Gordon, to some extent, shared these feelings. He said to her one night as they were dressing for dinner:
“The poetry of Thomas Moore, though inferior in many respects, is singularly expressive of certain moods, don’t you think? Or is that merely another tribute to the genius of our friend? I should never have believed it possible to find myself in tears at such a song as The Last Rose of Summer.”
“I cried too,” agreed Louise. “I thought how we shall all grow old and how we shall look back on these days.”
“Yet it is little more than a sentimental drawing-room ballad. As an air it would not have been worthy of Schubert, as poetry how vastly inferior, even in crystallisation of a single mood, to Heine! But I was more deeply moved by it than by anything that Elissa has sung. And I ask myself if this moving quality, the touch of an emotion which has something universal in it, is all hers, or if some of the credit should not be given to the poet. Was Moore a better poet than I have always supposed? That last verse:
And so may I follow,
When friendships decay!
And from love’s shining circle
The gems drop away! …”
He broke off, shaking his head. This was certainly not good poetry, he thought. The words were commonplace, but they had moved him. Was it because the man who wrote them had been sincere, or had it merely been some accent in Elissa’s voice? Or was it because these lines were so appropriate, because it seemed to him nowadays as though he formed part of “love’s circle” himself?
He saw the future more clearly than did Louise. He knew that after this summer there would be the Michaelmas term, the falling leaves, the lecture room and the smell of dust on books. The thought made him feel old and tired and regretful. It plunged him into melancholy. He nodded sadly when Louise said:
“Oh, if only it could last for ever!”
“We have been very lucky,” he said. “At least I consider myself to have been so. And I owe it to you, my dear. You brought us here. You brought our little circle together. I shall be grateful to you for this summer as long as I have power to remember anything.”
“Dear Gordon …”
“I don’t know how to tell you … this happiness …”
He found himself unable to speak, and there were tears in his eyes. He took her hand and kissed her.
“We have never understood one another so well,” he said. “This happiness has brought us together.”
“I know.”
“And for our … our friend, too, I think it has been a happy chance. We have been able to give something to her in return for all that she has given to us.”
Louise sighed.
“If only she would fall in love with Guy!”
“No, Louise! Don’t say that! We are very well as we are. Friendship is such a beautiful thing. Why should you want to break the circle … love’s shining circle?”
“It wouldn’t break it. It would draw us all closer together.”
“We couldn’t,” said Gordon anxiously, “be closer than we are. Don’t, Louise! Don’t want to change things.”
But Louise was not convinced, and as the days went on she began to grow impatient. At last she tackled Elissa.
“Don’t you think Guy Fletcher is very attractive?” she asked.
Elissa shook her head.
“But brilliant, certainly. Attractive? No! For attraction there must be some magnetism, some electric current of sympathy. I find that there is no current. Not any current at all. I cannot say that he attracts me.”
“I am so fond of him,” pleaded Louise.
“My dearest friend,” said Elissa, softly caressing her arm, “you are fond of everybody. It is a wonderful gift. But in this case I think it means that you pity him. He is so cold, so timid, so … how shall I say it … so afraid of life. One feels that he is saying No! all the time to life. Just like that. ‘No, no, no! Do not touch me!’ He will not live. He will not feel. He is afraid. It is Il Gran Rifuto.”
“I know what you mean.”
“He is like …” Elissa searched among her stock of English idioms and continued triumphantly, “… he is like a cat on hot bricks! I can only admire asceticism if it springs from passion. If it springs from timidity I despise it. I could never find that type attractive. No, no! It is not Guy Fletcher whom I would choose from among your delightful friends.”
She said this with so much emphasis that Louise was startled. For a second their eyes met, questioningly, and then Elissa continued:
“Aha! Let us speak candidly, you and I! You say that you are fond of him, but you do not yourself feel any attraction. It is nothing to you if he is in the room or if he is not in the room. You do not always hear him when he speaks. Your pulses do not run more quickly if he has touched you.”
“I should hope they don’t,” said Louise rather sharply.
“That is what I call attraction. You must feel it yourself. Oh, yes. But we are alike, you and I. We are alike in many ways, in our love for what is beautiful and in our admiration for what is passionate, what is virile. I think, among our friends here, there is only one man who has called to the woman in us.”
“Elissa! What … what do you mean?”
“Is it possible that … but that is hypocritical! It is not like you. When he first came here, that night when you were rushing to the window, what did I see? I saw a changed woman. My little captive bird was transformed. She was free. She was trembling with emotion. ‘Oh, it is Dick! He is come!’ Could I mistake those accents? It is Sieglinde, I said to myself.
“Elissa, how can you? How dare you? You don’t know what you’re saying. You are joking and I don’t like it.”
“Do not deceive yourself. You never speak of him in the voice that you use for other people. Your eyes, your whole manner, betray you. Even before he came I knew that you loved him. But I can understand you so well. It is an emotion that I can share. You ask me if I find Guy Fletcher attractive and I tell you, no. You ask me if I find your brother attractive and I tell you, yes. A thousand times, yes! I would gladly …”
“Elissa, stop! You must stop. You’re wrong. You’re quite, quite wrong. To begin with he isn’t my brother. He isn’t my brother at all. He’s my brother-in-law. Don’t you understand? He’s no relation at all. He’s my sister’s husband. Ellen’s husband. He’s married to Ellen. Ellen is my sister.”
