Answering the appeal of this person who was (would always be) just Fayne’s husband, Hermione had found herself one day in April in a little odd street off Piccadilly, little odd eclectic street like going into a foreign city suddenly and it all coming back, all the odd things and little streets but this was a runny little eclectic street in which to find Fayne Rabb. Tiny cool corridor with a great mirror at the far end from which a person (not herself) paused to re-survey her. Grey person looking cool, looking right in the cool little narrow hall. A table and something, a palm in a tall basket. Baskets spilling flowers. A row under the mirror of potted shrub azaleas. Above azaleas, pink and yellow and flame red a person (not Hermione) paused to look at another person, herself simply. The person who was not Hermione turned from the gaze of the person who so simply was Hermione to answer someone, something, “yes, they’re expecting me. Mrs. — Mrs. — ” my God, what was their name? She had forgotten what the name was. Somewhere, somehow someone had signed a name across a page and that name was now the only guarantee that she would find Fayne Rabb. A name she had suddenly and poignantly forgotten. “O,” she couldn’t say “I’ve forgotten what their name is.” These were people who had asked her. She had forgotten their name. Fayne was someone, somewhere in this nice little hotel, everything just right and someone, also just right was waiting by her elbow asking for their name, no it was her name. Hermione looked at the face in the mirror. Would it recall some name? George’s name was George Lowndes, but that wouldn’t do (though he had offered it to her) in this emergency. Whose name? Darrington. Darrington was a good name. The Sussex Darringtons you know. She needn’t tell them that the governor had more or less eloped with a country girl and that Darrington was somewhat in advance of expectations. I mean a seven months’ baby. But damn, he had said, it was barely six. Names. People. Someone might yet help her.
Someone might yet help her. Would yet help her. Someone from the other end of the cool little right little hall was coming toward her. Someone was coming toward her. Where had she seen him? Familiar droop of shoulders. April in London and someone was speaking to her. A tall person who bent a little and squinted a little into her eyes. A tall person who must bend a little to squint a little into even over-tall Hermione’s wide eyes. He squinted a little (who was he?) and the person at her elbow waited a little and this would go on, was going on for ever. It couldn’t be anyone else but Fayne Rabb’s husband. Well that was that. Now he would tell her his name, tell her her own name. He did this last thing first. “I know, feel it couldn’t be any other but — Hermione.” He said it just right, with the exact amount of interest, the exact inflection. No one had ever said Hermione better than he said it. He said “Hermione” again and this time with a little upward inflection. “Hermione?” He was asking with a little upward inflection if it was Hermione but whether it was or wasn’t could make no difference for he would be sure to redeem himself, to retrieve himself perfectly if it wasn’t. She waited for a moment for as long as she dared wait without telling him it was Hermione. She could pretend it wasn’t but that would be no good for she had forgotten his name. Had by the same logic lost Fayne Rabb. “O yes, yes of course. .” she felt colour rise, colour across cheek bones, colour for he still held her with his slight squint. Was it a squint or was he winking at her? Of course he wasn’t winking. He was so utterly right, so right in the little hall way. Probably Fay was right then and he was “a person.” He spoke again in that same right voice saying the just-right thing. Now that was rather right of him, very nice of him, “tea upstairs as quickly as you can, for two — I must rush out — in Mrs. Morrison’s bedroom.”
Fayne Rabb was in a bed, a big bed, a nice bed, a better bed than Hermione had ever seen her in. Fayne was looking at someone who was not Hermione though Fayne (odd little person in a big bed) seemed to think it was Hermione. “O darling—” Darling this. Darling that. What about vitriolic blue letters and a scar across her wrist (no across her breast) that would be there forever? But there was something in this. There was something in the very poignant finality of vitriolic blue. It was a thing final, done for, finished. “Darling—” But she wasn’t having any. A tall person in a wide hat looked at Fayne Rabb on a big bed. It was perhaps Hermione that so regarded Fayne propped up and wearing (for a wonder) a really pretty bed-jacket. “I like your pretty little boudoir jacket.” “Is that all you’ve come to tell me?” “Come to tell you? I didn’t know I was supposed to tell you anything.” “Well after all — this.” “All what?” “O this — all this—” What did Fay conceivably mean by all this? Fayne Rabb lifted her little hand but it was not the hand of Fayne Rabb. It was the hand of something other separated forever now from Fayne Rabb. It was the hand that had waved in its insouciance toward an azalea in a big jar. A plaintive violin was playing (inappositely) the song from Solveig. This was not that. This person that raised a little hand and whose arm stretched magnolia white from a delft-blue bed-jacket trimmed with pretty swansdown was not that one. That person had sturdy knees wound about with straps that held together sandals. Wings on the sandals. Wide breadth of strong and sturdy shoulders. Pygmalion speaking and all the world must listen. All the world must listen when Pygmalion speaks, says what he thinks, all art is this, is that. If Pygmalion could have stayed then with them, but he couldn’t. He was somewhere else safe. He was safe but he was not now here. Fayne’s hand was the hand now of Fayne. It waved vaguely above nice bed-clothes, it emerged from a delft-blue boudoir jacket. That was all simple. The whole thing was so simple. Vitriolic acid had so made it. There was nothing simpler than the simplest of death-wounds. This was not Hermione so this (that was not Hermione) could turn, regard the room about her. Shoes. Whose? What odd shoes on the floor. They were not Clara’s, not Hermione’s. What an odd row of odd shoes, pointed shoes most of them. Brown shoes, patent leather pumps, though he would probably call them something else, being, Fayne had said, so “English” and a “person.” Shoes in a neat row along the opposite wall and shoes untidy along the near wall. “Doesn’t your husband arrange your shoes for you? His own seem to be so neatly put together.” “O my — husband—” “Yes. Your husband. Didn’t you ask me here to meet your husband?” “No. I asked you here to meet me.” “Well anyhow, why doesn’t your— husband arrange your things for you.” “Well, perhaps he thinks I should do it myself.” “What an idea. What a shock for you.” “Yes, isn’t it. Madre always did everything — O-O-O-O — Hermione.”
Small arms reached out. Were her arms then small? Hermione had thought of Fayne Rabb as Pygmalion, a little sturdy, a little strong, a little defiant. Who was this reaching small magnolia white arms out toward her? “Can’t you — understand?” “Understand? Understand what, Fayne Rabb?” “Can’t you understand? Can’t you— make — allowances?” “For what? You seem as far as I in my limited way can make out, to have done very well indeed for yourself.” “O don’t be cruel. Don’t, don’t be cynical.” But tea entered. . Hermione was glad for tea entering. The right sort of tea with the right sort of rose buds on the tea cups. “This is lovely china.” “Is that all you can say?” “What do you, to quote George, in Gawds name want me to say then?” “I don’t — know.” “I should think you didn’t.” Hermione tossed her hat away somewhere, among shoes, she supposed. Her hat would land among shoes, somebody’s shoes and did it matter? Her shoes, his shoes. It was obvious neither row (the neat one nor the untidy one) was ever so remotely connected with anything so indecorous as sandals. Hat on the floor. “Why are you so reckless about your hat? It’s such a pretty one.” “Haven’t you seen a hat since you left Europe?” “Not a really pretty one, Hermione.”