9
Then, almost it seemed, while she still told herself these things; while the memory of Roddy’s brief presence still surged up bewilderingly to drown her a hundred times a day, and then slipped away again, lost in the mysterious and doubtful darkness cast by his ensuing silence; while Jennifer remained the unquenched spring of all gaiety and reassurance, all delight: while the whole ordered dream went on as if it could never break; even then, with the third year, the shadow of change began to fall.
It was a look, a turn of the head, a new trick of speech, a nothing in Jennifer which struck at her heart in a moment; and then all had started to fall to pieces. Jennifer was no longer the same. Somewhere she had turned aside without a word, and set her face to a new road. She did not want to be followed. She had given Judith the slip, in the dark; and now, when she still pretended to be there, her voice had the false shrillness of a voice coming from far away.
She remembered Jennifer saying once, suddenly: “There’s one thing certain in my life: that is, that I shall always love you.” And afterwards her eyes had shone as if with tears and laughter. She remembered the surprise and joy, the flooding confidence of that moment; for it had been said so quietly, as if the realization of that “always” held for something sorrowful, a sobering sense of fate. Her manner had had a simplicity far removed from the usual effervescence and extravagance: she had seemed to state a fact to be believed in forever, without question. In her life where all else was uncertain, fluid and undirected, where all turned in mazes of heat and sound, that only was the deep unshaken foundation, the changeless thing.... She had seemed to mean that, sitting back in her chair, her arms laid along her lap, her hands folded together, everything about her quiet and tender, her eyes resting on Judith as they never had before or since, long and full, with a depth of untroubled love.
That had been on a day in late April, at the beginning of the last Summer term. The happiness of reunion had never before seemed so complete. She had been in Scotland, Judith in Paris with Mamma, living resentfully in a reflection of Mamma’s alien existence. And then they were together again, and the summer term had opened with its unfailing week or so of exquisite weather.
They had taken the green canoe one morning and wandered up the river to Grandchester. There was no one at all in the Orchard when they reached it.
“Thank God I see no grey flannels,” said Jennifer. “I suppose the grass is still too wet for undergraduates to sit out.”
A light breeze was blowing through the orchard, ruffling long grass, dandelions, buttercups, and daisies. Under the trees, the little white tables, set in the green silken brilliance, were dappled with running light and shadow, and the apple branches, clotted with full blossom, gleamed against the sky in a tender childish contrast of simple colours,—pale pink upon pale blue. The air was dazed with a bewilderment of bird-song.
A rough brown terrier with golden eyes came prancing out on them, making known their presence with barkings half-ferocious, half-friendly. The dark waitress came lazily from the house, reluctant to serve them.
‘Is the Orchard open?’
‘Oh yes, it’s open.’
‘Can you let us have lunch?’
‘Oh I dare say.’
‘What can you let us have?’
‘You can have a cheese omelette and some fruit-salad.’
‘Divine,’ said Jennifer, and leapt for joy.
‘You better have it in the shelter. The grass is wet.’
She wandered away, smoothing her black untidy hair. She would not smile. There was something arresting and romantic in the thin sallow dark-browed young woman, preserving her ugliness, her faint unrelaxing bitterness among all the laughing renewals of her surroundings.
‘I’d like to pick her up and shake her into life. Make her smile and be young. Make her cheeks pink and her eyes bright,’ said Jennifer. ‘If I were a man I’d fall bang in love with her. What is her name do you think? Jessica? Anne? Rosa?’
‘Miriam.’
‘Yes, Miriam.’
How the remembered insignificant words brought flooding back the irrecoverable quality of that day!
Tits and robins, perching all around them, and the golden-eyed dog, had helped them to finish their meal.
Then they had lain back in their chairs, staring and saying nothing. And then it was that Jennifer had turned and broken the silence with her quiet, inevitable-seeming declaration; and after it Judith had reached out to touch her hand for a moment; and continued to sit beside her and dream.
Later in the afternoon they had seen grey-flannelled legs approaching and risen to go.
They met the dark girl walking down the gravel path towards the orchard, carrying a trayful of crockery.
‘We’ve come to pay you,’ said Jennifer radiantly smiling.
