There were once two roads that led away from a certain tree.
The tree, a solitary giant of enormous girth, stood perhaps twenty yards from the road. Its trunk dammed the far-flung eyes of the car, and in the light its leaves were made of silver, and you fancied that, had there been a breath of wind, it had spoken from its ancient wisdom, of which this night stood so sorely in need; but never a whisper stirred the countryside.
“Iris, doesn’t that make your passions look ... silly?”
She took my hand, and lifted it, and dropped it. I do not know why she did that. Her face was hidden. It seemed to me that a long time passed before she spoke, and I seemed to think of many things.
“If there was a moon,” she said at last, “a little way behind Harrod’s you would see a small hill, and on the hill you would see a white house. That is where Gerald and I were born. Perhaps Gerald knows why now. That is one of the many things Napier and I have to talk out in the solitudes, why all we men and women are born. There must be a reason. Across the fields this way is Sutton Marle, where Napier was born. We used to play beneath this tree, Gerald, Boy, Napier and I. Boy was older than us, and bossed us. So there was a revolt, and then we made two camps, Boy and Gerald, Napier and I. Sometimes Aunt Eve, who took care of Gerald and me when mother died, would take us all up to London, and we would have tea at Harrod’s. Napier and I loved Harrod’s because we at once got lost there. And so we called this tree Harrod’s, because we were happy here, too. We were twelve then. Later on they discouraged our being together. Aunt Eve didn’t want me to be made miserable when I grew up by not being allowed to marry Napier, for she knew that I didn’t come into Sir Maurice’s plans. Poor Maurice, I’ve crashed into them now, haven’t I! Father got poorer, we sold this house, and went to live in Cambridge Square. Napier was not allowed to see me any more, but we managed to meet somehow. Gerald helped, Aunt Eve helped, Boy helped. That was when Boy first loved me, he said later, because of my determination not to lose Napier. But Sir Maurice won. I was stronger than Napier, but I was not so strong as Sir Maurice. He wanted Napier to marry a rich girl, and Iris March was only the daughter of the younger branch of a bankrupt house. One day, when I was eighteen, I got a wire from Napier to meet him here at Harrod’s that afternoon. I borrowed the money for a taxi—bit from Boy, bit from Hilary—and here Napier was, white, desperate. In a general clean-up before going up to Oxford he had promised his father never to see me again. ‘I like Iris,’ Sir Maurice had said, ‘but she comes of rotten stock.’ I don’t think we had ever realised before that we were in love. I suppose I grew up in that one second. But Napier was still a boy of eighteen, while I was suddenly as old as the Queen of Hearts. I told him I loved him. Dear, I have known many men, I have married two, but I have only told one that I loved him, and he was a boy. Poor Napier, so torn, white, distracted. Afraid of my love, which seemed to him almost unholy, afraid of his father, who seemed to him almost holy. England, my England! His father was strong in Napier, and the Harpendens were strong in him. They were stronger than me at eighteen, and they were stronger than the sweet memories of Harrod’s. I said to Napier then, just over there where the lights fall by that trunk, I said, eighteen to eighteen: ‘Napier, I think I have a body that burns for love. Napier, I shall burn it with love, but I never will say ‘I love you’ to any man but you, because it never will be true.’ And what I said at eighteen is true now at thirty, I have never said I loved him to any man but Napier, for it hasn’t been true. I have given myself, in disdain, in desire, with disgust, with delight, but I have kept to that silly, childish boast of mine. I say that to my shame, but now shame is a weed under my foot. I married because my body was hungry for love and born to love and must love. And I thought I would destroy my body with love’s delight, but all I did was to destroy a good man. Hector Storm went off to Ireland and died because one night in my sleep I whispered Napier’s name. Or perhaps I had whispered it many nights. I told him that he was being jealous of a ghost, but he wouldn’t believe. Now all those things are passed. The nymph unloosened her girdle to desire, and now she has unloosened it to her only love. One grows out of everything, even desire: and then one can love. Look, Harrod’s is smiling, all silver and smiling! Here Sir Maurice sacrificed me twelve years ago. To-night I have to say to him: ‘This is what you have done, Maurice—the unhappiness of Venice, the unhappiness of your son, and twelve years of hell for me. Are you content?’ Oh God, it’s been hell, these twelve years! If you had kissed hell, as I have kissed hell, if you had sacrificed to hell, as I have sacrificed my body to hell, you would know what I mean. But now I can’t grudge Maurice the final satisfaction of telling me what he thinks of me. Dear, it matters so little what men like Maurice think of one. They worship all that is despicable, they despise all that is really good. From the beginning of time this world has been wounded by the manliness of fools. Oh, let Maurice have his say to-night! And mighty Guy. And my sweet Hilary! Let them have their say. I can only answer them with love. How could I answer them but with love? But I can silence them with love! Love, love, love! A glorious word, a matchless word! But isn’t it? Love, love! I am in love. I glory in love, I will die in love! Love, my sweet, love, love! To be in love as I am in love is to be in heaven before hell was made. I am in love!”
The car rushed on, up a wide slope that curved handsomely so that the light played on meadows and startled the beasts of the fields.
“And you are so sure, Iris, that these three men, who have known you all your life and one of whom has loved you with all his heart ever since he saw you walk down South Audley Street, all brown stockings and blue eyes—you are so sure, Iris, that nothing they can say will touch you?”
The lights swept over great lodge-gates standing wide open before a curving avenue of tall trees. We passed beneath them, showering gold on their trunks. The drive shone like a yellow carpet beneath our lights.
“I tell you,” Iris whispered, “I shall be a very Saint George for steadfastness!”
The stork fled up the curving avenue of Sutton Marle. It seemed, to me, to crouch with fear beneath the noble line of trees. They stood above us like towers. I was afraid.