture…
George got sick of hearing about “Bertie” without being told who the devil Bertie was, and began to talk about Ezra Pound, Jules Romains, and Modigliani. But he soon learned by sweet implication that such people might be all very well in their way, but after all, well, you know what I mean, Cambridge is Cambridge… So George shut up and said nothing. Then Reggie began to talk to Elizabeth about Alpine climbing, the sport of Dons – and a very appropriate one too, if you think about it. And Fanny talked to George.
Now Fanny was quite a subtil little beast of the field, and saw that George was a bit sulky, and guessed why. Vapourish airs were indifferent to her. She had been brought up among such people, and unconsciously adopted their tone when speaking to them. But when she was among other sorts of people she just as unconsciously dropped the vapourish airs and let her natural self respond to theirs. She had a foot, one might almost say a leg, in several social worlds; and got on perfectly well in any of them. There was a sort of physical indifference in Fanny which at first sight looked like mere hardness, and wasn’t. In fact, she wasn’t nearly as hard as Elizabeth, who could be quite Stonehengey at times. And then suddenly crumble. But Fanny’s physical indifference carried her through a lot; one felt that her morning bath had something Lethean about it, and washed away the memory of last night’s lover along with his touch.
So Fanny began to talk to George quite naturally and gaily. He was suspicious, and gave her three verbal bangs in quick succession. She took them with unflinching good-humour, and went on talking and trying to find out what he was interested in. George pretty soon melted to her gaiety – or perhaps it was the gem-like eyes. He looked at them, and wondered what it felt like to possess natural organs which were such superb objets d’art. They must, he reflected, cause her a good deal of annoyance. Every man who met her would feel called upon to inform her that she had wonderful eyes, as if he had made an astounding discovery, hitherto unrevealed by any one. George decided that it would be well not to comment upon Fanny’s eyes at a first meeting.
Reggie had failed to interest Elizabeth in Alpine climbing, and switched off to “amusing anecdotes, which were more successful. Under the mild influence of a little wine and a sympathetic listener Reggie shed some of his worst mannerisms and became almost human. He liked Elizabeth. She might not be wholly “amusing”, but she was “refreshing”. (She was a good listener.) And when the talk once again became general, George began to think that Reggie was not such a bad fellow after all; there was a sort of “niceness” about him, the genuine English pride and good-nature under a screen of affectation.
They sat over coffee and cigarettes until the fidgeting of the waiter and “Madame’s” little games with the electric switches warned them that their money and absence would now be more welcome than their company. It was well after ten – too late for the cinema. They walked down Shaftesbury Avenue, George with Reggie, and Elizabeth with Fanny.
“I like your George,” said Fanny.
“Do you? I’m so glad.”
“He’s a bit farouche, but I like the way he enthuses about what interests him. It’s not put on.”
“I think Reggie’s rather nice.
“Oh! Reggie…” and Fanny waved her hand with a little shrug.
“But he is nice, Fanny. You know you like him.”
“Yes, he’s all right. I’m not wild about him. You can have him, if you want.”
“Oh! Oh!” Elizabeth laughed; “wait till I ask you!”
They separated at Piccadilly Circus. Fanny and Reggie went off somewhere in a taxi. Coming down Shaftesbury Avenue, George had noticed that it was a clear night with a full moon, and insisted on going to the Embankment to see the moonlight on the Thames. They turned into the Haymarket.
“What do you think of Fanny?” asked Elizabeth.
“I think she has most marvellous eyes.”
“Yes, that’s what everyone says.”
“I was trying to be original! But she’s a nice girl, too. At first, when she and Burnside began talking, I thought she was hopelessly infected by his sort of affectation.”
“Why! Don’t you like him? I thought he was charming.”
“Charming? I shouldn’t say that. I think he’s not a bad sort of fellow really, but you know how exasperating I find the Cambridge bleat. Ah’d much raver lis’n to a fuckin’ Cawkn’y, swop me bob, I would.”
“But you know he’s a very important young scientist, and supposed to be doing marvellous research work.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“No. Fanny couldn’t tell me. She said you had to be a specialist yourself to understand what he’s doing.”
“Well, I must say I’m a bit suspicious of these mysterious ‘specialists’, who can’t even tell you plainly what they’re doing. I think Boileau’s right – what’s accurately conceived can be clearly expressed. When Science begins to talk the language of mystic Theology and superstition, I begin to suspect it vehemently. Besides, only the feeble sections of any aristocracy take on vapourish airs and affected ways of talk. Well-bred people haven’t any affectations. And men with really fine minds haven’t any intellectual vanity.”
“Oh, but Reggie isn’t vain. He didn’t even mention his work to me. And he told such amusing stories.”
“That’s just another form of insolence – they assume you’re too ignorant and stupid to understand their great and important labours, so they never condescend even to mention them, but tell ‘amusing stories’, as I see you’ve already learned to call Common-Room gossip.”
Elizabeth was silent, ominously silent. She was more used to the Cambridge manner than George was, and thought he fussed too much about it. Besides, she had been really attracted by Reggie. She thought George was making a jealous scene. There she did him a wrong; it never occurred to George that Elizabeth might fall in love with Reggie. (Oddly enough, it never does occur to a husband or a lover in esse to suspect his probable coadjutor – until it is too late. He suspects plenty of wrong people, but rarely the right one. The Cyprian undoubtedly has artful ways.) As a matter of fact, George had not the slightest feeling of jealousy. He was merely saying what he felt, as he would have done about any other chance acquaintance. He respected Elizabeth’s silence. It was one of their numerous pacts – to respect each other’s silence. So they walked mutely down Whitehall, while George thought vaguely about Fanny and his next day’s work, and cocked his head up to try to see the moon, and watched the occasional buses bounding along like rapid barges in the empty light-filled river of Belgian blocks; and Elizabeth brooded over the supposed revelation of a hitherto unsuspected tendency to silly jealousy in George. But just as they approached the Abbey, George slipped his arm through hers so naturally, affectionately, and unsuspiciously that Elizabeth’s ill-humour vanished, and in two minutes they were chattering as volubly as ever.
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