10
A week later, Geraldine was still there. She and Judith had not met again; when she and Jennifer, arm in arm, were seen approaching, Judith avoided them; and changing her place at Hall—her place which had been beside Jennifer for two years—went and sat where she could not see the sleek dark head next to the fair one, turning and nodding in response.
All day they were invisible. Geraldine had a car, and they must go miles and miles into the country in the soft late autumn weather.
It seemed to Judith that life had ceased to bear her along upon its tide. It flowed past her, away from her; and she must stay behind, passive and of no account, while the current of Jennifer met and gaily mingled with a fresh current and fled on. It seemed as if even the opportunity for the gesture of relinquishment was to be denied her. And then, wearily returning from lectures one morning she found upon her table a torn scrap of paper scrawled over violently in an unknown hand.
‘Please be in your room at six o’clock this evening. I want to see you.
‘Geraldine Manners.’
It was an insolent note. She would ignore such a command. She would put a notice up on her door: Engaged—and turn the key; and when the woman came she would just have to go away again.
But at six o’clock Geraldine knocked loudly and she cried: ‘Come in.’ They stood facing each other.
‘Sit down,’ said Judith. But neither of them made any movement.
‘I wanted to see you.’ Her voice was low and emotional—angry perhaps; and Judith had a moment’s fainting sense of impotence. The woman was so magnificent, so mature and well-dressed; if there was to be a fight, what chance was there for a thin young student in a woollen jumper?
She leaned against the mantelpiece and, staring at Judith, flung at her:
‘What’s all this about?’
Judith sat down again, without a word, and waited, steadily holding the green eyes with her own. She heard the blood beat deafeningly in her ears.
Geraldine went on:
‘I think it’s the damnedest bit of impertinence I ever heard. Schoolgirls! My God!’ She flung her head back theatrically.
Judith thought, with a shudder of excitement and anguish: ‘Wait, wait. It is because you are unused to it that it seems like physical blows. Soon you will be able to collect yourself. This is anger and you are the cause. You are being insulted and called to account for the first time in your life. Carry it off. Carry it off.’
And her blood went on repeating ‘Jennifer’ in her ears.
Geraldine took a gold cigarette case and the amber holder from a gold chain bag with a sapphire clasp.
‘It’s pretty awful, isn’t it, to be so mean and petty? I’m sorry for you, I must say.’
‘Please don’t be sorry for me.’ She noted her own voice, icy and polite.
Geraldine had inserted a thin, yellow cigarette in the holder and was searching for a match.
‘Here,’ said Judith. She got up, took the matchbox from the mantelpiece and struck a light. Geraldine stooped her head down over the little flare. White lids, black curling lashes, broad cheek-bones, Egyptian lips—the heaviness, the thick waxen texture of the whole face: Judith saw them all with an aching and terrible intensity, her eyes clinging to the head bowed above her hand. She should have smelt like a gardenia.
‘Thank you,’ said Geraldine. She lifted her head, narrowed her eyes and puffed out smoke, moving and stretching her mouth faintly round the amber. She smoked like a man.
Judith sat down again.
Geraldine seemed now very much at her ease. She leaned against the mantelpiece, dominating the room: and she seemed of gigantic height and significance.
‘Are you a friend of Jennifer’s?’ she said.
‘Jennifer—is a person I know well.’
She looked at Judith as if in surprise at her tone and manner.
‘I had no idea of that. She never mentioned you.’
For a moment that dealt a blinding blow, with its instantaneous implications of dishonesty and indifference. But she repeated:
‘I’ve known her well for two years. You can ask her. She might admit it.’ And as she spoke the last words she thought with sudden excitement: ‘Just as I never mentioned Roddy....’
‘Oh, I can’t get anything out of her,’ said Geraldine and added truculently: ‘You might as well tell me what it’s all about.’
‘I have nothing whatever to tell you. I don’t know why you’ve come. I’d like you to tell me what it’s all about—or else go away, please.’ She was conscious all at once of a terrible inward trembling, and got up again. The other watched her in silence, and she added: ‘I haven’t been near her—since that night in her room. I’ve kept away—you know that night....’
‘What night?’
Judith broke into a sort of laugh; and then checked herself with a vast effort: for the suppressed hysteria of weeks was climbing upwards within her and if it broke loose, it might never, never cease.
‘Well—one night,’ she said, ‘I thought perhaps you remembered.’
There was not a flicker on Geraldine’s face. She must be very stupid or very cruel.