Elissa brushed this aside. She had never mastered the exact relationships of the Annesley tribe.
“But that is not to say that you do not love him. We both love him. Is not that so?”
“No. It isn’t so. I don’t. How could I love my sister’s husband? And you mustn’t, mustn’t say such things. You can’t be serious …”
Now it was Elissa’s turn to look offended.
“Upon this subject I am always serious. To me it is sacred.”
“I don’t see anything sacred about proposing to fall in love with a married man!”
“Liebchen, do not be so heated! I do not propose to fall in love with him. I have already done so. You ask me which among our party I love and I say your brother. I did not ask that it should be so. In these things, as in art, we are inspired. And I think that, if you were frank, you also would admit …”
“No, I shouldn’t. No, I shouldn’t.”
“You say that because you are shut up in your prison. You dare not live face to face with the truth, as I do.” Louise was so flurried and beset by so many emotions, all of them disagreeable, that she hardly knew what she was doing or saying. She could not make up her mind which idea revolted her most: that she should be in love with Dick or that Elissa should.
“You must think I have no decency at all,” she cried.
Elissa put a gentle hand on her arm.
“Dearest Louise, do not be so angry. I have spoken too frankly. You must forgive me.”
“It’s so shocking … so horrible of you to suggest …”
“Let us then forget this conversation. I admit that I shoul
d not have spoken at all. Even between friends there are some things which should only be admitted by silence.”
“But I don’t admit …”
“I know, I know. For me it is possible to speak of these things, but not for you. I respect your silence. My dearest friend, forgive me. You are looking so beautiful this morning. I don’t wish to quarrel with anyone who looks so beautiful. I will unsay everything. And now let us go and find the children. I have promised to tell them fairy stories.”
Elissa embraced her flurried friend, but Louise, for the first time in their acquaintance, did not respond.
“It’s very kind of you to bother about the children,” she said coldly, “and I really do think that they appreciate it. That fidgeting is just a bad habit the little Napiers have got into. I know Rosamund enjoys it, anyhow.”
16
“MY DEAR MOTHER,” wrote Kerran,
“I never expected to find that I have so much in common with Guy Fletcher. Our tastes may be widely dissimilar, but it appears that we share one great distaste so completely that we are quite drawn together. To escape from the sight of Elissa Koebel, to be where she is not, has become the ruling passion of our lives. And the island is so small that we do not find it easy. We spend a great deal of time in our common bedroom. We are there now. Fletcher is reading Comus, and I am waiting for an opportunity to slip out and snatch a bathe. I have just asked Fletcher if he doesn’t think it would be a wise precaution to keep our door locked, but he is not amused.
“Dick has quite gone over to the enemy, and we cannot forgive him. He prowls round in the wake of the Vergil readers, looking like a werewolf, and nobody can imagine what he is up to. He seems to be out of sorts and out of spirits. Fletcher thinks it is because he is annoyed over the death of that unfortunate lady. He says that wounded prestige is at the bottom of it. He says that Dick is a worldly man; that he estimates the whole of life in terms of material success and that he has, therefore, very little defence against failure.
“I don’t know how he knows all this. He says that Dick has no spiritual values. This may be true. I don’t know what spiritual values are, do you? And it is evident, from the tone of his voice, that he thinks a materialist on a level with a card-sharper. A queer fellow! He seems to be so desperately concerned about evil. He worries over it just as Maude worries over germs, and is always having to remove himself, hastily, from its proximity. I wish you could see his face, reading Comus: it has the fixed glare of an inexpert bicyclist who daren’t, for a second, take his eyes off his front wheel. He is pursuing goodness and beauty, but it is very hard because evil is always getting in the way and he has to make nervous little dashes like a timid child pulling hot chestnuts out of the fire.
“He objects to Elissa because she is evil, and, much as I dislike the woman, I’m bound to say that I think he maligns her. I merely find her a bore. But then I don’t believe in these Powers of Darkness prowling about and trying to distract our attention from the good. ‘Matter in the wrong place,’ I say. And the Koebel is certainly matter in the wrong place.
“I think the moment is propitious for a swim, as they must have settled down for their morning’s Love Feast by now. So I will close. Take care of yourself.
“Your affectionate son,
“KERRAN.”
The quadrangle, for once, seemed to be clear. Kerran got safely across to the north gate, and stopped to look at the barometer, just inside the gate house. It was still set at fair, but when he tapped it, it went back a little. The long spell of fine weather was beginning to break up. For two or three days more the sun would shine, perhaps, but then it would rain with the persistence of a long foretold change.
“God help us when we are all shut up,” thought Kerran.
Just outside he ran straight into the arms of the enemy. Elissa was picking mushrooms on the greensward going down to the lake. She was alone, a thing which seldom happened. He remembered that Gordon and Dick had gone into Killross to bring out some groceries for Maude, but he could not imagine what Louise had done with herself. It was at the back of his mind that Louise, for the last day or two, had not been quite so cordial to Elissa as before, but he felt that the wish might have been father to the thought.
