Antic Hay

a ring-dove. There seemed to be singing in every word she spoke. She pointed to a chair next to hers. “N’you’re n’just in time to tell us all about _n’your_ Lesbian experiences.” And Mercaptan, giving vent to his fully orchestrated laugh—squeal and roar together—had sat down and, speaking in French partly, he nodded towards the butler and the footman, ‘_à cause des valets_,’ and partly because the language lent itself more deliciously to this kind of confidences, he had begun there and then, interrupted and spurred on by the cooing of Mrs. Speegle and the happy shrieks of Maisie Furlonger, to recount at length and with all the wit in the world his experience among the Isles of Greece. How delicious it was, he said to himself, to be with really civilized people! In this happy house it seemed scarcely possible to believe that such a thing as a pachyderm existed. But Lypiatt still lay, face upwards, on his bed, floating, it seemed to himself, far out into the dark emptinesses between the stars. From those distant abstract spaces he seemed to be looking impersonally down upon his own body stretched out by the brink of the hideous well; to be looking back over his own history. Everything, even his own unhappiness, seemed very small and beautiful; every frightful convulsion had become no more than a ripple, and only the fine musical ghost of sound came up to him from all the shouting. “We have no luck,” said Gumbril, as they climbed once more into the cab. “I’m not sure,” said Mrs. Viveash, “that we haven’t really had a great deal. Did you genuinely want very much to see Mercaptan?” “Not in the least,” said Gumbril. “But do you genuinely want to see me?” Mrs. Viveash drew the corners of her mouth down into a painful smile and did not answer. “Aren’t we going to pass through Piccadilly Circus again?” she asked. “I should like to see the lights again. They give one temporarily the illusion of being cheerful.” “No, no,” said Gumbril, “we are going straight to Victoria.” “We couldn’t tell the driver to...?” “Certainly not.” “Ah, well,” said Mrs. Viveash. “Perhaps one’s better without stimulants. I remember when I was very young, when I first began to go about at all, how proud I was of having discovered champagne. It seemed to me wonderful to get rather tipsy. Something to be exceedingly proud of. And, at the same time, how much I really disliked wine! Loathed the taste of it. Sometimes, when Calliope and I used to dine quietly together, _tête-à-tête_, with no awful men about, and no appearances to keep up, we used to treat ourselves to the luxury of a large lemon-squash, or even raspberry syrup and soda. Ah, I wish I could recapture the deliciousness of raspberry syrup.” Coleman was at home. After a brief delay he appeared himself at the door. He was wearing pyjamas, and his face was covered with red-brown smears, the tips of his beard were clotted with the same dried pigment. “What have you been doing to yourself?” asked Mrs. Viveash. “Merely washing in the blood of the Lamb,” Coleman answered, smiling, and his eyes sparkling blue fire, like an electric machine. The door on the opposite side of the little vestibule was open. Looking over Coleman’s shoulder, Gumbril could see through the opening a brightly lighted room and, in the middle of it, like a large rectangular island, a wide divan. Reclining on the divan an odalisque by Ingres—but slimmer, more serpentine, more like a lithe pink length of boa—presented her back. That big, brown mole on the right shoulder was surely familiar. But when, startled by the loudness of the voices behind her, the odalisque turned round—to see in a horribly embarrassing instant that the Cossack had left the door open and that people could look in, were looking in, indeed—the slanting eyes beneath their heavy white lids, the fine aquiline nose, the wide, full-lipped mouth, though they presented themselves for only the fraction of a second, were still more recognizable and familiar. For only the fraction of a second did the odalisque reveal herself definitely as Rosie. Then a hand pulled feverishly at the counterpane, the section of buff-coloured boa wriggled and rolled; and, in a moment, where an odalisque had been, lay only a long packet under a white sheet, like a jockey with a fractured skull when they carry him from the course. Well, really.... Gumbril felt positively indignant; not jealous, but astonished and righteously indignant. “Well, when you’ve finished bathing,” said Mrs. Viveash, “I hope you’ll come and have dinner with us.” Coleman was standing between her and the farther door; Mrs. Viveash had seen nothing in the room beyond the vestibule. “I’m busy,” said Coleman. “So I see.” Gumbril spoke as sarcastically as he could. “Do you see?” asked Coleman, and looked round. “So you do!” He stepped back and closed the door. “It’s Theodore’s last dinner,” pleaded Mrs. Viveash. “Not even if it were his last supper,” said Coleman, enchanted to have been given the opportunity to blaspheme a little. “Is he going to be crucified? Or what?” “Merely going abroad,” said Gumbril. “He has a broken heart,” Mrs. Viveash explained. “Ah, the genuine platonic towsers?” Coleman uttered his artificial demon’s laugh. “That’s just about it,” said Gumbril, grimly. Relieved by the shutting of the door from her immediate embarrassment, Rosie threw back a corner of the counterpane and extruded her head, one arm and the shoulder with the mole on it. She looked about her, opening her slanting eyes as wide as she could. She listened with parted lips to the voices that came, muffled now, through the door. It seemed to her as though she were waking up; as