Petunias. Hydrangeas. Hydrangeas artificially coloured, mauve (a word she didn’t like but it expressed the other odd woman who had found the ices frizzy. “No, I don’t like them. I find them awfully frizzy.” What ever did the little fool mean?) and the short thick-set man with the monocle—“no not that one, I mean the other one. Not that brute, I mean the one by the window.” But it seemed the one by the window who was leaning toward someone and whispering (why were they all, always surreptitiously whispering) was no more distinguished nor distinguishable from the other, the other one whose monocle was an inch thick, “ought to be an emerald, poor old Caesar.” “You mean Nero.” “I don’t mean either Celandine.” “My name’s not—” “Well it ought to be. And what became of Dizzy’s dance partner?” “You mean Clara?” How funny. Clara. But that wasn’t her Clara. Not her Clara. Poor Clara. Would Clara have liked this? George said she couldn’t bring them both. He said one or the other and there had been a quarrel at the last and Fay had been half dressed and Hermione had said they mustn’t be late and Fayne had jerked at the dark blue crêpe de chine thing she and Clara had spent the whole afternoon sewing on and pulled out the whole sleeve. “Wait Pau-ul. I can sew it on you.” But Fay had jerked it and pulled the thing leaving a slash on her shoulder. Poor lovely, beautiful, sulky misplaced Fayne Rabb. Fayne was so lovely, lovelier than all this if she would only let herself be. She wouldn’t let herself, let anyone be lovely. Not lovely as flowers are. As flowers must always be. She wanted things in her own way, pulled and tore, “but you — must — feel.” “But I don’t. I don’t, not your way. In my own way. O if you only knew how it went on and on and on. As if a whole book on one single page (like ancient papyrus) rolled on and on.” We are here. We are there. We will go mad being here and there unless we give up simply, stay here and are lost, stay there and are dead. To be here and there at the same time, that is the triumph. Walter was doing that, had been doing that. “O Dowel. Excellent fellow. Starts the ghosts quivering from somewhere in Heine’s inferno.” “Heine’s inferno?” “Damn, Celandine. I never was one of you élite lettrée—” “My name’s not—” “Well, it should be.” Flowers. Talk. How odd, how witty they all were. How could they be so perfect, all made up out of a play? Even Walter didn’t see that, how lovely they were, all these people. The people took on a sudden loveliness. Was it because she was thinking of Fayne Rabb? O Fay you should have been here. “Cela—” “O don’t — call me — that.” “What does he call you, Di?” “The brute calls me—Cel—an — dine.” “O — ho. Ho.” That isn’t how people laugh. But how write how people laugh? It is a shivering, a quivering. It’s a letting go. And how delicious. She was letting go, this utterly adorable thin thing in a green gown whose hair was coming down—“Violet.” “Who’s calling me Violet?” “It’s pom-pom over there. She’s lost twenty stone since you last saw her.” “O pom—”
The Violet of the piece was having hair pins rescued for her. “These jade things will spill.” “You shouldn’t wear jade hair-pins. It’s pre-posterous.” “Yes. Isn’t it. But I won them on a bet—” “A?” “Actually. I won them, and I wear them.” “You lose them you mean. Crawl under the arm-chair Teddy, that’s a darling. No. That’s a house-maid’s hair pin.” “Maybe it’s De-li-a’s.” “Delicious Delia. No. It is quite unworthy. Now why is Delia right and why is Mrs. Shoddy Percy there wrong? They both got their gowns at Berrys.” “Brute.”
They didn’t. They did. “Why look at the V cut as no one else does.” “And the X and the Y and the Z.” “One doesn’t Teddy have a Z on one’s gowns.” “What then Vi-o-let, does one have it on?” “On?” “I mean Vi dear — off—” “Look Teddie. There’s that parasite Jerry Walton. They say he killed his father.” “Really? How interesting. But is it only a rumour?” “No. Solid fact. Poor darling. It meant millions.”
