A Severe Mercy

by Sheldon Vanauken

  SPRING (blue)

  We two shall wear the blue of spring, through all

  The years the lilac and the singing;

  No drowsy summer hiding hints of fall,

  But April always, blossoms clinging.

  And as night falls, before we’ve lost the leaven

  Of spring—bare branches, reaching, budding,

  Melt quietly in dove-grey fields of heaven—

  One April kiss as dark comes flooding.

  To conclude that memorable day—the devastating crisis, the master idea that was to shape our love, and the poem—my father invited us to dine with him at his club, and he called Davy ‘a good feller’ for going to call on Mother in hospital. Davy glowed at that accolade for days. At the club we discussed large steaks and burgundy.

  Later we looked back upon that day when sharing was born as the day when, earnestly, hopefully, gaily, we began to raise the Shining Barrier.

  The Shining Barrier—the shield of our love. A walled garden. A fence around a young tree to keep the deer from nibbling it. A fortified place with the walls and watchtowers gleaming white like the cliffs of England. The Shining Barrier—we called it so from the first—protecting the green tree of our love. And yet in another sense it was our love itself, made strong within, that was the Shining Barrier.

  But why does love need to be guarded? Against what enemies? We looked about us and saw the world as having become a hostile and threatening place where standards of decency and courtesy were perishing and war loomed gigantic. A world where love did not endure. The smile of inloveness seemed to promise for ever, but friends who had been in love last year were parting this year. The divorce rate was in the news. Where were any older people in love ?

  It must be that, whatever its promise, love does not by itself endure. But why? What was the failure behind the failure of love ?

  On a day in early spring we thought we saw the answer. The killer of love is creeping separateness. Inloveness is a gift of the gods, but then it is up to the lovers to cherish or to ruin. Taking love for granted, especially after marriage. Ceasing to do things together. Finding separate interests. ‘We’ turning into T . Self. Self-regard: what I want to do. Actual selfishness only a hop away. This was the way of creeping separateness. And in the modern world, especially in the cities, everything favoured it. The man going off to his office; the woman staying home with the children—her children—or perhaps having a different job. The failure of love might seem to be caused by hate or boredom or unfaithfulness with a lover; but those were results. First came the creeping separateness: the failure behind the failure.

  We raised the Shining Barrier against creeping separateness, which was, in the last analysis, self. We also raised it against a world of indecencies and decaying standards, the decline of courtesy, the whispering mockers of love. We would have our own standards. And, above all, we would be Ms-centred, not self-centred. Against creeping separateness we would oppose the great principle of sharing. We saw self as the ultimate danger to love, which it is; we didn’t see it as the ultimate evil of hell, which it also is. We saw only the danger to our love. Still, we turned away from it, turned away because we loved our love. And we were determined that it should endure.

  Creeping separateness and sharing were opposite sides of one coin. We rejected separate activities, whether bridge or shooting or sailing, because they would lead to creeping separateness; on the other hand, if one of us liked anything, the other, in the name of sharing, must learn to like it, too. It was now that we re-examined our doubts about children. If children could be raised by a nanny, we sharing them for a few hours each day, or even if we were farmers, children might be a good. But in the pattern of modern life, where they became the centre for the woman, they were separating. We would not have children. Nor would we allow any career, unless we pursued it together, to become dominating.

  We began immediately, with enthusiasm and thoroughness, to live by the principle of sharing. We decided that each of us must read every book, even children’s books, the other had read; and we did so. Even as I was more at home in the world of literature, so she was in the world of music; and I began to study in the music room of the college, letting the symphonies and quartets flow into my being. I might remain our maker of poems and she our maker of music—she was a talented organist and pianist—but we became at home in both worlds. Specially loved music she played for me and specially loved books—and of course all poems—we read aloud. One such book that I knew and loved was George du Maurier’s Peter Ibbetson, the story of a deathless love. We read it together with delight; and, unable to find the film of it, old when I’ d seen it, we arranged a private showing—in the name of sharing. In a quiet little park near the club where we often met, there was a small bronze fairy on a stone tree stump: she became ‘la fée Tarapata-poum’; and ‘Mimsey’ became a secret, endearing name for Davy. But that beloved book was one of hundreds; and every book, like every poem or concerto or string quartet, became a dear bond between us. We read new books together or one right after the other. We went to plays and concerts together; and if one couldn’t go, neither did. It seemed to us that one of the great separating things was the gender points of view: girls brought up to think like women, boys like men. We therefore commenced an immense effort, which we continued over the years, to see and understand the very different points of view: it is not too much to say that I learnt to think like a woman and she like a man. Inevitably our closeness was deepened, incredibly deepened, by our doing so. Our thesis that if one of us liked something there must be something to like about it which the other could find was proved again and again. And sharing was union. More and more, as I read her books and knew her music, she was in me and I in her; and so for her: the co-inherence of lovers.

