For she was not blinded by the pulse of her blood. Some things about him she did not see, for no girl of twenty could. But others she saw more vividly, with more strength of fellow-feeling, even with more compassion, than any woman he had known. She could throw aside his caprices and whims, for she had seen him comfort her mother with patience, simplicity and strength. She had seen him suffer with them. She had heard him speak from the depth of feeling, not about her, but about her father’s state and human loneliness: after his voice, she thought, all others would seem dull, orotund and complacent. She had watched his face stricken, or, as she put it, “possessed by devils” that she did not understand. She wanted to spend her life in comforting him.
So her love filled her and drove her on. I thought it would be like her if, despite her shrinking diffidence, she finally asked to become his mistress. It was too easy to imagine her, with no confidence at all, talking to him as though fiercely and choosing the forthright words. But that did not really mean that she had taken the initiative. Their natures played on each other. Somehow it would have happened. There was no other end.
From the beginning, Roy felt a deeper concern for her than for anyone he loved. She was, like her mother, strong and defenceless. Stronger and abler than her mother, and even less certain of love. Roy was often irresponsible in love, with women who took it as lightly as he did. But Joan was dependent on him from the first time he kissed her. He could not pretend otherwise. Perhaps he did not wish it otherwise, for he was profoundly fond of her. He was amused by her sulkiness and fierceness, he liked to be able to wipe them away. He had gone through them to the welling depths of emotion, where she was warm, tempestuous, violent and tender. He found her rich beyond compare.
Like her, he too had been affected by their vigil in the Lodge. It had surrounded her, and all that passed between them, with its own kind of radiance — the radiance of grief, suffering, intense feeling, and ineluctable death. In that radiance, they had talked of other things than love. He had told her more than he had told any woman of his despair, his search, his hope. He was moved to admiration by her strength, which never turned cold, never wilted, stayed steady through the harsh months in the Lodge. There were times when he rested on that strength himself. He came to look upon her as an ally, as someone who might take his hand and lead him out of the dark.
It was not that she had any obvious escape to offer him. She was not a happy young woman, except when she caught light from his presence. She had left her father’s faith, and in her beliefs and disbeliefs she was typical of her time. Like me, she was radical in politics and sceptical in religion. But Roy felt with her, as he had done with me, that deep down he could find a common language. She was unusually clever, but it was not her intellect that he valued. He had spent too much time with clever men; of all of us, he was the most indifferent to the intellect; he was often contemptuous of it. It was not Joan’s intellect he valued, but her warm heart and her sense of life. He thought she might help him, and he turned to her with hope.
Meanwhile, the Master’s state seemed to change very little. Over the months Joan told us that she could see the slow decline. Gradually he ate less, was sick more often, spent more of his time in bed; he had had little pain throughout the illness, and was free of it now; the curve dipped very slowly, and it was often hard for her and her mother to realise that he was dying. Sometimes they felt that he had reached a permanent state, weak, tired, but full of detached kindness. He was so mellow and understanding that it humbled everyone round him, and they spoke of him with wonder and magnified affection. They spoke of him in quiet tones, full of something like hero worship. Lady Muriel, so Joan said, was gentler than anyone had ever known her.
I thought of that comment when I next saw her. Throughout the year, at the Master’s request, she had stoically continued some of her ordinary entertaining, and the official Lodge lunches had gone on without check. She had, however, asked no guests at night. It was Joan’s idea that Roy and I should call in after dinner one night in July, and treat her to a four at bridge. Like Lord Boscastle, Lady Muriel liked a game of bridge more than most things in the world; she had deprived herself of the indulgence since the Master fell ill.
Roy and I entered the drawing-room that night as though we had been invited by Joan, and Lady Muriel was still enough herself to treat me so.
“I am always glad for my daughter to have her friends in the house, Mr Eliot,” she said. “I am only sorry that I have not been able to see as much of the fellows recently as I used to set myself.”
She sat in her armchair, stiff, formal, uncompromising. She looked a little older; her eyelids had become heavier, and her cheeks were pinched. But, as she spoke to me, her back was as poker-like as ever, and her voice just as unyielding. She said: “How is your wife, Mr Eliot? I do not remember seeing her for a considerable time.”
“She’s rather better, Lady Muriel.”
“I am very glad to hear it. I am still hoping that you will find a suitable house in Cambridge, so that you will not be separated so often. I believe there are suitable houses in Grantchester Meadows.”
She looked at me suspiciously, and then at her daughter, as though she were signalling my married state. It seemed incredible that she should think me a danger when she could see Joan in Roy’s presence. For Joan was one of those women who are physically transmuted by the nearness of their lover, as it seemed by the bodily memory of the act of love. Her face was softer for hours together, the muscles relaxed, the lines of her mouth altered as she looked at him. Even her strong coltish gawky gait became loosened, when he was there.
Roy had been deputed to propose bridge. Lady Muriel was gratified, but at once objected: “I couldn’t, Roy. I have not touched a card for months.”
“We need you to,” said Roy. “Do play with us.”
“I think it would be better if I left you three to yourselves,” she said.
“You don’t think you ought, do you, Lady Mu?” Roy asked quietly.
She looked confused.
“Perhaps it isn’t the most appropriate time—”
“Need you go without the little things?” said Roy. “I’m sure the Master would tell you not to.”
“Perhaps he would,” said Lady Muriel, suddenly weak, unassertive, broken down.
We played some bizarre rubbers. Roy arranged for stakes of sixpence a hundred, explaining, out of pure devilry, that “poor old Lewis can’t afford more. If he’s going to save up for a suitable house”. (Lady Muriel’s idea of a “suitable house” for me was something like the house of a superior college servant: and Roy had listened with delight.) Even at those stakes, Lady Muriel took several pounds from both Roy and me. It gave her great pleasure, for she had an appetite for money as well as for victory. The night passed, Lady Muriel’s winnings mounted; Joan was flushed and joyful with Roy at the same table; Lady Muriel dealt with her square, masterful hands and played with gusto and confidence. Yet she was very quiet. Once the room would have rung with her indignant rebukes — “I am surprised you had such diamonds, Mr Eliot”. But now, though she was pleased to be playing, though she enjoyed her own skill, she had not the heart to dominate the table. After Roy’s word about the Master, she was subdued.
It was a long time before she seemed to notice the heterogeneous play. For it was the oddest four. Lady Muriel herself was an excellent player, quick, dashing, with a fine card memory. Joan was very good. I was distinctly poor, and Roy hopelessly bad; I might have been adequate with practice, but he could never have been. He was quite uninterested, had no card sense, disliked gambling, and had little idea of the nature of odds. It was curious to see him frowning over his hand, thinking three times as long as anyone at the table: then he would slap down the one card for which there was no conceivable justification. It was hard to guess what could be going on in his mind.