She gave the price without a flicker.
‘Judith, have you that much on you, darling?’ said Jennifer, and added, turning again to the girl: ‘We have so enjoyed ourselves.’
There was no response save a quick suspicious glance.
Currant bushes, wallflowers, narcissi, pansies, yellow daisies and tulips blossomed richly on each side of the path.
‘What a delicious garden!’ said Jennifer. ‘It’s at its very best, isn’t it?’
‘It’s looking nice,’ she admitted.
Jennifer pointed to a clump of stiff, serious purple-black tulips.
‘Those tulips are like you,’ she said, her eyes and mouth, all her glowing face, coaxing and appealing.
And suddenly the girl gave a little laugh, looking with soft eyes first at Jennifer, then away, shyly and deprecatingly, as who should say: ‘The idea! Me like a tulip! Well, you are a one—Daft ...’ but gratified and amused all the same.
‘I shall always think of you when I see tulips like that,’ said Jennifer. ‘Good-bye!’
‘Good-bye, Miss....’ She smiled, almost mischievously this time, and hurried on with her tray.
‘She was quite human,’ said Jennifer. ‘I wonder if she’s got a lover or if she’s longing for one, or if she’s been jilted, or what.... What makes her all shadowy and tight inside herself?’
She stood looking after the girl, as if meditating going back to ask her.
How Jennifer struck sparks from ordinary people! She knew how to live. To be with her was to meet adventure; to see, round every corner, the bush become the burning bush.
In a little while she would have forgotten the girl whose problem was now so urgent and exciting; but you yourself would always remember,—seeing it all dramatically, seeing it as a quiet story, hearing it as an unknown tune: making of it a water colour painting in gay foolish colours, or an intricate pencil pattern of light and shadow.
They left the Orchard.
‘I think,’ said Jennifer, ‘we will never come here again.’
They had not come again. That time had remained unblurred by any subsequent return in a different mood, with more companions, in another weather or season.
But Judith had thought, while she nodded agreement: ‘Some day, when I’m much older, I’ll come back alone and think of her; and then perhaps write and say: do you remember? Or perhaps not, in case she has forgotten.’
And now, it seemed, far sooner even than Judith had feared, Jennifer was forgetting everything. They had meant to go away together during the summer vacation; go to Brittany, and bathe and walk and read: but in the end Jennifer’s don had said cold things regarding Jennifer’s progress, and requested her to attend college during the Long. Judith had gone on a reading party with three of the circle, and written Jennifer long letters which were answered briefly and at rare intervals. But that was not surprising. Jennifer’s letters had always been spasmodic, if passionately affectionate. Then the letters had ceased altogether. Judith had written asking if they could not spend September together, and Jennifer had answered in five lines, excusing herself. She was going to shoot in Scotland in September.
And then the third year had started, with everything as it had always been, or seeming so, for a few moments; and then in one more moment shivered to pieces.
She would not stay behind alone, after the others had gone, to say good-night. She ceased to talk with abandonment and excitement, her eyes shining to see you listening, to feel you understanding. There seemed nothing to say now. In particular, she would not speak of the Long.
It was, of course, Mabel who was the first to hint of ill-tidings. Eating doughnuts out of a bag, late one night, during one of Judith’s charity visits, she said:
‘Has that Miss Manners been up lately?’
‘Who’s Miss Manners?’
‘Why—that Miss Manners, Jennifer’s friend, who stayed with her so much during the Long.’
‘Oh yes——’
‘I was sure you must have heard about her, because they seemed such very great friends. They were always about together and always up to some lark.’ She gave a snigger. ‘We used to wonder, we really did, how long it would be before Jennifer got sent down, the way they used to go on, coming in so late and all. But somehow Jennifer never gets found out, does she?’ Another snigger. ‘What a striking-looking girl she is.’
‘Who?’
‘Miss Manners.’
‘Oh yes.... I’ve never seen her. Only photographs.’
‘Everybody said what a striking pair they made.... I expect she’ll be up soon again, don’t you?’
‘I don’t know at all,’ said Judith. ‘I expect so.’ Mabel looked solemn.