  The Shining Barrier was, above all, sharing and the defence against creeping separateness; but we developed other principles. One of these of course was total trust. Another that I have mentioned was our insight that possessions could become a burden. Somewhat later—I’ m looking a bit beyond that first spring—we developed what might be called a principle of spontaneity: if one of us had an impulse—to stop and listen to a bird, to go for a walk in the night, to cut classes, to do anything—we both followed it always. Another, not quite the same, was the principle of the affirmative: if one of us arrived at a belief, we both accepted it unless it could be disproved; we considered that any affirmative was more to be trusted than the negative. If one of us had seen a ghost, not that either did, the other would accept, not scoff. And there was a principle of courtesy: whatever one of us asked the other to do -it was assumed the asker would weigh all consequences—the other would do. Thus one might wake the other in the night and ask for a cup of water; and the other would peacefully (and sleepily) fetch it. We, in fact, defined courtesy as ‘a cup of water in the night’. And we considered it a very great courtesy to ask for the cup as well as to fetch it.

  We sought closeness through sharing in order to keep inloveness; but such closeness was simply true union. In an early talk at the club, we saw the process of achieving union as like two stones becoming one by grinding together, the hard bits of one wearing away the soft bits of the other, until at last the fit is perfect: one stone. Pagans that we were, we were not reminded of Christ’s ‘one flesh’ for marriage; if we had been, we might have felt a faint alliance with Him. We of course realised that our initial ‘fit’ had been quite close—particularly in response to beauty and in sense of humour—but still the process of becoming one stone was not unattended by squeaks and howls, especially since we were both strong and combative. But we could laugh at ourselves. Another blessing—though we took it for granted—was that we could always talk together. We were both highly articulate, using words in the same way, and both willing and eager to talk about anything. Finally, we both believed—again we took it for granted—that we could, of course, alter ourselves if we once saw good reason to do so: our minds and wills were in control. The
statement, so common in these days of mass psychologising, ‘This is the way I am and you’ll just have to accept it’, would have been quite impossible for either of us. We may have been over-confident, but I can’t help feeling that our willingness to tackle anything was altogether preferable to the passive acceptance of known faults. In Tschaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony there is a motto running through all four movements, sometimes melancholy, sometimes ominous, becoming finally a paean of triumph. We identified our love —the Shining Barrier — with it: it sang our love.

  Sometimes we had fights: we were human and had tempers. Usually the fights were over nothing: we would be tired or a bit out of touch from being out in the world and apart. Our very closeness was a danger in that we were instantly aware of the slightest disharmony: a grain of dust that would not affect an alarm clock may throw off a fine watch. A hint of anger or coldness in a voice would shock the other. Outrage would be politely expressed. Love had been betrayed. Unbelievable disaster had come upon us. Hope was gone, eyes would be averted, and an awful silence would ensue. And yet, in the depths, we knew that if we caught each other’s eye we would laugh and it would be over. But we were not going to forgive that betrayer. We also knew that one loving word or even putting a record on — especially the humorous music of ‘The Love for the Three Oranges’ — would restore us. Sometimes one of us would act. Once a bird landed on the sill of the open window and looked out of one bright eye at us, silent and motionless, within; and we burst into laughter. Sometimes the silence would become ridiculous and we would both be suppressing a desire to laugh; finally one of us would, uncontrollably, grin; laughter would follow and we would be lovers again. Heaven would follow: reconciliation, tenderness, joy. Depths and heights.

  We learned one thing from these rare quarrels, and that was that separation was a danger. Fights always came when we had got a little bit out of harmony with each other. In later navy days when my ship would be at sea for a fortnight, we found that it took about twenty-four hours for us to recover the reality of each other, even though we would have been thinking constantly of each other. What happened, we decided, was that, apart, we would slightly idealise each other, and to that extent lose the real person. Similarly, if we went out with other people several nights running, we would get a little bit out of touch. We must have days or evenings just to be with each other, playing music, reading poems, and being out-doors. ‘Outdoors alone’ — alone together — expressed something we needed: the wind and sky, the earth and the sea.

  To be the watch upon the walls of the Shining Barrier, we early established what, later, we called the Navigators’ Council. It was in part a ‘truth session’ but, more significantly, it was an inquiry into the ‘state of the union’. Were we fully sharing? Was there any sign of creeping separateness? These Councils would occur fortnightly or monthly. In them we would pour out sherry and begin with a burst of music from some noble symphony, perhaps the singing motto of the ‘Fifth’, and then we would talk. Often there were decisions to make. Whatever the decision, it would be made upon the single basis of what we called the ‘Appeal to Love’.

  The ‘Appeal to Love’ was an essential part of the very structure of the Shining Barrier. What it meant was simply this question: what will be best for our love? Should one of us change a pattern of behaviour that bothered the other, or should the other learn to accept? Well, which would be better for our love? Which way would be better, in any choice or decision, in the light of our single goal: to be in love as long as life might last? No argument could prevail against it. The Appeal to Love was like a trumpet call from the battlements of the Shining Barrier, causing us to lift our eyes from immediate desires to what was truly important.

