‘ “Play me something. Play me a nocturne, Dorian, and, as you play, tell me, in a low voice, how you kept your youth …” ’
While I read aloud, Sylvia ‘prepared’ an expression of wonderment on her face, to show that she was sensitive to what I read. But she began to fret as I read on, absorbed, and then nestled to me closely. Her nostrils widened as she breathed in the fresh air.
‘ “The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young …” ’ And although neither of us had anything to do with the tragedy of old age, here we kissed. A light breeze that moment wafted the smell of the burning fishbones upon us.
‘Isn’t it lovely?’ she purled.
I agreed.
Besides, it was.
‘Lovie — dovie — cats’-eyes,’ she said.
‘ “Why have you stopped playing, Dorian? Go back and give me the nocturne again. Look at that great honey-coloured moon that hangs in the dusky air. She is waiting for you to charm her, and if you play she will come closer to the earth …” ’
We kissed.
And then we kissed again, this time independently of Dorian.
She had soft warm lips, and I held my breath back — at some considerable inconvenience to myself. Then I released her, and began breathing as if I had just climbed up a very steep hill.
‘Go on, darling.’
‘What lovely hair you have!’
‘Wants washing,’ she answered.
I stretched out my legs, my hands in my trouser pockets, and stared at the moon — and suddenly shot out: ‘Art thou not Lucifer?’ (causing Sylvia a little shock):
… He to whom the droves
Of stars that gild the morn in charge were given?
The noblest of the lightning-wingèd loves,
The fairest and the first-born smile of Heaven?
Look in what pomp the mistress planet moves,
Rev’rently circled by the lesser seven;
Such, and so rich, the flames that from thine eyes
Oppress’d the common people of the skies.
She stretched herself to my mouth the moment I finished, having, as it were, watched all this time till it was vacant. I kissed her, with considerable passion. ‘What are all your names?’ I asked.
‘Sylvia Ninon Thérèse Anastathia Vanderflint.’
‘Ninon,’ I said, and then repeated lingeringly, sipping the flavour:
‘Sylvia Ninon. Sylvia Ninon. Sylvia,’ I said, and took her hand. ‘Be not afear’d; the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices,
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,
The clouds, methought, would open and show riches
Ready to drop on me: that when I wak’d
I cried to dream again.
‘Who wrote this?’
‘Shakespeare.’
‘It’s — very lovely.’
I trotted out such quotations as I could remember — my Sunday best, so to speak. And, presently, grasping her passionately by the hand—‘Adorable dreamer,’ I whispered, ‘whose heart has been so romantic! who has given thyself so prodigally, given thyself to sides and to heroes not mine, only never to the Philistines! home of lost causes and forsaken beliefs and unpopular names and impossible loyalties!’
‘Who wrote it?’
I wanted to say that I wrote it; but I told the truth. ‘Matthew Arnold wrote it. It’s about Oxford.’
‘Oh!’ She was a little disappointed. ‘And I thought it was about a woman — who’—she blushed—‘who gave herself to some hero.’
‘No, darling, no.’
After that I recited the passage about Mona Lisa who, like the vampire, has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants; and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; and to whom all this has been but as the sound of lyres and flutes, that lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the changing lineaments, and tinged the eyelids and the hands.
‘Oh, darling, let us talk of something else.’
‘But I thought you liked — literature?’
‘Well, darling, I listened—for your sake. But you are so long, you’ve never finished.’
‘But good heavens!’ I exclaimed. ‘I’ve been trotting it out for your sake! I thought you liked books.’
‘This is too high-brow for me, darling.’
‘High-brow! What do you like, then?’
‘Oh, I like something more — fruity.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Anything with a lot of killing in it.’
‘Of course, my case is different, I admit. When I cease earning my living by the sword I shall commence earning it by the pen.’
‘One day you will be a great author, and I shall read your story in the Daily Mail,’ she said.
‘The Daily Mail! Why on earth the Daily Mail?’
‘They have serials there. Don’t you read them? I always do.’
‘Oh, well — yes, there are — I know there are.’
‘I also write,’ she said.
‘You?’
‘I do! Letters to the Press.’ She went out and returning brought a newspaper. ‘I wrote this.’
Under a rubric headed ‘Questions and Answers’, I read:
‘Do you think it wrong for one girl and one boy to go for a picnic up on an island by themselves?’
‘I wrote this,’ she said.
‘But why did you write it?’
‘I write — because I want to know things. Besides, it’s nice to see one’s letter in the Press.’
‘And what is their answer?’
‘Here is their answer.’ She showed me. ‘Not necessarily.’
I read on questions from other correspondents. ‘What is the proper height and weight of a boy nineteen years and one month?’ asked one. ‘Is he too young to be engaged?’ asked another. ‘If you say yes, it’ll be in time to save him, as he is my friend. I’d like to persuade him to wait awhile, but what’s your answer?’
‘These others are silly,’ she said, wrinkling her nose.
I smiled. She looked at me with a long, searching glance, as if taking stock of me as a man and a lover, while I, conscious of her scrutiny, manipulated an expression like this — M’m. There is something eminently seraphic hovering over my six foot of flesh and bone. I forgot whether I told you I’m good-looking? Sleek black hair brushed back from the forehead — and all the rest of it.
‘You’re so clever — and yet you’re nothing much to look at,’ she said.
This, I must confess, astonished me. I have no shallow vanity — but this astonished me. Sleek black hair, eyes, nose, and all that sort of thing. It astonished me.
‘Never mind, darling. I don’t like handsome men,’ she added.
Now this sort of thing puzzles me. What am I to make of it?
‘I love you all the same,’ she said.
‘How am I to understand it?’
‘There’s nothing to understand.’
‘H’m. It’s — strange,’ I said. And then, after a pause, again: ‘It’s strange.’
I rose at last, for I was due that evening at the entertainment to be given us by the Imperial General Staff.