‘The wrestling matches they used to have out there on the lawn! I used to watch them from my window. I wonder they didn’t.... I really wonder ... any of the don.... It looked so ... throwing each other about like that.... It’s not the sort of thing you expect—quite, is it? I mean....’
‘Oh, wrestling’s glorious,’ said Judith. ‘I love it. Jennifer’s tried to teach me. But I’m not strong enough for her; the—the—Manners girl is much more of a match for her.’
Mabel pursed up her mouth and was silent.
It was necessary to leave her quickly for fear of striking her; because her deliberate intent was obvious; because she knew quite well now that you had never before heard of Miss Manners; because you were seeing that girl plainly, tall, dark and splendid, striding on the lawn with Jennifer, grasping her in strong arms, a match for her in all magnificent unfeminine physical ways, as you had never been. Her image was all at once there, ineffaceably presenting itself as the embodiment of all hitherto unco-ordinated and formless fears, the symbol for change, and dark alarms and confusions. And the unbearable image of Mabel was there too, watching by herself, gloating down from the window with glistening eyes that said:
‘At last!’
She stopped short in the corridor, and moaned aloud, aghast at the crowding panic of her thoughts.
Judith, returning from her bath, heard voices and laughter late at night behind Jennifer’s door. Should she stop? All the circle must be there as usual, laughing and talking as if nothing were amiss. She alone had excluded herself, sitting with a pile of books in her room, pretending to have important work. It was her own fault. She had said she was busy, and they had believed her and not invited her to join their gathering. She would go in, and sit among them and smoke, and tell them things,—tell them something to make them laugh; and all would be as before. They would drift away in the end and leave her behind; she would turn and look at Jennifer in the firelight, put out a hand and say: ‘Jennifer....’
She opened the door and looked in.
The voices stopped, cut off sharply.
In the strange, charged, ensuing silence, she saw that the curtains were flung back. Purple-black night pressed up against the windows, and one pane framed the blank white globe of the full moon. They were all lying on the floor. Dark forms, pallid, moon-touched faces and hands were dimly distinguishable; a few cigarette points burned in the faint hanging cloud of smoke across the room. The fire was almost out. Where was Jennifer?
‘Hullo, there’s Judith,’ said one.
‘Is there room for me?’ said Judith in a small voice. She came in softly among them all, and went directly over to the window and sat on the floor, with the moon behind her head. She was conscious of her own unnatural precision and economy of movement; of her long slender body wrapped in its kimono crossing the room in three light steps, sinking noiselessly down in its place and at once remaining motionless, expectant.
Where was Jennifer?
‘All in the dark,’ she said, in the same soft voice. And then: ‘What a moon! Don’t you know it’s very dangerous to let it shine on you like this? It will make you mad.’
One or two of them laughed. She could now recognize the three faces in front of her. Jennifer must be somewhere by the fireplace. There was constraint in the room. She thought with awful jealousy: ‘Ah, they hate my coming. They thought they were getting rid of me at last. They come here secretly without me, to insinuate themselves. They all want her. They have all hated me always.’ She said:
‘Give me a cigarette, someone.’
Jennifer’s voice broke in suddenly with a sort of harsh clangour. From her voice, Judith knew how wild her eyes must be.
‘Here, here’s a cigarette, Judith.... Have something to eat. Or some cocoa. Oh—there was a bottle of cherry-brandy, but I believe we’ve finished it.’
Horrible confusion in her voice, a stumbling hurry of noise....
‘I have just licked up the last dregs,’ said a deep voice.
‘Who’s that who spoke then?’ said Judith softly and sweetly.
‘Oh ...’ cried Jennifer shrilly, ‘Geraldine, you haven’t met Judith yet.’
What was she saying? Geraldine Manners was staying the week-end, no, was wrestling on the lawn with her; had just arrived, no, had been in the room for months, since the summer, for they were such very great friends....
‘How do you do? I’m guessing what you are like from the way you speak,’ said Judith softly, laughingly.
‘Oh, I’m no good at that.’
How bored, how careless a voice!
‘Shall I switch on the light?’ said someone.
‘No!’ said Judith loudly.
She lifted up her arm against the window. The kimono sleeve fell back from it, and it gleamed cold and frail in the moonlight, like a snake. She spread out her long fingers and stared at them.
