The well of loneliness

by Radclyffe Hall

The courtyard was sunny and surrounded by walls. On the right of this courtyard some iron gates led into the spacious, untidy garden, and woefully neglected though this garden had been, the trees that it still possessed were fine ones. A marble fountain long since choked with weeds, stood in the centre of what had been a lawn. In the farthest corner of the garden some hand had erected a semi-circular temple, but that had been a long time ago, and now the temple was all but ruined.

The house itself would need endless repairs, but its rooms were of careful and restful proportions. A fine room with a window that opened on the garden, would be Stephen’s study; she could write there in quiet; on the other side of the stone-paved hall was a smaller but comfortable salle à manger; while past the stone staircase a little round room in a turret would be Puddle’s particular sanctum. Above there were bedrooms enough and to spare; there was also the space for a couple of bathrooms. The day after Stephen had seen this house, she had written agreeing to purchase.

Valérie rang up before leaving Paris to inquire how Stephen had liked the old house, and when she heard that she had actually bought it, she expressed herself as being delighted.

‘We’ll be quite close neighbours now,’ she remarked, ‘but I’m not going to bother you until you evince, not even when I get back in the autumn. I know you’ll be literally snowed under with workmen for months, you poor dear, I feel sorry for you. But when you can, do let me come and see you—meanwhile if I can help you at all. . . .’ And she gave her address at St. Tropez.

And now for the first time since leaving Morton, Stephen turned her mind to the making of a home. Through Brockett she found a young architect who seemed anxious to carry out all her instructions. He was one of those very rare architects who refrain from thrusting their views on their clients. So into the ancient, deserted house in the Rue Jacob streamed an army of workmen, and they hammered and scraped and raised clouds of dust from early morning, all day until evening—smoking harsh caporal as they joked or quarrelled or idled or spat or hummed snatches of song. And amazingly soon, wherever one trod one seemed to be treading on wet cement or on dry, gritty heaps of brick dust and rubble, so that Puddle would complain that she spoilt all her shoes, while Stephen would emerge with her neat blue serge shoulders quite grey, and with even her hair thickly powdered.

Sometimes the architect would come to the hotel in the evening and then would ensue long discussions. Bending over the little mahogany table, he and Stephen would study the plans intently, for she wished to preserve the spirit of the place intact, despite alterations. She decided to have an Empire study with grey walls and curtains of Empire green, for she loved the great roomy writing tables that had come into being with the first Napoleon. The walls of the salle à manger should be white and the curtains brown, while Puddle’s round sanctum in its turret should have walls and paintwork of yellow, to give the illusion of sunshine. And so absorbed did Stephen become in these things, that she scarcely had time to notice Jonathan Brockett’s abrupt departure for a mountain top in the Austrian Tyrol. Having suddenly come to the end of his finances, he must hasten to write a couple of plays that could be produced in London that winter. He sent her three or four picture postcards of glaciers, after which she heard nothing more from him.

At the end of August, when the work was well under way, she and Puddle fared forth in the motor to visit divers villages and towns, in quest of old furniture, and Stephen was surprised to find how much she enjoyed it. She would catch herself whistling as she drove her car, and when they got back to some humble auberge in the evening, she would want to eat a large supper. Every morning she diligently swung her dumb-bells; she was getting into condition for fencing. She had not fenced at all since leaving Morton, having been too much engrossed in her work while in London; but now she was going to fence before Buisson, so she diligently swung her dumb-bells. During these two months of holiday-making she grew fond of the wide-eyed, fruitful French country, even as she had grown fond of Paris. She would never love it as she loved the hills and the stretching valleys surrounding Morton, for that love was somehow a part of her being, but she gave to this France, that would give her a home, a quiet and very sincere affection. Her heart grew more grateful with every mile, for hers was above all a grateful nature.

They returned to Paris at the end of October. And now came the selecting of carpets and curtains; of fascinating blankets from the Magasin de Blanc—blankets craftily dyed to match any bedroom; of fine linen, and other expensive things, including the copper batterie de cuisine, which latter, however, was left to Puddle. At last the army of workmen departed, its place being taken by a Breton ménage—brown-faced folk, strong-limbed and capable looking—a mother, father and daughter. Pierre, the butler, had been a fisherman once, but the sea with its hardships had prematurely aged him. He had now been in service for several years, having contracted rheumatic fever which had weakened his heart and made him unfit for the strenuous life of a fisher. Pauline, his wife, was considerably younger, and she it was who would reign in the kitchen, while their daughter Adèle, a girl of eighteen, would help both her parents and look after the housework.

Adèle was as happy as a blackbird in springtime; she would often seem just on the verge of chirping. But Pauline had stood and watched the great storms gather over the sea while her men were out fishing; her father had lost his life through the sea as had also a brother, so Pauline smiled seldom. Dour she was, with a predilection for dwelling in detail on people’s misfortunes. As for Pierre, he was stolid, kind and pious, with the eyes of a man who has looked on vast spaces. His grey stubbly hair was cut short to his head en brosse, and he had an ungainly figure. When he walked he straddled a little as though he could never believe in a house without motion. He liked Stephen at once, which was very propitious, for one cannot buy the good-will of a Breton.

Thus gradually chaos gave place to order, and on the morning of her twenty-seventh birthday, on Christmas Eve, Stephen moved into her home in the Rue Jacob on the old Rive Gauche, there to start her new life in Paris.