‘What beats me,’ said Geraldine, ‘is why this dead set against me?—against her and me. What do you want to interfere with us for? It’s not your business, any of you. I thought I’d come and tell you so.’
There was a curious coarseness about her: almost a vulgarity. It was difficult to combat.
Judith lifted her eyes and looked at her in silence.
‘So you’ve all sent Jennifer to Coventry.’ She laughed. ‘It’s marvellous. A female institution is really marvellous. At least it would be if it weren’t so nauseating.’ Still Judith was silent, and she added contemptuously:
‘I should have thought a bit better of you if you’d come yourself. Do you generally get other people to do your dirty work for you?’
Judith got up and went towards the door.
‘Where are you going?’ said Geraldine sharply.
‘To Jennifer, to ask her to explain.’
‘You can’t do that.’ The change in her voice and manner was noticeable. ‘Jennifer’s lying down. I left her trying to sleep. She mustn’t be disturbed.’
‘I can go to Jennifer whenever I like. I can always go to Jennifer. I don’t ask you whether I am to or not.’
At last this was anger, anger! At last she was able to want to wound, to cry: ‘I! I! I!’ brutally, aggressively, triumphantly in the face of her enemy. Pure anger for the first time in life.
‘Please! Listen,’ Geraldine took a few steps towards her. ‘Please, don’t go now. She’s very much upset. I left her crying.’
Crying—crying? Oh, that was a good thing. It was splendid that Jennifer should have been made to cry.... And yet ... if this woman had made her cry—poor Jennifer, darling Jennifer—you would——
The situation seemed suddenly to have become reversed. Judith felt herself momentarily strong in self-assurance; and Geraldine was hesitating, as if doubtful what to say.
‘What’s she crying about? It takes a good deal to make Jennifer cry.’
Geraldine shot her a glance and said venomously:
‘Yes. As far as I can make out, one of your charming friends must have taken a good deal of trouble to make her cry this morning. Anyway she seemed to have got it into her head that she’s treated somebody, or one of you, very badly—and that somebody was hurt—you were hurt—because she’d been neglecting you for me.’
‘How do you know she meant me?’
She was silent, and then said:
‘She was crying a good deal and thoroughly upset and I heard her say your name. So I went and asked someone where your room was and came straight. But you were out.’
‘Did she tell you to come?’
‘She didn’t tell me not to.’
‘Then she told you where my room was. She knows you’re here.’
‘I didn’t ask her where your room was. I—found out.’
‘And does she know you’re here?’
‘No.’ She added after a silence. ‘I didn’t come here to be cross-questioned.’
‘What did you come here for?’
‘Just to tell you we care that’—she snapped her fingers—‘for your mean little jealousies.’
‘Oh, it seems scarcely worth coming, just for that. It wasn’t worth losing your temper over, was it? Little jealousies are so common—in a female institution. I do think you over-estimate their importance. It isn’t as if you cared what we said, because you’ve just told me you don’t—either of you.’
‘And,’ she said, raising her voice angrily; ‘and to tell you I consider you owe me an apology—me and Jennifer.’
‘Oh!’ Judith buried her face in her hands and laughed. ‘Oh! that’s very funny.’
She looked up at Geraldine with a sudden fantastic hope that she would see her laughing too; but the face presented to her was hostile and heavy. At sight of it she felt the laughter begin to shake her terrifyingly; and checked it with a gasp.
‘I suppose you will deny having anything to do with this?’
‘Oh, deny it—of course I do,’ said Judith with weary contempt.
‘Deny having insinuated—suggested——’ she began loudly.
‘I have never bothered to mention your name to anyone. Why should I? It’s nothing to do with me.’
‘No,’ she said, her face and voice rousing a little from their heavy deliberate monotony. ‘It’s nothing to do with you.’ She thought a moment and added slowly: ‘Then there’s some misunderstanding.’
‘Yes, some misunderstanding. Why go on treating it as if it were important?’
After a silence she said:
‘Anything, however slight, that comes between me and Jennifer is important.’
Judith felt herself start to tremble again. Those slow words rang a doom for her; and her spurious advantage was at an end.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said uncertainly, ‘if I have come between you and Jennifer.’
‘Not you,’ she said. (Yes, she was a stupid or a cruel woman.) ‘But I know what people’s mischievous tongues can do, and I wanted to get to the bottom of it before I go away. Just to assure myself that I’m not leaving her to face anything—unpleasant or distressing.’
‘Ah, so you realize how easily she’s influenced.’