O Fay, where are you dear? Look at the dear people, the funny people, the witty people. There seems no one sad at all, only someone who has broken a lorgnette, poor darling, she holds it up for everyone to see and only half the people care. O but we do care. Don’t cry over it. One can see it’s tortoise shell and set with tiny brilliants. Is it a crest or just your odd initials? What can her name be? O names. People. Charming people. Charming names. “Miss Her Gart, what a quaint, dear person. Little Miss Her Gart you know from Philadelphia.” “From what — ever?” “A place in the Bible, didn’t you know. And unto the angel in Philadelphia, write — Delia’s sister lives there.” “In Asia Minor did you say.” Excavations, yes. Something or other about Rome. Not legations. No. Yes, I think so. Freddie’s bound to do it. Came a cropper last time. “Delia.”
Delia was coming forward and people were saying “Delia.” They said Delia up the scale, down the scale, with grace-notes, with variations on a theme. “You are a real pet” and “won’t you come tomorrow.” “The Vinney woman, no one ever saw her—” and “Delia. I know you hate them—” but—“Delia, not that Oxford frump, no not really—” and “Delia. Delia. Delia à bientôt.”
A bientôt, Delia, Delia, Delia. Delia à bientôt. “And that means soon, soon, Delia.” “But you’re not going now?” “But everyone is going — gone. And what is there to stay for?” “O just like you. Just like you all. Can’t you see I’m tired to death. Stay Dryad.” “Dryad, Delia?” “Yes. George says so. He says no one with any sense of humour could call you Hermione, Her Gart. He’s really rather proud of you. He says we’re all insane and he hopes you spite us.” “Spite you, Delia?” “He says you can, will if were not respectful. He has the greatest admiration for your — power.” “Power? He’s been telling me all along that my clothes look wrong, a mast and a mizzen head.” “A — a—what?” “He calls me to be exact, I don’t know what — a mast — and — a—mizzen head.” “What is?” “What is what?” “A mizzen — ha, ha, ho.” But that isn’t how people laugh. Delia sank in the empty Chesterfield, laughing, surveying the wreck of her drawing room. Feathers, pomade boxes. “One feels one should find snuffboxes people lost.” “Wh-aaat?” “It’s all like a play. It doesn’t seem real, not this room — not anything that has happened. I love all the people—” “Which, Dryad, especially?” But she wasn’t going to tell Delia. It would get quoted around and back again. They were using her as their latest little pet oracle, something odd, exotic. She wasn’t having any. “I don’t know” (she spoke at random) “that Dalton woman.” “Mary?” “How could her name be Mary? Her name isn’t, can’t be Mary.” “Why not dear? Why can’t it just be. Mary means—” “O that means the mother of — mother of—” “She has two.” “What?” But this was impossible. What did Delia mean by it? It was another of their cutting cynicisms. The Dalton woman with a fox shaped little face and enormous earrings leaning over the back of the Chesterfield, saying, “I would like to have a little knife. I would like to turn and turn and turn it in the heart of Dowel. I would like to say to Dowel now you feel” The Dalton woman. God. Perhaps (was it possible?) she had meant it.
“Delia?” “Darling?” “You don’t mind my asking—” “Ask anything, darling.” “I mean Lillian talked about it — seemed to — want — them.” “Dear, dear Dryad — now what?” “I mean people needn’t—” “What dear?” “I mean Lillian seemed to want them but could that Dalton woman ever—” “What? What? What?” Light coming on. Someone mysterious in the hall, lighting something. Light was creeping from the hall toward the larkspur coloured woven carpet. The carpet had the oddest of lovely shades, pot-pourri rose-colour, blue of blue and dark-blue larkspur. “The carpet is like woven petals, yet somehow right — a carpet.” “Bokhara.” “Bokhara. Sounds like wine coloured — petunias—” no not petunias — a hat — jade hair pins. The light was coming nearer. “Will you have the light milady,” this is what George called back-stairs, “or do you prefer the shadows.” The shadows? Henry James. Did footmen talk like that? “Go away.” He had gone away. “Poor Dickson. He listens to our conversation. To improve his—” “Improve his?” “Darling Dryad, don’t begin spoiling yourself by being witty. Yes. He listens. I can remember the exact inflection of poor Mary, it was only last week saying, ‘don’t, don’t let’s have the lights on Delia, I prefer the shadows.’ ”