though now, for the first time, she were hearing that shattering laugh, were looking now for the first time on these blank, white walls and the one lovely and horrifying picture. Where was she? What did it all mean? Rosie put her hand to her forehead, tried to think. Her thinking was always a series of pictures; one after another the pictures swam up before her eyes, melted again in an instant. Her mother taking off her pince-nez to wipe them—and at once her eyes were tremulous and vague and helpless. “You should always let the gentleman get over the stile first,” she said, and put on her glasses again. Behind the glasses her eyes immediately became clear, piercing, steady and efficient. Rather formidable eyes. They had seen Rosie getting over the stile in front of Willie Hoskyns, and there was too much leg. James reading at his desk; his heavy, round head propped on his hand. She came up behind him and threw her arms round his neck. Very gently, and without turning his eyes from the page, he undid her embrace and, with a little push that was no more than a hint, an implication, signified that he didn’t want her. She had gone to her pink room, and cried. Another time James shook his head and smiled patiently under his moustache. ‘You’ll never learn,’ he said. She had gone to her room and cried that time too. Another time they were lying in bed together, in the pink bed; only you couldn’t see it was pink because there was no light. They were lying very quietly. Warm and happy and remote she felt. Sometimes as it were the physical memory of pleasure plucked at her nerves, making her start, making her suddenly shiver. James was breathing as though he were asleep. All at once he stirred. He patted her shoulder two or three times in a kindly and business-like way. “I know what that means,” she said, “when you pat me like that.” And she patted him—pat-pat-pat, very quickly. “It means you’re going to bed.” “How do you know?” he asked. “Do you think I don’t know you after all this time? I know that pat by heart.” And suddenly all her warm, quiet happiness evaporated; it was all gone. “I’m only a machine for going to bed with,” she said. “That’s all I am for you.” She felt she would like to cry. But James only laughed and said, “Nonsense!” and pulled his arm clumsily from underneath her. “You go to sleep,” he said, and kissed her on the forehead. Then he got out of bed, and she heard him bumping clumsily about in the darkness. “Damn!” he said once. Then he found the door, opened, and was gone. She thought of those long stories she used to make up when she went shopping. The fastidious lady; the poets; all the adventures. Toto’s hands were wonderful. She saw, she heard Mr. Mercaptan reading his essay. Poor father, reading aloud from the _Hibbert Journal_! And now the Cossack, covered with blood. He, too, might read aloud from the _Hibbert Journal_—only backwards, so to speak. She had a bruise on her arm. “You think there’s nothing inherently wrong and disgusting in it?” he had asked. “There is, I tell you.” He had laughed and kissed her and stripped off her clothes and caressed her. And she had cried, she had struggled, she had tried to turn away; and in the end she had been overcome by a pleasure more piercing and agonizing than anything she had ever felt before. And all the time Coleman had hung over her, with his blood-stained beard, smiling into her face, and whispering, “Horrible, horrible, infamous and shameful.” She lay in a kind of stupor. Then, suddenly there had been that ringing. The Cossack had left her. And now she was awake again, and it was horrible, it was shameful. She shuddered; she jumped out of bed and began as quickly as she could to put on her clothes. “Really, really, won’t you come?” Mrs. Viveash was insisting. She was not used to people saying no when she asked, when she insisted. She didn’t like it. “No.” Coleman shook his head. “You may be having the last supper. But I have a date here with the Magdalen.” “Oh, a woman,” said Viveash. “But why didn’t you say so before?” “Well, as I’d left the door open,” said Coleman, “I thought it was unnecessary.” “Fie,” said Mrs. Viveash. “I find this very repulsive. Let’s go away.” She plucked Gumbril by the sleeve. “Good-bye,” said Coleman, politely. He shut the door after them and turned back across the little hall. “What! Not thinking of going?” he exclaimed, as he came in. Rosie was sitting down on the edge of the bed pulling on her shoes. “Go away,” she said. “You disgust me.” “But that’s splendid,” Coleman declared. “That’s all as it should be, all as I intended.” He sat down beside her on the divan. “Really,” he said, admiringly, “what exquisite legs!” Rosie would have given anything in the world to be back again in Bloxam Gardens. Even if James did live in his books all the time.... Anything in the world. “This time,” said Mrs. Viveash, “we simply must go through Piccadilly Circus.” “It’ll only be about two miles farther.” “Well, that isn’t much.” Gumbril leaned out and gave the word to the driver. “And besides, I like driving about like this,” said Mrs. Viveash. “I like driving for driving’s sake. It’s like the Last Ride Together. Dear Theodore!” She laid her hand on his. “Thank you,” said Gumbril, and kissed it. The little cab buzzed along down the empty Mall. They were silent. Through the thick air one could see the brightest of the stars. It was one of those evenings when men feel that truth, goodness and beauty are one. In the morning, when they commit their discovery to paper, when others read it written there, it looks wholly ridiculous. It was one of those evenings when love is once more invented for the