That was it then: the woman was afraid. She had given herself away at last: she knew the terrible insecurity of loving Jennifer. Judith felt a quiver of new emotion dart through her: it seemed like a faint pity.
‘I don’t want her bothered,’ said Geraldine aggressively. ‘I loathe this interfering.’
‘You don’t quite understand,’ said Judith in a voice of calm explanation, ‘how much Jennifer means to some people—a lot of people here. They love her. Naturally they resent it a little when somebody else comes in and claims all her attention. They miss her. Isn’t it natural? And then you see, since you’ve been here I believe she’s been getting into awful trouble for neglecting her work. I heard one of them say so a day or two ago—and another one said it was time someone spoke to her or she’d be sent down. So I daresay that’s what happened: somebody tried to give her a sort of warning. Of course it was silly: but then, as you say, girls are silly. It was meant kindly.’ She paused, feeling a kind of faintness, took a deep sighing breath and continued:
‘If my name was brought into it, it was because I have had—I think—a certain amount of influence with Jennifer. She and I were a good deal together at one time. But lately I have been working very hard. They have no business at all....’
She felt her voice dwindling and stopped, trembling now uncontrollably.
Geraldine lit another cigarette and leaned back against the mantelpiece. Oh, she was going to lean there for ever! If only she would allow you to soften her into some emotion of pity and understanding so that you might fling yourself down and weep, crying: “Now you must understand. Now I have told you all. Leave me.” But there was no hope of that. Her hostility was hardening. She was more alert now; and she seemed to be taking note for the first time since her sweeping entrance of Judith’s person. Her eyes went attentively over face, hands, feet, hair, clothes, and over the whole room. Something alive was rearing itself from the stony envelope. She was silent for a long time, and then said uncertainly:
‘I hope you won’t—mention all this to her.’ Judith laughed.
‘I can’t quite promise that,’ she said. ‘You see, we’ve been used to telling each other most things. There’s no reason to make a mystery of it. Is there?’
She was silent again; and then said:
‘I think it would be best not to say anything to her. I don’t want her to think there’s been any fuss. I don’t think she’ll care to hear any more about it. She was very unwilling to—to dwell——’
That brought home Jennifer’s attitude with painful clarity. She was, of course, flying to escape. Why should she go free always, always? This time it would be easy to make her uncomfortable, if not to hurt her. And yet, it could not be done. Once more she felt the faintest stir of sympathy with Geraldine. She said with a shrug:
‘Very well, I won’t refer to it.’
‘We’ll agree,’ said Geraldine, ‘to keep it to ourselves.’
Judith nodded.
Geraldine threw away her cigarette, smoothed her sleek hair, stood upright as if preparing to go and said with brisk indifference:
‘Well, I’m sorry if I’ve been a nuisance.’
‘Oh, you haven’t been a nuisance.’
Judith crushed her cold hands into her lap. Now it was almost over: soon she could let herself collapse. But Geraldine still lingered, looking about her.
‘You’ve got nice things,’ she said. ‘Most of the rooms I’ve seen are too frightful.’
‘I’m luckier than most girls here. I have more money.’
‘Do you like being here?’
‘I have liked it—and disliked it.’
‘Hmm. Jennifer hates it. I don’t wonder. I think I’ve persuaded her to leave and come abroad with me.’
Defeat at last. She had no answer to that, not one weapon left. She stared before her, paralyzed.
‘I can’t think,’ added Geraldine, ‘how she’s stuck it so long.’
Judith heard herself say slowly, softly:
‘As I told you, there are a great many people here who love her. That makes a difference, doesn’t it? People have to love Jennifer.’ She buried her face in her hands, and thought aloud, in a sort of whisper: ‘People have to love her and then she seems cruel. But she doesn’t mean to be. There’s something about her—people don’t seem to be able to love her clearly and serenely: they have to love her too much. Everything gets dark and confused and aching, and they want to—touch her and be the only one near her; they want to look after her and give her everything she wants. It’s tiring. And then when they’re tired she gives them back life. She pours life into them from herself.’
She stopped short, seeing in a flash how it had always been between herself and Jennifer. Tired, you had come again and again to her, pressing close to be replenished from her vitality. But Jennifer had not drunk life from you in return: quietness and tenderness and understanding, but not life. And the quietness had passed into sadness—yes, you knew now you had seen it happening sometimes,—sadness, flatness: the virtue had gone out of her in the incessant giving of herself, the incessant taking on of an alien quietness. You had wanted too much, you had worn her out. Perhaps after all you had been unlucky to Jennifer, committed that crime of trying to possess her separateness,—craved more than even she could give without destroying herself. So in the end she had gone to someone more wholesome for her nature. Perhaps after all the balance had been sorely ill-adjusted: she your creator, you her destroyer. Perhaps she should be surrendered to Geraldine now, ungrudgingly. She said, looking up at Geraldine:
‘I daresay you make her very happy.’