  The Appeal to Love, with its declaration that inloveness was for us first, and the very name of the Shining Barrier, with its image of walls, might together suggest the exclusion of friendship and family love. The suggestion would be false. One of the three points of my childhood code — which is something of a key to this book — was ‘Never betray a friend.’ That might imply that friendship was important to me: and so it was, to me and to Davy, too. We believed in deep and genuine friendship, and we held our friends and our families very dear and were intensely loyal to them. The Shining Barrier — it is necessary to remember what it was — did not exclude anything that was good and beautiful, as all the loves appeared to us to be; and the Appeal to Love was simply an ordering of values: first things first. Conflicts between inloveness and friendship rarely or never arose. Conflicts were almost always between the wilful self and love.

  It might be mentioned here that the most spirited feminist of later years could not easily fault a union based on sharing and the Appeal to Love in decision-making, a union where no one exercised authority. We did what was necessary to do—housework or sail-mending—together as a part of sharing: not in the name of women’s rights but in the great name of love.

  Signals for use in the outer world or in company were a useful and practical means of maintaining our connections. There was a ‘recognition signal’, a gentle four-note whistle with a slightly different response, that was useful in a hundred situations; and a sharp ‘Alert’ or ‘Emergency’ that would, and often did, bring one of us out of sleep with a bound. For use in company we had a whole range of signals that didn’t depend on catching each other’s eye or contorted faces. They were, in fact, mostly innocent questions, such as asking, ‘Did you bring those English Ovals?’ And they meant such things as ‘This person is boring me out of my mind: do some-thing!’ or ‘Let’s get out of here!’ or ‘Keep your eye on the one I shall glance towards’ or ‘The one that just spoke is lying’ or ‘When we go, let’s ask the person (or couple) I shall glance at to come with us.’ These and many others, some more subtle and complex, along with the appropriate responses, in all of which we were well drilled, enabled us to carry on fairly elaborate conversations with privacy in a roomful of people.

  Apart from the signals, we were often thought to be able to read each other’s mind. Regrettably, this wasn’t true with respect to actual telepathy, though not for want of trying, with rare but startling successes that were, maybe, coincidence. But we were, in truth, so close, so familiar with the way each other’s mind worked, so much in the co-inherence of lovers, that we usually knew by a glance or tone of voice what the other was thinking and, especially, feeling. We sometimes startled our more observant friends by acting upon such knowledge, hardly aware that we were doing so; but it would seem uncanny to the observer. Once a friend saw Davy glance fleetingly at the candles on our mantelpiece but not at me; and then a moment later I got up and lighted them. ‘It almost scared me,’ the friend concluded later. ‘It was too perfect.’

  The Shining Barrier was all of these elements, centred in sharing and absolute trust, that we built into our love, making it invulnerable, we believed, to the destroyers of love, such as creeping separateness. We fell in love—a springtime first love—and we swore it should endure. Whatever might happen to other people’s loves, ours should endure. And it did endure, though it was to encounter, long years later, something we never reckoned on. What was remarkable, if not unique, about our love-our inloveness—was all we built into it, giving to it all our minds and devotion. But beneath all the hard thought was the loveliness of the love itself, love so deep and clear that it almost broke our hearts with its passion and tenderness. The passion, the sexual element, was there: and sexual harmony like sexual playfulness was an important dimension of our love. But it wasn’t itself the whole thing; and we knew that to make it the whole or even the most important element was to court disaster. Those who see love as only sex or mainly sex do not, quite simply, know what love is. They are the blind man assuming that the trunk of the elephant—or perhaps the phallus—is the whole creature. Sex is merely part of a greater thing. To be in love, as to see beauty, is a kind of adoring that turns the lover away from self. Just seeing Davy asleep, defenceless and trusting and innocent, could tear my he
art, then in that first spring or a dozen years later. When we first fell in love in the dead of winter, we said, ‘If we aren’t more in love in lilactime, we shall be finished.’ But we were more in love: for love must grow or die. Every year on our anniversary we said, ‘If we’re not more deeply in love next year, we shall have failed.’ But we were: a deeper inloveness, more close, more dear. She in me and I in her: the co-inherence of lovers. And every year we would drink to the future in the old toast: ‘If it’s half as good as the half we’ve known, here’s Hail! to the rest of the road.’

  But the Shining Barrier, however invulnerable to the separating forces of life, was not invulnerable to death. We were aware of death: those who love life most always are. We reminded ourselves in Walter de la Mare’s words to ‘Look thy last on all things lovely/ Every hour . . .’ And we said, meaning it, that if death came to-morrow, after only a year of such a love, or after only five years or ten, it would not be defeat. However brief, a mortal splendour!

  No defeat, that is, if death came for us both at once. But death is no respecter of love. If we so perfected our love, if we were so much one, we were running a ghastly risk. How could one of us ever bear the death of the other? We were haunted by the thought; we dreamt of it with terror. It was in that first spring that I first dreamt of her death. In the dream we were improbably skylarking about on the top of a ten-storey building, Davy laughing on the parapet... falling... I racing down all those flights of stairs in such anguish I wonder I didn’t perish in my sleep .. . she in the deserted street, every bone broken . . . giving me one tiny kiss and dying. That dream was the single most awful agony of my whole life; and she was haunted by such dreams. It was not to be borne.