Why, Bill, you poor old devil (she said to him), how you must have suffered to be able to write like that. It made her feel quite tranquil by comparison. But of course her own particular absurdities had special kinks in them that were unique: even He would have been surprised. But he would have understood.
A soft flow of air had begun to move after the storm. The big maple tree, just outside the bathroom window, was gold-plated in the dropping sun. The window was above the bath and the ripple of those gilded leaves reflected a gentle shimmer into the porcelain tub. Her shiny knees were glossed with pale green light. Shakespeare would have liked that. She fished for the soap, which slipped round behind her like a young thought.
I suppose that as long as I was 99 and 44⁄100 pure I never could appreciate him. But I don’t know whether I altogether enjoy people who understand so well. That’s the trouble about George: he’s getting weirdly acute, poor soul. Now, Mr. Martin: he looks divinely sympathetic, but I don’t think he quite.... People wonder why one always confides in those who don’t understand. But of course! To confide in people who do is too terrible. Giving yourself away—yes, exactly: you no longer are keeper of your own gruesome self. That’s why the Catholic notion is so sound: confession to God is nothing at all, you know He doesn’t care. But to confess to a priest ... golly, that must take courage.
She lay down for one last lustral wallow, closing her eyes with a calm sensation of new dignity and refreshment. The cool water held her in peaceful lightness, lifting away whatever was agitated and strange. For a moment body and spirit were harmoniously one, floating in a pure eddy of Time. I feel like a nun, she thought. She rose, trickling, threw the big towel round her shoulders, and studied herself in the long mirror. Really, I’m not much more than a child, she mused happily, admiring the slender, short-haired figure in the glass. Or perhaps I feel like a harlot ... a courtesan, nicer-sounding word. Discarding the towel she struck a humorous parody of the Venus Aphrodite attitude, and then felt a little shocked. She could feel her cheeks warming. She remembered George’s coarse remark when they saw the statue. “It’s no use,” he said. “Two hands can’t do it. Any one as timid as that needs three.” She sang a little refrain, trying different tunes for it. She couldn’t remember whether she had heard it, or just made it up:
What did Mrs. Shakespeare do
When William went away?
The soft flutter of maple leaves outside the window was like a soothing whisper. From the other side of the house she could hear the click of croquet mallets and balls. Time for the children to have their supper, or they won’t be finished before the others get here. Thank goodness it was cooler, Lizzie wouldn’t be so harassed. Wrapping her silk kimono round her, she looked out of the window. Lizzie’s flag was still flying. With a rough delicacy of her own, the cook did not like to run out her private washing on the family line, so she had strung a cord from the kitchen door to a branch of the maple tree. There, floating like a hoist of signal buntings, were Lizzie’s personalia: all the more conspicuous for her mistaken modesty. They were indeed (it was George who had said it) like a string of code flags: a blue apron, a yellow shirt, a pair of appalling red breeches. George always wanted to know to whom Lizzie might be signalling with these homely pennants. They are a kind of signal, Phyllis thought. A signal that life goes on, notifying any other household within eyeshot that here too the humble routine of kitchen and washtub and ironing board, of roof and meat and sleep, triumphs in the end over the wildest poet’s dream. Shakespeare would have relished them, and been pleased to see these bright ensigns hoisted so frankly in the yellow air.
Dressed in a gauzy drift of white and silver, she paused at the cushioned bay windows by the head of the stair. Her body enjoyed that mixed feeling of snug enclosure and airy freedom which is the triumph of feminine costume. Even her inward self shared something of this sensation: within the softly sparkling raiment of thought she was aware of her compact kernel of identity—tranquil for the moment, but privately apprehensive and alert. On the oval grass plot Martin was playing croquet with the children. Janet, nicely adjusting two tangent balls with a bare brown foot, gave them a well-aimed swipe. Phyllis heard the sharp wooden impact and Martin’s cry of good-humoured dismay as his globe went spinning across the turf, leaving a darker stripe on the wet lawn. It bounded over the gravel and into the bushes, right by the corner where she had first seen him. She watched him chase it, lay it on the edge of the turf, and drive it back. How graceful he was! He raised his head with a little unconscious lift of satisfaction as he watched the ball roll where he wanted it to lie.
A film seemed to have been skimmed from her eyes. Perhaps it was that level stream of evening light: the figures moved in a godlike element of lustre: every motion was perfect, expressed the loveliness for which life was intended, was unconscious and exact as the movements of animals. They were immersed in their game as though there were no past, no future: she felt she could watch them for ever. Martin’s face, gravely intent, bent over his ball. She saw the straight slope of his back against the screen of shrubs. The mallet clicked, there was a sharp tinkle as the ball went through the middle hoop, touching the little bell that hung there. How can any one look so charming and yet be so hard to talk to?
Through the scooped hollow of the dunes, catching tawny sparks from the sand, violet dazzles from the sea, the cleansed radiance of sunset came pouring in. The children’s bare legs splashed in brightness as though they were paddling; honey-coloured light parted and closed again about their ankles, the wet shadows dripped and trailed under their feet. The house, growing dusky, was a dyke stemmed in the onset of that pure flood. It caught and held as much darkness as it could; the rest went whirling out. As if in answer to the little croquet bell, the old clock in the hall whirred and jangled six hoarse clanking strokes. They eddied a moment and then were whiffed away by the strong, impalpable current that seemed to be sweeping through. You could tell, by the dull sound, that the gong was rusty. No wonder, a house by the seashore, empty so long.