Guns, guns, boats. It kept happening. In the heavy August night, guns, guns, boats. Morgan le Fay smile and draw your invisible veil across your invisible eyes and look through the veil at odd inimical creatures, buff creatures, buff creatures, mud-coloured creatures with high boots, polished boots, polished so that you could stoop and grin, grin back Morganlefayishly from polished leather. Has guns, guns, guns broken even your solitude, house like a lion? Will the “knockers” knock across the waste of years, of wreckage flung here on these rocks? Spars floated and bits of wreckage and barrels and kegs were washed up along the cliffs at the bottom of the garden where the shelves had been for so long impenetrable. Where Hermione had actually climbed down and had actually stood where (she was sure) no one had stood, had ever stood, boats now nosed in and nosing polluted clean sand, sand across which Artemis had stepped, taking the shape of wave on wave for her sandalled foot. Guns, guns look, Morgan le Fay, morganlefayishly through your veil drawn to make you invisible and hide yourself and look again. Men, men, men, men, men. Where had these men come from? A great car was drawn up outside the house, outside the empty ruin of the ruined shaft of grey stone that marked the ancient Phoenician tin mine where the knockers came from; Cornwall, Land’s End, motors of the barbaric, like the Roman great cars rolling serenely over magic, over roads made for Phoenician donkeys. You are new, you Romans with your great chariots, Romans, great men with great shoulders. What do you see here, Romans? Romans in great cars, Romans left great cars to prowl about the house, to post little groups of Romans along their coast, to accost Vane with all deference but with a hard finality. His house. Their house. There was need of something. Was it of their house? Romans accosted Vane politely, did not see her, Morgan le Fay, concealed Morganlefayishly to mock and jeer at Romans, men, men, men, men. Were they part of men, men, men, men? What was Vane doing in his gold and slender inviolate youth? There was no more youth like this. Youth now had wings, slid across the layers of the air, slid across ether and prowled in the very bowels of the mid-earth. Youth no longer walked, held its slim inviolate beauty up toward sunlight. Youth wheeled in mighty armoured chariots, youth lay on the metal decks of hideous gun-boats, youth slew and was slain. . the house was desecrate.
Nevertheless, she knew her own terrain, she prowled up toward the carn height and lay in a hot sun that fell and lay and almost lifted her in its pollen dust of weight massive beauty. The men, men, men, were invading their slopes, were desecrating the rocks, were spreading their magic of desecrating wires and were stopping at their kitchen door for water, for fire, for directions now and again from little farm-girl Hezzie. Hezzie looked upon these barbarians as desecrators. These “foreigners.” Hezzie close in the magic of the house, held them at bay, held on to the magic of the house for things like this had never been done, never “had ought to be.” Things that desecrated, that brought back things. Men, men, men and the strange human heart ache. Must she go back to men, men, men? Men could mar or make her. Men could not. Men could do nothing to her for a butterfly, a frog, a soft and luminous moth larva was keeping her safe. She was stronger than men, men, men — she was stronger than guns, guns, guns. The luminous body within her smote her. It was soft and luminous and the colour of the gold sunlight that fell over her. The body within her was a mysterious globe of softly glowing pollen-light. It would give light in the darkness, she was certain, it would give light in the darkness, would, she was certain, glow pollen-wise in the darkness if the rest of her should be darkness, mysterious glow-worm within her would give light, show her the straight path. . and many there be that go in thereat. Straight is the road. Narrow is the path. God is. God is. . mysterious light that would show her, straight and narrow the road to her redemption. She was stronger than men, men, men, men, guns.
But was she? “I can’t stand it.” She didn’t know what she couldn’t stand. She was ill, tired, she wanted something, she didn’t know what she wanted. Vane looked at her with that odd quizzical expression, the same face that had met hers coming straight toward her through rows of statues, — statues, the odd and lovely and sometimes twisted things that Lechstein made, that were statues, statues. The same quizzical, slightly frigid, slightly imbecile stare of the well-bred annunciation angel. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t. “I must go to London. I must see a doctor.” He looked at her as if she were somehow not very well bred, “there’s a doctor in Penzance.” “No, you don’t understand. I must see my doctor, the one I — saw — before.” Now she was back with it, now she had the clue. She saw, seeing Vane not Vane but Darrington. She saw her old experience. She wanted something that would bring her near to Darrington.
Long ago, seeds were dropped in Egypt’s coffins and thousands and thousands of years passed (we all know this) and seeds brought to the light after thousands of thousands of years, sprouted, germinated, were sheer seeds of grain or barley, or of “some other grain” showing after thousands of thousands of years the inventiveness of God. Barley, grain or “it may be of some other seeding” came to light, some tiny green tips of two upward praying Akhnaton-like sun-hands, little sprouts of grain, praying toward the sun, little twin hands, the same always. The utter uninventiveness of God showed here. Seed dropped into a painted coffin was the same seed, the same germination that had always been and Hermione was now sister with every queen, sister with every queen, sister of Cleopatra, of the mother of Jesus, of Caesar’s patrician parent, of every char-woman. Seed that held the globe of the sun, that pollen-light within her. . “it’s as well you came. You couldn’t have carried it another two weeks.” Ether, all the horrors, all the old fears, all the tempest of terror and this, this note of her choice, even now God gave her the choice, take it or leave it. Draw your ugly old clothes together again, smile in a crisp professional manner, “but my husband is now in France and after the last disappointment — I—want it.” Did she want it? Why did Hermione stare in well-bred, well-feigned correctness (it was the right note, babies in war time) at the woman whom she rather dreaded, the same woman, Lady Hewlett, who had helped her, friend of Delia’s, the old horror of the other time, why had she come back to look at her horror, to regard it, why was she doing this? Why had she come from Cornwall, why had Vane come from Cornwall? There seemed no reason under the sun, in the sun for anything but this thing. She followed it with what little brain she had left and seeing the clue, the gold thread she dared see the labyrinth. Horror was still about her but Darrington wrote, had constantly been writing, “have your child, keep well and I will look after it.” Secure still in her Morgan le Fay little witchcraft, she could look at Lady Hewlett and smile and need not apologize for looking shabby (it was the right note in war-time) and say with mock fervour “O isn’t it all splendid, he writes constantly they have them on the run.” Fritz. Who was Fritz? A cypher in the riddle, a damn bad joke, something you had to grin over, brighten over. “Have him on the run.” Smiling, husband so right, not dead (why wasn’t he, posthumous baby) has Fritz on the run. “Mrs. Darrington with great care and a little discomfort—” O yes, that meant wearing that hateful brace, but what did it matter? God had given her the choice even now, it was a mangy sort of choice for she couldn’t help it. It was like “yes I joined the army as a volunteer.” What was it? She didn’t know what it was. She must be very careful.