‘I would like to be blind,’ she said. ‘I really wish I were blind. Then I might learn to see with my fingers. I might learn to hear properly too.’
And learn to be indifferent to Jennifer; never to be enslaved again by the lines and colours of her physical appearance, the ever new surprise and delight of them; learn, in calm perpetual darkness, how the eyes’ tyrannical compulsions had obscured and distorted all true values. To be struck blind now this moment, so that the dreadful face of the voice by the fireplace remained for ever unknown!... Soon the light would go on, and painfully, hungrily, with awful haste and reluctance, the eyes would begin their work again, fly to their target.
‘Don’t be absurd, Judith,’ said someone. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about’; and went on to talk of work among the blind, of blinded soldiers, of St. Dunstan’s.
The conversation became general and followed the usual lines: it was better to be deaf than blind, blind than deaf. Jennifer and Geraldine were silent.
‘Oh, it’s time we went to bed,’ said someone. ‘Jennifer, I must go to bed. I’m almost asleep. What’s the time?’
Now the light would go on.
It went on. The room suddenly revealed its confusion of girls, cushions, chairs, cups, plates and cigarette-ends. Everybody was getting up, standing about and talking.
Jennifer was on her feet, voluble, calling loud good-nights. They made a group round her and round somebody still sitting on the floor beside her. Judith caught a glimpse of a dark head leaning motionless against the mantelpiece. Now they were all going away. Judith followed them slowly to the door and there paused, looking over her shoulder towards the fireplace.
‘Stay,’ said Jennifer shrilly. She was standing and staring at Judith with wild eyes; pale, with a deep patch of colour in each cheek, and lips parted.
‘No, I must go. I’ve got some work,’ said Judith, smiling over her shoulder. She let her eyes drop from Jennifer’s face to the other one.
At last it confronted her, the silent-looking face, watching behind its narrowed eyes. The hair was black, short, brushed straight back from the forehead, leaving small beautiful ears exposed. The heavy eyebrows came low and level on the low broad brow; the eyes were long slits, dark-circled, the cheeks were pale, the jaw heavy and masculine. All the meaning of the face was concentrated in the mouth, the strange wide lips laid rather flat on the face, sulky, passionate, weary, eager. She was not a young girl. It was the face of a woman of thirty or more; but in years she might have been younger. She was tall, deep-breasted, with long, heavy but shapely limbs. She wore a black frock and a pearl necklace, and large pearl earrings.
Judith said politely:
‘Is this the first time you have been here?’
‘No.’ She laughed. Her voice was an insolent voice.
‘I’m tired,’ said Jennifer suddenly, like a child.
‘You look it,’ said Judith. ‘Go to bed.’
‘I’ll get undressed.’ Jennifer passed a hand across her forehead and sighed.
The woman by the fireplace fitted a cigarette into an amber holder slowly, and lit it.
‘I’m not sleepy yet,’ she said. ‘I’ll wait till you’re in bed and come and tuck you up.’
‘This room feels——’ cried Jennifer staring around her in horror. She dashed to the window and flung it wide open; then disappeared into her bedroom; and there was not another sound from her.
The woman started singing to herself very low, as if forgetful of Judith’s presence; then broke off to say:
‘I like your kimono.’
Judith wrapped the long red and blue silk garment more closely round her hips.
‘Yes. It was brought me from Japan. I gave Jennifer one. A purple one.’
‘Oh, that one. She’s lent it to me. I forgot to bring a dressing-gown.’
She turned her head away, as if to intimate that so far as she was concerned conversation was neither interesting nor necessary.
Judith bit back the ‘Good-night, Jennifer’ which she was about to call; for she was never going to care any more what happened to Jennifer; never again soothe her when she was weary and excited, comfort her when she was unhappy. She would look at Jennifer coldly, observe her vagaries and entanglements with a shrug, comment upon them with detached and cynical amusement: hurt her, if possible, oh, hurt her, hurt her.
Now she would leave her with Geraldine and not trouble to ask herself once what profound and secret intimacies would be restored by her withdrawal.
She smiled over her shoulder and left the room.