7
The long days of May stretched out before Judith and Jennifer. Each day was a fresh adventure in the open air, and work an unimportant and neglected nuisance. For weeks the weather remained flawless. Life narrowed to a wandering in a green canoe up small river-channels far from the town, with Jennifer paddling in wild bursts between long periods of inaction. To all Judith’s offers of help she answered firmly that a woman should never depart from her type.
They landed finally and made ready to bathe.
‘Off, off, you lendings!’ cried Jennifer. ‘Do you know, darling, that comes home to me more than anything else in all Shakespeare? I swear, Judith, it seems much more natural to me to wear no clothes.’
She stood up, stretching white arms above her head. Her cloud of hair was vivid in the blue air. Her back was slender and strong and faultlessly moulded.
‘Glorious, glorious Pagan that I adore!’ whispered the voice in Judith that could never speak out.
Beside Jennifer she felt herself too slim, too flexible, almost attenuated.
‘You are so utterly lovely,’ Jennifer said, watching her.
They swam in cool water in a deep circular pool swept round with willows, and dried themselves in the sun.
They spent the afternoon in the shade of a blossoming may bush. All round them the new green of the fields was matted over with a rich and solid layer of buttercup yellow. Jennifer lay flat on her back with the utter relaxed immobility of an animal, replenishing her vitality through every nerve.
Slowly they opened books, dreamed through a page, forgot it at once, laid books aside; turned to smile at each other, to talk as if there could never be enough of talking; with excitement, with anxiety, as if to-morrow might part them and leave them for ever burdened with the weight of all they had had to tell each other.
Judith crept closer, warming every sense at her, silent and utterly peaceful. She was the part of you which you never had been able to untie and set free, the part that wanted to dance and run and sing, taking strong draughts of wind and sunlight; and was, instead, done up in intricate knots and overcast with shadows; the part that longed to look outward and laugh, accepting life as an easy exciting thing; and yet was checked by a voice that said doubtfully that there were dark ideas behind it all, tangling the web; and turned you inward to grope among the roots of thought and feeling for the threads.
You could not do without Jennifer now.
The sun sank, and the level light flooded the fields and the river. Now the landscape lost its bright pure definitions of outline, its look as of a picture embroidered in brilliant silks, and veiled its colours with a uniform pearl-like glow. A chill fell and the scent of May grew troubling in the stillness. They turned the canoe towards home.
Nearer the town, boats became more frequent. Gramophones clamoured from the bowels of most of them; and they were heavily charged with grey-flannelled youth. Jennifer, observing them with frank interest, pointed out the good-looking ones in a loud whisper; and all of them stared, stared as they passed.
Above the quiet secretly-stirring town, roofs, towers and spires floated in a pale gold wash of light. What was the mystery of Cambridge in the evening? Footfalls struck with a pang on the heart, faces startled with strange beauty, and every far appearing or disappearing form seemed significant.
And when they got back to College, even that solid red-brick barrack was touched with mystery. The corridors were long patterns of unreal light and shadow. Girls’ voices sounded remote as in a dream, with a murmuring rise and fall and light laughter behind closed doors. The thrilling smell of cowslips and wall-flowers was everywhere, like a cloud of enchantment.
In Jennifer’s room, someone had let down the sun-blind, and all was in throbbing shadow. Her great copper bowl was piled, as usual, with fruit, and they ate of it idly, without hunger.
‘Now a little work,’ said Judith firmly. ‘Think! only three weeks till Mays....’
But it was impossible to feel moved.
Jennifer, looking childish and despondent, sat down silently by the window with a book.
Judith wrote on a sheet of paper:
Tall oaks branch-charmèd by the earnest stars; and studied it. That was a starry night: the sound of the syllables made stars prick out in dark treetops.
Under it she wrote:
... the foam
Of perilous seas in faëry lands forlorn.
What a lot there were for the sea and the seashore!... The page became fuller.
Upon the desolate verge of light
Yearned loud the iron-bosomed sea.
The unplumbed salt estranging sea.
From the lone sheiling of the misty island
Mountains divide us and a world of seas:
But still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland;
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides.
Ah, that said it all....
The lines came flocking at random.
But the majestic river floated on,
Out of the mist and hum of that low land
Into the frosty starlight, and there flowed
Rejoicing through the hushed Chorasmian waste
Under the solitary moon....
Ah sunflower weary of time
That countest the steps of the sun....
Ah sunflower!... Where were they—the old gardens of the sun where my sunflower wished to go? They half unfolded themselves at the words ...
Nous n’irons plux aux bois
Les lauriers sont coupés.
O mors quam amara est memoria tua homini pacem habenti in substantiis suis....
How with one tongue those both cried alas!
And then in the end, sleep and a timeless peace.
Nox est perpetua una dormienda.
There were so many tumbling and leaping about in your head you could go on for ever....
Now to study them. What did it all mean? Was there any thread running through them with which to make a theory? Anybody could write down strings of quotations,—but a student of English literature was expected to deal in theories. It was something to do with the sound ... the way sound made images, shell within shell of them softly unclosing ... the way words became colours and scents ... and the surprise when it happened, the ache of desire, the surge of excitement, the sense of fulfilment, the momentary perception of something unknowable.... Some sort of truth, some answer to the question: What is poetry?... No it was no good. But it had been very enjoyable, writing things down like that and repeating them to yourself.
Jennifer was half asleep with her head upon the window-sill. The bowl of fruit burned in the dimness. How like Jennifer was her room! Yellow painted chairs, a red and blue rug on the hearth, cowslips in coloured bowls and jars, one branch of white lilac in a tall blue vase; the guitar with its many ribbons lying on the table; a silken Italian shawl, embroidered with great rose and blue and yellow flowers flung over the screen: wherever you looked colour leapt up at you; she threw colour about in profuse disorder and left it. Her hat of pale green straw with its little wreath of clover lay on the floor. Nobody else had attractive childish hats like hers. A wide green straw would remind you of Jennifer to the end of your life; and beneath it you would see the full delicious curve of her cheek and chin, her deep-shadowed eyes, her lips that seemed to hold all life in their ardent lines.
She turned her head and smiled sleepily.
‘Hullo!’ said Judith. ‘Haven’t we been quiet? I’ve done such a lot of work.’
‘I’ve done none. I couldn’t remember the difference between ethics and æsthetics. What rot it all is!... Now listen and we’ll hear a nightingale. He’s tuning up.’
They leaned out of the window.
The icy aching flute in the cedar called and called on two or three notes, uncertain, dissatisfied; then all at once found itself and bubbled over in rich and complicated rapture.
Jennifer was listening, tranced in her strange immobility, as if every other sense were suspended to allow her to hear aright.
She roused herself at last as Judith bent to kiss her good night.
‘Good night my—darling—darling—’ she said.
They stared at each other with tragic faces. It was too much, this happiness and beauty.
The end of the first year.