Nothing mattered, could matter. Light made the room a little common but did that matter (had she been asleep?) a knock and hot water. How funny hot water and no proper running water in the bath room. Baths but real baths not casual rushing in to wash your hands. Water in little pots with a clean towel to keep it warm. A clean towel and all as carefully set and timed as the morning tea-pot with its little fitted muffler. Hot water. Hot tea. All arranged and out of a book and somehow weird and somehow oddly civilized. Little things mattered, not the great things. Things that wracked and tore you were forgotten. Really great emotions were these things, clocks that struck and struck and left a trail of silver. A star on the sea left such a trail of silver. Star. Astraea. But she couldn’t marry. You couldn’t of course marry him. No. Of course not. Hybiscus red and. . famished hyacinths.
A volcanic rock shrivelled, opened, cracked, fell and hyacinths were about her, shrivelled, withered as the flowers dropped by Persephone. Riven hyacinths. She hadn’t asked any great thing, just to be let alone. Perhaps that was the great thing. She hadn’t asked nor walked into a volcano head on, seeing it, just for the sake of the sensation. She had been so happy. She thought she had never been so happy. Candles and Katherine Farr being kind. People and faces and all blurred and nobody being a sharp sword or an angel’s sword or any of those steely terrible, beautiful embodied images of stark pain. Pain had vanished. There was no pain. Pain had departed suddenly, had driven herself before it out of Hell. She had risen from Hell as Persephone from the underworld. She had crossed Styx. This was something unlawful. Terrible. This thing that burned in her hand— “the second bell’s been ringing some time miss.” “I’ll be late. I’ll be coming later,” the letter slipped under her door, the letter that had been slipped under her door. Who had slipped this under her door? “Shall I come in and turn the bed down now or later?” Now or later? Now or later? Something had to be done sometime, now or later. “O now.” Yes, now. She would see, Fayne would see, they would all see how she’d act about it. If she could stand up now and re-read the letter her whole life would be different. If she could re-read the letter she would be able to smile, to say yes, no. To say, no. To say, yes. Don’t marry him. Who had said that? Who had ranted (it was that simply) about marriage, talked about biologic necessities? And being beyond that. Who had done it? It was Fayne Rabb simply. It was Fayne who had said one couldn’t possibly marry. O that. What had she meant? What had she said? Why had she said it? “Did you find that extra bodice miss you was wanting?” “O yes. Yes thank you.” She had said yes, thank you. She had lifted her head up casually from the vivid letter and she had said yes thank you. “Who put the letter under the door?” “I suppose it was James, miss.” James, who was James? “O yes.” Yes, she had given James a shilling just the other day. He would see about the letters. . She had stood out against them, stood out against Eugenia. She had broken with them, given up her summer in the marshes. But she didn’t want the marshes, the canoe sliding like a serpent to her bidding. She didn’t want fire-weed spilling its flower petals. She hadn’t wanted all that. She had had the silver mist, the annihilating beauty. She had felt the peace of nothingness and she supposed she must now pay. The woman pays. She had paid. She was paying. O Darrington, where are you? I sent you away. You were the one person who could understand this. “Yes, tell them I’m coming in a minute.” Darrington would understand this. He had given her books and said her poems were something. You are a poem though your poem’s naught. He hadn’t said that. O yes. Now she saw it. She wasn’t meant to slack and slouch with pretty candles and odd dresses and being nobody, being George Lowndes or was it Darrington? Someone, something wanted her to write. For writing and life were not diametric opposites. “Things like this don’t happen in real life.” That’s what people said when they read novels. But they did, did happen. Things like this did happen. “Listen little idiot, when you get this I’ll be married. An Englishman, a person, not one of your little poetasters. I’ll write you when we get to London. .”
11
The letter burned, vitriolic blue acid in her hand though she hadn’t the letter (had not for some time had the letter) in her hand. The touch of the letter left a scar across the fingers that opened it, scar of burning acid, not of fire, scalding not searing. Scalding and searing. “O Miss Gart. You are too metaphysical.” Bald headed little Chemistry professor catching her up when she wanted to apply his prim formula to the more extensive phases of life, of humanity. One and one and two, and little plus and minus signs and the acid that had broken the test tube and the scars across her wrist, tiny scars that she was rather proud of. Too metaphysical. Not metaphysical enough. Idealists said she was a rank realist and too set and defined in her outlook. Scientists told her off for being idealistic. Must she bow to either judgment? She was herself simply. . bell notes made patterns in the air that no one could take from her. The blue vitriol of Fayne’s letter had left its scar but on the whole, was she not proud of it? Scar that she hadn’t turned from, wound that she had not repudiated. It was so deep, so terrible that it was almost joy to have it. It was all (had been) so terrible that it had removed itself from the first moment from any possible realm of probabilities, it was drama simply, a rather good drama. It was the second act of a rather second-rate play done by first rate actors. It was the second act (was it the third?) of a somewhat hackneyed but odd melodrama that was saved from banality by the very casual and perfect manner of the odd producers. The whole thing was in some realm in which reality was suspended while people watched themselves move, speak. They were not real. Their very unreality saved them, saved her. Had it really mattered? It had never mattered: the odd vitriolic blue that had been the burning destructive acid of the letter had almost cauterized the death wound. So deep, so vitriolic that the rest could not matter. Not even the little note afterwards so gracious, so suave in its serenity. The note from this odd person who was (it appeared) would forever be, just Fayne’s husband. The man Fayne had married wrote to her. She had found the letter with a little batch of things that didn’t matter and the letter itself from this odd suave person who was (would always be) just Fayne’s husband could not matter. Suave like the breath of a stage producer who comes before the curtain to explain his presence. His presence being due (in all these cases) to the absence of the right hand man or prima donna. “Ladies and gentlemen, I regret having to inform you. .” This person who was (would always be) just Fayne’s husband had suavely countenanced evidently something. “Fayne is worn out with the journey. She misses her mother and has been ill somewhat. She begs me” (when had Fay ever begged anybody anything?) “to explain this. Will you come to our” (our, I ask you) “hotel as soon as you are able. Fayne tells me you have friends, calls on your time. I would appreciate this from you. Fayne has been a little worn. . ill with excitement.”