Late into the night they sat about or lay on the floor, smoked, drank cocoa, ate buns, discussed—earnestly, muddle-headedly—sex, philosophy, religion, sociology, people and politics; then people and sex again. Judith sat in a corner and watched the firelight caress and beautify their peaceful serious faces; talked a great deal suddenly now and then, and then was silent again, dreaming and wondering.
Even the most placid and commonplace faces looked tragic, staring into the fire, lit by its light alone. They were all unconscious; and she herself could never be unconscious. Around her were these faces, far away and lost from themselves, brooding on nothing; and there was she, as usual, spectator and commentator, watching them over-curiously, ready to pounce on a passing light, a flitting shade of expression, to ponder and compare and surmise; whispering to herself: ‘Here am I watching, listening. Here are faces, forms, rooms with their own life, noise of wind and footsteps, light and shadow. What is this mystery?...’ And even in her futile thoughts never quite stepping over the edge and staring mindlessly and being wholly unaware.
They broke up at last with sighs and yawns, lingered, drifted away little by little. Judith was left alone with Jennifer.
‘One more cigarette,’ she suggested.
‘Well, just one.’
Jennifer let down her hair and brushed it out, holding it along her arm, watching it shimmer in the fire-light with an engrossed stare, as if she never could believe it was part of her.
Always Jennifer. It was impossible to drink up enough of her; and a day without her was a day with the light gone.
Jennifer coming into a room and pausing on the threshold, head up, eyes wide open, darting round, dissatisfied until they found you. That was an ever fresh spring of secret happiness. Jennifer lifting you in her arms and carrying you upstairs, because she said you looked tired and were such a baby and too lovely anyway to walk upstairs like other people.
Jennifer basking in popularity, drawing them all to her with a smile and a turn of the head, doing no work, breaking every rule, threatened with disgrace, plunged in despair; emerging the next moment new-bathed in radiance, oblivious of storm and stress.
Jennifer dispensing her hospitality with prodigal and careless ease, recklessly generous in public and in secret, flashing the glow of her magnetism suddenly into unlit and neglected lives, allowing them to get warm for a little, and then light-heartedly forgetting them. But never forgetting Judith—or not for long; and coming back always to sit with her alone, and drop all masks and love her silently, watchfully with her eyes.