“For supper to-night,” she called to him gaily, “I shall make a mushroom omelette à l’hongroise. You will see. I have learnt how to do it, but the recept is a secret. It shall be a little treat for all you good people. Now I am picking the mushrooms. There are so many, because the moon is getting larger. Soon it will be full moon, and we shall have many mushrooms. Then afterwards not so many. When there is no moon, no mushrooms at all. That is what I have heard the country people say. Give me your hat. I can’t hold them all. Now stand beside me and we will use the hat for a basket. And we will talk.”
“ ‘We’ is good,” thought Kerran, as he stood submissively beside her, holding the hat.
But he was mistaken.
“I have a question to ask. You do not like me very much, I know.”
“Oh … really, madame …”
“But it is natural. I understand. Louise has told me.”
“Why … what …”
“There is so much sadness in the world, nicht? And you, my poor friend, are just now very sad. The gaiety and merriment of our little group is unsympathetic to you. You prefer to be alone. Louise has told me about your most unhappy love.”
Kerran nearly dropped the hat.
“I, too, have had such an experience, very long ago, when I was scarcely more than a child. I loved a priest. But his vows were an obstacle. They prevented our happiness. He was obliged to confine himself in a convent in order not to see me any more. I tell you, it was terrible how I suffered. Ah yes, it was terrible. But see … here are Louise and Ellen. Now we shall soon pick enough mushrooms to make a beautiful omelette.” Louise and Ellen had just come out of the north gate, and Ellen went down to sit on the little stone bench by the lake. She often sat there, with her needlework, in the morning, unless she could find somebody to row her over to the mainland, which she preferred. Louise, after one glance at Elissa and Kerran, turned round and went back into the castle. Elissa called after her:
“Louise! Louise! Will you not come to pick mushrooms? I am going to make an omelette this evening.”
“No, thank you,” cried Louise impatiently over her shoulder. “Don’t bother, Elissa. We’ve eaten enough mushrooms. I can’t face the prospect of any more. They’re an overrated vegetable.”
She disappeared into the castle again. Elissa stood silent for a moment, a little puzzled, a trifle crestfallen at so novel a rebuff. She still held a large mushroom in her hand, stretched out towards the castle like a rejected offering.
An extraordinary thing happened to Kerran. He found that he was feeling sorry for the woman. Though he had been longing for Louise to grow tired of her, yet, now that it seemed to be happening, he was not satisfied. Louise was not a faithful friend. She formed extravagant intimacies and then cooled down abruptly. It was not the first time that he had seen her drop somebody in a way that was almost brutal. He had always known it would happen. He ought to have been pleased.
But he was not. He wished that it could have happened in some other way. He did not like Elissa, but he felt that she was what she was. She had never pretended to be anything else and, in her own way, she was perfectly genuine and sincere—far more so than Louise. She had a real affection for the Lindsays and she would suffer if they cast her off. She had done nothing to deserve the shock and the humiliation. Louise was entirely to blame throughout. Kerran, who had a good deal of indolent kindliness, could not endure it. He was sorry for her, and he felt, once more, a little ashamed of himself, as he had felt when she first came to the castle.
“It’s easy to laugh at her,” he thought, “she is larger than we are.”
He had been on the point of flinging his hat at her and taking flight without any excuse whatever. He had felt that he could not put up with any more of her
conversation. But now he stayed, in order to give her a certain amount of confidence after her rebuff, because to leave her quite alone would not have been kind. He told himself that he would stay until Gordon and Dick came back, just to teach Louise a lesson.
After a short, puzzled pause, his companion seemed to forget the incident. She resumed:
“I, myself, am a deeply religious woman. But I believe that God has meant us to be happy. These chains which we make for ourselves, they have been forged by the devil. Happily the world is becoming more free. If we are courageous, and if we refuse to let ourselves be bound by puritanical conventions, then we are helping to make it more free. It is so easy to be happy. But I have a question to ask you. Perhaps you can tell me. Why is it that your brother also suffers from this terrible depression?”
“Barny?” exclaimed Kerran in amazement.
“Oh no! I do not interest myself in the amiable Barny. I speak of De-eck.”
“Oh, Dick! He’s been overworking.”
“Ach so! I feel so sorry for him. But he has not talked to you? There is not anything … perhaps some special trouble …”
She looked at him archly, questioningly.
“He’s been especially worried about a case,” admitted Kerran.
“A case? I understand. I think it is a pity that he should have taken the medical profession. He is too sensitive. He is too much of an artist. It is not enough for a sensitive man to cure sick people. For me, I think that sick people had better die. They are ugly and the world does not want them. I am ashamed to be ill. To be concerned always with sickness and sick people, that is sordid. It is not worthy of him. There is no room in his life for what is spiritual, and what is beautiful. I can see it very well. He says to himself: this man suffers. I will give him a pill. That is all. But the artist says to himself: this man suffers and he makes of it some great poem. Your brother suffers because he must deny his own soul. He is obliged to become a materialist. Aber nur … why do you laugh?”
A Long Time Ago Page 17