Geraldine said, answering Judith’s gaze unwaveringly:
‘Yes, we are very happy together. Absolutely happy.’
‘She is a good companion, isn’t she?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said, her heavy lips lifting in a faint curious smile.
What was in her voice?—insolence?—triumph?—malice?—an obscure challenge? She seemed to be implying that she knew things about Jennifer of which you had no knowledge. She was a terrible woman.
Judith could find no words, and the other continued:
‘She’s starting to find herself. It’s very interesting. Of course nobody’s understood her here.’
‘And you think you do?’
‘I do, yes.’
‘Oh, but I’d never dare say that about a person I loved! You might seem to touch everywhere and all the time be strangers.’ Judith clasped her hands and spoke urgently:
‘Oh, don’t you feel how you might long to say to someone you love: I give you all myself, all myself—and all the time be sad because with all your efforts and longing you know you never could—that the core can’t ever be stirred at all? It seems such dreadful arrogance to say—’ she stopped short, pressing her hand to her lips, shutting her eyes. After a pause she added quickly: ‘But I don’t doubt you love her ...’ she sighed. ‘Thank God this term is nearly over. This is a terrible place for getting overwrought.’
Geraldine seemed to be thinking deeply. Her face was awake and preoccupied behind its heavy mask.
‘It’s very odd,’ said Judith, ‘how she doesn’t value her brains in the very least—isn’t interested in them—can’t be bothered. I suppose you know she’s the most brilliant history student of her year. Easily. Of course she’s never worked, but she could have done anything she liked. In spite of all her idleness and irresponsibility they were still excited about her—they thought she’d do something in the end. And I was going to make her pull it off. I could have—in one term. I mean I could have once. Not now of course.’
Her voice ceased drearily. As if it would matter to Geraldine how much Jennifer wasted brains, or academic opportunities ... as if it would move her!
The bell started to ring for Hall.
‘There!’ said Judith, ‘I must brush my hair I suppose, and go down. Are you coming to Hall?’
‘No. I’m going to dine in Cambridge.’
Judith rose and stood before her, looking full at her for the last time. She thought suddenly: ‘But she’s not beautiful! She’s hideously ugly, repulsive.’
That broad heavy face and thick neck, those coarse and masculine features, that hothouse skin: What taste Jennifer must have to find her attractive!...
Oh no, it was no good saying that. In spite of all, she was beautiful: her person held an appalling fascination. She was beautiful, beautiful. You would never be able to forget her face, her form. You would see it and dream of it with painful desire: as if she could satisfy something, some hunger, if she would. But she was not for you. The secret of her magnetism, her rareness must be for ever beyond reach; but not beyond imagination.
Judith cried out inwardly: ‘Tell me all your life!’ All about herself, where she had come from, why she was alone and mysterious, why she wore such clothes, such pearls, how she and Jennifer had met, what knowledge her expression half-hid, half-revealed. Time had swept her down one moment out of space, portentously, and now was sweeping her away again, unknown. And now, in the end, you wanted to implore her to stay, to let herself be known, to let you love her. Yes, to let you love her. It was not true that you must hate your enemies. What was all this hatred and jealousy? Something so terrifyingly near to love, you dared not contemplate it. You could love her in a moment, passionately, for her voice, her eyes, her beautiful white hands, for loving Jennifer—anything.
The bell stopped ringing.
‘Good-bye,’ said Judith. ‘I’m late.’ She held out her hand.
Geraldine took it. Her hand was cool, smooth and firm.
‘Good-bye.’
‘Are you—staying much longer?’
‘I’m going away to-morrow.’
‘I’d like to have known you better,’ said Judith, very low, and she lifted her eyes to the long, hidden eyes of Geraldine. ‘I hope you and she will be happy when you go abroad.’ She opened the door politely, and then said, smiling: ‘We won’t forget each other, will we?’
‘No,’ said Geraldine, still watching her. But she did not smile.
They went their different ways along the corridor.
Now to go down to the dull food and clamour, to sit among them all and torture herself with fancying intercepted glances which might have pity in them; to hear perhaps, her name and Jennifer’s in a whispered aside; to try with anguish to guess which of them it was who had dared to drag her pain from its hiding-place and proclaim it aloud.