“Well, what did the doctor say?” She wouldn’t tell Vane what the doctor said. She would smile at a painted annunciation angel who was now nothing, no one, someone who would conceivably help her. She said, “O things seem to be going jolly well.” Affectedly, using a word she never used, smiling at him, being an imitation of something “county” that he must have hated. Smile at him, let your lips curve over your hard skull for you were a queen two thousand of years ago and it’s still noblesse oblige and queens’ children are very precious children. Horrible. . for a queen. Are you a queen, Morgan le Fay? Yes for God lacks in inventiveness and once a queen (there is no escaping it) always a queen. I was a queen. I can smell the rush of water seeping down, then sweeping down from inland mountains, crossing sand-wastes, dragging trees and bushes along with it, Nile river. Nile river, great river like great inland American rivers, like no European rivers. Rivers were her kin and she was kin of rivers dragging silt down from high plateaus and from rock precipices. Little ugly room (she had borrowed Doris Redfern’s little flat for Doris was away now with her medical corps) and Vane looked wrong and she felt down, down a sort of despising of him for his wrongness, for his wax-annunciation angel look in the midst of all this clutter of books, papers, a general untidy efficiency about Doris’ flat with her medical books and her piles of pamphlets and her tables and chairs all utility proof, firm and yet clean and high, a little box of an office of a flat. Vane had looked right in the great Batenburg Square room with its high ceilings and its elegant Georgian decay, and he had been right in the old house, crouched like a lion. He said, “then aren’t we to be together in London?” and she wondered where and how they could be together and thought how odd it was that places could change people and Vane seemed hyper-critical, leering, critical of this high up little clean box of an office that she had crept into, suddenly sinking to her lowest, being meagre, not noble, finding rest in this matter of fact, familiar, professional atmosphere after the gold and pollen and the weariness of the inhuman loveliness of Cornwall. Fox-gloves were beginning, had put forth great ruby spikes and she was weary of this loveliness, noblesse oblige, she could adapt herself to other circumstance, already felt lighter, better. Why tell him? She knew what Vane would say, would intimate if she told him. Why be uncomfortable, why be braced together? Noblesse oblige. Queens’ children are so precious and queen not so very beautiful. “Then what do you think best? Had I better—” Better? What had he better? This was no moment for lawyers, papers, documents, hard cold facts. She wanted her veil woven subtly, secretly, anyhow did she care a damn now about Cyril Vane? Hypercritical, sensitive face that wasn’t really sensitive. Bad copy of a bad copy — Carrara marble, late honey coloured marble but with no authentic line. He was, had been, authentic in Cornwall. But she didn’t want to marry him. Why this marry? Marry? Why marry? Head bent forward. All the quality had gone, the quality of youth, the gold pear, the gold quattro-cento page, the saint, the young Michael. She hated Cyril Vane intensely. If he felt anything, he could say something, not this “the right thing” touch — marry — lawyers—noblesse oblige—I am not going to stoop to you, wax angel.
10
God singularly lacks inventiveness and she found herself in the woods, in the forest, in the little old cottage that Delia had lent her years and years ago, again in the little old cottage and Delia being kind, not knowing what had happened, saying “of course take the cottage, Jerrold has been writing me, we must all take care of you.” No, this is no cheat. Morgan le Fay, you must, by your witch-craft make things come true and this cottage is small and pure and clean like a little built-up Hansel and Gretel hut in an old-fashioned operatic stage-set. Songs sing and I am alone and the woods bank the house and flank the house and there is a great waste of stubble and stumps opposite the house for they have cut down all this slope of the hill for air-service, wood, wood, woods, guns, guns, guns reaching even here in this remote Buckingham valley, so remote yet so near London, remote, far away but you can borrow the farm donkey any time and drive in to the station, five miles away for they all knew Delia in the old days, “how is Lady Prescott, is she never coming again to Chissingham?” Delia a sort of goddess in the machine, very much still in the machine, being ground and ground to pulverized nothingness in the machine, look using you I have used the machine, am greater than the machine. O stretch your limbs on the couch, pile pillows back of your head, balsam pillows, gone a little thread bare, boards showing cracks, little summer-house, not a house at all, how heavenly of Delia to really let me have it. Balsam pillows back of her head and she was alone, only Marion Drake from the big house a mile away, Marion their one neighbour in the old days, who (Delia used to wail) spoiled everything, would make a garden party of their week-ends, not understanding really happiness, umbrellas, striped red and vermillion against the beech trees, walls covered with exotic creepers. A garden a mile away and Marion Drake being friendly as far as her ambulance work in the five mile away Twickham would allow her. Thank God for that. Thank God. Marion Drake’s caught in the machine but my husband’s an officer if he isn’t a gentleman and she will plunge in here once a week at any rate sensing my “condition.” Lie on the long couch, pile balsam pillows behind your tousled head, thank God for this security and all the wood you want, scrape it up yourself for the cuttings are free to anybody but the farm people actually have enough wood and I will burn beech boughs, and beech leaves and make songs in the fumes of smoke. . of smoke. . God lacks in inventiveness for this happened in Arcadia (or was it America, the same number of letters, she counted on her fingers, and they look the same) and we wore a bear pelt and worshipped trees, tree boles and knew that men weren’t worth anything except for this and after this, kill the men, queen bees, let your workers sting the useless males to death. Lie with your head propped up by the balsam pillows (I remember that very summer and how we all shredded off needles for these pillows) and let the breath of balsam go deep down, deep down for you need all this Morgan le Fay. Don’t sing, eat. Gather twigs and burn them. Pray to your near gods for God lacks in inventiveness and this has happened — this has happened.